EMP (Book 2): Chaos In The Storm

by Newman, AJ

  Tom pulled his Glock free from its holster and turned to confront whatever was behind him. His mind and his heart raced a mile a minute as the adrenaline coursed through his veins. He felt something he hadn’t felt in years, fear. His eyes followed his gun’s sights until they stopped on the intruder. Lisa stood there gasping for breath with huge wide open eyes staring at the black Glock a few feet from her.

  Her voice squeaked. “I uh … oh my God,” she said as her legs wobbled and she began to slump down. Tom grabbed her in his arms and held her steady while she recovered.

  Lisa saw the gun was still in his hand. “Are you still going to shoot me?”

  “I’m sorry; I thought you were attacking me. Don’t you know not to slip up on someone when they’re deep in thought? You scared the crap out of me.”

  Lisa laughed. “Tom, I called your name twice as I walked up. I’m sorry,” she said and then beat him on the chest with her small hands.

  Tom held her closer to stop the beating. “You scared me out of eight of my nine lives. I’ll have to change underwear when I get back.”

  He walked back to the lean to and almost tripped over Ann as she jumped behind a boulder. She hid in the shadows until Lisa passed her. She waited a minute and then followed them to the lean to for supper.

  The only reason Ann had stayed with her new friends was her strong feelings for Tom. She had an instant attraction to him like none other in her past. She would never try to come between Meg and him but now felt that perhaps Tom wasn’t as much in love with Meg as she initially thought. Ann only saw Tom holding Lisa and not the first part where he drew his gun on her. Ann smiled all the way through supper as she snuck glances at Tom.

  Walt and Sally left Tom and Meg sitting out in the moonlight and headed to the lean to for the night. Walt went to his hay bales and started to take his shoes off when Sally tugged at his arm. “Help me move my bed next to yours,” she whispered as the others slept.

  The hay bales were only a few feet apart and didn’t take much effort to move together. Sally spread a blanket out on the hay and then took her blouse and jeans off. She lay down under the cover and beckoned Walt to join her. He spooned up next to her back with her head on his arm. She whispered in his ear. “Just hold me.”

  Walt lay there for a long time wondering how many more would die before this would get better.

  A couple of hours later Tom and Meg were asleep in the hayloft of the barn when the ground shook, and they heard a clanking sound coming from the roof. They quickly dressed and scampered down toward the yard only to hear meteors striking the eastern slope of the surrounding mountains. Rocks were blasted loose and tumbled down the hillside. There was no place to hide from the small stones ejected by the small meteors impacts, so Tom ran into their new home and tried to hug the wall with the others for a small amount of safety. He turned and saw Meg wasn’t with him.

  “Get out of here and follow me. You’re going to die if you don’t come with me,” Lisa yelled.

  Tom balked. “I have to find Meg.”

  Ann rushed in and yelled, “This is just as safe as any place around here.”

  Roy was behind Lisa. “Get your damned asses out of here and follow us to the mine shaft. It will protect you from the meteors.”

  They were all in shock because they couldn’t see Roy and didn’t recognize the voice. A second later, they all ran behind Lisa and Roy into his cabin and through a secret door at the back of the cabin. Roy lit a lantern, they saw they were in a mineshaft that was decorated with furniture and had several lamps spaced around the walls. On down the shaft, they saw Roy’s work clothes and mining tools hanging from hooks.

  Tom couldn’t stay in the safety of the mineshaft while his beloved Meg was in danger. He left the mineshaft as the meteors continued to pelt the area and went searching for Meg. He found her outside the barn sitting on the ground holding her head. “Babe, what happened? I ran to the lean to, and you were missing when I turned to hear Lisa urging us to go to a mineshaft.”

  “I must have run into something. My head hurts, and I blacked out.”

  A light flashed on them, and Tom picked her up in his arms and ran for the cabin where the light originated. Lisa stood there with a flashlight guiding them to safety. Lisa shined the light on Meg’s head, and Tom said, “You were hit on the back of the head. You didn’t run into anything.”

  Tom laid Meg on the couch with her head on his lap. Mattie clung to her mother and helped Tom calm her down. Lisa brought a wet towel over, and they examined the injury. She only had a giant goose egg, and the skin wasn’t broken. Tom held her close as he looked around the barely lit room. He knew someone had attacked Meg from behind.

  They could still hear the impacts of medium size meteors against the side of the mountain even though they were in the shaft with the cabin blocking sound. Tom looked more closely at Roy and noticed Roy’s beard was crooked. “Roy, your beard is on crooked, and you have teeth. You can take it off now. We guessed the voice and hillbilly routine were fake all along.”

  “Yer didn’t buy me act?”

  “No, it might work for a brief encounter but not for an extended visit,” Tom replied.

  Roy’s voice was still deep and hoarse, but now he talked like a more refined person. “Well, it’s worked for eight years so far with the locals. It will be nice to take the makeup off and act normal again.”

  Roy went to a counter, poured a picture of water into a bowl, and washed his face. He then went behind a curtain and tossed his clothes out to the floor. A minute later a mid-forties handsome man came out from behind the curtain. He walked over to Lisa and stood beside her. “I’m Roy, and I’ve been mining this old shaft for the last eight years. I found a small vein of gold back then and made up my old miner character, so I could run into town and buy supplies. The cabin was part of the old mine entrance. All I had to do was to close in the front and add furniture. The kitchen, stove, and water pump were already here.

  I always hike out of here, ditch my costume in my old truck, and then head out to a different city each time to sell my small amounts of gold. That’s what paid for my prepping and a lot of stuff you’ve yet to see. Some of the men terrorizing the area are the same ones that have tried to find my mine for years.”

  Tom scratched his chin. “How did you fake the no teeth for the old miner?”

  “That was easy. The explosion shattered my jaw, and I lost most of my teeth. I ended up with dentures. It kinda helped make me look the part of a toothless hillbilly miner.”

  Tom had watched everyone in the room to see if anyone behaved differently, but everyone appeared to be their usual self. Then he cursed himself when Ann slid in behind the others. He didn’t see her when he looked around the room the first time. He wondered if Ann could have hit Meg and then dismissed the notion. He then wondered if a small meteor had knocked a board lose or something happened accidentally. Surely, no one in the group had a reason to attack Meg.

  The meteors stopped pounding the area as Roy continued to tell his story. He had become a mining engineer after his devastating injury during the war. He developed a theory about how to find unfound veins of gold by analyzing rock formations, sediment in creeks, and several other methods the team didn’t understand.

  Tom noticed that Lisa sat very close to Roy on the couch. Before he could speak, Meg asked, “Lisa are you and Roy together?”

  Lisa took Roy’s hand. “We’re getting closer by the day. Roy’s bull crap didn’t fool me for a minute, but it took me a while to call him out.”

  ***

  It only took a week for Missy to find Tom’s group. She traveled to Sedona and used her police training to interrogate the locals to find any information about them. She only had to torture a few before she found her first solid lead. She followed several scavenging groups before she saw Tom and Walt. From there it was just following them and staying out of sight until they led her to their hideout.

  Missy saw Meg come out of the barn and hit h
er from behind. If someone hadn’t run past Meg’s prone body and scared Missy off, Meg would have died from a bashed in head. Missy jumped back into the barn and had to seek safety as the meteors struck more often. She hid under an old wagon in the barn hoping that only tiny meteors struck the wagon. She was lucky that night, and only rocks blasted loose from the hillside rained down on the barn’s roof. None was large enough to penetrate the tin. She waited until the meteors stopped before heading back up to her hiding spot above Roy’s place.

  Missy had time to cool off and think things through that day while cowering under the wagon. She made a long-term plan that would deal with Meg and anyone else that had been complicit in her dad’s death. She also knew that she couldn’t make it all alone in this violent world. She needed people to live with and work with to survive. She thought she had found the group and that after a bit of pruning it would do nicely.

  ☆

  Chapter 10

  Meg woke up and snuck a peek around the large cavern before she moved. Tom wasn’t by her side and Ann, Lisa, and Roy were missing. She slid out of her covers, and a chill went up her spine caused by the cold damp air in the mineshaft. The air temperature stayed in the 50 to 60 degree range and would feel warm this winter but not now. She quietly slipped on her boots to go outside. She saw Roy’s bathroom on the way out and stopped to freshen up before joining the others. Meg stepped out into the bright sunshine and saw the others surveying the carnage. “Good morning. I hope we didn’t suffer too much damage.

  Tom heard Meg. “Hey Babe, I hope you got some sleep. Come here, and I’ll show you some of the destruction.”

  Meg hugged and kissed Tom before they walked to the lean to, which was on the eastern side of the valley. Tom pointed to the tarp covering the structure, which was covered with small rocks and dirt. They then went inside. Meg looked up to see several holes allowing the sun to shine through the ceiling. She looked below and saw rocks that had fallen from the hillside above them. They went back outside and to the barn where they saw rocks on the tin roof, but none had gone through. There were several dead animals strewn around the barn. Roy and Lisa picked them up and placed them in a wheelbarrow.

  Roy threw the last chicken into the wheelbarrow. “We need to eat some of these and smoke the rest for later. Thankfully, we still have several breeding pairs of every type of animal.”

  Tom pointed to Sedona and Meg saw thick black smoke rising above where the city was located. “I’ll bet that meteor wiped out half the city and probably caused the other half of the buildings to collapse. We need to salvage anything we can before someone else does, or it spoils.”

  ***

  “Meg are you sure you feel up to going scavenging with me?” Tom asked as he packed his backpack.

  “My head still hurts a bit, but I have my wits about me if that’s what you’re driving at. I happen to like your company, and now I wonder if you like mine. Do you want me to go on this trip?”

  Tom wasn’t falling for that trap. “No babe. I love you and want to be with you as much as possible. That meteor shower and your bump on the head scared me witless. I want you to go with me on this trip; however, Ann is an experienced warrior, and sometimes it makes sense to take her along with me. I do want you to start using a 9 mm as your main weapon and make the hog leg .45 your backup.”

  “I’ll add a 9 mm, but I’m keeping my .45 with me.”

  Tom said, “Here is a spare 9mm that you can use for now. We’ll search for weapons, ammo, medical supplies, and food on this trip. I plan to have Walt and Ann bring the wagon and stage it in a small forest north of the city just off Dry Creek Road. Then the four of us can scout the suburbs and fringes of the city. We’ll ride horses, then stake them out with the mules and wagon when we find a likely area to scavenge. If we find more than a wagon load, we can send Ann and Walt back to unload while we search for more supplies.”

  Walt liked the idea, but Ann balked. “I think Tom and I should go into the city while Meg and Walt search the suburbs. We have military experience. We should also use Roy’s ATV instead of that old wagon.”

  Tom quickly replied. “Ann, it’s not up for debate. I am making sure that each team has an experienced warfighter. That gives us the best chance for success and to come back safe. Also, it’s Roy’s ATV, and he doesn’t want us to risk losing it by taking it around so many people.”

  Ann huffed and left to help Walt hitch up the mules. Meg turned to Tom. “I know someone hit me on the back of the head the other night.”

  “I thought that was the case but had no proof? How do you know?”

  “Because I heard a voice behind me before I felt the hit on my noggin,” Meg replied.

  “Was it a male or female voice?” Tom asked.

  “It was more of a loud whisper. I wonder if it was Ann. She seems to want to be around you all the time. I saw through that crap about going into town with you. That one wants my boyfriend.” Meg said as a matter of fact.

  “I didn’t want to say anything, but I think you are right. I’ve been trying to avoid her, and I guess I should have told you. I had to tell her to stay away from me the other day when you girls were hitting the bottle.”

  Meg faced Tom with her fist clenched. “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her that I love you and that she needs to find her own man.”

  Meg’s frown left her face. “Why don’t you tell me that you love me?”

  “Meg, I love you with all my heart. It took almost losing you to make me realize how much. I’m just now able to move on from my wife’s death and give all of myself to you. Will you marry me?”

  Meg jumped into Tom’s arms with her legs wrapped around him. “Yes, Tom, yes. Let’s do it today.”

  Walt and Ann were walking up behind them when they saw Meg jump into Tom’s arms. Walt was very pleased with what he heard. “Can I be the best man? It would be easy since I am always the best man.”

  Walt joined in a group hug with Tom and Meg while Ann stayed back a bit. She said, “Congratulations,” and left them.

  This confused Walt. “I guess she had things to do. Please wait until we get back and we’ll have the best wedding you can have in an apocalypse. Besides Meg, you can shop for a wedding dress and fancy undies while we scavenge.”

  Meg beamed as Walt’s comments sank in. “Yes, I like that idea. Now I can’t wait to go scavenging.”

  “No, Cristy, you can’t come with us. You don’t have the experience, and also we are short on guns,” Tom insisted.

  “Dad, I’ll never get the experience if you keep sheltering me from every danger. I can shoot, ride a horse, and do anything the other women can do except for Ann who was in the military.”

  Meg confronted her future husband. “Tom, it’s none of my business …”

  Tom stopped her. “Anything to do with our family is your business. Now tell Cristy why she can’t go with us.”

  Meg winked at Cristy. “Of course she can’t go with us because she might gain that experience that you keep saying she doesn’t have. I’m actually surprised that you let little ole me come along with the big boys.”

  Tom knew he had lost the battle and retreated. “Yes dear, I think it would be great for Cristy to come along as long as she does what I say when I say it.”

  “I will dad. Thank you”

  Meg looked at Tom. “Babe, I’ll have Cristy’s back and will help keep her safe.”

  Cristy hugged Meg, and they went off comparing notes on Tom.

  Roy caught Cristy a few minutes later and gave her an older Glock 17 like her dads and a Kel-Tec Sub 2000 chambered in 9mm and set up for Glock magazines. He also gave her a shoulder holster and two more loaded magazines for the pistol. “Girl you need to learn as much about that pistol and how to use it effectively as quickly as possible. Eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom with it. Have it ready to shoot at all times. Keep one in the chamber but remember there is no safety. The trigger gets pulled, and the pistol shoots.”

  C
risty put the shoulder holster on and after hefting the Glock a couple of times she inserted the pistol into her new holster. She then took the Sub 2000 from Roy. “Roy, this looks more like a long pistol. Is it accurate?”

  “Most gunfights are at close quarters. I doubt if you will ever have to shoot more than 50-100 yards and this carbine is very accurate to 50 yards and not too bad at 100 if sighted in properly. Beyond 50 yards, I’d rest it on something. The best thing about the Glock and the Sub 2000 is they use the same magazines. Remember even these pistol round weapons are lethal out to a little over 400 yards so be mindful of what’s behind the asshole that you’re shooting at.”

  Cristy examined the Sub 2000 and noticed how long the magazine was. “This looks like the magazine holds a lot more ammo.”

  “Good catch. That one is a 33 round Glock magazine. You will have two of them and four of the 17 round mags to use on both weapons. Use the bullets wisely. It’s possible that only reloaded cartridges will be produced in the future, so save your brass and always be on the lookout for lead when scavenging.”

  Cristy hugged Roy and promised to do what he had told her. As they parted, Cristy asked, “Where will we find lead?”

  The intrepid band left long before sunrise so they could get a full day’s worth of scavenging in every day of their three-day trip. They agreed to meet back at the wagon every evening before sundown to compare notes on what they had found and to adjust their shopping lists.

  They hid the horses and wagon in the same stand of trees northwest of the city where Tom and Ann stopped several days ago during their excursion into the town. They gave the horses and mules plenty of water and dropped several flakes of hay nearby. With the animals taken care of, they split up and headed into town. Cristy joined Tom and Meg to cover the western half of Sedona while Ann and Walt went to the eastern half. They agreed to meet back at the wagon an hour before sundown every day.