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

by Thunboe, Bo

  “Thanks for your help, ma’am.”

  She started rocking again. “I hope you find your girl, but not in there with them.”

  As they walked on, hugging the retaining wall that rose up next to them, Dan thought about the old woman’s parting comment. He didn’t want to find Erin being held by these men, but if she wasn’t in the house, where was she? Had he missed her on his way up here? Or had she gone back to the hotel?

  The retaining wall ended at a dilapidated garage. They crept past it and looked at the men’s house. It was above them on the hill and set far back from the street. A driveway led up and past the left side of the house, presumably to a garage in back.

  They went up the driveway. All the windows on this side of the house were covered with heavy drapes. They climbed the stairs to the screened-in porch at the back of the house and opened the flimsy door, the hinges squeaking loudly. They paused, but heard nothing from inside. Marla closed the porch door softly behind them and they crossed the porch slowly, feeling their way in the shadowed dimness with their feet. A window in the house’s back door glowed faintly with the flickering light of a fire. Dan tried the door knob and it turned easily. He opened it, and eased into a small kitchen. It was warmer here, and smelled of the fire and of rotting garbage. Marla closed the door behind them.

  She whispered. “They’ll all be in front of the fireplace. You go the long way around through the dining room and front hall. I’ll go straight at them.” She pointed across the kitchen to a wide arched opening, flickering shadows on the wall visible beyond it.

  “Wait for me to make the first move,” Dan said.

  Marla nodded. Dan crept through the dining room and into the front hallway without incident, then hit a loose board that squeaked under his foot. He paused.

  “What was that?” A voice from the living room.

  “You been hearing things all fucking night.”

  “This time I definitely heard something.”

  “You’s just freaking.”

  Dan snuck forward and peered around the corner into the big room. Three couches all facing the fireplace, their backs now to the giant flat screen TV on the opposite wall. The middle couch had two men sting on opposite ends, both awake. The side couches each held a prone man who appeared asleep.

  Dan brought the Glock up in a two-handed grip and edged into the room. He skirted around behind the couches. The two sitting men stared across a coffee table into the fire, mesmerized. Four handguns lay scattered on the coffee table.

  Movement across the room. Marla. He waved with his free hand for her to come forward.

  She stepped in front of the fire. The seated men startled. The one closest to Dan started to rise, leaning for the guns on the table.

  “Sit down!” Dan yelled in the man’s ear and he sat. The other lunged for the coffee table.

  Blam!

  Marla blew a hole in the couch between the two men and they both shrank back. One of the prone men lurched awake. He looked around, then pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest.

  “How did you find us, you crazy coffee-brewing bitch?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Who?”

  Marla racked a fresh shell into her gun. “Where is the girl you bothered on the street?”

  “From back when you shot our man Slice? When we went back for him you and the girl was gone. Slice was dead. Gordy decided to make you pay for that. You killed him too. You are one deadly bitch.”

  “Straight truth,” The one who’d woken tried to sit up. His breath rasped in and out. He must be the one with the busted ribs. Which meant the other sleeper was the man Dan had shot. The one who didn’t move at the shotgun blast.

  Dan circled that way and felt the man’s throat.

  “What the fuck you doing, man? Get your damn hands off him.”

  His skin was cold and stiff.

  “He’s dead,” Dan said. Two days into the EMP and he’d killed someone. His hands started to shake and his vision fogged over and sounds pulled away as if he’d dropped into the bottom of a deep well. Faint voices echoing down to him. He had to do it, but did that make a difference? Thou shalt not—

  “Dan!” His hearing returned as if he’d just come out of a pool. “Dan!”

  He looked up. Marla. Between them they’d killed half of the six men who lived here.

  “We need to search the house. We can’t trust what these guys say.”

  “I’ll do it.” Dan pulled out the flashlight and turned it on, its strong white glare illuminating his way. The house was a dump, filthy and cluttered, with water stains on the ceilings, a backed-up toilet, and fuzzy mold growing on the bottoms of the basement walls.

  Erin wasn’t there.

  He went back to the living room. “She’s not here.”

  “Sorry to hear that. You go on, then. Find her and take her home. I’ll hold these guys until you’re gone.”

  “Let’s just take the guns and we can both leave.”

  “Go, Dan.”

  Dan licked his lips, then looked at the men. They looked scared, but said nothing.

  Dan left.

  He walked back toward the historic train depot, the night air frigid after the heat of the fire. If Erin went down the trail after leaving Marla, then he should have run into her on the way up here from Weston. He might have missed her—she could have stepped off the trail to sleep or to go to the bathroom or to avoid the crazy man on the bike. But none of those seemed plausible. She would not have slept on the way home, the odds of passing her while using the bathroom were tiny, and she always noticed the blue hat.

  She must have gone back to the hotel. He needed to get his bike, which he’d left back near Marla’s place. He started that way, then stopped. Retracing the same streets he and Marla had followed on the way down here was a waste of time because he already knew Erin wasn’t on any of them. He went west to pick up the bike trail and follow that back into downtown Elgin and then cut over to retrieve his bike. He’d already been on this part of the bike trail but he would see more with the flashlight and travelling on foot.

  He stuck to the shadows, eyes peeled, head on a swivel. He snuck past a barbecue place then darted across a parking lot spread out in front of a giant strip mall. The south wing was anchored by a looted grocery store, its front windows gaped empty and glass pebbles on the ground in front of it sparkled in the moonlight. Several flashlight beams stabbed about in the darkness within. Dan kept on, skirting a donut shop and crossing the next street. Then the river’s rich odors rose up in front of him and there was the path, a line of white hash marks on the pavement where it crossed the road. He got on it, heading north, the river on his left, the hiss of water against the ice girding the shore.

  A gunshot. He froze, then gazed behind him. Had that come from the men’s house? Two more gunshots. Had Marla just killed those men? Were their deaths on him, too? If those men were a threat to her family, then Marla was doing the right thing.

  The path descended as it edged closer to the water, the casino boat and its shore-bound building looming up, the darkness between them swallowing the path ahead of him. The smell of the river was even thicker here—decaying plants, muddy water, and old ice. The same creeping dread he’d experienced when he rode his bike through here slithered up his spine. He flicked on the flashlight and shone its bright beam forward as he walked slowly done the incline. The harsh brightness shrank and focused his world, throwing everything outside its beam into abject darkness—nothingness.

  He shuddered.

  The path flattened out. Dan slowed, sweeping his light back and forth, tingling angst raising the short hairs on the back of his neck. He shuddered again, flashlight beam wavering. Erin wouldn’t be down here, couldn’t be down here. He—

  What was that?

  He swept the beam back toward the boat. There it was again—a flash of bright green. He centered the flashlight beam on the object.

  The green speck grew larger as he walked fo
rward. It dangled above the ground, moving slightly with the breeze. He stopped. It was attached to a black backpack.

  Erin’s backpack?

  He dropped into a crouch and swept the light in a full circle, swiveling on his heels.

  No one.

  He scrambled over to the pack and dropped to his knees. Maybe it wasn’t Erin’s. Mary wasn’t the only mom to put a brightly-colored doodad on her kid’s luggage. He grabbed the neon green blob. A rabbit’s foot, just like Erin’s. The bag was empty, all its zippered compartments open. He flipped the bag over and found the luggage tag attached to the bottom of one strap and pulled back the cover.

  It was Erin’s pack!

  He scoured the area, but found only a Harry Potter book a foot from the edge of the pier, dark water burbling past underneath his feet, the earthy odor of the river strong. Erin’s name was written on the inside of the cover.

  He stuffed it in the bag and stood looking down at the dark water rushing past underneath the pier. Had she gone into the water? Or had she been taken … somewhere. Or maybe she had gotten away and was hiding nearby.

  “Erin!” He stood up. “Erin!”

  58

  Mary’s head filled with a jumble of images that finally wove together.

  An inferno rises up, flames coiling around Erin and peeling her skin off in long curling strips, the flesh bubbling then crusting black and burnt. The fire collapses into a black spiraling pool flecked with embers and ash. Erin screams, head thrown back, as the whirlpool sucks her into the earth.

  Mary clenched her body and gritted her teeth, finally throwing off the images. Breathing hard, she sat up, her breath fogging in front of her, the fire a soft dusty pile of charcoal and ash.

  There had been a strong gusting wind during the night and every creak and groan of the house had woken her, thinking Erin was home. She jumped up, every time, to find nothing, her heart feeling more and more hollow as the night went on. She’d lie back down, squeeze her eyes shut and visualize Dan and Erin coming home: the back door opening, the rustle of their clothing, a little soft laughter—those two always had some bit going—the smell of cold wind on their clothes. Finally she’d fall back asleep, only to be woken again, anxious and trembling, from images of Erin being brutalized.

  But now, finally, it was morning.

  She looked down at the floor but Sean was already gone. Then she heard the ripping rasp of the saw. Sean was already back at it, working hard to prepare them for the cold.

  She threw back her covers and got up. She stirred the fireplace until she found a glowing coal and coaxed it into flame with some kindling, then added two logs and watched the bark flame up. She stood with her hands out, warming herself, trying to focus on what they needed to do.

  But her thoughts were hard to corral. Not enough sleep, not the right diet, too much stress. She wrapped a blanket around herself and went upstairs. The pill bottle was where she’d left it on the counter in the bathroom. She shook it, and heard the loose rattle of the lone pill she had left. If I’m having this much trouble with the pill, how will I be without it?

  She twisted the top open, dumped the pill into her hand, and downed it dry.

  Keeping busy was the only way she was going to survive until they came home.

  She went back down to the kitchen and found a banana that was already too ripe for Sean or Erin—if a banana wasn’t perfect, they wouldn’t eat it. She slathered it with peanut butter for the fat and protein and forced it down with a bottle of water.

  With the solid mass of it churning in her stomach, she went to the front window. Was sending Dan off to search for Erin—after he barely made it home from Iowa alive—a mistake? Her hands started to shake and the tremors ran up her arms and her whole body started to tremble. The buzz strummed her spine. She pulled the blanket tight and clenched herself until her body stilled. Erin was tough and Dan would find her.

  She sighed. Her breath fogged on the cold glass. She drew a cross on it. Then added a question mark.

  “Has God abandoned me?”

  Maybe He was waiting for a sign from her. Maybe she hadn’t prayed enough. She knelt on the floor, bowed her head, and said the Lord’s Prayer. She knew that was all He needed to hear, that her every hope and dream was known to Him without her laying it out in some evangelical-style narrative, but she couldn’t help adding: “Please bring Dan and Erin home to me.” She ran through the prayer again, slowly, feeling every word.

  One line thrummed through to her core. Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

  To be forgiven by Him, to receive His generosity, she had to forgive others, be good to others. Do good for others.

  What can I do?

  But the only thoughts that came to her were about her own family. Until they were all together she couldn’t think about anyone else. God had to understand that, and that moving to the Brady house wasn’t taking anything from the Bradys because they would never need the house again.

  She filled a laundry basket with food and took it across the backyards. Sean stopped working on the firewood and ran up from the river. “Come in through the back patio. I got the fireplace going and it’s too hot in there right now so opening the door won’t hurt us.”

  He grabbed the basket from her and walked her into the house. It was too warm.

  “Why’s the door going upstairs open?”

  “I’m letting the heat go upstairs because the toilet water is freezing.”

  “We need to shut the water off where it comes into the house. When pipes freeze, they burst, then water leaks into the house when the ice thaws. It won’t matter once the water tower is empty, but better safe than sorry.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  She surveyed the space they planned to call home. It was one large room, about twenty-five feet wide and thirty feet from the patio door to the front wall of the house. In the middle of the wall opposite the fireplace, the door Sean had left opened revealed a short staircase up to the main level. The stairs then doubled back to the bedrooms above them. The door would allow them to hold all the heat from the fireplace in this confined space and was a piece of luck because most split-level houses had an open staircase.

  “What’s this?” At floor level a pair of cabinet doors were built into the wall to the right of the stairs. It seemed an odd place for a built-in.

  Sean squatted and opened them. Cold dank air flowed out around them. “It’s a crawl space under that whole half of the house.”

  She crouched and looked over his shoulder. It was a deep dark space about three feet high with a gravel floor. “That could come in handy for storing food.” Or for hiding, she thought.

  Mary went back to their house for another load. A knock on the front door. Mary looked through the peep hole. Judy Fleck.

  Mary opened the front door but left the storm door closed.

  Judy held up a rolled towel. “I brought my knives. Let’s butcher that deer.”

  Thank God, Mary thought. Sean’s book had a total of one paragraph describing what to do. “Come around the back and into the garage.”

  As Mary walked back toward the garage she realized this could be the sign she’d been hoping for. She could earn God’s forgiveness and generosity by preparing the deer meat to be eaten by her neighbors.

  She put on a heavy sweatshirt, then donned her largest apron.

  Together she and Judy got a folding banquet table from the basement and covered it in plastic. Judy unrolled her towel on top of it, displaying four knives and a small saw, then got to work. She first cut through the loins. Then she had Mary hold the lower half, the front legs and torso, while she sawed through the back bone. Mary nearly dropped it when the deer separated but managed to wrestle it onto the table. There Judy broke it down, slicing and chopping, flopping the carcass over, back-and-forth, to make a certain cut.

  “You really know what you’re doing.”

  “I grew up the oldest of thirteen kids on a hardscrabble far
m in southern Illinois. I’ve cleaned a lot of meat. Deer, pigs, racoons, squirrels. You name it.”

  As the carcass got smaller, the stack of usable pieces—some of which looked like familiar cuts of beef—ribs and roasts, etc.—grew. Mary had some white packing paper she’d saved for kid’s art projects but never used. The shiny surface was perfect for wrapping the meat.

  The back door opened.

  Sean came in, eyes wide, breathing hard. “Mom!”

  “Are Dan and Erin home?” She clutched her hands to her chest.

  “No, it’s—” He stopped short, eyes on Judy. “I, uh—can I talk to you outside for a minute, Mom?”

  “Why do—”

  “He’s going to tell you Mr. Fleck passed away last night,” Judy’s voice was even and she didn’t even look up.

  “Ed’s digging a hole—a grave—in their front yard.”

  “The river sometimes comes up into the backyard and I don’t want the water lifting him out of his final resting place.”

  Mary pulled Judy away from the meat. “What happened?”

  “He ran out of air. We switched to the big reserve tank when the power went out.” She closed her eyes tight, then opened them. They glistened with restrained tears. “That went dry last night.”

  “Judy, I’m so sorry.”

  “We had twenty-eight years together and a year to prepare for the end. I just wish he’d died before the EMP hit so he wouldn’t have known what we’re facing without him.”

  Mary hugged her and held her tight.

  “We need to finish this,” Judy said, pushing away.

  “Sean, grab a shovel and go help Ed. When it’s time to bury Mr. Fleck we’ll call the neighborhood together.”

  “That would be nice,” Judy said, then got back to work.

  59

  Sean took a long-handled digging shovel with him. When he showed up, Ed nodded to accept the help. They used a straight-edge shovel to cut through the tough frozen layer on top and set aside the rectangle of sod to put back after they filled the hole in. Then they got digging, working from opposite ends in shovel-deep layers, piling the dirt next to the hole. After the top few inches, the ground was no longer frozen and the digging was easier.