by Godsby Jim
“Sorry,” he said. “Pips.”
“Tell your men to put down my plum tomatoes and get the hell out of my shop,” said Frank.
Beele placed his hands on his lap.
“Needs must,” he said.
“This will all pass in a few days,” Frank said. “And you’re gonna leave me high and dry without any stock.”
Beele glared at the shop owner.
“America is never going to recover. Don’t you understand what has happened? This isn’t someone forgetting to pay the power bill. A god damn EMP has crippled the mainland. The American dream is a nightmare now, buddy.”
Frank’s face screwed into a mask of anger and he started to move closer to Beele. Before he could take a step, the army commander pulled a handgun from a holster at his side and shot the shop owner through his skull. Frank Tealman was dead by the time he hit the floor. A wisp of smoke drifted from Beetle’s gun, and then the streets were silent. Even the soldiers had stopped in their tracks.
“Back to work everyone,” said Beele, and dropped down from the bonnet.
In just over an hour the soldiers emptied each shop of everything worth taking. They loaded their truck with tinned foods and water bottles. They siphoned the fuel from nearby cars and then raided the gun store on the corner. Satisfied, Beele ordered them to get back to their vehicles and leave in formation. Within twenty minutes, the soldiers were gone. They were like a plague of locusts who had buzzed through town, stripped it bare and then left.
Ash helped Tony to his feet and supported him as they walked into the centre of the town. Chad followed with tentative steps. As they reached the Pasture Down folk, Ash realised that there were fewer of them now than there had been in the town hall. Perhaps some had skipped town.
Kenny was the first to see Ash. He broke away from the crowd and met him in the middle of the road. A few minutes earlier the soldiers had kept him in line. Now that they were gone, it looked like his confidence had returned.
“Look who’s back. And I see you’ve got a friend.”
“The plant’s in meltdown,” said Ash. “We need to leave. I don’t even know how long it takes for radiation to be carried by the wind. Where’s Grebe?”
Kenny shook his head. “No idea, and it’s none of your business anyway. “ He gestured toward Chad. “Who’s this guy? You made friends with the soldiers? Don’t you know that they just cleaned us out?”
“He’s okay,” said Ash. “He helped us get here.”
Kenny turned and looked at the crowd of Pasture folk. He looked like a shepherd addressing his flock. The crowd waited for him to talk, seeming to hang on his words. In times like this, people needed to be told what to do and how to think, and Kenny loved to hear himself talk.
“Anyone with a working car,” he said, “Better bring it here. We need supplies. Dry food, canned food. Stuff that won’t go rotten after a few days on the road. Fill your trunks with bottled water and things like that. Use your goddamned heads.”
“Where are we going?” said a man.
“I don’t know,” said Kenny. “Gimme a break. I don’t have all the answers.”
People began to file away toward their homes. Most wouldn’t have had far to go, since many people in Pasture Down had built their houses near the town. It was as though they loved the place so much that they couldn’t bear to be too far away from it. Sure enough, within two hours most people were back. Some turned up with sacks over their shoulders, and one man rode a motorcycle. Only three people had working cars.
Kenny shook his head.
“This is goddamn pathetic. We can’t all leave in three cars. Hell, one of them is gonna have to be our supply vehicle anyway. So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to order you according to how much you contributed. The people who came back here with nothing but jerky and a bottle of water, well guess what? You’re gonna walk.”
People began to chatter amongst each other. Some argued over how much they had contributed, while others looked scared. Ash wondered how many people in Pasture Downs had simply stayed at home during the power cuts. Some folks, the sensible ones, had probably locked their doors and kept to themselves.
Kenny turned and glared at Ash.
“You,” he said. “Wherever you’re going, you’re going to have to walk.”
“But we had a deal.”
Kenny shook his head. “I need my Chevy. You’re lucky I don’t just kill you. After what you did to this town, the fact you can even walk in the first place is luckier than a four leaf clover sliding down a double rainbow.”
Before Ash could even protest, Kenny turned back to the crowd.
“Where’s the sheriff?” he said.
Nobody knew where Sheriff Ellie had gone; people had seen her leaving town a few days earlier, but they didn’t know where she was now. She would no doubt have been a useful person to have on the road, but Kenny wasn’t going to wait for her.
“If you see the sheriff,” he said. “Tell her she missed her ride.”
With that they loaded up their cars and drove away from Pasture Down, leaving Ash, Tony, Chad and a handful of townsfolk stood on the main street wondering what the hell they were going to do.
“Now what?” said Chad.
Ash rubbed his forehead.
“Don’t you have a home to go to?”
“Not much out there for me, really. Mom’s in a nursing home. She went south when dad died and she couldn’t keep the house by herself. Don’t have brothers or sisters, never had a girlfriend. Got an uncle and aunt, but I don’t know if I should go there.”
“We need a ride. I gotta get home,” said Ash.
“The jeep won’t be safe. If Beele or the rest of the unit catch us in it, they’ll pull us over. Once they do that, we’re screwed.”
“Before we do anything I have to get to my family,” said Tony. “The sheriff has a 4x4 parked underneath the station. The keys will be in her office.”
Ash didn’t much feel like going back to the sheriff’s office after having been locked in there for days, but there wasn’t much else they could do. If there was transport there that they could take, then he was going to have to do it. They could drop Tony at his ranch and then he was going to gun it across the plains and out of Pasture.
When they opened the Sheriff’s door, they found Ellie stood above a desk. She had cleared four desks of their belongings and connected them in the middle of the room. A series of maps was stretched out across the surface, and she had drawn lines through some of the sections.
She looked up toward the door. A cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth, but it wasn’t lit.
“You’re here for the 4x4, aren’t you? We’ll I’m not going anywhere.”
“The plant’s about to go toasty,” said Chad.
“Who the hell are you?”
Ash stepped in front of Chad.
“Don’t worry about him,” he said.
The sheriff stepped away from her desk. Her hair was tied back and looked greasy, and the skin on her face sagged as though she hadn’t slept in days. Ash wasn’t bothered if she had lost sleep, and he wanted nothing more than to rip her new one for leaving him locked up. He clenched his jaw and held it in. He needed to get home, and Ellie had the wheels.
“My boy has run away again,” said Ellie. “So I’m going nowhere until I find him. I don’t give a shit about the plant.”
Tony hobbled across the office and pulled a chair toward him. He grimaced as he sunk into it.
“You’re gonna die if you stay here.”
“Whose fault is that?”
Ash paced forward a few steps.
“If we help you find your son, can we get a ride?”
“I don’t give a shit about anything except my boy.”
“We’ve all got families,” said Ash.
Ellie nodded. “Yeah. And I hope yours is proud of you.”
Tony rolled up his trousers and inspected his leg. His thigh was turning a worrying blue colour from where the veh
icles had trapped it. It looked like a bruise, but for all Ash knew, it could have been internal bleeding. They needed to get help for him before long.
“Where’s your son usually run to?” he said.
“The forest. His dad used to take him when he was younger. Little asshole knows I hate him going there.”
Chapter 7
Finding Ellie’s son hadn’t been difficult. They took her 4x4 to the edge of Holwood Forest. It was a mass of trees that from the outskirts looked impenetrable. Each section of it looked uniformly alike, so much so that Ash had no idea where to start looking. Ellie had guided them to a spot and killed the engine. Ash heard crickets call and birds shriek.
“This is it,” said Ellie. “He usually comes this way.”
The further they walked into the woods, the more the blue sky was drowned out and replaced instead by the treetops which cast a blanket of black over them. They walked through the forest for two hours and Ash’s body began to remind him that it had been a long time since he had eaten, and even longer since he had taken a break. Finally, when he felt ready to collapse onto the forest floor, Chad shouted that he’d found someone.
By the time they got back into town the sun had fallen and the sky was the murky dark blue of dusk. Ash felt his arms and legs ache and his eyelids start to drop. They parked the vehicle in the centre of town. Tony stayed in the back seat, one hand wrapped around his injured leg.
“I’ll check the pharmacy for painkillers,” Ash said.
“We may as well stock up while we’re here,” said Tony, his voice rough. “It’s been raided once, and it’ll be raided again. In a few days when more people realise how serious this is, they’ll start to panic. We don’t want to have to come here again and get caught in the violence and looting.”
Ellie rested against the bumper and rolled a cigarette with practiced fingers.
“I need tobacco. What else?”
“Now’s not the time to think about luxury,” said Tony. “Your vehicle will struggle to carry us all if we overload it. What’s the weight limit?”
“Around 1500 kilograms,” said Ellie.
Tony shook his head. “That doesn’t sound right. I think that’s the towing limit.”
“Jesus. I don’t give a shit. Just tell us what we need and we’ll get out of here.”
Tony sat up and looked at Ash.
“The salesman will tell us,” he said.
Ash felt under pressure. Ellie, her son, Tony and Chad all stared at him and waited for him to speak. Was this some kind of test? Tony seemed to be on a quest to bring out Ash’s survival skills, and he saw himself as a mentor. In a stupid way, Ash liked it, and he didn’t want to disappoint him.
“Let’s see,” he said. “The basics first, I guess. The three minute rule. We need as much water as we can get, so go check the grocery and see if the soldiers left any water bottles. Don’t just check the aisles, either. There will be a stock room at the back. If it’s locked, get a fire axe from the wall and just smash through the door.”
“Aye aye, captain,” said Chad, and put his hand to his forehead in a comic salute.
“You just nominated yourself as the waterboy, then,” said Ash, and glared at the recruit. “And while you’re at it, go to the outdoor clothing store. They might have a survival or camping gear section. If they’ve got any water filters, get as many as you can carry.”
As he looked at the shops of the main street and told the survivors what they needed, he started to feel his dad’s words and lessons flood back to him. He told them to get everything they needed; iodine tablets, fire starters such as matches or flint, compasses, maps, first aid kits, crowbars, wrenches, cooking pots, blankets, water canteens.
After they had gotten as many of the things as they could and loaded up the vehicle, Ellie slammed the boot shut.
“You helped me find Ben,” she said, and put her hand on her son’s head. “So you can use my wheels. What’s the plan?”
“Town’s not going to be able to support us, and it’ll get dangerous here,” said Ash. He looked over at Tony and saw that in between grimaces of pain, the man gave him an approving nod.
Chad leaned against the car. He had a small ukulele in his hands that he’d raided from a discount furniture store. According to him, the stringed instrument was essential survival kit. As he watched the recruit struggle to tune it, Ash wasn’t sure he agreed.
“We need somewhere self-sufficient,” said Chad.
“What about your aunt and uncle?”
“I figure I’m safer with you guys. And I never really liked them anyway.”
“I have some land,” said Ellie.
Tony spoke from the back of the 4x4.
“But have you actually done anything with it?”
The sheriff shook her head. “No. But we could grow things on it, given time.”
“My ranch has crops planted already. They’ll be ready to eat sooner.”
Ash folded his arms.
“Listen, guys. I’m going to sit this discussion out. I need to get back to Georgia. She’s on her own and I don’t know what’s happened to her.”
“I’m not being a jerk,” said Tony. “But you won’t make it on your own. You’ll die out there, Ash.”
“Doesn’t matter. I gotta try.”
“How about you take me to my ranch?” said Tony. “We can have some food and decide what to do on full stomachs. The brain’s capacity for decision-making isn’t great when you’re tired and hungry.”
***
When they got to the ranch, Ash saw that Tony hadn’t understated how prepared he was. The acres of land had been fine-tuned for survival with a level of detail that would have even put Ash’s dad to shame. The group were tired when the drove into the ranch, but as soon as they got there Tony pushed open the door and got out, the pain in his leg seemingly lessened by the feeling of being home.
Tony gave them a tour of the ranch, but instead of walking them round it he just pointed and explained what he had done. He sounded like a proud father bragging about how good his son was in school.
There was a giant tank on the west side of the house. It was as close to the exterior wall as possible, and the roof of the house was slanted so that rain water could run off it, divert into a channel Tony had cut into the roof, and then collect in the tank, which would filter it and then store it for use. If there was ever to be a problem with the tank, Tony explained, there was a pond nearby that they could collect water from and boil if it ever came to it.
There were two fields. One had cows grazing on it, with a barn at the end, and the other had crops planted. Tony’s plan was to breed the cattle and rotate the crops. In the barn he had a store of dried and canned food that would be good for a year or two while he mastered self-sufficiency.
There were solar panels on the roof of the house and barn which Tony had always planned to hook up to a localised grid. He’d tried learning electrics, but he hadn’t gotten far before the EMP had hit.
“Don’t suppose any of you used to be an electrician?” he said.
Ash shook his head.
The door of the farmhouse opened and a woman strode across the farmland. She was tall and walked with her shoulders high. The sleeves of her shirt were red and they were rolled up above her elbows, revealing biceps that were bigger than Ash’s.
“Tony Shore,” she said. “Where the hell have you been?”
She looked at Ellie, Ben and Chad and smiled. When she saw Ash, her faced changed. It scrunched up, and he saw that she clenched her fists. He had no doubt that in a fight, she would beat the hell out of him.
“You got a nerve coming back here,” she said.
Tony held a hand in the air.
“Leave him, Mags. He helped me get here. Everyone, meet my wife Magdalene, or Mags if she likes you.”
Mags lead them back to the farmhouse and served up steaming dishes of a stew she had made. As Ash took his first taste, he felt his stomach cramp. He didn’t realise how long
he’d gone without food, and it seemed like his stomach was punishing him for it.
As they ate, they discussed a plan. For Tony, the journey was over. Even if his leg wasn’t busted, there was no way he was going to leave his ranch. This was his bug out place, and now that he was here, he had a lot of work to do.
“I gotta go through the mountain pass and around the city,” said Ash. “I have to find Georgia.”
Mags shook her head.
“Quickest way is the tunnel. It goes under the mountains and it’ll get you through in an hour. It’ll take you days to drive over the mountains.”