Derrick’s voice had stopped somewhere down the hall, diverting into one of the offices along the way, where the boss seemed to be chewing someone out about “deadlines.” Good. Maybe he would forget about them long enough that they could finish cleaning and get out of there. Indeed, Melanie heard said office door close, the boss’s voice becoming muffled. Poor soul. Someone was really getting it now.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” Lizzy said. She was done under the table and folding up the stained paper tablecloths now. “There’s still time to get away without seeing his face again.”
But Melanie was trying to scrub away the dried residue of a sloppy casserole. “These people are such pigs,” she said. “How do you get this much of a dish onto the counter? Was it intentional?”
“Was it the ham and cheese casserole?” Lizzy asked. “The one Helen made. It was pretty good.”
“I can’t tell,” Melanie replied. “It dried like concrete, though.” She had to set down the rag and use the side of a metal fork to get some of it up. Even then, it was like chipping away old paint, and in the process, she left a small but notable scratch on the plastic countertop. Not that anyone would notice. She swept the crumbs into the bag, then turned to head back the other way.
When she did, she was startled by the person standing in the open doorway, totally silent and suddenly there. She hadn’t heard him approach. Nathan Platt, the boss’s son, was a gawky teen, awkward in his own body. He was wearing an oversized, faded t-shirt covered in comic book characters, and his pants were a bit too short, showing off his mismatched socks. His black hair mostly stuck straight up in a big, crooked poof, which accentuated a long, lean face, a somewhat prominent nose, and pointy chin.
Still, despite his awkward appearance, Nathan couldn’t have been more different from his father. At first, he was staring up at the streamers, which were dancing in the current from the air conditioner. However, he seemed to realize Melanie was looking at him after a couple of seconds, and he turned and gave her a big, earnest smile.
“I could…I could help clean, if you want,” he said.
“Are you actually offering to clean?” Lizzy said. “Do teens do that?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of boring out there,” he said. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
Melanie beckoned him, and he came trotting toward her. She held out the damp rag. “If you wouldn’t mind, finish wiping down the counter for me. I’m going to work on removing the streamers.”
He took the rag from her like she’d offered him a new toy for Christmas. “What do I do? Is there a trick to it?”
“No, just wipe in big circles until the whole counter is clean,” she said. “Can you do that?”
“Of course. Whatever you say.” He went to work, bent over the counter with a serious expression on his face. Again, Melanie marveled that this was Derrick’s kid.
She went to retrieve a small stepladder from the corner and used it to begin pulling the colored streamers down from the ceiling.
“So tell me, Nathan,” she said, as she reached up to grab the torn end of a loose green streamer. “Are you looking forward to Christmas?”
He paused in his work for a second, staring at the wall, and his serious expression seemed to dissolve into something sad. “I don’t know. I guess I should be. It’s a break from school, so that’s something.” And then he went back to his work.
“Does your family have plans?” Melanie asked. She wadded up the streamer and stuffed it into the bag. “A big dinner maybe?”
“Probably,” he said. “Or maybe just takeout of some kind, if any restaurants are open.” He glanced at her and attempted a smile. She could tell he was really struggling to make it stick.
For Melanie, it all hit a little close to home. Maybe home life wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. She tried to think of some other subject, anything to keep him engaged. Working in silence was uncomfortable. Lizzy was sweeping up crumbs from the table and filled in the conversation.
“What about Christmas presents?” she asked. “Every kid looks forward to presents. What are you hoping for? I don’t even know what fifteen-year-olds are into these days. Some app I’ve never heard of, probably, but you can’t put an app under the tree. Or maybe you can. I don’t know.”
“I don’t care about presents, really,” Nathan said, and Melanie noted he was slinging the rag just a little too hard onto the countertop. “I don’t want anything, to be honest. I mean, whatever…”
He bent over the sink, frowning deeply. An innocent attempt to engage him in conversation had clearly gone awry.
“Okay, I’ll be honest. I’m not looking forward to Christmas at all,” he said, as he resumed wiping a part of the counter that had already been thoroughly cleaned. “It’s going to be super uncomfortable. Mom and Dad got into a huge fight about some dumb thing Dad is doing, and everything is uncomfortable right now. I wish I had somewhere else to go over the break—school or camp or just about anywhere else.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Melanie said. “Do we need to…?” She was going to offer to change the subject, but she became aware then of the imposing form filling the doorway.
Somehow, Derrick Platt had managed to approach the end of the hallway without being heard, which was a rarity. He stood there now in his short-sleeved shirt and red tie, his thumbs hooked under his black leather belt. He was tall like his son, but that was where the similarities ended. With his jowly face, thick neck, and watery eyes, he looked a bit like a human-bulldog hybrid. A beer gut strained at the buttons of his shirt and hung over the top of a shiny brass belt buckle. His hair was slicked back with too much product, shiny and greasy in equal measure, which made his big ears seem even more prominent.
When he frowned, as he did now, creases ran from the corners of his mouth, framing his little bump of a chin. “Why don’t you ladies leave my boy alone and get back to work?” he said, in that rumbly voice of his.
“We never stopped working,” Lizzy pointed out. Melanie’s best friend was dwarfed beside the boss. Small, thin, with blondish hair tied back in a loose ponytail, she had a round face, bright blue eyes, and was prone to easy smiles. “Look at this.” She held up the big bag of trash in her right hand.
“I’m just helping out so the work will get done faster,” Nathan said. “Nobody forced me to do anything.”
“Yeah, well, this is not your job,” Derrick replied. “Why don’t you go back upstairs to my office and play a video game or something?”
“I played plenty of video games,” Nathan replied, bending over his work even more intensely. “I’ve got my phone with me, but it gets boring after a while just being up there by myself.”
“He’s not hurting anything,” Lizzy said.
“I didn’t say he was,” Derrick replied, “but I want him to stay out of the way. Nathan, get back upstairs. Now.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Why does it matter?” Nathan replied. “I’m not bothering anybody.”
“You’re bothering me. Get upstairs. Now!” Derrick barked the final word. It hit just the right note to make Melanie’s ears hurt.
Nathan screwed up his face in a hateful scowl and flung the dirty rag into the sink. “Fine, Dad. Whatever! I’m actually doing something productive, but I’ll just go back up there and sit and do nothing.”
The poor kid seemed on the verge of tears, but Derrick was unmoved. He stepped to one side and motioned his son through the door. Nathan, his lower lip jutting out so far he could have tripped on it, stormed across the room and passed through the door without looking at his father. When he was gone, Derrick stepped back into the doorway and shook his head, as if to say, Kids these days.
“Do me a favor and don’t humor him,” Derrick said to Melanie and Lizzy, giving them a stern gaze. “He knows he’s not supposed to be wandering around the building.”
“Whatever you say,” Melanie replied, then ripped down another streamer and jammed it into the bag. Just go a
way and let us finish up. Oh, how badly she wanted to say it, but she bit her tongue.
Get your copy of Emerging Chaos
Available September 8th, 2021
(Available for pre-order now)
www.GraceHamiltonBooks.com
BLURB
They must adapt in order to survive when the lights go out.
After leaving college, Elna Pasqualee is determined to bring her family’s California vineyard into the twenty-first century. She hopes her diligent efforts will finally earn her father’s respect and keep visitors safe and comfortable.
But all her hopes for the future are dashed with the EMP attack.
Broadcasts offer only a brief warning before missile strikes wipe out all power and communications across North America. The idyllic setting on the private island quickly sours as food and water to sustain the Pasqualees and their guests grow scarce and life becomes a fight for survival. A fight further complicated when they are cut off from the mainland – and an unexpected assailant threatens their lives.
Someone is stalking one of the guests, hiding out on the island and sabotaging Elna’s desperate efforts to sustain their source of fresh water. When her father goes missing and another guest is gravely injured, remaining on the island isn’t an option.
But even if they reach the mainland, there are no longer guarantees of safety in a world where science and reason have descended into post-apocalyptic anarchy.
And survival of the fittest reigns supreme.
Grab your copy of Escaping Conflict (Island Refuge EMP Book One) from
www.GraceHamiltonBooks.com
EXCERPT
Chapter One
Elna loved walking the orderly rows of their vineyard, where the trellis posts and tops of the wires seemed to stand at attention as she passed, like soldiers at inspection. There was a beautiful simplicity in it, though she knew there was a complex and exacting science behind the design—which made her love it all the more.
It was, in her opinion, the perfect time of day, with the sun burnishing the distant waves and casting long shadows over the island. It made the tasting room—a faux-rustic building, all aged oak and sturdy beams—seem almost to glow. The vineyard was on a slight slope, and as she worked the rows with her pruning shears, constantly kneeling, squatting, and standing, she felt the growing stiffness in her shoulders and legs.
As she often did when she worked alone, she had her earbuds in and was currently listening—well, half-listening—to a rather dull NPR interview on her phone. She preferred talk to music. It gave the restless part of her mind—the part that needed to think, consider, solve—something to focus on when she was doing repetitive tasks.
She had just rounded a bend and turned into the last row of vines when the interview abruptly cut off. After a moment of silence, there was a harsh squawk, and then a different voice cut in. Elna reached up to remove the earbuds, but just as her finger touched the wire, the new speaker’s words caught her attention.
“Breaking news. NORAD has issued a high priority warning confirming that missiles have been launched from multiple locations in the Korean peninsula, some of which are thought to be EMP missiles. According to the warning, EMP missiles work by detonating in the atmosphere. The intent is to disable electronics. The missiles were launched five minutes ago. Interceptor missiles have been launched in an attempt to minimize the attack, but this is”—the speaker’s voice cracked—”this is a massive attack involving dozens of missiles that could…potentially impact the whole of North America.”
Elna rose, the pruning shears slipping from her grasp. Was this some sort of War of the Worlds hoax? It had to be. How was such a strike even possible? Wouldn’t they have known about the threat long before the missiles were launched?
“It can’t be,” she muttered. But some deeper, more analytical part of her mind responded: Of course, it can.
“Anyone listening to this broadcast is advised to seek shelter immediately,” the voice continued. “We will provide more information as it becomes available. Again, we have confirmed an EMP missile strike targeting the U.S. from multiple positions in the Korean peninsula. If you are hearing this broadcast, take shelter immediately.”
Elna looked to the west. She had a clear view down a gradual slope toward the water’s edge. If the U.S. military was launching a counter-strike, would she see something? It was unlikely, but she scanned the cloudless sky for a few seconds anyway until the bright sun forced her to turn away. The voice in her ears was repeating the same message, so she pulled the earbuds out and tucked them into her shirt pocket.
What’s the speed of an intercontinental EMP missile anyway? she wondered, heart racing. How much time do we have?
Questions she intended to address, but first her father needed to know what was happening. Faintly, she heard voices coming from inside the building—a burst of laughter followed by the deep voice of her father. Elna hurried up the slope toward the back door. As she did, she put one of the earbuds back in. A different voice was sharing the same information, as if the first speaker had been overcome with emotion and had to step away.
As she passed beneath the awning at the back of the building and reached for the polished brass door handle, the endless voice in her ear offered a new vital bit of information.
“Estimated flight time for the first missiles is just over thirty minutes,” the speaker said. “Homeland Security is telling people to prepare for prolonged power outages and interruption of services.”
Elna repeated the information as she stepped inside the tasting room. “Estimated flight time,” she said, thinking out loud, “just over thirty minutes. But the news is probably a few minutes behind, and five minutes had already passed. How much time does that leave us?”
Her self-talk drew the attention of everyone in the room. The tasting room was a large open space dominated by an L-shaped bar of polished oak. A few decorative barrels were scattered about, but otherwise, the room was largely unadorned. At the moment, her father was behind the bar, frozen in mid-pour, with three guests sitting on stools before their wine glasses. George Pasqualee was wiry like his daughter, but he had a protruding gut—the consequence of a fondness for enjoying the family product. His face was craggy, had a perpetual reddish tinge, and he maintained a generous, well-groomed mustache. If not for the rather harsh glint in his eye, he would have seemed like a folksy fellow. At the moment, however, he was clearly annoyed at being interrupted by his daughter.
“Pardon us,” he said.
“Pop, turn on the news right now,” Elna said, trying to ignore Selene Bondere’s gaze. Elna had met each of the current guests already, and if there was one she’d taken a disliking to, it was Selene. “This is bad. Really bad.” She pointed at a small TV hanging in the corner behind the bar. “You have to hear it for yourselves.”
Selene glared at her like Elna’s inadvertent intrusion on her father’s wine tasting ritual was an attack. In her loose floral-print dress, her brand-new Birkenstocks, Selene was the quintessential New Age faux-hippie, a wannabe flower child who worked as a fortune teller. At least, that was Elna’s read of her. Her age was impossible to gauge. The combination of big cheeks with a lined forehead made her seem both childlike and weathered with age. She had big brown eyes, but crow’s feet sprang from the outer corners.
As always, the woman had her tiny white Bichon Frise dog tucked in the crook of her right arm. Selene’s profession alone went against everything Elna believed in, but under the “peace and love” vibe, there was a deep anxiety or unhappiness that showed in the tightness of her facial features.
“Right now?” her father said. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle—?”
“Yes, right now,” Elna said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re in the middle of doing. Everyone needs to hear this.”
Something in her voice must have gotten to him, because his annoyance melted into a gape-mouthed look of alarm. As he turned toward the television, Malin, another one of the gues
ts, pulled his phone out of the inner pocket of his suit jacket and held it up.
“My God,” he said. “Look at this! We’re dead meat.”
Malin Weber was the kind of guy who wore colorful t-shirts and cargo shorts with a suit jacket—a gold-ring-with-white-sneakers type. He turned in his seat and showed his phone to the man sitting next to him, his best man. Both of them were stuck on the island after oversleeping and missing their flight home, refugees from Malin’s bachelor party the day before.
“Garret, are you reading this?” he said.
Garret was a stockier fellow in a lime-green polo shirt. “Missiles from Korea?” Garret said, as if he’d never heard the words before. “Impacting all of North America? No way. Dude, it can’t be real.”
By then, her father had found a national news network, which was in the middle of broadcasting a CGI depiction of the missiles being launched from North Korea and crossing the Pacific. Dozens of missiles.
This is really happening, Elna told herself, waiting for the reality of it to sink in. This is happening right now!
“Pop, we have to round up the other guests,” she said.
As always, her first instinct was deal with the problem. Even if it hadn’t sunk in yet, her analytical mind was already looking for solutions. Her father read the captions on the muted television a moment longer before turning to his daughter and nodding.
“The other three are outside,” she told him. “They were strolling around the vineyard while I was pruning.”
“I’ll go and get them,” he said, stepping out from behind the bar. His voice was shaking. George Pasqualee’s voice never shook. “Everyone, please stay here.”
EMP Catastrophe | Book 3 | Erupting Chaos Page 25