Post Grid: An Arizona EMP Adventure

by Tony Martineau

  “We started later than I would have liked,” Dennis said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Jose replied.

  “We can't hike much more than an hour or two because of this heat. We'll wait out the worst of it, then get a couple more hours of hiking in this evening. The terrain is too treacherous to hike at night. We're not going to make Sunflower tonight.”

  No one looked pleased with this revelation.

  “Look at that,” Dennis said suddenly, waving his arm in a grand sweep across the horizon. God in all his glory, don't you think?” No one replied.

  ****

  The day's trek was rugged but uneventful, with no injuries. Hiking downhill was always hard in the Arizona desert, where pebbles and small rocks slid like marbles under your feet. The dust swirled up from the ground when feet made contact with it. The sun bore down.

  “Let's make camp here,” Dennis said. “It's getting too dark to see the map well. A few more hours should get us into the village; we can make it before lunch tomorrow.”

  “The moon is pretty bright, Dad. Don't you think we could make it in tonight?” Lynn asked.

  “We don't dare take the chance. I can't even imagine carrying someone down this mountainside, can you?”

  Lynn did not respond. She knew her father was right. They often did night searches during the summer to avoid the heat, but never on steep shale hillsides like this one.

  “Do you think we can see lights or fires in Sunflower from here?” Jess asked.

  “Not likely,” Jose responded. “We are still several ridges over.”

  “Let's eat some dinner and call it a night,” Dennis said.

  Camp was very uncomfortable. There wasn't a single place a body could stretch out and every bivvy, or one-man tent, was positioned at some sort of angle with feet pointing downhill. They didn't keep a fire going, but prepped some tinder and kindling, just in case. There was very little hope of attracting attention now; it was almost thirty-six hours post-event without seeing a plane.

  ****

  Mid-morning. the group found themselves turning south at the base of the mountain. They were leaving the parched, rocky hillsides, covered in nothing but sand, gravel, cactus and scrubby trees, to enter a rare oasis in the desert along Sycamore Creek.

  “Wow, flat ground again,” Lynn said.

  “Over there,” Jess said, pointing. “It's water in the creek, I can hear it!”

  The whole group moved quickly toward the stream bed. White-barked sycamore trees towered overhead, providing shade, and huge boulders lay strewn around like a giant's playthings. Everyone jettisoned their packs and took off their boots. Toes were dipped in the cool water. The stream was only nine or ten inches across here, but it was big enough even for Jess to get his feet in.

  “Why didn't we ever camp here?” Lynn asked Dennis. “It's beautiful.”

  “We didn't camp here before the freeway was improved in 2005 because this little canyon was teeming with people from the city on weekends. We didn't camp here after the freeway bypassed this stretch of road because the Forest Service blocked the road with a berm and a fence just north of the houses in Sunflower. They don't want people back in here anymore.”

  After fifteen minutes or so Jose said, “I think we should get moving. We don't know what the rest of the day will bring.”

  “I'm afraid you're right, my friend. Get your shoes on, kids.”

  A collective harrumph could be heard. Jess began drying his feet with a camp towel from his backpack, but Lynn sat swishing her feet in the water as if she hadn't heard her father.

  “Young lady,” Dennis said forcefully. “I don't like repeating myself.”

  Lynn dared not feign ignorance, as she was sitting not five feet from her father. She put on her boots.

  The team followed the dirt trail paralleling Sycamore Creek. After about a half hour, the team could see the huge Beeline Highway Bridge over the canyon in the distance. This section of highway was at least six or seven miles farther east than the section they were looking at yesterday from the mountain top. As they climbed out of the ravine, they emerged onto old, cracked blacktop.

  Jess saw first a mailbox and then a house a short distance off the road. “Look, we've made it!”

  “Yes,” Dennis replied, “but made it to where?”

  Chapter 3

  Kelly woke in her bed. She lived in a historic area in North Mesa called Lehi that bordered both the big city and the rural Indian reservation. It still retained its horsey past; horse fencing crisscrossed nearly every yard, and “horsekind” abounded.

  She heard nickering from her living room. Her mind wandered in and out of wakefulness, limbs still heavy with fatigue. The earthy smell of the corral drifted into her nose. Kelly loved her horses, Hokey and Pokey. Wait—they were in the living room of her tiny house.

  There it was again—the sound of a horse. Startled awake, her mind cleared and everything came back to her. The hospital had burned down with all those they couldn't get out still in it. The bedraggled nurse had picked her way home through the neighborhoods in a state of exhaustion, hunger and delirium. She avoided the looters she saw in strip malls and convenience stores. Ash fell from the sky. Neighborhoods had banded together into armed groups to protect their families and homes. They allowed her to pass through only after interrogation.

  Kelly had stumbled into her barn in the wee hours of morning, gathered her horses and their tack, and proceeded into the house. Fears raged in her head that they might be stolen during the night or be spooked and run off because of the smoke. She filled a couple of bowls, pitchers, and some large plastic tubs with the water remaining in her water heater, remembering that her bathtub drain leaked.

  I can't believe it. Yesterday I needed to find love, settle down, have some kids, but today the world is turned upside down. My goal for today is to live 'til tomorrow. My head aches—probably dehydration, the nurse in her thought.

  She didn't have time to waste reliving events from last night. Survival was at hand. By now people must be realizing, as she had, that no help was coming from the government, and that everyone's lives were in danger. The stupid ones would still be out looting televisions and computers.

  Kelly rose quickly and made her way to the kitchen. She unwrapped her arm wound and scrubbed it with dish soap and water. Not too bad, fairly clean. It has to be redressed well if it's going to withstand the long trail ride today.

  She walked to her desk in the living room and started a list of items needed to get her to her mom's house in Sunflower. Hokey walked up to her and nuzzled her neck.

  “I hope you are ready for the trip, girl,” Kelly said.

  “It's going to be forty-five miles of hot pavement and scruffy desert for us today.” Kelly took Hokey's halter and pulled her nose around, staring into her horse's eyes. She often spoke to her horses as if they understood her every word.

  Sunflower, where her mother lived, was an enclave of homes nestled in a canyon halfway between Phoenix, the metropolitan area that included Mesa, and Payson, ninety miles to the northeast. The horses could travel that distance in a day, but it would be a long, hard ride for them. If she had to travel off the main highway, it would be rough going and add to the distance. After reaching Fountain Hills, the rest of the trip to Sunflower would be rocky and mountainous. That would give her thirty-five miles of washes, brush and cactus to pick her way through. Water would be another issue. Kelly could think of only two sources of water between here and there. Her horses were lucky that it was September and not July, but a night's camp might still be in order.

  Hay was hauled into the house. My poor carpet. After caring for the horses, she started assembling the must-haves from her list. I wish I could take everything. There'll be nothing left to come back to. Either looters or fire will take it.

  It was time to go into Navy stealth mode and really pare down. After about two hours, everything was packed and she had dressed herself for the trip. The outfit consisted of a long-sleev
ed button-up shirt, a large bandana, blue jeans, a pair of leather batwing chaps, and well-worn cowboy boots. Next, Kelly donned a leather belt and holster holding her Ruger GP-100 .357 revolver. Her dad had given her the gun as a present just before she left for Navy nurse basic school. The reflection in the mirror was of a true cowgirl.

  “I wonder how Dad's doing… you don't think he would try to come down here, do you?” Kelly asked Hokey.

  Kelly's dad lived on a ranch in Utah. He and her mother had split amicably when she was ten. He went off and bought his ranch, but her mom had stayed in Arizona, where she had grown up. Kelly loved spending her summers with her dad. The weather was cooler in Utah, there were cattle to herd and you could grow more vegetables in the garden because they had ample rain and fertile soil. Maybe they weren't affected there. Even if they were, the ranches would be better off because it was more rural and they were pretty much self-sufficient. She hoped so, for her dad's sake.

  Kelly threw on her cowboy hat, saddled Hokey, a paint mare, and Pokey, a stallion quarter horse. She owned two saddles, but only one set of really nice saddle bags. Using her head, she fashioned two more sets of saddlebags out of laundry bags tied together with wide fabric straps. A bedroll was packed with extra clothing and a coat. One horse would be ridden until it showed signs of fatigue, then the other horse would take over. “A lighter load will lessen your burdens, my friends.”

  The last thing to be thrown in was a manila envelope with Kelly's bank records, birth certificate, retirement documents, nursing license, and the like.

  The three of them, Kelly and the two horses, walked down the street away from the fires, away from their old way of life in the rural Lehi neighborhood, toward the sparsely populated Indian reservation and ultimately, to open road. Kelly called out to Mrs. Horne, her next-door neighbor, “Take what you want out of the house.”

  “Where you going?” Mrs. Horne called.

  “My mom's,” Kelly called back, without as much as a cursory backward glance.

  The desert heat rose from the ground in waves; the pavement looked more like a river than a road. Kelly sighed and tipped her hat lower over her eyes. The horses must have been hot too, but they were a steady team. Relaxation came over her body for the first time this morning as she listened to the steady clip-clop of hooves on the road.

  The horses were excited at first to be traveling, but soon settled into a consistent pace, gazes toward the ground. It didn't take long for sweat to bead around Kelly's sunglasses and hatband.

  She took Gilbert Road north out of Lehi toward Fountain Hills. Suburbia gave way to the rolling hills of open desert, tall saguaro cactus and low, scruffy trees growing in miles and miles of finely ground stone. All of this existed within sight of mighty mountain ranges to the north and east.

  They covered eight miles easily in the first two hours. It seemed that Kelly was the only one leaving Phoenix. City folks wouldn't voluntarily head off into the desert without transportation; to do so would be suicide.

  There was the occasional person walking into town on the desolate highway, or someone resting at the side of the road. Kelly was an impressive sight, sitting tall on her horse with firearm visible, but she remained wary and approached everyone cautiously. Each begged water. They didn't seem to know what had happened. She assured them that they should keep walking in the direction of the big cities, and that help would be coming. She wasn't so sure about this last statement—after what she had seen last night, town looked dangerous—but she didn't have any other advice.

  Water containers could be refilled at the Verde River, so she portioned out water to each one if they had a container, or let them drink from her “guest cup.” The plan was to reserve the last gallon for herself. These folks were thankful. Kelly wondered how it would be as people became more desperate.

  The horses and rider were making the right turn onto the Beeline Highway when they saw an old truck driving east, away from town. She had seen other old cars running in town last night as well. The truck was packed tightly and covered with an old blue tarp. Mom, Dad and kids rode in the cab. It swerved in and out of the parked cars on the highway. Odd. How did they make it run when so many others vehicles didn't?

  Now, more than twenty-four hours after the disaster, non-working cars sat abandoned. They offered no shelter from the heat and couldn't supply any water. Kelly wondered where the very old and very young were. Surely there had been old folks and families coming into town from the mountain towns in the North. Maybe they had stopped in Fountain Hills to beg shelter instead of trying to make it another ten miles into Mesa. Maybe they just traveled more slowly and she would see them on the road later. She hoped not.

  Not one airplane had crossed the sky since the disaster. Even after the nine-eleven attacks, fighter jets had crisscrossed the valley. Kelly sat perched atop Hokey, deep in thought. If this was an electromagnetic pulse, were the military jets not hardened against such attacks? Were their pilots unable to get to the base? Maybe the ground electronics were out. What would they do up there flying about anyway? Her body swayed gently back and forth as the horses' hooves clopped on the pavement. Since she couldn't answer any of her own questions, the trip ahead of her filled her thoughts.

  Arizona desert was hot, rocky and unforgiving. In the summertime, monsoon rains cut deep furrows in the ruddy-brown landscape when torrents of water cascaded down the nonporous mountainsides. All of that water ran off quickly, leaving the riverbeds dry most of the year. Small trees, shrubs, and cacti clung to life, hoping their roots would find an indentation in the rocky soil that would collect the precious few inches of rain that fell on the Sonoran Desert each year. Kelly knew that she could not give out drinking water on the longest part of her trip, from the Verde River to Sunflower.

  Kelly spotted someone ahead sitting off to the side of the road. Every encounter now was a cause for concern. As she got closer, she saw that it was a man in a sheriff's uniform sitting against a tree. As she drew closer still, she saw an AR-15 resting against his right shoulder. Crimson stained his left shoulder and chest. Kelly drew her pistol and scanned the surrounding desert in case whoever had done this was still in the area. When she came right up on him, she could see that the stain covered a corner of the name embroidered on his shirt: Malloy. The blood was dry. His chest rose and fell rhythmically. He was still alive.

  Kelly knew by the sheriff's uniform that he was a deputy from Fountain Hills, a few miles to the north. The town contracted with the Sheriff’s Office for police protection.

  Kelly's brain immediately shifted to her moral upbringing and military training—no man left behind—but this officer wasn't in the military, was he? She worked side by side with law enforcement now and considered them part of the “brotherhood.” He would do the same for her. She must help him, even to her own peril. The others had a chance, but someone wounded like this...

  “Officer,” Kelly said more loudly than she had intended. It sounded almost hostile.

  The deputy opened his eyes, squinting against the bright sunlight behind her, and made an effort to get to his gun.

  “Don't,” said Kelly, nodding her head toward his weapon. “I'm here to help.”

  The officer let his body slump back onto the tree trunk.

  “Yes, ma'am, doesn't look like I've got much of a choice,” the officer said weakly. “I must have fallen asleep. I stayed awake as long as I could. The arm's not working too well. I took a round in the shoulder a few hours back and it's got me slowed down. Hell, nothing's working.” He slumped further in resignation.

  “What's your name?” She knew the name, but thought this might be a good test. She had woken him from a dead sleep; if he had stolen the uniform, he might make a mistake.

  “The name is Jared, Jared Malloy.”

  Kelly knew Jared had little choice but to assume that she meant him no harm. He was in no shape to fight her off. She slung her leg over Hokey's back and lowered herself to the pavement. Another thorough scan of the
desert, up and down the highway, yielded no evidence of bandits. From what she could see, the coast was clear, so she stepped onto the shoulder of the road. Holstering her gun, she bent down next to the injured man, gravel grinding under her cowboy boots.

  “I'm a nurse. Let me take a look.”

  Again, Jared didn't object. Kelly lowered the AR-15 from his good shoulder to the ground and removed his pistol from its holster, placing it out of his reach. Jared visibly stiffened.

  “Don't worry, I'll give 'em back. Does it hurt much?” she asked. The words seemed to calm him.

  The bullet wound was higher and farther to the left than she expected, and older too. The wound was fully clotted. He had lost a fair amount of blood, but after giving him a quick once-over, his heart, major vessels, and lung seemed to be spared.

  “How'd you get shot?”

  “Some punk kid was trying to take a microwave from a convenience store. Guess he thought I was going to try to stop him, or something. As bad as things are right now, that was the last thought on my mind. I was only out protecting innocents, but now my protecting and serving is over. I'm heading toward the hospital in Mesa.”

  “I'd be looking for a plan B if I were you. The hospital you were heading to is just a pile of ash now. Everyone else in town is out of water, electricity and patience. It looked really bad, and I left only twenty hours after the blackout.”

  “How bad? What's going on?”

  “All of the power is out, even cars, radios, phones, you name it.”

  “I thought the power would come back on.”

  “Well, it didn't. Just about every transformer in town was in flames when I left, so it won't be up anytime soon. Right now I have to take care of you,” Kelly said, all business. She took off the officer's heavy bulletproof vest and removed his shirt, starting with his good arm first. Where the shirt touched his skin, it was soaked in sweat. The bullet had caused a clean entrance wound without an exit wound. Kelly took care not to touch open skin.