by Roger Hayden
James walked down into the cellar, light beaming in through the small windows, and retrieved a large protective metal case. He placed the case on a table and opened it. Inside was a radio transmitter, similar to a Ham radio, that he began to set up in haste. The radio ran off lithium batteries. The protective case was meant to shield the radio from electromagnetic pulses, and as he completed assembling its components, the radio turned on without a problem. James sat and clutched the microphone in his shaking hand. He moved the knobs to reach the proper frequency where he could communicate with his prepper pact. He used their call signs, holding down the transmitter button.
"Blue Sixty, Blue Sixty, come in Blue Sixty, this is Red Raven," James said. "Blue Sixty" was Terrance's call sign.
James continued. "Badger Beast, Badger Beast, come in, Badger Beast." "Badger Beast" was Mark's call sign.
He heard nothing. He tried again and again, having faith that they would soon answer his call. It was the only way he could find out how far the attack had reached.
Chapter Eight
Good Morning, Janice
Monday September 21, 2025 8:30 A.M. Savannah, GA
Janice faced rush-hour traffic every morning. She always found herself battling against the clock, as it took no less than an hour on the highway to get to work. Miraculously, she would make it to work by 9:00 a.m. every time. All of this, she supposed, could have been avoided by getting up and leaving earlier, but her body didn't seem to allow it. Janice was stubborn in her routines, and rushing to work was one she wasn't going to change, despite any benefit to her sanity. Halfway to work she sat back and listened to a talk radio show, "Earl & Company in the Morning," in which they discussed nothing of great significance. It was all about jokes and laughs. Sometimes she didn't want to be inundated with the news and seriousness.
In World News, the Middle East was raging with violence, as terrorist networks and so-called "sectarian groups" had effectively seized control of several countries in the region. Russia was moving on previously held territories in Europe, China was quickly advancing into the top spot as the world's top superpower, and they had already overtook America as the world's biggest economy. Iran and North Korea were unstoppable in their pursuit of a large nuclear arsenal. And this was in addition to all the problems occurring within the United States. It was too much to listen to at times. Too much to take in. To avoid depression, Janice listened to the humorous and trivial banter of "Earl & Company" instead.
Janice worked for an employment agency and recruitment company, Terry Services, Inc., a "temp agency" sourcing skilled workers for outside businesses. Her job involved processing applicants, scheduling interviews, and assisting walk-ins with appointments and general information. Each day was busy from open to close, but she also noticed a troubling lack of temporary jobs available overall. Sometimes her agency couldn't find applicants any work.
"Well, how did you get this job?" a frustrated man who couldn't find employment asked her.
"I applied for it like anyone else," she answered.
"Lucky you," the man said, storming out of the office. As a result, applicants were upset and short-tempered.
Janice pulled into the vast parking lot, just before nine, and saw that people were already lined up outside the building, looking for work. She thought it was ridiculous how people expected to find work the moment they walked in. Janice approached the front entrance, and pushed past the line of people at the door. She wanted to help them, she liked to help them—it was her job—but it seemed simply overwhelming for a Monday morning. She walked inside the building, past a cramped and full waiting lobby. She went down a hall, and entered her office.
A knock came at her door. Janice looked up and saw her co-worker, Laura standing outside her office. "It's a madhouse out there," she said to Janice.
"I expected it to be busy, but this is just, I don't know. Mondays, what can you do?" Janice said. She looked at her watch. It said 9:08.
"Time to get to work," she said, sitting down at her desk.
“Good luck,” Laura said, walking away.
She had twenty applicants to process for temporary positions. The first was a man named, Josh Tracey, a computer analyst recently laid off from an IT firm. He was overqualified for most of the positions available, but would take anything they had. Janice went outside to the lobby and called out her first appointment. "Mr. Tracey?" she said. A thirty-something nebbish man who sat squished between two other applicants on the waiting room couch stood up.
"That's me," he said, walking towards her.
"How are you this morning?" Janice asked. Mr. Tracey was wearing a faded suit, and his bushy hair was unevenly cut, looking as if he did it himself.
"I'm doing well, thank you for asking," Mr. Tracey replied.
They went to her office, and she closed the door.
"Have a seat, please,” she said, pointing to the chair in front of her desk. Mr. Tracey sat.
Janice continued. “So today is orientation. There's additional paperwork to fill out, orientation, and then we'll set you up with your new temp job.”
"Baggage handler at the Savannah International Airport?" he asked, reading over his paperwork.
"Yes, that's correct," Janice said.
Before Mr. Tracey could respond, the overhead lights flickered out. Simultaneously, the screen on Janice's computer turned blue, and then shut off. There were no windows, and the room was extremely dark. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but Janice could see Mr. Tracey sitting in front of her.
"You OK, Mr. Tracey?" she asked.
“I'm fine,” he said from the darkness. “What the hell happened? Who turned out the lights?”
Janice stood up and looked around. “Excuse me for a moment; I just need to see what's going on here."
"Did your people forget to pay the power bill?" he asked with a laugh.
"I certainly hope not," Janice answered. She got up and left her office to check out the lobby. The lights were out there as well.
"Power's out," a seated man from the lobby said.
"I see that," she answered. She left the lobby and walked past her office and down the hall to her co-worker Laura's office. There were no windows in the hall, and it had gotten dark very fast. She knocked, and Laura told her to come in. Janice opened the door. Sunlight beamed in through the tall windows behind Laura's desk. "I was right in the middle of drafting our newsletter,” Laura said, clenching her fists. “Son of a bitch, I forgot to add it to the share drive. Ugh!"
"I'm sorry," Janice said. “I don't know why it went out.”
"Who the hell knows,” Laura said. "There's no storm. Not a damn cloud in the sky."
Janice shook her head. "Hopefully it will come back on soon. I have a lot of people waiting out there. I'll talk to you later." She walked back down the hall as Laura stared at her screen in a daze.
Back in her office, Janice found a small flashlight in the top drawer of her desk. She pulled it out and turned it on. Mr. Tracey had wandered off, and he was no longer there. She could hear co-workers outside her office complaining that their cell phones weren't working. The scenario seemed familiar. It was something Mark used to talk about. Something called an EMP attack that destroyed power systems and electronic devices. Something that would take the country back to the 1800s in a matter of seconds if it could really happen. She dug her phone out of her purse and saw that it had fared no better than the others. The screen was blank, as if all its power had been drained away. Janice sat at her desk and thought for a moment.
"Excuse me, miss, just what in the hell's going on here?" an angry old man asked, breaking her concentration. He had left the lobby and found to her office, a highly irregular move for an applicant.
"One moment, please, sir," she said. She picked up the receiver of her land-line phone to call her boss, Brian. There was no dial tone. It was as if the phone wasn't even plugged in. She slammed the receiver down in frustration. She got up from her desk, and pushed past the m
an. “I'm sorry, I don't know what's going on.” The man was not satisfied, and yelled at her as she walked away from him. He reeked of alcohol.
Janice left office of the temp agency and decided to look elsewhere in the three-story building. The elevators weren’t working, so she headed for the stairwell. People were exiting, hurrying down as she was climbing up. She searched the second and third floors and found them to be the same as the first: dimly lit, full of confused wanderers.
She went back down to the first floor and exited the building. She was met with an unruly cluster of people on the bottom floor. Various job-seekers from all walks of life had convened outside the doors, lost and aimless. They wanted to know why the power was out. They wanted to know how much longer before everything magically came back on. Many of them held cell phones, frantically trying to get them to work. Without the guidance of their electronics, they looked to Janice for answers.
She was about to make her way back inside when she noticed an unusual quietness from the nearby highway. She could see the highway from the parking lot. It looked to be frozen in time. Vehicles sat motionless in what looked like early-morning gridlock. Nothing was moving, not even an inch. Janice stared, waiting for one of the hundreds of cars on the four-lane highway to move. Suddenly, she noticed something else: drivers and passengers were exiting their cars then circling them, looking perplexed.
Her boss, Brian, called out to her from outside the building as she walked to her white 2015 Toyota Corolla. "Janice, where ya’ going?" he said, standing with his hands on his hips.
“Damn,” she thought. She was about to leave.
She turned around and yelled back, "I just have to get something out of my car."
She unlocked the driver's side door and stepped in. She stuck the key in and turned the ignition switch. At first, she thought she was doing something wrong. She checked the dashboard to make sure that the vehicle was in park and tried again. The SUV wouldn't start, and Janice had no clue why. She tried the engine ten more times, getting nothing. She tried it in neutral, reverse, and drive to no effect. Her hand was tired from turning the key so many times. She walked back to the building in a daze as her boss greeted her sarcastically.
"Little bit of car trouble?" he asked.
"Looks like I'm not the only one," she answered, signaling to the motionless gridlock on the highway.
Mark pedaled home in haste, hoping that, for some unexplainable reason, Janice hadn't left for work yet. As he rode up their driveway, he saw that her car was gone. Mark thought for a moment, considering whether to drive their bug-out vehicle to Janice's office and rescuing her. But maybe her car worked after all. Maybe she got lucky. Mark didn't know the range of EMP blasts. He didn't know if its effects had spread across town, across the state, or over the entire country. He noticed his elderly next-door neighbor sitting on his front porch swing. Mark stepped off his bike, practically drenched in sweat. He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, but there was no escaping the sweltering heat. He checked his cell phone again. It was still dead. His neighbor looked peaceful on his porch swing, in perfect contrast to the chaos Mark had fled.
"How's it going, Mr. Harper?" Mark called.
Mr. Harper leaned forward on his cane and squinted. He worse a short-sleeved buttoned-up shirt tucked into his dress pants, colorful red suspenders, and a braided sun hat. He fanned himself leisurely with a paper fan.
"I'm doing fine, how about yourself?" he said.
Mark walked closer and stood under the shade of Mr. Harper's chestnut tree.
"Doing all right. Bit of a scare today with the power. It's like some kind of blackout. How are you holding up here?" Mark hoped that Mr. Harper would say that the power was running fine.
"Blackout?" Mr. Harper said. "I didn't even notice it. Just been sitting on my porch drinking some sweet tea." Mr. Harper held up a glass and finished the last of it. Just looking at the empty glass made Mark thirsty. He had to get inside to see everything for himself. Whatever was happening, Mr. Harper was oblivious to it.
"Well, I gotta pick Janice up from work. I'll see you later, Mr. Harper," Mark said, waving.
"You tell her I said hello," and he began swinging back-and-forth.
"Sure will," Mark responded. He walked up the steps into his home and unlocked the front door, hoping to find by a cool, air-conditioned living room when he stepped inside. That wasn't the case. The power was out. Mark walked around the living room, dining room, and kitchen checking each appliance. Nothing worked. He opened the refrigerator and looked in. Only darkness. The motor wasn't running, and it would be only a matter of time before all the food inside spoiled. Mark leaned against the counter thinking to himself.
“What are we going to do?” Mark muttered out loud. “What in the hell are we going to do?”
He thought of their food storage in the basement and how most of it was expired. He thought of their money, their assets, and their online accounts. He thought of ATMs, and not having in cash, and looters. The banks would soon be the most chaotic places imaginable, next to the supermarkets and gas stations. The bug-out house was a consolation to his worries. Mark considered their options. He needed Janice's input. Traveling to Milledgeville and leaving their home behind was a huge step, but a necessary one if things got worse.
Mark went to their backyard shed. He opened the wooden double-doors and found their bug-out parked inside, covered with layers of dust and grime. They owned an American classic: a red 1970 Plymouth Road Runner with a rear spoiler and lots of attitude. The door squeaked open, and Mark climbed into the driver's seat.
He wasn't surprised to find that the car wouldn't start. He hoped simply because the battery was dead. For that reason, they stored three car batteries on a shelf in the shed along with ten five-gallon cans of reserve fuel. Frustrated, Mark popped the hood and grabbed some tools to disconnect the dead battery so he could install a replacement. He was confident that the car would start in the end. If it didn't, then he would have to rethink his entire strategy. He was not looking forward to riding his bike to Janice's office in ninety-degree heat. He swapped out the batteries and ensured that the replacement was tightly connected. He sat at the wheel, placed the key in the ignition, and paused. He really didn't want to find out. If the car didn't start, he would be devastated. "Please," he said under his breath. "Please..."
He turned the key and felt the miraculous roar of the Plymouth's engine.
"Yes!" he shouted, hitting the steering wheel with excitement.
He revved the engine methodically then held the gas pedal down. He had always kept the car below half a tank to prevent corrosion. Now he had to fill it up with twenty gallons worth of fuel reserve. Out of ten fuel cans, he would have six left. He hoped that would get them to Milledgeville, if there were no gas stations operating. He shut the door and idled out of the shed onto a path that led him to the front yard. He waved again to Mr. Harper and sped off down the street in hopes of finding Janice. Mr. Harper waved back and smiled, still unaware of anything out of the ordinary.
Janice paced back and forth the parking lot in front of her building, wrestling with her options. Without a car, she didn't have many. She could walk home under the hot sun, or she could wait, and hope that Mark would soon arrive. She thought of their bug-out car, and wondered if there was any chance that it still ran. Perhaps an EMP had nothing to do with anything going on. Maybe it was all in her head. Her co-workers wandered dazed through the parking lot examining their cars and trying to get their cell phones working.
The highway was a sight to behold. Commuters walked down the highway like some kind of mass protest. Janice was caught between a desire to maintain her routine, and the realization that things were different now. She decided to wait. The power company had to intervene at some point. They would have the protocols in place to deal with such a thing. The government as well. She thought of the hospitals, prisons, schools, gas stations, and banks. There had to a plan to deal with a crisis of su
ch magnitude.
She looked out toward the highway again and there, right before her eyes, saw the results of an aerial electromagnetic pulse. If an EMP had been launched, it meant America was at war with someone. Janice thought about their home, their investments, and lives. Her head spun with panic. She looked back to the office building. More people had walked out, and were chatting with each other. She could feel sweat building on her back, under her shirt. Only ten feet away from her building, and dehydration had kicked in. She walked back to the building and stood under the shade of a nearby oak tree.
Mark drove the Plymouth through back roads to reach Janice's office. He wanted to avoid the highway as much as possible. Too many cars as roadblocks, and too many people. The back roads were not without their share of wanderers and broken-down vehicles either. He felt no satisfaction passing anyone, but he had his hands full as it was. He was only a few miles from Janice's building.
The Plymouth crept down back roads, its loud motor gained attention from everyone in its path. Mark drove slowly; cautiously attentive to whatever obstacles might be in his way. The paralyzed traffic created an eerie silence, pierced only by the sound of Mark's car, which could be heard miles away.
Janice heard the sound of Mark's Plymouth in the distance. She was standing under a nearby Oak Tree next, as many others convened outside the building. She saw the mysterious Plymouth as it turned into the parking lot, confounding every bystander along the way.
"Hey, man!" a young man covered in tattoos shouted. He held his arms out as if flagging Mark down. "Let me get a ride!" he said as Mark passed him by. The man jogged after the car, and soon others joined him. Mark looked in his rearview mirror and saw that he was being followed. A large group of desperate people trailed behind him. He would have little time to get Janice if she was still there. He gripped the steering wheel, and his eyes swept the parking lot as he searched for his wife.