EMP STRIKE: EMP APOCALYPSE SURVIVAL THRILLER - Book 1 of 4 in the EMP STRIKE SERIES

by Thunboe, Bo

  He stopped a few houses up the street and looked at the sky, then continued on.

  A flashlight beam sliced through the darkness from the left and locked on her son.

  10

  Dan dug through the suitcase in his trunk for warmer clothes. As he shrugged off his overcoat, the wind snatched at it and nearly tore it from his hands. He shivered, the cold bit through his thin clothes like he was naked. He stripped off the dress shirt and tugged a T-shirt over his head and then a grey sweatshirt. He stood on the shirt as he kicked off the dress shoes. Then off with the suit pants and on with the jeans. As he stuffed the pants back in his suitcase, he spotted his hiking boots deep in the back of the trunk. He’d missed them when cleaning out his trunk after hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park with Sean last August. He sat on the lip of the open trunk and pulled the boots on and laced them up. Much better. He pulled the overcoat back on and put on the leather gloves and knit hat from its pocket.

  He slammed the trunk lid and found Henry and Elsa standing beside their ruined car with a roller suitcase and their hats and gloves on. Dan considered telling them to leave the luggage behind but it might contain their medications.

  “Are you okay, Mr.…?”

  “My name’s Dan. I’m fine, just thinking about my car and getting home.” Dan frowned. He was going to miss whatever Erin had going tomorrow. But on the bright side, he had a colorful story for her and Sean. “You two ready?”

  “You can use the phone up at our place to call your people,” Elsa said. “And I insist that you spend the night and call the garage first thing tomorrow.”

  Dan thanked her and they headed off. The knobby soles of his boots dug through the snow-crusted turf and gave him sure footing as he helped the old couple up the side of the ditch and onto the road. Once they were on pavement, Henry and Elsa moved well, slow but steady. Dan looked back toward Des Moines but still saw nothing coming. The trio started up the long sweeping curve of the on-ramp, the frigid wind blowing against them. Halfway up the ramp Elsa stumbled, putting all her weight on Henry. Dan lunged and grabbed them both and kept them from going down.

  “Icy,” Elsa said.

  “Henry, how about I walk with Elsa and you handle the roller?”

  “I’m fine, young man,” she said.

  “Sounds good, Dan.”

  “Please, Elsa.” Dan held out his arm. Her lips pursed, but she linked her arm through his. It was a long walk in the cold air, but the old timers kept moving. As they approached the first buildings the wind picked up again, slapping at them with sharp gusts, then disappeared. The still air was a relief and feeling started to return to his wind-chapped face.

  The small town began to unfold in front of them. The first building held a sandwich shop and a convenience store, both dark and silent. An industrial road shot off to the east with a string of car repair garages and a motorcycle shop. Three hundred yards farther on the edge of the residential area appeared as the grain silo loomed ever larger ahead of them, its galvanized form glowing dully in the moonlight.

  “Looks like the power’s out,” Henry said, his voice breathless and gravelly.

  Dan stopped. Elsa stopped next to him, breathing hard, but steady. His car had died and his phone was dead. Henry’s phone was dead and something had caused Elsa to crash their car. No other cars had come along the whole time they were down in that ditch and now the electricity was out. What the hell had happened?

  “We’re only a block over this way.” Henry pointed to the right.

  “Good,” Dan said. His shoulder had begun to ache under Elsa’s weight as she tired and leaned on him. He took Elsa’s elbow with his other hand and wrapped his arm around her narrow back and wedged his hand under her other armpit. “Let’s try this.”

  “Thank you.” Elsa looked up at him, her face lined with effort and sweat glistening on her upper lip and across her brow. “I am starting to tire a bit.”

  Their house was a neat brick ranch in a grid of them, all with shallow front yards and the garages facing back alleys. Dan got them inside and settled into chairs in the dark living room with their coats still on. It was warmer in the house but the heat definitely was not on. He opened the drapes and the moonlight flooded in.

  “There’s a flashlight in that table by the front door.”

  Dan found a long black metal flashlight in the drawer. He thumbed the button and the light came on. He sighed with relief.

  “We should maybe get a fire going,” Henry said.

  “I’ll do it.” Dan crouched in front of the fireplace, opened the flue, then built a little fire-starter teepee from the wood and kindling in a big copper barrel on the hearth. As he worked his mind spun through the various problems that had presented themselves over the last hour.

  “Elsa? What happened to make your car crash?”

  “Well,” she said. “I don’t know exactly. It just stopped working all of a—”

  “The engine quit on her,” Henry said. “Just plain quit with not a hint it was going to happen.”

  Just like the Lincoln, Dan thought. And at the same time. But the flashlight worked. A battery and a bulb with nothing but some wire and a switch between them.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “What is it, Dan?” He cut his eyes at Elsa, then brought them back to Dan. “First the car, now the electricity. Something big happened, didn’t it?”

  Dan pushed away from the fireplace and sat on the coffee table. He was a long way from home, and from Mary and the kids. Family First. Mary’s voice spoke in his head. One of her rules. He—

  “Spit it out, young man.” Elsa’s voice was hoarse with exhaustion.

  “It was an EMP,” Dan said. He related what he remembered about them from Sean. They took it well, only worried about their daughter and her delivery. Dan got the fire lit and made sure the chimney was drawing properly, thinking the whole time. These people were not his responsibility—his responsibility was two hundred miles to the east. When he was done, he stood up and put his hat and gloves back on.

  “You’re not thinking of going back out there are you?”

  “I need to get home.”

  11

  Sean shielded his eyes from the flashlight beam with a raised hand.

  “Where’re you going, Fallon?”

  Carson! No one else called Sean by Dan’s last name. Carson’s wife had moved out after ripping him apart with a booze-fueled rant at the summer block party a few years ago. Dan said the loneliness was making the man strange but Sean’s mom said he’d always been weird and his wife had kept him in check. Sean just knew the guy was an asshole, always watching everyone and snitching on every little thing. “Can you get that flashlight out of my eyes?”

  The light dropped away and Sean could see Carson clearly. The man wore an action-green reflective vest and matching hardhat.

  “Where’re you going?” Carson repeated.

  Sean searched for a good lie but couldn’t find one so went for deflection. “What’re you wearing?”

  “It’s my official uniform.”

  Sean almost laughed at the swagger in Carson’s voice, but bit it back and turned to walk away.

  “Not so fast, kid.” Carson grabbed the pack and yanked so hard Sean fell to the street.

  “Bob Carson!”

  Sean’s mom’s voice speared through the dark and Carson snapped ramrod straight.

  “What are you doing to my boy?”

  “I just—”

  “Get away from him.”

  Sean scrambled up, heat rising in his face. “I can handle this, Mom.”

  But she ignored him, eyes wild, robe flapping behind her as she came at them. “I told you to get away from him.”

  Carson’s mouth opened and closed and he reached out to point, but Sean’s mom slapped his hand down. Carson pulled it in and cradled it with his other arm. “I was just—”

  “Just what?” She circled to her left, forcing Carson to turn to keep her in front of him. When Sea
n was behind Carson and out of his sight line, his mom waved for him to get moving.

  Sean headed off at a trot, the empty pack bouncing on his shoulders, his mom’s harangue and Carson’s weak defense fading behind him. The backpack was light but its high profile caught the wind and he had to lean into it to stay on course. Snow swirled on the pavement and icy crystals crunched under his boots. He pulled his knit hat down to cover his ears against the cold gusts blowing in from the west and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. Every house on the court was dark, the street lights out, and all the Christmas lights off. Then the wind shoved aside a gauze of clouds to reveal the moon and a vast swath of stars. He hadn’t seen that many stars since he’d been in Colorado with Dan last summer.

  As he passed the Snick house, he saw a candle in the window and the dad watching.

  12

  Mary kept talking until Sean was out of sight then gave Carson a parting shot. “Mind your own damn business!”

  She turned around and headed for home, hugging herself against the cold. How would Dan get home in this? He couldn’t walk two hundred miles in this weather. He—

  A hand grabbed her arm yanked her to a stop.

  “What happens here on Riverview Court is my business,” Carson said, his stale breath washing over her.

  Mary scowled up into his doughy face. He released her arm and stepped back, eyes shifting away.

  “Don’t you ever touch me or any member of our family ever again.” She considered slapping his fat face, but Dan wouldn’t like that. “What we do has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

  Carson drew himself up and pointed to the logo on his vest. “I’m a registered volunteer with Weston’s Community Emergency Response Team.” He drew a finger under the initials on the vest: C.E.R.T. “I’m allowed to self-activate when a large-scale emergency or disaster affects my neighborhood.”

  She didn’t like the sound of Carson ‘self-activating’ and talking about it had brought his confidence back. “The power going out is hardly the kind of emergency that needs you to activate.”

  “It’s not just the power,” he said. “Land lines and cell phones are both out as well.”

  “What are you supposed to do about it”? This guy couldn’t even take care of himself. His house and yard had gone to hell after his wife left him.

  “Call into the operations center, but the phones are down.”

  “Your emergency team didn’t plan for a breakdown in communications?”

  “Of course we did. Our group is all about planning. Planning and response. I’m supposed to report to the municipal building.”

  “Then get to it,” she said. Carson tried to meet her gaze but his eyes kept jittering away. He gave up, spun, and hustled for his house. The vest caught the breeze and fluttered up and around his head before he beat it back down with flailing arms. If that man really was in charge, they would all starve to death before spring. Dan would have to figure a way out from under Carson.

  When he got home.

  Until then, Carson was her problem.

  Mary went back inside. The cold had started to seep into the house but she could do something about that. One wall of the family room was full brick and held their rarely-used fireplace, a brick-lined alcove filled with split firewood, and a kindling box full of wood chips and shavings. When they’d first moved in, Dan had been excited about the fireplace and she had watched him build a lot of fires. It looked simple enough.

  She knelt in front of the fireplace, her gaze catching on the Christmas stockings hung on either end of the mantle. They seemed… absurd in the face of what was ahead of them.

  She opened the fireplace screen and built a little cabin of split wood around a mound of crumpled newspaper and kindling. Then she struck one of the long matches and touched the flame to every corner of newspaper she could reach. The flames ate into the paper and crackled into the shavings. White smoke rose up and funneled into the chimney and Mary smiled with satisfaction as warmth spread from the growing flames.

  Then the smoke billowed back down the chimney and into the room.

  13

  Dan checked the time as he left Henry and Elsa’s house. His watch was a wind-up and survived the pulse without damage. It was nearly three and any warmth the winter sun might bring was still hours away. A dog broke the silence with a string of deep barks that was answered with a sharper bark, closer to Dan. He didn’t remember any dogs barking as he walked Henry and Elsa home. Maybe the dogs were sensing the anxiety of their early-rising owners who got flustered when they found their power out and phones dead.

  As he approached the small industrial park they’d passed on their way into town, an idea took shape. He ducked behind the buildings and wound his way through the obstacle course of damaged cars and overflowing dumpsters, snow swirling across the pavement and catching in the cracks. The oil-stained asphalt gave the air a carbonic odor thick enough to taste. The motorcycle shop was the last building and like the others was built of concrete block. The back side held a single metal service door in the middle of the wall and a roll up garage door on the right. A dumpster squatted a few yards from the building and at the back of the parking lot a long row of motorcycles sat under a blue tarp that flapped and snapped in the breeze. Dan scanned his surroundings, but saw nothing else moving.

  He lifted the tarp and was met with the deep earthy smell of a barn. These were all project bikes likely bought on the cheap when the heir of a farm found grandpa’s old Honda or Yamaha abandoned to the mice. He dropped the tarp and headed for the building. If the shop was into restoring old bikes it should have exactly what he needed.

  Dan tried the back door and gave the roller a tug but both were locked. He circled the building and pressed his face to the front window. There was enough moonlight to see three racks of leather clothes and a display of chrome accessories. And right down the middle of the room two rows of old motorcycles parked on the tile floor, chrome shining dully. Old motorcycles weren’t much more complicated than a flashlight and one of them would surely start and get him home.

  He swung his gaze out to the road, looking up and down it for any sign of movement. Nothing. He turned back to the shop.

  Smashing this window or prying open the back door to get inside would be easy, physically. And he would probably get away with it, and with stealing a motorcycle. But he was a lawyer, an officer of the court, a man of strict moral principles. Wasn’t he?

  He looked back at the road, then north to the highway on-ramp. Without a motorcycle it would take him days, maybe even a week, to walk home. But things could fall apart a lot faster than that, as they had with the New York blackout in seventy-seven or the Rodney King riots in ninety-two. He couldn’t let Mary and the kids face that alone. He had to do this. And he needed to be smart about it. Throwing a rock through this window would cause damage easily visible from the road.

  He walked back around the building and inspected the service door. It was old, a line of rust along the bottom edge and a wide dark stain on the paint around the knob from the thousands of greasy hands that had opened it. The brass finish on the doorknob was mostly worn off and when he wiggled it there was a little give in every direction. He went to the dumpster and scrounged for something heavy and found a motorcycle crankcase on the ground behind it. Dan tipped it over to drain any oil out, but it was dry. He carried it to the door and lifted it above his head and… paused.

  This was it. Doing this would make him part of the unruly mass that took advantage of the sudden removal of real-world consequences to take what he wanted.

  So be it.

  He brought the crankcase down hard on the doorknob. The impact knocked the case out of his hands. He jumped away and it hit the ground with a solid thud. The knob was crooked but still in place, the metal ring around it hanging loose. He lifted the case again and gave the knob another mighty whack and the knob sheared off and bounced across the pavement. He pulled off a glove and stuck his finger in the hole, found the s
pring-loaded latch, and slid it over. The door yawned open with a long squeak, the interior dark and ominous.

  He'd already committed the felony of criminal damage to property. Going inside was breaking and entering, and stealing a motorcycle was burglary. Major jail time. He bit his lip, then ran around the front of the building and gazed up and down the street.

  Still nothing and nobody. Even if the local cops were awake, they would be too hampered by the EMP and too busy with its local effects to chase after him.

  He would get in and get away. Fast.

  He went around back and in through the door.

  It was dark inside, a dim glow bleeding down the central hall from the window on the front of the building. He walked slowly through the shop area strewn with parked motorcycles and tall, wheeled tool chests, scuffing his feet along the floor to feel his way until he made it to the hallway then faster across the tile and into the showroom. There was a counter along the inside wall to his right. He stuffed his gloves in his coat pocket and felt along the shelf under the counter, feeling his way through binders and folders and boxes of loose parts. He found a flashlight. He aimed it at the floor, thumbed in on, and a weak glow pooled on the tiles. Better than nothing.

  He aimed the flashlight in the dark recess under the register and found something he hadn’t been looking for—a gun.

  It was a small revolver with a short barrel, scarred wood grips, and the bluing worn dull. Its weight cold and solid in his hands. He opened the cylinder and shone the flashlight on it. Six bullets, thirty-eight caliber. He closed it and gripped it with his right hand, turning it back and forth. One of their neighbors was a gun freak and had taken Dan shooting a few times, so he knew how to use handguns, both revolvers and semi-automatics. He wasn’t a great shot and this gun wouldn’t be very accurate because of the short barrel, but just showing the gun could be enough if he got in some trouble. But what if it isn’t? Will I be able to pull the trigger if I have to?