"It's okay," Samantha cried out, trying her best to console her own daughter.
With her arms around her, Julie tried to pull her mom back up before she hit the ground.
"Don't worry about me. We're alive...that's all that matters. We're alive," Samantha continued.
"I know, Mom," Julie said, too shocked to protest and too numb to feel anything. She did the only thing that she knew at the time that she was capable of - she showed her mother love.
Samantha rose to her knees, put her arms around Julie, and squeezed. They held each other as smoke trails drifted by the opening of the cavern venturing upwards into the ashen sky.
Epilogue
New World
I don't even know if there's any point to writing you, Tommy, but maybe you got lucky like we did and survived. I used to write to my friend, Jessica, but I doubt that she's alive anymore. You know what's funny? I never sent Jessica the letters I wrote, but I would get upset when she didn't write back. I must be losing my mind. Where do I start? Me and Paul found my mom, we ran here and there, then the police chased us, and me and my mom hid in a cave waiting for Paul to return. He never did though. We walked out of the cave and the entire forest was scorched. That's the word my mom used. She said "scorched." The ground was hot like if you walked on a fire pit the day after. I didn't feel safe. Neither did my mom. She held a rag over her face and told me to do the same.
She said we needed protective clothing and that we would have to find a way. No one was around. Not a soul. There wasn't even an animal. A bird. A bug. A beetle. Nothing. By the time we got to the highway, my mom was in pain. Her sandals had worn out and she could barely walk anymore. She said she had bad cramps. I don't know. I felt really bad for her. We could see miles down the road where you could at least see part of the buildings of the city, but there was nothing but smoke. I mentioned the bunker at the airport, which just made her more upset. She said we'd never make it on foot in our condition anyway. The best thing we could do, she said, was to go back into the mountains and rest until maybe it became easier to breath.
The next day we ventured out again after my mom wrapped her feet with what cloth we had left. We came to the last of our water. That was the biggest problem. She said we would have to find a creek somewhere or we would be in trouble. But wouldn't the water be contaminated? That's what I asked her. She said we would have to see, but if we didn't get any food or water soon, we would be hurting. I started to wonder if it wasn't better just to be dead. I mean, what we were going through seemed actually worse. We couldn't go that far out because my mom was getting sick and she was very tired. One day while she slept, I decided to go out and see how far I could go to find us supplies. Most of the forest was burnt down anyway, but at least there were trees in the mountains. I'm not much of a mountain climber. Maybe I'll have to learn.
So I was going up the mountain when I came across a group of people bundled up completely. They were even wearing gas masks. I screamed and ran, but they caught me. I thought I was going to die, but they took me to their place in the mountain and gave me food and water and new clothes. They're like some kind of survival people. "Preppers" they called themselves. They had a prepping community. I told them that we had kids at our school that we called "preppy," but I don't think they're the same thing. I couldn't wait for my mom to meet them. So we came and got my mom, and they helped her not be so sick again. The man and woman who run the place are named Jack and Cindy. They're nice, I think. But I don't really trust anyone anymore. I mean, I barely trusted you. We live with them now in some underground place. They said we're going up in a couple of days, once we get some rest, and we're going to leave Colorado. They said we're going to find a place where there's still life. Hope to see you soon.
Samantha was badly dehydrated when Jack and his prepper group found her. There was no telling how much longer she would have lasted. They placed her on a stretcher and carried her to their underground bunker, further up the mountain. There were ten people in all, living within the tight confines. But they had food, water, clothing, medical supplies, and radiological testing equipment, whereas Samantha and Julie had nothing. Samantha slipped into unconsciousness soon after being placed on the stretcher. When she awoke, the damp air and dimness of the cold surroundings seemed all too familiar. She had been in a place like this before. Had they taken her back? Was she in her own personal hell?
"You're safe now, Mom," Julie said, standing over her bed. "These people are here to help."
It wasn't Senator Bryant before her or any of his creeps. She might not be in such a bad place after all. She tried to speak but barely had any voice left.
"You were really dehydrated, your voice is going to probably be out for a little bit," Julie continued.
"Where are we?" Samantha whispered in a raspy, barely audible voice.
Suddenly Jack entered the picture, standing next to Julie. He was a large, burly man with a woodsman's dark beard and wild, expressive blue eyes. He wore a thick plaid jacket, blue jeans, and hiking boots. "You're in our underground hideout. Julie, here, brought us to you. Just in time too. You wouldn't have lasted another day," he said.
His wife, Cindy, walked over to them and stood next to Jack. She was a lively, middle-aged fit woman, wearing several layers of clothing and thick plastic rain boots that went to her knees. She had a ski cap over her head covering her thick blond hair. "At least now we can actually get you a good pair of shoes," she said.
Samantha reached out for Julie, who hugged her in return. After they finished, Jack addressed Samantha with complete focus.
"We don't want to put too much on you right now. You get some rest and get better. Just want you to know that we're headed west soon. We're going to try for California. At least we'll find the ocean. Can't stay here too much longer, supplies are running out. You're welcome to what we have as long as we have it. And you and your daughter are welcome to come with us too. In fact, I'd insist on it. Just think about it, relax, and get better," Jack said with a pat on her knee.
Samantha smiled and shut her eyes.
"Okay," she said. "I will."
The Pulse: Origins
A World without Power
When the power went out at the North Highlands Hydroelectric Plant in Columbus, Georgia, the oddest thing for Todd Broderick was that he instinctively thought to call Georgia Power, the very power company he worked for. He forgot for a moment, where he was. If the hydroelectric plant that provided hundreds of thousands of residents with electricity no longer had any juice, it was unlikely that power existed anywhere else in the area. Therefore, the question of whom to contact first became an issue in itself. The phone lines weren't working anyway. Neither were the cell phone towers, or cell phones for that matter. Everything was dead.
Todd stepped outside to examine the vast row of power lines running to the plant, not expecting that they would provide any answers to the scenario before him. He went back inside the plant, where not a single transformer, generator, computer, or light bulb was functioning. In ten years of working for Georgia Power, Todd, an electrical engineer, had never witnessed a sudden and complete shutdown of an entire power facility. At North Highlands, like most hydroelectric plants, river water is siphoned through water reservoirs and converted into electricity through turbine-powered generators and transformers.
The problem, as Todd would later discover, was that all the transformers had blown out at virtually the same time. There had to be a protocol in dealing with such a matter, and even if Todd had been told at some point what to do, his mind now drew a startling blank. It could have had something to do with his mental and physical state, for he had been counting on an uneventful day and a chance to sit back and nurse his hangover, free of worry or stress. He needed it. The crisis befalling the plant was the last thing he needed, and the thought of throwing in the towel, heading home and going back to sleep seemed most appealing of all.
Monday September 21, 2020 8:05 a.m. Columbus, Georgia
It was irresponsible of Todd to take it as far as he had; at least that's what he told himself. He had worked too long for Georgia Power to show up late dazed and swimming with alcohol from the night before. It was a risk not worth taking. As he drove past security and shuffled into the power plant, there was nothing he wanted more than to curl up at his desk and get some rest. The Advil kicked in, relieving some of the pain in his head, but he still felt dehydrated, weak, and tired. “Please let this be an easy day,” he thought, holding his forehead and squinting. Once inside and out of the heat, Todd went straight to the employee break room on the second floor and made himself a cup of coffee: black. He then went to his office, on the bottom floor, to pull himself together. He had a team to check on to ensure that the generator gauges throughout the plant were correctly ascertained and recorded for daily output and performance during peak usage hours. Before going on the main floor and meeting with the other technicians, Todd closed the door of his small, darkened office and slumped back in the swivel chair behind his desk. He opened the top drawer, pulled out a pink bottle of Pepto Bismol, and mixed it into his coffee. For some peculiar reason, he had no doubt that it was going to be a long day.
An hour later, Todd was getting back into the swing of things. His team of technicians monitored a series of generators the size of automobiles that produced up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity each. Personnel on the floor were required to wear hearing protection, due to the loud noise. Todd had donned a pair of red headphones, but they couldn’t muffle the hangover pounding in his head. Suddenly, a crew member holding up a clipboard shouted to him, looking concerned. As soon as Todd looked over to him, the entire room went quiet.
Each generator systematically winded down, as if someone had pulled a switch. Initially, Todd didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary. His mind was a little slow that morning. But as the room grew quieter, with little more than the faint whirring of motors, he focused on what was happening, and removed his headphones.
"What the hell's going on?" he asked his coworker.
"That’s what I was trying to tell you, the gauges went haywire. We're losing the generators. They've shorted out. Gone kaput!" the man replied. Stoic concern showed on the faces of every technician in the room as they witnessed an unimaginable event: a complete plant shutdown. Todd climbed the ladder leading to the top of one of the generators. He paced the circular walkway around the generator to understand what had happened, then stopped and called out to his team.
"We need to check everything, get some specialists out here. Let's move, people."
The team dutifully complied as they exited the room to inspect the rest of the plant. Wherever they looked, everything was much the same. Not a single transformer or generator left operating. Todd instinctively went for his cell phone to make a call, but the display screen was black as if the phone had been shut off. He tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. This wasn't too unusual since Todd hadn't charged it the night before. He went back to his office and picked up his landline phone but heard no dial tone. He reached for his computer mouse, moved it in circles on the pad, and was met with a blank monitor screen.
The bizarre lack of power seemed more like a bad dream that grew worse with each faulty device he encountered. It was something inconceivable. Whatever was going on had to be temporary. Any moment now his computer would turn back on, his phone would work, and most important of all, the generators would spring back to life again. Workers clustered in small groups, looking stunned and proposing different theories about what had caused the outage.
“We gotta tell the mayor or governor or somebody. This is a serious," one man urged excitedly.
"Could be a terrorist attack," another man suggested.
"Is someone going to take charge of this thing, or are we just going to fumble around all day?" a frustrated woman asked.
Todd avoided eye contact and questions from his crew, and continued past them, heading toward the plant manager's office, hoping to find him in. The woman was right; someone needed to take charge. Suddenly, another worker pushed through a set of double doors, frustrated and covered in sweat. His hair hung disheveled, and his eyes were filled with worry as he scanned the area looking for a familiar face.
"Hey, can someone give me a jump?" he asked. "It's hot as hell out there, I’m late, and I can't get my car to start."
Suddenly two words flashed ominously through Todd's head: Electromagnetic Pulse—EMP. A sneaking premonition, had surfaced, and the more he thought about it, the more the idea was beginning to make sense. What, other than an EMP, could have simultaneously taken out power, communications, and vehicles?
Straining to focus all his attention on the idea, he tried to recall everything he had read and learned about EMPs. There were two types: a man-made electromagnetic pulse, which had negative effects on electronic equipment. And a weaponized nuclear EMP that could have detrimental effects on all electronics. Anything with a circuit, chip, motherboard or voltage within the radius of such a weapon would no longer function and, in most cases, would be unrepairable.
A high-altitude nuclear EMP, or HEMP, deployed at nearly 100,000 feet, could have incredible range. Depending on size and mass, a HEMP could cover entire continent-size areas. Nuclear EMPs, he knew, were complex and multi-pulsed to varying degrees of intensity. The damaging electrical pulse had the capability of traveling distances of hundreds of miles in mere nanoseconds, causing electrical breakdowns and creating havoc.
Conventional EMP weaponry had existed for decades, going back to the Cold War. But few believed a credible threat possible in the early twenty-first century. The frightening scenario involving a disabled electrical grid that provided electricity for 300 million citizens drew serious congressional concern in 2001 when the U.S. created an Official EMP Commission. But priorities, and the country, for that matter, had changed through the years, and there was no going back.
Todd had been briefed about the effects of EMPs a few times during his tenure with Georgia Power. He had been taught several of the "myths" surrounding the aftermath of an HEMP detonation, including the fact that all cars would be dead in the water. Perhaps Johnson—the man who ran in asking for a jump—had just left his headlights on for too long and killed the battery.
“Think, dammit,” Todd said as if scolding himself. What the hell else could it be?
He decided to bypass his boss's office and ran outside into the employee parking lot, which was baking under the Georgia summer sun. He opened the door to his Suzuki XL7 and sat at the wheel. Turning the key would settle, once and for all, whether the various power outages were linked. It would also confirm or disprove the myth surrounding EMPs and car engines. Todd stuck his key in the ignition, breathed in, and turned the switch. The ignition clicked, but the engine failed to start. Nothing happened. Todd tried again and again, but all he heard was clicking. He popped the hood and jumped out to examine the engine. Everything was intact.
"You need a jump too?" a voice asked behind him. Todd turned and was met by Johnson who had himself returned to his car, accompanied by a coworker holding jumper cables and wearing a yellow hard hat and sunglasses.
"I don't know yet," Todd replied in a daze.
"Not even lunch time and the day has already gone to shit," Johnson said.
Todd leaned against the front of his car
and shook his head in frustration. He felt his hangover come back in full force. "I don't think this is routine," he said. "This means something. Could be an attack."
"Johnson, you want a jump or not? I don't have all day," the man with the hard hat said.
Johnson looked at the coworker with an annoyed expression. "Sorry, didn't know you had so many places to be. Let's give it a try." Johnson turned to Todd. "Let me know if you need any help."
Todd scratched his face and nodded. As the two men walked away, he slammed his hood down then shielded his face from the glowing sun blazing in the cloudless sky. A world without power, he thought. Is it even a possibility?
The Hunter
Sunday September 20, 8:05 a.m. Milledgeville, GA (The Day Before)
Deep in the forest near the Oconee River, up a hill of long and winding dirt roads, sat an obscure old-fashioned house overlooking the town of Milledgeville. The caretaker of the house, James, had been up since five in the morning, hunting. He was a reserved and serious man, with a head of thick, black hair and a graying beard. It was his Sunday routine since hunting season began. His preferred weapon for hunting game was a crossbow. But not just any crossbow; he was quite particular with the type he used. Size, weight, and range were important components, as was the reliability of the scope. He had named the crossbow Sydney, an affectionate tribute to his Uncle Sydney, to whom he had always been close. Name aside, he liked the crossbow, and it had long been broken in. Its force and distance were an adequate 350 feet per second. Generally, with crossbows, anything that fires less than 250 feet per second is ineffective for long-distance hunting. Because he liked to move around while hunting, he wanted nothing that weighed more than six to eight pounds. Anything over ten pounds was not practical for James. He usually hunted upwards of four to six hours.
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