After the EMP (Book 8): Hope Stumbles

by Tate, Harley

  With half a bag left, Tracy loaded up on mechanicals and defense. A backup Glock 19, same as what she carried now day-to-day, three magazines, and a box of ammo. Although the car crash that led to the deaths of most of Colt’s friends was tragic, it came with the gift of an arsenal. Tracy would forever be thankful that something positive came out of that tragedy.

  As she finished filling the pack with a multi-tool, flashlight, and few other odds and ends, the door to the cabin opened. The morning sun lit up Brianna’s curls like a halo before she shut the door. “You’re not doing this alone.”

  “Yes, I am.” Tracy zipped up the pack and plucked her parka off the wall. “I’m not putting anyone else’s life in danger.”

  “You’ll never find what you need.”

  Tracy shook her head. “With Colt, Dani, and Larkin out looking for Walter, we’re already dangerously shorthanded around here. If you come with me, that leaves only your parents and Peyton to hold down the entire place. It’s asking too much.”

  Brianna reached for a shotgun and a box of shells. “If I don’t come with you, Madison could die.”

  “If you come with me and this place is attacked, it won’t matter.”

  “That’s not going to happen and you know it.” Brianna loaded the shotgun as she argued. “We’ve increased our perimeter defenses, the solar panels have full charges, and thanks to Walter’s work we can see and hear anyone coming long before they reach the farm. It’s as secure with three people as it is with ten.”

  Tracy shoved her arms in her coat sleeves. “I can’t ask you to come with me. Madison is my daughter. You and your family have already done so much to help us.”

  “Madison’s my best friend. I’m not sitting around here and watching her die when I could be out there, finding a cure to save her.” Brianna pushed a riot of curls off her face and pointed at the door. “I’m going whether you want me to or not.”

  “Your parents will never forgive me if you get hurt.”

  “They’ll understand.”

  Tracy frowned and tried one last time. “We don’t even know if the fox had rabies. This could all be for nothing. You should stay.”

  “And the virus could be racing through Madison’s tissue right now, struggling to find a way to her nervous system. Every minute we waste arguing is a minute she might not have.” Brianna yanked open the door. “The rest of my gear is with Madison. You should say goodbye before we leave.”

  Tracy watched the twenty-year-old stomp out of the supply cabin and down the hard-packed trail to the makeshift infirmary. Changing Brianna’s mind would be impossible. If anything, the past few months of working the land and beefing up their defenses only made the girl more headstrong and determined. Brianna wasn’t the type to settle down and enjoy the quiet life. She craved the kind of action they met while out on the road.

  Tracy frowned as she followed the girl. Tracy would let Brianna tag along, but it didn’t mean she had to like it. She thought about Anne waking up and finding her daughter gone and it filled her with dread. If the roles were reversed, Tracy would be consumed by worry.

  After stomping her boots off on the porch, she slipped inside. Brianna sat beside Madison’s cot on the far wall, their young heads almost touching as they talked. As Tracy shut the door, Madison leaned toward her.

  “Do you really have to go?”

  Tracy dug her thumbnail into her palm to keep from tearing up. “I’m afraid so.” She smiled at her daughter. “We need to find you some medicine.”

  “The wound isn’t that bad. We have some fish mox left. I’m sure I’ll recover just fine.”

  “It’s not a bacterial infection we’re worried about.”

  Brianna glanced at Tracy. “Your mom found the fox. It was… acting strange.”

  Madison’s eyes widened as she stared at Tracy. “How?”

  “It was pawing the ground and snarling, walking in circles. It seemed disoriented and confused.”

  “That could be the blood loss. It was injured from the trap.”

  Tracy closed the distance and sat on the edge of Madison’s cot. She took her daughter’s hand. “Or it could be rabies.”

  Madison’s face paled. “If it is—”

  “Then you need a vaccine as soon as possible.”

  “If I don’t get it?”

  Brianna exhaled. “You’ll die and it won’t be pretty.”

  Madison leaned back against the wall. “How long do I have?”

  “It depends on how far the infection had progressed in the fox. If his spit was raging with virus, then a few days. As long as the virus hasn’t reached your nervous system, a vaccine will cure you.”

  “Once it has?”

  “Then it’s hopeless.”

  Tracy squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I’ve heard of people living for months without symptoms.”

  “It’s true. Sometimes the virus takes months or even years to reach the brain. But the sooner we get you medicine, the better.” Brianna stood up. “You’re lucky the fox bit you in the leg.”

  Madison tried to smile, but it came out in a grimace. She grabbed Brianna’s hand. “Are you going?”

  She nodded. “I’m going to help your mom. Thanks to that infectious disease class I took sophomore year, I know what to look for.”

  Tracy leaned forward. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  “Don’t get killed for me.” Madison’s eyes shimmered. “Dad needs you.”

  “I love you, honey.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  Tracy hugged her daughter, holding her breath to keep from shaking. Madison wouldn’t die. They would go on the hunt and find the medicine and come back home in time.

  She pulled away.

  “Even if you don’t find the vaccine, there’s a good chance I’m not infected. I still think the fox was just hurt.”

  “We can’t take the chance.” Tracy stood up as Brianna reached in for a quick hug.

  The younger woman dropped her voice, but Tracy could still make out the words. “If you start to show signs of the disease—confusion, fever, drooling—stay inside. You don’t want to infect anyone else.”

  Tracy shivered. The thought of losing her daughter to a disease like rabies filled her with dread. She wouldn’t let that happen. They would find a vaccine and prevent the sickness.

  As Brianna gathered her things, Tracy waved once more at Madison and stepped outside. The cold winter air forced tears from her eyes and she wiped at her face.

  Madison would be okay. Colt would find Walter. They would all make it home.

  She kept repeating the affirmations in her mind over and over until Brianna joined her on the front porch. A warm glow lit up the eastern sky as the sun rose for yet another day.

  “Ready?”

  Tracy nodded. “Now or never.”

  Chapter Twelve

  TRACY

  Unoccupied Forest

  Near Truckee, CA

  10:00 a.m.

  “At least it’s not snowing.” Brianna wiped a blob of wind-induced snot from under her nose and keep trudging. Almost two hours into their trek and they were nearing the outskirts of Truckee.

  It took concentration and stamina to hike through soft, loose snow. They’d barely said more than a few words to each other, focusing instead on not falling down or stepping in an unseen hole. But as the terrain leveled out, Tracy broached a topic she’d only touched on in the months post-EMP.

  “Back in college, were you decided on a major?”

  Brianna glanced up. “Not a hundred percent, but I was leaning toward veterinary medicine.”

  “Hence the infectious disease class.”

  She nodded. “I’d taken all the intro science classes and that was my first elective. Tucker was always trying to get me to try for med school, but I didn’t want to work that hard.”

  At the mention of Brianna’s boyfriend, Tucker, her voice warbled. It had been over six months since he died. A pang of guilt lodged in Tracy’s c
hest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”

  Brianna lapsed into silence and Tracy changed the subject. “The vet clinic we’re headed to, is it in town?”

  “No. It’s a country vet. We took the pigs there when they were having a skin problem a few years back. The doctor saw farm animals, mostly.” Brianna stopped and fished a map from her bag. She tugged off a glove and pointed at a red dot of marker. “That’s our place.”

  Tracing a line down the hilly terrain to the flatter areas closer to town, she stopped at a rural intersection of a pair of two-lane highways. “Here’s the vet.”

  Tracy guessed they were another three miles out. “Do you think a small vet like that will have the vaccine?”

  “It’s worth a shot. Farm animals are more likely to be bit by a wild animal than household pets in town.”

  “What about looters? Vets have tranquilizers and sedatives and all kinds of pills. In Sacramento half of them prescribed Prozac to anxious dogs and cats.”

  Brianna shoved the map back in her pocket. “Dr. Benton wasn’t that kind of vet. He worked out of his house. If you didn’t know he was a doctor, you’d pass his farm right by.”

  Tracy exhaled. Brianna was right; a country vet was their best shot. “If he doesn’t have a vaccine, we’ll have to head into town.”

  “The hospital will be the best choice.”

  Tracy grimaced. A hospital was the last place she wanted to go. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  As the sun rose above the horizon, the pair of women emerged from the forest and onto a road cut through rock and snow. Brianna pulled a water bottle from her pack and took a sip.

  If they weren’t loaded up with guns and ammo, Tracy could almost pretend they were just two women out on a winter hike, finishing up a week-long camping trip as they trekked back into town and the world before.

  “Do you miss it?”

  Tracy glanced up. She wasn’t the only one stuck in the past. “Our lives before?”

  Brianna nodded. “Everything. Electricity, transportation, people. So many people. I used to wake up and reach for my phone first thing. Scroll through pictures of my friends, see who was doing what that day. All from my bed.”

  “Now we’re cut off.”

  “My parents had talked about what it would be like and why we built our cabins, so I wasn’t in the dark. But I didn’t fully grasp what it all meant.” Brianna turned to Tracy and squinted against the sun. Any trace of the happy-go-lucky college kid she met that first visit to campus was gone. She’d aged ten years in nine months.

  “At least your family had the sense to be ready. We didn’t even have extra food in the house.” Tracy chastised herself for her foolishness. If they’d only had a plan for something like this, then maybe everything wouldn’t have fallen apart. Maybe they wouldn’t have lost the house. Wanda. Tucker. So many friends.

  Brianna shook her head. “It’s one thing to daydream and plan and can a bunch of tomatoes. It’s another to watch the country you grew up in tear itself apart.”

  “We’ll be forever grateful to you and your family, Brianna.”

  She waved Tracy off. “You don’t need to thank me. Without you and Madison and everyone else, we would never be able to survive. We underestimated how hard living off the land would be.”

  “I underestimated how quickly the cities would fall.”

  Brianna ran a hand down her face. “We really are a bunch of animals now, aren’t we?”

  Tracy wished she could wave a magic wand and reset the country. “I still miss it.”

  “Me, too.” Brianna focused on the snow beneath her feet as they walked. “But I don’t miss the manufactured drama. Leave it to the apocalypse to show you how stupid selfies are.”

  Tracy laughed. “How about yoga pants? Those things are worthless out in the wild.”

  Brianna giggled. “Or makeup or high heels or…” Her voice slid into a sob. “Boyfriends.”

  Tracy reached out and squeezed her parka-clad arm. “Fancy shoes might be gone forever, but don’t write off finding someone new.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” Brianna looked around. “I don’t see a slew of eligible bachelors just waiting in the snow.” She sniffed. “Tucker was supposed to be the one.”

  Watching someone so young hurt so deeply, all because of a cataclysmic event they never expected, twisted Tracy’s insides. For months, she’d fooled herself into thinking the worst was over.

  The hard truth was that it would never end. She shoved the thought aside and brightened her voice. “Give it time. Maybe years from now, all the people who have found a way to hang on will come together. Rebuild.”

  Brianna snuffed back tears.

  “In ten years, we could be back to civilization. We could have what we lost.”

  Tracy didn’t push the issue and Brianna didn’t respond. They walked, side by side in silence, down what used to be a road. Snow drifts had piled against the fence posts on either side and the women stayed to the middle, hiking on an empty highway toward what used to be a thriving mountain town.

  The entire trek from the cabin to Truckee would be a slow descent down the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. She refused to think about the hike back up. As they came out of a bend, a snow-covered shape slowed Tracy’s steps. “Is that a car?”

  “What’s left of one.” Brianna pulled her shotgun off her shoulder. “Looks abandoned.”

  Tracy unholstered her Glock and lowered her voice. “I’ll peel off. Check the field.”

  Brianna nodded and eased closer to the fence line as Tracy slipped between two strings of barbed wire and three feet of snow. Her boots sunk into the soft fluff as she canvassed the area. Nothing stood out. No movement. No tracks.

  “It’s clear.” Brianna’s voice cut through the icy air and Tracy made her way around the vehicle.

  As she approached, Brianna knelt in front of a shape huddled beside the car.

  “Did you find someth—” Tracy froze. It wasn’t a bush or a pile of discarded gear. The shape nestled beside the front fender of an ice-covered Honda used to be human.

  Brianna reached out and dusted the snow away. A woman’s blue face emerged. Eyes closed, head resting on the shoulder of a man. While Tracy watched, Brianna uncovered the rest of their bodies.

  Two people sitting on the side of the road, turned to ice. The man had his arm around the woman, and they were huddled together like somehow their puny body heat would make up for temperatures in the teens.

  Brianna backed up in disgust. “Why didn’t they stay in the car? Or keep moving? Sitting out here, they were exposed. Just waiting for winter to claim them.”

  Tracy crouched in front of the woman. Thanks to the brutal winds and months of snow, she couldn’t make out more than her shape. What was she in a prior life? A teacher? Secretary? Biochemist? What was her life story? Why did it end in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road?

  Her head sagged and Tracy focused on the woman’s hands. They clasped a piece of paper. Tracy leaned forward and brushed off the snow. Is it a photo? She tugged at it with her gloved hand. Ice cracked and splintered. She yanked harder and the paper tore at the edge and came free. She stood up and brushed off the snow.

  It was a photograph of a little girl. No older than ten, she looked a lot like Madison all those years ago. Brown hair, freckles across her nose, braces on her teeth. Smile full of light and life and an unblemished childhood. A snapshot of a time that seemed so long ago.

  Tracy swallowed. “Any sign of a girl?”

  Brianna scraped snow off the window of the car and cupped her hands around her face to peer inside. “It’s empty.”

  “We need to make sure.” Tracy held a little bead of hope in her heart even though she knew it was pointless. The couple had been dead for days if not weeks. They could have succumbed to the cold back when the first snowfall landed in November, waiting for someone to find them ever since.

  But Tracy perseve
red, searching the area and kicking at clumps of snow until satisfied the child wasn’t there. She set the photograph in the dead woman’s lap.

  “You still think in ten years we’ll rebuild?” Brianna’s voice cut like the wind.

  Tracy swallowed.

  “In ten years, how many people will even be left?”

  Tracy fought against the despair. “The girl might still be alive. Maybe she’s somewhere safe and warm.”

  Brianna slung her shotgun over her shoulder and turned to the road. “For her sake, I hope she’s dead.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  COLT

  Unidentified Farm

  Near Truckee, CA

  11:00 a.m.

  “I’m sick of waiting.” Dani fidgeted beside Colt in the Jeep. “I say we hit them now when they aren’t expecting us, find Walter, and get out.”

  Colt put the binoculars down with a sigh. “We can’t go guns blazing without a plan or any evidence that Walter’s inside. For all we know the kid was lying and this is a trap.”

  “I thought that’s what I said.” She crossed her arms in a huff.

  Colt frowned. He’d already busted into the warehouse without a plan or any eyes on the inside. They were lucky that time. No telling whether they’d be lucky again. The odds weren’t in their favor.

  He leaned toward Dani. “You may be right, but that doesn’t mean we either ignore it or just rush in. I reconned the crap out of Jarvis and that apartment before I broke in and it worked. If I’d just rushed in, who knows where we’d be by now.”

  “In a dumpster, being eaten by flies, probably.” Larkin adjusted his position and picked up his binoculars. “We do this right or we don’t do it. This isn’t like the warehouse with only one way in and a limited time horizon. Look at this place.”

  After they had packed up their gear, it took an hour to find the place Frankie described. Sitting by the Truckee River in a small valley-shaped clearing, the three silos stood out like giant mushrooms in the snow. Colt had pulled the Jeep into the forest on the ridge above, far enough away to avoid detection, and found a place to camp out behind a grove of young pines.