“My night vision gear is down there, along with most of the weapons and ammunition,” said Alex.
“Uh huh. I thought there was enough ammo in the BOLT kits.”
He didn’t feel like getting into it with her. She was right, sort of. Each pack held two full, thirty-round AR magazines, in addition to two fifteen-round 9mm magazines for the Heckler and Koch P30C pistol. When you added it to all of the ammunition available in the study closet, it equaled far more than enough to handle a worst-case scenario, “guns blazing” transit from Scarborough to his parents’ farm, but Boston presented a whole new level of shit storm to the equation, and he had no intention of underestimating the level of chaos he might need to navigate to find their children.
Even his firearm situation was less than optimal given the circumstances. He had a rifle, shotgun and one pistol upstairs, which once again sounded like overkill, but he’d need the rifle and pistol for Boston, leaving Kate with the shotgun. Not exactly the ideal firearm to haul along on a bicycle. He needed to grab his backup AR and a pistol for Emily, some rifle attachments stored in one of several sealed canisters next to the gun safe, ammunition for the rifles and pistols, and his night vision gear. The night vision would provide a significant tactical advantage inside Boston, allowing him to detect and avoid most potentially hazardous human situations.
“I’ll grab the kids for lunch,” he said.
Alex removed his shoes once he reached the top of the staircase, wondering why he’d bothered. Judging from the multiple mud prints leading in every direction on the hardwood floor, neither Kate nor the kids had bothered to do the same, and it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. His whole body was still dripping dirty water from their ditch crossing. For tactical reasons, he supposed he should keep them on, especially with the state of uncertainty smothering them from all sides, but he’d already left them at the top of the stairs. He turned left into Emily’s room and found her packing a laundry basket of personal belongings. Small items from what he could tell.
“You all right, sweetie?”
“We’re not coming back here, are we, Dad?” she asked, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Not until it’s safe, which could be a while.”
He stepped into her room and touched one of her picture collages on the wall near the bedroom door. They’d given her a framed collage of family photos every year on her birthday, starting when she was three. He loved looking at them, though they visually represented how quickly she had changed from a squeaky little girl to a headstrong young woman. They’d have to leave all of this behind, and hope it would still be here when they returned. He turned around with watery eyes and fought not to say anything about the laundry basket of stuff she wouldn’t be able to bring.
“Mom made some sandwiches. Everyone needs to fuel up on some real food before we get to work this afternoon. We still have a long day ahead of us.”
“What’s happening out there? I mean, what is this?”
“Mr. Thornton got a broadcast on his satellite phone. They say that an asteroid broke up over the U.S. and hit the East Coast. I think we got lucky.”
“I don’t feel lucky,” Emily said, wiping her eyes and walking to the door.
“I do. I’ve got you and your mom safe. Ethan too. Once we get Ryan back, I’ll be the luckiest man on the planet,” he said, hugging her tightly.
“You’re the corniest dad on the planet. You said Mom made some real food? What’s the occasion?”
“Digging on your mom and dad in the face of the apocalypse?” said Alex.
“You know I love you, Dad. I’ll get Ethan and meet you downstairs,” she said and disappeared.
He glanced at the laundry basket, wondering if there was any way he could sneak the contents into one of the spare rucksacks and stash it in the Jeep. Not likely, but he might give it a try anyway. Alex ran into Ethan and Emily on the way out of her room.
“Tell your mother I’ll be right down.”
Once they had descended the stairs, he hurried into the bedroom and vanished into the darkness of the walk-in closet to change out of his putrid clothes into shorts and a T-shirt for now. His right arm ached as he lifted the shirt over his head. He’d have to tend to this injury immediately after lunch. Losing the effective use of his dominant arm would be a showstopper for Boston. He pushed the pain aside and finished changing. He reached for the bedroom door, but paused, thinking about what Charlie had said. He didn’t expect Chinese paratroopers to drop from the skies, but it couldn’t hurt to be ready for trouble.
Alex parted the shoulder-level curtain of clothing at the back of the closet and touched the keypad, illuminating the numbers. He’d felt confident that the keypad would function, but had the option of opening the gun safe manually with a hidden key if the electronics had succumbed to the EMP. Alex punched in the eight-digit code on the keypad mounted on the stand-up gun safe, and heard the mechanisms within the door shift.
He pulled on the handle, activating a small blue LED light within the safe, removed the HK P30 pistol sitting on the shelf above the rifles, and started to move it to his drop-down holster. He stopped, realizing that he’d have to thoroughly clean the holster first. The pistol could wait.
The rifle emerged next, along with a green polymer thirty-round .223 magazine. He inserted the magazine and rapidly pulled the charging handle, chambering a round. He placed the rifle against the side of the safe and took the MOLLE tactical chest rig from a hook on the back wall. He donned the rig over his clothes and filled the eight magazine pouches with spare rifle magazines from the top shelf of the safe, bringing his immediately available total to twenty magazines, or six hundred rounds. He may not have to dive for the additional .223 ammunition from the basement, which suited him fine.
He swapped out the two mud-encrusted pistol magazines from his holster rig and replaced them with clean polymer fifteen-round 9mm magazines from the safe. Three additional pistol magazines filled the smaller pouches on the left side of his modular chest rig. A total of six pistol magazines would be more than enough. Standing in his closet, he carried more ammunition than he’d fielded during combat operations in Iraq. Alex closed the safe and picked up the HK416 rifle.
Closely resembling the M4 carbine, the HK416 represented an improvement over the venerable M4 design, offering superior reliability and durability under all conditions. Extensive field-testing over the past decade consistently demonstrated the advantages of Heckler and Koch’s proprietary rifle system over the traditional variants of the M4, leading to its adoption by the United States Army and United States Marine Corps as their primary battle rifle. Alex had chosen to purchase and train with the civilian variant of the HK416 that most closely resembled the standard military-issued rifle.
Featuring a 16.5-inch heavy barrel, quad floating rails, vertical fore grip and telescoping stock, his rifle was nearly indistinguishable from its military counterpart. He had even opted to mount a Trijicon 4X Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) to the rifle, further mimicking standard marine issue. The Marine Corps had long ago equipped every rifle in their inventory with a variation of the ACOG sight, bucking the long-standing tradition of relying upon iron sights. Alex compromised by installing flip up iron sights on forty-five degree angle rail mounts, giving him the option of canting the rifle and using iron sights for close-in engagements.
A minute later, he ran into Kate at the bottom of the stairs, holding a plateful of sandwiches out to him.
“We’re already at this point?” she commented, nodding at his gear.
“We were there as soon as the EMP hit. Eating upstairs?”
“We could all use a break from the mud. The kids will bring the rest of the food up. I say we clean up and start over. Wash the day off while we still have running water. Lunch once everyone looks and smells human again,” said Kate, handing him the plate.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“I’ll grab one of the coolers from the garage. I put some beers and
sodas in the freezer for now. I’ll dump the drinks and some ice in the cooler and meet you upstairs,” she said.
“Good. I could use a beer before swimming around the basement,” said Alex.
“You’re still planning on going down there?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t see any other option, unless you want to ride to Limerick with a shotgun.”
“No thanks. You still need a shower, by the way—not that I can smell you over myself.”
“The whole neighborhood is going to smell ten times worse in a few days. This crap isn’t going anywhere,” he said.
“Good thing we won’t be here.”
Chapter 17
EVENT +09:57
Scarborough, Maine
Alex sat on the top stair and splashed his feet in the pitch-black water, desperately trying to convince himself that he didn’t need any of the equipment in the basement. He could think of twenty good reasons why he shouldn’t submerge himself in the darkness below, most of them safety related, some of them purely irrational. His overly active imagination had swept the worst sea creatures conceivable two miles inland with the tsunami, to be deposited through the basement window.
He wore a blue swimsuit, tight-fitting polyester running shirt, and swim fins. A diver’s mask and snorkel, which he’d taken from the boat and stashed in his rucksack, sat on his lap. He’d gotten lucky with that decision. Since the Maine coast wasn’t exactly renowned for its crystal-clear waters, the rest of their snorkeling gear was in the basement, where it waited for a trip to Florida or the Caribbean. They’d always carried at least one snorkeling kit onboard the sailboat for practical reasons. Over the past five years, he’d gone over the side more times than he could count to clean seaweed from the propeller or disentangle a lobster pot line from the rudder.
His biggest fear was the electricity. What if the grid was restored while he was submerged? He knew this wouldn’t happen, but the thought dogged him. The waterline was well above the breaker box, exposed directly to the house’s external utility feed. He pushed this thought as far away as possible, focusing on the more immediate, tangible challenges he’d face underwater. Breathing always came in at the top of his mental list.
From what he could tell, the water pushed up against the basement ceiling. He might find a pocket of air between ceiling joists if the water level was a few inches below the floorboard, but the air would be limited. Using the snorkel to access the air presented a few risks. With only a few inches of dry space, he would have to be extremely careful not to tip the snorkel and inhale water. Low on air deep inside the basement, a panicked moment could kill him. This assumed he could find a few pockets of air. If not, he’d have to take the entire operation slowly, making multiple trips to unlock doors, safes, clear debris—all culminating in a few long, unobstructed trips to haul out his perceived bounty. Fortunately, everything he needed was clearly labeled and conveniently located in one place inside the “bunker.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to attach a line or something?” asked Kate.
“Are you coming in after me if something goes wrong?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Then I’m definitely not attaching a line. One of us has to survive this,” he replied.
“I think I’m capable of swimming twenty feet and dragging your ass out of there. I’m a better swimmer than you,” she pointed out.
“Then maybe you should be the one making the dive,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“I’m not familiar enough with your system down there.”
“Having a line attached is just one more thing I have to worry about. I’ll be fine. If I’m having trouble, I’ll come right up. Promise.”
“All right, but I wish we had a way to communicate,” said Kate.
“I’ll check the first few joists for an air pocket. If I don’t find air, you’re going to see me back here every thirty seconds or so. If I find air, I’ll try to use the snorkel to clear the whole path in one trip. You can sit in the water with your goggles and watch my light. The water’s pretty warm,” he said.
“You always say that,” she said, taking a transparent pair of goggles off the kitchen island.
“It’s at least ten degrees warmer than the beach water. Probably heated up over land,” said Alex.
He heard a knock from the mudroom, followed by Charlie’s voice. “You guys here?”
“Come on in, Charlie,” Alex called. “I’m about to take a swim.”
Charlie walked into the kitchen with his AR suspended at chest level by a one-point tactical sling. Alex noticed that he had completely rearranged the attachments on his rifle since he’d last seen him. Instead of a long-range scope, the rifle now featured an EOTech holographic sight with flip-up magnifier, a laser/flashlight combination and a bipod. Alex’s rifle lay on the recently cleaned granite island, along with the rest of his tactical gear. Charlie’s eyes immediately diverted to the rifle.
“You sprang for an ACOG? Dammit. Now I feel like I cheaped out on this,” he said grumpily.
“I think that EOTech combo costs the same. I almost went with that,” said Alex.
“But you didn’t,” said Charlie, still staring at Alex’s rifle.
He finally broke the attachment-envy-induced trance and joined them at the basement doorway.
“Christ, it’s dark down there,” Charlie remarked. “Did you open the bulkhead door?”
Alex looked up at Kate and shook his head. “We’re fucking idiots.”
“I’m not saying another word,” said Charlie, winking at Kate.
Five minutes later, the underwater world below looked vastly different. With mostly clear skies and fierce sunlight penetrating the southeast corner of the basement, he could see the outlines of the bottom stairs and a few of the shelves along the submerged facing wall. He felt better about the situation, though it did nothing to alleviate the oxygen situation.
“You think I should be able to find some air?” said Alex.
“Definitely. I’ve been marking the water progress on the wall next to my stairs,” said Charlie. “It’s dropped at least six inches in the last three hours. Before that it didn’t move. There has to be a pocket of air. You could always wait until later.”
“We don’t have another three hours. I need to know if the gear is part of our plan or not. It’s almost three. We’ll get everyone together when I’m done with this.”
“You could always use one of the garden hoses to breathe. I assume it’s still connected to the house,” said Charlie.
“I’ll take my chances holding my breath. That hose has been there for fifteen years.”
“How about I stick around while you go swimming—just in case?”
Alex nodded and activated the LED light attached to his mask. He’d used over a dozen rubber bands to tightly affix the waterproof flashlight. He had the option of using several head-mounted lamps scattered throughout their rucksacks, but couldn’t convince himself that they would continue to work submerged. He knew for a fact that this light would work, and in the environment below, he needed one-hundred-percent reliability. The light from the bulkhead opening would illuminate his path to the bunker door, but the area inside the bunker would be pitch black. He wasn’t taking any chances. He fitted the mask and adjusted the light to face directly forward.
“I always wanted to go cave diving,” he said and slid into the water after a deep breath.
The first thing he noticed was the cut on his forehead, which burned like someone held a match against it. A dozen other cuts and scrapes sounded off for a moment, but nothing could compete with the exhilaration of swimming through salt water in his basement. The cuts were a distant memory by the time his feet touched the concrete flooring.
He propelled himself forward, glancing around for a moment. He was surprised by the clarity of the water, which allowed his LED flashlight almost unlimited range in the basement. It made sense. The basement had more or less been a closed, undisturbed system for
the past eight hours, giving most of the sediment time to settle. Alex propelled himself upward, just under the lip of the ceiling, and searched the area between the first two joists. He pressed the mask lens as high as possible, finding a three-inch pocket of air. Craning his neck backward, Alex grabbed the joists and attempted to bring his mouth above the waterline, but found the position to be too unstable. His lips barely breached the surface, which wasn’t enough.
He put the self-clearing snorkel in his mouth and used his hands to align the top of the snorkel with the floorboard between the joists. Once nearly flush with the ceiling, he expelled the air in his lungs, purging the snorkel through the valve below the mouthpiece. He tentatively sucked air back into the snorkel, encountering little resistance. Alex breathed deeper, bringing nothing but air into his lungs. He took several breaths, alternating the position of his head and snorkel, until he was comfortable using both hands to steady himself on the joists.
Nothing to it.
He popped up in the stairwell and gave his audience a thumbs-up. “I found air. Three inches at least. No problem. I’ll be done with this in ten minutes. Why don’t you start gathering the troops, Charlie. Is Ed’s house any cleaner than ours?”
“His and mine. We’ve been moving slop for hours,” said Charlie.
“Let’s go with Ed’s. That way Kate and I can sneak around back so it doesn’t look like we’re having a big meeting. You’ve been going back and forth all day. Linda needs to be there. Can you leave the girls behind?”
“I sure as shit have no intention of leaving my house unguarded. They can hold their own.”
“Good. I’ll haul some extra ammunition and magazines up for everyone,” said Alex. “If we have time later, I’ll fetch your thermal scope.”
“You won’t be disappointed with that thing. It’s unbelievable. Can’t see through walls, but it can pick up heat signatures inside windows, which more or less accomplishes the same thing,” said Charlie.
“Infrared reflections or ambient shadowing,” Alex corrected. “Unless the windows are closed. IR signatures can’t transmit through glass.”
The Perseid Collapse (The Perseid Collapse Series 1) Page 13