“Okay, Dad,” she said. “Lead the way, I’ll follow.”
Ted stepped into the river, and his feet and ankles disappeared into the water. He had done this crossing so many times he could have gotten across blindfolded. To Mary, though, it looked as if he were walking straight into the rapidly flowing river with almost suicidal carelessness. It was difficult to simply have the faith to take the plunge and step blindly into the water, but she did this, stepping exactly where his feet had been and was relieved to feel solid rock a few inches below the rushing water.
“You good back there, Mary?” her father asked as he took a short jump to reach the next stone.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she answered, keeping a close on her father’s footsteps.
They took it one stone at a time and were eventually able to cross the river. Mary was grateful when they got to the other side and didn’t care that her shoes were completely soaked and cold. James was also grateful to get down from Ted’s back and get a bit of his dignity back. However, he still had to take Mary’s hand to be led to the car, seeing as he couldn’t really see much of where he was going, even with the gas lamps illuminating the area.
Now that the obstacle of crossing the river had been cleared, Mary’s thoughts immediately went to her daughter.
“How’s Ann?” she asked.
“My doctor is operating on her leg right now,” Ted answered, “and I’m sure he and the nurse will be done long before we get back.”
“Operating on her?” Mary asked, the urgency in her voice plain to hear. “You mean, with surgical instruments and stuff? How is that possible?”
“Good gas lamps, some chloroform, scalpels, stitches, rubbing alcohol, and, of course, many years of expertise. You’d be surprised what a good doctor can do, even without electricity or the usual machines one finds in a hospital.”
“She’s, um, she’s gonna be okay, right?” Mary asked.
“The good doctor said she’ll be right as rain,” Ted answered with a smile. “We’ve got some general antibiotics she can take as well, just to minimize the chance of any infection setting in. What happened to you guys that she got all that shrapnel in her leg in the first place?”
Mary sighed. “It’s a long story, dad. I’ll tell you on the way to the … homestead, right? So it’s not just a cabin anymore, huh?”
“I kept the old cabin for nostalgia sake,” he said, “and I still live in it, but it’s only a tiny part of the homestead now. You’ll see when we get there. Come on, get on in.”
They got to the truck, and Mary gasped with shock when she saw that there was someone in it. Ted laughed. “I guess I should have told you we weren’t alone!”
A young, good-looking man with a bushy beard and long but clean and neatly combed blond hair got out of the truck. He was dressed in a black jacket and camouflage pants and was holding a hunting rifle. He stared at Mary with an expression of awe in his eyes and a friendly smile on his lips.
“Wow,” he said, “so you’re Mary, huh? The prodigal daughter returns. I’m Callum, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Callum,” Mary said.
“Callum’s one of my students,” Ted said. “He’s been here for five years now, and I’m guessing after today that he’s postponing any plans to leave, ain’t that right, Callum?”
Callum chuckled. “Indefinitely, Ted. I’m gonna be harder to get rid of than a bad case of fleas.”
“You’ll get to know everyone soon enough,” Ted said to Mary. “Let’s get you and James back to the ranch now, though. I’m sure you could both use a good, long sleep after everything you’ve been through.”
“I’ll see you at dawn, Ted,” Callum said, and then he turned and walked off into the trees.
“He’s taking over my sentry duty here,” Ted explained as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “I could also use a good night’s sleep, even though I haven’t been through anything like you guys have. I’ve gotta be up at dawn, because that’s when everything gets going at the homestead, but don’t worry, tomorrow you two can sleep in as long as you want. Don’t let that become a habit, though, because you’ll both be rising with the sun like the rest of us soon enough!”
They all piled into the truck, then Ted set off, driving along the bumpy dirt track through the woods. A tidal wave of emotions crashed through Mary’s mind as they drove. She told her father the whole story of what had happened since the EMP had hit, starting with the jerk who had come into her workshop just before everything had shut down. Her mind, however, was awash with memories. This had been the dirt track she’d quietly ridden her bicycle down, late one night, almost twenty years ago, with a bunch of clothes, a few belongings, and some canned food in a backpack on her back. Of course, there’d been a wooden bridge over the river in those days, and the trees lining the dirt track had been a little smaller. Still, much of it was the same as it had been that night she’d snuck out and ridden through the night. Mary had ended up hiding in the back of a truck in town, whose unwitting driver had taken her to the city, where she’d survived on her own ever since then. There was so much to tell her father, but she didn’t know where to begin. And she felt so guilty about what she’d done. She didn’t know how to begin, so she just kept on talking, her words coming out in a rapid-fire chatter, about everything she’d been through in the last few hours.
When they got to the homestead, Mary’s jaw dropped open with surprise. While the road had been largely the same as it had been when she’d run away, much of the land around the cabin was unrecognizable. There were crop tunnels, chicken coops, fruit and nut trees, a stable with horses, and a whole lot more buildings. It looked as if a few dozen people now lived here. Ted pulled the truck up and parked it in the carport attached to the cabin.
“I’ll show you two around tomorrow morning, whenever you’re up and about,” Ted said. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions … and, of course, we’ve got about twenty years of life to catch up on. Right now, though, let’s get you to bed. I asked one of the students to make up a spare bed for you in the living room of my cabin for tonight, James, and for you, baby girl, well, I’ve got a little surprise,” he said, flashing her a wink and a warm smile. “Come on in. Leave your stuff here in the truck, and we’ll sort it out tomorrow.”
“Wait,” Mary said, “before I do anything else, I want to see Ann and make sure she’s okay.”
“Of course,” Ted said. “Come this way.” He got out of the truck and led Mary and James across the homestead to a trailer, inside which a light was shining, silhouetting several human figures against the thin drapes. Ted knocked on the door, and a few seconds later, it was opened by a kind-looking, gray-haired man in his seventies, wearing surgical gloves, a surgical mask, and a white lab coat.
“You must be Ted’s daughter, this girl’s mother,” the old man said. “I’m Ray. I’d shake your hand, but…” He chuckled, for his gloves were covered with blood. “She’s doing just fine, by the way. Some of those bits of metal were embedded pretty deep, but she was lucky. No major veins or arteries were severed, and they didn’t hit bone either. She’s going to have some bad scars on her legs, unfortunately, but she’ll be okay, and while she’ll walk with a limp for a while, she’ll soon be back to a full range of motion, I’m sure.”
“Can I see her?” Mary asked.
“Of course, come on in,” Ray said, stepping aside to let Mary into the trailer.
Inside, Ann was laying unconscious on one of the bunk beds. Her leg had been bandaged up, and an intravenous drip had been hooked up to her arm. And while her face was still looking pallid, there was a little more color in her cheeks than there had been a few hours ago. Mary knelt down next to Ann and squeezed her hand and stroked her hair.
“Dr. Krueger was a military doctor, baby girl,” Ted said. “He served in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a bunch of other out-of-the-way places. He’s had plenty of experience treating severe battle wounds and working in the crudest and basic field conditions
too. He’s a real asset to our homestead. Under his capable care, I’m sure that Ann will make a full recovery. I can’t wait until she wakes up; I can’t wait to meet my granddaughter properly!”
“Thank so much, Doctor—” Mary began, but Ray held up a hand to silence her.
“Just Ray, please,” he said, smiling. “And I’m most happy to help.”
After leaving the trailer, they headed into the cabin, which, unlike the rest of the place, looked rather like how Mary remembered it. Her father’s simple, minimalist taste hadn’t changed, and there were few things but the bare necessities inside his home. “You can sleep right there, James,” he said, pointing to a camp cot that had been set up in the corner of the small living room.
“Thanks, Ted,” James said, plopping himself down on the cot. “This wave of tiredness is just hitting me like, like a speeding bus right now,” he said. “I’ll be asleep before my head even hits the pillow.”
“The bathroom is down the hall to your left,” Ted said. “There’s no power here, of course, but I’ll leave a gas lamp and a lighter next to your bed. All right, Mary, you can come with me now.”
Mary was a complete mess of emotions now. She couldn’t believe she was actually back here, the place where she’d grown up—the place she had once sworn to never set foot in again. She was grateful to be back and grateful for all she’d learned on her own, for everything she had been through up until this point had made her who she was—but she couldn’t help feeling guilty about abandoning her father, and for all the wasted years that now stood between them. She did her best to hold back the flood of tears that were threatening to gush from her eyes at any moment, and Ted quietly led her down the hall to the familiar old room at the end of it—the room in which she’d grown up.
“Open the door,” he said when he got to it, and she could hear that his voice was choked up with intense emotion now, too, and a rim of tears glistened in his eyes.
With her heart in her mouth, Mary opened the door, and when she did, a wave of shock and surprise smashed into her like an unexpected baseball bat to her skull, for her room was exactly as she had left it, right down to the ‘90s boy band posters on the walls, some cassette tapes and music CDs on her desk, and her old favorite doll sitting on a tiny rocking chair in the corner.
She couldn’t hold it back any longer; she burst into tears and fell into her father’s arms, and he hugged her tightly.
“You’re back home now, baby girl, you’re back home,” he said hoarsely.
Mary was back home, finally, and she felt safer than she had in years.
22
When Mary woke up the next morning, she was disoriented for the first few seconds of consciousness, for it felt as if she’d awoken from one dream only to find herself in another. She had dreamed of this room often over the last twenty years, and to wake up in it now and find it the same as it had been in her dreams and memories left her head spinning.
After a few seconds, though, she remembered how she had come to be here, and everything that had happened the previous day. She got out of bed, drank the glass of cool, purified stream water that Ted had left there for her, which tasted better than any water she’d had for years, and then she opened the drapes.
Now that she was able to see the homestead in the daylight, she was able to see the full extent of the changes that had taken place here since she had left. Her eyes, however, were drawn not to all the new buildings and installations, but rather to the sky. The entire eastern half of the sky was thick with a pall of smoke that blotted out the sun, and the sunlight that was able to fight its way through the smoke came through as a pale, weak yellowish glow, which gave everything a surreal and dreamlike look.
While she was looking out of the window, she saw Ted nearby, pushing a wheelbarrow with some sacks of compost in it.
“Dad!” she called out.
“Morning, baby girl!” he said, abandoning the wheelbarrow to walk up to the window. “How was your sleep?”
“Like a log,” she said, “I didn’t wake up once.”
“Good to hear,” Ted said. “You needed it, I’m sure.” He followed her gaze and looked at the smoke-choked sky and frowned, shaking his head. “It’s from the city,” he said. “You’re lucky you got out yesterday. We can’t see what’s going on from here, but from the amount of smoke in the sky, I’d say that about half of it burned to the ground last night, maybe more. I can’t even begin to imagine how many people must have lost their lives.”
“It was looking bad before we got out,” Mary said. “I can’t believe how quickly everything descended into chaos and anarchy.”
“I can,” Ted muttered darkly, shaking his head and grimacing. “I saw this coming. I saw it coming decades ago.” He sighed and stared at the ground for a few seconds, but when he looked up again, his frown had vanished and had been replaced by a warm smile. “I need to get back to work, baby girl,” he said. “The soil isn’t gonna prepare itself. There’s plenty of fresh food for breakfast for you and James; you remember where to find it, I’m sure.”
“I do, Dad,” she answered. “I’ll see you later.”
She took a shower—the warm water was provided by simple matte-black-plastic water bags on the roof which absorbed sunlight to provide heat—and then went and enjoyed a simple but delicious and nutritious breakfast, consisting entirely of things that had been grown on the farmstead and eggs from the flock of chickens. James was still asleep, snoring contentedly on the camp cot in the living room, so Mary left him to sleep and went straight to Dr. Krueger’s trailer to check on Ann.
When she got there, she found that not only was her daughter awake, but she was up and about, albeit leaning on a crutch. She and Mary shared a long, emotional embrace and sat down outside the trailer and chatted. Ann’s rage from the previous day had dissipated, and she was ready to forgive her mother for having kept the secret of this place and her grandfather from her for all these years. Ann had seen the smoke on the horizon and was feeling grateful that they had escaped the hell into which the city had no doubt descended.
Ted joined them after a while, and he and Ann talked for some time, getting to know each other a little better. Ted offered to show Mary and Ann around, and they set off on a tour around the homestead.
“For the last seventeen or eighteen years or so, I’ve been running this place as an experimental farm in conjunction with a number of universities,” Ted explained. “I’ve been working with their best soil science, sustainable agriculture, permaculture, hydroponics, water quality, environmental science, and crop management students, doing all sorts of work with the latest science on how best to grow things in harmony with nature while regenerating the soil and maintaining biodiversity instead of destroying it. A lot of students have done their masters and doctorate work here with various projects. And I’ve learned a heck of a lot too.”
He showed them several crop tunnels, and some specially designed greenhouses in which they were able to grow tropical fruit without any electricity or powered heating, and a fish pond which provided both the nutrients for many of the hydroponics crops, as well as fish to eat.
“We don’t use any electricity or gas-powered machinery here,” Ted explained. “Every bit of machinery you see is either run by gravity, from the action of water running from the nearby creeks and the river, is hand-cranked, or hooked up to stationary bikes. It’s all water or people-powered, no electronics, no batteries, no fossil fuels. People’s cellphones and laptops are about the only electronic items we have here, and if they hadn’t all died simultaneously yesterday, we wouldn’t have known a thing about the EMP.”
“It’s amazing,” Mary said. “I mean, you were already doing a great job living off-grid when I was a kid, but this is another level completely.”
Ted smiled proudly. “This has been my dream ever since I was a young man. It makes my heart swell with pride to see it in action and to see it working so well.”
“How many people live here?” Ann
asked. “There are a lot of cabins and trailers around.”
“Right now, we’ve got almost fifty people here. The land could support a good few more, too, without taking much strain. Many of ‘em are current students, but some of ‘em are former students who, after graduating, decided to come back here with their families and stay on permanently. I welcome anyone who’s a good person and a hard worker; as long as they contribute meaningfully to this place and nurture the land instead of destroying it, they’re welcome to stay.”
“I guess they’ll all have to stay now, whether they want to or not,” Mary said glumly. “It’s not as if there’s anything to go back to out there.”
“No, there isn’t,” Ted said. “But most of ‘em, even the current students, had already talked to me about staying here long-term anyway.”
“How do you run this place?” Ann asked. “What sort of government do you have, if you want to call it that?”
Ted chuckled and gave her a grin. “You’re a smart little lady, huh? You into politics?”
“History’s my favorite subject at school,” Ann said, “and reading up on different systems of governance is something I’m really interested in.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re so interested in history, young lady,” Ted said. “It’s an important and much-misunderstood subject, and I think this country would have been in a much better place if a lot more people had been as interested in history as you are. Alas, here we are, never learning from the mistakes of the past and doomed to keep repeating them for all eternity. Anyway, to answer your question, we’re a democracy here. But a democracy with a twist; if you don’t put in enough work, you don’t get to have a say in how things are run or what directions projects will take. If you come here and try to freeload off others, you don’t get to have a say in anything.”
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 21 | The Darkest Day Page 14