25 Bombs Fell: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Series, 25BF Season 1

by A. K. Meek

  On the still, cloudy night, no moon guided the way. Like every other night since leaving the shelter.

  Unseen thorns and branches tore at loose sleeves and pants legs, snagging baggy chemjacket fabric. Nate brushed against a limb with his face. The whip of a branch dragged along the wound Meredith had given him weeks ago. He winced at the stinging sensation.

  Will trudged through the forest next to him in the same steady, halting pace that he did whenever scouting, his vague outline barely discernible in the dark of the underbrush, except for what the thin flashlight he held revealed.

  Nate hated scouting more than he hated everything else, probably because the unknown was multiplied by ten when scouting. Who knew when you were going to stumble onto others with bad intentions? Or maybe even the enemy, the ones who had invaded America.

  “We should find it soon,” Will said, pushing through the shrubs.

  They continued the trudge through underbrush and tree branches, the soft, damp leaves and pine straw forming a cushion underfoot. Little breezes stirred the trees. The air had no life or movement.

  From the dark Will cursed. He must have caught himself on a thorn vine. A nearby sapling shook as he yanked on the vine that encircled it and him. When he got mad he tended to pull in impatience instead of taking the time to see where the thorns grasped him and what he needed to do to work himself free. Nate swore that would get him in trouble one day.

  After a few more curse words, Will said, “We should be there any minute.”

  They came upon a tall row of shrubs and brush. In the dull night it loomed like a solid wall before them. Will felt along it and in an instant had disappeared into the leafy wall.

  Nate slid his Kevlar helmet forward to keep branches from hitting his eyes and leaned headfirst into the hedge, closing his eyes to protect them. He pushed through the shrubs, and when he cleared the bush he ran into Will’s outstretched arm.

  “What?” Nate said.

  “Shhh.” Will turned off his flashlight.

  Despite the darkness, the sensation of emerging from the hedge into an open field was unmistakable. Nate pushed his helmet back and lifted his head. On this side of the hedge the trees fell away, giving way to a plain. They stood on the edge of a clearing that extended deep into the night.

  “This is it. This is the monument,” Will said. “The Ocmulgee National Monument. I came here often as a child. Father’s grandmother was born around here. He brought me here every year. I proposed to Sharon here.”

  The excitement in his voice was unmistakable, like a kid arriving at Disneyland for the first time in his short life. Nate found himself sharing in Will’s excitement.

  “So you’re Indian?” he said. “Ocmulgee? You don’t look Native American.”

  “A small part of me is. Still, I connect with this. I brought Sharon here. She liked the vibe it gave.”

  They didn’t have to come through the national park. According to Will’s map, this took them out of their way by a few miles, when each mile, each foot, was precious ground.

  As Will drew up the route it never seemed in question he wanted to come this way. This direction would add a few more hours to their journey, but what were a few more hours to him, to the others? Since Nate never did tell Will that he saw Sharon that day, the least he could do was allow him a moment to visit his past ghosts. Nate never said anything to discourage Will, and never mentioned it to anyone else that this would take them out of their way.

  “I remember this,” Will said. “We should be close to the earth lodge. It should be close.” He unbuckled his helmet chinstrap. “Nathaniel, this is going to be a great resting point for everyone. Maybe we can stay here a day or two. Everyone can get some good rest.”

  Will zipped forward and Nate sprinted to catch up with him. He started to speak but gasped as he breathed in.

  The still air filled his nose with a stench of death.

  It rolled onto his tongue and worked its sick way into his stomach. A flavor of decay and death. His stomach turned as his throat flexed, trying to pull up his MRE No. 9, Beef Stew Dinner.

  “Will,” he covered his mouth with his sleeve, “do you smell that?”

  “Smell what?” Will coughed slightly. “I think it’s just rotting leaves or branches. Probably landscape maintenance left piles of tree trimmings.” He continued forward into the open expanse.

  Nate struggled to keep up with Will’s fast pace and not lose him in the dark. “Wait, what’s that?” he said, stopping suddenly.

  “What, where? I don’t see anything.”

  Nate moved close to Will’s head and pointed slightly to the right of where they were headed. “Over there. Look, lights.”

  “I still don’t see—wait, I think I see it.”

  In the distance, faint to the eyes yet still noticeable, two pinpoints of flickering light danced. They bobbed and swayed to a silent symphony.

  When stared at directly, they dimmed and faded into the inky backdrop. Only after the onlooker blinked, then looked indirectly through the corner of the eye, did they reappear at the edge of vision. And they crept from the ground, rising.

  Nate’s mind wanted to put the lights in a rational context, but because he couldn’t see the whole picture, that context escaped him. A warm, warning flush rose in him.

  “They’re moving into the sky,” he said.

  “A mound,” Will said. “There’s a mound over there. They’re going up one of the Ocmulgee mounds.”

  Nate’s mind clicked. Unseen but now knowable, a mound rose before them, still yards away.

  Cautiously, the two continued forward.

  Nate grasped his M-16, a barrier between him and the ghostly lights, and slowly, step by step, crept forward toward the lights. The smell intensified and he had to grit his teeth to keep from retching, from running away.

  Will stopped and held up his arm, then crouched to one knee. Nate imitated this movement. “Listen,” Will said in a soft voice.

  Nate closed his eyes to focus and strained to hear. His pulse, his beating heart, quickened. That was what he heard.

  Then, a wing flutter. No, more like a wing flap. Large, flapping wings broke the silent night.

  Nate’s fingertip rubbed his M-16’s safety switch.

  Another flap, this time from the left. Branches rustled in some distant tree.

  The hair on his neck bristled and tingled with the sensation of a hundred eyes boring through him, piercing him. He couldn’t see them, but they could see him.

  “I think we should wait till morning,” Nate said.

  “Yeah, we’ll leave in a minute, I want to get a few feet closer to see what those lights are.” Will stood and moved toward the lights, but in a more measured step.

  They walked through the foot-high, dew-drenched grass, listening for anything as the flapping diminished. Their eyes were wide, continually scanning the dark that pressed in from every angle.

  Will stepped on something underfoot and it snapped, sounding like a gunshot in the quiet, open expanse. He paused. The two lights, now yards away, appeared to have heard it also and also stopped moving.

  He bent down and groped for the object. “Nate, look.” He handed it to Nate. It was hard like wood, but had no bark. The edges were jagged, not smoothly cut like glass, but rough.

  Bone.

  It had the shape of a jawbone, part of a skull, or something like that. Nate’s mind ran wild as he dropped the disgusting object to the ground. “I think we need to go back to the tree line,” he said, any last bit of courage he had fading away. “We can check this out in the morning.”

  “I think so too,” Will said. He had already drawn his 9mm, holding it close to his face.

  They turned and almost broke into a full run as they made a straight line to the protective covering of the trees, hedges, and bushes on the outskirts of the open plain.

  03.02

  THE SKY BURIALS

  The few remaining hours of darkness were a steamy cold, full of wor
ry. When he did finally fall asleep, Nate dreamed of haunting black-winged beasts tearing at him with gnarled, bony fingers, dripping with dew.

  “Are you awake?” Will said.

  With a start, Nate awoke and fumbled for the bayonet he carried in his pants pocket.

  “Hey, it’s me. Get up, it’s five-thirty. The sun’s coming up.” Deep, black crescents hung under Will’s eyes. He looked pale and his hands shook. He looked like Nate felt.

  For the past couple of nights the temperature hadn’t dropped below 55, according to Odd Eye Enoch’s pocket thermometer. But without a fire the nights seemed colder, whether they actually were or not.

  Nate rubbed his numb fingers together before reaching for his backpack.

  “You going to eat?” Will said.

  “Nah, not hungry, especially after last night.”

  Will nodded and rolled up his flimsy bedding and grabbed his backpack. The two finished packing up their gear, checking their weapons, and pushed back through the dense forest.

  Morning dew covered leaf and twig. By the time they reached the thick hedges and trees that formed a barrier to the open expanse, their chempants sagged on their legs from moisture.

  Sounds of birds came through the wall of shrubs.

  Pulling their helmet straps tight, they pushed through the protective hedge to the sounds, to the other side.

  Orange-colored treetops formed a perimeter around the clearing. The morning light that painted the treetops was the first trace of sun they had seen since hiding in the shelter.

  The clearing stretched for hundreds of yards away from the two. Long ago, trees had been cleared, and until recently tractor mowers kept the grass trimmed and neat. Something so manicured and flat could not have been an act of nature. But what flew in the sky, what flew in the morning air, was what made Nate and Will pause.

  Large, black vultures filled the sky. Hundreds, thousands circled at varying heights and varying circumferences, circling one another. A tornado of vultures.

  In the center of the open expanse a mound rose to around eighty feet and stretched at least half that across; a man-made structure from the distant past. The top of the mound was flat, as if a giant, celestial hand had taken a knife and scraped the top third of the mound away, leaving a flat, raised tabletop. The mound was what the vultures circled, and that was where they landed.

  As many as circled above, that many, and more, covered the mound. The black mass fluttered, fought, and squawked.

  Nate looked to Will. “You’re our leader, lead.”

  Will gave a faint smile. The lure to see what interested the vultures infected Nate with a morbid curiosity. He saw it in Will’s eyes too. They moved away from the safety of the hedge and headed toward the mound, each step drawing them more closely underneath the tornado of scavengers.

  Vultures swooped closer and closer overhead. One landed on surprisingly agile feet about ten yards away. It hopped close to them on thick, taloned feet, wings spread wide and high; a black angel. The bird stopped in mid-motion, wings still open. It watched the two, its tiny red head cocked to one side, beak open.

  Nate lifted his M-16 to eye level, pointed at the bird. He blushed at the thought of drawing a bead on the bird but kept his barrel leveled, just the same. They moved past the motionless bird and continued moving closer to the mound.

  Will loosened his jacket collar and covered his mouth, blocking the overpowering stench. Nate wanted to do the same, but couldn’t because of the rifle he held. He gritted his teeth and kept his eyes forward, focused on the task at hand. Otherwise, he would run away, screaming.

  “This is the temple mound,” Will said.

  “What?”

  “This is the temple mound, the Ocmulgee’s temple.”

  “So what did they do here?”

  “No one knows for sure,” Will said. “Worship the earth, or something.”

  “Or sacrifice,” Nate said.

  A long bone lay on the ground, barely visible in the overgrown grass. A yard away from this bone, a white skull, a human skull, grinned at them through damp grass.

  “Will, look,” Nate said. Between the shifting birds, tattered clothes littered the mound. Clothing and bones were mixed in the grass. The birds pecked and tugged. Vultures fought each other on the mound, pushing and shoving, their chatter becoming a roar with each step forward.

  “Bodies, they’re eating bodies.”

  “What’s going on here?” Will said. “How did they get here?” He searched around him, scanning. “There should be an entrance to underneath the mound on the other side. Let’s go see if anything is in there.”

  They skirted the outline of the mound, giving it a wide berth. Above their heads, the birds continued their squawks of disapproval at the intrusion upon their feast.

  On the other side of the mound, a concrete pathway led to an opening about thirty yards away. They hopped over the tall, dew-covered grass onto the pathway and made their way toward the entrance to the temple mound.

  Large wooden beams framed the entrance, providing support to the narrow hall into the mound. About six feet into the tunnel, rusted sheets of corrugated tin formed a crude door.

  His neck tingled with the rush of fear that had welled up in him the night before, and never quite left his bones. But a curiosity, such as when you dread coming across an accident because of what you might see, but look anyway, overwhelmed any lingering sensibilities.

  When he and Will stood there staring at the tin, not speaking, yet asking each other who would be the one to go to the door, this curiosity drove Nate to be the first one to step toward the entrance.

  With his rifle barrel he pushed on the metal door. It scraped along the dirt floor and wobbled to one side. A wave of sweat and squalor washed over him. He bit his lip to keep from gagging.

  “Hello?” an old, gruff voice said somewhere beyond the door.

  Startled, Nate scuttled backward, almost knocking down Will, who stood right behind him. They backed out the entrance, guns pointed at the opening.

  An old man, hunching as he walked so that he didn’t hit his head on the low hallway ceiling, finished pushing the metal door aside. Grayed hair stood in shocks upon his wrinkled head and he wore a black suit, far past its useful life. Tears and stains in the jacket gave him a comical appearance. A shred of a red tie hung from his neck.

  He stepped beyond the entrance and straightened, stretching his back. “Hello,” he repeated. He eyed the guns they each held, pointing at him. “No need for those,” he said. “So where are the bodies?”

  Will and Nate looked to each other, then back at the old man. They lowered their guns a little, but not completely.

  “Bodies?” Will said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you knew. I guess I’m getting forgetful these days. My name’s Maxwell Harrington.” He extended his arm. Underneath his tattered sleeve an equally tattered once-white shirt held a shiny cuff link.

  Suddenly Nate thought of his white shirt, the one he tried to keep from rubbing against his car. Now, it clung to his chest as an old rag, ripped beyond repair.

  Will paused, then lowered his pistol and took the old man’s hand.

  “William Parsons. Will.”

  “Pleased to meet you. Call me Max. I’m co-owner of Harrington’s Funeral Home.”

  “I’m Nate.” He gave a curt wave with his hand. “Funeral home?”

  “Oh yes. Well, our funeral home is fifteen miles that way.” He pointed east. With his other hand he absently scratched at some boils that ran down the left side of his face. One looked like it had popped recently. Clear fluid oozed from it. “Given the situation lately we’ve had to relocate. Let me give you my card.”

  He checked the inner pockets of his suit and smiled, which his disheveled, scraggly beard mostly hid. “Excuse me one minute.” He turned to his house, the mound. “Milt, bring me a business card, we have customers.” He turned back to the two, still smiling. “I ran out of cards.”

  S
hortly another man came from the hole in the side of the mound. He looked like a carbon copy of Max, except his tattered suit had once been blue.

  “This is my brother, Milton Harrington,” Max said.

  Milton gave a small bow. “Younger twin brother,” he said, smiling at his brother in a way that said they were sharing a personal joke.

  “By about five minutes,” Max said.

  Milton held out a dirty, creased business card. Will took it. “The Harrington Brothers Funeral Home. 132 Alameda, New Elm, Georgia.”

  Nate switched the safety selector on his M-16 and slung it over his shoulder. These men were no threat. They were excited though, like they had much to tell but no one to tell. “What’s all this?” Nate said, waving his arms at the vultures on the ground and in the sky.

  As the early morning warmed, even more birds crowded the air. It didn’t appear that the sky could hold any more; any moment it would break and everything would tumble down upon them.

  “This is our cemetery,” Max said. “We do sky burials here.”

  “Do you have someone, friends, family, you want buried?” Milt said. He looked over Nate’s shoulder, searching, maybe for a body.

  “No,” Will said, his voice unsure. He sounded as confused as Nate felt. “We stumbled on this place.”

  “It’s just you two?” Max said.

  Will gave Nate a quick glance. “Yeah, just us two.” The group had a standing rule that if they ever encountered anyone outside of the group, they were to say they were alone. A form of protection for everyone.

  “Well, come, let us show you,” Max said, smiling.

  The twins hurried to a section of earth with a well-trodden path of rudimentary stairs that led up one side of the mound. They scaled it surprisingly well despite their old, weathered condition.

  Will led and Nate followed the two up the side.

  They reached the top and hundreds of vultures and dozens of smaller birds greeted them with crows and cries. Some spread wings and flew away. Others hopped to safe distances while still others stood their ground, eying warily the intruders. But the majority ignored them and continued picking through bones and clothing.