The Burst [A YA Apocalyptic EMP Survival Novel] (Barren Trilogy Book 1)

by Harley Vex

  “Thanks.” Though I didn’t know Jerome well, I was glad he was there. “He’s been horrible to you since this started.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  The sadness in Jerome’s voice, as well as the resignation, broke me out of my terror. I could get my legs to move again, and after what felt like twenty minutes, they touched the floor.

  We had made it.

  And I was shaking from terror and exhaustion.

  “Laney?” Jerome asked beside me. “We’re at the bottom. And there’s a bit of light down here.”

  He was right. I blinked, and I’d been so focused on not looking down that I didn’t realize that a bit of power remained in this underground facility, as red emergency lights.

  The overhead lights had gone out, and I hadn’t realized that the Collider machinery hummed before. Now that it was dead quiet down here, the silence was deafening. I shook out my arms and legs, which were quivering after the tense trip down the ladder. My eyes adjusted, and I could make out the outlines of the room. A few weak red lights shone above the doorways, illuminating the way just enough to see. So there was some kind of backup power down here. Who knew how long it would last?

  And the smell, once again, was there.

  Mr. Ellis was still down here. I’d already forgotten where they put him. My mind had blanked out when they moved the body.

  “Let’s not linger,” I said.

  “I agree. They must have a flashlight down here, somewhere,” Jerome said, whirling. “There are so many shelves to look at, but at least that gives us some time away from David.”

  We walked around slowly for a few minutes, trying to get our bearings. Slowly, I remembered the layout of the part of the facility we’d already seen. “Dr. Marson?” I called.

  He hadn’t shown up. I hoped that he’d found some other way out, and would circle back around to the facility. There were plenty of locked doors down here that he could be behind, but he’d have keys, right?

  Then something near the plywood room caught my eye. “Over there?” I asked, pointing to something long and metal on the wall that reflected red.

  He felt around near me, just a shadow lurking among other shadows. “I think this might be something,” he said. “Ah. Here.”

  An explosive yellow-white light filled the space, and I squinted. “Jerome!”

  “Ah. Sorry. David was right about one thing, at least,” he said, turning off the enormous flashlight. “We found something that works and he can’t steal all the credit.”

  I looked away as Jerome turned on the huge flashlight again, and I realized the flashlight was one of those monster ones that needed two hands to hold. “How are we going to get that up the ladder?”

  “There’s got to be a backpack or something down here,” he said. “Come on. There’s three more on that shelf, and I bet there are batteries down here. At least this place is pretty well stocked.”

  We had that on our side, at least. It was almost enough to make me hope we could survive for a long time, but then I remembered the state of our food and water. Was the water on the surface poisoned? At least water moved around the world a lot, so that problem might not last too long, but even canned goods up there would be a problem.

  We visited the computer room first, and it shocked me to see that one computer near the front still gave off a pale glow. The monitor was off, but the tower’s power light glowed white and cast the shadows of wires on the wall.

  “Are you kidding?” Jerome asked as I sat down in front of the computer and found the mouse.

  The screen burst to life, but this time my eyes had adjusted to the higher light level. “Nope. This is not a dream. There’s enough power down here to power up one computer.” The blue screen glowed. But I’d seen nothing more beautiful. “Maybe we can look up what’s going on.”

  “There’s probably no net,” Jerome said with a frown. “Look. The icon.”

  He was right. The Internet icon at the bottom corner had the dreaded red X over it, and the icons on the screen all seemed to go to databases and troubleshooting. This was a computer for crunching Collider data. We couldn’t reach anyone with it.

  I got up. “Well, it was nice to see for ten seconds.”

  Jerome and I looked around the computer room and the break room, which still had plenty of non-perishable food laying on the tables. For the scientists, this was a home away from home. We’d have to haul that up to the others bit by bit, and I prayed David wouldn’t make the two of us shoulder the whole burden. But I found a backpack probably used by a scientist by some lockers that were resting against the wall and smiled as I held it up.

  “Great find,” Jerome said. “I’ll haul the stuff up as much as I can. And wait.” He opened a lower cabinet in the mini kitchen, which had no light other than a small red one near the door. “We’ve got a radio!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jerome was a godsend. Being tall and fairly athletic, he had no problem throwing some snacks and water bottles into the backpack. I helped, of course. The last thing I wanted to do in this crisis was act like dead weight, so I found a laptop bag, took out the laptop, and filled that with snacks and water bottles almost until the bag got scarily heavy. I’d have to haul this back up the ladder.

  Going up might be scarier than coming down, but at least I was halfway there.

  Hopefully, David would be satisfied when we got back up, and the others wouldn’t have gotten into the vending machine food. But if we ran out of other stuff before we found a way out of here, we’d have to.

  And then what?

  We still didn’t know what GRB meant, and we couldn’t Google it. We also had found no books down here on world-ending disasters, either.

  “Ready?” Jerome asked. “I’ll go up behind you. That way, anything that gets dropped will fall on me and not you.”

  “I won’t drop anything on you,” I promised as we stood at the base of the ladder, which I could barely see in the dim red light. “I got the batteries.”

  “Great.”

  We headed back up the rungs, and I was glad for the break on my limbs. But I’d need to eat soon, because my stomach roared with hunger and I was getting shaky. I prayed I wouldn’t pass out on this ladder and fall.

  Jerome and I trudged our way back up the ladder, and going up took even more time than going down did. Did the scientists of the Collider really plan for this to be the only escape route in the event of a power failure? What if someone was disabled? It seemed like a bad design choice, but stairs must have been unfeasible. Maybe there was something we’d missed.

  Another exit, maybe, that Dr. Marson had taken. It was possible he’d gone to get help, because we hadn’t heard him pounding on any surfaces down there. And we had checked all the locked doors before we left, shouting his name.

  At last, as my muscles protested and quivered, we reached the top of the ladder.

  “They’re back,” Christina said.

  A bit of applause rang out in the mostly dark Visitor Center. Barely any light came through the windows that were still bare, and someone had taken the framed pictures out of them just to let in some of the precious, blue-brown glow of the sunset. Such low light levels seemed safe, because everyone just stood around.

  Jerome flopped down first and set the radio on the floor. “Here you go, Your Highness.”

  David stood there as I pushed myself onto my knees, and Alana came to my aid. I handed her my bag of batteries and other valuable stuff as the two guys glowered at each other.

  “You have an attitude,” David said to Jerome.

  “Look, there’s more food and water down there, and it’s safe, but we’ll need to send a different two people down that ladder each time to get them,” I said. “It’s exhausting. The design of this place is terrible.”

  “She’s right,” Jerome said. “Now, if someone could get these batteries into the radio. Oh, and we have—”

  “Flashlight,” Tony said, turning it on.

  Eric s
hielded his eyes. “Ouch!”

  But people cheered. David stepped back behind the reception desk and motioned for Tony to bring it to him. “I’ll take that.”

  I was tiring of David, and fast. Even Christina was rolling her eyes at him as she looked through the laptop bag. But he didn’t seem to notice. He sure wasn’t making it with the ladies right now. Oh, well. Christina and I had nothing to fight over anymore.

  “Laney brought up an emergency radio,” Christina said, holding it up.

  More cheers went up, but I had no energy left to care much.

  "Wait," Bethany said. "The radio. Can’t we turn the flashlight off and save the batteries for when we need it?”

  Everyone muttered. I stood with Alana’s help and leaned against her. I had forgotten about the small radio during my climb. My stomach turned and twisted into knots.

  We might find out what happened. Or we might get silence.

  "Let me see," David said, taking it from Christina. He turned the flashlight right into her face as he did, and she grimaced. Then David retreated to the desk, popped in some batteries, and switched it on.

  Glorious static filled the room, and everyone crowded the reception desk as David messed with the dial. My heart thudded in my throat as I leaned over the counter, hating that I was desperate and hopeful to hear that someone was alive out there.

  Then one of the Science Club girls turned the flashlight up to the ceiling. We could see fine now, but were out of the main beam.

  "It works!" Alana said. "Thank you, um..."

  "Gina," the dark-haired girl said.

  "Gina," Alana repeated. "I was getting a headache. Now let’s see if any stations still exist."

  David, to my shock, backed off. “I don’t think anyone will be out there. If anyone wants to try, go ahead.” He bit his lip, and I wondered if he was nervous about failing everyone.

  Yeah, that had to be it. David could never fail at anything. Wasn’t his father a strict military guy?

  Gina turned the dial slowly, pausing for a few seconds on where each station would have been if it still existed. More static came out. Some stations had a more fuzzy static while others had gone to a more abrasive, high-pitched whine.

  And as she got close to the end of the radio band, people let out the breath they’d been holding.

  It was a void out there.

  "Great," Mina said. She was close to tears. “Great. Everyone's gone."

  David cleared his throat. “I knew it.”

  "Wait," Gina said. "Let's try the AM stations."

  "There's nothing on those but talk radio," David said.

  "Exactly," Gina said. “FM usually just has music. If anyone is out there, they’re going to be talking.”

  I liked her way of thinking. "Go really slow. We don't want to miss anything that could still be broadcasting."

  I wasn't expecting to hear any voices from out there, but at last, towards the end of the dial, a single word cut through the static.

  "...outside."

  My jaw dropped.

  A voice.

  From out there.

  "Yes!" David shouted. He gave Tony a high five, almost hitting Jerome in the face. I wasn't sure if that was intentional, but Jerome just backed away. “Play with the dial and get that signal back.”

  Gina did, and she took a bit to adjust the radio. Snippets of words went in and out. We were picking up a distant radio station, probably one that could only reach our location at night. I’d noticed before, at home, that a lot of signals wouldn’t come through until after the sun went down. It must have to do with the atmosphere.

  "...devastated the western third of the country...Pacific nations...Australia,” the man said on the other side of the radio as we stayed dead silent. His voice went in and out. “...getting no communications from those areas at all. Fires...from lightning strikes caused by a rain of radioactive particles.”

  I gripped the counter as a few people gasped.

  The western third of the country?

  And more?

  Whatever had happened had struck the entire area even close to the Pacific. My knees buckled. I held onto the counter for support. Alana whimpered. Even David stayed silent as the news sunk in.

  It was the biggest disaster the world had ever seen.

  I breathed in. The western third. That was us, and every point west of us before the ocean. Dad was in New York. On the East Coast. Maybe he was—

  More static danced from the radio, whistling and drowning out whatever the man was saying. I worked my jaw in frustration. Just as I thought we’d lost the signal for good, the man returned.

  "...supernova explosion.”

  More static.

  Jerome looked right at everyone. “I knew that came from space.”

  David said nothing. I eyed the piece of paper Mrs. Taney had left for us, which still sat on the counter. A supernova? Then the letters she’d written made no sense.

  “...with effects less deadly the farther you get from the side of the world caught in the beam,” the man continued, getting in almost a complete sentence before the static swallowed him again. He was speaking from far away. “...in fact…” More static. “...hypernova...most powerful explosion in the universe. Satellites picked up…”

  Less deadly?

  People were alive out there, east of our location. They hadn’t felt the deadly rays of the disaster nearly as much as we had.

  And we were on the edge of death.

  “...So, we have clear evidence...gamma-ray burst...think two neutron stars collided.” Static. Whistling. Garbled voices. “...Earth caught in the beam of rays.”

  I grabbed the paper.

  And I understood.

  GRB.

  Gamma-ray burst.

  The result of an extremely powerful supernova. And Mrs. Taney and Mr. Ellis knew what it was when they sent us down.

  “And no one,” the man on the radio said, suddenly clear. “No one inside the area could survive the radiation.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The man paused, and we stared at each other.

  No one spoke as the truth came crashing down. More static cut over the radio, and I swallowed. I should have known. This was how things worked out. When I first looked out on this unknown world, it screamed that things would not be okay.

  Rescue would not arrive.

  Dr. Marson might have made it out, somehow, but he’d never find someone to rescue us. That was his plan, right? He wouldn’t have abandoned us.

  And he might even be dead.

  And Dad must have thought—

  I gripped the counter.

  “...mass deaths. No survivors expected west of Oklahoma...varying survival rates farther east.”

  Jerome cursed. No one else spoke. The air in the Visitor Center thickened.

  This burst, or this beam, would have struck the half of the planet facing it. It hadn’t lasted long, just a few seconds, but that was enough to destroy half the planet.

  One half dead.

  The other, still alive.

  Two colliding stars, or one big exploding one, had killed millions in a matter of minutes.

  “What the hell?” David blurted, remaining still. “What the actual hell?”

  Christina took two sobbing breaths before she turned away and ran outside. Gina bolted after her, muttering something. No one stopped them. The sun was down now. It was safe.

  It wasn’t as if anyone were alive out there.

  Alana seized my arm. “Laney?”

  “No one’s coming for us,” I snapped.

  She let go as the small crowd around the counter slowly dispersed. People headed outside, and someone carried the industrial flashlight with them, leaving me and Alana in the dark with just the crackle of static.

  “But they have to. They must know there were people over here who made it,” she said, barely holding her words together.

  I was shaking. Alana knew what was waiting back in Colton, and everyone else did, too. And
I understood. There would be no happy endings there. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

  “...ozone layer.”

  The radio man snapped me out of my growing sea of panic. I climbed out just enough to look at where the radio was in the darkness.

  “...depleted...will spread out across the world, but a global reduction of fifty percent…”

  Alana took two breaths, and I straightened, knowing that I had to take charge here. Outside, Christina cried, and no one else spoke. Only a hint of blue light crept in through the cracked front door. This time, I had lost no one. It was my job to do the thinking, and I straightened against the pressure settling on my shoulders. Under this news, David couldn’t be too much of a jerk, right?

  “The ozone layer got ruined,” I said.

  “By fifty percent?” Alana asked. Her words trembled, and I knew she was going to break down at any moment. “That means we can only go outside at night, or cover ourselves head to toe if we go out during the day.”

  “Right,” I said. “And I think what the guy is saying is that all the ozone that got left will even out across the world, so everyone will have only half the protection we had before. This is bad.” Even though only one half of the planet had gotten blasted by this cosmic explosion, the effects would spread.

  And then chaos would follow.

  “Isn’t your dad in New York?” Alana asked, drawing close.

  “He is. And I can’t reach him. He probably thinks that I’m dead,” I said. It was the last thing he needed. Dad had been barely holding on over the past year, and I’d seen bottles of whisky and gin in the kitchen cabinets more than once. Dad had never resorted to drinking before.

  I had to get to him, or at least let him know I was still alive. What he must have felt right now was unimaginable.

  “Then we have to get out of here, check Colton, and then get to where there are people. And we have to do it before we run out of food that’s not contaminated by whatever radiation came down from space,” she said, speaking faster and faster. “And where’s Dr. Shetlin? Shouldn’t we try to find her? If she’s gone, maybe a vehicle works.”