THE HIDDEN SURVIVOR: an EMP survival story

by Connor Mccoy

That was good. It was hard enough keeping her own footfalls quiet. She’d waited until a child down the block had disappeared inside a house before dashing across the pavement and between two homes. That was when she started vaulting fences.

  She needed to get in line with the pharmacy, but she wasn’t positive how far down it was. She briefly considered not picking up the supplies she and Glen had pushed through the window. But she had to go back for Christian. His wounds already were infected and he needed the antibiotics. Dollars to dimes there wouldn’t be anyone watching it now.

  She heard running footsteps coming her way and dropped into the dirt behind a compost pile. She was lying in rotting vegetables. The footsteps passed on the street and she got up, not bothering to wipe away the mess on her shirt and pants. Better to be stinky than dead.

  Another couple of fences and she landed in a yard of chickens, lots of chickens. She stopped and picked her way slowly around the cackling hens. She was about halfway across the yard when a rooster flew up and grabbed at her hair with his talons. He latched onto her back, piercing her jacket. She swung around, batting at him until he dropped off. She ran, scattering chickens who squawked and either moved away or pecked at her feet. The rooster regained his equilibrium and came after her again. She booted him with the side of her foot, like a soccer ball. He flew across the yard, feathers flying, landed and stayed there for a minute before getting up and shaking his feathers.

  Mia didn’t feel bad about booting him. Her back was stinging where he had scratched her, and she’d have to get Sally to clean it so it didn’t get infected. Damn bird. She tried resuming her previous speed, but she was in pain now and every jolt made her wince. She must be getting close to the pharmacy by now.

  She slid out from between two houses, checked both ways, and jogged across the street. She ran across both backyards, there was no fence she had to vault, for which she was grateful. She thought she might be on Main Street now, so she slipped between the houses more slowly, stepping as quietly as she could. She was right. She recognized the houses facing her, but she was temporarily disoriented and couldn’t decide which way to go.

  Had she overshot the pharmacy? But no. If she’d gone too far, she wouldn’t have recognized the houses. She trotted up the sidewalk, keeping close to the buildings. Then she recognized the doorway where they had waited to approach the pharmacy. She ran up the alley between the pharmacy and the store. The bags still were there. She scooped them up, turned and almost ran right into a young man standing on the sidewalk watching her.

  She stopped, heart beating fast and hard, mind panicking. Should she try disabling him, or pretend that she lived there? Surely everyone must know everyone else in this town?

  “What are you doing,” he asked, looking puzzled.

  “Forgot something,” Mia said, and dodged past him, across the street and over the town square.

  She darted around what must be the town hall, she decided, and stopped listening for cries or running feet over the pounding of her heart. No sound of pursuit. She dropped all attempts at concealment and ran right down the middle of the street in the direction of the wall. She could see it in front of her, an immovable object, and a dead end running across the street and behind the houses.

  It was too tall for her to climb. She looked for something to use as a ladder. There was nothing. As she approached the wall, breathing hard, she swore under her breath. This could be the end of her. The rope was somewhere behind the houses, and even if she found it, there was nothing to attach it to.

  She looked over the fence behind the house to the right. Nothing there to help her, same on the left. She was about to give up and start running behind the houses when she laughed out loud. She could climb the fence and then get over the wall. She quickly walked to the place where the wall and fence met and tossed her bags over. Then she climbed the chain-link fence, hefted herself onto the top of the wall and slid over it, hanging by her fingers until she dropped.

  The ground was not forgiving. She landed on her feet, lost her balance, and sat down hard, catching herself with the palms of her hands. The pain brought tears to her eyes, but she got up and grabbed the bags, which were on the ground nearby. Her palms were bleeding. She wiped one, then the other – switching the bags from one hand to the other – to remove the dirt and rocks.

  Then she started off again, sticking to the road for the time being. Her run had become a slow jog and she was limping. But out here it was dark and it would be hard to see her under the shadow of the trees. She would stick to the road for as long as she could.

  Terror was sitting in the same place he had been when Glen and Mia first had been brought to him. He’d had his men drag Glen down to the courthouse to be housed in one of the cells. He’d hit Glen pretty hard, but he didn’t doubt the man would recover by morning. He’d have a hell of a headache for a day or two, but so what? He should be happy he was still alive.

  Terror was furious that the girl had escaped, but not foolish enough to send men out looking for her. Even when the sun came up, there were far too many places a person could hide in the forest, and if they all went out there, there was nothing to keep her from coming back here and releasing Glen. He had plans for Glen.

  There was a general practitioner in town, but he was aging and never had been a surgeon. A child had died of appendicitis the year before because the doctor had no experience with removing one. He had tried and the child had not recovered. A real surgeon in trade for a few medical supplies, now that was a bargain.

  The problem would be getting the doctor to cooperate. Men who were forced into service were never as reliable as those who joined voluntarily. He’d need a good reason to stay if he wasn’t to spend every waking hour planning his escape.

  Terror would have to find out what it was this doctor wanted from life and then offer it to him. Or something close enough that he’d be willing to give up his current life, whatever that was, to live in the community. And maybe community would be enough. But he’d have to find out. It was too much trouble constantly guarding members of the community. They’d tried doing that with the local police force when they first had taken over and it hadn’t worked.

  They’d tried threatening one officer’s family, but the entire lot of them had planned an escape. In the end he’d let them go, but he told the town he’d executed them. He had to maintain his reputation as a hardass, but he’d never been one to kill innocents. And those children never would have survived out there without their father. It was hard enough to be raised by one parent in a civilized world. But this one? No way. He wasn’t going to be responsible for that.

  He knew it was a weakness, this inability to kill indiscriminately and for no purpose but his own good. He never had been one to punish those who had done nothing more than try staying alive in a cruel world. Those who targeted innocents, though, they were fair game. Those who showed cruelty, who used women against their will, who tortured animals, those were the men Terror hunted. He hunted them and he killed them. There was no mercy for those who discarded their humanity.

  Eventually, he’d given everyone in this town a choice, stay and live in a safe but autocratic society, or leave. Most of the families had stayed. Many of the unattached men had left. Once gone, no one came back. Not that he’d offered them that choice, but if anyone had returned, he would have considered repatriating them. If they’d come back by choice, they’d be good for morale. And they would tell stories of the outside, which would serve to teach his community how lucky they were.

  But the doctor, Terror had the feeling he was going to be a hard case. He wondered what the doc’s story was. Maybe if he could get to know him, the doc would be willing to tell him. If Terror could find his vulnerabilities, then perhaps he could convince the doctor to stay. That would be far easier than keeping him in a cell or having to post a 24-hour watch on him.

  He folded the map he’d been studying when the thieves had been brought to him. His eyes were tired, it must be getting close
to dawn and he’d spent a lot of time calming his people down after the fire. Not the men he had brought with him, but the families that had stayed in the town when Terror had arrived. They were afraid for their children. In the end, Terror had explained to them about the doctor and his companions and pointed out how the fire had been set in such a way that none of the buildings had been at risk. It was just a diversion.

  Still, he would have to consider what to do to strengthen the town’s defenses. Institute a night patrol for the perimeter, for one. That had been very effective when raiders had come at his other towns. A night patrol and guard towers, one at each end of the town. That would give some of the younger men an occupation. Those boys, young men who might have been away at college if the world hadn’t come to an end, were restless and tended to cause trouble because they had nothing better to do.

  He’d start them building guard towers in the morning. He’d assign border patrol to some of the steadier men. And then he’d see what he could do with that doctor. He stood up and shuffled together some of the maps he had spread on the table. Then he set about extinguishing the candles before he left the library. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east as he made his way to his home near the town hall. He’d grab a couple of hours of shut-eye and then begin again.

  Glen was dreaming again. The light was blinding, yet the colors were so vivid across the void in front of him. He was pretty sure he was floating in a sea of swirling sparkles so beautiful they brought tears to his eyes. And across the void, something more beautiful still: his wife, Sarah, dressed in flowing garments so brilliant that the colors hurt his eyes.

  She came toward him, ever so slowly, and Glen ached to hold her in his arms. He attempted to go to her, but he couldn’t move through the swirling light. He was floating, but it wasn’t like water. There wasn’t anything to swim through, it was like floating in space. He reached for her, but that was all he could do.

  Sarah turned and gestured for him to follow her through a door, and then he was moving. It was like she held his tether and was reeling him in. He floated after her through the door, wanting to be with Sarah – to stay with Sarah. She was so beautiful, his lovely, special wife.

  They were in his baby boy’s bedroom, and on the floor three children were playing.

  “Clarence,” he said, tears catching in his throat.

  They turned to look at him, but Clarence wasn’t there after all. The faces belonged to Mia, Christian, and Sally. Confused, he tries calling Clarence’s name again, but no sound came out of his mouth. He reached for them, but he was being pulled back from the room. The door closed in his face and then began melting away.

  “Sarah!” he called, “Sarah, bring me with you!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mia ran through the night. She avoided the game trail, crisscrossing her way up the hill. She figured as long as she was going up, she eventually would meet the game trail that led to the falls, and from there she could circle back to the rendezvous point. The problem was that it was hard to be quiet while crashing through the underbrush. She had scratches on her hands and face from overhanging branches, mud on her knees from tripping over vines and her palms were pained by every push. She didn’t dare use her flashlight for risk of being spotted by her pursuers.

  It took more than an hour to find the game trail, and when she did she wasn’t certain which way to turn. It wasn’t clear to her which direction the path had been when she’d headed into the woods. The fact that it was dark also wasn’t helping her any. She stood indecisively for what seemed like forever, but probably was only a minute or two.

  She took the trail to the right, thinking that if she hadn’t reached the others in ten minutes, then she’d go the other direction. When ten minutes had gone by and she hadn’t reached the others she hesitated. Had she gone far enough? She decided on another five minutes just to be sure. But another five minutes on she still hadn’t reached them. So, she reluctantly turned back, jogging along the trail, irritated that she’d wasted so much time.

  She was so focused on the trail that Sally called out twice before Mia realized what she was hearing and changed direction, running down the Y toward the town. She found Sally kneeling next to Christian, who was slumped on the ground.

  “Where’s Glen?” Christian said through shallow breaths.

  “Captured,” Mia said. “We miscalculated, went into the pharmacy before your diversion and were captured. When the diversion came we were in the library and Glen made me run for it.”

  Christian groaned and Mia noticed a dark stain on his shirt, visible even in the dark. It reminded her of what they’d gone to the town for in the first place. She untied the bags from her belt and pulled a packet of capsules from her pocket.

  “I’ve got the antibiotics,” she said. “You need to take them. Glen made me memorize the dosages.” She began popping the capsules from their foil pack. “Do we have anything he can swallow these with?” she asked Sally.

  Sally produced a Camelback with a couple of inches of water in the bottom. The women helped Christian to raise his head and shoulders so he could swallow the medication.

  “That’s a lot of pills,” Sally said. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Mia replied. “I asked the same thing, but he needs to shock his system. We start big and slowly taper off. Here, help me with this.”

  They lowered Christian back down and pulled his shirt away from his wound. The sky had begun lightening, and Mia could see that the dressing Glen had applied to Christian’s stomach was soaked with blood. She pulled it off and realized it wasn’t just blood, but also pus. The gash was angry and red, with red streaks radiating from it.

  “This is bad,” she said to Sally, “really, really bad.”

  “I know it,” Christian said. “Can you do anything?”

  “Glen grabbed supplies and hid them for me to pick up,” Mia said, thinking that accuracy wasn’t the most important issue at the moment. “I’ll see what he got for us.” She opened one bag and then the other, sorting through the supplies.

  “When my brother’s toe got infected,” Sally said, “the doctor made us soak it in Epsom salts so the infection would drain, but I don’t know how to do that with the middle of a body.”

  “I’ve got saline,” Mia said. “I’m going to squeeze as much of the pus out as I can. Then wipe it up with a sterile dressing, rinse it with saline and dry it, cover it in antibiotic ointment, and re-bandage it.”

  Sally looked at Mia, surprised, but Mia only shrugged.

  “Glen made me memorize what to do,” she said. “I had to recite it back to him about fifty times on the trip down the hill.”

  “He knew he wasn’t going to make it out?” Sally asked, surprised.

  “He wanted to cover all the bases,” Mia said. She leaned over Christian. “This is going to hurt. I’m sorry, but there isn’t any way around it.”

  Christian nodded and gritted his teeth as Mia began pressing on his abdomen. Large globules of stinking matter oozed across Christian’s skin, and Sally had to turn away gagging. Mia wiped the majority of it away and looked to see how Christian was doing before she started again. He had passed out.

  The fact that Christian was in and out of consciousness wasn’t as helpful as Mia thought it might be. He groaned and thrashed when she began pressing again, making it difficult to keep pressure on the area.

  “Sally, help me,” she said. “You don’t have to watch what I’m doing but go to his head and hold his shoulders down as best you can. I can’t do this properly with him squirming and smacking at me like that.”

  “I’ll try,” Sally said, and went to Christian’s head. She talked soothingly to him as she held him down, hoping her voice would calm him. “You really should be doing this part,” Sally said. “He responds better to you.”

  “It can’t be helped,” Mia replied in exasperation, “I’m the one Glen explained this to. And I can’t be cooing at him while I’m trying to save his life. The
re, no more pus is coming out now.”

  She wiped his skin again, opened a bottle of saline and flooded the wounded area with it. She patted him dry, applied ointment, and slapped a dressing over the wound. Then she got up and walked to the other side of the path, where she wretched. The smell was overwhelming and she couldn’t get it out of her nose.

  “Shouldn’t we move him away from the path?” Sally asked. “They could find us here.”

  I don’t want to disturb him right now,” Mia said. “And besides, I’m too tired. I’d probably drop him on his head.” She wandered to a patch of long weeds not far from where Christian was resting and curled up into a ball. “Wake me up if you hear someone coming.”

  Mia thought she would fall right asleep, but her mind kept going back to the moment when she had left Glen. She should have insisted he come with her. They could have outrun that lug who’d been sent back to watch them. She could have bashed him over the head with one of the big metal bookends that all were over the library. Why had she let Glen convince her to leave him behind? He’d seemed so sure at the time, so persuasive.

  But now she was not at all sure she’d done the right thing. What if she hadn’t done a good enough job on Christian’s belly? If Glen had been here, he would have known if she’d been thorough enough. Christian’s life was in her hands now, and she wished it wasn’t. Why, oh why had she left Glen behind? It was clearly the wrong thing to do.

  Mia buried her head under her arms and sobbed herself to sleep.

  It was a dream she’d had many times before, the one where she always knew she was dreaming, but never could wake up, however much she wanted to do so. She and Sally were back at college, thinking it might be a safe place, with many resources. A place where the professors and administration would have been trained in emergency response and there would be routine and order.

  There had been an order of sorts, a hierarchy of command that placed all students who remained in the role of servant. They’d gravitated toward student services, where the advisers had their offices, thinking that people who had degrees in psychology would have cooler heads. Would know how to keep people calm.