The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  So now we were opening a storage bucket. As we dug in to it, I got hit with a reality check. I’d seen the buckets for so long, lined up and stacked neatly, but we never touched them. They were strictly for a long-term emergency. Still, I’d read the content labels Mom put on them, wishing at times that we could use some of them. There were buckets of the essentials, of course; flour, rice, oats, wheat berries, beans, and sugar. But others said things like, “Snacks, Granola Bars, Nuts, and Dried Fruit.” Or, “Cocoa, Chocolate Bars, Baking Supplies.”

  Here we were, finally opening one and it felt surreal.

  Most of the buckets were filled by Mom, with me helping. There’s a couple full of canned meats like ham, chicken, salmon and tuna. One is nothing but sardines and clams and oysters. We don’t usually eat that stuff. I asked my mother why we were storing them and she said a few sardines provide enough protein for one adult for a whole day.

  “If things get really bad and you’re hungry,” she said, “you’ll eat it.” I guess she’s right.

  Anyways, the freeze-dried food was from an online survival store. It cost a lot, so I knew this was a treat. Even the twins gathered around with interest when Mom opened the bucket and gave the appropriate “ooohs” and “aaaahs,” which made me laugh. They didn’t even know what the food was, but they were duly impressed anyways! (It was lasagna, twenty-four servings, according to the label; which will probably be enough for two or three meals, because mom says what the manufacturer calls a serving is usually ridiculously small).

  Dad has started accompanying me when I do my barn chores. Milking, feeding the horses, cleaning the stalls, feeding the rabbits and chickens, and so on. It feels really weird having him come along. He stays around watching out like a vigilante, holding his shotgun. When I asked him why, he said the Buchanans had already had to stop people from stealing their animals! I couldn’t believe it.

  I ask Dad every day if we can get Andrea and her family. He still says no.

  LEXIE

  FEBRUARY 27

  WEEK SIX, DAY TWO

  I was looking for my dad and found him in the basement. He had guns and ammo laid out on a table and was emptying out a gun cabinet, doing routine maintenance on his stock.

  He looked up and saw me. “Hey, baby. What’s up?”

  I shrugged. “Not much. Just taking a break from the girls.”

  He nodded, wiping down a rifle. “Good,” he said. “Let’s do a review.”

  I knew immediately what he meant and smiled. I like doing reviews with Dad. Since I was little he and my mom have pounded certain things into my head about the rights of a free people. Gun rights were high on that list.

  “Why do we keep firearms?” he asked, just as he’d asked me a thousand times before. I gave the answer I’d memorized but it wasn’t coming only from memory. I love these quotes and believe them with all my heart.

  “‘Because no free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms,’ Thomas Jefferson.”

  “Why else?”

  “‘A free people ought to be armed,’ George Washington. And, ‘I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery,’ Thomas Jefferson.” Dad’s face hadn’t changed. He was still intent on cleaning and inspecting his guns but I knew he was enjoying this as much as I was.

  “Tell me more,” he said.

  I closed my eyes to concentrate, to see the beautiful words from the founding fathers that I’d painstakingly memorized as part of my home school curriculum. “‘Firearms are a right and a necessity to a free people and the means by which not only political power but public order is maintained.’” He smiled.

  “One more.”

  I took a breath, smiling too. “‘To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them,’ George Mason, father of the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Declaration of Rights.”

  “And what do you think about these quotes?” he asked. To answer him (and I guess to show off a little, too) I chose another morsel from my memorized cache as my answer. “‘To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them,’ Richard Henry Lee.” He looked up and nodded approvingly.

  “I’m glad you and Mom taught me these quotes, Dad,” I said.

  “I’m glad you’re glad.” He winked at me. “But we haven’t actually spoken about them in awhile. Our principles may be put to the test if people start getting desperate.” Looking at the rifle he was wiping down in his hands, he said, “I’m afraid that with what’s happened to our country we’ll be finding out firsthand just how necessary it is to have our guns—not only for our freedom but our safety.”

  I felt a mild stab of fear and looked at my dad’s face, startled, because his tone was so solemn. Glancing at the rifle in his hands and at the other firearms spread out on the table, I thought it hard to believe, actually, that we would ever really need them as defensive weapons. I’d always enjoyed shooting as a sport and even though I was a staunch believer in gun rights, I had never really thought about our weapons as necessary to survival. That had always been true for other people, in other times of history. It was important to maintain that freedom, I thought, but not because I’d ever considered that we would need the guns for our personal safety. That’s why it had unnerved me when I had to take Dad’s Glock with me after leaving him with Roy on the day of the pulse.

  My dad met my eyes and seemed to read the doubts in my mind. In a serious voice he said, quoting, “‘Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them,’ Thomas Paine.”

  “I know. But I guess that was really true back in Colonial days.” I was trying to deny that we could possibly be in any danger now, even with the EMP and the widespread scarcity hitting the country.

  My dad stopped what he was doing, and gave me a quizzical look. “Darlin’,” he said, “Even before the pulse gun owners have been saving their lives and their possessions from thieves and criminals every single day. Gun rights have been just as important now as they ever have been at any time in history.”

  “How come we never heard about that on the news?” I asked.

  “The news media is very selective about what they broadcast. You know that. They don’t want the country to know how many lives are saved, how many rapes never happen, or how many would-be thieves are stopped because of legally armed citizens. You have to read the right magazines and unbiased news sources like the Drudge Report to get the news that’s suppressed by the mainstream media.” He paused, picked up his rifle and continued cleaning it. “Even Drudge doesn’t give all the news, such as miraculous healings or other miracles that occur—you have to watch CBN or read the right Christian periodicals for that.”

  I sighed. “Now we can’t watch anything, and I guess we won’t be getting any magazines anymore.”

  He took a breath and shook his head in agreement. “That’s right. But don’t forget—” and he paused to look at me solemnly again. “‘The Constitution asserts that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.’”

  “Thomas Paine,” I said, recognizing the words—or so I thought.

  His eyes sparkled at me. “Wrong. Mr. Jefferson, again.”

  “Darn!” I stayed there awhile longer enjoying being with my dad, and he had me clean one of the rifles to make sure I remembered how to do it. I had to put on plastic gloves first, since the cleaning elements are harsh.

  “If we hadn’t already got these,” Dad said, looking over his cache, “they’d be about impossible to buy now. And that’s IF we were near a store that sold them, which we’re not.”

  “Why would they be impossible to buy?” I asked.

  “They’ve sold out by now. People are realizing survival is the name of the game. Those that can take care of themselves may come through okay.
” He paused. He closed the first gun closet, hesitating over whether to lock it as usual. Safety concerns won out over worries about needing the equipment in a hurry, and he finally locked it up. Then he opened a second smaller cabinet next to the first one. “Those that can’t—well, let’s just say they’re in for more than a rude awakening.”

  I sat down and crossed my arms and just frowned at him. He’d reminded me of my worries about Andrea and her family.

  “Dad, we can’t just forget about Andrea.” He kept polishing a pistol, but I could tell he’d heard me. Andrea was not my parents’ favorite friend of mine, mostly because they weren’t satisfied that she or her parents were Christians. The Pattersons didn’t attend church regularly, and my dad had met Mr. Patterson and found it difficult to warm up to him. I guess they were afraid that Andrea would be a bad influence on me. But she isn’t. I know she hasn’t given the claims of Jesus Christ enough thought, but I always figured we’d have time to discuss that. I shouldn’t have assumed anything.

  He nodded. “When everyone gets here later on, we’ll pray about it.”

  “Good.” I didn’t tell him I’d forgotten about the study. Before the pulse, we were part of a small group Bible study with about five other families. Tonight two of those families—the Wassermans and the Buchanans—were actually coming to our house to resume our study! The EMP had stopped most of life, but we’d managed to communicate with both families via Dad’s ham radio. Dad had taken a course to get his ham license, as had Mr. Wasserman and Mr. Buchanan. They’d all made Faraday cages for their radios and now we were benefiting from all that prep.

  If I’d known where to find it and how to use it I could have saved myself that long ride to the Buchanan’s that time, to ask for help. And get this—Dad’s made contact with people as far as India, because there are so many ham operators in the country. Some radios act as repeaters, sending signals further and further on, sort of like a web. So people in India know about the EMP, and they told him most of Ontario was also affected, but mostly it’s just the United States. The good news about that is it encourages us to think it was a solar flare and not a terrorist’s weapon that started it all. A terrorist group did claim responsibility but apparently no one is taking them seriously.

  Anyways, initially there were a few pockets of America that were unscathed—northern coastal Washington, coastal Maine, and very southern Florida. But the subsequent failures of the infrastructure have now taken down their electricity, too.

  When I really think about the scope of the EMP, it seems too unbelievable to comprehend.

  But I’m excited we’ll be having Bible study here tonight! I can’t believe I actually let it slip my mind! We don’t go anywhere these days of course, and we see no one, so it feels like a really big treat. Plus, we haven’t been to church since the pulse. We could ride our horses to get there, but most people don’t have horses; Pastor lives ten miles from church and doesn’t own a horse, so there’s no point in going. I miss church. I miss all our friends. I miss worship. I love the way it feels when the band gets going and the whole congregation is standing and singing together. We have great worship leaders and talented musicians. I love singing my heart out to the Lord—even though I don’t have a great voice, granted.

  At least tonight we’ll see two families and best of all, I’ll get to see Blake. I hope I have time to heat water for a bath so I can wash my hair.

  I was lost in thoughts about seeing Blake when Dad suggested we do a little target practice. I really enjoy that but I realized mom would probably need my help upstairs to prepare for the evening. Every day has work above all the stuff we did in the past to keep the homestead going. Getting our cooking water, hauling wood to the stove, and so on. With company coming, I knew there’d be even more chores.

  As if she’d read my mind, her voice came from the stairwell at just that moment:

  “Lexie—you down there? I need you.”

  Upstairs, as Mom opened a storage bucket of rice and beans, I had another “unreal” moment, the kind where I grasp the implications of what our lives are now, and what they will be for a long time. They come in waves, these reality hits, striking at times such as when you don’t flush the toilet after using it because we only flush them once a night. (To conserve water; we save our water from doing dishes in a five-gallon bucket and haul it into the bathroom and use that to cause a gravity flush. Once a day is usually all we can do. Thankfully we have private septic lines that aren’t stopped up like municipal systems might be without electricity.)

  Other things jar me into awareness that normal life is gone, too: Flicking a light switch from habit and remembering it doesn’t work; feeling like it’s always a little darker in the house than it should be—and we have lots of oil lamps. But the brightness is still subdued compared to the usual white effervescence of electric lights. Or going to heat water for tea and remembering there’s no electric kettle—everything takes longer now.

  Each day brings fresh waves of what it means to live without electricity, and each new day I have to grasp again the ramifications of what life is, and what it’s become. It’s sort of scary, sort of depressing.

  I’m worried about Andrea and Sarah.

  EVENING

  When the Buchanans arrived, they gave us a much welcome jar of peaches, canned by Mrs. Buchanan the previous summer. We’ve got canned goods from farmer’s markets and other places where people sold their home-canned items, but Mrs. Buchanan’s peaches are the best! Anyways, I saw Blake getting his guitar out, so I went over to him.

  “Hey, Blake.”

  “Lexie.” He nodded, glancing at me briefly, reassuringly. He hadn’t smiled, but that’s Blake. He’s tall and slim and unassuming, and quiet more often than not. As usual, he seemed utterly intent on what he was doing, which, in this case was tuning his instrument. He strummed it softly, checking the strings for dissonance. I sometimes felt it was an intrusion into his world, if I spoke to him. But I needed to speak to him.

  “Did your mom tell you what I asked about getting to my friend’s house?”

  He nodded. “She did.”

  I was breathless. “Well? Do you think you can help me?” I knew it was a long-shot. Not only did the Buchanans need Blake around their own home but, for all his talents and smarts, Blake wasn’t an accomplished horseman. He didn’t love riding the way I did and he practiced much less often.

  He shook his head, and my hopes dropped. “Sorry.” He looked up. “I’d do it, if it was up to me. My dad says no. We can’t afford to have me going off where I might get hurt when the family’s survival depends somewhat on me.”

  A deep disappointment filled me. “What makes you think you’d get hurt?” I asked. He was just like my dad, worrying!

  He actually put his guitar down and gave me his full attention. He had very nice amber-brownish eyes. I felt a pleasant sensation run through me which I hoped did not show on my face.

  “People are unpredictable,” he said. “It might be okay, or we might run into a nut-case. We might run into someone so desperate that at the sight of our horses, they’d be willing to fight for one.” He paused. “I’m not exactly fast on horseback like you.”

  “You’d be fast enough,” I said.

  “Maybe. But maybe not in an encounter with a psycho. It’s a dangerous world out there.”

  The others started taking seats in the room so I knew we couldn’t talk more right then. But I gave Blake a disappointed look. “I hear your father talking, but I don’t hear Blake Buchanan talking.”

  I hoped I’d given him something to think about.

  After that, he played guitar while the rest of us sang. Mrs. Buchanan always brought handouts with hymns for the evening, and we used those. Suddenly, life felt sweet—almost like things were normal again. When the Wassermans arrived and joined us—there are five of them, Mr. and Mrs. W. and three kids—the room even began to feel as warm as it had when central heat still worked.

  Mr. Wasserman gave a sh
ort talk, reading some Scripture in lieu of a proper Bible study. It was the first time we’d all been together since the pulse, so it made sense that we’d be discussing what happened. He suggested the grid going down might be a judgment of God on our nation. He pointed out that the destruction of Jerusalem was judgment, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He talked about the millions and millions of aborted children, the breakdown of family values and morality, the attack on religion and traditional marriage. These things are sin according to Scripture, he said, and could have brought down judgment.

  I felt there was some merit in his argument, but I also had problems with it. Before I thought too much about it, I’d spoken up.

  “Our nation was also the fattest on the planet. So we’re guilty of gluttony too. Does that mean we’re being judged for it? How can you pick out certain sins and decide that God’s judgment is on account of them?” I turned red no sooner than I’d spoken. I didn’t usually challenge adults other than my parents, and wasn’t sure what had come over me to make me do it now.

  “I’m only speculating,” Mr. Wasserman admitted. “But Sodom and Gomorrah were judged for sexual sins, among others; and a biblical worldview includes the idea that catastrophic events that affect the health of a whole nation are usually the direct result of divine judgment—either that, or they’re the natural results of straying from God’s principles of living, which is an indirect judgment, a self-inflicted judgment. Some ungodly practices carry within themselves the seeds of destruction and hardship.”

  “What do you mean?” I figured he was talking about alcoholism or drug abuse. But Mr. Wasserman was still on the idea of sins of nations.

  “Well, take India,” he said. “There are millions of undernourished or even starving people in that country, while at the same time they don’t eat beef because they hold cows as sacred. I’m not saying beef is the answer for all food needs, but that’s one example of an ungodly practice causing unnecessary suffering. Cattle roam around untouched where hunger is rampant because India is by and large a pagan nation. If you look at history, wherever Christianity has spread, the people prosper. All of Europe and the Americas prospered under Christianity. Heck, the ability to read was only saved from extinction in Western civilization by monks in the Middle Ages. Christianity brings blessings. History proves it.”