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

by A. K. Meek

Maybe this whole episode would turn out different than Will’s. Perhaps Nate and the rest would make it out after all.

  After twenty minutes, Nate realized that it wasn’t tiredness in his eyes or the smoke or the supermoon light, but it was the last three of the herd: Parks, Toby, and Lane.

  They cleared the trees and crossed the dirt, walking to Nate like they were on a casual stroll in the park.

  He knew they wouldn’t come hiding in shadows. They were of the world, and this world had now become theirs. They didn’t need to hide. They had the advantage.

  The last of the Herd stopped within feet of Nate.

  “You did this?” Parks said. He held his bow in one hand while twirling an arrow between his fingers in his other hand. He stopped spinning the arrow and pointed to his burning house.

  “What, this?” Nate said. He glanced toward the house, but instead strained to see if the tractor behind it, where the others hid, was visible. “I figured you left the stove on.”

  He wasn’t sure why that came out, but at least his voice didn’t break like he had anticipated. He should’ve taken a drink before they showed up. Now it was too late.

  Lane laughed, but it was not a laugh of amusement. He raised his M-16 and welded his cheek to the stock. Nate knew he wouldn’t miss.

  “You blew Nimrod’s horn and interrupted our hunt,” Parks said. “On this most sacred night. You’ve interrupted my blessed union with Diana.”

  Nate squinted to keep their perspectives in outline.

  The hunting gear they wore did a good job of breaking up their forms, especially at night and in the deceptive light of the fire. The strain made his temples throb.

  Toby leaned over to Parks. “The almanac. It’s burning.”

  Parks waved his bow, a signal Toby obviously understood, as he shut up and continued watching the house.

  “Sorry to interrupt your wedding,” Nate said, “but I cannot allow you to hunt Bruce, or any of them.”

  Parks scratched his head with the arrow shaft. “Bruce is dead. He died a long time ago, when he joined us. He gave me his soul and the souls of the others. Marduk demands it for his protection.”

  “Protection from what?”

  “The machine gods that roam to the south. They were sent by God as judgment on those that don’t worship him. I’ve seen them, seen their guns, seen their death angel.

  “They sent their angel and it swallowed Dothan. I was there and saw it happen, but escaped and ran away. Into the water I went. The orange angel didn’t follow me into the water.”

  Nate looked to a person-sized mound of dirt a yard away. “You’re talking nonsense. There’s no Marduk, no machine gods or angel of death. You’re high.”

  “No, I’m focused. Marduk wants us to defeat the false gods. It starts with the impure, the panthers. Your death, your sacrifice, will be slow and sweet, before I send you to the First Gate.”

  “Wait. I have something to show you.” Nate reached into his partially unzipped jacket. He pulled the Anderson’s Guide out and held it aloft. “Not everything burned in your house.”

  Parks dropped his bow. Toby and Lane, wide-eyed, looked at him.

  “My book,” he said. “You touched my bible, defiled it. You will definitely suffer.”

  Over the weeks Nate had learned how easy it was to grab a rifle to solve any problem. Disagree with someone, point a gun at them. Don’t like the look of a situation, swing a rifle barrel.

  That had become the first resort in solving problems. How quick and easy it became to rely on that. The marauders, the lawless ones, the others that used rifles to terrorize others, they weren’t subhuman as Nate had once thought.

  No, they had just progressed to where Nate hadn’t progressed to yet. So they were more advanced than him, he just hadn’t realized that yet. He knew how easy it was to want to pull a trigger without another thought. But he didn’t have to.

  There were better, less painful ways to command attention.

  Nate held the book over the fire next to his feet. “If you come closer I’ll drop it.”

  Two gunshots ruptured the air and small puffs of dust erupted at Parks’ feet. The three flinched. Nate did too, even though he had expected it at any moment.

  Lane spun sideways, swinging his rifle in a wide arc, looking where the shot came from.

  “We have you flanked,” Nate said.

  “You’re still going to die,” Parks said.

  Nate dropped the book into the fire.

  “No, my book!” Parks scrambled forward.

  Lane fired several shots into the dark at an unseen enemy to his left. Toby lifted his hunting rifle but fell forward as Juan slammed into him at a full run from behind. They tumbled to the ground.

  Nate leaped forward and wrapped his arms around Parks as Desmond burst from the pile of debris and grabbed the barrel of Lane’s M-16.

  Parks head-butted Nate, and stars burst in his eyes and a sensation of wetness instantly filled his nose.

  He fell but managed to keep his arms clenched tight. He opened his eyes in time to see Henry lumbering toward them, M-16 raised.

  He knew Martin would be coming from the other side.

  A few minutes of struggling and a couple of well-placed butt strikes and the three remaining members of Marduk’s Herd had been subdued.

  05.03

  HUNTERS

  Henry finished lashing their hands and legs with the same cords they’d used to bind the twenty-five. “They’re not going anywhere,” he said, wiping his sweaty head. He leaned against a horse stall door, his rifle held at the ready.

  Nate gave his shoulder a thankful pat, then left the barn and limped to where the rest of the group had gathered, next to the tractor. He bent to one side, stretching his battered ribs.

  “Now I’m going to find Bruce. Who’s coming?”

  He searched each face, but they were all worn, broken, tired.

  Much like he felt.

  They turned away, not meeting his eyes, as if his question didn’t exist if they didn’t make eye contact.

  He straightened with a groan under his breath. If he didn’t go now, he wouldn’t ever leave. “I’m going to find him.” He took one of the makeshift torches Feleysa and Meredith had made and started for the woods.

  “Wait,” Juan said. He jumped up from the ground. “I’ll go.”

  “Yeah, I’ll join,” Desmond said.

  “No.” Reginald, who was sitting next to his son, reached for his arm. “Don’t waste time looking for that piece of—”

  “Dad.” Desmond pushed his hand away. “I want to do it.” He got up and grabbed a rifle from the stockpile.

  Martin followed him. “I’m going too.”

  Melanie went to her son and spoke to him in Spanish, continually looking at Amber. After a few seconds Juan turned to the group. “My mother, she wants to help look for him.”

  Members of the twenty-five joined Nate and they spread through the woods with torches, calling for Bruce, as Henry watched over the prisoners.

  By now the moon had nestled deep in the trees, the same trees that held Bruce. In short minutes, the faux-morning broke through from the long night.

  An hour later, Juan had finally found Bruce, cut and bleeding, hiding in a large oak, a couple miles from the farm. He had given Bruce his chemjacket and pants. They were too small, but large enough to cover his important parts.

  Through the morning the search party slowly trickled back to the farm.

  And by now the house had mostly burned itself out. It still smoldered, though, with embers glowing hot.

  Since being brought back from the woods, Bruce had remained silent, not saying a word even to his wife. He stared away, a lost look on his scratched and bleeding face.

  Amber had him behind the barn to help remove the stinking deer hide that the herd had glued to his body.

  Nate saw to the twenty-five, his twenty-five, ensuring everyone was alright; that cuts were cleaned and dressed, that everyone had enough w
ater, and that they all knew if they needed to talk, he would be available.

  Of all the times, all the drudgery, the fearful nights in the shelter and in the woods since then, Nate was most happy that this night had finally ended.

  He didn’t think he could take any more.

  One last task he had to finish, and it probably would be the worst.

  He went into the barn where Martin had taken over watching the last three members of the Herd.

  “Well,” Martin said after kicking some rocks near Parks who lay, bound, on his side, “what are we to do with them?”

  The three sat on piles of rotten hay, different people from the night before.

  They were quiet, non-confrontational, a shadow of themselves. They reclined in the barn as if it were a lazy Sunday afternoon and they had just finished a big meal.

  Parks no longer spoke. Nate was thankful for that. Any conversation with him always went to a place that creeped him out.

  Nate motioned for Martin to leave, and with one last glare, he left the barn.

  Now, there were four in the barn.

  Nate drummed his fingers against his 9mm, holstered at his side. He scanned each of them, looking into their eyes, wanting to see how they would react.

  But they didn’t. Not a raised eyebrow, not a sign of fear.

  They weren’t afraid of guns, of death and dying. But the night before, Parks had shown he was afraid of the unknown, of machine gods and angels of death.

  Slapping his hand against his pistol one last time, Nate left the barn.

  After giving Henry the signal, he stood outside the barn and watched the twenty-five leave the farm.

  Finding an almost comfortable stack of logs to sit on, he planted himself and waited, and didn’t want to think of anything.

  They had several hours to get away from the farm. Henry was leading them back to where Tala and the others were camped out, on the outskirts of Miriamville.

  After six hours passed, he stood and stretched, then checked the door, bound in wire and boards.

  One last jingle of the chain that secured the door satisfied Nate. It wasn’t solid, but secure enough.

  He didn’t kid himself. They could break through the walls, but by then he would be far away. He turned to leave.

  “Nathaniel,” Parks said from across the barn. “You should kill us. I will find you.”

  “If you look for us, I will know it. Then your god Marduk will have three more disciples joining him.”

  Before he could hear a response he took off, running past the ruins of the farmhouse, following after his group, leaving the three locked inside the barn.

  After a few reroutings from getting lost, he finally reached the camp and dropped to the ground, gulping air from his long run.

  His lungs felt like they wanted to leap from his body, but he didn’t care, and within moments he was asleep.

  05.04

  THE MIRACLE STRIP

  Knowing that three angry men could be hot on their trail, they couldn’t rest for long. Who knew what the three were capable of?

  After taking too short a break, the group packed up and headed out of town in the direction away from the farm.

  Tala and Juan had left several minutes earlier to scout a mile or two ahead while Nate led the group south.

  He swung his black backpack off his shoulders and dug through it for a scrap of paper. He pulled out the one he had scribbled on a couple of days ago.

  Charles walked a few paces behind him. Desiree insisted on holding his hand to help him, since he had been using a thick branch as a walking staff. She skipped as she clutched his hand, swinging her arm playfully.

  Nate slowed so that Charles could catch up. “Hey, Charles, get a look at this,” he said, holding the paper up.

  Charles sped up to keep in step. “What’s that?”

  “When Tala and I were exploring Miriamville, we came across a substation.”

  “Substation? Like a power substation?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not all. Underneath, in the ground under the station, we found some type of control panel. It had power.”

  “Electrical power?” Charles slowed. “The substation had power?”

  “No, that was dead. Just the panel. I’m not sure what to make of it. Figured it ran on some type of hidden batteries.”

  Charles stopped. Desiree tugged on his arm, entertaining herself with humming a tune. “What do you mean, panel?”

  The group of sick and injured flowed past Charles and Nate, following the scouts as they led a path parallel to a two-lane highway.

  “It controlled something,” Nate said as he watched the people. “I’m not sure. But it looked old, like it had been there when the substation was built. There were a few buttons on it, and a way to enter a code.”

  “A code?”

  “Yeah, a display said to enter a code to continue.” He smoothed the paper in his hand. “And there was a keypad to enter a numerical code. Twenty-seven, forty-eight, thirty-two, seven. The rest were all zeroes.”

  Desiree giggled. “Thirty-seven,” she said, ending her singing.

  Nate turned to her. “Thirty-seven?” That wasn’t part of her song that she had been repeating for the past ten minutes. “What’s thirty-seven?”

  She examined the ground with the tip of one dirty, threadbare shoe. “Today is May third. That means the next number is thirty-seven.”

  Nate kneeled down to stare her in the eyes, as much as she would look at him. “You know the rest?”

  “Uh-huh. Thirty-seven, seventy-nine, ten, and eighty-nine.”

  “But, how?”

  Desiree started swinging Charles’ arm again. “You told me to memorize it.”

  “What? I didn’t.”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded with all seriousness. “In the Ark. You gave me a book and told me to memorize it.”

  Charles kept shifting his eyes from Desiree to Nate. No one had to read minds to see the bewilderment in his face. Nate felt it himself.

  “But that manual,” Nate said, “I didn’t mean to. I think we need to go back to the substation and check it out.”

  “Nate.”

  Juan came running from an alleyway, the rifle he grasped clanking against his straps and belts. “There’s something you need to see.”

  Nate paused, studying Desiree as she picked back up on her song of nonsense.

  Juan pushed against Nate’s arm with his rifle butt. Nate focused on him. “I think we need the RPG,” Juan said.

  “What? Yeah, go get it,” Nate said.

  “Have the group stop and take cover,” Juan said as he pushed through the crowd that continued away from Miriamville toward the coast.

  By the time Nate realized what Juan had said, he came running back with the long plastic case, the one found in the Herd’s farmhouse.

  Somehow, Parks had been able to find—or steal, or buy—a rocket propelled grenade launcher. Luckily, the operating instructions were included.

  Juan ran past Nate, carrying the long black case. “Hurry,” he said, flying past him back the way he had come.

  “Wait a minute,” Nate said to Juan as he flew by, “why do you need the RPG?”

  Nate took off after Juan.

  The alleyway wound for several blocks, eventually leading out next to an amusement park, Miracle Strip. Nate remembered seeing a couple billboard ads throughout Miriamville.

  It looked to be a permanent staple of the town. Dated, worn rides that had once lighted the night with dizzying colors and spinning now sat cold and silent.

  Many of the machines, even from this distance, appeared rusted and broken from neglect.

  The park was in a large field that gradually sloped inward, but not very deep. It had the look of being built in a fish bowl.

  Juan held a finger up to his mouth and inched along a wall that separated a large, asphalt parking lot from the rest of the park. Along the bottom edge of the wall, Tala was on her stomach, peering around a corner.

>   Nate dropped and crawled up next to her. “What do you see?” he whispered, but as he followed her eyes, he needed no explanation.

  Yards away, at the base of Miracle Strip’s Ferris wheel, two men in soldier’s uniforms worked on their machines, their mechs.

  That awful day that Will sacrificed himself, that was what Nate had seen. And now in the clear day, in the light, he could make it out.

  The warrior machine, a foreign mechanical suit, an upright tank, piloted by a man.

  These were the machine gods Parks spoke of. Now it made sense why they were afraid of Miriamville.

  One of the men dug in a toolbox. Metal clanked against metal, echoing through the otherwise silent park as he worked on what appeared to be the leg of one of the massive machines.

  The other machine sat upright, motionless. Its center portion was open, displaying where the pilot, or operator, would fit into the unit.

  The other soldier messed with a small box as he lounged against the leg of his machine.

  Voices carried on the wind faintly. They were talking, but the words, the language, was foreign.

  “The mechs,” Nate said. “This isn’t good.”

  “So this is them?” Juan said.

  Nate nodded.

  The man that fiddled with the box stopped and suddenly stood. He scanned the area, then glanced at the box he held. It appeared he said something to his buddy, because the other stopped working on his machine and sat motionless.

  Nate’s face flushed. An electric sensation ran through the air. He put his hand on the 9mm strapped to his leg.

  The standing soldier scrambled to the machine he had been leaning against and climbed inside.

  His partner jumped up, spilling the toolbox’s contents, and leaped toward his machine.

  The whine of a motor cut through the air, sounding like a small airplane starting.

  With practiced deftness, the soldiers fit inside the small openings, wedging themselves into the chest cavity of each machine.

  Both mechs closed, sealing in their drivers, and then lifted up, like golems awakening from a night of sleep.

  “This is definitely not good,” Nate said.