by E S Richards
“Harrison,” Len panted as he slowed his jog down to a walk and then gradually stopped, waiting for his companion to stop alongside him. “I’m sorry, I need a minute.”
Harrison stopped moving and walked back a few paces so he stood beside Len. Reaching around his body he pulled his own water canteen from the side pocket of his rucksack and handed it to Len before shrugging the whole bag off and onto the ground.
“Thanks,” Len breathed as he unscrewed the lid and took a large gulp, the cool water trickling down his throat and satiating the dryness in his mouth.
Harrison lifted his head and offered Len a smile before returning to digging through his rucksack, eventually pulling out an identical—albeit empty—water canteen and two dry snack bars. Handing one to Len in exchange for the half-full canteen, Harrison took a drink himself before unwrapping his bar and breaking off a chunk with his teeth.
“Why did you leave my canteen with that guy?” Len hesitantly asked as Harrison screwed the lid back onto his own, placing it once more in the side pocket of his rucksack.
Harrison paused. He knew he had to tell Len what the man in Union Pier had said to him, but he didn’t want Len to react badly and start worrying. Running his tongue along his teeth he tried to think of the words to say, words that wouldn’t put both of them in any more danger.
“Did you get a good look at any of those men?” Harrison asked slowly, gauging Len’s reaction before he had even finished his sentence. “How did they look to you?”
“They looked…they looked pretty bad,” Len steadily replied, thinking back to the group of four men that had attacked them in the town. “Like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.”
“Exactly,” Harrison nodded, “weeks. Doesn’t that seem strange to you? The power hasn’t been down for that long, they shouldn’t have been in a state that bad.”
“Well then, why were they?”
Harrison paused again; he couldn’t put it off any longer. “One of the men said something to me,” he started, “the one who kept laughing.”
Len raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to one side, waiting for Harrison to continue.
“Before he ran, before I shot him, he said we’d been exposed. He said we were going to die.”
“Exposed?” Len’s eyes grew wide in shock, his head turning from side to side to see if there was any obvious evidence of what Harrison was referring to. “Exposed to what?”
“I don’t know,” Harrison shook his head and took the final bite from his snack bar. “But I think it makes sense. They shouldn’t have been that bad this soon after the EMP. People will get sick from dirty water or become weak from starvation, but not yet; not this soon. I think something must have happened in Union Pier to make them all that sick, I think something that they’ve been…exposed to is slowly killing them all off.”
Len was stunned into silence, his half-eaten snack bar clutched in his right hand. As he let Harrison’s words sink in, he knew the old prepper was right. What was it he’d read somewhere once? The rule of threes? People could survive three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Three weeks definitely hadn’t passed yet, so there had to be another factor that was making the people of Union Pier so sick so quickly.
“What do you think it was?”
“I’m not sure,” Harrison shook his head again. “At a guess I’d say some sort of chemical or something. An unnatural substance that has found its way into the water system. Maybe a parasite? It’s hard to tell without seeing how more of them are affected, and that’s not something I want to find out.”
“But—” Len froze for a second, remembering exactly what Harrison had just told him. “You said the man told you we’d been exposed. How could we be exposed if it was in the water? We didn’t drink anything from there.”
“I can’t be sure Len,” Harrison tried to reassure his partner, “and we can’t take the dying words of a lunatic as the truth. It could be something in the air around Union Pier that was making them all sick, but I think that’s less likely than my original theory. All we can do is keep going and get as far away from that place as possible.”
Len absentmindedly brought the remains of his snack bar up to his mouth and finished it off, thinking over Harrison’s words as he chewed. It did make more sense for the people in Union Pier to have been poisoned—or whatever had happened—through the water system. The air around the town hadn’t seemed any different from where they’d been so far; everything was covered in a layer of dirt and dust and the air was always smoky, but that was the same as it had been in Chicago and everywhere else they’d passed through since.
It was the not knowing that made Len the most nervous. He was well aware that he should be used to it by now but the new world they were living in made him more uncomfortable and afraid than he cared to admit. He hadn’t even felt particularly confident in himself with all the technology and his job and his life in Chicago surrounding him; this world was so far outside of his comfort zone that it almost felt like it wasn’t real.
“So,” he spoke again after a short while, Harrison already tugging his rucksack back on over his shoulders. “We just keep going?”
“Yep,” the prepper nodded, tightening his straps so his bag and his treasured Remington A3 sat safely on his back. “We just keep going. We’ll find somewhere to set up for the night soon, but I’d like to put more space between us and that town while there’s still some energy left in our legs.”
“Okay,” Len replied, pulling his own rucksack on and rearranging it carefully amongst his bow and quiver of arrows. His mind was definitely still elsewhere as the two of them started walking, running through all the possibilities of what could happen to them if they really had been exposed to something in Union Pier. He knew there was no way of knowing, so they had to just keep walking, hoping that they’d continue to wake up every morning.
***
“This looks like a decent spot to set up camp, yeah?”
Len glanced around the area and nodded. He was so tired now he’d be happy to rest anywhere, but he had to admit where Harrison was suggesting looked better than most. It was a secluded grassy verge sheltered on one side by a high stone wall and on the other by a row of trees that separated them from the road. They hadn’t passed any sort of building where they would be able to spend the night indoors, but thankfully Harrison had packed tents that would keep them warm through the night.
“Do you want to set up camp, or get some food going?”
“I’ll make some food,” Len replied after a moment, his knowledge of setting up tents another area where he failed to excel. There’d been one summer when he’d taken James and one of his friends camping and Len could still remember the embarrassment of having to ask someone for help setting up the tents.
He was comfortable making a fire and cooking food now though, and set about digging the two holes and a tunnel for the Dakota fire hole method they always used. Once the fire pit was set up Len reached into his rucksack and withdrew a couple of cans of food. They’d found a small stream a couple of miles back to re-fill their water canteens and with Harrison’s water purifiers he had assured Len it would be safe to drink. Len, however, was still slightly suspicious and so opted to cook something that didn’t require the addition of water.
Less than ten minutes later Len dug some forks from his rucksack and handed one to Harrison, alongside his plate of what had been dubbed chicken à la king. Personally he thought it looked nothing like what it should, having eaten that particular dish in a local restaurant more than a couple of times, but he wasn’t about to complain.
Harrison had set up both of their tents in the time Len had been cooking, his own with his sleeping bag and rucksack inside while Len’s bag still sat beside him. He would drag that in shortly though, it was hard enough to keep his eyes open to eat let alone stay outside the tent any longer than he had to. As a result the conversation was lacking between the two men as they ate and took
themselves off to bed. Len found himself fast asleep almost as soon as his head hit the ground, the uneven grassy verge beneath him not even earning a second thought. After the day they’d had, he just wanted a few hours of peaceful, dreamless sleep.
***
“Len. Len, wake up.”
Harrison shook Len lightly from where he crouched in the entrance to his partner’s tent, his ears pricked and his eyes scanning the surrounding area. Len battered at his arm and mumbled in his sleep, but Harrison persisted, not stopping until his friend was awake and sat up in his sleeping bag.
“What is—”
“Shh,” Harrison put a finger to his lips quickly, silencing his friend and beckoning him to lean in closer. “I heard a noise,” he continued. “An engine.”
Len’s eyes widened. An engine? But that would mean someone had restored power. Electricity. He struggled out of his sleeping bag and tugged his walking boots on, his body suddenly wide-awake despite only having had a couple hours of sleep.
“Where?” Len whispered when he was outside his tent next to Harrison, noticing the man crouching in the treeline, his hand resting on his Glock. Looking out through the trees Len could see exactly what Harrison was looking at, a loud truck approaching them from the distance. Len couldn’t make out exactly what make or model the truck was but it looked to be very old and it was definitely having engine trouble.
“How is that thing still running?” Len asked Harrison quietly, almost in awe at seeing a moving vehicle this long after the EMP had hit. His own SUV had broken down within seconds; this was like a post-apocalyptic miracle.
“I don’t know,” Harrison whispered back, “but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be running for much longer.”
As the vehicle moved closer the sound of the engine’s coughing and spluttering intensified. It was still quite a distance away, but the sound could be heard for miles in every direction due to how quiet everything else was. Without any other cars on the roads this truck was like a beacon of power, alerting anyone in the area who could hear it that something was back up and running. Something that almost everyone would want.
The thought was sobering to Len and he knew Harrison must have been thinking the same thing. If there was anyone else nearby like them, or like the people they had encountered in Union Pier, or the gang members belonging to the Latin Kings—they would all have heard this vehicle and a lot of them would likely be moving towards it. Towards them.
“What do we do?”
“Shh,” Harrison whispered again, not once taking his eyes off the shuddering truck. He could see now there was only one person inside the truck and that it looked to be over fifty years old. That it had been in working condition before the EMP was impressive, and it also gave Harrison an idea for how it happened to be working after it. Although, not for much longer.
As the two of them watched the vehicle gave a resounding crash and the engine cut out, causing a stream of curse words to fly out of the driver’s mouth as he pulled the truck—a 1952 Dodge Fargo—over to the side of the road and slouched forward over the wheel. The driver remained motionless for a few minutes, seemingly devastated by the engine failure and then suddenly climbed out of the cab, slammed the door, and started walking in the same direction down the road.
Len looked over to Harrison in disbelief, the older man still watching as the driver marched away into the distance, heading in the direction of Union Pier—the very town they had just fled. He didn’t know what to do, but Len couldn’t shake the feeling of hopefulness that had built inside of him the second he’d seen a working vehicle. If a 1952 Dodge Fargo could still have power, then that meant there had to be hope for the rest of the country. For South Haven. For his son. Leaning across to Harrison, Len lowered his voice and whispered in his companion’s ear.
“Can you fix it?”
Harrison turned to look at Len, a strange glint in his eye and a small smirk on his face. “I think so.”
Chapter 9
Moving through the streets of Washington, Dixon was forced to act against his better judgement. Everywhere he looked crimes were being committed or people were suffering and all he did was move past them, following Corporal Lawson’s orders to return to the White House. It was difficult for him to process how intense the destruction had become so quickly. Simply as a result of electricity going down, the whole city had descended into chaos. They had all surely lived through power outages before; Dixon struggled to understand why this was so catastrophically different.
Shaking his head, he realized he knew why. His helicopter had fallen out of the sky and had it not been for the pilots, both too unlucky to survive the crash themselves, he would certainly be dead. Cars had veered off the roads and crashed into buildings, other vehicles, and large crowds of people. Fires were burning at random throughout the city, most as a result of some sort of engine failure. Fuel tanks were overheating, the temperature surely well above a hundred as Dixon cut his way through the streets behind Corporal Lawson.
Due to their uniformed appearance and the presence of their weapons, many people tried to approach Dixon, Corporal Lawson, and Farley as they moved. Dixon had already been grabbed at by several civilians, begging for help in one way or another. What bothered Dixon more was that for every person that approached him for help, three more ran away in fear. With the city collapsing, people didn’t know who they could trust and many immediately started to run in the opposite direction when they saw three soldiers with guns jogging towards them.
Countless people on the streets were injured, dead or dying, and yet almost everyone was acting like they weren’t even there. Unless it looked like someone had a direct relationship with another person, all of humanity had resigned itself to just ignore what was happening and focus on themselves.
Dixon’s eyes fell on a young child running through the streets by herself. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old but already she looked to be covered in blood. He winced at the sight of her and wondered what must have already happened to the young girl for her to be alone and in such a terrible state. He wanted to help her, but a shake of Corporal Lawson’s head told him it wasn’t possible.
Through everything, Dixon was first and foremost a soldier. He had received orders and he was bound by duty to follow them, even if he didn’t agree with them. It was rare that Dixon felt that way, having known from a young age that he was destined for a life of service. He had to respect his commanding officer though and that meant heading straight for the White House. Dixon could only hope they’d been able to make more of a difference than he had.
***
Pacing the confines of his office, Mr. Wilson ran a hand through his hair. Some emergency power had been restored to the building, but it still wasn’t enough to open the bunker and free the president, nor to get any radios or communication equipment back online.
General Shepherd was still downstairs giving orders and Wilson was more than happy to leave the man to it. They still hadn’t received any reports from the Osprey they sent out with Dixon, Farley, and eight other soldiers on board. With the eyewitness testimonies Wilson had been receiving from runners coming into the White House, he was worried for the fate of everyone on board that helicopter.
Somehow they had to get a message out to the public. They had to be able to tell people what had happened and calm them down. Wilson knew they would be able to provide aid quickly enough, but that was only if the secondary effects—like the chaos in the city center—were quickly put to a halt. Somehow the idea of General Shepherd sending more men with guns out into the city didn’t sound like the right solution to Mr. Wilson.
Although Wilson had served in the Army when he was younger, he much preferred to resolve confrontation without resorting to violence. That was why his role advising the president on political matters was so well suited to him. In a way, conversations were a form of war and they would be fought with the greatest resilience, but at the end of the day they would still be fou
ght with nothing but words.
As he had told his daughter, Mary, from a very young age: there is nothing more powerful than the power of speech. Thinking about his daughter and his wife, Melissa, Mr. Wilson sank down into his office chair and put his head in his hands. He wasn’t certain what either of their plans had been that day, Mary presumably attending college while Melissa kept herself entertained in the house, or spent time with some friends.
His job meant he didn’t see his wife and daughter as much as Wilson would like, but he still cared about them very much. It had been quite a big surprise to him when Mary had decided to attend college in the city, rather than attending the University of Houston like she had originally planned. She said it was because she wanted to stay closer to home, but Wilson suspected there was another reason.