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

by A. K. Meek

  Beaks clicking and scraping against bone sent chills over Nate. He found himself on the edge of panic and fought to control his breathing; it became shallower with each gulp of air and with each step they made onto the top of the mound.

  “Why?” Will said, his astonishment and disgust not hidden.

  “Why this?” Max said, spreading one arm like he’d just revealed a new carnival ride. “Because we need to. People need us to do this.”

  Milt picked up one of two wooden clubs that lay next to the top of the stairs. He swung it enough so that the scavengers parted for him as he made his way through the throng, kicking bones and piles of mess. Birds filled back in the gap once Milt moved on.

  “Shortly after the bombs fell, we had plenty of clients,” Max said, watching his brother. “Luckily we survived in the preparation room in our basement. After we came above ground, we found neighbors, families, had been killed. Wiped out.

  “Everyone was afraid of disease and didn’t want to take the time to dig a bunch of holes with bodies littering the area. Those that survived helped us bring the bodies here, away from town. Milton, he thought of this. He’s always been the innovator.”

  Milt had strayed yards away from them. He bent over, clubbing something on the ground. The vultures around him squawked and flapped their wings with each blow. Nate couldn’t see because of the birds that surrounded the old man.

  “Eventually,” Max continued, “word got out and others brought their dead. It’s easier to bring them here than bury them. In fact, two weeks ago, a lovely couple, John and Maria Robles, dropped off John’s mother. They came from up north and were headed for Florida. Estelle was sick, probably radiation poisoning, and couldn’t continue. She stayed with us until she passed. Three days it took her. She was very sick. All they had was jewelry and a few scraps of food to pay. We aren’t interested in getting paid, but food is always appreciated. We gave her a decent burial, or send-off.”

  “Decent?” Will said as he watched a group of vultures come in for a landing. “This isn’t decent, it’s barbaric.”

  Max laughed. “Oh, dear boy, which is worse, letting birds pick your bones clean or burying you in a box so that you rot for decades, until worms consume you? The manner in which your body is treated is secondary to how you die. This isn’t for the dead; they’re already dead. This is for the living.” Max picked up the other club and scattered bones on the ground.

  “People want to end their life with order, not chaos,” he said. “We’ve been in the business of dying for decades. I know people. Not once has a dead person told me they didn’t like the casket a family member picked for them.” He turned again to his brother, yards away. “Hey, Milt,” he yelled, “has any dead person told you they didn’t like their casket?”

  “No,” Milt replied, his head hung low, scanning the ground.

  Max turned back to Will. “Between us both, we’ve buried thousands. How many people have you helped through the death and burial process?” He barely gave Will a chance to respond, knowing his answer wouldn’t measure up to anything worth considering. “We give people structure. Order is comforting. No one wants to die alone, not knowing what’s going on or where they’re going. We offer comfort; that someone cares. We give order to their passing. Those who believe in the next life, those who don’t, we help both get past this life to the next, whichever it may be.”

  He lifted his head and spun around and raised his club. “And our helpers, our never-satisfied helpers. God designed them to clean the land of rot. They eat disease and death and digest it. They keep the diseases at bay. Wonderful creatures.”

  Milt moved from one place to another, attacking something on the ground, swinging his club with as much vigor as he could muster. Sounds of cracking bone rose above the fluttering and cackling. “What’s Milt doing?” Nate said.

  “Unfortunately,” Max said, “there’s parts in the head that their beaks cannot reach, so we need to help them reach it.”

  Milt continued whacking a skull with his makeshift club, and once satisfied that he had opened the skull enough, he moved on to find another.

  Nate turned from Milt’s grisly task, no longer curious. “Last night, we saw lights.”

  “Oh yes,” Max said. “We have a couple of sturdy lanterns. We work at night now. Learned the hard way. Here, look at this. Hey, Milt, raise your right hand.”

  From across the mound Milt stopped clubbing and held up his right hand. “Can you see how many fingers he’s holding up?” Max said.

  Will and Nate squinted to see Milt’s upheld hand across the sea of birds. “Four?” Will said.

  Max clapped his hands. “That’s right, four. You’ve got good, young eyes. When we first started this it didn’t take long to figure out moving bodies up the hill in daylight wasn’t a smart idea. The birds, they’re smart. Once they realized we weren’t a threat they didn’t fly away. Soon, they were comfortable enough to peck at the bodies as we carried them up the side of the hill. One day we got mobbed, and one particularly hungry bird bit Milt’s finger almost completely off. They were really hungry that day. I had to finish cutting it off once it became infected.”

  Max laughed again, probably more than one should, especially after telling strangers that he’d had to cut off his brother’s septic finger. Nate realized he didn’t like talking to Max.

  “I’m sorry,” Max said, “I’ve lost my manners. My brother and I were about to have morning tea. Do you care to join us?”

  Nate shook his head as he heard behind him Milt clubbing another skull. The vultures cheered in delight. “I’m good,” he said.

  Will nodded in agreement with Nate. “I’ll pass.”

  Will and Nate crossed back through the hedges they’d come from earlier that morning. They left several MREs with the Harrington twins. In return, they gave them extra business cards and a promise to always be available if anyone needed burying.

  Rushing through the forest, they backtracked their way toward Camp Magnolia, to those that waited for their scouting report. After several, tense, quiet minutes Nate cleared his throat. “So, are you going to say anything to the rest?”

  Will stopped and turned to him. “I don’t think many of them would understand. I’m not sure I do myself.”

  If any of the rest knew about the twins and their business, would they come? Some appeared to be teetering on the edge of death already. Many spoke of it as often as one would speak about their job or family; it became a topic that many embraced.

  But not Nate, not yet.

  Maybe half of them would march right up the mound and lie among the bones, waiting for death to ride in on the wings of God’s Wonderful Creation.

  And then there were some in the group that Nate wouldn’t mind leaving on the mound.

  The twins had taken a terrible situation at hand and used it to help others. As perplexing as it was, in a world turned upside down, they remained upright, providing a service to help others more desperate. Their whole life they served others, for only a few crumbs of food.

  Will started walking again. “No, I don’t think we should mention this. It should remain our secret.”

  Once they returned to the others, they spoke nothing more of the visit to the Harrington Brothers Funeral Home, and shortly after, Will drew up plans to skirt the Ocmulgee National Monument.

  03.03

  SALVATION

  The twenty-two made a few more miles as the steamy day wore on. They passed neglected cropland and found a farmhouse standing alone in a clearing edged by tight-growing maples. A few canned goods were salvaged and canteens were filled with cool, crisp water from an underground well.

  Nate continued with soldier duty, carrying an M-16, as the group moved on from the farm into a grove of trees. Henry walked point with him, and the two maneuvered the group through thickets and overgrowth.

  “Do ya hear that?” Henry said, stopping suddenly.

  Nothing Henry said could be taken seriously. Not really seriously.
His thick, southern accent permeated every word, every syllable he uttered. His voice sounded as if he was always attempting a bad accent. Unfortunately, Henry never realized this. Nate enjoyed pulling soldier or mule duty with Henry because he never saw Henry as threatening.

  “No. What was it?” Nate said.

  Henry bent his head to one side, ear in the air. He shook his head. “I guess it was nutin’.”

  They pressed further into the woods, winding around trees. The rest of the group moved along the trail that Nate and Henry hacked and cut with a knife and a sharpened mower blade Henry had found at a farm.

  Branches snapped underfoot and the complaining voices carried forward from behind. No matter how many times Will told everyone they needed to travel silently to avoid confrontation, they still complained. A herd of elephants complaining.

  Another day of leading the group.

  Overhead, the shy sun hid behind a ceiling of gray clouds as the day began to fade. Once, maybe twice through the day, the sun had peeked from behind the clouds. At least it didn’t scorch bare skin like on typical Georgia days. Now if something could be done about the humidity…

  “There, did you hear it that time?” Henry said, stopping again.

  “I heard it,” Nate said, taking a firm hold of his rifle.

  Gunfire resounded through the woods. But this wasn’t a typical pop, pop of stray guns. Machine guns echoed through the trees, a little closer now.

  Nate imagined a great battle was raging not too far away, close enough that he would’ve felt more comfortable if he dropped to the forest floor.

  A burst of automatic fire sounded again, closer. Instinctively, they both crouched over.

  “Let’s get back to the others,” Henry said. They quickly scurried back through the trees.

  The group had already ducked into thick foliage and behind trees. Will knelt at the front of the column, pistol in hand. Bruce and Martin lay on the ground, M-16s propped on their forearms.

  Henry said, “Did you hear?”

  “We heard,” Will said. “Did you see anything?”

  Nate slid to a stop on the damp foliage and crouched, looking into the trees for anything. “No, but it sounded like Armageddon, not too far off.”

  “Marty,” Will said, “pass the word we’re setting up camp for now. No noise. Get the other soldiers up front.”

  “Yeah, sure, boss,” Martin said. He jumped to his feet and moved from person to person, whispering and pointing.

  Will said, “Let’s get Juan up here. Maybe he can see what’s going on.”

  A couple of weeks ago Juan had volunteered to climb a tall pine tree to check out a nearby cotton field. He did such a good job Will now considered him a tree scout. His skinny, seventeen-year old body was strong and nimble enough to scale virtually any tree. Juan always did what anyone asked of him with a sense of urgency and with no complaining.

  That in itself made him unique.

  Leaves rustled as Juan came running to the front of the hunkered-down column, crouching as he ran.

  “What’s up, guys? Did you see where those gunshots are coming from?” he said.

  “No,” Will said. He looked up. “Think you can see anything?”

  Juan looked up at the surrounding trees. He obviously knew what Will meant without his having to say it. He pointed to a large, half-dead pine that dwarfed its nearest neighbor by double. He circled the tree, examining its branches, then rolled up the sleeves of his chemjacket, exposing raw, tender skin from the last tree he’d climbed.

  Within minutes he had moved several feet up, signaling that he couldn’t see anything. After reaching as high as he could, he descended and reported seeing nothing, just hearing the gun battle but not able to tell the direction.

  Through the evening, the distant battle continued, gunfire neither coming closer nor going farther away.

  During the night, the battle in the distance finally dwindled with an occasional crack or pop of stray fire. Feleysa said she had heard an odd sound, like a saxophone or horn, at about midnight.

  The following morning brought tense nerves and wary eyes.

  Since Nate and Henry were already somewhat familiar with the area, having scouted a couple of miles ahead the day before, Will decided for them to continue their rotation.

  The two scouts pushed through the forest, and within an hour a rustling several yards away in the underbrush stopped the two in their tracks.

  Nate said, “Go tell Will to slow down. I want to check this out.” Henry nodded and ran back to find the group.

  Nate yawned, then inched forward, rifle against shoulder, cheek welded to the barrel, wondering why he’d even volunteered to do something this dangerous. Something about this new world made things like volunteering for point and inspecting odd sounds seem more casual than they ever should. Almost like going to the Starbucks around the corner. It all was odd, but somehow fit perfectly with the life they lived.

  His arms shook and he knew he couldn’t keep up the attack posture for long, the rifle welded to his cheek, tense, but it comforted him nonetheless.

  He hoped to maybe find a wild pig family, or some other Georgia animal, making the noise.

  His forearm already burned from supporting the weight of the rifle for just a few seconds. He needed to work them more, do pushups every day. Maybe then he could achieve forearms like Popeye, minus the anchor tattoo.

  Surrounding trees and undergrowth that had blocked like a wall a mile back now thinned. It should be easier to see the pigs, deer, or whatever.

  He yawned again. The burning in his forearm moved to his neck and shoulder. Both started cramping from cupping the rifle butt between them. He just needed to loosen—

  “Stop, don’t move!”

  A deep voice, only feet away, speaking with authority, broke Nate from his daydreaming.

  “Stupid me,” he thought, cursing himself for daydreaming while point man. He stood and swung his barrel left and right, looking for the body behind the voice. Leaves and tree bark blended into phantom figures. Nate strained to swallow the warm sensation as his body flushed. Behind every tree he imagined people hidden.

  “I said stop! Drop your rifle or I’ll drop it for you. Do it.”

  Two familiar clicks of M-16 safety selectors cleared his mind. He lowered his rifle.

  “Alright,” Nate said, “I’m lowering it.”

  Slightly to Nate’s left a tall shrub shook. A large black man in uniform stepped from among the twisted branches, his rifle pointed at Nate. His voice fit his appearance. Dirt and mud covered his face and bits of vine, branches, and leaves stuck from the webbing covering his Kevlar helmet. His uniform and camouflage blended well with the Georgian forest. Too well.

  The soldier stepped from behind the bush so that nothing separated him from Nate. He walked forward cautiously, movements sure, like he’d had plenty of practice doing it.

  “Drop your rifle now,” he commanded.

  To Nate’s right, a woman, a girl, emerged from behind a wide oak tree, her camouflage similar to the large male’s. She too pointed an M-16 at him.

  “Identify yourself,” she said, her voice surprisingly full for her small build.

  Nate raised his hands after slowly resting his rifle on the ground. “I’m Nate, Nathaniel Parsons. Who are you?”

  “Tech Sergeant Stanley Phelps, United States Air Force,” the deep-voiced man said. The girl didn’t answer.

  They both moved closer to Nate, rifles unwavering. Sergeant Phelps whistled. In seconds two more men appeared from the forest. One carried an M-16 but the other, a very thin man, held no weapon.

  Once the thin man drew closer the 9mm could clearly be seen on his hip, similar to the way Colton wore the pistol on his leg. On the thin man’s other hip a tarnished bugle dangled from a cord wrapped around his torso.

  The group belonged together. Their uniforms, their gear said so. They worked as one. These were professionals.

  The thin man stood in front of the o
thers, not as wary or cautious. With a simple motion the two rifles that pointed at Nate lowered. The thin man was in charge. He smiled at Nate.

  “Hello, I’m Captain Joshua Jordan, Commander of the 823d Base Defense Squadron, Moody Air Force Base.”

  The old Nate would’ve clapped his hands and thanked them for saving him. But now, he’d seen too much, become too skeptical, to just take someone at their word. That was how everyone felt, including Will.

  Maybe this was Nate’s opportunity to put that way of thinking aside, to trust men again. To show there were still good men with good intentions left outside his group. “I’m Nathaniel Parsons,” he said.

  “Are you alone?” Captain Jordan said.

  Nate hesitated. He pointed down. “Can I get my rifle? I’m no threat.”

  “Of course,” Captain Jordan said. “What would a man be without his rifle?”

  Nate picked up the rifle he’d dropped moments ago and wiped off wet leaves and pine needles. Only a good man would’ve let him pick up his weapon. “About a half mile back. A group of us, twenty or so. Follow me.”

  He finally found the long-dry creek bank that Will had established as a rally point if the group had to split. They did that every few miles.

  Nate walked out in the open of the treeless bank, the four Air Force members close behind.

  Henry was already moving back toward the trees when he saw them emerge. He fumbled with his rifle as he dropped to the ground in a defensive position. Martin, Bruce, and the others seeing him ran toward Nate with weapons pointed.

  Clicks of rifles charging rang through the open area as Will yelled for everyone to defend themselves. Behind Nate, he heard his military escorts charge their weapons. They had each dropped to one knee, rifles pointed toward the group, except the Captain.

  Nate raised his arms for the second time that day. “Hold it, Will. It’s okay. They’re friends.”

  Will ran the short distance between the two, gun in hand. “Nate, what’s this? Who are they?” He pointed with his 9mm, not taking his eyes off the visitors.