They Invaded: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival (Zero Power Book 3)

by Max Lockwood

  "I'm sorry."

  She looked over at Felicia, pulled out of her thoughts. "For what?"

  "Your grandmother. It just occurred to me I hadn't expressed my condolences yet. Someone else was called after the attack, so I hadn't known until you mentioned it at the meeting."

  Clara thinned her lips. "Thanks. I guess it's still hard to believe that she's gone just like that, you know? Less than a week ago she was alive and just fine…"

  Also, more than a little stressed out because of how things had been between her and Tessa. Clara hated thinking that she had died with any regrets, and it only fueled her anger. Viola should have had a lot more time than she had gotten. Clara couldn’t do anything about it now, it was much too late for that, but the people that instigated the whole thing were going to pay. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to stop her being angry, but it would be a start.

  "My mother was killed years ago," Felicia revealed, dragging Clara's attention again, "it was a street robbery. I understand more than most people how it feels to lose someone in a horrific way. I can't imagine how much worse it must have been for the two of you to be there for it."

  Hearing that, Clara's heart filled with grief, though she felt that Felicia, at least, would understand how she felt even if she didn’t say anything. How angry she was at her grandmother's attacker, the emotions she couldn’t seem to control this time. The fear of closing her eyes because every time she expected to see her grandmother's form, lying on the ground bleeding to death, and she'd been unable to do enough to stop it from happening.

  "Is the emptiness normal?" she asked, the words out of her mouth before she could think about it. "And the thirst for revenge. I mean, there are moments that I feel, but it's mostly anger and grief. It doesn’t last long, then there's just this… emptiness in my chest. And wanting to harm all the people I deem responsible…"

  She'd had some moments of doubt about their plan. She still thought it was the best thing to do, but she could be rational about it. A lot of her motivation was because of the anger and injustice she felt. Clara wondered, had it been someone else who dies, someone, she didn’t know if she would have reacted as volatively as she did. Probably not, and that bothered her. Only a little though. She wanted revenge, and the only thing she regretted, was that she had to pull other people into it when there was a chance for them to get hurt.

  It was too late to change her mind, anyway, after she'd gone through the motions and they were on their way to carry it out.

  "Everyone copes in a different way," Felicia said in answer to her question. "Barbara coped better than I did, and I can relate to your emptiness. One day, it'll pass—you'll break down and all the emotions will spill. There's no way to know when it will happen, what will set it off, and you're going to believe you're in hell when it does happen."

  Clara nodded, pursing her lips. That was why what she'd done to cope before, putting everything out of her mind until someone else brought it up or she accidentally thought about it, had been so unhealthy for her. If she hadn't been so determined to keep it in, she would have broken at some point. She had been pretty close, a decade too late, right before the crash happened, and the situations she'd ended up in since had only played havoc with her emotions.

  It was something of a miracle that she hadn't broken already. Maybe, with Viola's day, she actually would at some point. Hopefully, she could be alone when it happened, because she didn’t want anyone, not Cooper or her sister, to see her lose her mind like that.

  "Do you think I could survive it?" she asked with mild curiosity. "When I think about it, a break is exactly what happened to my sister, isn’t it? After the accident. She just lost herself and started living in her mind. Do you think I could end up somewhere close to that?"

  Felicia hummed. "It's not something I can say. My sister would have a better idea. But I've seen you and I know you're tough, so I'm sure you can survive it, with a little support. Your sister and your friend, Cooper? I can tell they both care about you. If you let yourself rely on them when the time comes, they can help you."

  Clara didn’t think she could do that, just rely on them. She was much too independent for her own good, so used to dealing with that sort of thing on her own. She really didn’t want Cooper seeing her in such a state because she knew it would hurt him too to watch something like that. It would be too cruel to let him be there.

  "I know what you're probably thinking, but don’t try to get through it alone. Some people can do it, but it is usually a mistake. I didn’t rely on my family when I could have, and I almost lost everything by the time I came back to my senses. Human beings just naturally prefer comfort in times like that. Trust me, it will be worth it."

  Clara sighed. "Well, I'll have to take your word for it."

  She would have to wait for it to happen at all. She'd done a good job of keeping herself from breaking down in impossible situations before. Hopefully she could break out of this without something like that happening. Comfort would be nice, but the world as it was wouldn’t allow for much comfort.

  "Although a lot of psych doctors really wouldn’t recommend it, because it's so easy to get out of hand and do more harm, it's good to channel the spark of anger in you—it’ll help you heal. Just don’t let it take overall, right? Because if it does, it's game over for your mind. When you fall into a pit of anger like that, it's almost as hard to get out of as depression is, and it can be just as destructive, to others as well as yourself."

  Clara would keep that in mind. Well, she'd battled with depression a little herself, though thankfully, she'd always managed to get out of it and go on with her life, even back when she hated it.

  When they approached the town, they found that it was quiet.

  Clara found it strange. It had been some time since they'd come here, but it couldn’t have been so long that everyone had left, right? She still remembered the day they got there and saw all the people acting crazy and patrols with guns walking all over.

  Now, she couldn’t tell there had been anyone there. Where she'd seen the bonfire, they'd had last time was a mass of black on the road, everything they'd put in it burned down to ash. The smell of smoke was gone, and she would have thought the town was abandoned.

  "It’s like a ghost town," Felicia commented, slowing down their speed.

  They all drove around the town, looking for signs of life, but there was nothing. It might as well be as Felicia said, it was so silent. They could see the mess and destruction left behind, the only thing that told them people had lived here not too long ago.

  "Are they all hiding, prepared for an attack?" Felicia wondered.

  But Clara didn’t think that was the case. "They were all out in the open last time, guns at the ready. They were everywhere. Honestly, I expected to find people ready to start firing at us as soon as we got here."

  In contrast, the situation was a little anticlimactic, also worrying. What had driven all these people out of their own town?

  "I've heard bad things about Mawdsley," Felicia said. "That it’s a town full of drunks and people who would rather take benefits than work."

  "I can believe that—they were all too quick to attack, and they were all drunk."

  So, what the hell was going on?"

  "I have a really bad feeling about the emptiness of this town," Felicia muttered.

  She was feeling it too. This made no sense. People from this town had been attacking them, where would they have gone? It was a town about as big as her own, and with how wild it had been the last time, there should have been some people around.

  Clara made the decision to take everyone back to town, spooked by the quietness of the town.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Felicia and Clara rode back home together.

  Clara kept looking out of the window, nervous. Something was really wrong, she could feel it. Why hadn't there been anyone in that town? Well, they didn't exactly go knocking on doors to check if there were people around, but after thei
r last reception, it was definitely strange.

  Someone would have heard the car. They might have at least caught some curtains twitching, but Clara had looked out for it as they passed the streets, and she hadn't noticed. That could only mean that the town fighters weren’t around. they hadn't knocked on doors because Clara thought that was a little too much to attack with a bunch of frightened people if there even were people locking them up in their houses.

  "Keep a cool head, Clara. We're all surprised, just don’t let this throw you."

  Felicia said that and she heard, but Clara couldn't seem to get rid of her nerves. Had they really hidden? With the overconfidence they'd displayed when she, Cooper, and Dante went there, she didn’t think they would do a thing quite like that.

  Or were they waiting to ambush them somewhere on the way? It hadn't happened on the trip there, but maybe on the way back?

  She cursed in her mind. The uncertainty was killing her. Had they been too late in planning their attack? It had been nearly a week since the last time. Who knew what they must have been thinking when their people didn’t return.

  Her uneasiness only grew the further away they got with no surprises waiting for them. Whatever they'd decided to do, Clara had a feeling it would affect them somehow.

  She clutched her gun the whole way, ready to shoot at any enemies that popped out of anywhere, leaving her nerves stretched tight when nothing happened.

  When they drove into town, someone stopped them. They ran into the road out of nowhere, and if there hadn't been a great deal of distance between them, Felicia wouldn’t have had time to slow down without causing the other cars keeping close at their tails crashing into them. The tires made a slight screech, and Clara's heart beat a faster rhythm from the scare she got. She could have leaned outside and told the person off, but they came close to the window.

  "Where the hell were you?" he said accusingly. "You were late getting here."

  Clara paused her angry tirade. Late…? The whole town had known what they'd intended to do. If anything, Clara would say they'd returned way too early. Clara was about to ask what they were late for, when Felicia cut in, leaning towards Clara's side to catch the guy's attention.

  "Where are we needed?"

  "Head for the west side of town. The situation is worst there right now, but be careful."

  Felicia nodded, ushering the other cars to follow as the guy ran off to wherever he'd come.

  Her uneasiness was enough to make her sick at that point. She had some idea what could be happening, and she wondered how they hadn't foreseen this. It would have been the obvious thing, yet somehow, they'd been tricked.

  Felicia and Clara investigated the west side of town. They drove, seeing no one on the streets until they got to a point where Felicia stopped and parked the car. She went back to the other cars, probably to tell them not to move, and she and Clara went forward, moving slower.

  Clara couldn’t even say she was surprised. It was like what she had been feeling was realized. She could only watch in disbelief, as Felicia parked out of sight, far enough away that they weren’t too close to the action but could see it pretty clearly.

  "What the hell?" she breathed.

  There were at least four vehicles on each street. One of them was even a truck. Felicia saw people from the cars gathering others from their houses, prodding them with guns, and she pointed it out to Clara. She watched, raising her hand to her mouth and feeling her insides quiver.

  Seriously, what the hell was going on? Who were these people, and why were they in their town? How did they get here, and how were they doing whatever they wanted? She didn't see anyone on their side fighting at all, but then the odds were set against them, so it was understandable.

  Had they been too late, like she'd feared? Taken too long thinking about attacking and lost their advantage long before they even realized it. Because this ambush was supposed to be in their town, not Clara's. Had they taken the initiative and come here, because Clara had waited too long, nearly a week, to act? She could have sworn they had more time.

  There were several gunshots, and Clara winced at the sound. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t.

  "I know exactly where the people of Mawdsley are," Felicia muttered. "They’ve come to our town."

  But… how? Unless they'd used some route Clara didn’t know, they couldn’t have gotten here while Clara and her party were away. They hadn't passed any cars on their way. Or had they been in another town, and Clara and her group just passed them on their way?

  Either way, this was bad. They didn’t have nearly enough people to counter this level of attack, and if there were more people on their streets, doing anything at all would be dangerous.

  Then Felicia was driving away. Clara's eyes snapped to the invaders as the engine revved. She wondered if there was just too much noise over there for them to hear, or they assumed it was one of theirs. Or maybe it was luck, but none of them seemed to notice, and they could drive away safely.

  "Felicia, what are you doing?" she asked as Cooper and the others followed behind them in their cars.

  Were they really just going to leave all those people without even trying to help? Self-preservation and the need to help had warred inside Clara. She didn’t think there was any way they could win if they decided to fight, but would running away really be better? Because Clara was getting the bad feeling that those people might not survive whatever their attackers had in mind.

  "You saw what I did, Clara. There are way too many people there, and we don’t know their objective. Rushing in, going in at all, could be fatal for all those people." She didn’t mention what Clara was thinking, what she was sure Felicia also thought. That those people had no guarantee of survival anyway. We can’t play heroes—we need to get out of here, or we’re all going to die."

  Clara knew it was true. It left her feeling sick to her stomach, that the best they could do was run, but even mad, she wasn’t homicidal. It wasn’t just her in this, and the others hadn't asked to be led to their deaths. The possibility had existed, but the probability raised a lot higher in that moment when Clara saw all those people.

  "We’ll warn as many people as they can," Felicia went on, "pack up the cars and get out of here before we get ourselves killed.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Clara didn’t like this plan. She hated this plan, knowing the only reason they even had the chance to get away, was because they had made the initiative to leave town and go to their attackers' town to try and ambush them, only for the reverse to happen. And now, all they could do was run.

  It felt cowardly. But she knew there wasn’t a chance that they could win. Maybe if they'd been on an even footing… but she couldn’t think about that right then. If they were going to leave, she needed to pack up some stuff.

  The got back to Clara’s house and got out of their cars. Her side of town was far enough from the action, and they would be safe for a little bit, but only if they hurried. Tessa came out of the car she'd gotten into, Cooper following behind her, both of them confused.

  "Clara, what's going on? What's happening?"

  But Clara wouldn’t listen. She just grabbed them both by the arms and pulled them toward the house.

  "No time, just move."

  "But Clara—" she protested, only to get cut off.

  "We need to move, Clara said insistently, letting the urgency in her eyes tell them how serious things had gotten. "We need to grab all of the supplies that we can carry and leave."

  "But what's going on?" Cooper asked stubbornly, not moving an inch.

  She sighed, exasperated and worried. "We don’t have time, Cooper. We were late. Several cars with people with guns are parked on a street on the west side of town. They're gathering people, I don’t know what for. I don’t want to do this, but if we stick around, they'll find us eventually. We don’t know if there are more elsewhere, but there could be…"

  In fact, there had to be. Their town held way too many peo
ple to all fit in four vehicles. There were probably other people elsewhere, doing the same on other streets. Which meant they had to be gone long before that, and they had a lot to carry.

  Tessa was panicking. Clara heard her breathing pick up, and looked at her to see her eyes wide, her face looking sallow. She caught her by the tops of her arms and shook her a little before she lost herself to a panic attack. She wasn’t sure how long they had, but it was not enough to let Tessa go into an attack.

  "It'll be fine, Tess," she said reassuringly. "We're all going to be safe if we leave."

  Tessa whimpered. "I don’t want to leave my home and Viola's body, Clara."

  "It's fine, I promise. We will definitely come back, when it's safer, we'll return. I don’t want to leave home either."

  But they had to, and quickly.

  "Both of you just, please. Get whatever you can. Cooper break down the shed and take as much as you can, preferably everything. Get somebody to help you guys, I'll be going after something else."

  Cooper nodded, taking Tessa with him and some of the other guys. With some of the other people going from door to door, they got a few more passengers. Most people refused to leave their houses, they probably had some idea of what was going on and didn’t want to leave their houses, but that couldn’t be helped.

  With Tessa gone, Clara began to cry. And she knew that she'd finally been broken by Viola's death. The thought of leaving her behind was too much, even though all she was leaving was a house full of memories and a body buried in their backyard. They couldn’t exactly take her along.

  Cooper turned up, pulling her into a hug and startling her for a moment. She'd given him a job to do, so why was he there? But she didn't stop him as he held her close, threading his fingers through her hair.

  "It's okay, Clara," he murmured. "We'll get through it together."

  His words were enough to give her a bit of a boost. They didn’t have time for this. She sent him back into the house to continue the job he'd given her, and she looked around for whatever else she could do to help.