America Offline | Books 1 & 2 | The Day After Darkness

by Weber, William H.

  There was another benefit to the years he’d spent working in Rockford. Connections. You got to know the cops, other private investigators and, above all, some of the more unsavory elements of the city’s underworld. Folks who, as luck would have it, might be useful in helping them navigate the present situation.

  It wasn’t long before the snarl of wrecked and abandoned vehicles began to grow. And they weren’t only seeing sedans and small hatchbacks either. Range Rovers, Escalades and a few Jeeps were also on display, only partly obscured by the never-ending flurries.

  When they reached the intersection of Highway 20, the one that led to Interstate 90 and east to Chicago, it was abundantly clear most of the traffic had been heading in the other direction.

  “I’m sure Uncle Roger had a lot to say about cities during a grid-down situation.”

  “Sure, he said to avoid them like the plague.”

  Nate laughed, stuttering when the sharp intake of cold air bit his lungs. “What Roger might not have considered are the nuclear power plants ringing this area. There are nine of them to the south and another four to the north. We know Byron and at least a few others have gone into full meltdown. Right now, the exclusion zone around the plant back home is only fifteen miles, but if that gets pushed anywhere close to fifty, and if that same fate follows the over two dozen plants in this part of the country, it doesn’t leave folks with nearly as many places to go. Not to mention the forty-six other plants dotting the rest of America.”

  “So stay away from nuclear power plants,” Dakota said, summing up. “That’s the lesson.”

  “One of them,” he acknowledged. “Especially given they were the very things targeted by the twisted, evil group that started this.”

  Slowly, laboriously, they crossed the Rock River and hung a left at a machine tooling shop. This was the industrial part of town and Kishwaukee was the main artery through southern Rockford. Following it north would bring them to the city center and within striking distance of the hospital. Unlike in Byron, they soon encountered surprising signs of life—small groups of people, mostly in twos and threes, walking along the cluttered roadway, many of them carrying reusable grocery bags. They were dressed against the elements. Also, at least one member of every group carried a weapon, many of them sporting items. One guy had a bat, another what looked like a nine-iron golf club. Hockey sticks also seemed to be popular.

  “These people don’t seem all that worried,” Dakota said. “Looks to me like they’re heading to a communal sports event.”

  Nate made a mental note of the pistol in his waistband and how quickly he could draw it if need be. “Despite appearances, these people aren’t out for fun,” Nate told her. “They’re searching for food. Least, most of them are. Others might be taking advantage of the chaos to loot. Though it’s sometimes difficult to tell one group from another.”

  “The looters. Uncle Roger always said they would be the dangerous ones.”

  Nate agreed. “A starving man with a club won’t hesitate to kill you for a can of tuna.”

  “Or a dead rabbit,” she added, getting the point.

  A few stragglers stopped and watched them pass. Two people riding into town on a horse was probably not a sight many of them had seen before.

  The streets here were not nearly as tough to traverse as they had been back home. Population density, that was the difference. All of these folks stepping away from their homes to restock their shelves had helped cut a path along the sidewalks and roads. Nate suspected the further into town they drew, the easier the going would become.

  “They don’t know this area is within the exclusion zone, do they?” she asked, quietly.

  Nate shook his head. “I suspect not. Most here are still in the dark, confused. All they know is this mess has been going on for the better part of five days now without any sign of letting up. If they stay here, it won’t be long before strange things start happening to them. Things they don’t understand. Bouts of dizziness and disorientation, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting. By the time their hair starts falling out, well…” His voice trailed off, swept away by a strong gust of arctic wind.

  Two more hours passed. They were now approaching the center of town. Even so, this area was far more residential than what they’d encountered on the outskirts. The number of folks out and about had also gone up. There was even the occasional four-wheel-drive vehicle pushing through the deep accumulation. To the east came the rattle of distant gunfire. It wasn’t the first time they’d heard that distinct sound since crossing into town. Quite the opposite. The closer they drew to the city center, the more frequent it had become.

  Nate felt a surge of relief when he finally spotted the Javon Bea Hospital. The timing couldn’t have been better. The painful throb in Nate’s left knee was now coming in waves. Besides his own discomfort, Nate could almost hear Wayne’s belly grumbling for a bit of hay. But there was something else. Their arrival in the center of town also represented another important milestone since it meant they were out of the current exclusion zone.

  Another surprise greeted them as they approached the hospital—two, actually. The first was that some of the lights were still on. He knew the hospital had generators and a backup power system designed to deal with outages. The jury, however, was still out on how long that redundancy could last them.

  The other thing they discovered was far less welcome, although not the least bit surprising given surprise number one. When you were the only show in town with electricity, you were bound to become inordinately popular. The line of cold and desperate people waiting to get inside stretched back around the corner. There was hardly a chance everyone here was really sick or waiting to see relatives. Most were simply trying to beat the cold any way they could.

  A cordon of large men by the front door kept the masses at bay. Like bouncers they checked the crowd one at a time, peppering them with questions to weed out anyone who didn’t have a good enough reason to be here. The vast majority were turned away, an act which on the surface seemed heartless and in direct opposition to a hospital’s mandate until you considered that cramming lots of people together in one place only created a vector for disease. But the bar bouncer analogy only went so far, since the beefy guys blocking this entrance were also well armed.

  Nate dismounted and approached a big guy wearing a North Face jacket and a black sailor’s beanie.

  “My brother’s here,” he said, moving forward only to be straight-armed in the chest.

  “Line starts over there,” the guy told him, gruffly, jabbing a finger from his gloved hand toward the starting point.

  “Just check the list for me, would you?” Nate asked him. “His name is Evan Bauer. B-A-U…”

  “You want some brain damage to go along with that hearing problem?” the guy threatened, his black pinprick eyes lost in his massive face.

  “He was an engineer at the Byron nuclear plant,” Nate persisted. He hadn’t come all this way to be told no by some oaf. “He stayed after the core started melting down doing what he could to save your life and the life of everyone else in a fifty-mile radius. So the least you could do is check the damn list.”

  Those beady eyes wavered for a moment and then dropped to the clipboard in the man’s hands.

  “Bauer,” Nate repeated, spelling it out.

  “Yeah, fifth floor. Room 512,” he said, waving him in. “But no weapons inside.”

  He was talking about the AR slung over Nate’s shoulder. Nate went over to Dakota and handed it to her. A strong gust was kicking up again, making him feel terrible about leaving her out here. But if they couldn’t bring weapons inside, they sure as hell couldn’t bring horses.

  “It’s fine,” Dakota told him. “Go see your brother.”

  “If you bring Wayne around the corner, you might be able to cut the wind a little.”

  She snorted laughter. “Thanks, Dad. Just go, but do it fast before I freeze to death.”

  Nate turned and hurried inside.


  Chapter 34

  He climbed the stairs to the fifth floor and found a hive of activity. Nurses in blue and purple scrubs hurried from room to room. In spite of the hazy glow from a midday sun, the hallway was dim. The hospital was probably on their final reserves of backup power and had cut as many superfluous electronics as they could. Notepad and pen replaced computer files. Clipboards replaced tablets. Nate let out a deep breath and watched a plume of cold air fill the space before him. It seemed even the heat was off.

  Room 512 was easy enough to find. Nate was about to enter when a squat nurse popped out of nowhere, scowling up at him. “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t be here. This entire ward is for radiation patients only.” He glanced down, noticing her bulky frame was made even bigger by the lead apron she was wearing.

  Behind her, a figure that looked a lot like Evan lay in a bed protected by a see-through plastic tent. The sight left Nate with mixed feelings. On the one hand he felt an intense sense of relief and no small amount of joy at finally reconnecting with a loved one. But the deep sadness at seeing Evan in such a sorry state was almost just as strong.

  “I’m here to see my brother,” Nate said, pointing at the figure beneath the tent. “I was told he was in room 512.”

  The edges of the nurse’s mouth curled downward for a moment. “Evan Bauer’s your brother?”

  “Yes. He was working at the…”

  “We know, Mr., uh, Bauer―”

  “Call me Nate.”

  “Your brother’s in a medically induced coma. He was brought in two days ago suffering from broken bones and burns to ten percent of his body.”

  “Ten percent?” Nate repeated, horrified. For a reference point, he knew that the palm of a person’s hand represented one and a half percent of their entire skin surface. “Will he live?”

  The nurse’s hardened glare softened a touch. “We’re doing everything we can.”

  “I just need a minute with him,” Nate said, a pleading quality to his voice. “It may be the last chance I get.”

  The nurse swiveled her head before heading to a nearby hook on the wall and bringing over another lead vest. “You’ve got five minutes. Put this on and take an iodine pill if you have one.”

  It wasn’t the bubble of radiation outside she was worried about. He and Dakota had pushed past that particular threat. The danger here was new and unexpected. The victims from the Byron plant and the neighboring area lucky enough to be transported to hospital—they were the ones giving off the radiation here, his brother among them. Nate thanked the nurse, put the vest on and went to his brother’s side. He could see well enough from here it was in fact Evan, buried under a thick wadding of blankets. The left side of his face was red and covered in blisters. Large chunks of the hair above his ear in the same area were missing, as though he’d visited a barber holding a serious grudge. He looked like crap, there was no other way to put it, and Nate wondered what he would tell Evan’s wife Lauren when he saw her. Was it ever okay to lie in a situation like this? Tell her he hadn’t been able to find Evan and let the man die in peace? What remained clear was that his brother was in no shape to travel. He was breathing on his own, that was good. But the poor guy was about a hair’s breadth from folding his hand for good.

  Nate watched the steady rise and fall of his brother’s chest. “I’m not sure if you can hear me or not, bro. A part of me is surprised I made it this far myself. I went to the plant to look for you. A pair of trigger-happy guards shot up my truck and then told me you were already on your way here. In some ways you’re the lucky one. It’s frigid in here—no getting around that, I suppose—but out there things are so much worse.”

  The nurse popped her head back in and told him it was time.

  He mouthed that he was almost done. “Amy, Lauren and the boys were taken to a shelter not too far from here. Well, I suppose far’s a relative term. Not far used to mean driving there on a hot summer’s day. The way things are now, one mile feels like ten, maybe more. The point I’m trying to make is that none of that distance stuff matters. We’re gonna do what we can to stay close and check up on you as often as we can. Won’t be long before we take you out of this place once and for all. In the meantime, just stay strong, brother.” Nate reached under the plastic sheeting and squeezed Evan’s hand.

  “Mr. Bauer…”

  Standing, Nate crossed to the door and stopped for one last look, just in case it happened to be his last.

  •••

  Minutes later, he was outside, buffeted mercilessly by an arctic wind. The line was still as long as it had been before, maybe longer. Present too were the muscle-bound bouncer types, screening who could and could not enter the hospital grounds. Dakota, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. Logically, she might have sought out a place nearby to escape the blowing snow. The hospital had a small inner courtyard, which Nate checked and found empty. He passed the front entrance again and followed the line around another corner and didn’t find Dakota there either.

  Where the hell did you go?

  Amid his growing frustration, an array of possibilities occurred to him.

  Was she around a different corner? Could she have sought out an empty house nearby? Or had she simply decided to set off on her own?

  But here was the problem. None of those possibilities struck him as very likely. Here was a line of folks braving the cold for a chance to enter the hospital. So why would she flee from the elements or, worse, leave him behind?

  Luckily, he still had his go-bag.

  You might, but she has your AR, that little voice said.

  “Nate?” a hooded figure from the line yelled out. “That you? Hey, man, the heck are you doing here?” The guy pushed back his hood, revealing a head of thinning hair and a set of pearly white veneers.

  “Sanchez?” Nate replied, almost reflexively. Like Nate, Larry Sanchez was a former cop who had retired from the force in order to freelance. Mostly he did bodyguard work for rich kids and the occasional movie star. The man’s name-dropping skills were legendary. He was also funny as hell once you got past his not-so-subtle need for self-aggrandizement.

  Sanchez swung his head back, cackling with laughter. That was the other thing. The man had a sharp, distinctive laugh that always hung on the last note. Somewhere between a hyena and newborn baby. You hated the sound of it until you got to a point where you just couldn’t wait to hear it again. “Would you believe this? The whole state’s gone dark.”

  “The whole country, I’m afraid,” Nate corrected him.

  Sanchez recoiled and made the sign of the cross. He wasn’t religious, but that never stopped him. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  Nate shook his head, scanning the area at the same time.

  “Please tell me you aren’t on a job.”

  “You insane? I’m here to find my family.”

  “You sleep through the evacuation from Byron?”

  Nate nodded. “Something like that. Most of my family, however, was taken to a temporary shelter on Winsor Road.”

  “The Victory Sports Complex?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “That may be, but Byron ain’t the only town using us as a depot, amigo. Apparently, there’s been such a huge influx, the city’s running out of space to house everyone who’s showing up. As it was, Rockford was struggling to keep its own citizens from dying even before the charity cases started flooding in. And the cold ain’t the only thing bumping people off, if you know what I mean.” Sanchez didn’t need to wink, but he might as well have.

  Nate understood perfectly well. Small as it was, Rockford had something of a reputation for criminal activity. With the normal structures of authority crumbling around them, it was a wonder the city wasn’t in flames. Then Nate understood the reason. The cold. Stuff tended to rot a lot quicker the warmer things got. The same could also be said, for the rule of law.

  “Listen, have you seen a young girl on a horse?”

  “Sure have,” Sanchez sai
d without hesitation. “A chick on a horse ain’t something you come across every day.”

  For some reason, the word ‘chick’ struck Nate like a pinprick between his lower ribs. But why? Was he already thinking of her as something of a daughter? He remained stoic. “You see which way she went?”

  Sanchez motioned behind him. “I saw her come this way and head around the corner. She was talking to a couple guys by an SUV at some point. I assumed they were cops.”

  He must have noticed the flash of concern streak across Nate’s features. Sanchez stepped out of line and both men headed in that direction. They were nearly there when they spotted the horse emerge from around the corner, walking slowly and without purpose. When they reached the horse, Nate saw one of the stirrups was up near the saddle. Dakota, however, was nowhere to be seen. The PI part of his brain was kicking into high gear.

  It was starting to look as though someone had come along and abducted her.

  But why?

  They searched the area where she had likely been attacked, Nate’s heart pounding wildly in his chest. He was just as terrified by what they might find as by what they might not.

  The snow here was mostly undisturbed, save for a single spot where a mash-up of horses’ hooves and human footprints gave the impression of a dance party. Kicking a light dusting of snow aside, Nate spotted a few droplets of blood.

  “Last night we were camped out between Rockford and Byron when two men and a woman showed up. We thought they were friendly at first, but that was before I noticed the things they were saying weren’t adding up.”