Island Refuge EMP
Escaping Conflict
Escaping Chaos
Escaping Capture
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, OCTOBER 2020
Copyright © 2020 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Grace Hamilton is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Post-Apocalyptic projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.
www.relaypub.com
Island Refuge EMP
The Complete Series
Grace Hamilton
Contents
Escaping Conflict
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
End of Escaping Conflict
Escaping Chaos
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
End of Escaping Chaos
Escaping Capture
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
End of Escaping Capture
Thank you!
About Grace Hamilton
Also By Grace Hamilton
Blurb
No power, no electronics, no way out.
When the world descends into anarchy on an idyllic island, who will survive?
Tech-savvy Elna is determined to bring her family’s vineyard into the twenty-first century. Located on its own private island, Elna hopes her resourcefulness will finally earn her father’s respect and keep visitors flocking to their idyllic retreat.
But her ambitions are shattered when a catastrophic EMP attack descends on North America. With only a brief warning before the missile strikes, Elna and her father soon realize they are marooned on their island with a group of unusual guests.
With no power, electricity and little chance of reaching the mainland, life in paradise quickly sours. Food and water is growing scarce; they have no access to medical supplies; and they have no idea what’s happening in the world outside of their island vineyard.
They must find a way to unify as a group—fast. But when an unexpected assailant threatens their lives, Elna’s father goes missing, and another guest is gravely injured, Elna's wits are put to the test.
A journey to the mainland won’t be easy, and even if they make it there’s no way of knowing what dangers could lie in store for them. But staying on the island is becoming less viable with every passing day. In a world where law and reason have descended into post-apocalyptic anarchy, survival of the fittest reigns supreme...
1
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. His warm-brown eyes turned toward her with concern.
“Elna? What is it?” he asked as he set the bottle down.
“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 turned to look at her, startled and seemingly ready to flee the room. 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 and the little dog yelped as she tightened her arm reflexively around him. Selene’s profession alone went against everything Elna believed in, but under the “peace and love” vibe, there was a deep anxiety or fear 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 based on the gape-mouthed look of alarm that he quickly masked before any of the guests saw it. As he turned toward the television, Malin, another one of the guests, 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.”
He rushed out of the room, smoothing his thinning hair back as he went. Immediately, all three guests turned and looked at Elna.
Waiting for someone to tell them what to do, she realized. It was a bit more responsibility than she was comfortable with.
“Okay, uh…let’s wait until the others get back,” she said, moving across the room to stand at the end of the bar. “It won’t take more than a few minutes. Then we can decide what to do.”
Selene shook her head, loosening the sisal flower scrunchie holding her long brown hair. She continued to hold her dog a little tighter and he gave a bark of disapproval. “Are we not going to consider the possibility that this is some kind of prank? When someone gets on TV and says that all of North America is about to be nuked, are we just supposed to accept it? Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
“It’s not one person,” Malin said, flipping through screens on his phone. “It’s every single news source on the web, plus a message from the Emergency Alert System.” He turned the phone to show her the screen, but she didn’t look at it. “It’s real.”
“But we’re on an island,” Selene said. “Surely it won’t reach us.”
“We’re ten miles off the California coast,” Malin said. “They’re saying the EMP blast could reach all the way up to Northern Canada and as far south as Mexico City. I don’t think ten miles of water is going to protect us.”
“EMPs are bad news,” Garret said. He picked up a half-filled glass of red wine and downed it in a single gulp. “I’ve read a thing or two about them. How did this happen without us knowing in advance? Aren’t there agencies that are supposed to monitor things like this?”
“I don’t know,” Malin replied, “but I’ve gotta get back to the mainland. I need to be with Claire.”
He stood up, as if he intended to leave right then and there.
“Just wait,” Elna said. “Don’t go anywhere. Let’s get everyone together first, okay?”
He glanced at her, frowned, then sat down again, defeated. “Thirty minutes would get me across the causeway to the mainland, but then what? I’ll never get on a plane in time. Oh, man, this is bad.” Following his best man’s example, he downed his gl
ass of wine.
A few quiet minutes passed before she heard the door in the lobby open and close, voices moving down the hall toward the tasting room. Soon, her father came into the room, leading three chattering guests.
They had just turned toward the bar when the lights flickered rapidly—as if someone were turning them on and off repeatedly. After a couple seconds, they went out completely. Then the refrigerator behind the bar gave a soft sigh and went silent, and a flash of yellow shone through the east-facing windows. Outside the windows, Elna saw a shower of sparks raining down from the power lines that fed into the guesthouse.
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 1