Survive the Day Boxset: EMP Survival in a Powerless World

by William Stone

  “We should have done that yesterday,” Kate said. “I hope we haven’t left it too late.”

  “Arthur will be able to help him when we get there.”

  “The problem is, Jack, it may still be days before we get to Arthur. I don’t like how bad this is already looking.”

  “There’s nothing we can do but put him on a course of antibiotics and pray that they’re effective,” Jack said grimly. “Give him some as soon as he wakes up.”

  He set off, and the drive was now at a snail’s pace because he could barely see the road, which had been coated with a few feet of snow overnight. It was easy enough to follow the course since it hugged the mountain curves, but even so, the going was painfully slow.

  It didn’t take long for Nick and Susan to wake up. Susan felt good after having had a long and restful sleep, but Nick was looking pale and sick. “I don’t feel good,” were the first words he croaked out after he woke up. “My ear feels like … it’s on fire.”

  Kate gave him some antibiotics; it was about all she could do for him at this stage. After about an hour of driving, Jack pulled over. The wind was starting to pick up again, and the snowfall was getting heavier once more. The four of them got out of the Humvee to stretch their legs, move around, get their blood flowing, and cook a basic breakfast on a gas stove. Aside from the sound of the wind, everything was eerily silent, and white blanketed the entire landscape. The episode in the city felt like a strange and disturbing dream they had woken up from. Considering how badly the blizzard had hit these mountains, which were many miles from the coast, they knew that the superstorm had to have devastated the city. They didn’t talk about it, but each of them was feeling grateful and relieved that they had managed to escape from the city before the blizzard had struck in earnest. There would be difficult challenges to overcome out here, of course, but at least being stuck in a warzone and having to worry about being shot by soldiers or other armed predators on the streets wouldn’t be one of them … or at least, so they thought.

  Just as they were packing up and getting ready to get back into the car, a brief flash of light from higher up in the mountains caught Jack’s eye. He turned and peered through the falling snow and thought he could make out the silhouette of a person up in the peaks. He grabbed his binoculars from the car and took a look through them. It took a while to dial in the focus, but when he did, he caught a glimpse of a man with a rifle on his back racing away on an old snowmobile. Then, sure enough, the faint echo of the snowmobile’s roar came floating by on the breeze.

  “What are you looking at, Jack?” Kate asked. “Was that the sound of a motorcycle, or am I hearing things?”

  “Snowmobile,” Jack muttered. “We’re not alone out here … and something tells me that the mystery man who was spying on us is no friend.”

  They got back into the Humvee and resumed the long, slow journey, wary of who and what they might encounter on the road ahead.

  24

  As the day wore on, both the weather and Nick’s condition grew worse. The wind and snow picked up, and soon vicious winds were battering the vehicle again, and visibility was reduced to a mere few yards. Jack couldn’t go faster than ten miles an hour, or occasionally fifteen or twenty when the wind died down a little and visibility became temporarily better.

  In a way, Jack was at least partially grateful for the inclement weather. While it hampered his progress and made going slow, it also guaranteed that he wouldn’t be walking into some sort of ambush because he knew nobody would be stupid enough to be outside in weather like this. The temperature was likely under twenty degrees, perhaps even close to ten, and with the wind chill factor and the deep snow, anyone staying outdoors for more than a short period of time would be putting their lives in serious jeopardy.

  When there was a temporary lull in the severity of the storm in the early afternoon, Jack found a spot to stop, and the four of them had lunch and stretched their legs. Just to get out and do this for a few minutes, though, required getting dressed in their heaviest winter clothing. As good as it was to move around and stretch after being stuck in the car for hours, it was almost unbearable to be outdoors in the cold for more than a few short minutes, and it didn’t take them long to pile back in.

  Jack didn’t see the stranger on the snowmobile again, but he wasn’t about to allow himself to become complacent about the man. His sixth sense had sounded alarm bells in his mind when he’d first seen the stranger. Now, he couldn’t shake the feeling that some sort of danger awaited them ahead.

  In normal conditions, the journey to his old hometown would have taken six hours, but by the time darkness started to fall, they were still a long way from their destination. Everyone was stiff and achy after having been stuck in the vehicle—as spacious as the interior was—for over twenty-four hours, and the prospect of having to stay another night in the Humvee was a dreary one.

  What was more, Nick’s condition was worsening. It was too early to tell if the general-purpose antibiotics would have much of an effect, but it was clear that for the moment, he was going downhill rapidly. He had developed a fever, and despite the cold, was sweating profusely and complaining about being too hot. Kate took his temperature and found that he was running a fever of 105 degrees.

  She changed the dressing on his ear, and it looked even worse than she’d expected. His ear's remaining part was red and inflamed and hot to the touch, and yellow pus oozed from the wound. When she tried to clean it with antiseptic, Nick howled almost maniacally with agony. Jack watched on grimly, feeling impotently helpless, and Susan watched with tears in her eyes. Nick’s face was pallid and sallow, and his eyes had a yellowish tinge to them.

  Jack knew he had to get Nick to Arthur as quickly as possible, but there was only so fast he could go with the conditions being what they were. He pushed on as fast as he could safely go, and once again kept driving well into the early hours of the morning until he was so exhausted that he could barely keep his eyes open. Even so, when he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Nick shivering with a fever and looking like he would soon be at death’s door, he did his best to push on and fight through the exhaustion, and only agreed to stop and take a rest when Kate insisted on it.

  Jack felt like he had only just closed his eyes for a few seconds when he woke with a jolt, physically jerking in his seat. The darkness had melted away, and in its place was morning light, but the arrival of dawn hadn’t been what had woken him up. Instinct and his sixth sense kicked in, and he snatched up his pistol. Everyone else in the vehicle was still sleeping. Outside, the wind was howling, and the snow was falling, albeit not with the same vengeful fury it had been during the night.

  Jack wasn’t sure why, but there was an uncanny feeling deep in his core that they were not alone. He almost thought that he’d seen a face peering through the window—had that been what had woken him up, or was it merely a ghostly vestige of a nightmare? He peered around him, searching for signs of any people nearby. His heart was beating fast, and his mouth was dry; why did he feel fear and anxiety creeping through his veins if nobody was there? Was he starting to lose his mind? Was his imagination conjuring up mystery men on snowmobiles, who came and stared through the windows of his vehicle while he was sleeping?

  Just as he was beginning to relax, he saw it: a flash of red up ahead, stark against the endless white of the snow-covered landscape. It was a brief flare of bright color, and the glimpse he caught was so short that he almost thought that he’d imagined it. The snowfall had been getting steadily heavier since he’d woken up. It now obscured any clarity of vision he may have had, so when he raised his binoculars to his eyes and peered through them at the area where he’d seen the flash of red, all he could see was a frustrating white blur of falling snow.

  He opened the door, though, and stepped out into the frigid cold, shivering against its glacial iciness with his gun in his hand and his binoculars around his neck. And as soon as he got out of the car, he heard it: the distant roar of a
snowmobile accelerating away. He looked down and gasped. Even though the snowfall was heavy, it wasn’t falling fast enough to cover up what he saw before him: two sets of footprints.

  There had been two of them, men judging from the prints' size, and they had walked all around the Humvee, looking through each of the windows. A shudder of dread rippled through Jack, and he felt slightly sick, knowing that two strangers had been circling their Humvee while they had slept, like wolves skulking around a campsite in the darkness.

  The cold was eating through his clothing and biting through his skin, so after walking a few yards out into the snow, he hastily headed back to the Humvee. He knew that they were relatively safe in it because of the bulletproofing and the fact that they kept the doors locked all the time. But even so, it was deeply unsettling to know that strangers were watching them—strangers who were bold enough to come right up to the vehicle and stare in at them while they slept.

  Then, just as he was about to open the door, he saw them. They were almost completely buried, but he noticed them standing upright in the snow a yard or so in front of the Humvee: four bullets, deliberately placed there.

  25

  “What do you think it means?” Kate asked, staring at the four bullets in Jack’s hand.

  “I have no doubt that it’s a deliberate threat. Four of us, four bullets, these creeps sneaking around our car while we slept … This was a message from them; I’m sure of it.”

  “What do you think they want, Dad?” Susan asked, looking worried.

  “They probably want us to turn around and go back where we came from,” Jack answered.

  “Maybe they’re just folks from town trying to protect their homes,” Kate suggested.

  “They looked in the car, Kate,” Jack said, “and they must have got a good look at our faces. We know almost everyone there, so if these people were from town, why would they be making threats against people they recognized? No, I don’t think these are people we’ve seen before because it’s obvious that they don’t recognize us. If they did, they wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “What are we gonna do?” Susan asked.

  Nick was the only one who hadn’t spoken thus far, but that was not because he didn’t have an opinion on this matter. Instead, it was because he could hardly speak. He was sweating and shivering, caught in the grip of a terrible fever, and only half-conscious. Kate and Susan had gotten him to sip on some Gatorade, but he had no appetite and refused to eat. While everyone else was speaking, Jack watched Nick, and the more closely he observed him, the more he began to realize that Nick’s condition was even worse than he’d thought.

  “We go on,” Jack said determinedly. “We have no other option. We keep our eyes and ears open and our guns ready, and we go on. I don’t know who these clowns are or how many of them there are, but I’m not going to allow them to intimidate me with cheap tricks. Behind us is only death and misery; a chance for a new life and safe haven among all this madness is what lies ahead, and I won’t allow a couple of goons on snowmobiles to force us off that course.”

  “Do you think they knew about the EMP?” Susan asked. “How come their snowmobiles are running?”

  “I doubt it,” Jack answered. “Plenty folks out here still have old snowmobiles from the 70s, and those won’t have been affected by the EMP. Whether these weirdos had them already or stole them from someone else, I’m not sure. I know Arthur has one or two at his place, in addition to his truck and motorcycle. Don’t you remember, from when you were last there, Susie?”

  “I sort of remember there being some old snowmobiles in one of his sheds,” she answered. “But last time I was there was like, two years ago, I think.”

  Nick opened his eyes and spoke. “Why’s everyone … talking about … snowmobiles?” he croaked.

  “We’re just talking about the place we’re going to,” Jack said. He didn’t want to mention the sinister strangers and the four bullets and get Nick more stressed and worried than he already was.

  “Oh … cool,” Nick said, trying to wear a weak smile on his pallid, sweat-drenched face. “Tell me … about … this place.”

  Susan, whose feelings for Nick had only intensified, was eager to speak. “It’s my uncle’s place,” she explained, happy to have an excuse to talk to Nick. “He lives on some land deep in the woods, far away from any other people, and it’s like, totally off-grid. He pretty much lives like a pioneer from the old days, living off the land without electricity or anything. People in town think he’s crazy, but he’s one of the kindest, sweetest people you’ll ever meet. And he’s like, super smart. He was going to be a surgeon, but he just like, gave up on society. He doesn’t like computers and technology and all that stuff and said he wanted to live a more authentic lifestyle. We only visit him once a year, but I love going out there. It’s so beautiful. You’ll see when we get there.”

  Nick gave a weak nod and tried to broaden his smile but only succeeded in coughing feebly.

  “Yeah,” Jack said as he started to drive again, “my brother is quite a character, Nick. He’s unlike anyone you’ll ever meet; I promise you that. And the land his cabin on is spectacular. You’ll see when we get there.” He turned and flashed a smile at Nick, but at this stage, he wasn’t even sure if Nick would make it. His condition seemed to be deteriorating by the hour.

  “Sounds … good,” Nick murmured. He closed his eyes and drifted off into a fitful slumber, shivering almost violently as the fever gripped him ever tighter.

  “We have to get him to Arthur,” Kate said softly, staring at Nick with a look of concern on her face.

  “I know,” Jack said. The wind was starting to howl again, and the snowfall was growing steadily heavier, and with it, visibility was decreasing, forcing him to slow down to an agonizingly lethargic crawl. “I just wish this damn blizzard would let up long enough for us to get to town.”

  “Do you think we can afford to stop at your parents’ house?” Kate asked.

  “I want to make sure they’re okay. We’ll say a quick hello, check on them, then we’ll go straight to Arthur’s place after that. There’ll be plenty of time to catch up with them once we get Nick healed up.”

  “Do you think they’re okay?” Susan asked, sounding worried. “Do you think the town’s okay?”

  Jack shook his head, grimly. “It’s really hard to say, Susie,” he said. “My mom and dad, they’re survivors for sure. They might have even gone out to Arthur’s place when the EMP hit. Everyone in town is a lot more self-sufficient than anyone back in the city, but even so, most of ‘em rely on technology of some sort to survive. The EMP won’t have devastated their lives as wholly and utterly as it did to the city folk, but it would definitely have turned their lives upside down. The good thing is, there’s a real sense of community there. People will be getting together and helping each other out, which is the opposite of a lot of what’s no doubt happening in the city right now, where people are probably holing up, locking themselves away, and being suspicious of everyone else, and hoarding whatever supplies they have.”

  “And you don’t think people in town will be doing that?” Susie asked.

  “I can’t give you a definite answer on that, Susie,” Jack said. “I’d trust the townsfolk a lot more than I’d trust most people in the city, but even so, in an unprecedented disaster like this … it’s hard to predict how people are going to act and what they’re going to do.” He was trying to remain at least somewhat optimistic and hopeful, but his thoughts kept drifting back to the mystery men on the snowmobile and the clear and sinister threat they’d left in the form of the four bullets. He had to wonder whether he was leading his family into a trap or ambush, but there was no other option for them at this point. There was no going back; only death and destruction lay where they’d come from. He could only hope it did not await them where they were going.

  It was in the late afternoon that they finally reached the familiar outskirts of the town. When they got within a few miles of town,
they began to see vehicles abandoned on the roads. It was impossible to tell whether they were cars, trucks, or SUVs since they were all piled over with snow. The town was in a small valley surrounded by minor mountain peaks, and as they drove into the valley, they began to see an increasing volume of abandoned cars. As for signs of life from the town, though, there was nothing. The snowfall lightened enough that they were able to see at least some of the town. There wasn’t a single light burning anywhere, nor any trails of smoke indicating that fires were burning in anyone’s fireplaces. From what they could see, the place appeared to be a ghost town.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Jack muttered as they got into the outskirts of the town.

  They passed one house where the door was wide open, and snow was piled up inside the hallway. It looked as if the place had been abandoned in a hurry. Then, as they drove deeper in, they saw two suspicious-looking mounds of snow on the side of the road. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but nobody dared to vocalize their thoughts: it looked like there might be human bodies buried under those mounds.

  “Jack, I, I think something terrible might have happened here,” Kate murmured, staring in horror at the two mounds.

  “Get out your guns and keep ‘em where you can reach ‘em quickly,” Jack said. His senses were now on full alert, and he was keeping his eyes and ears peeled for signs of danger.

  They passed another house that also seemed to have been hurriedly abandoned, but there was a sign of violence that could not be ignored on this one. On the front porch, which was piled high with snow, blood splatter lined the white wall. It appeared as if someone had been shot there.

  “Dad, I’m getting scared,” Susan said, staring with horror at the blood sprayed all over the wall.

  “It’s okay, Susie,” Jack said, doing his best to reassure her and sound confident, even though he just as spooked out as the rest of them. “It’s all right.”