State of Panic: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Jack Hunt

  “You think we could spend the night here? You know we’ve been hiking non-stop over the past month, up and down the mountain range, through the forests. I’m all for taking in a bit of nature but this is like overkill. Are you trying to kill us?”

  “I second that, my feet are killing me.”

  We hadn’t showered or shaved in several weeks and all of us stunk to high heaven. The only way we could clean ourselves was when we were close to a river. And no one was brave enough to endure the icy cold water on their nutsack.

  “My back feels like it’s about to break.”

  Murphy came back out with a big case of water. “Dear god, you guys wouldn’t last a day in the military.”

  “That’s why I’m not joining,” Billy said.

  “I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of seeing the world,” Corey added.

  “Dude, you aren’t going to be seeing the world. Just bullets flying over your head, and knowing your fat ass they wouldn’t have any problems painting a target on you.”

  Corey stuck his finger out. “I swear I’m going to…”

  “Going to what?” Billy tossed off his backpack and leveled up to Corey which was kind of insane really. They were like David and Goliath. I had to hand it to Billy though, the kid had some balls, especially after having been slapped down by Corey three times over the past month already.

  “Settle down.”

  They both glared at each other and turned away.

  Dan returned with the mail and began sorting through it. He tossed some of it out to different guys and then tucked the rest into his back pocket.

  “Anything for me?” Luke asked.

  “Not this time.”

  “Kind of figured,” he replied. “Hey Murphy, you got any cigarettes in there?”

  “What did I tell you?”

  He shook his head in frustration. Nicotine addiction was a bitch. I felt his pain. I had gone through the whole aching for a cigarette from the first day we had arrived. They had allowed us to have one before we set out hiking but it was kind of pointless as it only made me need another.

  I cracked open a bottle of water and chugged it down then poured the remainder over my head. My body trembled as it ran down my back. The temperature that day was hovering in the high seventies. As they sat around reading letters, I noticed Murphy looked concerned.

  “Everything okay, bud?” Dan asked.

  “Generator’s on.”

  “And the phone?”

  “Phone’s not working. Not even getting a signal. Radio is getting static.”

  I was laid out on the ground trying to get some shuteye while at the same time listening in on the conversation. Murphy went around the side and I saw him fiddling with a gray metal fuse box. He muttered something to Dan and he took a look.

  “Listen, I’ll take the truck down to the general store and see what I can find out. Might just be a downed line.”

  “Bring back some beef jerky,” Billy hollered. His words fell on deaf ears. Much of what we suggested carried little weight around here.

  Letters from parents were usually the same. At the beginning of the program we were encouraged to write to them, tell them how things were going and apologize for our behavior. We weren’t forced to do it but some of the group thought if they acted as though they were remorseful, their parents would pull them out. Others pleaded. Some wrote that they had learned their lesson. Of course they were all lying. In the first week I had even done it myself, though I kind of figured it would do little to help me. In the minds of Jodi and Brett Anderson I was a lost cause in need of saving and Lt. Scot Murphy and his crew were the ones to do it.

  As a few finished reading, I glanced over to Shaw and Murphy. Both of them were standing a few feet away talking. Despite the fact that nothing appeared to be working, neither of them looked too worried.

  I turned my attention to the others who were scattered around the camp. Some sat on the picnic tables chatting while others tried to sneak in a few minutes of sleep. All of us had got used to roughing it over the month. The first few weeks were brutal but once we knew that we were here to stay, it didn’t take long for our minds to readjust. Of course we still craved creature comforts but without them in sight, and without technology around us, there was nothing to distract us except the wilderness. Living in the wild was like detoxing from a polluted world. It wasn’t just coming to terms with how our actions had landed us here, it was coming to grips with the fact that our entire lives ran off the grid. We were a generation that spent so much time in front of cellphones and tablets and god knows what else, that we were missing out on the very thing that was in our backyard — real life.

  An hour later, when Dan returned he was driving pretty damn fast. The truck careened into the parking area, kicking up gravel. He signaled to Murphy to follow him inside. Shaw remained outside to keep an eye on us. A couple of the guys started causing a fuss and Shaw went over to break it up. Naturally I was curious. I got up and wandered over to the door. It was slightly ajar.

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Jake said. We are under attack. The cities have been hit.”

  I furrowed my brow and then pushed the door open. “Under attack?”

  Dan pointed to me. “Outside. Now.”

  “No, what’s this about being under attack? What the hell are you on about?”

  Luke must have overhead me as he got up and wandered over. Now two of us were standing in the doorway badgering them with questions. We weren’t stupid. There was no power and I’d heard him correctly.

  “Look, just settle down. I don’t want anyone freaking out.”

  “Freaking out? Then tell us what’s going on.”

  Murphy looked at Dan. “You think you can get the ones from—”

  He hadn’t even managed to get the rest of his words out when outside the others erupted in a collective gasp and cursing. I turned and noticed them looking up and pointing. As I stepped outside, my eyes bulged. Coming down a short distance from us was a 747 plane. Out of control and in a death spin, there was no way that plane was going to pull up.

  It was about to crash.

  Murphy screamed. “Move!”

  The explosion that followed echoed throughout the valley.

  HOMETOWN

  “Take the Scout II and get them back home. I’ll take the others.”

  “But your vehicle has a computer chip.” Dan replied.

  “Not the K5 Blazer.”

  What occurred next was organized chaos. Dan started shouting names and pointing to his van while Murphy went and retrieved a secondary truck from a garage. I dived into the back of Murphy’s truck along with Luke, Billy, Corey, three others and Shaw. The rest went in Dan’s. They were all from out of town. There were no goodbyes or pats on the back. Just blank stares and a sense of urgency.

  A sense of dread crept over us. It was only made worse by the fact that none of us seemed to know what was happening. In the distance black smoke rose in the air from the crash. The only thing mentioned by Murphy was EMP, the rest of the time he was talking to Shaw. We tore out of there leaving a plume of dust in our wake. As the truck rumbled along the road each of us stared behind, occasionally looking up into the sky wondering if it was going to rain planes.

  “I’ve heard of this before. My old man used to talk about terrorists attacking. This is probably one of those biochemical attacks.”

  “Shut the hell up. It’s the power that’s gone out,” Corey replied.

  “That’s how it all begins. Power goes down and then a deadly toxin gets released into the air. No one can get out. Hell, look at all the cars we’ve passed in the last three minutes.” Murphy ended up having to go off road due to vehicles clogging up the highway. People were standing outside of the vehicles looking lost and aimless. Others were holding their phones out as if trying to get reception. The few vehicles that didn’t have computer chips kept moving.

  “The power is down,” Billy shouted to a guy on th
e hard shoulder as we left the road.

  Mount Pleasant was south, a good two hours from Naples. We had been traveling on I-90 before Murphy came off the road. While he tried to stay close so that he didn’t get lost, I was pretty damn sure he could find a needle in a haystack. The guy knew his way around just by the sun and stars. As we bumped up and down and clung to the sides, I had a feeling that any minute now one of us would be thrown out the back.

  “You want to slow down?”

  Murphy wasn’t listening. I slid forward. “You got kids, Murphy?”

  “A daughter.”

  I frowned looking at his hand. There was no ring on his finger. “You divorced?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s your kid’s name?”

  “Ally.”

  “Ally Murphy?”

  He nodded not taking his eyes off the road ahead.

  I couldn’t believe it. I knew of Ally. I’d seen her around school. I had no idea that was his kid. Then again I didn’t pay much attention to anyone when I did attend.

  “What street does she live on?”

  “Fairview Avenue.”

  “West side. Nice area.”

  “And you?”

  “Just take a seat.”

  I was about to say something when the truck bounced and I hit my head. I groaned. Billy found it amusing but then anything was amusing to that schmuck.

  “So who do you think’s behind it?” Corey asked Shaw.

  “No idea.” She was looking down at her phone and checking reception.

  “It’s got to be ISIS or one of those Middle Eastern countries. All the shit that’s going on right now is down to them.”

  “Maybe not. Hell, it could be our people,” Luke said.

  “America attacks America? Get out of here, Penn.”

  “Why not? We have our fair share of radicals. Hell, I’ve always thought that if this world went to hell, our government would be behind it.”

  Corey snorted. “Yeah, I’m with you on that.”

  The truth was it was hard to tell what was going on but whatever had occurred was serious. Certainly the look of concern on Dan’s face when he returned was real.

  “Listen, all we know right now is that some idiot has probably turned off a switch and screwed up the power grid. Remember when that big outage happened on the East Coast? No one was shouting about a terror attack then.”

  “Um. We didn’t have planes dropping out of the sky.”

  “One plane. The guy probably dropped his coffee.”

  “You think that’s funny?” Corey yelled at him.

  “A little too early?” Billy replied

  Corey grabbed hold of him and I dived across to try and intervene. That’s when I felt the fist hit me in the side of the face. I had moved too soon and took the full brunt of Corey’s right hook. It was like being hit full force with a sledgehammer. Darkness crept in at the corners of my eyes. I blinked hard.

  “Holy crap,” Billy started laughing. “Thanks, Frost.”

  Shaw intervened before it spiraled out of control any further. Huddled in the back of the truck, wind whipped at our faces. We passed through several towns on the way. Pandemonium had already set in as people began looting stores. I’d always imagined how America would react to a real disaster but seeing it was another thing entirely. One town we passed through seemed empty. Storefronts were already closed and metal shutters covered the fronts. The next wasn’t as lucky. We saw two guys outside brawling over what appeared to be a case of water. The next town a few of the stores had flames coming out of caved-in windows.

  “What the hell?” I muttered. Feeling chilled by the air I pulled myself up and slid forward. “Murphy, what did Dan mean by we are under attack?”

  He glanced at me in his rearview mirror and exhaled hard.

  “Multiple cities in different states all over the country have been hit.”

  “By what?”

  He glanced again at me.

  “We’re not sure yet but the grid is down.”

  “How did he find that out if there’s no power?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe word got out before the power went completely down.”

  I slumped back in my seat and swallowed hard. I looked over to Shaw who was riding shotgun. She stared out without saying a word. How many people had died? What cities had been hit? Questions spun through my mind.

  As we saw signs for our hometown I began to feel a little more at ease. I don’t know why, as it was about to be completely shrouded in darkness in a matter of an hour. As the truck veered off the main highway and made its way down Front Street, our eyes scanned the stores for trouble. I expected to see people looting but it was reasonably calm.

  “Okay, listen up, we will drop you off at your homes. If in the event that you have any problem, I’m going to be down at City Hall seeing if there is anything I can do to help. You got that?”

  Murphy dropped off the three kids one by one. We watched them run up to their darkened houses. By now the sun was beginning to wane. When I jumped out at the end of Silver Street, I glanced back at Murphy. We had spent the last four weeks together and whether I wanted to admit it or not, all of us guys had begun to feel a sense of safety around him.

  “Remember, Sam. City Hall. Seven o’clock.”

  I nodded and strolled up the driveway to the house. Inside it was dark even though the sun hadn’t completely set. I turned back momentarily as Murphy pulled away. Billy stuck his finger up at me. The guy still saw all of this as one big joke. He only lived ten doors down. Luke was one street over on Maple Drive and Corey a few blocks down from that.

  “Jodi? Brett?”

  I didn’t refer to them as dad or mom, it was too strange. When I was younger I tried the whole mom and dad thing but after family number four I gave up.

  In the silence of the home, there was no reply. I slung my bag down and went into the bathroom and turned on the taps. Water was still working. It was freezing cold but at least it was still flowing. I filled up the sink in front of me and stripped down. My body felt grimy and I badly needed a shave. After I had tossed some water and soap under my pits and cleared the forest around my chin, I looked at my scalp. I had a month’s worth of growth. It was still short and dark. I tossed the razor into the sink and decided to leave it.

  I ambled into my bedroom and slipped into a pair of black jeans and a white T-shirt. I pulled on a hoodie and my green bomber jacket and began to feel more like myself. I dug around inside a drawer for cigarettes but there were none. I tried the next. They had been cleared out. I took a seat on the edge of my bed and I blew out my cheeks as I tugged my boots on.

  “Brett?” I called out again. There was no answer.

  Wandering into the kitchen, I spotted a note on the table. Scribbled in blue ink was a message from Jodi.

  Sam,

  We are at the Robertsons’ home on Pearl Street. If you’ve returned please come over there. The address is 483.

  Love Jodi

  I paced the kitchen, got myself a drink and fished around in the fridge. It was stocked with food, food that would eventually go off if the power didn’t come on soon. I grabbed up my bag and threw in some fruit and a couple of cans of food and then searched around in the drawers for some flashlights and batteries. I glanced at the clock, it was a little after five.

  I was heading out the door when I was spotted by one of my old skinhead pals. Bryan Catz.

  “Well, shit on me, Frost. Don’t tell me they released you early?”

  Bryan Catz wore a green bomber jacket, tight jeans and black boots that went up his knees. His bald head sported a spider web that covered the back portion. He had a cigarette sticking out of his mouth and he was with three others.

  “What the fuck happened to your head?”

  He ran a hand over it and the others started laughing. “You need to shave that shit off.”

  “I just got back.”

  “Where you heading now?”

  “Check in
with my old man.”

  “Screw that. C’mon. The rally begins tonight.”

  I pulled back from him. “Rally?”

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  “What?”

  “Look around you. This is it, man.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He studied me as if I was from another planet. He slipped his arm around my shoulders and took a hard pull on his cigarette.

  “You remember us talking about that missile that hit Germany?”

  The United States had set up an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe. Russia and China had kicked up a fuss about its proximity to their countries. The U.S. reassured them that it was to stop Iranian missiles. Russia didn’t see it that way and said that it was no different than if they set up one in Cuba. It had turned into a heated political exchange that some were saying would no doubt lead to the next world war.

  That only seemed even more real when at some point that system had malfunctioned and several missiles had been fired and hit Germany. Several thousand people were killed causing uproar worldwide. Even though the USA tried backpedaling, it was useless, they had just hit a hornets’ nest that had been quietly buzzing. It had occurred a few weeks before I was sent to Camp Zero. The airwaves were filled with talk of retaliation. That if it didn’t come from Germany, there was a good chance that Russia would strike.

  “Our brothers hit back.”

  I frowned trying to make sense of what he was saying. “You? What do you mean?”

  “Well, not us directly. Our kind. White power.” He leaned in all excited. “Seems they had their hands on nuke bombs from the Cold War. Fucking amazing.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “There were 84 suitcase nuke bombs that went missing in the Cold War. Let’s just say they weren’t really missing. They exchanged hands. Each suitcase had a one-kiloton nuclear warhead inside. We are talking about wiping a city off the map, obliterating the power grid and taking out military and satellite defenses.”

  “Why the hell would they do that?”