The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  I wasn’t sure if she’d called me an adult on purpose; or if she was just trying to contrast my age with the children; but I felt she’d given me a compliment. Even though I’d messed up, Mrs. Martin considered me an adult! Nevertheless, I needed to find my brother. It was my fault he was out there.

  “Mrs. Martin, please! I need to!” She stared at me a moment and then went back in the room and got me a rifle.

  “OK. You check downstairs and I’ll do the up. He’s probably scared as all get-out—”

  “Check under the beds!” I remembered how he and Quentin had stayed under our bunk bed last week during that attack. At the top of the stairs before we parted she stopped, meeting my eyes. “Andrea?”

  I waited.

  “Be careful.”

  “I will. You, too.”

  I double-checked my firearm to make sure it was loaded and cocked. Holding it carefully, I rounded corners like James Bond, reminding myself that this was no game, no joke, and not a drill. We did hold drills now and then; one of our families had a man who taught home defensive strategies. I’d learned how to enter a room that might be occupied; how to shoot in a dwelling to cause the least amount of collateral damage; how to use what I knew about the house against an intruder who would not be familiar with it. I put it all to use as I checked first one room and then another, lightly calling my brother’s name.

  “It’s okay, you can come out,” I crooned. “I have your Luke Skywalker!” Or, “Luke wants you! He’s lonely!” Still no sign of my brother. As I passed other members of our compound watching at windows, I asked if they’d seen Aiden. No one had. I checked the small hallway where I’d left him again—just in case he’d returned. It was empty.

  Then I heard him. “I want my Luuuuuuuuke!”

  His voice was coming from outside! I rushed towards the back door—I had to go get him! But someone almost knocked me over, trying to get there first. It was Lexie.

  “Don’t open it!” she cried, throwing herself against the door. “They’ve got Aiden! We saw it from upstairs! They’re using him as a hostage!”

  “So let me out there! I can get him!”

  “You can’t! You can’t, Andrea!”

  I stared at Lexie unbelievingly. How could she act this way? I needed to help my brother!

  “Wait for my dad!” she said. “We’re not allowed to negotiate!”

  “I don’t want to negotiate!” I replied, gritting my teeth. “I want to kill those—”

  “I know,” she said. “But there’s more than one. Just wait for my dad. See what he says to do.”

  I ran to the nearest window, frantically trying to lay my eyes on my brother. And then I saw him. He was kicking and thrashing, just like he’d done for me, but in the arms of a big man who was carefully keeping him right in front of him with one arm, holding a gun in his other. A second man was with them. Mrs. Martin and Blake had come down and joined Lexie near the door. I saw them from the corner of my eye, but my attention was glued to the scene in the yard.

  “Like I said,” the man called. “Bring us some food and nobody gets hurt!’

  Aiden, crying, tried to struggle free and the man doubled his hold on him.

  When no answer came from the house, the second man put a handgun to Aiden’s little head. “We’ll count to 50! Bring something out or say goodbye to this child.”

  A shiver of horror ran through me. I was literally seeing red. They were threatening to kill my brother! And it was my fault! And now, if we had to give them supplies, we were going to lose a whole lot more than a single chicken. All on account of me.

  I stared at the door where Lexie stood guard. I wanted to know what exactly they wanted in exchange for my brother.

  “You can’t go out there,” Mrs. Martin said.

  “Let my dad and the others decide what to do,” said Lexie, again.

  “It’s my fault he’s out there!”

  Blake, watching at a different window, said, “Lower your voices; they heard you.”

  I ran to Blake’s window, and saw they’d come a bit closer to the back door.

  “We know you’re in there!” one hollered. “You want this boy alive? We want meat!”

  “Okay! Hold on!” I shouted. Mr. Martin rounded the wall and came at us, his gaze filled with concern.

  “Andrea. Are you negotiating with them? You signed an agreement, just like everyone who joins this compound, not to negotiate with marauders!”

  “They’ve got my brother!” My voice broke.

  He nodded. “I’m aware of that. And we are working on this. We will figure out how to handle this. But you don’t have the right or the authority to promise those men anything.”

  “Figure out how to handle this? Mr. Martin! You don’t know what to do, either! But you can’t sacrifice my brother!”

  He gave me a level stare. “I have no intention of doing that.” He paused. “We have sharp-shooters getting into position as we speak.”

  I gasped. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  “Let me shoot! You know I’m a good shot!’

  He grimaced. “You are; but this is your brother’s life at stake and it’s going to feel different. Emotions have a way of tripping us up. Why do you think doctors don’t operate on their own family? No, you’d better let the others handle this. I’ve got Marcus and Bryce upstairs right now.” Marcus and Bryce were older men, brothers. They’d lived together before the pulse, before coming to the compound. Bryce, I knew, had issues--

  “But if they miss—” I didn’t finish the sentence. In a blink I knew what I had to do. I would run upstairs to a back window and take out that man holding my brother! Mr. Martin read my mind and before I could dart past him, he stopped me and took my rifle. I gave him an agonized look, but there was no time to argue. I still had my .380. I turned and started running towards the main living area and the stairway.

  “Andrea Patterson! You get right back here!” Mr. Martin could sound formidable when he was mad but I kept right on running. I figured if it was HIS baby brother, he wouldn’t have stopped, either! I took the steps in twos. Those men had said they were gonna count to fifty. I prayed that hunger and desperation would be enough to make them wait longer.

  I went into a guest bedroom, a room that overlooked the back of the house and found Bryce and Marcus, each at the side of a window, furtively peeking out.

  Bryce had been a soldier in the Gulf War. Since his return, he’d had a tremendously hard time living with himself for accidentally killing two civilians during a skirmish. He hated having to shoot at people. I didn’t trust him to do what it took to get my baby brother back.

  I approached the windows. We had a clean view up here, unlike the boarded slits downstairs—which would give me a clean shot.

  “What’re you doing?” Marcus asked, as I knelt down to take a peek outside.

  “No funny business!” one of the men below shouted.

  I raised my gun, but Marcus put his hand on it, forcing it down.

  “You’re the kid who can shoot, huh? Well, so can we. Leave this to us.”

  “That’s my baby brother out there!” Behind me I heard people entering the room.

  “I’m sorry, gentleman—” It was Mr. Martin’s voice; “I tried to stop her; It seems Miss Patterson is just filled with bad ideas, today.”

  I bit my lip. But it didn’t matter. The man holding my brother was tall. I could hit him right in the forehead, I was sure of it—if I had a rifle.

  “Look, Mr. Martin. If you give me my rifle, I can get the tall guy holding my brother. One of these guys can get the other one.”

  He shook his head in the negative.

  “Let me do this, please!”

  “Andrea, if you miss, if you hit your brother, or if one of them does, you will have to live with that for the rest of your life! I can’t let you put yourself in that position!”

  “I’m already to blame! I already have to live with this! Let me make it right!”

  “She
’s to blame?” Bryce murmured. “Did she bring ‘em here?”

  He stared at me differently, but I’d noticed he wasn’t holding his gun tight; With a sudden thought, I grabbed his rifle—and, miraculously, he just let me!

  No one seemed to expect me to successfully get the firearm because it was like slow motion: Mr. Martin’s voice, calling, “Andrea! Don’t you shoot!” as though from a great distance, another world. Ignoring him, I lifted the firearm, got my sight through the laser scope, fixing it right on the guy’s head. Mr. Martin rushed forward, and just about reached me! But he saw it was too late and held back, not wanting to mess up my shot. If I missed and hit Aiden, it would be only my fault.

  Bryce was far stronger than I was; I shouldn’t have been able to take his gun. But I believe he didn’t have a heart to shoot—for any reason.

  I suffered from no such qualm.

  I took my shot. The man holding Aiden fell backwards instantly, taking my brother with him.

  Chapter 24

  SARAH

  I held my breath after Richard climbed in the window and disappeared into the dark recesses of the house. I listened with my whole being, expecting any second to hear a crash or a gunshot. I was already planning my escape route, which way I’d run from the yard. I would keep running too, until I reached that camp with food. But in a few minutes I heard Richard’s voice from inside, coming towards me.

  “It’s okay. It’s empty.” In a moment I heard the back door being unlocked and then Richard was there looking at me brightly, holding the door open.

  “Hurry up,” he said. “Get in!” Once inside, he closed and locked the door behind me. He was almost smiling, now. “Do you believe this?” he asked.

  The place looked like a normal house, like a house before the EMP made everyone go crazy and destroy everything. I found my flashlight and started looking around. Martha had given us two extra batteries—I could afford to use it.

  “All the front rooms are a mess, as if looters had been here; but look at this kitchen! This and over here.” He led me to a small sitting room which was neat and inviting. “Whoever lived here either cleaned up some of the rooms—or messed up some for appearances.”

  “The new ‘keeping up with the Joneses’” I quipped. “How to make your house look ransacked!”

  “Save the light,” Richard said. “Your eyes will adjust in a minute.”

  I shut off the flashlight and we returned to the kitchen. I swept the light over the counters—and cringed. “They’re dirty!”

  “That’s droppings! There are mice. Let me set our traps—we have bait from what Tom and Martha gave us.”

  Richard sounded excited but this news did not thrill me. On an impulse I opened a cabinet door, expecting to find nothing. Everyone used up their food after the pulse—they had to. But when I opened it, what I saw blew my mind.

  “Richard, look!” He came over and we stared in disbelief. It was food. Real, honest to goodness food. Two boxes of cereal, sugar, flour, cookies, and lots of canned goods—Richard tore open a bag of cookies and gave me a handful.

  “Maybe I won’t set those traps.” He paused. “Don’t eat anything that isn’t fully sealed.” As we bit into the cookies, I stared at them as though they might disappear. The taste was unimaginably good. Chocolate chip. At Martha and Tom’s we’d had oatmeal-raisin cookies and they’d tasted wonderful—all food tasted wonderful—but these tasted sublime.

  Richard, his mouth full and working, began opening the rest of the cabinets. A few of them had more food. It was as if the people who lived here had never suffered the pulse. Only they had to have gone through it, just like the rest of us. How they still had all this normal food, we didn’t know. And how we ended up here, when Richard might have tried to knock at a thousand similar doors, was an absolute miracle. I silently gave thanks to God. He was sustaining us, one way or another.

  “Don’t eat too much,” Richard warned. I was taking handfuls of boxed granola and eating it as quickly as I could. I kept feeling like I had to prove it was real; as though it could be taken from me at any second. Just as I’d felt at the Steadmans’ house, the sensation of chewing something so tasty and crunchy and processed—was heavenly.

  “I can’t stop!” I gasped.

  Richard reached out and grabbed my arm. I thought he was trying to stop me in order to prevent me from getting sick, but he said, “Shh! Listen!”

  We heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. We stared at each other.

  “C’mon,” he said. We moved to the front of the house, holding back from the windows enough not to be seen, but so we could see the street.” He whispered. “Stay down!”

  In the dim moonlight, approaching headlights cut swaths into the darkness, but as it lumbered past, we could make out the outlines of an army truck. The open bed in the back held cargo—or people—we couldn’t be sure.

  After it had gone by, I looked at my brother. “Was that people in the back?”

  “Not sure. I think so.”

  “I bet they’re rescuing people and taking them to the camp!”

  “Rescuing—or rounding up.” He looked around. “Whoever lived here didn’t need to be rescued—not yet. But they’re gone. And not looted. Why not?”

  We returned to the kitchen but by this time my stomach was protesting the onslaught of food I’d given it. “I don’t feel good.”

  “You ate too much. Go lie down.”

  I drank the last of the bottled water Martha had given me and went to lay on the sofa. I fell asleep almost instantly. I slept like Jesse used to after finishing a full bottle of formula.

  When I woke up, the light in the room was different. For a moment I couldn’t place where I was and I sat up, blinking, and looked around. Oh.

  Richard was on a recliner, stretched out asleep, a blanket across him. I remembered we had food and I tiptoed to the kitchen, my heart soaring just because there was something to eat. A mouse scurried away. I watched it, feeling like a different person. Because the old Sarah would surely have shrieked to find a mouse in the kitchen. But I just watched it go, my only resentment being it might get into food we could otherwise eat.

  I grabbed the granola but remembered my stomach and put it back. I started searching the cabinets for something that might be easier on my tummy.

  I saw a lot of instant oatmeal. If only there was water...but it would have to be heated. “There’s water in the lower cabinets,” came Richard’s voice.

  “But we can’t heat it, right?” I asked.

  “No. If we light a fire it could be spotted. We need to stay beneath the radar.” We settled upon the granola but I ate slowly, chewing each mouthful fully. It still tasted wonderful.

  We discussed the mystery of why anyone would leave this house while there was still food. “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Everyone would have eaten up their supplies or been looted by now.”

  “I think these people went to the camp; I think the army or the government or whoever they are is patrolling this area heavily and they took everyone to the camp.”

  “But why would they go if they didn’t have to?”

  “Because if they didn’t go along with it like everyone else, then people would know they still had food.” He was chewing, and swallowed. “I think they figured they could come back. They went because they had to, but figured on coming back.”

  “So why didn’t they?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew the answer: I knew it before Richard said it.

  “Because they can’t. The camps are prisons.”

  I didn’t want to believe that but this house seemed to be proof. There was no other reason why anyone in their right mind would abandon so much food. We explored the rest of the house. The basement, like the front rooms, was a mess. There were two oblong windows, each with one board across them but with room to see inside. We now figured the mess was part of the facade, the front, to make people think everything valuable would be gone by now. They’d done a thorough job of
that, with empty paint cans, rags, clothing, and all kinds of garbage strewn all over the floor.

  There was a big pile of stuff against a small door in one corner; light stuff, dirty clothing and rags. Richard pushed it aside and tugged open the door. It seemed like some kind of dark closet, windowless. He shone our flashlight and we saw a metal shelving unit—stacked with white buckets. He drew in a sharp breath.

  “These are food storage buckets! They’re like ones we used when I worked at the bakery!” We walked in and saw the room had similar shelving on three sides—and all contained rows of similar white buckets or canned goods. “Eureka!” said Richard.

  Smiling, I cried, “Look! They’re labeled! This says, Rice, beans, tortilla chips and salsa! I can’t believe it!” Richard and I looked at each other in amazement.

  “I think I should have said, ‘Open Sesame! I feel like Aladdin!” Richard said. One unit held stacks of odd-shaped containers. “Water bricks,” Richard said. “Amazing.” Another unit was two-thirds empty, which we figured was the food they’d eaten before getting conscripted to the camp.

  “This proves it,” Richard said, turning to me. “Whoever lived here was ready for a long-term disaster. If they left, it was because they had to.” We found books that added weight to this theory, because they were all about surviving disasters, storing food, preparing for Armageddon, and so on.

  “But why wouldn’t the government let people who can live on their own, do so? By taking them prisoner, they have to feed them.”

  “It’s control, Sarah. In school, I was researching World War One for a history class. I found a newspaper article where two people were condemned to death—for hoarding food.”

  “Condemned to death?” I couldn’t hide my shock. “What country did that happen in?”

  Richard turned to me with a sardonic expression. “It was right here, in the USA.”

  “I can’t believe that. America is a free country.”

  “There was a food shortage due to the war. Hoarding was declared illegal. But I agree with you—I couldn’t believe they made that a crime.” He paused, his eyes running over the round, white buckets of neatly labeled supplies. “What that farmer said is true. Government can be your worst enemy. They use a crisis to declare martial law and they decide that what’s yours is theirs.” He turned to me. “These people were not planning on leaving—at least, not on staying gone. They’ve got enough food down here....” He looked around, assessing the supplies. “Heck, we could probably live off this stuff for more than a year.”