EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 21 | The Darkest Day

by Walker, Robert J.

  Despite the somber air and the seriousness of the situation, Mary had to laugh. “It was a just a rat!” she said, chuckling. “There’ll probably be a lot more of ‘em too, so you’d better get used to ‘em.”

  “Rat? That thing looked more like a small dog! Jeez, that rat looked like it probably eats cats for breakfast!”

  Mary chuckled and shook her head. “We should count ourselves lucky if rats are the only living things we run into down here. Anyway, let’s keep moving. I’m sure you wanna get out here as quickly as possible, right?”

  Still looking quite fearful, James nodded. Mary turned and began making her way through the tunnel, walking on the gravel between the two sets of tracks. James kept looking around him, edgy and anxious; it felt as if the darkness were somehow growing denser, becoming a thick and almost fog-like presence. He was starting to feel practically suffocated in here and felt the beginnings of a panic attack stirring deep in his chest. “Uh, how much longer, Aunt Mary?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to disguise the nerves in his voice.

  “Maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes of walking,” she said. “I know it’s scary but as frightening as this darkness is, just remember that we’re likely a lot safer down here than we would be up there on the surface. And also remember that we’re not just wandering blindly through a maze; these tracks only go in one direction, and there are another five or six stops before they intersect with another line. We’ll be out of here long before then; there’s no danger of getting lost.”

  “Um, okay, okay, I’ll try to remember that,” James said.

  They walked in silence for a few minutes, with James doing his best to remain calm and keep his impending panic attack at bay. In one sense, it felt almost as if they weren’t making any progress at all and were just walking on a weird treadmill; the tracks ran dead straight, and the ground beneath their feet didn’t change at all. Finally, though, they got to another stop. As they walked past the subway stop, the light of the gas lamp, which illuminated a radius of around twenty or thirty yards around Mary, slowly began to reveal the sleek, aerodynamic contours of one of the trains.

  “The people on this train were lucky,” Mary remarked as they passed the dead train. “It died right at the subway stop, with the doors open.”

  “I bet there are plenty more trains that weren’t so fortunate,” James said, staring at the long, empty train as they walked past it. “I bet there are people trapped down here…”

  “Well, like I said, they’ll probably just be scared and confused, and they’ll just want to escape this place as quickly as possible,” Mary said. “Don’t worry about stuff like that.” Her sixth sense, however, continued to tingle. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was feeling just as creeped out and uneasy in this place as James was.

  After this subway stop, the tracks swung around in a long, protracted curve. “See,” Mary said, “we’re past halfway now. We’ll be able to get out of here when we get to the next stop.”

  “Yeah, I can’t wait,” James murmured.

  They left the subway stop behind and moved through the darkness, following the long curve in the tracks. The only signs of life they saw or heard were the occasional scurrying of rats, but then, after a few minutes of walking, they came across another train. This one had been going in the opposite direction and had stopped halfway through the curve. Beads and shards of shattered glass glistened and gleamed all over the tracks around the back of the train, and Mary’s sixth sense began to buzz even more frenetically when she saw that there was blood on the glass. She tried to steer James away before he noticed the blood, but it was too late.

  “Why’s there all this blood on the glass?” he asked warily.

  “Whoever kicked it out probably cut themselves while doing it,” Mary said.

  James walked tentatively closer, bending down and leaning in to scrutinize the glass and blood. “Uh, I don’t think so,” he said. “There’s a lot of blood here—like, a ton of it. It’s inside the train, too, all over the floor.”

  “David, sweetie, let’s not fixate on stuff like that, okay?” Mary said, doing her best to disguise the mounting nervousness in her own voice. “Let’s just keep going and forget about—oh, God.”

  Mary froze in her tracks, and her heart started racing when her eyes fell upon the sight that the gas lamp revealed: lying flat on his back, with his white T-shirt dark crimson and sopping wet, soaked with blood, was a dead man. His face was frozen in an expression of agony, and there was blood all over his arms and hands.

  “Oh, shit…” James gasped when he saw the corpse. “I– I knew that wasn’t blood from an accident! He– he’s dead, isn’t he? That guy’s freakin’ dead!”

  Mary didn’t know what to say; there was no way she could reassure James about the safety of this place now; indeed, she could hardly even allay her own fears, and suddenly the thoughts about evil beings prowling the inky shadows just beyond the circle of light from the gas lamp didn’t seem so childish anymore.

  “There’s nothing we can do for him now,” she eventually said, her eyes locked on the young man’s blood-soaked torso. Looking closer, she could see several three-inch tears in his shirt, and the cuts with them on his chest were almost certainly stab wounds. There were well over a dozen such wounds on his chest and abdomen. It seemed that he’d been stabbed on the train or while trying to get off it.

  “I’ve– I’ve never seen a dead body before,” James half-whispered, half-croaked, staring with horror-bulging eyes at the corpse. “His face, it’s like…”

  “James, stop talking,” Mary said.

  “It’s just so…it’s like—”

  “James, shut up!” she said, much more forcefully this time, and then she reached over and tilted his chin up, forcing him to take his eyes off the corpse and look up, for a few seconds earlier she had caught sight of something just as scary as the corpse in front of them.

  James’s eyes protruded even more from their sockets when he followed the line of Mary’s pointing finger. Up ahead, in the sooty blackness of the tunnel was light, and it was coming toward them.

  7

  Ann’s blood felt as if it had frozen solid in her veins. Terror gripped every part of her body, locking her joints and immobilizing her muscles. The horrifying images of the executions played in her mind over and over again.

  “What do we, Ann; what do we do?” Sandy whispered next to her, her voice tremulous; she was clearly on the verge of tears and snared in the grasp of the same type of panic that had seized Ann.

  “Didn’t you hear me? Are you fuckin’ deaf?” the voice behind them roared. “Hands on the backs of your heads, get down on your knees, now!”

  From the sound of the man’s voice, he wasn’t close, perhaps forty or fifty yards off. He had to have just emerged from the trees. They also hadn’t heard any other voices, so Ann assumed he was alone. Without turning around and looking at him, there was no way of knowing if he were one of the black-clad terrorists, or just some opportunistic criminal, or even a cop or soldier.

  Ann’s mind raced; her mother’s advice about kidnappings rang loud and clear in her mind. The primary goal, Mary had always told her, was to fight tooth and nail against the kidnappers and never allow them to take you to a second location. If you got badly injured but managed to get away, it was a way better outcome than being tied up and taken to wherever they wanted to hold you and do whatever terrible things they had planned for you. This was no kidnapper, but Ann had seen what had happened to the mayor and his staff, who’d been bound and gagged by these people—if this were indeed one of the terrorists behind her. If they allowed this man to capture them, something awful would surely be in store for them.

  “I’m gonna say this one more time, and then I’m gonna put some goddamn holes in you!” the man yelled. “Put your fuckin’ hands behind your heads and get the fuck down on your knees!”

  Ann knew she had to act immediately. “Make like you’re doing what he says,” she whispered hoars
ely to Sandy. “But when you’re almost on your knees, take off at a sprint, as fast as you can. Run in a zigzag pattern, straight for those trees ahead.”

  “But—”

  “Do it, or we’re both literally dead, Sandy!”

  “Okay, okay…”

  The girls put their hands behind their heads and made as if they were slowly sinking to their knees. “Okay, sir, we’re doing what you said!” Ann yelled. “Just don’t hurt us, please!”

  “That’s it; that’s better,” the man growled.

  Ann heard his footsteps crunching across some leaves; he was obviously starting to walk toward them, and she prayed that he’d lowered his gun and could be caught momentarily off guard. It was now or never; they had to make a break for it.

  Ann’s knees had almost touched the ground, and she tensed her muscles, ready to dash. “Go!” she whispered and took off at full tilt. She didn’t bother to see if Sandy had listened to her; all she could think of was moving as fast as possible.

  “Hey!” the man roared behind them. “Stop, you fuckin’ bitches! Stop running!”

  Ann veered left, adrenalin coursing through her veins and pumping fresh strength and energy into her muscles. Via her peripheral vision, she caught sight of Sandy sprinting along beside her; her friend had at least plucked up enough courage to take off.

  From behind them came a sound that boosted a further rush of adrenalin through their bodies; the man started firing his gun, and bullets kicked up spurts of dust around their feet, whizzing menacingly through the air past Ann’s head. She ducked and swung right, then jerked left when a bullet spat up a burst of dust a mere inch from her right foot. A strip of hot pain seared her left arm as a bullet grazed it, and she swore she felt another zip through her ponytail as it swung and bounced behind her head.

  The dash to the trees was only fifty yards, but it felt like the longest distance in the world, and the handful of seconds it took the girls to sprint there felt like terror-soaked hours. Once they got into the trees, they didn’t stop running, though, for the bullets kept flying from behind them, ripping through clumps of leaves and thudding into tree trunks. Ann carried on sprinting, her chest heaving and her muscles burning. She maintained her zigzag pattern of running, swinging around trees and hurdling over bushes, benches, and other obstacles.

  Both girls continued sprinting until they were well out of breath, and only when they slowed down to a jog, panting and gasping and shaking with fright, did they noticed that they were no longer being shot at.

  Ann’s first thoughts, once she realized they were safe at least for a few seconds, were for her friend’s wellbeing. “Shit, Sandy, are you okay?!” she asked.

  “I didn’t get hit, but I like, twisted my ankle really bad when we were running,” Sandy murmured, her face contorted into a grimace of pain. “But what about you? Oh my God, there’s blood all over your arm. Did you get shot?!”

  Ann examined her arm and saw that the bullet that had nicked her had opened up a cut, from which a few trickles of blood were running. It stung, but that was the extent of it. “It’s just a graze,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’m a lot more worried about your ankle. We can’t stop here, that maniac might be coming after us, and we have to keep moving. Are you able to run?”

  “I don’t think so,” Sandy said. “The pain’s getting worse. I think I’ve sprained it bad.”

  Ann knew they didn’t have much time and staying here any longer would be suicidal. “Lean on me,” she said, stepping up to Sandy and wrapping an arm around her waist. “We have to go. Hop along as fast as you can.”

  She took one last look in the direction they had just come from, and then moved off, supporting Sandy as best she could. They were able to get into a somewhat awkward but decently effective rhythm, with Sandy doing her best to take large hops with her good foot while Ann jogged. Both girls were flushed with fear and kept shooting anxious glances over their shoulders.

  After five minutes, they still hadn’t seen any evidence that the man with the gun was pursuing them, so they slowed their pace a little and took a moment to breathe. The end of the park, bordered by one of the main streets of the city, was in sight. After what had happened and what they’d seen, they were very nervous about stepping out of the shelter of the trees and into the open street. They leaned against a large tree, hidden from view of anyone on the street, and had a quick chat.

  “How’s your ankle?” Ann asked.

  “It really hurts,” Sandy gasped, her face scrunched up with pain.

  Ann looked down and saw that her friend’s ankle had ballooned in size and was already discolored. “You’re lucky your dad’s a doctor,” Ann said. “He’ll be able to help you.”

  “If we can get to him without getting shot,” Sandy said, looking as if she were about to burst into tears. “Who the hell was that guy? I still can’t believe we like, literally got shot at—someone was seriously trying to kill us. It doesn’t seem real. It feels like we’re, I don’t know, walking through some kind of nightmare…”

  “I don’t know,” Ann said. She was as shaken up as Sandy was by everything that had happened, but she was trying to retain some sense of composure. She’d always been able to keep a cool head under pressure, but now that ability was being tested to its limit. “Like I said back in the museum, all I can think of is that this is some sort of very well-planned, large-scale terrorist operation.”

  Sandy pulled her phone out of her bag and fumbled with the buttons, trying to turn it on. “Argh!” she growled, thumping her fist into the tree with frustration. “What’s wrong with this stupid thing? How come it won’t turn back on? God, if ever there was a time when I like, desperately needed to call my dad, it’s now!”

  “It’s never gonna turn on again if my mom is right,” Ann murmured, staring at the ground and feeling almost as if she were drifting into some sort of trance. Everything was becoming increasingly surreal, and shock and disbelief didn’t even come close to describing the tsunami of emotions rushing through her mind at this moment.

  “Never? Come on, Ann, be realistic here. Whatever these crazy terrorists have done, the government will like, fix it in a day or two. I mean, what we’re going through now must be like how people felt while the 9/11 attacks were happening, right? And as crazy as that was, things were back to normal in New York after, like, a few weeks.”

  Ann shook her head, a dark expression on her face. “This isn’t like 9/11, Sandy,” she said softly. “It’s worse. Way, way worse. There isn’t going to be any going ‘back to normal’ after this, not for months. Maybe not for years. Maybe … never.”

  “That’s crazy talk, Ann. I mean, come on, we’re both real shaken up, and things seem out of control now, but like, it’ll be fine in a few days. The government will take care of things.”

  “We don’t have time to sit and argue about this right now,” Ann said, snapping herself out of her trance of dark thoughts. “We have to get moving. The longer we hang around, the more danger we put ourselves in.”

  Sandy leaned out from behind the tree and stared at the street and the concrete jungle, with its menacing skyscrapers and endless sea of massive, silent buildings beyond the park, and a fresh tide of fear swelled within her. Timed perfectly to amplify this fear, a deep, thunderous boom of an explosion a few blocks away echoed through the park, followed by the rattling chatter of gunfire and the sounds of screams and shouts.

  “Maybe we should, like, just hide here until things quieten down,” Sandy murmured. Her hands were trembling, and her face was pale. She had all but forgotten about the hot, throbbing pain in her ankle.

  “Things aren’t going to get any quieter,” Ann said softly. “They’re only going to get worse. A lot worse. We have to move while we still have the chance to do that, and the window is closing, Sandy. It’s closing really fast. I know it’s scary, but we have to be brave, and we have to do this. Come on, lean on me again. We have to go. We’ve already lingered here too long.”

&nbs
p; Sandy swallowed a dry gulp of fear, then gave Ann a teary nod and put her arm around her shoulder. Then the two of them set off for the silent, gray terror of the deserted city streets.

  8

  “Get under the train, hurry!” Mary hissed, stepping over the dead body to get behind the train.

  “B–but b–” James stammered, frozen and rooted to the spot with fear.

  Mary couldn’t afford to try to reason with the teenager’s panic and fear-paralysis. She lunged at him, grabbed his collar and pulled him behind the train, and then forced him down onto his hands and knees and shoved his butt with her boot, making him crawl under the train. She hastily killed the gas lamp and then, in the pitch black, crawled blindly under the train behind him.

  “Who, who are, uh, uh, what are they—” James whispered, his panic rising.

  Mary fumbled frantically around in the dark, trying to find his face, and when she did, she clamped her hand over his mouth.

  “Quiet!” she hissed. “Don’t say another word, James. Don’t even breathe, dammit, you hear me? Just play dead, seriously, or you might end up like that guy on the tracks! Now shut it!”

  She was doing her best to play it cool, but fear was shooting in icy gushes through her veins as surely as it was through James’s, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t steady her hands against the shaking that had possessed them like some sort of vengeful poltergeist.

  The light was coming closer now, enough so that they could see the slickness of the steel subway tracks nearby glowing like two long snakes of luminescence. Moving almost painfully slowly, so as not to make a single noise louder than a mouse’s heartbeat, Mary drew her pistol and painstakingly flipped the safety off, trying to do it without making the sound of a click. A sickening feeling, like a meal of spoiled food, was swirling around her guts—the sense that she would soon have to use this weapon in anger.