by S A Ison
“Go get our bugout bags and our suitcases,” he said. “Put them in the back of the truck and I’ll get the animals.” He pulled out his phone, checking, hoping against hope this wasn’t it. Then there was a flash in the sky. It wasn’t bright, like lightning in the distance, and the nearest transformer exploded, sparks flying.
He looked down at the phone. Nothing. It was an EMP. He threw his phone down, picked up one of the goats and carried her to the truck. He then went back and got the other goat. She cried out for her twins. Once she was in the truck, he got the two kids and put them with her. Then he scanned around, thinking. They’d have to leave quickly.
Going to the rabbit hutch, he disengaged the cabinet from the stand and took it to the truck. Putting the tailgate down, he shoved the box toward the back. The chickens took a bit to catch – they’d gone to roost, but when he entered the coop they sensed something was wrong and started flying around.
He finally shoved them in a medium-sized kennel, grabbed a hand full of straw and threw it in. Made it easier to clean later. He looked around to see if there was anything else they needed.
He was surprised to find he was hyperventilating, the panic nearly choking him. He took some deep breaths, trying to calm down. He needed to be calm for Joy. She was depending on him.
The goats remained on their bellies, shaking and bleating. He turned and went back to get the other hutches. As he did, Joy came out of the house, tears spilling down her ashen cheeks. She put the two heavy backpacks in the front seat, then turned back to the house. Once the hutches were loaded, Sayer got as many bags of feed as he could and stuffed them into the back of the truck. He placed them over the rabbit hutches to hold them down.
He then went and got the five-gallon cans of fuel. They’d have enough for a short while, but then there would be no more unless they went looking for it. He took a last look around the barn, then went into the house to retrieve his weapons.
Joy put the suitcases in the back of the truck, then climbed into the passenger seat. She watched as Sayer brought his guns out of the house: a shot gun, an AR15, his own Glock, and her Glock 26. He put them in the cab behind the driver’s seat and climbed in. She looked over at him. He smiled at her, but his smile trembled.
Putting his hand to the key in the ignition, he turned it. Nothing happened. He tried again. The truck would not start. He then thought that perhaps, because the 100-megaton yield of POSEIDON was greater than other nukes, it had killed everything.
Topeka, Kansas, 12 April 2019
Dalton and Peggy were busy eating dinner. They planned on going to see a movie afterward.
“We haven’t done this in a long time,” Peggy grinned.
“Yeah, it’s been busy on the ranch. But it is nice to get out. I’m glad you could make it.” He grinned, taking a bite.
Suddenly the dishes on the table rattled. Dalton looked up at Peggy, a black brow raised.
“Earthquake?” Peggy asked, her voice calm.
“Feels like it,” Dalton said, and took a bite of his steak. He chewed as he looked out the window. Their vehicles rocked.
A bright light flashed in the distance, beyond the clouds, and Dalton blinked. Then the power pole across the street exploded and the lights of the diner went out. Screeches of tires and the squeal of tortured metal echoed around as the vehicles on the road stopped working, taking their passengers along on a final, uncontrolled ride.
He sat as though in a trance, then stood, took Peggy’s hand and pulled her up.
“Let’s get out of here now.”
“Why? What’s going on?” To his relief she didn’t resist him and they walked calmly out of the restaurant. He took out his smartphone and pressed the on button. It didn’t work.
“See if your phone works, Peg,” Dalton said softly, increasing his pace away from the diner.
She took out her phone and tried to turn it on. When she looked up to him, fear shone in her eyes. “What’s going on, Dalton?”
“I saw a flash of light in the distance,” he told her, keeping his voice low. “It wasn’t lightning. I think it was an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse. That means that someone, either North Korea, China, Iran, or Russia, has dropped a bomb on us. Everything electrical is dead. We’re going to be in a world of hurt in a couple days.”
As he crossed the street to go to his car, he saw the man, the one who’d been preaching near the hospital. He was watching Dalton, and once more the hair on Dalton’s arms rose. He quickly looked away. He didn’t have time for the man or his doom-laden prophecies.
Dalton walked to his car and unlocked it with his key. He reached in and handed Peggy the four bottles of water that had been sitting in the back seat. “Put this water in your purse.”
He also grabbed a sports drink that was half full. He found a plastic grocery bag and put the sports drink in it, two energy bars, and an opened bag of beef jerky, nearly empty. He felt around under the seat but found nothing else.
Then he opened the trunk and got out the tire iron. He stuck it down the back of his jeans. It was cold and awkward, but a weapon of sorts if they needed it. He also found an old flashlight and clicked it. It flickered, then came on. A dirty poncho was discarded on the floor and he pulled it out and shook it. Then he folded it up and pushed it down into the plastic bag.
He looked around, but no one was watching them. Everyone was just standing around. The preacher man had disappeared. He was glad. He didn’t want to see him.
He closed up the car and began to walk.
“Aren’t we going to drive?” Peggy asked.
“It won’t work. Look around, Peggy. None of the cars or trucks are moving. They’re all dead. It might take everyone a bit to figure it out, but we need to get back to the farm. We’ll swing by your place on our way and pick up some things.”
“But that’s nearly five miles! We’re going to walk?” she asked, her voice beginning to rise hysterically.
He stopped, spun around and grabbed her by the shoulders. “We have no choice,” he hissed, keeping his voice low. “Things are going to go bad fast, and I mean really fast. There will be no more food deliveries, no water. People will starve to death or kill those who have food. We need to get out of here and to the farm, to my family’s farm. We need to warn them.” He searched her face, trying to gauge if she could comprehend the danger they were in.
Tears began to fall down her cheeks and she nodded. To his relief, she kept her silence and let him lead her along at a fast pace.
His heart was beating rapidly. He might be a farmer, but he’d got straight As in physics and science. He also kept abreast of the news. He knew the United States had just taken a hit from someone and he needed to get to his family. People from Topeka and the surrounding towns would be on the move in a few days, a week or two at most, and they would be like locusts, looking for food.
Washington, D.C., 12 April 2019
Hamish sat with his feet propped up on his desk, smoking. He rarely smoked, but today he needed one James Kilian was on the other end of the line. He pulled his foot in and rubbed a smudge off his shoe.
“James, you should head home. It’s late and we aren’t getting anywhere fast. Our asset has been quiet, and with Orlov due here in a couple days, I think that, at least for now, it will be quiet.”
“One can only hope. I’m looking at a split screen; looks like you have a storm coming up the coast. Will you be in on that meeting?” James asked. Hamish heard a match being struck. The man was trying to relight his pipe again.
“You’re looking at the live satellite feed?”
“Yes, of course. It’s coming up just past North Carolina. I’m also watching the live feed off Spain; looks nice. Maybe I should take a short holiday and go there. It is raining here, and cold. I’m ready for a little warmth.” James laughed.
“I was thinking about going to Scotland for a vacation this summer,” Hamish said.
“You’re a glutton for punishment, lad. It’s damp there more tha
n it is here. I hope you take an umbrella or two,” James sniggered.
“Of course, I… I…” Hamish paused, and his eyes bulged. He watched as the window flexed. He choked out a strangled gasp and adrenaline shot into his brain. A split second before he was obliterated, he thought of Mark. His heart broke.
London, England, 12 April 2019
James Kilian dropped his pipe on the desk as air fled his lungs. On the live satellite feed that watched the East Coast of the United States, three separate, enormous synchronized explosions blossomed.
“Fuck me,” he breathed.
He looked at the phone, still held in his hand. The call had died.
He sat back in his chair, his body going limp. A sob rose in his chest. It wouldn’t do for Her Majesty’s MI6 agent to cry, but the sting of tears behind his dark brown eyes begged for release.
POSEIDON.
There was no doubt. Nothing else could cause that kind of devastation.
In that split second, the world had changed forever, a paradigm shift in power, a true watershed moment if ever there were one.
In other offices, others were watching too, and he could guess at their reactions as they got a frontline seat to the complete extinction of the United States. A few moments later, the screen split into thirds, the new feed showing an explosion over the ground in the region over Texas.
It was then that he let the tears fall. To hell with that bloody stiff upper lip crap. He wept. Millions were dying as he watched on, helpless. All the airplanes, the people, their families, everything and everyone, was destroyed along both coasts. He’d seen the briefings on the damage just one POSEIDON torpedo could do. He’d counted seven. Nothing and no one could survive that kind of destruction.
His phone rang and he picked it up, wiping his face on his arm and sniffing hard as he did so. He listened to the voice on the other end. “Yes sir, I just saw. Yes, I saw it all. Very good sir, I’ll be right there.”
James hung up. All the agents were being called in. It would seem they could be the next target. It was time to get ready. He hoped it wasn’t, but after seeing that amount of devastation, he knew Russia had the upper hand.
Lincoln, NE, 12 April 2019
Joy Flannery stood in front of her truck, weeping. Sayer had the hood up. He was a great mechanic, and if he couldn’t get this thing started, no one else could.
The goats in the back of the truck were bleating, Joy knew they could feel the tension in the air. Small tremors continued to reverberate from the ground through her body. Or perhaps it was her own fear.
Could the EMP have been so powerful as to obliterate even their old Ford? They had only their bugout bags, and one hundred twenty miles stood between them and Pike’s cabin, and all their supplies. Panic begin to eat around the midbrain, the hypothalamus. It was the most ancient part of her brain, where the flight or fight responses originate from. Her response was to run in blind panic.
She took deep breaths. She wasn’t alone. Sayer was with her and he was an expert prepper. The EMP had just hit, so no one really knew what was going on yet. Many might have a clue, but she was hoping they wouldn’t, giving them the time they needed to get where they needed to go. POSEIDON had been deployed. It had happened, and if Pike hadn’t brought it to their attention, they’d perhaps not be as well prepared as they were. But that depended on them getting to the cabin.
Sayer slammed the hood of the old truck. He looked at Joy, and Joy’s world crumbled. She could see from his eyes that it wasn’t good news.
“I think that was the most powerful EMP that could be detonated,” he said softly. “I think it fried everything. Every vehicle, no matter its age.”
“Do you think there’s radiation? Should we start taking our potassium iodide?” she asked, trying to get her voice under control.
“Yeah, we should,” Sayer said as he walked over to her and put his large strong hands on her shoulders. He looked down into her eyes. “We’re going to have to walk to Pike’s cabin. You get the potassium iodide tablets and some water, I’m going to the barn to see if I can rig up some kind of cart that we can push or pull. We can attach the goats and let them walk along.
“Breathe, honey. We’re fine. We just have to do a little walking. We’re armed. Anyone gets in our way, I’ll end them. Count on it. Now, let’s get what we can. Go get the tablets, then look around the kitchen for anything we can eat on the road. Easy things to cook. Bring a couple pots and pans and all that kind of stuff.” He bent and kissed her soundly, then hugged her hard.
Joy watched him turn to the barn. She felt a little better. She’d not even thought about using a cart, her brain had been so frozen. She pulled the bugout pack out of the truck and dug around. She found bottled water and the tablets. They would take them every day for two weeks to prevent radiation absorption.
She shook her head. She still couldn’t believe Russia had really bombed the United States. What was it like at the coasts? Ten minutes had passed since the explosion they’d seen, so the coasts were probably exploding now. Or maybe they hadn’t done that. Just sent out the EMP. If they’d bombed the coasts, there might be a tsunami of irradiated water. If they’d used the one hundred megaton bombs and more than one on each coast, then only the central continental United States was left.
Orlov was to have come the following week. Now Joy suspected that had been a false plan to lure the U.S. government into a false sense of security. As far as she knew, anyone who was anyone in the U.S. government were all in Washington, D.C. That meant that their government had been obliterated. Joy was certain D.C. would have been one of the prime targets.
Going into the kitchen, she began opening cupboards and pulling out items to take. She found paper plates, baked beans, tuna, chicken, canned fruits and some fresh vegetables and fruit. She found a box in the recycle pile and loaded it up with the canned foods. She also threw in a can opener, several knives, plastic cutlery, aluminum foil and some paper towel. She walked out of the house and put it by the dead truck.
She looked up when she saw Sayer pushing a large cart. It was low, about seven inches off the ground, but had a flatbed surrounded by a wooden fence to hold hay or grain. The cart could be pulled or pushed. Joy could feel the air coming back, her brain beginning to function once more without the numbing effects of fear.
“What can I do to help, Sayer?” she asked, walking toward him with a potassium iodide tablet. She handed him the water and he took the tablet.
Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he smiled down to her. “We will have to reorganize. We can take most, but let’s make the load lighter. Go and get some of the heavy-duty garbage bags and repack our clothes. If you can get more food like you got there, that would be good. Also, maybe, toilet paper, and more water bottles if we have them. “
Joy nodded and turned to go back into the house. She’d clear out whatever she could get, and then they could start packing the cart up. It took several trips, but twenty minutes later she had gathered everything she thought they’d need, from bedding to toiletries to food and water. She smiled to herself. If they could keep their food and water, she thought they should be able to make it safely to the cabin.
Together they packed the cart. As they worked, Sayer spoke. “I suggest we dirty ourselves up. I’m going to find some cardboard and we can write on it, Will Work for Food. That way we’ll blend in. People will assume we have no food, so hopefully we won’t be a target.”
Joy walked over to him and hugged him hard, burying her face in his broad chest. She felt his strong arms go around her, and knew they’d be okay. If they could get to the cabin.
She smiled up at him. “That’s why I love you so much. You’re a brilliant man.” She grinned her gap-toothed grin and turned,
Sayer looked around. “It is getting dark and I really want to get on the road. Let’s hurry.”
They grabbed some cardboard and Sayer wrote on several of the large pieces. Once done, he placed some in the cart. Using paracord, h
e strung two signs up and gave one to Joy.
“Put it around your neck and look as downtrodden as you can. If anyone asks if we know what happened, act surprised and ignorant. We’ve been traveling along, looking for work and a place to lay our heads. That is our story. I’m hoping that, because we look like we have nothing, no one will bother us.”
“I hope you’re right. I’ve checked my weapon and I’ll keep it hidden inside my jeans,” Joy said, patting her waist, where she’d strapped the small holster for her Sauer P238.
Once they were all packed, they capped the load off with a heavy waterproof tarp.
“Are you ready to go? Remember, we’re ignorant and poor. We don’t want to say a lot. Just play dumb and hopefully we’ll be left alone. Let’s walk for as long as we can,” he suggested.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. If we get too tired, I think there is room on the cart to curl up. I stuck our pillows under there with the blankets. I just hope we don’t run into too many people.”
Maryville, MO, 12 April 2019
Pike went into the battery bank room and brought out both the old Geiger counter and the new one. He turned on both, and smiled as Margo brought him his heavy rain gear. They hoped it would protect him should there be radioactive fallout. They didn’t know where it had been detonated, but the effects had already hit the electrical components.
“At least both Geiger counters work. I’m really glad the shielding worked. It really paid off to layer it with multiple materials.” Pike was once more thankful they’d hardened the component room.
“Do you think you should wear a mask?” Margo said, worry clearly in her voice.
“Yeah, just in case. I don’t want to breathe that stuff, even if we’ve taken our potassium iodide tablets. I don’t want to push my luck.” He grinned, though he felt like crying. He’d really hoped this wouldn’t happen, but it had. He thought of Johnny and Beverly. In his heart he knew they were dead. If the Russians had only sent one POSEIDON, then maybe they had a chance.