EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 22 | The Coldest Night

by Walker, Robert J.

  Jack walked over to them, keeping the rifle trained on them, and made sure they were dead. After that, he let out a long sigh of relief and found that his heart was pounding at a frenetic pace.

  “You saved us!” the businessman exclaimed. “Excellent work, yes, excellent job! I’ll make sure you’re handsomely rewarded for this; I assure you that.”

  “I don’t want a reward, and I’m no hero,” Jack said. “I just want to get home to my wife and daughter.” He picked up a box cutter from the shelf and went around to the hostages, cutting the zip ties from their wrists and ripping the duct tape from their mouths.

  “Sorry I couldn’t help ya,” Bernie said sheepishly when Jack pulled the duct tape off his mouth. “I mean, I would have, but I didn’t know you were gonna move when you did.”

  “It’s okay,” Jack said. “We’re free now, and that’s what matters.”

  Next, he cut the zip ties from the young man’s wrists and took the duct tape off his mouth. “Thanks for jumping in there,” Jack said to him. “Your quick actions saved my life and probably the lives of everyone in here. If I didn’t get this rifle in my hands when I did, things would have turned out very differently when those soldiers came charging in. How’d you learn to kick like that? Man, that kick looked like it could have felled a redwood!”

  The young man grinned. “Black belt in karate,” he said. “I knew it’d come in handy one day. You moved real fast yourself, sir, and that was one hell of a right cross you threw. As soon as I saw you move, I knew I had to jump in. It was a life-or-death situation; I was just doin’ what needed to be done. I’m Tyrese, by the way.”

  Jack shook the young man’s hand firmly. “Jack. Well, thanks to you, we’re free now.”

  “What do we do with this guy?” Tyrese asked, pointing to the unconscious soldier on the floor.

  “I’m no murderer, and as evil as he is, he doesn’t deserve to be executed in cold blood,” Jack said. “Let’s just tie him up and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. His buddies will come for him sooner or later.”

  He and Tyrese used the zip ties to bind the unconscious soldier’s wrists and ankles, and they anchored him to one of the shelves. Jack put duct tape over the soldier’s mouth, too, so he couldn’t cry out for help when he came to. It would buy the escaping hostages some time. He took the soldier’s jacket and put it on as well. It might prove dangerous and mark him as a target, but if he didn’t wear a jacket now, with the temperature steadily dropping and the wind speed increasing, his survival outdoors might be put in jeopardy.

  The other people thanked Jack and Tyrese for freeing them and then hurriedly left. The businessman—who claimed he owned half the buildings in this neighborhood—insisted on giving them a financial reward, and while Tyrese, who took one of the dead soldier’s M-16s, was happy to go with him to claim it, Jack wasn’t interested. Money wouldn’t be worth anything in the days to come, not where he was going. He said his farewells to them, and then he and Bernie went into the store, got some drinks, and then continued onward in the direction of the river.

  The snow and wind were growing steadily more intense, and Jack could only hope and pray that he and his family would be able to get out of the city before they got snowed in … if his family hadn’t already left, considering how long he’d been delayed. With these worrying thoughts swirling around his head, he pressed onward into the driving snow.

  18

  The storage unit was a short walk from the apartment building, but even so, the temperature seemed to have dropped drastically from when Susan, Kate, and Nick had last been outside, and the wind had picked up greatly. While the heavy snow blowing in from the east made walking more unpleasant and difficult, it also provided the three of them with a camouflage benefit. They could hardly see a few yards ahead of them, but this also meant that other people couldn’t see them, something they were all thankful for, considering the fact that there could be murderous rebel troops around any corner.

  “What do you think is in here?” Susan asked when they got into the storage unit compound situated in a large warehouse.

  “We’ll soon find out,” Kate said, searching the units for number 79.

  She found it without too much trouble. It was one of the ground floor units near to the entrance. With bated breath, she used one of the keys from the envelope to open it up, and when she rolled up the steel door, she gasped with surprise. Inside the unit was an extensively modified Humvee.

  “Whoa, that’s one awesome ride!” Nick exclaimed. He walked around the Humvee, marveling at its modifications. “Jacked up suspension, bigger tires,” he said, and then, rapping on the window glass with his knuckles, his grin broadened. “Bulletproof glass, too. This beast will be able to tackle the most hardcore terrain out there, and it can take a few gunshots, too. Wow, I gotta say, I’m impressed.”

  Kate smiled, but raw emotion surged through her, and tears rimmed her eyes. “Knowing Jack as well as I do, I’m not surprised.”

  “Will it work, though?” Nick asked. “I mean, pretty much every other car we’ve seen is totally dead.”

  “It’ll be fine. Jack wouldn’t have chosen this vehicle unless it weren’t EMP-proof. And I’m pretty sure I remember him telling me that certain model Humvees were one of the few vehicles that would survive an EMP strike.”

  The Humvee already had heavy-duty off-road tires on it, but on the driver’s seat was a note explaining that if Kate and Susan had to venture out in the vehicle in heavy snow, snow chains had to be fitted. The note said that they were in the red plastic crate in the storage unit, along with the tools needed to fit them. There were also detailed instructions on how to fit them.

  “We’d better get busy getting these snow chains on the tires,” Kate said.

  “That shouldn’t be too hard,” Nick said. “I’ve got an uncle in Colorado, and we visited him a lot. I helped him put snow chains on his truck a few times.”

  While Nick and Kate got busy putting the snow chains on, Susan examined Humvee's interior. Inside, there were dehydrated and canned food, camping supplies, water purification bottles, gas stoves and gas lamps with extra gas bottles, extreme weather sleeping bags, and a number of other items necessary for survival in desperate situations. Jack, it seemed, had been very well-prepared for almost any eventuality.

  Susan still hoped that somehow Jack would turn up but knew deep down that this wasn’t likely to happen. She was still trying to come to terms with having to leave without her father, and the emotional burden of this weighed on her heavily. She watched her mother as she and Nick put on the last of the snow chains. Kate was doing her best to concentrate on the task at hand but etched on her mother’s face, Susan could see the same pain tearing her up inside.

  Finally, Nick and Kate got the last wheel done and back on the Humvee. They loaded everything they’d brought with them from the apartment and then climbed into the vehicle. Kate sat in the driver’s seat, with Nick upfront and Susan sitting in the passenger seat behind him.

  “Here goes nothing,” Kate said, sliding the key into the ignition. For one suspense-laden second, the three of them waited, and then Kate turned the key.

  The motor roared to life, chugging with healthy power, and everyone let out a sigh of relief. The gas tank was full to the brim, and they were ready to go. Even so, Kate hesitated for a few seconds before driving out of the storage unit. This was it; this was a final, silent goodbye to her husband. Once she drove out of the warehouse, there would be no turning back, and there would be no chance of ever seeing Jack again or finding out what had happened to him.

  The weather outside was growing worse, and darkness was falling as day turned to night. With a sinking feeling in her gut and a heavy heart, Kate realized that she had to leave. She drove out of the storage unit and the warehouse into the howling wind and driving snow.

  She knew the way to the mountains well, for she and Jack had driven it many times. Getting out of the city and onto the main road to the mountains,
though, was a challenge she would have to overcome first. Every street had at least a few dead cars on it, but many were completely jammed with dead vehicles. In addition to the obstacles these cars presented, Kate was worried about the rebel soldiers. Thankfully, there were no more bridges to cross or rivers to navigate, but that didn’t mean that the way to the mountains would be danger-free—blizzard aside. Kate suspected that the soldiers might have set up roadblocks and barricades on many of the main routes in and out of the city.

  Soon after getting out of the warehouse, Kate discovered that the route she wanted to take was totally blocked. Even though the Humvee was easily able to drive over sidewalks and other obstacles, when she turned a corner onto the road she intended to drive up, she found that there had been a pileup of cars in a wreck. It blocked the entire street and both sidewalks completely.

  The other route she could take would take them back past their apartment building, and she didn’t want to go this way because seeing that familiar place again would send a fresh flood of emotional pain rushing through both her and her daughter. However, she quickly realized that it would be the most logical and sensible route to take and that the only other detour would add over two miles to their journey.

  Kate reversed, turned around, and reluctantly drove up the street their apartment building was on. She and Susan stared sadly at the doors of their building as they passed it, but then when Kate’s eyes returned to the road, she gasped with shock and slammed on the brakes … there was a soldier with a rifle standing in the middle of the road in front of them.

  19

  “I feel a lot better now,” Bernie said, after having downed a large Red Bull and a few donuts and candy bars from the convenience store. “Mm, yeah, that hit the spot after everything we’ve been through today, huh?”

  Jack wasn’t really listening to Bernie, though, so he only offered a half-hearted grunt in response. Instead, he was paying attention to the steadily worsening weather. He liked the fact that the falling snow was providing them with visual cover, but his hands were starting to hurt from the cold and the going was getting tougher. They were almost at the river, but even after they had crossed it—if they could cross it here—there was still a mile to go before getting back home. He wondered if Kate and Susan had made it back. If they had, it would likely have been hours ago, and this prompted him to wonder just how long they would wait for him. He had told Kate that in a situation like this, where there was an imminent threat to their lives that grew exponentially worse with every passing moment, that she should only wait for an hour or two at the most before striking off on her own. And if she did head off on her own, she would have opened the letter that directed her to the Humvee. And if she had taken the Humvee already … Jack would be stuck in the city. And that could quite possibly lead to his death.

  If this were the case, he knew he couldn’t blame Kate; she was only doing what she believed was best for her and her daughter. He also knew that she would have held on until the very last minute before leaving. She wouldn’t have left without him unless things had gotten so bad that it had become a life or death decision for her and Susan. He could only hope and pray that the moment for making such a decision had not yet arrived.

  He and Bernie arrived at the river. The snowfall was so thick and intense that they couldn’t see the opposite bank. Indeed, they could barely see a few yards ahead of them. There were two major bridges, roughly a mile each from where he and Bernie were now.

  “What do we do now, jump in and swim?” Bernie asked, chuckling.

  Jack wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “You look that way; I’ll head this way. Call out if you find a boat moored anywhere, I’ll do that same. Rowboats only, nothing with a motor.”

  “Okay, yeah, I’ll do that,” Bernie said.

  He and Jack set off in opposite directions, searching the banks of the river for boats. Soon enough, an excited yell cut through the whipping blanket of white snow from Bernie’s direction. “Found one! It’s got oars and everything!”

  Jack ran over to him, but his boost of optimism took a bit of a knock when he saw what Bernie had found. It was a rubber dinghy with a small motor, and the oars it had in it were only small supplementary paddles. Still, even though it wasn’t perfect, it was a means to cross the river.

  “Be careful getting into that,” Jack cautioned. “You wouldn’t want to capsize it and end up falling in the water, not in weather like this.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice!” Bernie remarked.

  They carefully climbed into the dinghy, which rocked and swayed and lurched alarmingly, but nonetheless stayed the right way up. Once the two of them were in place, Jack handed Bernie one of the small plastic paddles, and they set off. The going was slow and took a lot of effort, but they made steady, tiring progress.

  When they were around halfway across the river, though, Jack noticed a dark shape on the water, nothing more than a vague shadow barely visible in the driving snow, but he knew he wasn’t seeing things. He reached out and grabbed Bernie’s arm, preventing him from dipping his oar into the water. “Hold on,” he whispered. “I think that’s a boat coming toward us.”

  “You sure?” Bernie asked. “I don’t see nothin’, and I don’t hear anything except this damn wind that’s freezin’ my nuts off.”

  “Get down,” Jack hissed, his voice low with urgency. “Move, dammit, lie down flat. Do it!” He flattened himself on the bottom of the dinghy and grabbed Bernie’s jacket and pulled him down, too.

  Bernie pressed himself down on the bottom, too, only just managing to squeeze his bulk in flat next to Jack’s lean figure. They waited in tense suspense, for a while, hearing only the moaning howl of the wind and the gentle lapping of waves against the dinghy. Then, however, just as Bernie opened his mouth to say something, they heard it—the sound of voices. And they were close, far too close to have been drifting across the water from the riverbanks.

  “We picked one hell of a day for the revolution,” Jack and Bernie heard a man say.

  “The commanders know what they’re doing. They’re planning on using the blizzard to our advantage,” another man said.

  Jack listened closely, and in addition to the sound of the men talking, he could hear the rhythmic dipping of oars into the water. With luck, the soldiers’ boat would pass by without them noticing the dinghy in the water. Jack knew that he couldn’t rely solely on luck, though, and he gripped the M-16 loosely in his hands as he lay on his back, ready to whip it into action at a moment’s notice.

  “I don’t see what the point in patrolling this river is,” the first soldier grumbled. “I can’t see for shit, and who cares if a couple of civilians swim across or row boats across.”

  “It’s not civilians the commanders care about; that’s why we can shoot ‘em on sight if we want. We’re looking for the bigwigs who think they can escape what’s coming to ‘em. Those bastards know that they’re gonna hang, and they’ll try anything to escape their fate.”

  The voices were growing fainter, and Jack was about to breathe out a sigh of relief, for it seemed that they had escaped without being noticed. However, just before he released this sigh, one of the soldiers said something that sent dread coursing through his veins.

  “Hey! Is that a boat?”

  Inside the dinghy, both Jack and Bernie froze up. “Keep still, and be very, very quiet,” Jack whispered. “Don’t move, don’t even breathe.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see anything,” the other soldier said.

  “I swear I saw a boat,” the first soldier insisted. “This fucking snow, can’t see a fucking thing!”

  For a few tense moments, there was silence from the soldiers’ boat, and Jack was sure that they were peering through the snow, trying to catch a glimpse of the dinghy. However, a fresh, powerful gust of wind brought a flurry of thick snow, which was enough to screen the dinghy from the soldiers’ eyes effectively. For once, the terrible weather was on Jack’s side.

  �
�I guess it was nothing,” he heard the first soldier say, his voice faint over the roar of the wind. Then the soldiers’ voices grew fainter and fainter until they vanished altogether.

  He and Bernie waited for a few more minutes until they were sure it was safe, and then they sat up and picked up the oars again.

  “Whew, that was a close call,” Bernie murmured. “What in the hell is going on? Those guys were talking about a revolution. Who the hell are they? The whole world’s gone nuts.”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to stick around to find out,” Jack muttered.

  He and Bernie managed to get to the other side of the river without incident, and there they said a brief farewell and parted ways. Jack had found Bernie to be annoying and more of a hindrance than an ally, but nevertheless, he was glad he had helped him. Bernie had a good heart for all his flaws, and Jack hoped that the security guard would survive the turmoil and chaos that was about to be unleashed in earnest.

  Now he had a mile to go before he got home, but what would he find there? The weather was steadily worsening, and the reasonable period for Kate and Susan to have waited for him had long since passed. In his heart, he knew that Kate had left already—she had to have, for the sake of Susan’s survival if nothing else—and he was mentally and emotionally preparing himself for the terrible fate of being trapped in this city when the superstorm hit and the terrorists turned it into a killing zone.

  “No,” he whispered to himself. “I’m not giving up. Not yet.”

  He took off at a run, then broke into a sprint. He no longer gave a damn about stealth or strategy; all he cared about was getting back to his wife and child, making it to them against all the odds. He pushed himself, racing through the streets as fast as he could, breathing hard with his heart drumming madly in his chest and his throat and lungs burning, and his muscles on fire.