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

by A. K. Meek

  Nate extended his hand to Charles, to help him stand. “We need to find Tala at the substation,” he said, “then the rest.”

  Charles had to stop to massage his aching leg more than normal, more than Nate had ever seen before, even when they had been marching through the woods for hours on end.

  He had really pushed himself to get to the park and climb that tower, just for one shot.

  An hour and a half later, they reached the substation.

  As they approached, they could see Tala still clinging to the antenna, a hundred feet off the ground.

  She started to descend once they drew near. Nimbly maneuvering over poles and rungs, she hopped the last few feet to the ground. Her eyes were red and puffy and her smile was mixed with trembling.

  She ran to Nate and Charles and hugged them, and they hugged her back, and they all cried for a minute.

  Then they went to the substation to check out the control panel.

  “You sure you don’t want to come down here?” Nate said, standing at the bottom of the well. They had managed to pull the warped metal door away from the opening, so that Charles could get a better look at the device.

  He leaned on a metal tube, a piece of railing from the amusement park that had become a walking stick. “I don’t think that my leg would like it. I’ll take your word.”

  “At first the code didn’t work; I got an error,” Tala said, sitting on the edge of the hole, “but when I checked the paper I realized I’d inputted it wrong. I did it again and it worked. I can’t believe it worked. When I hit the activate button, a countdown began for five minutes. I’m not sure how someone could get away in five minutes, but I got up that tower in about two.”

  Nate climbed up the ladder to also sit on the edge on the well. “I’m not sure what we can do here. I imagine any power source is locked deep under the panel.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Charles said. “We can dig for weeks to get to whatever powers it.”

  “And we don’t have weeks,” Nate said.

  Charles nodded.

  “We need to find the others,” Nate said.

  After visiting a couple of burned-out stores, Nate finally found a map of the local and surrounding area in a mostly gutted Hallmark store in a strip mall, just off the main road that split Miriamville in two.

  They found the river that Nate had showed Juan, the river that would eventually lead to Lake Talquin, to the west of Tallahassee.

  After about three hours of walking along the riverbank they commandeered a bass boat near an abandoned lakeside house.

  They pushed off into the water, and Nate and Tala paddled with makeshift oars of fence boards.

  The long, hard day turned to night and they lit a hurricane lantern salvaged from the lakeside house.

  Among the reed plants on the murky, meandering river, cautious, yellow eyes broke the water, watching them. Tala watched one pair as it swam within a few feet of the tin boat.

  “I’m glad we’re in here and not walking. Or swimming,” she said.

  Nate nodded. “Maybe we should put out the lamp. We don’t want to draw unwanted attention.” He snuffed the fire out.

  Charles slept.

  They traveled through the night, staying awake in shifts, each making sure the boat continued drifting along the lazy river while the others got some shut-eye.

  Three a.m., and Nate fought to keep his head up, to stay awake. Using an oar, he steered the boat, but the river did all the work.

  About a hundred yards upriver, a light flickered on one bank.

  He grabbed the rifle, the one Charles had effectively used a day ago, and slowly pulled the bolt catch to see if a round was chambered. He propped the rifle stock on the edge of the boat, hunched over, then peered through the scope.

  At first the images swam. The rocking boat made it difficult to see. Or maybe his sleepy eyes.

  Maybe both.

  He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes tight, then opened them and looked through the scope again.

  As the boat drew closer, a whisper of voices carried over the water.

  On the bank of the river, two men and a lady huddled around the fire. Three kids were jumping around, laughing, slapping each other’s hands. The lady was cooking, stirring a pot over the fire, while periodically putting her finger to her mouth, obviously telling the kids to quiet down.

  The men looked gruff, in full beards and with baseball caps pulled low over their eyes. Thick hair stuck out from the bottoms of their caps. And each cradled a rifle.

  Everyone had a rifle.

  Who knew how many more were in the woods, hiding, waiting, protecting the children?

  That was what Nate would’ve done, have someone stay out of sight, especially while exposed on the riverbank.

  He shook Charles’ arm, thinking they would contact the group, possibly welcome a friendly face.

  Charles groaned and rolled over. Nate shook his arm again.

  Charles smacked his mouth and his eyes fluttered open, half awake, half asleep.

  Tree branches hidden underwater scraped along the bottom of the aluminum boat with a long, loud squeal. Nate cringed.

  The three adults froze in place. Their heads popped up.

  The woman bolted to her feet and rounded up the children. She rushed them into the woods.

  Both men slowly shifted their rifles into firing position. They moved apart, scanning the river.

  As the boat drew near, Nate decided not to contact them.

  Silently, the boat carried on.

  Finally, hours into the night, close to morning, when Tala had taken over watch and he had just wedged himself into an almost comfortable position, she noticed a light in the distance.

  “We should be near,” Nate said.

  He lit the lamp, then flattened the map on his lap. “According to this, we should run straight into the island.” He turned to Tala. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m sick of being on this boat. I say take our chances. We’ve got Eagle Eye Charles with us.”

  “I agree. Wake up Eagle Eye.”

  They followed the faint light, eventually running aground, except this time on soft, saturated earth. More like a sand bar. An island in the swamp.

  Nate jumped from the boat onto spongy earth and his boots sunk in the thick mud. He struggled as he pulled the boat onto more solid ground.

  The land before them stretched away, splitting the river. Green, swampy grass came to their knees, and gorged, water-fed trees hung low.

  It all appeared untouched by any fallout, any orange death. Still pure and unspoiled.

  The three grabbed guns and lantern and started toward the light.

  Tala paused. “Should we scout first?”

  “At this point,” Nate said, “I would welcome anyone, even Parks, as long as they have a place to sleep.”

  They continued forward.

  Trees thickened quickly, making it difficult to follow the light.

  After five minutes of weaving through the trees, they lost sight of the light.

  “Great,” Tala said as they paused to get their bearings.

  “Nate? Tala, Charles.” Juan’s voice came from the left.

  He sprang from behind a cypress tree that leaned to one side, half its roots exposed. “I heard you coming from a mile away.”

  “Good to see you too,” Nate said.

  On some level, some unmentioned, little thought-of level, he knew they’d make it back to the twenty-five.

  Will had told him that he knew he wouldn’t make it, because he wanted to survive so much. He desperately wanted to find his wife.

  Perhaps Will was onto something.

  At the time, Nate had thought the same way. He’d been scared of virtually everything and everyone, every situation.

  But then came Bruce and the Herd.

  That pushed him to a point that he couldn’t ignore. He had to act, not for his comfort, but to save others.

  He gave up his own safety,
and by that he found it.

  A brother helping a brother.

  Juan ran to the trio and hugged each one. He led them through the trees, whistling a tune like some kind of make-believe bird, to let the other guards know they approached.

  They’d returned to the twenty-five.

  05.06

  SWAMP

  The next morning, Nate and Henry leaned against a tree, each munching on poor frogs that were too slow to escape Desiree’s young, quick hands. They had become lunch guests.

  “When we saw what was going on, that’s when we knew you weren’t crazy,” Henry said. His accent seemed to have thickened in the short amount of time Nate hadn’t spoken to him. “The best thing the government did was paint our death orange, that way we could avoid it.”

  Nate swallowed the last of his frog and tossed the leftover bones away. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Glad you made it.”

  Once Henry had received word from Juan, he led the group south and west for a couple of miles until they reached Smith Creek.

  Despite the relatively short distance, they had a hard time making it because of injuries. Ed, still banged up from the beating by the Herd, had to be carried. Fortunately, Colton was able to walk, but barely.

  They had found two bass boats and a homemade barge of lashed-together timber.

  As they loaded up and pushed out onto the river, the orange fog rolled to the water’s edge and dissipated as it came to the banks, dissolved by the river.

  They traveled until they couldn’t see the fog anymore, then continued on.

  Eventually, the river widened into a lake, dotted with weed islands.

  Henry landed them at the first one that had somewhat dry land, an island away from the mainland. They made camp and waited for the three.

  Nate unfolded Will’s map and spread it on the ground, pinning the corners with pieces of wood. “Wherever we go, as long as we’re near the coast, or any water, I think we’ll be okay. Who knows what triggers that stuff?”

  Juan made his way over to the two. “So where did Will want to go?” he said.

  “He wasn’t sure. The Florida Panhandle. Here somewhere, but no place in particular.”

  “I think anyplace is good,” Henry said. “As long as we’re away from than fog. I don’t care where we go.”

  “We’ll continue to the coast,” Nate said. “Others spoke of heading there. We’ll see what we can find.” He folded the map and tucked it into his pocket.

  Another day was spent resting, nursing injuries, making up for skipped meals.

  The next day they loaded up the three boats. They would continue on the river; it would eventually let out into the Florida bays, then on to the coast.

  At least that was what the maps showed.

  Juan and Desmond piled backpacks and supplies into one boat while the injured were loaded into another. “Gimme a hand, Dez,” Juan said, fighting with a folded tarp. “Not everything can be wrapped in this.”

  “Here, let me,” Dez said. He took a pack of MREs that had slid from one end of the tarp and threw it on the ground, then grabbed the bulky composite bow and a quiver of arrows and sat them next to the pack. “This is taking up all the room. I have some space over here. Just a minute.” He hopped to the other side of the boat, pulling on slack ropes.

  Nate left the young men to their work and walked to Bruce, sitting on a stump.

  He didn’t help, didn’t do anything. He just sat and stared.

  He did little to help his wife with their daughter. Amber tended to Paige, despite her arm’s becoming infected and her frequent nosebleeds. Something wasn’t right inside her, but Bruce never mentioned it. Neither did she.

  “How are you?” Nate said.

  Bruce didn’t acknowledge him, except by turning so that he looked in the opposite direction.

  “These have been some crazy times,” Nate continued. “A lot has gone on. I think we’ve all done things we regret.”

  A thwang and a whiz startled Nate.

  Bruce screamed.

  An arrow protruded from his upper back, buried deep. He grasped for it as he fell off the stump.

  Nate turned toward the boats as Colton was drawing the string of the bow back, another arrow set, about twenty yards away.

  His eyes were blank as he stepped from the bass boat with shaky legs. People cleared from his path.

  “What’re you doing?” Nate said.

  “Bruce is going to die.”

  “No.” Nate moved in front of Bruce, who now lay on the spongy grass, his hand gripping the arrow shaft, panting heavily. “Don’t. Please. You can’t kill him anymore than what he’s done to himself. Look at him.”

  Colton’s drawn hand shook and his stiff arm wavered. The bow dipped slightly. “He will pay...” He lowered his arms as his strength failed. “I can’t shoot you, Nate. I hate you for protecting him, but I can’t shoot you.” He dropped the bow and wobbled, clutching his side.

  Juan ran over to him and wrapped his arms around him, leading him back to his litter on the boat.

  Amber sat Paige on the ground and ran to her husband.

  Others moved a little slower as they went to him.

  Martin walked over to where Bruce writhed on the ground. “Great, another injured. Just what we need.”

  He wasn’t sure when he had first smelled the salty air, or when it had become so prominent.

  It came so gradually that it escaped notice until a brief movement of air, a sudden shift of wind, brought it on him like a wave.

  The smell of salt water, the smell of the Gulf.

  Nate had visited the coast a couple of times during spring break, so long ago.

  Another person, another life.

  Tall, thin pines with bent tops swayed back and forth in unison as gusts blew in from the water like a giant breathing in and out. They whipped back and forth, bending but not breaking.

  The wind piped through the trees and brushed against the treetops as it approached, giving a sense of the ocean crashing over land.

  Gently, the boats rocked as they rowed.

  A cloudy sky kept the heat at bay and the rush of air kept the humidity tolerable, so that it was comfortable.

  Nate was thankful for that as they reached a point of the river that widened, continuing in several possible directions.

  He checked his map to see which direction to go, knowing that soon they would have to take to land, the river boats too small to handle the open bays and the increasingly choppy water.

  They passed several houses that overlooked the river. Stairs led from the houses down to their docks, long abandoned. If there was anyone in the houses, they didn’t make themselves known to the twenty-five as the chain of boats and barge lazily drifted along.

  The river road shrunk in width and slowed, not leading out into a bay as expected. Nate checked the map again, but with all the waterways, and him not being one hundred percent sure which path they should take, he had gotten them lost.

  Coughs broke the silence as they moved along another hour.

  Finally they reached a point in the river where they could no longer travel. A man-made dam had turned the stream into a lake. They wouldn’t be able to take the boats any farther.

  They found a gravel boat dock and landed. They unloaded all their worldly possessions.

  Brandon, Tala, and Henry grabbed rifles and spread away from the group, securing a safe perimeter.

  Securing areas, looking for enemies—it had become all too automatic.

  “Let’s get everyone off the boats,” Nate said. “We’re sitting ducks out here.” He hopped from his boat and pulled it further onto the dock.

  “Hey, Nate, come here.” Brandon came running back, clutching his rifle tightly. “Look what I found.” He turned and pointed, then ran back the way he’d come.

  Nate followed after him.

  Along the access road, in the weeds, an old boat trailer rested. “I thought maybe we could use it for the injured,” Bran
don said, beaming with pride.

  Nate looked from the trailer to the dirt road that drifted off to the south. The path was bumpy and unkempt. “I think that’s a great idea. The only problem I can think of is that if we use this we have to stay on the roads. But then, we can’t carry the injured. Good work. Go let Jacob know so he can get the sick ready to load.”

  Three hours later the twenty-three were on their way. All the men and women that were able to pulled and pushed the trailer on the gravel road that led from the boat dock to Florida Highway 377, a couple of miles away.

  Highway 377 was a two-lane road that led through Ochlockonee State Park to the Florida coast.

  Several cars had been abandoned on the sandy road shoulder.

  The few trailer homes they came across looked like other transients had already visited them. Rags and cans were scattered about. They found no bodies, though.

  By the time they saw the highway sign stating the beaches were two miles away, it was already eleven at night. Nate led them off the main road and into the trees and brush, abandoning the trailer temporarily, for the comfort and protection of the forest, and waited for daylight.

  05.07

  EDGE OF ALL CREATION

  With the new day and their final destination so near, the group woke to joking and laughing.

  Will would’ve been happy to see the ocean.

  After a quick breakfast of frog jerky and MRE crackers, they loaded up and continued on the highway for the coast.

  In an hour they rounded a large bend in the road. Ahead a gas station was off the road, a large yellow and red shell on the sign. As they neared, Juan came running back from where he was point man.

  “Wait. Stop,” he said. He pointed with his rifle barrel. “There are bodies.”

  Nate unholstered his pistol and followed Juan to the gas station. Brandon followed.

  On the opposite side of the station, a large pile of rotting clothing smelled of death, a familiar smell.

  It reminded Nate of Ocmulgee and the sky burials. He shoved his nose into his sleeve.