How We Survive: EMP Survival in a Powerless World

by Stone, William

  “Dad, this is really scaring me,” Tami said, her voice frail.

  “Don’t worry,” he answered. “The key is to stick together. As long as we do that, there’s only so much they can hurt us.” But his words rang hollow, not fully convincing. He wasn’t even sure if he believed it himself.

  “What are they planning on doing to us?” Justin asked.

  No answer.

  After a hard gulp, Jess said, “We don’t know yet, but I’m sure whatever it is—”

  The door swung open with a loud, violent clang.

  Tami shrieked, her body trembling as a gangbanger charged inside, rifle at his hip. “Everybody up!” he barked. “You’ve had enough sleep. Time to get to work. Now!”

  The Hatfield family snapped into place, on their feet with their hands up. “Sir, if you don’t mind,” Jess started, “what kind of work will we be engaged in?”

  “We’ll figure that out when you get into the kitchen,” the gangbanger said. “All I know is we’re hungry and ready for breakfast, so get to it!”

  “Yes, sir,” Hatfield said.

  “If the four of you ain't in the kitchen in three minutes, I’m coming back with this thing blasting anything in its way,” he said, nodding toward the rifle in his hands.

  The family scrambled out of their pajamas and into their clothes. Reading the panicked gazes on their faces, Hatfield said, “Whatever we do, we stick together,” his voice as calm as he could manage. “Got it, guys?”

  His only reply was a bunch of nodding heads. It was as if nobody else could find the strength to find words. Within less than a minute, they scrambled to the door, getting another shriek-inducing surprise when it swung open.

  “Hello, everybody!” their leader called.

  By now, they’d heard him called Nathan, and it was clear that he was capable of plenty of ruthless behavior. So the harmless grin on his face when he stormed into the room did nothing to pull their fear away. “Just what I like to see,” he said with a cackle. “A wholesome family working together. Isn’t that sweet?”

  Hatfield noticed the gun dangling from his hand. His impulse was to slap it to the floor, then assail the man, rendering him helpless. The man was clearly not an experienced shooter. His grip on the handgun was unsteady.

  As Nathan continued to buckle in laughter, his gaze drifting about the room—providing Hatfield with enough time to take him out—he had to remind himself why that wouldn’t be a good idea. They were held captive now, and that meant even if he could take this man out, there’d be others outside the room who would pose a threat, both to him and his family. Instead, he brought his voice to a deferential tone and said, “Sir, if you don’t mind, we need you to step aside so we can get to the kitchen—”

  “Yes, I do mind! I will step aside when I want to, and not a second earlier! Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After taking a deep breath and waiting at least a minute, Nathan stepped aside, his face still stone-hard. As the rest of his family walked outside, he grabbed Hatfield by the shoulder, yanked him back into the room. “I’m watching you,” he said.

  With his eyes down, he answered. “Yes, sir.”

  “I know you used to lead these pathetic people, but now you don’t. And I can tell you that if you get any cute ideas of ways you can play hero, you will die nice and slow. But before that, you will watch your family die nice and slow—one after the other. I’ll make sure of that.”

  He nodded, then walked out, trying to keep his breath under control. This guy was dangerous. He might not have been great at keeping his gun steady, but he was a menace, somebody who could and would commit acts of despicable violence if he needed to—or just wanted to. Hatfield could see that in his empty eyes.

  After walking into the kitchen, Hatfield found the homesteaders slaving away as laughter rang out. The gangbangers seemed amused by the idea of having captives. They held their guns high, aimed at heads.

  Justin and Tami worked at the stove, pouring pancake mix into a pan. “You guys okay?” he asked them, his voice just low enough to go unheard with the loud laughter ringing out.

  They both nodded, eyes alertly aimed at their captors.

  In the corner, he spotted Cecil crouched, one knee on the floor as Jess rubbed his shoulders. At first, the captain seemed to be sobbing, but after a step closer, he could be seen clutching his stomach in pain.

  “Everything okay?” he asked them.

  His wife sent him sad and weary eyes, then shook her head.

  “Just a little trouble in my belly,” Cecil said. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  Jess said, “We really should take a look at you just in case.”

  The captain said, “I can’t imagine our friends would allow that.”

  “I’ll tell them it’s a matter of life and death.”

  Aiming sharp eyes at the gangbangers behind him, Cecil answered, “Do these folks look like the compassionate sort to you?”

  Nathan yelled, “Shut up over there! And you, fat man! Get back on your feet and back to work.”

  Cecil grunted out a compliant “Yes, sir,” then struggled to find his footing.

  After a glance behind her, Jess said, “I’m worried about him. Looks like it could be an infection. You saw me operating without sterilizing anything. I’d say anything I put the knife in could be at risk.”

  Hatfield took a reflexive look at his hand, noticing nothing unusual—for now.

  “I remember seeing some medicine at Jade’s bunker.”

  “Lot of good it does us here.”

  “We’ll see if there’s something I can do to change that.”

  Nathan yelled, “You lovebirds over there better stop with all that whispering and get to work!”

  “Yes, sir,” Hatfield answered, looking back with his head respectively low but his eyes searching for a way out.

  The stern leader waved someone over. “Zan!” He whispered something into his ear.

  The man obediently marched over, grabbed Hatfield by the collar, and yanked toward the door, his pistol trained on his temple. “We’ve decided to break up this happy family! You come with me!”

  Once outside, he shoved him down into the garden, then reached to the wall, grabbed the spade leaning against it, and tossed it to him. “Start digging now, and don’t stop until you’re told to stop, got that?”

  Hatfield nodded, then got to work.

  The guy stood against the wall, arms crossed as the digging began. “Can I ask a question?”

  “One question,” he groaned. “That’s all you get.”

  “What am I digging for?”

  “You are digging because I told you to.”

  “But what I’m saying is the garden doesn’t need any more digging, so I need to know why I’m digging so I can get proper—”

  The guy pulled the spade from Hatfield’s grip and gave him a hard thwack on the spine, sending him to his knees.

  “No more questions and no more talking! Now get back to digging.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, grinding his teeth hard as the pain rippled through him. As he dug, he caught a peek of the gangbanger who was serving as a guard. He sat, leaning against the fence, his head snapping back every few minutes or so. It was hard to tell from this distance, but he seemed to be nodding off. As with many other things about his captors, Hatfield made a note of that.

  After roughly an hour or so of digging, Hatfield was permitted back inside. He sat at the dining table with the other homesteaders, their faces hanging down. No words were exchanged, only a series of troubled glances.

  Jess and his kids were dispersed at various places at the table. Vomiting sounds came from the bathroom.

  After five or six minutes of silence, a gangbanger stepped into the room with a few plates of food. He tossed it to the center of the table. “Eat up, you losers!” he said with a cackle. On the plates was a few pieces of roasted chicken, a few baked beans thrown over it.

  A few re
ached forward and took some food, then returned it to the center. One of them asked, “Anybody seen what happened to Taylor?”

  No answer.

  The image saddened Hatfield. He recalled a time when there were enough homesteaders to require two or three seatings in the dining room for a meal. Now there were slightly more than could be seated at a time. He counted everyone. Including his family, there were fourteen left. Then he realized Cecil would have made the count fifteen. Panic came over him. “Anybody seen Cecil?”

  “That’s him in the bathroom,” Jess said. “Poor man. I’m really concerned about him.”

  Minutes later, the captain hobbled out of the bathroom, and Hatfield stepped over, catching just after leaving.

  “You doing okay, Cecil?”

  The big man grimaced, choking back pain. “Things are getting a little rough on the belly, but you know me. It’ll take more than a little indigestion to bring this ornery SOB down.

  From behind, Jess charged forward and said, “Captain Payne, I don't know how to tell you this, but I get the feeling this could be something more serious than indigestion.”

  He held up a hand. “Whatever it is, this too shall pass.” With a cautious glance around, he lowered his voice. “Besides, at this point in time, my focus shouldn’t be on matters related to my health. I need to be concerned with getting us out of this.”

  “If that’s possible,” Hatfield added.

  “This isn’t the time for ifs, Hatfield. This situation we’re living under cannot hold. We cannot accept it under any—” A pained clutch at his stomach interrupted his words. He doubled over, his face folded with agonized wrinkles.

  “Oh, my God!” Jess cried.

  “Captain, are you sure you’re going to—”

  From behind, a commanding baritone called, “Perhaps if the three of you aren’t in the mood for eating, you might want to step back outside to get some work done.” They turned and saw a gangbanger, big and bearded, tattooed like a biker.

  “The man is in pain!” Jess shouted.

  “Who cares? The three of you come out to the backyard now!”

  With the captain still bent at the waist, they went to the backyard and had shovels tossed to them. As with Hatfield earlier, their task was to dig and not stop until told to.

  The man left in charge leaned against the wall, his detached, loopy demeanor hinting that he was high on something and not able to fully pay attention.

  Sensing that, Hatfield carefully stood next to his wife and the captain, keeping his voice low. “I’m going to make a run for Jade’s bunker to try to get some medicine for you.”

  Between coughs, Cecil asked, “What’s… the plan?”

  “Simple. I wait for that guard to doze off, then split, come back with the medicine, and give it to you.”

  The captain shook his head. “Too much risk. You come back with those pills on you, then try to find a discreet place to give it to me. No, it wouldn’t work.”

  “What other option do we have?”

  “I’ll go alone, come back alone. Whatever I need to take, I’ll take there at the bunker. So I come back with nothing on me. Worst-case scenario, I just slipped out for a second for some fresh air.”

  “No,” Hatfield said. “One man alone is too risky.”

  “You were planning to go alone!”

  “One healthy man is different. I insist on going with you—just in case.”

  Cecil sighed. “If you insist.”

  “Yes, I do. We’ll wait till the guard’s head down, and his eyes are shut, then make a run for it.”

  The captain tried to reply, but coughing halted his words. He spat on the ground below.

  Aghast at the black bile that landed at his feet, Jess said, “My God, how long has that been happening?”

  “What, the coughing?”

  “No, that color! Cecil, this is serious, you really need to—”

  But she had raised her voice a little much and attracted the attention of the gangbanger. “You are here to work, not talk,” he said, his voice calm but sharp. “That is your last warning. Next time, I have this for you.” He lifted his gun into the air.

  The three of them nodded. “We’re very sorry, sir,” Jess said. “It’s just that he’s dealing with a medical emergency and—”

  The gangbanger shook his head slowly. “I thought I made it clear that we’re not here to play doctor for anybody. He could drop here and now for all I care.” He walked away, leaving Cecil, Hatfield, and his wife in compliant silence.

  27

  It seemed to take forever for nighttime to arrive. But in the end, Hatfield and Cecil were patient. They had more digging to do in the garden, so they did just that and waited, keeping their eye on the area where the guard was.

  The good news was that it was the same as before on duty. The bad news was that he seemed more well-rested than before. Fortunately, that wasn’t true of all the others. Within three or four hours of nightfall, nobody else was up except the three of them. The guard, the captain, and Hatfield.

  After another hour of digging, they could see the man’s head starting to bob, his eyes occasionally closing then opening again. Cecil whispered to his second-in-command, “I believe he is only up for our sake. Perhaps if we give the impression that we’re no longer around, he’ll feel comfortable going to sleep.”

  Hatfield nodded, then the two of them drifted off to the side, peering back to the gangbanger every five minutes or so. After a while, he was out, and the two men jumped the fence and took off, making no sound except for the odd cough coming from the older man.

  They both looked back to see the guard stir awake a little, then turned back and launched into a full-on sprint.

  But Cecil struggled. The coughing began a few strides in and made it impossible for him to keep up. Hatfield turned and spotted the guard leaping over the fence, fifty, maybe sixty yards behind them. The two of them ducked behind a pile of rubble. “Come on, Captain! You can do it!”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” he said, waving the younger man on. “You go on ahead without me.”

  “Are you crazy? You’re the reason I’m going to trade food for the medicine in the first place.”

  Cecil shook his head. “It’s me now, but it’ll be somebody else who needs it later—and why waste medicine on somebody who’s not going to make it anyway. Besides, Jade and her family will need the food. Go on without me!”

  Behind them, the bell sounded, signaling that there would soon be a whole cavalry after them. Hatfield pulled out his gun. “We may go down, but we don’t go down without a fight.”

  “Dammit, Hatfield, are you that stupid! Don’t you see what I’m doing here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is a kamikaze mission, man! I’m here to act as a decoy for you!”

  The words stunned him, left him nearly speechless. “Why?”

  “Because if these people are going to get from under the grip of these animals, they will need a leader! A leader not on his deathbed! Now get out of here! That is an order!”

  With the gangbangers charging in from behind, Hatfield tried to take one more look back before racing away. But even that was cut short by the big man waving him away, his face as wrinkled by annoyance as pain.

  With no other choice, he turned and ran. He didn’t have much of a head start, but Cecil would make sure he had a bigger one. As he sped away like the wind, Hatfield felt himself swimming in too many emotions at once. Sadness, fear, rage. But also gratitude. He’d find a way to make sure the captain didn’t die in vain. It was the very least he could do.

  With his head low and his strides long and rushed, he scurried through the bushes and trees on his way to Jade’s bunker, hoping to keep from getting spotted. He didn’t dare look back, but the fact that he couldn’t hear anything behind—footsteps, breath, gunshots—meant he’d live long enough to make it there.

  Nathan didn’t like being roused out of sleep for a late-night runaway—and an
old one at that. After getting there, he wondered if it was worth it. The guys had him surrounded as he stood there, hands on his knees, black substance falling from his mouth, eyes drained of life. “Okay, old-timer. You dragged us out of bed pretty early. For that, you’re going to pay.”

  The guys said nothing and did nothing. With his head down, he started back to the compound.

  Zan walked up to him, stooped to meet his eyes. “Who else was with you, old man?”

  The old guy said nothing, keeping his face stoic.

  Nathan also stooped. “You know, Grandpa. I was going to kill you here and now, but I think it might be a good idea to wake everybody up and make an example of you. And when I say everybody, I mean everybody. The kids in that place, the women. Everybody. I think they all need to learn what happens when you try to escape.”

  The old man tightened his jaw, eyes on fire. He clearly didn’t like the idea of exposing kids and women to a gruesome session of torture. But this only intensified Nathan’s desire to do it. He leaned in closer and spoke with an exaggerated pout. “What’s the matter, Grandpa? Don’t want to expose those delicate creatures to something… untoward?”

  The old man spat on him, getting his weird-looking black spit on his chest. In a fit of rage, he shot the man twice. His elderly body shook for half a minute, then curled up into nothing. Nathan wasn’t happy that he had wasted the opportunity for public slaughter, but he couldn’t stop staring into the guy’s eyes. Something about the hardness of his face seemed calm, prideful. He shook his head, puzzled by it.

  “Son of a bitch,” Nathan said casually. “I kind of liked this shirt, too.”

  28

  When Jade let Hatfield inside, her face seemed horrified, confused.

  “I’m sorry to come back, seeking a favor so soon, but I’m prepared to make a trade.” He pulled out a packet of rice and a few containers of condensed milk.