“It’s like a … like a zombie movie or something,” he murmured. “I can’t believe this; it’s totally insane.”
“It’s gonna get worse,” Susan said. “A lot worse.”
She felt a lot safer now that she had this strapping young man by her side. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and quite good-looking. She pegged his age at perhaps eighteen or nineteen, so he was only two or three years older than herself.
They headed up a small street, and Susan soon saw a sign for a gym. A few hulking bodybuilders were standing outside, dressed in their gym gear, looking perplexed. They recognized Nick right away.
“What’s going on, little man?” a giant of a guy said to Nick—who, despite being over six feet tall and of a muscular build, did look small next to him.
“Hey, Damien. She fell into the river. We have to get her into the hot baths,” he answered.
“I meant with the whole ‘world seems to be ending’ thing, but sure,” the huge man said. “You know where they are. Ain’t no lights or power on in there, but there should be enough light coming in through the windows to find your way around. Should I call an ambulance or something?”
“There won’t be any ambulances, apparently,” Nick said. “But maybe get some of that whiskey I know you keep in your car, and if one of you could spare a protein shake or an energy bar, both of us could use some fuel right now.”
“Sure thing, little man,” the bodybuilder said.
Nick carried Kate into the gym, with Susan following anxiously behind them. They walked through the gloomy interior, past the deserted weights racks and exercise machines, and got to the gym's sauna area.
“We’d better get her out of these wet clothes,” Nick said. “I’ll leave that to you to do, just strip her down to her underwear and help her get into the water. There’s a little clothing store up front. I’ll get her some new, dry clothes; I’ll put ‘em on my tab. I need to have a soak and get into some dry clothes, too. I’m freezing my ass off! I’ve got plenty of clothes in my locker here, so I’ll go get ‘em.”
“Thank you, Nick,” Susan said. “You’ve done so much for us.”
Nick shrugged, smiling. “I’m sure you would have done the same for me,” he said, and then strolled casually out of the sauna area.
Susan helped Kate out of her clothes until she was in her underwear. Kate could barely move, and her entire body was shivering uncontrollably, her jaw chattering so intensely she thought her teeth might rattle out of their sockets. Once she slipped into the hot water, though, she immediately started to feel better.
Soon enough, Nick returned, dressed in swimming trunks, and he slid into the hot water, too, while Susan sat by the side of the hot pool.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Kate said. She was finally able to speak again, and although the intense cold continued to linger in her bones and her core, she was slowly beginning to feel as if life were returning to her numb muscles and aching joints.
Susan, Nick, and Kate chatted for a while, and the bodybuilders brought them some protein shakes and energy bars, which helped restore their strength. The biggest man handed Kate a hip flask of whiskey to get some warmth flowing inside her and calm her nerves.
After a while, the bodybuilders left, aside from the huge man, who was the gym’s owner. He said he’d lock the place up when Kate and Susan were ready to go.
They chatted with Nick for a while and found out he was a local university student and had come here on a rowing scholarship. He came from the West Coast, so all his family was there. When Susan explained to him in detail the full scope of what the EMP attack entailed for society in general, he was horrified. Doubly alarming was the fact that a superstorm was on the way. Nick’s residence was outside the city, and he took a bus in most days after class to come and train here on the river.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get back now,” he said, looking worried. “It’s twenty miles to my place.”
Susan was finding herself increasingly attracted to the handsome young athlete. “Why don’t you come with us?” she said. “We’re going past that way after we get our stuff from home.”
Kate realized the value of having a strong young man with them in these difficult times. “We could help each other out, Nick,” she said. “After saving my life, it’s the least we could do for you.”
“Sure,” he said. “I don’t know how else I’d get back, and the thought of heading out there on my own is … well, it’s a little scary.”
“Don’t worry, when we meet up with my dad, it’ll all be okay,” Susan said confidently. “He’s ready for a situation like this.”
Kate nodded in agreement, although she wasn’t quite as confident as her daughter that it would be easy sailing once they met up with Jack. She prayed that he was okay. He had, after all, been in a skyscraper when the EMP had hit, and plenty of those rockets that had streaked through the sky earlier had looked as if they were aimed at buildings just like the one Jack worked in.
She forced herself to banish such thoughts from her mind. She had to stay strong and determined and think positively; it was the only way to get through this.
They stayed in the hot water for a good while longer, until it got cool. Kate didn’t want to waste time, but she had to get her core temperature up after the water's terrible cold. Finally, when the hot tub became too cool to perform that function, she got out. Nick showed her where the women’s changing rooms were, and she got her wet underwear off and put the new gym clothes on. Even though she felt a little ridiculous dressed like an urban gym rat, she was grateful for the warm, dry clothes.
“All right,” she said, walking out of the changing area in her new clothes. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
That was the exact moment that gunfire erupted outside.
9
Instinct kicked in with ruthless force the moment Jack started to fall. As gravity yanked him viciously downward, he lunged desperately for the balcony railing, and his left hand slammed onto it. His terrifying descent was abruptly halted, but for how long? Panting with fear, with his arm, shoulder, and hand burning with terrible pain, he dangled from the balcony railing, with only what strength remained in his fingers standing between him and certain death twenty floors below.
He only had enough strength to hang on, not to pull his whole body up. This was not the end, though, for strong hands gripped his arm, grabbed his shirt, and then started hauling him upward.
“I got you, buddy, hang in there, I got you!”
Jack looked up and saw that it was a janitor who was pulling him up. He was an older man, heavyset and balding, with a kindly face creased with many laugh lines. As soon as he’d pulled Jack up high enough that he could get his right hand onto the railing, too, it became a lot easier, and before long, Jack was back on solid ground, safe and sound. Carrie was there, too, watching anxiously.
“That was as close to seeing someone die as I’ve ever come, man,” the janitor said, breathing hard from the effort of pulling Jack up. “You scared the hell outta me, buddy!”
“Thank you, you saved my life,” Jack said, scarcely able to believe he’d survived. “If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“You’d probably be down there now, in multiple pieces,” the janitor chuckled, shaking his head and grinning. His smile faded quickly, though. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but there was one crazy explosion a few floors up, and all the power went out. Seems like there’s one hell of a fire burning up there, too. I was helping people to get down the stairs when I saw this young lady climbing on the balcony. She almost fell off, nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“He saved my life, too,” Carrie, who was a total nervous wreck at this point, said to Jack.
“I’m guessing nobody else is coming down?” the janitor asked.
“No, the others up there … They didn’t make it,” Jack said, and a rush of intense emotion crashed through him.
The janitor nod
ded sadly. “I knew people wouldn’t make it when I heard that explosion and felt the whole building shake. Man, I knew it. The world’s gone crazy. It’s like another 9/11 … only worse, my gut tells me. Things are already bad, but I got a feeling they’re about to get a lot worse. Come on. We better get outta here before things get even crazier.”
The fire hadn’t spread to this section of the building yet, and most people had already evacuated, so the three of them didn’t have much trouble getting down the many flights of stairs to the bottom of the building. Just as they got to the main entrance hallway, Carrie’s boyfriend came rushing over to them after pushing his way through the crowd gathered there. The two of them lived in an apartment only two blocks away.
“Carrie! What happened to your arm? Baby, are you hurt?” he asked anxiously.
“It’s broken,” she said, grimacing and fighting back tears. “And I got a really bad cut on my leg, too. But Jack and this kind man helped me. They really saved my life.”
He and Carrie hugged tightly, and then the young man gave Jack and the janitor a firm, grateful handshake. “Thank you two for saving her,” he said. “She means everything to me.”
“You’d better get her to a doctor, son,” the janitor said. “Those wounds need seeing to.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. The hospitals and emergency rooms would be overflowing now, but would anyone there even be able to help, seeing as everything electronic—the vast majority of hospital equipment—was now dead? After a few moments of thought, he decided that it would be best for Carrie to attempt to see a doctor. Even without electronic equipment, they could clean out her wounds, properly set her broken arm, and give her some painkillers, which she sorely needed. And it would be better to go now before things went from bad to worse.
“Yeah,” he eventually said to Carrie’s boyfriend. “You better get her straight to the hospital.”
“What about you?” the young man asked. “I can take you as well if you want. You look like you took a bit of a beating yourself. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jack said. “A few cuts and bruises, nothing that some rest won’t heal.”
Carrie gave Jack one last hug, and then she hobbled off with her boyfriend.
Jack turned to the janitor. “Where are you headed now, friend? You got a family to go to?” he asked.
The janitor nodded. “I’m headed straight home, man. I’ve got a wife and two teenagers; we’ve got a small place about two miles from here.”
“Get as much food as you can, and store as much water as you can,” Jack said. “Both of those things are going to be in short supply for a very long time. And if you don’t have one of these,” he continued, opening his bag and showing the janitor part of the 9mm pistol hidden in there, “do your best to get your hands on one. Things are going to get way worse, trust me on this. And forget about all your electrical and electronic items; they’re as good as scrap now. If you have somewhere out in the country or the mountains where you can go and shelter for a while, I’d advise you to do that rather than sticking around in this place.”
“Man, things are looking grim, huh?” the janitor remarked, shaking his head. “World War III, that’s what I’m thinking. Say, I got a cousin who lives in a small town in the hills not too far away. He’s got a small piece of land, grows some vegetables and raises chickens and stuff. You think I should take my family there?”
“In my opinion, that’s the absolute best thing you could do,” Jack said. “And if you can somehow get them out of here before the blizzard hits tomorrow, that’d be even better.” Hope bloomed within him; he’d been feeling sorry for this kind, honest man and his family, but now that he heard that they had a possible escape from what was coming, made him feel a lot better.
“I’ll do that,” the janitor said. “And don’t worry, I’ve got an old pump-action shotgun under the bed. I knew it’d come in handy someday. Good luck, man, and thanks for the advice.”
“Good luck to you, too,” Jack said, shaking the janitor’s hand. “And thank you again for saving my life.”
He and the janitor left the building, pushing through the crowd of anxious, frightened people gathered both inside and outside the entrance. The fear and anxiety in the air were almost palpable, and Jack could practically taste the collective panic. There hadn’t been any more explosions after the first wave of rockets, but he had a feeling that whatever uneasy peace had now settled in would soon be shattered.
His new mission was to get home, get his bugout supplies together, and wait for his wife and daughter. The imminence of the incoming blizzard, as well as its purported severity, would make everything a lot more difficult and dangerous. But Jack’s intentions were now single-minded. He had to get his family out of the city before the blizzard hit, no matter what. It would be dangerous traveling during the storm, but sticking around and getting trapped in town by the snow would be a death sentence for all of them. He was certain of that.
“One problem at a time, Jack, one problem at a time,” he murmured to himself as he strode purposefully along the streets.
He noted that despite all the signs of an apparent act of war against the city by an unknown power, there had been no visible response from the military. He wondered if the attack on this city—and very likely others across the country—had been preceded by strategic strikes against military bases, to cripple any possibility of an effective response. Aside from a few cops who’d been walking the beat, and who were now desperately overwhelmed with trying to control crowds of confused, frightened, and panicking people in the street, he hadn’t seen any sign of a significant police response, either. Nor had any firefighters seemed to have been deployed, despite the fact that many buildings were now ablaze after the rocket strikes.
He knew that this was likely because the vast majority of the police force’s and firefighters’ equipment was now dead and little more than useless piles of junk, but even so, he had expected some sort of massed rapid response to what had happened. Police officers could still come out on foot and try to control the growing, agitated crowds. Firefighters couldn’t use their trucks, but they could use human chains of buckets and the river water if it came down to it. He’d never been one to trust the government or public institutions. As he made his way to his apartment, he found himself wondering if this whole thing was indeed an attack by foreign powers, or if it was something more sinister … some sort of inside job.
He wasn’t sure how or why, but some sort of gut instinct, a sixth sense started tingling in his core; it was almost as if warning bells were pealing inside his mind. Feeling as if he may have to use his pistol, he slipped off the street into a side alley and took the firearm out. He flipped off the safety and curled his hand around the grip, holding the handle of the backpack with his pinky and ring fingers. That way, he could keep the gun mostly concealed while holding the backpack, and if he needed to use it in a hurry, all he had to do was let go of the bag and the pistol would be ready in his hand.
With the pistol and the bag in his hand, he stepped back out onto the street, with all his senses on full alert for any signs of danger.
And when he turned the corner and stepped onto the next street, the one that would take him over the bridge to the side of the river his apartment was on, he found it. This was where they all were, Jack saw—the police, the military—and just as he walked out onto the street, a full-scale battle erupted.
10
“What was that?” Kate gasped as the booming crackle and hammering of automatic gunfire thundered through the gym. It sounded as if it were coming from right outside.
“I don’t know, but we’d better stay in here for a while,” Nick said, looking worried. “This way, there’s a martial arts dojo in the basement. We can lock ourselves in there and wait this out.”
Kate was worried about potentially getting locked inside the gym. Still, she was more concerned about getting hit by stray bullets from the firefight that had erupted in t
he street or being shot by whoever was fighting if they decided to come in here. “Lead the way,” she said to Nick.
He ran through the free weights section and led Susan and Kate through a door and down a flight of stairs at the back of the room. Since this section of the gym was underground, by the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, everything was almost pitch black. Outside, the sound of gunfire and fighting intensified.
Kate couldn’t explain it, but she had a bad feeling about going any deeper into the darkness. She could only just make out the indistinct outline of Nick’s figure, but she could see enough of him that she was able to reach forward and grab his arm. “I don’t think we should go in there,” she whispered.
“What? Why not?” he asked, speaking at his usual volume level.
“Shh!” she hissed back at him. “I just … I have a bad feeling about this.”
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Susan asked from behind, also speaking normally.
All three of them froze in their tracks as the sound of a firearm being cocked inside the inky darkness shattered the silence.
“Don’t even think of trying to run, because I’ll cut you all down, the kid, too,” a deep, threatening voice growled. “Get in here and put your hands on the backs of your heads. Do it now.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate stammered, “we, we were just looking for a place to hide from the firefight outside. We’re not, we, we don’t have anything to do with it.”
“Yeah, I’m a college student,” Nick said, “I just train at this gym, I don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up!” the voice in the darkness roared. “Get in here now, all of you, or I will open fire, I swear to God! Do it!”
“Okay, okay,” Kate said, trying to sound as calm and non-threatening as possible. “We’ll come in. We’ll cooperate and do what you say.”
Survive the Day Boxset: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 57