James, despite his limited vision, which William’s spare glasses only partially helped, was fitter and healthier than he’d ever been in his life, and he happily pedaled for hours on the stationary bikes connected to various pumps every day. He and Ted had become surprisingly close, considering how very different they were. However, as much as Ted loved Mary, he had always wanted a son, too, and James was quickly becoming like the son—or grandson, now—that he’d never had. As for James, with his deadbeat alcoholic dad, he’d never had a strong, positive father figure in his life. The influence Ted was having on him in this regard was lifechanging. In the last five weeks, Ted had taught James how to ride a horse, shoot a rifle, ride a dirt bike, operate simple farm machinery—all pre-electric-era equipment, of course—how to track animals in the woods, and how to survive in the wilderness on his own. Against anyone’s expectations, the former video game addict had picked everything up quite quickly, and he was rapidly shedding the pounds of flab all those years on a sofa in front of a TV had put on his body. In its place, lean muscle was appearing.
Ann was still walking with a limp, but her wounds had healed. Although there were large scars on her legs, she had recovered around ninety percent of her former mobility, and Dr. Krueger was certain that in a few more weeks, she’d be as quick and agile as she had been before. Ted had a vast library of books, and as an avid reader, Ann had plenty of literature with which to occupy herself when she wasn’t helping out with various tasks on the homestead.
Mary and Ted had reconciled completely, and their relationship as father and daughter was stronger than it had ever been. They had both put the past behind them and were committed to working toward a bright, sustainable future for Ann and James and everyone else on the homestead.
Things were not entirely rosy on the homestead, though; William seemed to become surlier and increasingly anti-social, and he often shirked his duties and locked himself up in his trailer for days at a time. He also took an unhealthy interest in Ann, trying to get her alone and generally acting offensively toward her. Mary was furious whenever Ann told her about these episodes of harassment, and Ted went to have words with William on more than one occasion, threatening to kick him out of the homestead if his unsavory behavior persisted. The problem was, of course, the fact that if they forced William to leave, he would take his spare glasses with him, leaving James blind. Also, there was the security concern; William had been on the homestead for three years and knew the place—and its security flaws and vulnerabilities—inside out. If Ted kicked him out, there was no guarantee that William wouldn’t later come back for revenge, possibly bringing along a group of bandits and scavengers. Because of this, the family had to grudgingly accept that William had to be allowed to stay and simply do their best to keep him away from Ann.
The huge towers of black smoke from the city had darkened the distant horizon for a full week after the EMP event before they eventually burned out. But, even now, after five weeks, the occasional plume of smoke could be seen in the distance. Ted hadn’t gotten complacent with security, and everyone was required to put in sentry shifts around the borders of the homestead, around the clock, day and night. A few times, various sentries had seen people trying to get across the river, and on one occasion, some people in an old Korean War-era army Jeep had driven as deep into the river as they could get, before realizing it was impassable. Thus far, nobody had made it across. Ted made a rule that nobody was to use the secret stepping-stones in daylight, in case unfriendly eyes were watching. He knew that other people knew that the homestead was out here, and he also knew that hunger and desperation could drive people to invade. Ted was determined to protect the homestead at all costs. For now, the river was as good a barrier as any, but he knew it wouldn’t be a permanent one; when the water level dropped, as it always did when the seasons changed, the stepping-stones would be exposed. He would worry about that when the time was closer, though.
Despite the homesteaders’ commitment to vigilance and security, it wasn’t long before the madness that had thrown the rest of the world around them into chaos reached their borders. One morning, Callum didn’t return from his sentry shift on time, which immediately set off alarm bells in Ted’s mind. Mary, who had grown quite close to the young man, who was a permaculture expert from a local university, was also worried. She and Ted set off on a pair of vintage dirt bikes to go find Callum and find out what had happened, and why he hadn’t returned from his shift.
When they got to his sentry post—the same one by the river that Ted had been guarding the night Mary had arrived in the Humvee—they made an alarming discovery. Callum was laying on the ground, tied up, with duct tape over his mouth. He saw Mary and Ted coming and tried to yell, his cries muffled by the duct tape.
“Oh my God, Callum!” Mary cried.
They ran over to him, cut the ropes, and yanked the duct tape off his mouth.
“What happened?” Mary asked. “Who did this to you?”
“William,” Callum groaned, trying to stretch his stiff, aching limbs and joints. “The bastard tricked me. I don’t know what he did, but I was talking to him one minute, and the next I woke up all groggy and confused, tied up like this, with my rifle gone.”
“William?” Ted asked. “I know he’s a bad apple, but why would he do something like this?”
“How did it happen? Are you okay, did he hurt you?” Mary asked anxiously.
Callum groaned and grimaced as Ted helped him to his feet. “I’m really sore and stiff from being tied up like that, but he didn’t do anything else to me, as far as I know. It happened late last night, probably around twelve-thirty or one in the morning, seeing as I had only been on my shift for maybe half an hour or forty-five minutes. So I was patrolling the area here when I saw a figure coming down the path through the woods from the direction of the homestead. I figured it was one of us, but I was immediately suspicious; why would anyone be walking around the woods at that time of night? And I knew it couldn’t have been any kind of confusion about sentry shifts, because the next change wasn’t due for three hours. I challenged the person, and when they replied, I recognized the voice right away; it was William.”
“What happened next?” Ted asked.
“Well, I asked him why he was walking around all the way down here by the river, miles from the homestead, at that time. He said he couldn’t sleep and just needed to take a long walk. I was still = suspicious, and he was acting pretty weird. He also had a really big hiking backpack with him, which immediately told me he was lying. Still, I didn’t expect him to attack me or do anything like that. He asked if we could talk about something important, so I walked up to him. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up tied and gagged.”
Mary saw a handkerchief on the ground a few yards away, and she walked over to it and picked it up. It still had a faint whiff of chloroform on it. “I’m pretty sure that this is what he used to knock you out,” she said, holding up the handkerchief.
Ted looked at it, and a look of alarm came across his face. “If he used chloroform, he had to have broken into the medical trailer to get it … and if he’s deserted the homestead, he may have stolen a lot more items from our medical stores than just chloroform. Shit, dammit, we’d better get back and check the medical trailer, pronto.”
Callum hopped on the back of Mary’s bike, and the three of them raced back to the homestead. They headed straight to the medical trailer, but before they even stepped into it, they knew the news was bad. The door was open, and the broken lock and a pair of bolt cutters were laying on the ground.
“Oh shit,” Ted murmured, dropping his still-running dirt bike on its side and sprinting over to the medical trailer.
Before he could run inside the trailer, however, Dr. Krueger stepped out, and his face was pale with shock and worry.
“Someone’s cleaned us out, Ted,” he gasped, his hands trembling. “They’ve taken just about everything important. As of now, we’ve pretty much run out of our
most essential medical supplies…”
26
“How much has he taken? How much do we have left?” Ted asked frantically.
“Who did this? You know who did this?” Dr. Krueger asked.
“It was William, but he’s gone. There’s nothing we can do about him. I’ll explain later. Just tell me what he’s taken and what we have left,” Ted said.
“It’s bad, Ted, it’s really bad,” Dr. Krueger said, shaking his head sadly and sighing. “Almost all of the antibiotics, most of the painkillers, a lot of the surgical alcohol, antihistamines, some instruments, some other really important things…”
While Dr. Krueger was listing everything that had been taken, Mary saw Ann and James approaching. Ann was holding James’s hand, leading him forward, and James didn’t have any glasses on.
“Mom!” Ann yelled. “Mom, someone stole James’s glasses last night!”
Mary clenched her fists with rage; she hadn’t thought she could possibly loathe William any more intensely than she already did, but now she knew that she absolutely could. If she got her hands on him, she swore she’d wring his scrawny neck.
“I’m freakin’ blind again,” James murmured sadly, looking as if he was on the verge of bursting into tears. “I can’t see a damn thing. It was my fault, though. I can’t believe I was so stupid. I always left the glasses on the table by the window, and with last night being so warm, I left the stupid window open…”
“It’s not your fault, sweetie,” Mary said, running up to James and giving him a big hug. “How could you have known that someone would have stolen them here, of all places? It’s not your fault at all.”
“What am I gonna do, Aunt Mary? I can’t see a damn thing now. I’m as good as blind. I feel so useless…”
“You aren’t useless, son, far from it,” Ted said firmly. “You’re just suffering a temporary setback, that’s all.” He had a determined look on his face now, and his jaw was set tight. “I should have kicked that scumbag out weeks ago, and to hell with the consequences. It couldn’t have been any worse than what he’s done to us now.”
“What are we going to do about this situation?” Dr. Krueger asked. “There’s not much I can do to help people without the supplies that have been stolen.”
“I’ll call an emergency meeting,” Ted said. “We’ll figure something out.”
An hour later, everyone who lived on the land had assembled in the central fire pit area, where large bonfires would burn bright and people would tell stories or sing songs late into the night. They all sat in a large circle on the logs around the firepit, with Ted standing in the center of the circle. He explained what had happened, and after people had had a chance to get over the shock of it, they got to talking about solutions to this problem.
“I say we head to town and raid the pharmacy,” one student suggested.
“Come on,” another countered. “It’s been over five weeks since the EMP. Do you honestly think there’ll be anything left in the pharmacy now? Everyone else will have stripped it bare long ago.”
“We should at least try,” another student said. “What’s the alternative, just sit here and accept that we’re going to be without essential medical supplies without even trying to find more?”
“I say we hunt that asshole William down and put a few bullets in him, and take back what he stole,” the first student muttered, punching his fist into his palm.
“He’s long gone,” Ted said. “He took one of the bicycles, and seeing as it’s mostly downhill from here, he could be over a hundred miles away by now. We’d never catch up with him, and we have no idea where he was planning to go anyway.”
“The hospital two towns over,” another student, a young, thin man called Zane, suggested. “That’s our best bet. Unlike pharmacies, they’ve got some seriously beefy security where they keep their meds. I don’t think most raiders could have broken in there. I should know, I was a medical student for two years before switching my major, and I did an internship in that hospital. It’s a really small place, but they’ll definitely have everything we need.”
“If most other people couldn’t break-in, how are we going to bypass their security?” the first student asked.
“I can get us in,” Mary said. “Before I decided to become a car mechanic, I worked as a locksmith’s apprentice for a few months. I may be able to crack whatever security they have there … but we’ll have to raid a locksmith’s place to get the tools I’ll need.”
“There’s a locksmith’s in the nearest town,” Ted said.
“Then we have to do this,” Dr. Krueger said. “Without antibiotics, even small cuts and infections could turn into death sentences here.”
“And James needs glasses,” Mary added. “Since we’re going to be raiding the town, we may as well get some glasses for him while we’re at it.”
“There’s an optometrist’s place near the locksmith,” Ted said. “We’ll get James some new glasses.”
Everyone murmured their agreement to this plan. It would be risky, but it was the only way to replace the valuable supplies William had stolen. The homesteaders decided to set off that night and took votes on who would go and who would stay. In the end, it was decided that Ted, Mary, Callum, and a handful of the strongest, most athletic students would go. They would go on bicycles since they were far easier to conceal during the day than horses would be. The plan was to leave shortly before sunset and travel through the night to get to the first town, which they would raid in the half-light of dawn so that they wouldn’t have to use any gas lamps, which would draw attention in the full darkness of night. Then they would camp stealthily in the woods during the day and set off again once night fell for the next town over, where the hospital was. After everyone had agreed to this, they ended the meeting, and everyone went back to their tasks and duties. Those who would be leaving on the raiding mission stayed behind to discuss details and strategy.
“What firepower are we taking along?” Callum asked.
“We’ll get one or two of the AR-15s out, just in case we find ourselves in a bad situation,” Ted said, “but it’ll have to be handguns, mostly, because we need to move fast and we’ll probably have to be climbing over things and getting into tight spaces.”
“And camping supplies?” Mary asked.
“It’ll have to be very minimalist, pure survivalist stuff,” Ted answered. “We can’t lug tents and thick sleeping bags around. I’ve got some ultralight gear that won’t take up much space or weigh much. There are a few small tunnel-style tents that we’ll be able to cover with leaves, making us pretty invisible in the woods during the day. As for food and water, we’ve got a ton of water purification bottles, which have the best filters money can buy; we can use ‘em to get clean, safe water even out of a muddy creek. Food, we’ll take some dried fruit, nuts, and jerky. We can’t risk cooking anything; any sort of flame will draw attention.”
“What other gear should we bring along?” one of the students asked.
“Wear camouflage clothing, of course,” Ted answered. “Gloves and tough boots, knives, a compass in case any of us get lost or separated from the group, some paracord, Zippos, and a small first aid kit. I’ll bring a hatchet and a hammer too.”
“And I’ll take my toolbelt and tools,” Mary said. “I’ll probably end up needing something out of it.”
They talked a little more and made a comprehensive list of everything everyone would need to bring. After that, they split up and agreed to meet back at the firepit in the late afternoon, with everything packed and ready to go, and their bicycles ready.
Mary took James and Ann aside to speak to them. Both of them were nervous and anxious on behalf of her, Ted and Callum, and the others who were going along on the mission. Mary did her best to reassure them that she would be safe, but she had a hard time disguising her own nervousness and trying to come across as confident. The truth was, she was just as scared and worried as the teenagers were, but she knew that there was no g
etting around the fact that this mission, however dangerous, simply had to be undertaken.
“Mom, are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Ann asked, looking worried.
“I’ll be fine, honey,” she said. “Don’t worry about us, your grandad knows what he’s doing, and Callum knows this area really well, as does Zane. We’ll be really cautious, and we certainly won’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“But there are going to be risks involved,” Ann said. “Look at what we had to go through before we got here to grandpa’s place. People out there are—they’re crazy and desperate.”
“I know, honey, I know, and that’s why we’re going to be extra careful. Look, I know it’s pointless to tell you not to worry about us because regardless of what I say, you’re going to worry. Just don’t worry too much, okay? And as for you, James, you just take some well-earned rest, all right? You’ve been working really hard the last few weeks, and you could use a break. We’ll get your glasses. I promise you I won’t come back until I’ve got a pair. You’ll soon be seeing the world with crystal-clear clarity again.”
“I hope so,” James said glumly. “I feel so helpless and useless now, without being able to see.”
Mary knew that this had to be hitting him hard, considering how much progress he’d made since arriving here. He probably felt that he’d been sent right back to square one now with the loss of his sight. She made a silent vow to do everything she could to get him a new pair of glasses.
The homesteaders had a hearty lunch together and ate an early dinner in the late afternoon, and everyone who was leaving to go off on the mission made sure that they ate their fill; they would need as much fuel as they could get to provide them with the energy they’d need for their long bike ride through the night.
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 21 | The Darkest Day Page 16