“Let’s … do it,” Nick said, bleary-eyed. “I think … I’m dying anyway … may as well … hasten the process…”
“Come on, we don’t have much time,” Jack said, and he hurried over to the base of the tree.
The lowest boughs were too high for anyone to climb up to without assistance, so Jack helped the others up by giving them a boost. Then he took out his survival tomahawk, which had a hatchet-style ax blade in the front and a long spike on the rear. He drove the spike into the trunk and used the tomahawk as a handhold to pull himself up.
From that point on, it was easier to climb higher up the tree—or, at least, it would have been had they all been healthy and strong. As it was, the cold wind and their icy, wet clothes were sapping their strength at an alarming rate. Jack gritted his teeth and forced himself to fight through the crushing exhaustion the cold brought on.
They got to the branch from which they would be swinging, and at that point, things got even more difficult. They would have to venture out onto the thick limb without anything above or to the side to hold onto, which meant shinnying along the branch for a few yards, at which point they would have to stand up, grip the rope, and launch themselves through the air. And they would only have one shot at doing it. If they didn’t jump off at the right time after reaching the end of the swing’s arc, they wouldn’t be able to get back to the branch or to the balcony, and that would be the end of them.
In particular, Kate would have a difficult time with this, Jack knew; she hated heights. There was no other way to get into the building, though, and death would take them anyway if they got stuck outside.
“Wait here, and watch closely,” Jack said. To tell the truth, even he wasn’t one hundred percent certain that this would work. He had to try, though.
He tucked the tomahawk through his belt, slipped the coil of nylon rope over his shoulder, and then shinnied out along the cold, thick branch as far as he could go. Then, straddling the branch, he tied the end around the tomahawk. The other end, he tied around his belt. Acutely aware of how painful the cold was and how viciously it was beginning to zap his strength and numb his limbs, he stared up at another strong branch almost directly above him that extended so far that the end of it was scratching the roof of the town hall. That was the branch he would attach his makeshift swing to.
He drew in a deep breath and aimed the tomahawk just over the branch. Then he threw it. It soared up through the falling snow, trailing the rope behind it, and arced through the air. It made it over the bough and started falling, dropping quickly toward the ground. The rope attached to it abruptly halted the tomahawk’s groundward plummet and left it dangling in the air a few feet from Jack. He reached over and grabbed it, and then, with the rope now looped over the bough above, he tied a slipknot and pulled until it was tight around the branch. He then thickly knotted the end for something to hold onto. After that, he tied the rope around tomahawk at what would be the foot height of the swing. The swing was ready.
“Kate, you’re coming next!” he called out over his shoulder. “Get your butt over here, quick!”
Kate shinnied out along the branch, feeling nauseous and dizzy from the height, feeling as if gravity was pawing at her from below and malevolently willing her to fall. She would have to catch the tomahawk—which provided a pendulum-like weight at the end of the swing—when it came back after Jack had jumped off onto the balcony … if he even made the jump, of course.
Kate reached Jack. It was time. Jack stood up, gripping the rope for support and wobbling alarmingly on the uneven surface of the branch. He had one shot at this, and if he didn’t make it, death awaited below.
He drew in a deep breath and launched himself off the branch.
30
He arced through the air, hurtling toward the balcony. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. As his speed slowed as the arc came to its end, he let go of the rope. The momentum of his swing carried him over the rail and onto the balcony, and he landed on it and rolled, coming up with his heart pounding and his breath coming in heaving gasps.
He didn’t take the time to celebrate the fact that he’d made it and wasn’t, thankfully, lying dead and broken on the ground. Instead, he scrambled to his feet and spun around wildly, desperately hoping that Kate would catch the tomahawk as it swung back.
Kate had seen that Jack had made it, and her heart leaped with joy and relief, but these emotions were short-lived. She knew that everything depended on her catching the tomahawk. It came swinging toward her, looking like it would be an easy catch. Her heart was racing, blasting boosts of adrenaline-charged blood through her veins. She knew that the catch would technically be a simple one, but there was so much pressure riding on making it, so much intense, terrible pressure…
As the tomahawk started to slow at the end of its arc, she reached forward, her hands waiting. The tomahawk slid into her hands, and she closed her trembling fingers around it … and fumbled to hold on to it.
The tomahawk slipped from her hands and dropped, swinging out over the abyss. Pure instinct kicked in, and Kate, before she even processed what she was doing, launched herself off the branch in pursuit of the tomahawk on the end of the rope. For one terrifying second, she found herself plummeting toward the ground at what felt like an incredible speed with stomach-lurching acceleration, but then her desperate hands grabbed hold of the tomahawk and latched fast onto it.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have been able to hold on for longer than a second—even though she was fit and worked out regularly, she simply didn’t have the upper body strength to do a pull-up—but the adrenaline surge of almost dying gave her a power she wouldn’t have otherwise possessed. Hanging from the tomahawk as she swung, with her arms locked straight up above her head, she saw Jack leaning out over the balustrades to catch her. Because she was five feet lower than she should have been, the path of her arc was sending her hurtling toward a collision course with the side of the building instead of over the balcony. Thankfully, she slowed down as the swing arced her upward, and when she thumped against the side of the building and the banister, it wasn’t with excessive force.
Jack grabbed her jacket with one hand and the rope with the other. He had to hold onto it because if it swung back out now, there was nobody to catch it since Susan wasn’t yet in position on the branch.
Shaking with both cold and fear, with Jack gritting his teeth and holding her in against the side of the building and the balcony, Kate reached up and grabbed the rail, using the last of her adrenaline-boosted strength to pull herself up. Jack kept a grip on the rope with one hand while helping her up and over to safety.
“You almost gave me a heart attack there, honey,” he said. His hands were shaking, too, and not just from the intense cold.
“For a second, my life flashed before my eyes,” she said, her teeth chattering. “I thought it was the end. I really thought it was all over.”
“Not yet, Kate, not yet,” Jack said, pulling her close to him in a tight one-armed hug.
On the bough, Susan was in position. This time the swing went smoothly, and Susan caught the tomahawk, stood up, launched herself off the branch, and jumped over the banister successfully at the end of her swinging arc, as did Nick, to whom a little lucidity had temporarily returned. Just as Nick jumped off, Jack managed to grab the rope before it swung back, and he cut the tomahawk off the end of it.
The snowfall was growing heavier, and the wind was picking up. They could barely see beyond the big oak tree now. Jack was grateful for this. The worsening weather would at least provide visual cover for them, covering up their tracks and disguising what was left of their swing dangling from the tree. Also, he hoped that the blizzard's growing intensity would force their pursuers to get off the streets and halt their hunt, at least for a while. The more time he could buy at this point, the better.
As he’d predicted, the doors along the long balcony were all unlocked. The four of them hurried into the town hall, which,
although cold inside, was a lot warmer than it was outside.
“All right,” Jack said, “let’s do what we can to warm ourselves up.”
They hurried through the building, heading down to the lower levels. Because all the doors were locked and secure, Jack wasn’t too worried about running into anyone here. If anyone were in the town hall, it would likely be other people hiding out from the marauders.
“Let’s get down to the basement,” Jack said. “I know the old woodfire-powered heating system from the 19th century is still in place.”
“Yeah, I remember seeing that on a field trip to the town hall when I was a kid,” Kate said.
“Do you think it still works?” Susan asked.
“They haven’t used it in eighty years, I’m guessing,” Jack said, “because they replaced it with a more modern heating system in the 1930s or 40s. But they kept the old system intact for the sake of history, just like they did with a lot of things in this building. It might still work; there aren’t any electrical components at all.”
They moved through the building, feeling nervous and on edge after everything that had happened. The huge, empty building, with its high ceilings, somber paintings, and Victorian atmosphere was eerie, and they felt as if eyes were watching them from the shadows.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Susan murmured.
“Well, creepy or not, it’s hopefully going to save our lives,” Jack said. “Come on, down these stairs.”
“Even if the old heating system does work, what are we going to burn in it?” Kate asked. “I doubt they keep piles of logs in the basement.”
As they turned a corner on the broad wooden staircase, Jack caught sight of a large fireman’s ax in a glass cabinet on one of the walls. He walked up to it, smashed the glass with his tomahawk, and then pulled out the huge blade. “I’m pretty sure we can find some office furniture to chop up with this,” he said.
He handed the tomahawk to Kate and then continued his journey down the staircase until they got to the ground floor. It was dark down here since all the windows had their shutters closed, but it wasn’t quite pitch-black. They were able to navigate their way through the gloom. Jack hadn’t been here for many years, but he still remembered the place's layout, and he led them through a few corridors until they got to the spiral staircase that led down into the basement.
The shadows here were impenetrable, so Kate got a small camping lantern out of her waterproof bag and lit it up. They walked through the basement, and Susan and Nick peered around with looks of surprise and more than a little fright on their faces.
“What are these rooms?” Susan asked. “This looks like a medieval dungeon or something…”
She was looking at stout wooden doors with small iron-barred windows in them. Jack opened one up and showed it to her. Beyond the door was a small, windowless cell. “In the earliest days of the town, these used to be cells for prisoners,” he said. “As you can see now, the only things locked in these cells are boxes of records and old tax files. We can use a few of these for kindling to get the fire for the heating system started.”
“That’s gonna take a while, and we need to warm ourselves up faster than that,” Kate said, shivering. “I can barely feel my limbs anymore, and I can hardly keep my eyes open. I’m so cold, so very, very cold…”
Jack was freezing and shivering, too, and he knew Kate was right; they had to warm themselves up a lot faster than it would take for the heater to get going. He racked his brain to solve this problem but found that the cold was even slowing his thinking down. His mind was foggy, and his cognitive abilities seemed to be declining. All he could think about, it seemed, was lying down and curling up and sleeping … just closing his eyes for a while, just resting them…
He snapped out of it, realizing that if he or any of the others did lie down and close their eyes, it might be the last time they ever did this. He had to get everyone warmed up, and he had to do it fast.
“Fire, we have to make a fire,” he said. “And get some water … and something to put the water in. But let’s keep moving, let’s warm ourselves up with some hot drinks, some glucose, then some exercise. It isn’t much, but it’ll do until we can get some hot water to soak in.”
“How are we going to get hot water? Or find anything to soak in?” Susan asked.
“I think I know what we can use if they’re still here,” Jack said. “But worry about that later. Get out a camp stove, and a kettle, and let’s get some coffee in us.”
“Where are we going to find water?” Kate asked.
Jack smiled, walked over to a nearby bathroom, and turned on the faucet. Water flowed out of it. “My dad has done his fair share of plumbing work in this place over the years,” he said. “He told me that they have big old water heaters on the roof. There are a few thousand gallons in ‘em. The water won’t be hot anymore, but it’ll still at least be lukewarm; I know my dad put a lot of insulation around the heaters. And it’s basic gravity feed when it comes to the running water. No electricity is needed.”
They filled up a camping kettle with shivering hands, lit up a gas stove, and made some instant coffee. They ate some jerky, dried fruit, and chocolate, too, and all of this helped keep them awake, although their body temperatures remained dangerously low. After that, Jack put everyone to work carrying chairs and small items of office furniture through the building, and he and Nick smashed them up with the hatchet and the fireman’s ax to make some firewood.
After that, Jack got everyone working on clearing out one of the cells; this was where they would make a fire. The stone walls and ceiling would prevent the fire from getting out and setting the rest of the building on fire. They chose the one nearest the staircase so the smoke from the fire would rise up the stairs and not smoke out the entire basement.
Then Jack sent the women to the kitchens to get the largest pots they could find, while Nick got busy starting the fires they would use to heat the water. Jack, meanwhile, scoured the basement storage area for the item he’d seen as a boy, and when he found then, joy and relief washed over him.
The others had already started heating water in huge pots and pans from the kitchens when Jack rolled the first of the large wooden barrels out of the basement's storage area.
“Is that a whiskey barrel?” Kate asked, staring with amusement at the barrel.
“You may not know this, but a hundred years ago during the Prohibition, some of Al Capone’s associates distilled whiskey up here on a homestead in the mountains. These were seized as evidence, and after the trial, they were moved here and forgotten about. I remember our teacher telling us about ‘em on a field trip. There are two more barrels; let’s get some hot water in them. The sooner we do, the sooner we can soak and warm ourselves up properly.”
It took them a while, but eventually, they got enough hot water into the barrels to soak in. They stripped down to their underwear, and Nick and Jack had a barrel each, while Susan and Kate, with their petite frames, squeezed into the third barrel together.
They soaked until the hot water became lukewarm, by which stage they were feeling a lot better. After that, they put on dry clothes and got the ancient heating system going, which soon started to warm up the building, and they made themselves a decent meal with canned food they found in the kitchen.
And then they slept on the floor near the woodfire heater, feeling least safer than they had felt in a while even if they were really safe.
It was not to last, though. Despite the raging blizzard, danger was already prowling outside.
31
Jack wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep when he woke up, but he felt as if he only just closed his eyes seconds earlier. Had he heard a sound, or had it been a dream? He sat up, reaching for his AR-15, and peered into the darkness beyond the dim orange glow of the fire in the furnace. All he could hear was the crackling of burning wood, though.
Still, he could have sworn he had heard something. He continued to listen, his heart ra
cing, his hands gripping his rifle tight, but heard nothing.
Finally convinced that he had either dreamed or imagined the sound, he lay down again and closed his eyes, knowing that he needed sleep as much as anyone else. They had set a few basic fishing line tripwires on the stairway linked to pots and pans, so if anyone came down the stairs, they would have an advanced warning. As exhausted as he was and as desperately as he needed rest, though, Jack found it difficult to get back to sleep, for all sorts of worries and fears were rushing through his mind. He wasn’t sure how they would get out of here and evade capture, not yet. After that, he had no idea how they would manage a multi-day hike through not only inhospitable and rugged terrain, but a super-blizzard, to get to Arthur’s cabin.
Jack opened his eyes and looked around him, and his gaze lingered on his sleeping wife next to him, and his daughter a few feet away. He let out a long, sad sigh. How had his well-laid plans and meticulous preparation for this event all gone so badly awry? He had known things would go wrong; it was, after all, an unprecedented catastrophe they were dealing with here. He just hadn’t thought it would go so spectacularly wrong. He did know one thing, though: he would die fighting like a cornered mountain lion to protect Susan and Kate.
He then looked at Nick, who was sweating and shaking and mumbling deliriously in a feverish sleep. The young man had looked a little better for a while, but Jack guessed that maybe the adrenalin of the chase and breaking into the town hall had simply given him a temporary boost of energy. Now he had slid back into the terrible fever from his infected ear. Jack hoped he could save him but knew that the young man would surely die if he didn’t get medical attention in a day or two. And with Arthur’s cabin being many days’ walk from this place and the Humvee sitting upside down at the bottom of the river…
He sighed again and wished there was something more he could do for Nick. The young man was little more than a stranger to the family, but he had saved Kate’s life as well as risked his life for theirs on a few occasions, and Jack knew he had a good heart. It seemed like the ultimate act of unfairness for Nick to have come this far, escaping what surely would have been a horrible death had he been stuck in the city, only to die like this.
Survive the Day Boxset: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 68