One . . . two . . . three.
I tried to regain myself. Inhale. Exhale. Just a dream. Just a dream.
I repeated the mantra over and over until my breathing slowed, and my body stopped trembling.
My eyes searched the room, the street lights shining through the apartment window.
Friday night busy on the street below. Thank God. I let out a long sigh as I heard signs of normal life buzzing in the world around me.
I lay back down and drifted in and out of consciousness. Those crazy stories Norman always told me.
Norman, my cooky old grandfather on my mother’s side, the epitome of the doomsday preppers like you saw on TV.
He always found himself in the middle of a doomsday situation, or at least he thought he did.
He would babble on over with what I thought was useless knowledge that he somehow felt compelled to teach me, which would have been fine if he hadn’t started by scaring the crap out of his six year old granddaughter with stories of volcanic eruptions that block out the sun for decades or some foreign country shooting missiles that wipe out the entire United States government or economic collapses that would throw things back to the Great Depression.
You name an apocalyptic event, my grandpa Norman was prepared for it, with an underground bunker and a decade’s worth of supplies to show for it.
I laid back down, nestling into the sheets.
As I closed my eyes, I drifted into that peaceful place between sleep and wakefulness, and my consciousness lost itself in a hazy memory.
“Holly?”
Norman placed a large hand on my tiny shoulder and roused me gently. I was six, that age where real life was somewhere between fantasy and reality.
My imagination could make all things possible. I had fallen asleep around the tea table, Mrs. Bo Peep and Mr. Potato Head sitting comfortably on either side of me.
“Oh, hi grandpa, where’s dad?” I asked as I delicately lifted the rose pink teacup in his direction and wiped sleep from my eyes.
His face came into view, but something didn’t seem right. His face seemed distorted without the usual cheerful smile he normally greeted me with.
“Hey, Teacup,” He spoke my nickname softly, his hand lingering on my shoulder. “Dad left for a while. He had to take care of something. I want you to know that I love you, and I’m going to have to tell you something that’s going to be really hard for you to hear. Just remember, I’m right here, okay?”
He sat down on my bed, the slats creaking in protest, and motioned for me to come sit with him. He looked frightened.
I tiptoed over and climbed up into his lap, grasping his hands in mine to try and comfort him.
“Grandpa,” I said, suddenly alert and realizing that something was deeply wrong. “Why are your hands shaking.”
I looked up into his eyes and saw tears gathered in the corners.
“Are you crying?”
“It’s your mom, Holly. She was reporting on a story in Chechnya, and her plane crashed out in the mountains. They found her after three days. She’d been injured and . . . “ he broke momentarily.
I watched his lips form a thin, determined line, the white around them bunching up into pale wrinkles with the force of determination.
“Your mom is gone, Holly. She could have survived if she’d known how. She could have made it, but she was helpless out there,” Norman angrily swiped away his tears. “I promise I’ll never let anything happen to you. We start learning together. I should have done more, taught your mother more. I should have . . . “
Norman couldn’t continue. He gathered me in his arms and wept.
I felt the haziness of sleep tug at me as his sobs faded. The memories preventing my mind from drifting away completely for a long while until, finally, I lost myself in unconsciousness.
My drowsiness slipping into deep, unencumbered sleep.
* * *
The first thing that woke me was the silence. My eyes popped open.
It was too quiet. In the city, there was always a buzz of electricity, a comforting noisiness that lulled everyone to sleep.
I listened to the absence of the humming. Complete silence. Everything was black. No street lights. The store signs across the street never went out, but they were eerily absent.
The night was pitch black. I listened harder, sitting up and feeling my way to the window.
Drawing the shades back, I looked out upon a dead city.
For the first time, I could see stars littering the sky. The moon half-hidden behind wispy clouds. The beauty of it unnerving me.
Wow. A citywide blackout. This has NEVER happened.
I felt a chill travel up my arms, my stomach in nervous knots. I’m sure they will get it up and running soon.
The moonlight illuminating my bedroom cast a silver glow across everything.
I turned and swiped my phone off the charging dock on the nightstand table, hoping to reach Liza.
I pressed the home button distractedly but looked down when I didn’t hear the familiar click. No light. No touch ID. Dead. My iPhone was useless. I knew I had charged it earlier that night, too, before dinner. No way it could be dead.
As I turned back toward the window, a shadow streaking across the sky startled me. I felt the apartment shake violently as it plummeted into buildings several blocks away.
A plume of smoke and fire exploded upward from the street.
I stood frozen watching planes continue to drop out of the night in the far off horizon, clouds of fire erupting here and there, dotting the landscape around the city and lighting up the night.
I just stood there transfixed, uncomprehending.
The world was exploding around me, but I couldn’t hear it. It just seemed so distant, like seeing through a tunnel. The loud pounding on my door pierced the haze.
“Holly! Holly!” Matthew’s voice pressed urgently through the door.
I rushed through the apartment, nearly swinging the front door off its hinges. A bright light shined through the doorway.
Matthew’s dark figure stood in front of me, a large, heavy duty flashlight blinding me momentarily.
I could hear screams and panic from the street bleeding through the walls of the complex.
“Matthew,” I uttered breathlessly. “What’s going on? Have you heard anything?”
“Everything is down, Holly.” His face looked green in the cast-off light. “Planes are falling from the sky. People are in a panic in the hallway. Do you have any idea what could be happening? I heard a guy in the hallway yelling about a terrorist attack. Another lady was saying something about God and the Devil. Once the planes started crashing, people just went crazy.”
“Do you have your phone? Was it on the charger when the blackout happened?” I asked.
“Uh, no, but . . .” I held out my hand to stop him.
“I need to see it.”
He lifted it from the back pocket of his jeans, unlocked it, and held it out to me. The screen was alight, and everything looked normal. I tried the internet. Just a blank page, no search engine.
I tried to call my phone just to hear the quick beep, beep, beep and then the phone ended the attempted call. I tossed it back at Matthew.
“Hold on,” I commandeered his flashlight and dashed to my closet, flinging clothes and shoes wildly out of the closet.
Searching, searching, searching until I found it.
My pack, the one Norman made we swear to keep packed and ready to go. The one promise I could never break after seeing what my mom’s death made of him.
I always kept it ready, my emergency kit, extra clothes, hammock rolled up and attached to the bottom, water filter, empty water bottle, other necessities . . . in my apartment, always enough stockpiled to rough it with conservative rations for at least a month in the wild.
I stepped back into the bedroom and opened my bottom dresser drawer, pulling out light cargo pants, a short sleeved shirt, light jacket, socks, and hiking boots.
My emergency drawer. I had left everything folded and secure in that drawer and had not opened it since that first day I’d moved into the apartment four years ago.
I nabbed an extra flashlight from the kitchen drawer and stuffed a bundle of MRE’s from the pantry into the top of the pack before cinching it closed again.
I secured all of the buckles and side straps before lifting it deftly onto the bed and sitting in front of it. Straps on, buckle from waist to top, tighten, and ready. Ticking it off in my head like Grandpa Norman taught me, to keep calm, to think clearly.
With a deep sigh, I lifted myself off the mattress and headed toward the door. Matthew stood there, watching me with eyes wide.
I grabbed my keys off the hook by the door, tossed the flashlight to Matthew, walked out of the apartment, and shut the door behind me.
CHAPTER 2 (Holly)
The hallway was littered with dark shadows and beams of light hovering in all directions.
I turned to Matthew.
We were all like stark, over-sized fireflies in a big cage. I shook my head to get rid of the image.
“Go back to your apartment. Grab a backpack and fill it with extra clothing, different layers, long and short sleeves, long pants and shorts, jacket, water bottle. Pick up anything else you think you might need to survive a long trip. You’re a hiker. Just think of it as a long backpacking trip. Then, meet me downstairs in the lobby.”
Matthew headed toward his apartment two doors down as I turned toward the stairs.
“Holly! Holly!”
A wavering stream of light cut down the corridor to my apartment just as the lock clicked.
I pocketed my keys and turned towards the high pitched panicky voice now running down the dark hallway.
Liza plummeted towards me in a clumsy embrace. I hugged her briefly before firmly grasping her arms, my hands steadying her, nose to nose, her light casting a pale reflection on our frightened faces.
“Liza, we need to get out of here. Now. I was just coming down to grab you.”
“The elevators are out, everything’s crazy! People are screaming. Fires in the city. What’s going on? What do we do, Holly? What do we do?!”
Fear assaulted me with every word Liza thrust out. I took her face in my palms; panicked sweat and hot tears covered my hands as I grasped her face.
She collapsed into me, and I folded my arms around her trembling body.
“Breathe, Liza. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .” I counted until her breathing steadied.
We stood there for a long while. Counting and comforting her steadied me. Liza’s breathing finally slowed. She wiped the tears away with a wavering determination.
“Okay.” I glanced up to see Matthew coming back towards me.
Solemn. Steady. Strong. He was prepared, a bulky backpack strapped and ready to go.
“Go with Matthew. He’s going to take you back to your apartment to pack some clothes.”
I pulled Matthew aside, out of Liza’s hearing. “Make sure she has something to do. Give her a list of clothing items she might need. People with a purpose stay calm. When you’re done, meet me at my car. I just realized that I’ve got to check something. I’m parked on the street to the left of the front entrance.”
Matthew nodded, walking toward Liza, soothing her with his deep voice while talking her through what she would pack.
I jolted towards the stairs, flashlight jumping off the walls, pinpointing the exit sign that was no longer alight.
Five flights down, the corridors were dark and quickly heating up, the damp night air stuffing into the small space.
The moisture beaded on my face. I held the flashlight in one hand and freed my ponytail from the back of my sticky neck with the other.
Finally, the light landed on the lobby sign. I burst through the door, my light pinpointed on the lobby doors ahead of me.
The front of the lobby was just window upon window. I always enjoyed sitting on the comfy couches while I worked on my writing and sipped coffee from the complimentary coffee bar.
You could sit and watch city life unfolding in front of you, great fodder for characters and story lines.
The Atlanta sunsets were breathtaking through that wall of windows. I had watched the beautiful endings of so many days sitting in that lobby, all the bright oranges giving way to a myriad of colors and finally fading to black dotted with the vibrant city lights.
But now, the city’s only lights were bright reds and angry oranges, fire upon fire. The large windows had imploded from the radiating heat, glass littered the floor. People were beginning to congregate in the lobby.
I scanned the room with my flashlight and landed on face after face. Fear binding us all together in that moment.
Mrs. Sanchez and her two children were seated on the couch with their rosary beads, murmuring prayers to an indistinguishable saint.
One girl about my age stood in front of the windows in shock, staring at the nearest fire with wide eyes.
The confusion on her face laced with wonder. Many other faces just stared out into the unknown.
Several of the apartment staff that lived in the building were gathering a small group together to discuss the best course of action.
I avoided them all and rushed past them. The glass crunched under my hiking boots. I stepped through the glass frame and into the street.
I could hear screaming about 20 yards off. Shadows from a fire played across a large piece of twisted metal jutting out of a second story apartment across the street.
Several people were wandering aimlessly, calling out names of friends or family.
A man walked past me with a jagged gash lacerating his forehead. Blood seeped down his face as he stumbled past me.
“Samantha!!! Sam!!! Samantha!!!” He just continued screaming it over and over and over.
I stepped around him and walked down the street to my car. The windows were blown out. I did a round about, checking the tires and the engine.
No internal damage. I grabbed my keys and tried the ignition. Nothing. Not even the click that comes with a dead battery.
It didn’t come as a surprise, though. Just confirmed suspicions. I got out of the Jeep, warily, searching the streets for Matthew and Liza.
I headed to the back and opened it up to grab my extra backpack and the tire iron. Yes. I carried an emergency pack in the car, too. Prepper grandfather. Remember?
“Place the pack on the floor board and step away from the car,” an intense, cruel voice behind me hissed.
I felt cold hard metal pressed into my back. Bone on metal, unsteady hand, the gun was shaking against my shirt.
I dropped the pack, but didn’t step away. One hand went to my face.
“Please. Please. Don’t hurt me. I’m so scared. What’s happening? Take what you want, but please don’t hurt me. Don’t leave me here with nothing, though. I’m all alone. I don’t have anyone in the city, and I don’t know how to survive.”
I pleaded and begged, wiping tears from my eyes and collapsing onto the pack, half bent over and sobbing.
I felt the gun slowly pulling away from me. The man shifted to my right side, the gun lowered and pointing to the ground.
“Look,” he started reasoning. “I’m just going to take your packs. I need them, too. I won’t hurt you if you coop . . .”
He didn’t have time to finish his sentence.
As he reached to lift the pack from the car, I swung the tire iron at his head as hard as I could. A sick cracking sound resonated down the roadway, and his body went rigid as it hit the pavement.
Blood spilled into a widening arc. The firelight gave it a sinister glow. I looked down at my hands, the tire iron dripping dark splotches of blood on the pavement.
My body refused to move until I felt a hand settle on my shoulder. I swung around wielding the tire iron in a vice grip. Matthew jumped back just before it clipped him on the shoulder.
“Holly? Are you okay?” His voice seemed s
mall and frightened.
Matthew, I . . . I am sorry.”
But he was no longer looking at me. His face was furrowed, lined with worry and a touch of fear.
He stayed several feet back, unsure what to do. His eyes fixated on the blood still filling our half of the street and the body attached to it.
Our Survival: A Collection of Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thrillers Page 60