Post Grid: An Arizona EMP Adventure

by Tony Martineau

  “So much for state-of-the-art security. Nothing works without electricity,” said Ryan. “Isn't there a waiting room that looks over the cafeteria courtyard?”

  “Yeah, but it's on the other side of surgery.”

  Smoke began filling the room, hanging stormily overhead. “The window,” Kelly said spotting the reception window. “Help me get that table.”

  Kelly threw the magazine rack and lamp from the end table, breaking the pottery lamp into pieces. Together, they hefted the table.

  “Man, it's heavy,” Kelly said, her face scarlet from the effort. Arms straining, they heaved it at the glass window. The window shook with the impact and the pair jumped back as the table flew back at them, crashing to the floor. They had only managed to crack the safety glass.

  Smoke now cascaded down from the ceiling vents. “It's probably being pushed through the air conditioning ducts,” Ryan said. “They're probably open to the crash site.”

  Kelly started to cough, subconsciously bringing her hands up to cover her mouth without relief. Crouching, she tried to get away from the volatile gases.

  “Help me!” Ryan yelled at her. “Grab the table again.”

  “Here.” Kelly picked up the broken pottery from the lamp and proceeded to bash at the window with it. Ryan followed suit. They managed to bash a hole the size of a trash can lid in the glass.

  “I'll go first,” said Ryan. He wrapped his arm in his scrub shirt and wiped the glass pieces off of the counter, then hoisted himself up through the hole.

  “Come on,” Ryan motioned to Kelly. “Be careful.”

  She placed her hands on the counter and pushed until she could get her knees up there too. If only I had made the hole a bit bigger, she thought as she squeezed through the hole and glass ripped through the skin of her upper arm. Balanced on her haunches, half in and half out of the window, she reached up a hand to inspect the sudden jolt of pain. Blood coated her hand.

  “You're bleeding,” Ryan said.

  “Leave it be, just go!” Kelly could feel a tightness in her chest, the tightness she always felt before it made its way up her throat and out onto her cheeks in the form of tears. She swallowed hard, then leaped from the counter, landing in a squat.

  As she crawled after Ryan, blood ran down one arm, both hands making sanguine handprints on the linoleum tiles. Her lanyard allowed her car key to scrape along the floor as she went. Crawling battered her knees, but it got her to their next destination: another door. They went out into the surgery's clinical hallway. Darkness crowded around them as the door to the reception area inched closed.

  Bruised and bloodied, Kelly groped along the baseboards until her eyes adjusted. She could see Ryan crawling ahead of her, and then a faint slit of light appeared low to the ground ahead of him.

  “There are no windows in the surgery suites. Is that sunlight?” Kelly asked.

  Suddenly her hand did not find baseboard to her left. Her fingers rammed into something; a rolling cart, she guessed. There were alcoves in the hallways for supply and linen carts, to keep them out of the way. She trailed her hand along the plastic cover, another six feet, then found the baseboard again.

  It wasn't long until she and Ryan were at the thin strip of light along the floor. Smoke was being sucked out under the door.

  Knees aching and her arm throbbing, Kelly reached up and pressed on the door's latching bar. It gave easily.

  “All of these doors let you out, just not in. This must be out,” Ryan said.

  “If this is another dead end, we might need to get back in here. Don't let it close,” Kelly directed. She emerged into a third-story hallway with floor-to-ceiling windows, now shattered. Pieces of glass littered the floor. The smoke was heavier outside the building than in, and curled in through the gaping holes in the glass. Day was rendered twilight.

  Kelly crossed the hallway, dropped to her knees in front of a hole in the glass, and peered down into the cafeteria courtyard. Air streamed in around her sweaty body, cooling her and offering renewed hope.

  She leaned out to inspect the structure below. Panic filled her again. More broken glass, Ugh!

  Kelly crawled back to where Ryan sat, holding the door open. “We can get out, but it's a long way down.”

  “What do we do?” asked Ryan.

  “I learned rappelling in the Navy.”

  “We don't have any rope. What about a fire hose?”

  “Not long enough, and I don't think I could keep a grip on that. Sheets!”

  Kelly pushed Ryan aside, scrambling back into the darkened hallway. “I'll be right back.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Right back,” Kelly repeated. “I'm getting sheets.”

  Ryan let out a sigh. “You have one minute!”

  Standing was out of the question; the smoke was too thick. Kelly bent at the waist, eyes watering with each step. The coughing became constant as she made her way back to the alcove. She unzipped and threw up the plastic cover. It held supplies. The one next to it held sheets, pillowcases, blankets and towels.

  How many? Not waiting to run a mathematical calculation in her head, she grabbed a tall stack of sheets that towered from her waist to her chin, and started in the direction of the outside hallway. Her air was running out. She bent forward as far as she could, still running. Some sheets from the top of her stack fell to the floor. She started to bend even further to pick them up. You can come back for them if you need them, a panicked voice said from inside her head. Get out!

  She pushed past Ryan, coughing and gagging. “We can't go back that way,” she said.

  Ryan pulled a sheet from her hands and stuffed it into the doorway, keeping the door from latching shut.

  “I like to keep my options open,” he said.

  Next thing she knew, they were both sitting in a pile of sheets in front of the broken glass, hands struggling to tie the large sheets end-to-end.

  “Too bulky, we need strips.”

  Ryan grasped a sewn hem and tried to rip it. Kelly watched him struggle, then had an idea. She made a quick scan of the hall, what she could see of it through the smoke, then looked down. Her car key hung around her neck. She flipped the metal emergency key up and out of its fob and raked it against the sewn hem. It took two or three passes, but finally, a slit was made.

  “How many strips do we need?” Kelly asked.

  “Let's see... six feet in sheet length times three—no, make it four sections—should be one story's worth of rope.”

  “We'll need extra for the knots and the tie-off.” Kelly notched the sheets and passed them to Ryan, who made short of work of tearing them.

  “Smoke's pouring out from the surgery door now.” Kelly told Ryan. “Faster, faster...” Her breath came in quick pants.

  “That's five sheets, we have twenty lengths,” Ryan announced, coughing.

  Kelly sorted through the stack to find the ends and then started tying the lengths end-to-end, with Zeppelin knots.

  Ryan watched. “How do you do that?”

  “B over Q, B over Q... That was how I was taught the Zeppelin.” The memory aid still produced a vivid picture in her head of how to tie the knot.

  “Here, watch.”

  It took Ryan quite awhile and a little practice to get the knot right, but he was finally able to help.

  “What did that take? Fifteen minutes? I hope this holds,” Kelly said, more to herself than to anyone else.

  The tall windows were about four feet across. They had a three-foot-tall pane at the bottom and an eight-foot-tall pane at the top. The two panes were divided by a midrail. Kelly picked a section where both the top and bottom panes had been shattered.

  Ryan kicked the remaining glass pieces from the frame, then tied the end of the rope to the window's midrail as close to the brick building as he could.

  “Try to keep at least one foot on the bricks. The windows below you probably aren't in any better shape than these,” Ryan said. “If they're cracked, they'll give way
when you touch them.”

  Kelly inspected the tie-off knot and gave it a few hearty tugs. No give—good. She positioned a sheet over the rail to try to protect her rope from the window's frame and glass shards. The ground was a long way down, but it looked like the rope fell to within a foot or two of the gravel. Kelly ripped two more four-inch strips from the remaining sheet and made a few loops around her hands to protect them from rope burn, then sidled up to the window.

  “Wow, except for training, I never rappelled once in the Navy. Thank God I learned.” Kelly said, glancing at Ryan and then looking down.

  “You have one on me,” said Ryan. I've never done it. Don't you need a fancy harness or something?”

  She stood, put the rope between her legs, brought it around her right hip, up and over her left shoulder, then back down so that her right hand could hold it snugly.

  “This this a Dulfersitz rappel; I learned it in my ROTC confidence course.”

  “You sure you've got this?” Ryan asked, as much fear in his eyes as she imagined she had in hers.

  “I've got it,” said Kelly. I've got this, I've got this, I've got this, she repeated over and over in her head. Tentatively, she put one leg out over the window rail. She snugged the rope against her body, then straddled the rail. For just a moment, she shut her eyes so tightly that her cheeks hurt.

  “Just walk down the building, walk slowly down the building,” she said to herself, out loud.

  Putting her second leg out, the bottom frame separated under her weight.

  Ryan grabbed her by her upper arm, the one that wasn't bleeding, and steadied her as she pivoted. He yanked her instinctively, digging his fingers into her flesh. “Whoa there,” he muttered.

  Thud, her chest and shoulder hit the rail. Momentarily stunned, she held onto the rope and waited for the swinging and pain to subside. At last her body was still, her nose nestled against the soft, white sheet. From this position it was difficult to maneuver, but after a minute or so she succeeded in getting her legs and torso into a ninety-degree angle. The descent was slow going. At any minute, she feared she could lose her footing again. If that happened, she would be torn to bits by jagged glass.

  Ryan peered down from above and called, “Slow, girl, take it nice and steady.” Kelly did not look up or down; she concentrated on her feet and kept walking. She controlled her rappelling sling by extending and retracting her right hand. This tightened and loosened the harness and allowed her to wriggle down the rope. The knots were stiff and occasionally caused pain when they scraped along her body.

  Suddenly Kelly's right hand lost hold of the rope; she had come to the rope's end and it had slipped through her grasp. A searing scream escaped her lips as she fell. The end of the last sheet struck her in the face as it passed by.

  A tremendous jolt went up through her legs and into her hips when she hit the ground, but she remained standing. She looked up. The fall had been about five feet.

  “You alright down there?” came Ryan's voice.

  “I think so. You next.”

  “Oh, no... I'm fifty pounds heavier than you and have never even touched a rope. I'll meet you at the stairs.”

  “You can't!” Kelly called up, but Ryan's face had already disappeared from the window.

  Kelly took off in a dead run for the cafeteria doors. They were unlocked; her first stroke of luck all day. It was only a minute or two more to the emergency department, then the stairwell. From the cafeteria doorway she could still see a few people rushing out of the building. The screaming and confusion had stopped; all that was left was the sound of coughing and shuffling footsteps. What was it, twenty, thirty, forty minutes after the crash? Kelly had lost all sense of time.

  “Come on! You alright?” One man put out his hands to help her into the hallway, but upon seeing the blood caked on her arm, just held the door for her.

  Kelly seized the man by both shoulders. “Help us, the stairwell is blocked. The whole south wing is trapped!” He looked at her quizzically, trying to comprehend what she was saying.

  A male nurse came toward them, pushing a gurney. Kelly grabbed the bed by the end, impeding its progress, and looked the nurse pushing it right in the eyes. “The south wing is trapped!” she said frantically, reading his name tag. Nathan, RN.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The stairs on the far south end are destroyed and the inner stairwell door is jammed. That way,” she said, pointing behind him.

  Both men, the door-holder and Nathan, followed Kelly down the hallway. As they got closer, banging emanated from behind the doors, but no voices could be discerned.

  “Couldn't anyone hear that?” Kelly asked in an irritated tone.

  “We've been a little busy down here,” Nathan answered.

  “We've gotta get 'em out. We'll need a ram of some kind,” Kelly announced. She pounded on the door with her fists and shouted, “We're coming, stand back, get back!” The impacts caused flashes of blinding pain to radiate through her tired arms and shoulders.

  “We'll use this gurney, maybe we can force it open,” said Nathan.

  “The banging's quit, they must have heard us,” Kelly said, looking at door-holder man.

  He took Kelly's bleeding arm and said, “I'm Dr. Cho. Let me have a look at that arm.”

  Kelly yanked her arm away from him. “Not now, later.” It was then she noticed his hospital name badge hanging from his belt. “I'm sorry, Doctor, but we need to get these people out first,” she said with a weak attempt at a smile.

  Nathan had positioned the cart about six feet from the door, then everyone gathered at the head end and gave a great shove.

  The plastic bumpers on the gurney shattered and fell into pieces on the floor. The fire door had a big dent and paint was scraped off where the gurney had made impact. The door had moved a mere inch, but it did move. Smoke briefly puffed through the opening, but was immediately drawn back. Air whistled as it was sucked up what was now a chimney.

  Kelly leaned toward the opening and shouted, “We're coming!”

  “Get back,” Nathan shouted at Kelly, motioning her away from the door frame.

  The men took another run at the door and it was displaced another inch. It took about six or seven rams; Kelly had lost count by the time it was open wide enough for her to get through.

  She squeezed in, then looked back and called, “We need a bigger opening, big enough for wheelchairs.” Then she disappeared into the smoky darkness. She turned the corner and was besieged by people.

  “We thought you'd been killed,” said Bridgette, yelling from half a flight up.

  “Long story.”

  “Very long by the look of it,” said Jim. She hadn't recognized the ICU nurse from before. He glanced down at her bloodied, battered form, hair falling from her once-neat bun. “We have crews ready to carry the invalids and they're all staged, ready to go, on the first floor.”

  Just then the door below them came loose. It slammed into the block wall, completely open.

  “Let's go!” said Kelly, tugging on Greg's shirt sleeve, but Greg turned and headed up the stairs, against the throng.

  “I'll keep things moving up there,” he said.

  Staff and patients flooded down the stairs, pushing Kelly along with them, flowing out into the emergency department and toward the sunlight of the doors that led out into the ambulance parking area.

  “Kelly! Kelly, over here.” Kelly heard the nursing supervisor calling and beckoning from the nurses' station. She made her way in that direction.

  “Are you alright? Your arm.”

  Kelly put her hands on her knees and bent forward, still breathing heavily. She coughed repeatedly and said, “It's okay, a flesh wound, I think. The bleeding has slowed, if not stopped.”

  “Can you run?”

  “Yes, I think so, why?” Kelly asked.

  “We need you to run to the fire department—I'm assuming you ran in the military. We need an army, and fast. We've gotta ge
t as many of these patients outta here as we can. The fire is taking the south wing and moving toward the north one.”

  Kelly looked up from her bent position, squinting against the sun, and asked, “What do you mean?”

  “All the phones are out, even cells. We can't find even one car or truck that will start. There hasn't been a single siren.”

  Terror struck at her heart. What did all of this mean? Who had done this?

  “If you think you can make it downtown on foot, the front hospital entrance is still clear, you can go that way.”

  Kelly didn't answer, but dashed down the hall past the ER medication room. An IV pole lay on the floor in a pool of shattered glass from the room's broken security window. Mike, an ER nurse she recognized, dodged out of her way at the last second, his vision impeded by the huge box of medicines that partially covered his face.

  “Bring what you can carry,” Mike urged.

  “I'm going to the fire department to get help,” Kelly shouted down the hallway after the swiftly-moving figure.

  Mike turned back and called, “Take stuff you think you might need. There are likely people who will need your help out there, and this place won't be here long.” He continued down the corridor, not waiting for a response or looking back.

  Mike's pry bar had left the medicine-dispensing machine unrecognizable. Its drawers hung open, displaying their contents. Kelly threw medications into a patient's belongings bag. She chose antibiotics, nausea medicines, painkillers and other emergency drugs. Bins of syringes and other supplies hung on the wall. Handfuls of each were collected. The stockroom was right next door, but not locked. Items deemed necessary were thrown into a plastic bag, including gauze, soap, and sutures. Finished, Kelly took off running toward the main entrance and her Jeep.

  Her desperate, uncoordinated hands dug at her lanyard and her car key. She pushed the fob. No beep.

  The Wrangler's door had to be opened with the metal key. The key turned in the ignition, but the engine refused to turn over. In fact, it was silent.