The next stage demanded a distraction, and Hatfield wasn’t sure how to get it. From behind, he heard loud coughs and saw a homesteader start to heave. “Hey!” the gangbanger in charge yelled. “Take that to the bathroom! We just cleaned the floor in here!”
The homesteader hobbled away, bent at the stomach.
That troubled Hatfield. He glanced at his hand, noticing the dark-blue tinge of his finger had spread a little. Meanwhile, this homesteader seemed to have the same symptoms Cecil had dealt with.
Minutes later, a second homesteader similarly clutched his stomach and buckled into a coughing fit. Scanning the kitchen, Hatfield looked for any others who may have been ill. He didn’t see any right away, but that didn’t stop his hands from trembling with worry. It seemed that many people had been infected. Within seconds, his fit got so awful, he had to race to the bathroom before vomiting on the floor. A bad sign.
But, good sign or not, it was an opportunity.
Amid the distraction caused by the ruckus that followed, Hatfield slipped across the kitchen and whispered to Grace. “In five minutes, you’re going to get a fit of coughs, then go the bathroom.”
“Huh?”
“Shh!” He repeated, “In five minutes, you’re going to get a fit of coughs, then go to the bathroom. Tell the other VVs to do the same and meet me there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will when we get there.”
She nodded, her eyes shaky.
As instructed, she waited five minutes then began pretending to cough. Her make-believe fit was convincing enough for the gangbanger in charge to casually nod toward the bathroom when she dropped to her knees and looked around for help.
Grace then hobbled to her feet and headed to the hallway. On her way there, she discreetly whispered to the other two VVs. They both looked around the kitchen, seemingly puzzled by the order.
When their eyes landed on Hatfield, he gave them a subtle nod as if to confirm what they were supposed to do. After a few minutes, they did as they’d been instructed. The gangbanger, now accustomed to so many bodies drifting in and out of the kitchen, waved them away with a roll of his eyes.
After those two disappeared, Hatfield was next. He waited until he could plausibly get away with it, then stepped away, hunched over and gripping his belly as if about to give birth.
Once in the bathroom, he searched the door for a lock, finding none. The space where the lock would be had been hollowed out. To maintain privacy, he had to press the heel of his right foot against the bottom of the door. Then he stood with his head flush against it, checking for the tell-tale signs of a sudden intruder.
He looked up to find three bewildered faces. “What the hell was that all about?” Gary asked.
“Here’s what it’s about,” he said, gathering with the other three in a circle and keeping his voice low. “And just so you know, what I’m saying stays here and goes nowhere else—for now. I’ll be bringing more people in when I get a good sense of who I can trust.”
Andy twisted his face. With a laugh, he said, “You sure you can trust us? I mean, we’re the three who deserted the compound, remember?”
“Yes, I do remember. But I also remember saying something to Grace about you three craving redemption. Now maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. I don’t know. You are under no obligation to do anything I say. In fact, you’re free to desert this plan just as you did the compound before. But deep down, I know that’s not who you are. It can’t be. You didn’t connect with the homestead to be a bunch of quitters when things got tough, am I right?”
They all nodded.
He went on. “You connected with these people because you are strong. You are survivors. And you’re not the type to give in and fold when faced with adversity. Here’s what I need from the three of you. I need you to create a distraction later today when my family and I slip out of here.”
Grace unloaded a horrified gasp. “Slip out of here? You can’t leave this place. We need you!”
“No, no,” Hatfield said. “I’ll be back. Later.”
A series of hurried footsteps charged to the door. The four inside the bathroom froze in panic. The door swung open, and in rushed a homesteader, doubled over in agony and covering his mouth. Once inside, he aimed his vomit at the toilet and shook as it poured out of him.
The sight of it made Hatfield both disgusted and frightened. It resembled the bile that tumbled from Cecil’s mouth. He gave the kneeling homesteader a gentle pat on the shoulder. “You take care of yourself, dude. Hold yourself together as well as you can, and we’ll try to make sure we can do something about that illness.”
The guy turned, climbing to his shaky feet. He nodded. “Yes, sir. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure what can be done.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll do the best we can.”
The homesteader nodded again, then moved out of the bathroom.
Hatfield put his ear to the door a second time. When he was satisfied they could continue, he pulled away.
Andy asked him, “What exactly are you going to do for that illness?”
“Well, I can’t make any promises, but there’s some medicine at the bunker my wife and kids will be staying at. There’s some excess ammo as well.”
“That’s great!” Gary said.
“Maybe,” Hatfield replied. “We’ll have to wait and see what good it will do. Also, it can’t do us any good at all if we’re all sick.”
Grace asked, “Are you sure that medicine can help us with what these people are suffering?”
“Truth be told, no. I’m not sure. But you let me worry about that. I just need the three of you to create some kind of distraction, loud enough to be heard throughout the compound. When we hear it, we’ll know it’ll be time to take off. You got that?”
They nodded, but there was a tension to their nods. Hatfield could sense these three knew how high the stakes were. They knew that failure wouldn’t just be a disappointment. It would be a catastrophe.
After the four of them left the bathroom and returned outside, Hatfield stepped down the hallway, paying close attention to everything he spotted. The homesteaders doubled over in pain. The gangbangers guzzling the mystery alcohol in a test tube. The three VVs slipping back into place in the kitchen. Every time he spotted a homesteader with a long face or crippled by pain or uncertainty or fear, he provided a pat on the back or an encouraging wink. If they were going to win this, they’d need strong, deeply encouraged troops. And it was now his job to get them there.
At dinnertime, the Hatfields shared furtive glances at the table while nibbling at the scarce food available. A faint smile crossed his lips when he looked at the faces his family made. For a split second, he was transported back to the ordinary world, a world that hadn’t yet exploded into violence and disorder.
He remembered how funny it was that he could always tell what Jess was thinking simply by a wordless glance. Over the years, he’d learned the difference between the look that said, “don’t touch me” and the one that said, “touch me now, handsome.” That glance told him that she’d performed the task she was assigned to do. She had to slip some of the sedatives into the alcohol of the guard outside. All they needed now to pull things off was good timing on the part of Andy, Gary, and Grace. With luck, their distraction would take place roughly the same time the guard would be zonked out. Bad luck would be bad news for everybody.
Gary and Andy slowly rose from the table; an unnerved twitch in their eyes told Hatfield things were about to go down. He took a deep breath and scanned the dinner table for his family’s reaction.
Jess was tense but unhesitant. She nodded to her husband.
Justin sat on his hands, probably in an effort to hide his shaky hands.
Tami swallowed hard, reaching under the table—probably ready with a backpack of food—with her eyes wide and constantly shifting.
Out of nowhere, Grace released a scream that hit everyone’s ears with violent force. Gary lunge
d at Andy, and the two of them rolled around on the floor, engaged in a “fight” that looked authentic enough to draw the eyes of the homesteaders around the table.
Three gangbangers charged inside, guns drawn. When they spotted the “fight,” their reaction, far from horror, was amusement. They shouted things like, “I like the redhead’s odds against the other one!” to each other.
Within four or five minutes, nearly all of the gangbangers had gathered around Gary and Andy, tumbling on the floor. So they didn’t notice when the Hatfields slipped away from the table and through the door on their way to the fence.
As they crouched in the weeds, checking for the guard, they could still hear the noise inside the compound. If anything, the volume had risen. There was more shouting, laughing, and placing of bets on the outcome of the “fight.”
At the fence, the guard outside turned toward the commotion indoors, his face folded in confusion. What the hell is going on in there? He seemed to be asking himself.
Jess leaned toward her husband, whispering, “It may not have been enough time since I slipped it into his drink. Maybe if we give it a few more minutes…”
But it soon became clear that time was running out. The guard narrowed his eyes to slits as he bowed toward the Hatfields. He saw something. It just wasn’t clear what. His cautious steps forward suggested he wasn’t sure himself what he was seeing in the tall grass and weeds. His eyes stayed trained on the family, prompted gaps from Jess and Justin. Hatfield unholstered his gun, fearing that his accuracy with his left hand would soon be tested.
It wasn’t easy to pull it out silently. He had to move slowly, but in time he got there.
The second challenge he faced was the grass. Aiming above it would make his gun visible. This would be a problem. A missed shot would not be good news, and with his rifle now shouldered and aimed, the danger was increasing.
Another possible problem slipped into Hatfield’s head. A dead guard would give them something to explain—especially if anyone noticed they were missing from the dinner table. A tense minute passed as the guard crept closer, finger on the trigger.
Hatfield followed suit, lifted his gun as high as he could without risking it getting spotted. But he noticed something odd. The guard’s face grew bleary and slack. After a pause, he dropped into the tall grass.
The Hatfields raced forward, standing above the man’s prone, lifeless body. “It took a while, but that medication did the trick,” Jess said.
“Of course it did,” Hatfield said. “I’ve been married long enough to know better than to doubt my wife’s word.”
The two of them shared a brief smile while hugging their kids. Justin and Tami ran toward the fence, but their father stopped them before they started to climb. “No, no!” he whispered, then gestured to the part of the fence he’d climbed over before. That was the part next to the tree they could climb down, making less noise.
Getting over the fence was easy for the kids, a little harder for their dad and a challenge for their mom, although it might have been hilarious under less dangerous circumstances. Once at the top, she reached for the tree but couldn’t quite get there.
Her husband stood beneath her, arms wide. “Just let go!” he whispered. “I got you.”
She let go and landed in his arms, then raced away from the compound, soon catching up with the head start her kids enjoyed.
While running, Hatfield turned to see if they were being followed but saw no one at the compound fence. After turning back, he could see the bunker was now within reach, maybe a football field’s length away. But hearing wheezing from his wife wasn’t a good sign.
She stopped, stood there with her hands on her knees as her kids—unaware of their mom’s struggle—kept scurrying on.
“Hold on, kids!” he shouted to Justin and Tami.
Soon, Jess wasn’t only out of breath. She was coughing, clutching her belly in agony. Panicked, her family scrambled to her side. “You okay?” her husband asked.
Unable to push words past her clogged throat, she shook her head, then dropped to her knees, ready to vomit. Nothing came out. She was coughing now, her voice growing rougher and more strained. More troubling yet, the result of her coughs was a pitch-black gob that resembled the kind Cecil produced in his last days.
Justin asked, “Mom, are you going to be okay?”
After a few more throat-rattling coughs, she composed herself enough to say, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s gonna take more than a cough to keep your mother down.”
But, to her husband, this sounded like the bravado that came from Cecil shortly before his passing.
Jess looked up at everyone, eyes heavy with strain. “What’s wrong, everybody?” she asked. “Never seen a woman fight for her life before?” She laughed, but nobody else did.
Hatfield said, “Kids, you go on ahead of us and knock on the bunker door, and when you do it, knock like this.” He demonstrated with a clap of his hands.
But his kids didn’t budge. “Are you sure?” Tami asked. “We don’t want to leave the two of you alone like that.”
“Yes, we’re sure,” he answered. “Go on. Let your mother catch her breath. That’s an order.”
Justin and Tami nodded, then raced through the tall grass to the bunker. Their parents watched them all the way there. Jess turned. “What did you do that for? Scared they’re going to watch their mother die or something?”
He swallowed hard, finding the words uneasy. “I just felt if the two of us didn’t make it, there was no sense in all four of us… you know, not making it.”
Her face sharpened. “Trevor, I told you, I’m going to be fine!”
“Honey, that’s bile! The same thing Cecil was coughing up.”
She laced her words through more cough. “Are you… forgetting… you… are… talking to a… nurse? I know what bile is.”
“I’m just scared, that’s all.”
She hugged him, then pulled back and studied his face. “Well, that’s a club I joined when you took that run to the bunker last night. Welcome to it.”
He helped her to her feet, and the two of them ran the rest of the way, coughing fit and all.
Holding her hand and leading her through the weeds, he said to her, “Promise me you’re going to hang on long enough to survive me?”
“Sure. As long as you promise the same.”
“It’s a deal.”
By the time they reached the bunker, the door was cracked open, with Hatfield spotting his kids’ faces inside. The five of them—Justin, Tami, Jade and her kids—greeted the couple with hugs. “Tami, give the nice lady that food we smuggled out for her family.”
“This is wonderful!” Jade said. “A true blessing.”
“Well, I wish we could have come with better news,” Hatfield said.
“Well… you’re still alive. That’s about as good as the news gets these days.”
“Alive for now,” Jess said.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
Jess hunched over at the door, hands on her knees as she launched into more coughing.
“That’s what’s wrong,” he said. “I’m sorry to do this, but we’re going to have to take another dip into your medicine if you think you can spare any more.”
“Of course! Let me take a look at what we have.” She went through the cabinet, finding a few bottles and held them close to her face to read the fine print on them.
“Anything… anti-bacterial would… probably… help,” Jess said between coughs.
Hatfield leaned in and studied his wife’s reddened face. “I just don’t understand how she could have acquired anything. The rest of us were undergoing surgery with unsterilized equipment. It makes sense that—”
His wife gasped, her widened eyes aimed at his hand. She grabbed his wrist and held it up. “Honey… I didn’t know… your skin… had darkened… like that.”
“Look, worry about yourself,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head.
Maybe… but we’ll have to… do something… before that infection spreads. Trevor.. that thing could get to the rest of… your body and—” Jess stopped when she raised her eyes to all four of the kids, probably not wanting to share morbid news.
“I’ve got some sterilized syringes,” Jade said, fishing through her cabinet. “Back here somewhere…”
Hatfield stared at his hand longer before finding his wife giving him sad eyes.
“I didn’t mean to worry you,” she said.
“You didn’t. The world worries me all the time.”
“Here they are!” Jade shouted, holding up a container of syringes, at least fifty of them. “You can take as many as you need.”
“Right now, just a few,” Jess said. “Although, if you don’t mind, we could use a few more back at the compound.”
“Sure, take as many as you need! But let’s get the two of you taken care of here and now.”
Jade injected both of them, and everyone waited. Within a few hours, the medication seemed to work. Jess’s coughing had stopped, and the bile she was unloading slowly shifted colors back to normal. Her husband saw no immediate recovery, but it was understood that it would take longer to notice any difference.
As Jess and the kids busied themselves with board games, Hatfield took the woman into a quiet corner and said, “All of us really appreciate the help you’re giving us. I’ll do what I can to make sure my kids aren’t a burden—”
Jade stopped him by holding up a hand, her eyes suddenly heavy. “Not at all. We always wanted a bigger family and now we have one.”
They shared a gentle smile. “That’s great to hear.” Before stepping out, he walked down the long, dark hallway, then lifted the compartment he’d seen on his previous trip. All the weapons were still there and ready to be used. Without looking up, he said to Jade, “Yes. At some point, I’ll be coming back, and when I do, I’ll need to borrow some things from your husband’s collection of toys.”
As he tested a few of the weapons, he heard a gasp from behind. “Please tell me you’ll be using those in self-defense.”
How We Survive: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 19