"What about mom, is she going to be okay?"
"Georgeanne thinks her pace maker has shut down. I don't know enough about what has happened to give you a good answer. We'll keep her here and do our best, but her oxygen is going to run out, then her meds will run out. There won’t be anything we can do. She will be in God's hands then."
Eve snuggles in closer to Paul's shoulder and cries softly. Paul has confirmed what she already knew.
Chapter 2, John's Story, Day1
Pittsburgh, PA
September 11th
"Okay, once you give me access to the protocol files, I can download the needed changes I wrote to meet your proprietary needs," says John, to his client over the phone.
"I just enabled your link to those files, go ahead and do the ..." John's client is cut off in mid-sentence. John's computer screen goes blank and the lights in his office go out too.
"Crap," John says. He turns and looks out the window overlooking the entranceway to their large office complex. He watches several cars glide to a stop, another car glides through an intersection to be slammed broadside by a pickup rolling down the four lane. He glances over to the interstate and sees a delivery truck crash through the guardrails on the exit ramp and roll three times down the hill.
"Crap! Crap! Crap!" he yells out loud, at no one in particular, but at the scene unfolding before him, as it dawns on him what has happened. His office is not far from the Pittsburgh Airport and he quickly glances up and southeast, where the flights normally approach the runways.
He sees two distant fireballs erupt from the general area of where the airport is, then he sees a large commercial jet plummeting towards earth at a seventy five degree angle; moments later another fireball erupts just a few miles away. He stands mesmerized at what he is seeing, wanting to move, but unable to, as the destruction quickly unfolds before him. Another fireball lights up the sky farther away, probably a plane that had taken off, then stalled.
The sound wave from the closest plane crash rattles John's office windows, and John too. Like his brother, Mark, John Mays is a religious man. He says a prayer for those souls he just watched die. He says a prayer for his family and wife too. Then he sits down.
John is a man of action, but of reasoned action, not emotional action. Things must be thought through, planned out, all the pieces put into place before moving. Out of habit he glances at his phone to see what time it is, the phone is dead. He figures it's about ten o'clock in the morning. He glances to his wall clock, stuck at nine fifty three. He notices the date on his day calendar, 9/11.
His mind races, we have been hit! This is no coincidence! America has been attacked. He forces himself to calm down, forces himself to think things through. He and his wife have talked about this, planned for something bad, planned for economic collapse or social upheaval. Now is the time to make that plan work. He knows he is strong; strong of mind, strong of body, and most importantly, strong of faith.
He sits in his chair, staring at a blank computer screen, he pulls out a ledger pad and begins to jot notes. He hears stirring, a commotion in the hallway outside his door. He ignores it as he plans what to do. He is twenty-three miles from his home, mostly interstate. His wife should be home, her plans to go out were for a book club lunch. He thinks of his kids far flung across the country; New York City, North Carolina and Wisconsin. He prays for them silently, then forces himself back to the task of getting home. Accomplish what is do-able, his kids are in God's hands now. He has raised them well he knows, he prays.
Twenty miles of interstate to get home, three miles of back roads. Ten hours of daylight. He can make twenty miles walking in six to eight hours, assuming no major slowdowns. He has a ready bag in his car: walking shoes, hiking pants, water, granola bars, a first aid kit, thermal blanket, and most importantly, his side arm and holster, with three spare clips. He determines he can walk home safely, and begins to head out of the office.
Here, he runs into his first dilemma. The office is full of people who have no clue as to what has just happened. Some are running for the stairway to get out, a few are congregated in front of the elevator, waiting for a ride down that will never come. Some are laughing and joking about a paid day off and the incompetence of the power companies. Several people on his project team come hurriedly towards him with questions flying.
John steps back, hands in the air, waving for silence at the half dozen people before him. "Calm down, clam down. Let me tell you what I think has happened." John says loudly. He runs things through his brain before he begins to speak; about a dozen people have gathered to listen. "I think America has been attacked. If you look towards the airport you can see fires burning. The power being out is part of that attack. Your cars probably won’t run either…" Questions start to fly, a few people scream as they see the smoke plumes in the distance. Over the noise John shouts. "Go home everybody, go home now, things may get bad. I am going home now, even if I have to walk twenty miles to get there."
He turns and walks towards the stairway, descending the four flights as quickly as possible. He exits the building and heads towards his car. Other people are heading out of the building now too. A few are at their cars, hoods up, trying to figure out what has gone wrong. John uses his key to unlock the hatchback and pulls out his gym bag and go bag. Right there in the parking lot he changes out of his dress slacks and into his hiking pants. He puts on a tee shirt from his gym bag and decides on his sneakers from the gym bag too, leaving his heavier hiking boots in his go bag. He leaves the tee shirt untucked and sticks his 9mm in the back of his waistband. He puts two more clips from his go bag in a cargo pocket. He grabs sunglasses and a brimmed Steeler hat as the day is bright and sunny, despite the gloom of the situation.
Twenty miles. At three miles an hour that is about seven hours. He has two bottles of water and a few snack bars, not much for a twenty-mile trek. He takes a towel, a pair of shorts and a pair of socks from his gym bag and adds it to his go bag. He grabs two cracker packs, and a half empty bottle of Gatorade from his car. He opens the arm console and grabs a multi tool, and a bottle of Motrin, then gets a state map and city map from the glove box. He remembers there is a flashlight under the passenger seat, he grabs it and checks it, it still works so it goes in the go bag too.
He steps back and looks over his car. A 2015 Toyota, it's been a good car. He can’t resist the urge so he sticks the key in the ignition and turns it; nothing, no lights, no chime, no engine cranking over. He pockets the keys and turns towards the roadway heading out of the parking lot, towards the two-lane road and nearby Interstate 79 North.
The scene is grim. The car wrecks that he had seen from his office window, the overturned truck now burning. Distant plumes of smoke rise from the planes that where coming to or leaving the not too distant airport. He puts on a determined face and begins walking, ignoring a few shouts from some of his co-workers as they emerge from the building.
Chapter 3, John Home
Gibsonia, PA
September 11th
Feet sore, water bottles empty, snack bars eaten, John walks down the exit ramp bringing him a short two miles from his home. The last five miles had been tough. John is in good shape for over sixty, he and his wife regularly hike, bike and kayak, keeping them both in pretty good shape. But, a twenty-mile walk in nine hours is grueling. Now, as dusk begins to loom, he has to travel through a heavily commercialized district before he heads into his residential area. He hopes to find some water. The confused and stranded people he had met on the interstate had none to spare.
He approaches an AidMart, the first store off the highway. The windows are smashed out, and people are running in, grabbing what they can. John is startled, saddened. Nine hours, it is not even dark yet, and the looting has begun. He would have gladly paid for some water, but that does not look like an option now. He decides it is best to just walk on by. He is only a few miles from home.
He continues on his way. Four young men are passing to his left
, a buggy full of looted beer trailing behind them. One of them notices him.
"Yo, old man! What ya got in that back pack?" says one of the wayward teens.
John puts on a stern face, ignores the teens and continues on his way. The group of teens starts to veer towards him. This is not a confrontation John wants.
The teens are now squarely in John's path, "Old man, I aksed what you got in that pack. Don’t be ignoring me you old fool. We own this block, you can't pass less we say's so. So, what you got in the pack?"
John stops, sizes up the situation. The guy talking is obviously the leader of the group. He is tall, wiry, with blue eyes a little glazed over. He is waving around a .38, safety on, but his finger is on the trigger. Two of the guys with him are pulling a lawn trailer, brimming with cases of beer. The last guy has a single shot shotgun in his hands; hammer not pulled, held loosely.
John uses a well-rehearsed move to deftly lay his right hand on the pistol grip of his 9mm as he looks up at the wiry one about ten feet away from him. "You want to move on, my friend," John says. "I'm not the one you want to stop."
The wiry one looks at him, a little shocked at the defiance, this is the first resistance he has experienced since the power went out. He cannot tolerate being dissed in front of his crew. He has sensed that the world has changed, and he wants to be a king. "You in my space old man, you do as I say! Show me what you got in that pack!" The wiry guy points his .38 at John, safety still on, but finger on the trigger.
John's threat mechanism kicks in. Before the wiry guy can even think about taking his gun off safety, he has pulled his 9 mm and double taps him in the chest, center mass. He turns his gun to shotgun man. "Put it down and walk away." John yells with steel in his voice. The young man, eyeing his dead companion, does as John says. Fear in his eyes, he lays down his shotgun and flees. The two pulling the beer cart have already turned and run, leaving their stolen beer behind.
"Son-of-a-bitchn assholes," John curses under his breath. Talking to himself as he tries to justify what just happened, he stares at the dead body of the teenaged hoodlum. "First rule of carrying a gun, never pull the gun unless you are ready and willing to shoot. Second rule, shoot to kill. I had to shoot; he pulled the gun on me. I had to shoot. Dear Lord forgive me, I had to shoot! Or did I? Could I have just given him my pack? Then what would have happened? He would have known where I lived from my ID. He could have gone there, come after me and Jan. Did I have to shoot him?" The questions pour through his head as he verbalizes his thoughts. Guilt, grief and anger overcome him.
Three men and a woman come running up to him as he stands there, looking at the young man he just killed. He stiffens, putting his weapon back his belt in the small of his back. The woman, and two men come to him asking if he is okay. Another man, with a badly bruised eye, and a bleeding gash on the back of his head, looks at the dead body, then at the cart full of beer.
"That's him, that’s the one that pistol whipped me." Says the guy with the gashed head. "And, that's the beer they stole from me." He turns and looks at John. "I'd a shot em m'self but they caught me comin' from the can, and the shotgun was behind the counter. I offered to sell 'em beer, even trade, but he smacked me with the gun a couple of times, and put his pistol in my face as his buddies took what they could haul. Damn, I shoulda' closed shop before it started to get dark, but people was payin' cash and business was good, damn!"
They are all looking at John now and glancing at the dead teen, a bit in shock, a bit in confusion, a bit scared. Three gunshots ring out from a plaza across the street. They look that way and see a gun wielding man chase three people away from his electronics store. One of the fleeing men turns, and fires back. The storeowner falls, raises his pistol, and fires three more times. The looters fire back and the storeowner goes limp on the ground. The looters turn back, rushing past the lifeless body and begin ransacking the store.
John, and the other four people with him watch this happen only fifty yards from where they stand, shock on all their faces. "I've got to get home," says John, as he turns away from the small group. "You all need to get going to, this is going to get worse." Head spinning from what has just happened, what he just did, what he just saw, John begins the last leg of his journey home.
* * *
Feet still hurting, mouth dry, muscles starting to scream from the long walk, John puts one foot in front of the other as he begins the final few miles to his home. He has pulled his gun from the small of his back; he carries it in his hand, tucked under his arm. He struggles to keep his head up and eyes moving. He knows an alert and deliberate man is less of a target than a man wandering with his head down.
The events of the day keep running through his head, culminating in him shooting the hapless hoodlum. Should he have just given him his pack? There wasn't much in the pack. Should he have just kept walking, ignoring the punk? Did he really have to kill him? God, where are you? God, where were you when that punk pulled a gun on me? Did you abandon me? Did I fail you?
The same questions keep running through his mind, the young man's shocked face imprinted on his brain as the bullets John fired struck him.
John has fired weapons all his life. His dad had him shooting BB guns at six, target shooting with the .22 at ten. He learned to shoot a shotgun and hunt small game when he was twelve. A lifetime member of the NRA, he has trained others in self-defense and handguns. He did what he was trained to do, what he has trained other people to do. He instinctively fired on a man who pointed a gun at him. But, there is no training for watching the life leave the man you just shot.
Getting weary, his chin bounces off his chest. He instinctively grows more alert, looks around warily, realizing he had once again lost focus. He is on a quarter mile stretch of undeveloped roadway that ends at a red light where he will turn left into his residential neighborhood. He hears a few more gunshots from the business district behind him. He drops to the ground, thinking the shots are closer than they are, thinking that he may be the target.
Picking himself up out of the drainage ditch on the side of the road, he continues on. A hundred yards further towards his turn off, he sees headlights heading in his direction. He stops, crouching down in the drainage ditch again. He has seen a few other working vehicles throughout the day; a few older trucks, a few classic cars and many more motorcycles and some ATV's. He hides in the ditch, watching the approaching headlights. It's an older truck. It pulls into the lone gas station at the intersection he is headed for. The occupants of the truck get out and size up the vacant convenience store, the employees wisely locking up and going home earlier in the day.
The few people he can see from the headlights of the truck bang on the doors of the store. He sees a young man get out of the truck with a long gun. He puts three shots into the front door of the store. His companions cheer as they rip out the shattered safety glass and charge into the store. John watches for five minutes as they loot the store, bringing out what looks to be cigarettes, food and anything else these thugs find useful. The rear of their truck is piled high. The looters pile back into the truck. They head back the way they came.
John climbs out of the ditch and hurries towards the looted store. His thirst is driving him. Even though he is only a mile from home, his parched throat and lips crave the water that may be in that store. He stops and crouches behind a small sign fifty yards from the store to check things over. He sees some flashlights. Several people are walking towards the store from his residential neighborhood. He watches to see what develops. A couple he knows, with their two children along with another couple he does not recognize, walk up to the store and stare wide-eyed at the ransacked storefront. The adults talk among themselves for a bit, then three of them enter the store. One adult stays with the two kids on the sidewalk.
What John watches is almost surreal. The three adults weave their way through the ransacked store, picking up what they need, bringing it to the empty front counter. John is mesmerized watching this scene unfold. F
inally one of the adults goes behind the counter and grabs some bags that he quickly fills with the items they have piled on the counter. They all talk amongst themselves again. He watches as one of the men lays some bills on the counter. They pick up their bags and head back out the busted up door, back towards their homes. Just a little shopping trip to the looted out convenience store! A spark of hope arises in him, they actually tried to pay for what they took. Your average American is still a decent person; wants to do what is right. John smiles and thanks God for that bit of encouragement.
He has been transfixed, watching from behind the sign as all this goes down. He could have gone out and helped those people, but maybe, by watching them, and their innocent honesty, they helped him more than he could have ever helped them.
He still craves the water that he knows is in that store. He scurries up to the side of the building, looks around one more time, then goes in and finds a cooler full of soft drinks. He grabs two bottles of water and drains them down. He stops for a minute to let his body absorb the water, allow his mind to clear. Then he looks around quickly to see if there is anything of value that he doesn't already have. He grabs a handful of lighters and several packs of cigarettes; they could be valuable trade items. He has about a hundred bucks in his wallet. Taking a cue from his innocent neighbors, he leaves it on the counter next to their pile of cash. A futile effort, the money will be gone before the storeowner returns; it will soon be worthless anyway.
Refreshed from the water and the act of civility he witnessed, John heads down the same road his neighbors took, heading for home. The road is dark, but there is a faint glow coming from a few windows in almost every home. Candles or camp lights he supposes. He quickly catches up to the neighbors he watched at the store. He trails behind them silently, trying to be their guardian angel, just as they were his guardian angel when he least expected it, dearly needed it. He watches silently, protectively, as they each head into their respective homes, then he continues the few hundred yards to his own home.
Righteous Bloodshed: Righteous Survival EMP Saga, Book 2 Page 2