Greg knew a little about EMPs. It was one of those things he’d read about somewhere over the years. Indeed, he’d already considered the possibility that an EMP had killed the sat phone, but somehow, hearing his father mention it made the idea seem more than likely.
“I seem to recall that nukes cause EMPs,” he said, feeling a twinge of anxiety.
“Yeah, that’s one possible cause,” Tuck said. “Set off a nuke in the upper atmosphere, and it’ll affect a wide area.”
Eustace laughed at this, taking an almost spiteful swing at a sapling with the machete. “Nobody set off a nuke in the British Columbia wilderness, guys. It doesn’t make any sense. We would’ve seen or heard something.”
“Would we, though?” Tuck asked. “The nuke might have gone off hundreds of kilometers from here. A big enough EMP could affect the whole area—maybe the whole province.”
Eustace laughed even louder this time, and the gravelly sound of it put Greg’s nerves on edge. “Tuck, you’re out of your mind if you think that’s the most reasonable explanation. The whole country got nuked? Come on. Nobody’s going to nuke Canada, not before they nuke the States. This has got to be a local problem, so let’s not go nuts quite yet.”
Tuck grumbled under his breath and glared at Eustace’s broad back. Greg wanted to agree with the company man, but his mind kept going back to the smoking wreckage, to the body still strapped into the pilot’s seat, to the dead sat phone. No, Tuck’s explanation was not as absurd as Eustace seemed to think.
I wish it was, Greg thought.
Suddenly, he wanted very much to get out of these endless kilometers of wilderness and back home. The feeling hit him so hard that for a second, he genuinely thought he might have a panic attack. It started low in his belly, a kind of churning discomfort, then it spread throughout his body, until he was practically shaking. To hide this from the other guys, he jammed his hands deep into his pockets and took deep breaths. Once he felt like the worst of it had passed, he dared to speak again.
“As soon as we get back to camp, I think we need to start packing up,” he said. “The sooner we head out, the better.”
“Head out? You mean, walk home?” Eustace said. “Across all of this company land? We’re in the absolute middle of nowhere, my friend, and you want to walk home?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” Greg replied.
Neither of the men said anything to this for a few seconds. Tuck’s face was unreadable, but Eustace was grimacing like the very thought caused him terrible pain.
“Whatever caused this, surely it’ll pass soon,” Eustace said finally. “My company will know there’s a problem when the chopper doesn’t return, and they’ll send a rescue. That’ll be—”
“Greg’s right,” Tuck said, cutting him off. “This seems to have affected a large area. We don’t know how widespread it is, but if it knocked a helicopter out of the sky, there’s a good chance it has caused chaos in the closest cities. I don’t think we should count on a rescue. Yes, it’ll be a long hike, but it’s better than slowly wasting away up the mountains while we wait for a rescue that may never come.”
This caused Eustace to unleash a groan that went on for a good ten seconds.
“I’m having trouble interpreting your sound effect,” Tuck said, once the groan trailed off into a breath. “I take it you disagree with us?”
“I’m trying to come to terms with the possibility that you’re right,” Eustace said. “We’re going to feel really dumb if we try to hike out of here and find out it was just a local problem.”
“And we’ll feel a lot dumber if we starve to death up on that mountain,” Tuck added.
To this, Eustace had no reply, and the silence felt to Greg like reluctant agreement
8
Glenvell’s closest thing to a town hall was a simple pole barn on the north side of the road behind the shopping center. Darryl’s grandmother decided to take the most direct route there, but it wasn’t the easiest route. Instead of walking down the driveway to the road, they followed a dirt path on the east side of the ranch behind the cattle barn. Intended for ATVs, it cut through undeveloped land and entered town in the neighborhood near town hall.
Though the unpaved road might have been a direct route, Darryl wasn’t convinced it was faster, but Grandma seemed to prefer it. Since it was dusk, the shadows were getting long, and the road was a bit gloomy, but Darryl’s mom had a small flashlight that she used in the darkest spots. Grandma was still in a bad mood. The backup car battery didn’t work either. Indeed, they were fairly certain now that the batteries weren’t the problem. Whatever the case, they had no working vehicle on the ranch. Darryl didn’t relish the idea of having to walk back and forth to town every time they needed something or had a meeting to attend.
“Well, it’s a lovely evening, at least,” his mother said, clicking off her penlight and gazing up at the sky. “Can you imagine the view they must have up on the mountain? Look at those stars.”
Indeed, the sky was awash in bright stars made all the more visible by the new moon, but Darryl wasn’t feeling it. His mom was trying to make the best of their situation, and he didn’t blame her for it. He just wasn’t there yet.
“That’s what you get when you remove light pollution,” Grandma said. “Enjoy it while it lasts. We don’t even get a view like this from the porch because of the floodlight by the barn.”
“It reminds me of a story I read a few years ago,” Marion said. “I forget if it was Los Angeles or New York. Some big city in the States had a power loss one night, and dozens of people called 911 to report seeing something strange in the sky.”
“What was it?” Tabitha asked. “What did they see?”
Marion pointed upward. “The Milky Way. They’d never seen it before because of all the light pollution in the big city. Had no idea what it was.”
This made Grandma laugh, but Darryl found it rather sad. He gazed up and saw the hazy glow of the Milky Way rising above the trees low in the sky. Just then, he heard a familiar scraping sound on the road, as of someone unwilling or unable to pick up their feet when they walked. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Justine and her family walking down the dirt road behind them. Justine Carmichael was her full name, he’d learned, and they’d eventually tracked down her father to the gas station. Now, they were all walking together, Justine once again in the lead and slowly catching up to Darryl. Her father was a straight-up redneck, with a toque pulled low, a scraggly beard, and an old plaid shirt buttoned tightly over a generous beer gut. He was holding his wife’s hand as he loped along.
Justine raised a hand to Darryl in greeting, and he slowed down to wait for her.
“Mr. and Ms. Carmichael,” Grandma said.
The two groups merged together. Darryl fell in beside Justine, though he still wasn’t entirely comfortable around her. She looked as dour and unhappy as before, as if a slight scowl were her natural state, and she was wearing the same purple sweatshirt and sweatpants she’d been wearing that morning. Still, she was the closest to his age, and the only one he’d had any sort of conversation with thus far.
“You guys take the back road, too?” Darryl asked.
“Just avoiding the mounted police,” she replied. “It’s a little weird to have that woman riding back and forth, that’s all. My dad doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t like law enforcement anyway.”
Darryl glanced at her dad. The man looked a little bit like Justine, with similar dark brown eyes and black hair. Somehow, it worked a lot better on Justine than on her father.
“I tell you, bud, if they don’t get the power back on soon,” he was saying, apparently to no one in particular, “it’s gonna be a heck of a problem for me. My porch is in bad need of repair, and I gotta have my power tools to get it done. I’ll have me a few questions for the mayor at this town meeting, you better believe it.”
Justine glanced at Darryl and rolled her eyes. “The stupid rotting old porch,” she muttered. “Of course,
that’s his priority.”
When they reached town, they saw the town hall lit by a number of small fires in braziers which had been set strategically around the parking lot and the streets beyond. Flashlights appeared to be illuminating the interior of the building, their bright beams seeping out of the windows in front. Groups of people streamed toward the town hall from all directions, like flies to a carcass. People of all ages, including small children, old people in wheelchairs, whole families, and a few rough-looking deep-woods types were headed for the meeting. Three police officers stood outside the double doors, one on horseback, the others on foot. Though the autumn air was crisp and cold, Darryl felt the heat of the fires as soon as he reached the edge of the parking lot.
“Well, doesn’t this look cozy?” Justine said.
“Looks like most people came,” Darryl said. “If this isn’t the whole town, it’s close.”
“Too close for comfort, if you ask me,” Justine said. “What good could possibly come from getting all of these backwoods people in one room?”
As they passed between the police officers, Justine’s little sister made a sound that might have been the beginning of a nervous whimper, but her mother quickly patted her on top of the head and shushed her. Darryl, too, was a bit intimidated by the intense officer looming over them on her horse, the one who’d told them about the meeting. She was a woman with a sharp and unfriendly face. She made sure to stare hard at each of them in passing.
Inside, the town hall was essentially a single open room with a couple of offices in the back. Rows of folding chairs had been set up from wall to wall before a wooden podium, and people were slowly filling the room. Individual groups had scattered all over the room instead of packing in tight, so the only row that would fit both the Healy and Carmichael families was at the very back. Darryl wound up on the far end of the row next to the cold aluminum wall, Justine on his right. A couple of kerosene heaters had been placed on tables in the front corners of the room, but Darryl could barely feel the heat. Cold air radiated through the thin wall, and he’d brought only a thin jacket and no toque.
“There’s our esteemed mayor,” Justine said, sourly. “Just look at him. Exactly the kind of fellow you’d want to turn to in a crisis. A stunning specimen of poise and leadership.”
Mayor Filmore was seated on a stool beside the podium, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. A tall, gaunt fellow with a mop of thinning brown hair, he had neither the look nor bearing of an authority figure. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks sagging, his neck too long, and he was bundled up tight in a gaudy, green sweater.
Once the room was mostly full, he rose from his stool and gestured at someone in the back of the room. Darryl glanced over his shoulder to see the unfriendly cop pulling the door shut. Only then did the mayor step behind the podium and loudly clear his throat to quiet the murmuring crowd. The flashlight beams cutting across the room made the whole thing feel like a secret gathering of some weird cult, with shadows drawn long across the floor and walls, and strange geometric shapes formed across the ceiling.
“I want to thank everyone for coming tonight,” the mayor said. He had a reedy voice that suited his gaunt appearance, but the room had a terrible echo, which made it a little hard to understand him. “Just so you all know, this meeting was my idea. I thought it would be good to get everyone together so we’re all on the same page. I don’t want anyone sitting at home feeling all alone and worried.”
“Leo, when can we expect the power to come back on?” someone asked from the front of the room. Darryl couldn’t see who it was. “Do we know what caused the problem in the first place?”
“I’m sorry to say I don’t have any specifics,” the mayor said with a shrug and a sheepish grin. “All I know about this present situation is that we’ve got no power in any of the nearby townships, but I’ve dispatched a couple of officers to ride all the way to Terrace for more information. It’ll take ’em a couple of days on horseback, I imagine. Sorry, that’s what I’ve got. But we’re pretty sure that we’re dealing with more than a local problem. In fact, we’re fairly sure we’re dealing with a national emergency.”
This caused murmurs of disquiet to move through the room. Justine gave a little grunt and leaned forward, planting her hands on her knees, as if he’d suddenly gotten her attention. National emergency. Darryl let the words sink in.
Justine’s father spoke next. He raised his hand, then stood up and began talking loudly before he was called on.
“You’re being a little hasty calling it a national emergency, don’t you think?” he said. “You said yourself you don’t know any specifics.”
“It’s what we think at this point,” the mayor said, with a shrug.
“We got a lot of problems in this community,” someone shouted from the middle of the room. “My uncle’s sitting at home on cancer meds. With no car, we can’t get him to the clinic, and he’s not able to walk. What are we doing to help the sick and homebound?”
Mayor Filmore shot a desperate little frown toward the back of the room, as if someone were going to come and rescue him. “I’ve been meeting with my team. We’re putting together an action plan. I know there are a lot of needs, and we’re taking them all into consideration. Another day or two, and we’ll be able—”
“We need immediate action,” someone else shouted. “Many of us depend on our phones, our cars. We have medical needs. Some of us have jobs. We can’t just sit at home and wait while you guys have a nice chat about what to do. Can’t you, as our local government, provide some logistical support?”
Justine’s dad was still standing up, and he said, “While your officers are galloping around on horses, maybe they could pull a few wagons, give people rides or something.” His wife tugged on his sleeve, and he finally sat down.
So many people were asking questions and making suggestions now that the whole room turned into chaos and noise. The echo of the corrugated metal walls made it even worse, and the mayor finally began waving his hands over his head in an attempt to get them to settle down. Darryl couldn’t stand the sound of it, so he covered his ears.
Is this all it takes for the whole community to lose their minds? he wondered.
9
As the noise from everyone speaking at once continued to rise, the mayor rapped his knuckles on the podium several times before the sharp sound seemed to break through whatever madness had seized the crowd. Voices trailed off, questions were left unfinished, and people settled into their seats.
“Thank you,” the mayor said. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he seemed to have changed. The desperate scowl on his face was gone, and he took in the crowd with a stern, clenched-jaw gaze. “Now, listen up, friends, we’re not going to fall apart here, are we? This didn’t happen to one person, one family, or one neighborhood. This has happened to all of us. We’re in this together, and we’re going to deal with it together. We’re not helpless here, and we’re not hopeless, so let’s come together and help each other, not shout each other down. I sent two riders out yesterday evening to the clinic in Rosswood, and they acquired a whole bunch of medication.”
The murmur that went through the crowd this time was like a long, shared sigh of relief. This is what they’d wanted: concrete action and encouragement, not vague anxiety and waiting. The mayor seemed bolstered by their response, and he drew up tall, squaring off his shoulders.
“That’s right,” he said. “We’ve got antibiotics, heart medications, diabetic pills, medicine for asthma, pain killers, all sorts of stuff. We even got some of those little pens for people with life-threatening allergies. Rest assured, if you have a medical condition, especially if you need a daily medicine like insulin, we probably have you covered. You just come up to me after the meeting, okay? We’re going to be all right.” As he spoke, Darryl realized he was staring at one person in particular, and when he tracked the direction of the mayor’s gaze, he realized that one person was Tabitha.
>
His grandmother was diabetic, something which she managed so well that Darryl scarcely thought about it. Mostly, she kept it under control through diet and an active lifestyle, but he wondered if she did, indeed, have enough medication stored away to be safe, especially if they couldn’t get her to the doctor any time soon.
If not, she’d better chat with our valiant leader up there, Darryl thought. Better to be safe than sorry, in case this stupid situation continues for a while. She’ll want a share of the medicine before it’s all taken by others.
The crowd was murmuring again, many heads nodding, and a couple of people clapped. Somehow, the mayor had turned things around. Seeing his bearing change so dramatically over the course of the meeting was impressive, and Darryl was tempted to join in with the clapping. Only Justine’s proximity prevented him from doing so.
“Now, I said we’re going to come together as a community, and that’s what I meant,” the mayor said. “There are plenty of ways we can help each other.” He turned his gaze to Darryl’s grandmother again, this time gesturing at her with a little wave of his hand. “Tabitha Healy, you’ve got all those dairy cows. You’re going to have to milk them anyway, right? What if you provided some of that milk to the Pelletier family, eh? They’ve got three small kids. That’s just one example. I’m sure if we all put our heads together, we can think of plenty of ways to help those in need around us.”
Darryl leaned forward and peered past Justine at his grandmother. Though her expression was almost completely blank, emotionless, he saw tension in her neck, and both of her hands were clenched into fists and resting on her thighs. She was a tough-looking old woman at the best of times, but at the moment, she seemed genuinely dangerous.
What’s she so mad for? Darryl wondered. The mayor made a fair suggestion, didn’t he? She’s got all of those cows and no workers or delivery truck to take the milk to market. Trading them for medicine seems like a good idea.
Survive the Fall (EMP: Return of the Wild West Book 1) Page 6