“Wait until you’re drenched with sweat. Once your shirt is soaked, the chafing is ten times worse,” said Alex.
“Wonderful. Any other good news?”
“We’ll all probably have blisters or a hot spot on our feet within the hour, most likely on the dominant foot. The extra weight on your back changes the friction coefficient between your sock and shoe. We’ll stop every forty-five minutes and check, make some adjustments—maybe change socks.”
“I don’t think we should stop,” Kate said.
“Trust me, you’ll be glad to stop. We did it during road marches in the Marine Corps. Marines would check their feet and drink water, while the corpsmen ran up and down the column repairing blisters and checking on guys who looked like they were about to pass out. We savored those breaks,” said Alex.
“You didn’t have a son trapped in Boston, waiting to be rescued.”
“Good point, though I have a feeling he’s not lying in bed sucking his thumb,” Alex said.
“That boy needs his mom,” Kate insisted.
“He is sort of a momma’s boy,” Alex joked. “Kids, make sure you keep sipping water! Don’t be afraid to stick that hose in your mouth.”
“That didn’t sound right,” whispered Kate.
“That was the G-rated version of what my gunny would have said.”
Chapter 6
EVENT +05:07 Hours
South Portland, Maine
A lone car approached from behind, causing Alex to stop on the sidewalk. He stood with his family in the shadow of the three-story, red-brick middle school situated on the southeast corner of the intersection at Broadway and Ocean Street. Since turning onto Broadway, Alex had counted four cars of various makes and models. There was no discernible pattern to what type of car survived the EMP, or whatever disturbance had caused the electrical grid to fail. He had expected to see more cars based on the Critical National Infrastructure’s (CNI) revised report findings. Three cars in thirty minutes on a major road didn’t support the assertion that forty percent of all cars would remain drivable.
They all watched a gray Subaru Outback pass them and stop at the intersection, which was occupied by a functional South Portland Police Department cruiser and three police officers. The Subaru edged forward, but the officers signaled for the driver to stop the car. Alex was pretty sure that he heard them tell the driver to turn off the engine.
“Keep moving. Cut the corner and keep going down Ocean toward Highland. I’ll catch up,” said Alex.
He kept walking along the curved sidewalk and stood behind a tree, while his family moved along the front of the school in the shade cast by the tall building. Satisfied that they were leaving the scene, he turned all of his attention back to the unfolding drama. Since there was no other vehicle traffic, or any background noise for that matter, he heard the entire exchange.
“Sir, I need you to step out of the car,” said the officer by the driver’s-side window.
The second officer had taken position on the front passenger side, while the third officer circled the hatchback, examining the back seat and cargo area of the vehicle, before joining the first officer.
“Did I do something wrong?” asked the driver. “I stopped where I normally would, even though there’s no light.”
“Can you please just step out of the car? You’re not in any trouble,” said the officer.
“Well, I don’t see why I need to get out of my car. I have my license and registration right here,” said the driver, holding up the documents for the officer to see.
The officer calmly retrieved the man’s driver’s license, barely examining it before continuing.
“Mr. Reynolds, the Department of Homeland Security has declared a national state of emergency. We need to replace vehicles that were knocked out by the EMP. I’m sorry, Mr. Reynolds, but this vehicle temporarily belongs to the South Portland Police Department. Please step out of your car.”
The officer standing next to him took a few steps back and rested her hand on her service pistol. The driver saw this subtle shift and received the message, opening the door and stepping onto the pavement. He was dressed in khaki shorts with cargo pockets and a gray T-shirt. Nothing about him raised any alarms or gave Alex concern that this might end badly.
“Officer Harker will drive you home. We’re really sorry about this, but we have to get the rest of our officers out on patrol. You’re better off at your house anyway,” said the officer.
“I need to fill a prescription for my daughter at Shaw’s and try to find things—like food. I don’t suppose Officer Harker will be on loan for the next hour or so to drive me around?” asked the driver, staring down the police officer.
The police officer shook his head and held up the license, which the driver deftly snapped out of his hand. The driver kept both hands in the air, one holding the plastic license, and walked backward, shaking his head, and Alex knew there was far more to the unassuming man in shorts and a T-shirt than met the casual eye. Based on the speed and dexterity of the man’s movement, Alex had little doubt that he could have “repossessed” his car and left the three officers on the pavement in a tangle of limbs.
He had to remember this critical lesson for his own upcoming trek. Make no assumptions based on appearance. There were plenty of people out there who were quicker, stronger and craftier than he was.
“I’ll walk from here,” the man said and turned to head north on Ocean Street toward the supermarket.
He stopped several steps into his journey and turned to address the officers, who had already begun to set up for the next car that might amble into their trap.
“Hey! We forgot to fill out the paperwork! What, no paperwork? Imagine that. Enjoy the car, assholes!” he said and jogged away.
Alex slipped away from the tree and located Kate sitting in the shade of the furthest entrance stoop from the intersection. He headed in their direction, nervously looking over his shoulder. The police seemed cordial enough, but they didn’t hesitate to take away a citizen’s property in the name of emergency powers. They would have to be cautious around law enforcement. Within a few hours of the event, whatever it turned out to be, law enforcement agencies had started confiscating cars and disarming citizens.
Given the circumstances, neither of these actions qualified as a sudden decline into a “police state,” but Alex couldn’t shake distant thoughts about some of the theories popularized by Internet conspiracy pundits. “False flag” came to mind, but based on what he’d witnessed since the initial flash beyond Jewell Island, he quickly dismissed the idea as paranoia.
Alex imagined that the conspiracy pundits were going crazy with theories—made even worse by the fact that they had no Internet to propagate them. On a whole, he didn’t buy into these theories, but given what he had just witnessed, it couldn’t hurt to keep an eye on the big picture. He reached Kate, who sat on the first step of the doorway, and saw that the kids were hidden deeper in the alcove, seated against the building.
“Everything all right over there?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. The cops just seized that guy’s vehicle in the name of the federal government.”
“What?” said Emily. “They can’t do that.”
“Federal government? That doesn’t sound right,” said Kate.
“I agree, which is why I don’t know what to think. The officer cited Homeland Security and a state of national emergency. Said they needed working vehicles to get the rest of the police department out on patrol,” said Alex.
“That makes more sense,” Kate said with some relief. “I’m sure that’s all they were doing.”
Alex shook his head and checked his watch. “That’s the fifth car we’ve seen on Broadway in what—twenty or thirty minutes? How many cars does the department need to replace? If they just started seizing cars, it makes sense, but it’s been over three hours since the tsunami hit. I think we need to avoid any law enforcement roadblocks or checkpoints from this point forwar
d.”
“How the hell are we going to get to Boston if the police are stealing cars?”
“Let’s get home first,” he said, extending his hand to Kate.
She lifted herself off the step and immediately hugged his sweaty frame, burying her head in his shoulder.
“We don’t even know if our other car will work,” she whispered, lifting her head.
“We’ll figure something out. I’ll ride a bike to Boston if I have to. Everything will be fine. I promise.”
Kate shook her head. “You can’t make a promise like that.”
“I can promise you that I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen. You know I’m good for that,” he said, kissing her moist forehead. “Let’s get moving. If we’re sweating like this at ten in the morning, I’d hate to see us at noon.”
Alex kept his eyes on the police cruiser to the north, wondering how many cars they had added to the department’s inventory this morning. He couldn’t shake the deeply imbedded suspicion that nothing was as it seemed this morning—and the fear that nothing would ever be the same again.
Turning onto Highland Avenue a few minutes later filled him with a momentary sense of relief. All they had to do at this point was follow Highland Avenue for three and a half miles to the firehouse, where they could pretty much stumble into their neighborhood. They had walked for less than a minute before hearing the distant sound of a vehicle. Alex quickly scanned his surroundings and made a decision that surprised him.
“Honey, take the kids and hide behind that car,” he said, pointing at an older model minivan in the adjacent parking lot.
“Are we hiding from cars now?” she snapped, grabbing Emily’s sleeve and pulling her toward the minivan.
“Maybe I’m being ridiculous,” he said, walking with them.
The white sedan rounded the bend heading into the police trap. Alex changed his mind about hiding and moved swiftly to the street, waving his hands over his head.
“What are you doing?” hissed Kate, holding her hands palms up in an annoyed gesture.
“Get behind the car!” he said over his shoulder.
The car slowed enough for him to yell at a blond woman through the open driver’s-side window.
“There’s a police roadblock at Broadway. They’re seizing cars!” yelled Alex.
The car screeched to a halt several feet before the intersection, and Alex jogged along the sidewalk, careful not to approach the car directly and possibly frighten the driver. The woman leaned her head out of the window. She had a laceration on her forehead above her right eyebrow, which had bled profusely at some point this morning given the amount of congealed blood plastered to the right side of her face. Her hair was matted to her head above the wound.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
Alex caught up with her, staying on the sidewalk to keep at least a car’s length distance between them.
“The police have a cruiser set up in the middle of the intersection at Broadway and Ocean. I watched them stop a car and force the driver out. Emergency seizure,” he said.
“What about further down at Cottage and Broadway?” asked the driver.
“We just came from there. It was clear fifteen minutes ago,” said Alex.
“Good. Did you notice if any of the stores are open?” she asked, glancing around nervously.
“The variety store on the corner of Broadway and Mussey was open, but they didn’t have power. Cash only. We saw a slow but steady stream of people walking down Cottage toward the shopping complex. What’s the situation like down Highland? We’re headed to Scarborough.”
“I heard that the water reached Highland, but I haven’t confirmed that. There’s all kinds of weird talk out there. EMP, Chinese invasion, volcano erupting in Boston…”
“What happened to your forehead?” Alex asked.
He suddenly felt slightly exposed standing on the side of the road. If the water hadn’t reached her house, why did she look like she had been in a knife fight? What else did they face walking down Highland Avenue?
“One of my—neighbors—decided that I wasn’t entitled to one of the few working cars on the street,” she said, staring blankly through the front windshield.
Alex didn’t care to press the question. He knew what had likely played out in her driveway, and that the neighbor had lost the fight.
“I’d stash this thing as far from the Hannaford parking lot as possible and walk the rest of the way. You might be able to handle one jerk on your own, but every eye in the parking lot will be on your car.”
“There were three of them,” she said, “and only one of them wanted the car. Savages.”
“Sorry. I assume you…” he paused.
“I took care of them,” she said, touching the crusted wound on her forehead. “Keep a tight eye on your family,” she added, nodding toward the minivan to the left of Alex.
The sedan pulled away and stopped at the intersection momentarily, while the driver undoubtedly confirmed the information he had passed. She accelerated the car and disappeared behind the chain-link fence that bordered the middle school’s athletic field.
“All right. Let’s go,” he announced.
Kate rose from her dubious hiding spot near the rear bumper of the minivan and walked toward the sidewalk, joined by Ethan and Emily.
“Ethan, turn around and let Emily grab the knife out of your backpack. Outer left pocket, Emily. Then Ethan gets the one out of your pack, sweetie. Turn around, honey, and I’ll get yours,” he said.
“What did she say?” Kate asked. “She looked like she’d been attacked.”
“She fought off three guys trying to steal her car,” he replied quietly.
“Keep the knife in your front pocket, out of sight, and keep sipping water. That CamelBak should be empty by the time we reach the high school,” he announced, then whispered the rest of what the woman had told him about the attack into Kate’s ear.
Kate’s expression instantly sharpened to an angry grimace.
“I really wish that Coastie hadn’t tossed my pistol,” he said.
“We’ll be fine,” she said, snapping open the three-inch serrated blade to examine his choice for their bug-out packs. “Just fine.” She closed the knife and put it into her front cargo pocket.
Chapter 7
EVENT +08:15
Scarborough, Maine
Alex watched Kate stop and exhale at the intersection. She stepped off in the direction of their neighborhood, without bothering to glance at the lifeless fire station on the opposite side of the street. He knew what was bothering her, their son was alone and over a hundred miles away in a heavily populated urban center.
“Nobody at the fire station?” he asked.
“I guess not,” mumbled Kate. “How much water damage do you think we have?”
“Based on the high-water mark here and the fact that most small trees have been knocked down, I’d guess that our basement is completely flooded—and our first floor has been wiped clean.”
“There’s a lot more standing water here—and mud. It didn’t look this bad back up Highland,” she said.
“We’re almost a mile closer to the beach at this point,” he said.
“Everything’s been stripped away. This is unbelievable.”
He stared down Harrison Road and saw the proverbial “forest through the trees.” Aside from the houses, larger trees and utility poles, the landscape had been completely denuded by the tsunami, replaced by a foot and a half deep layer of mud and ubiquitous, randomly scattered piles of debris.
Across the street, he spotted another gray, Town of Scarborough trash bin. They’d seen several along Highland Ave over the past thirty minutes, where evidence of a stronger wave surge became evident. He knew the bins hadn’t originated from any of the neighborhoods in Harrison Hill. Trash day was Thursday for this part of town. He’d also seen roofing tiles and splintered sections of cedar siding buried in the mud or stuck in the lower branches
of the trees of the forest preserve. A tattered lobster trap lay on its side, half buried in silt a few feet away from an overturned neon green plastic bucket. The entire landscape was littered with these bizarrely juxtaposed confirmations that humanity had been violently upended further down the line. The tsunami must have obliterated the beach communities.
Fifteen excruciating minutes later, they had reached Everett Lane, one street from Durham Road. Alex wondered if an inconspicuous approach to their house would be a better idea under the circumstances. He didn’t feel like parading down the street, attracting everyone’s attention. Most of the neighbors would look to him for advice, and he couldn’t afford to get bogged down.
If his suspicions were correct, he faced an extremely tight timeframe to rescue his son. In less than a microsecond, this morning’s EMP burst had permanently disabled the United States’ essential services infrastructure, far exceeding the damage and impact caused by the slow burn of the Jakarta Pandemic. In 2013, it took several weeks of food and water shortages before the riots spiraled out of control, and most people still had electricity. Cities burned, and hundreds of thousands of deaths were attributed to the violence and chaos that ensued. For New England, the extreme winter weather had been a blessing and a curse. The cold undoubtedly killed thousands, but it drove all but the most hardcore to seek shelter, extinguishing the civil rampage that burned entire cities to the ground in the south.
He gave it two days until the collective masses realized that nobody could flip the switch and turn America back on. When this realization took hold, memories of the suffering and misery endured during the darkest hours of the Jakarta Pandemic would flood to the surface, fueling the greatest breakdown in United States history. He wanted to be far from Boston, or any urban area, when that started.
“Honey, let’s sneak in through backyards. We’ll pass fewer houses that way.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kate said, taking a step forward and stopping.
“Mother ffffffuuuuh,” she hissed.
THE ALEX FLETCHER BOXSET: Books 1-5 Page 46