Amy. His wife. He had to call her.
Jack slung the laptop bag over his shoulder, pulled his baseball cap down tight over his head and set out down the road. There had to be a working phone somewhere.
Chapter 4
Amy raced up the basement steps two at a time, carrying an armful of notebooks from Jack's bookshelf in the basement. She brought them into the kitchen and dumped them on the kitchen table. There had to be something in his notebooks to help them figure out what was going on, Jack spent his days with his nose to the computer screen reading about this kind of thing.
"Here mom, I found more candles," Kenny said, carrying two large candles to the table.
Amy lit the extra candles, giving her more light to read by.
Shuffling through the stack of notebooks, the one that was labeled EMP/Solar Flare caught her eye. She knew what an EMP was, Jack made sure of that.
Dan adjusted his glasses and squinted at the smooth blue loops of Jack's cursive writing in the binder, his brow furrowed. "What the heck is an EMP? I know what a solar flare is, but what's that got to do with plane crashes?"
Mary cast him a withering look, "We have three hundred cable channels and you don't watch anything but golf. The science channel had a special about this. They said it could break all the electronics and computers. Airplanes use computers to fly, dummy. Electronics, you know, like the television has."
She scanned Jack's notes, taking in the first page of hand written notes.
A solar flare is a burst of high energy radiation from the sun, usually during the solar maximum. Solar flares usually only affect communications and won't affect electronics...
Whatever had just happened was affecting more than just communications. Planes were falling out of the sky. It couldn't be a solar flare. She skipped down a few paragraphs.
An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) is a powerful burst of electromagnetic energy. EMPs can come from several sources, but the most likely would be the detonation of an EMP generating device by a rogue nation, foreign power, or terrorist group. If detonated high over the United States, such an EMP could take out the entire electrical grid and all unprotected electronics. No more airplanes, cars, phones, televisions, computers - everything we take for granted in modern civilization would be gone in a heartbeat.
There would be no warning of such an attack. A civilization changing event. Mass panic, social breakdown, and rioting will start as soon as people realize how dire the situation is. The food distribution network will stop functioning and food will become scarce as tractor-trailers and trains become unavailable. City water will likely turn off at some point. Competition for resources will get bad--
She couldn't read any more. It was terrible. It just kept going on and on like that, Jack's imagination running wild of how bad things would get. An EMP couldn't have happened, could it? He had always had an over active imagination.
Amy noticed a sticky note poking up from the back of the notebook labeled EMP. Flipping to the back of the notebook she passed disaster plans, exit routes for the house, and stopped at a checklist the tab was attached to.
EMP - Yes or no?
1. Power off? All electronics?
2. Cell phone dead?
3. Land line phone dead?
4. Car won't start?
5. Neighborhood power, cell, phone dead?
6. Will the Silverado start?
There is a phone in the Faraday cage. It may still work.
She felt a little guilty for giving Jack such a hard time about all the paper he wasted printing these things out from the internet. Usually she would turn on the television or her smartphone for breaking news, but with the television and the Internet down, his journals were the only source of information she had.
She pressed her fingers to her temples, rubbing in circles. Her head was pounding.
"Mary, Dan, look at this. From what I'm reading, it sounds like an EMP. Right?" she asked, handing Dan the checklist.
Dan read the checklist and shrugged his shoulders, then passed the list to Mary.
Mary scanned it quickly and shoved Dan in the shoulder, "What are you waiting for? Go check the house! See if the electric is off. And get my cell phone while you are in there. I'll go try to start the Cadillac."
Mary and Dan left, bickering as they went through the front door.
"What is it mom? What does it say?" Kenny asked.
The front door shut and she picked up the checklist, reading it through again.
"I don't know Kenny, I just don't know."
Her throat was dry and tight, her emotions battling to get the better of her as she tried to concentrate enough to read through the list. She just wanted to shut out the horror of the situation, and closed her eyes, but in the darkness she still saw the plane descending, just before it burst into flame and disintegrated. Why did Jack have to be gone right now? He would know what to do.
Amy took a deep breath and centered herself, working her way down the list line by line, pushing away her fear. She just needed to focus on one thing at a time and deal with everything else later. The first three items on the list were true, now power, no cell phone, and no telephone. What was next? Try to start her car and the Silverado.
She grabbed the two sets of keys from the bowl on the counter and headed outside. Her blue Prius was parked in the driveway right in front of the garage, and she pressed the remote unlock button out of habit, but there was no clicking sound of the locks opening as there usually would be. She lifted the handle, surprised to find it open, and chided herself for forgetting to lock it. She sat down in the driver's seat and pressed the start button, praying that the engine would start. She stared at the blank dashboard, shaking her head in disbelief at the dark displays and dead engine. Silence met her repeated attempts to start the car. This couldn't really be happening, could it?
Dan and Mary came back up the driveway, their faces visible from the single candle Mary held.
"Our power is still down, the land line is dead, and my cell phone doesn't work either. We tried to start the Cadillac but it won't turn over. I just had the car serviced last week at the dealership. It should work." Mary looked at her, her eyes full of fear. "What's happening Amy?"
"I think Jack might have been right about the EMP, no electronics are working," she said.
"Holy crap, the nut-job was right," Dan said.
Kenny laughed at the remark, turning away awkwardly.
"Dan, don't be an ass," Mary said.
"I'm going to try to start the Silverado," Amy said.
Amy opened the garage door, and slid through narrow space between the 1972 green and white Chevy Silverado and the garage wall. Usually she felt a hint of irritation at the truck occupying so much space in the garage, yet another one of Jack's 'pet projects' that never seemed to reach completion, but that issue was far from her mind at the moment.
She opened the heavy door and climbed into the cab. She stuck the key into the ignition and turned, wondering why Jack expected the truck to start when all of the other cars wouldn't.
She flinched as the motor roared to life.
"I don't understand. Why does it work and my car doesn't?"
Dan leaned in the driver's side window. He too looked confused. His eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. "The computers. This truck is so old it doesn't have any computers."
Amy turned the key and shut the truck off, struck by a thought. This truck wasn't a restoration project as Jack had billed it. This was just one more aspect of his prepping. Clever man, knowing that she would resent the truck if he plainly called it a 'bug out' vehicle.
"Jack was right. An EMP did this," she said.
What was the last thing on the checklist? Jack had an emergency phone in the Faraday cage, whatever that was.
Amy held on to a glimmer of hope as she rushed into the basement and grabbed the large metal box off of his bookshelf.
When she opened the metal box, she removed the box inside of it, which was wrapped
in silver metallic wrapping and labeled "backup cell". She tore through the shiny silver material coating the box and pulled out a Styrofoam block, which she cracked in half at the seam. It held a bag inside, held shut by a bright yellow sticker marked "Anti-static bag. Warranty void if opened." Amy pulled the sticker off and opened the bag. A cheap black cell phone sat at the bottom of the bag.
Amy turned the phone on and closed her eyes, clutching it between her hands as if she were in prayer.
She was afraid to look at the phone, hoping that Jack was wrong about the EMP. After years of listening to Jack drone on about unlikely catastrophic events, preparing for things that she knew would never happen in her lifetime, she was terrified that he might actually be right.
Danny was across town at a friend's house spending the night, and Jack was a thousand miles away in Missouri. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't.
The phone beeped as it started up, sending a shiver down her spine. She picked the phone and opened her eyes... Zero bars.
Her stomach climbed into her throat.
She dialed Jack's cell phone number and pressed the call button. She brought the receiver to her ear but heard nothing. Amy tried again to dial the number and waited several moments for any sort of sound to come out of the phone.
Nothing. She could dial numbers but nothing happened. No dial tone, no operator. Nothing.
It had to work. It just had to.
Amy threw the cell phone across the basement, and the phone shattered against the wall, green circuits and small colored wires poking out from the ruined device.
Was it possible that Jack was right about the EMP? It was terrifying, but it felt like it he was right.
What if he was right about how quickly things would get bad? Just as he seemed to have been right about the EMP?
Kenny was here, but Danny was at the Lamberti's house across town. Her son was out there while planes fell from the skies... she had to get Danny home.
"Kenny," she yelled as she ran up the basement steps. "Kenny put your shoes on. We have to go get Danny."
Her stomach turning somersaults and wracked with a sick feeling, she had one thing on her mind. Get Danny home.
Chapter 5
The sun beat down relentlessly on Jack. Sweat poured from his neck and face. The heat created shimmering mirages that danced above the asphalt highway in the distance. It was the end of a long hot day of walking, and it felt like it must be around dinnertime, but he had no way to tell for sure. At least the end was is sight. Clinton Missouri lay a couple of hundred yards ahead of him. Hopefully he could find more information about what had happened, and a working telephone so he could call Amy. Right now he knew nothing for certain, and it wasn't a good feeling.
During the long walk here, he stopped at several houses to ask if anyone had definitive news of what happened, but not a single one of them had any idea what had happened. Nobody had a working phone either, or a car, or anything else that relied on electronics. Nine hours of walking, he was finally here. The town itself lay just off the highway.
Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead and slowed his pace. His stomach grumbled loudly. He arched his back, trying to get some relief from his aching lower back, but it didn't help. His hips, knees, and ankles screamed with protest as he loped along, reminding him how out of shape he was. His neck was also stiff and sore, and he couldn't fully turn his head to the right, most likely from the wreck.
Willing his rubbery legs to keep going, he walked into the edge of town.
A small group of people had gathered outside a VFW hall. Jack approached them, and made eye contact with an elderly gentleman dressed in khakis and a golf shirt, wearing a Korean War veteran's cap, brightly decorated with colorful bars.
The man sprung from his chair and made the distance to Jack with surprising speed for someone his age.
"Morning. You look about done in," the man said with a nod of his head. Short cropped grey hair poked out from under the sides of his cap. His clean-shaven face was deeply tanned and had the creases of a man used to hard labor in the summer sun and winter winds.
"I feel about done in. I wrecked my car several miles back along the highway. My cell phone is broken, I couldn't call the police," said Jack. "I need to use a phone, do you have one?"
The old man shook his head from side to side. "Phone is out, power is out, all the cell phones too. It's the same with our television cars. Any idea what happened?"
Jack sighed. "I was about to ask you the same question. My friend Tom and I crashed last night outside Osceola. The power lines blew out and my car lost power. We hit a tree. Tom...he... he didn't make it."
"I'm terribly sorry to hear that," he said. "The sheriff will be here soon to talk to the town about what happened. He'll send somebody out for your friend."
Jack's stomach growled loudly, gurgling with hunger.
"Did you eat yet today? How long have you been walking? That's got to be about a seven hour walk from Osceola," the man said.
"I had an energy bar earlier. It was a long walk, I don't know how long it took," Jack said.
The man held his leathery hand out to Jack, gripping Jack's hand with surprising strength.
"I'm George Cooper by the way. Come on in, we'll get you something to eat. Folks gathered here after the power any everything else went down. People brought plenty of food with them today."
Jack followed the man, "Some food would be greatly appreciated. My name's Jack, Jack Miller."
Inside the VFW hall, Jack sat down and dove into the plate of eggs that were set in front of him, shoveling them in as fast as he could move the fork. After he finished the three over easy eggs on his plate, he made short work of several crispy strips of cold bacon, and moved on to the huge sliced sections of red tomato. He was unprepared for the tangy sweetness of the vine ripened vegetable, and it must have shown on his face.
"Never had a vine ripened tomato before, have you? Just them little mushy unripe things they sell at the grocery store?" said George.
Jack nodded his head in agreement as he ate the salt and pepper covered slices. George put another serving of bacon and tomatoes on his plate.
"I noticed the ring on your finger, and I know the look on your face you were wearing when you came walking up the road. You've got family you're worried about, right? I was married myself for 54 years before the Lord took my Nancy away. We have three strong children, and a whole mess of grandchildren running all over the state," George said.
Jack looked down at his hands, spinning his wedding ring around his finger. It was all he could do to keep the worry off his face.
George seemed to sense Jack's emotional conflict, and asked, "Where are you from?"
"Baltimore Maryland. My wife and two sons are there."
George whistled a high-pitched keen.
"That is quite a distance. What will you do?" George said.
The hall erupted in chatter just then, and Jack turned to look at what caused the commotion.
A man came through the door, clearly the sheriff, judging from his hat, badge, and the pistol strapped to his belt. A younger man in his early twenties walked next to him, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. The sheriff made his way to the front of the hall, and stood up on a milk crate facing the group.
The crowd chattered anxiously, and he gave a shrill whistle to get their attention, quieting the group.
"Everyone, I know there has been a lot of speculation about what is going on, and I have some new information. Now it's not the best news in the world, but it could be a lot worse. Hear me out until I'm done telling you, there's plenty to follow that should set everyone's mind at ease."
The sheriff pulled the young man standing behind him closer to the group.
"As some of you might now, my brother Mike works at the Whiteman Air Force Base just north of here. This here is my nephew Sean, Mike's boy. Earlier this morning I sent Mike up to the Air Base on a bicycle to see if we could find out what is going on. He's just
returned with important news. Late last night, there was an attack--"
A man shouted out from the crowd. "Was it the Russians? Terrorists?"
Another man yelled out, "Yeah, who did it?"
Others started to shout out their own questions, to which the Sheriff raised his arms and gave another shrill whistle through his teeth, calming the group.
"Now come on people. Hear me out before you all shout out your questions. The word from Mike is that there was an attack of some sort just after 11pm. The Airmen on duty tracked some sort of anomaly on their radar screens, something high above the base. It wasn't like anything they'd ever seen before. At first they thought it was a ballistic missile, but it didn't have the same radar signature. The radar operators went on high alert, and a couple of seconds later everything went dark, the same thing we experienced here. The lights went out, power was off, and the phones weren't working.
EMP Aftermath Series (Book 1): The Journey Home Page 3