by Chris Pike
“I put them there, Ella. I had to remove them. You were hypothermic and shivering uncontrollably when I found you. I had to take your clothes off.”
I pulled the blanket over my shoulders.
“You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” Kyle said, grinning.
“No,” I answered quickly. “Don’t laugh, it’s not funny.”
“I’m not. I’ve seen plenty of naked women.”
“Oh? You have?”
“No, wait. That came out wrong. Remember, I was a medic. I’ve studied anatomy so I’m aware of what the human body looks like. You needed help, and I helped you. There’s no need for you to be embarrassed.”
“Okay. Please don’t tell anybody.”
“I won’t.”
“Thanks.”
“I need to check outside. Get dressed and then we’ll go.” Kyle handed me my clothes then shouldered his rifle before stepping out onto the treehouse porch. Ruger went with him. I threw my clothes on, gritting my teeth because it hurt like the devil to put my jeans on.
* * *
We left the treehouse and slogged up the hill to the house, Ruger following behind us. Kyle had to carry me part of the way when the weight on my leg became too much.
Ruger kept watch. Every few steps he’d stop and let his eyes roam over the countryside. His ears were cocked and he’d turn them, independently of each one, listening. When he decided there was no threat, he loped to catch up with us.
After what felt like a five mile hike, we reached the house. May came running out to greet us.
“Ella! I was so worried about you!” May exclaimed. “I wanted to go look for you last night but Uncle Grant wouldn’t let me.” Her eyes dropped to my leg and my shredded jeans. “What happened to you? You’re hurt. Let me help you.”
May looped her arm around my waist and we hobbled into the house. Uncle Grant met us at the door.
“Ella, I prayed all night you were okay,” Uncle Grant said. “Come sit down on the sofa. I’ll get you and Kyle something to eat and drink. Tommy, Kyle, and I searched for you. I heard gunshots, but couldn’t determine where they came from. Was that you?”
“It was. Tommy found me.”
“Where is he?” Uncle Grant asked.
I paused a long second before answering, trying to collect my thoughts about the broken windows, Uncle Grant’s dog taken, and why he retreated to the cellar. The beast couldn’t get him there.
“Tommy is dead,” I said with a heavy heart.
“He is? What happened?” Uncle Grant glanced at Kyle, who nodded slightly to confirm my statement. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.” Uncle Grant handed me a cup of hot tea.
I took a few sips.
“Kyle, I’m so sorry to hear about your brother.” Uncle Grant patted Kyle on the back. “I’ll help you bury him. What was it, a hunting accident?”
“No,” I said. “It was the same thing that was in your house, who took your dog. The same thing that made you lock yourself in the cellar killed Tommy. I was there when it happened.”
Uncle Grant retrieved a blanket and put it over my shoulders, then refilled my teacup. May was sitting next to me, listening. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I wasn’t sure if what I saw was real or not,” Uncle Grant said. He went to a window and looked out upon the land. “A few nights ago I had tied one on really good, feeling sorry for myself and everything. My wife leaving me and taking our only son. I passed out on the sofa.”
“We figured you had been here when we found the empty bottles on the floor.”
Uncle Grant shrugged noncommittally. “My dog kept barking and running around, so I figured he was barking at a coon or possum. I opened the back door,” he pointed to the door near the fireplace, “to let the dog out to chase it, but he refused to go outside. I was drunker than a skunk, and really needing to take a leak, so while I was in the bathroom, all hell broke out in the den. Glass breaking, the dog going bat-shit crazy. I grabbed the rifle I had stashed in the bathroom and went to find out what was going on. Jesus Christ Almighty, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This thing—”
“Did it look like a wolf from the Jurassic period?” I asked.
“It did. I thought I was hallucinating.” Uncle Grant paused. “I need a drink. Can someone get me one?”
“It’s kind of early for a drink, Uncle Grant.”
“Not now, Ella.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Kyle said. He returned in a few moments with a shot of bourbon and handed the glass to Uncle Grant, who tossed it back in one swallow. “Thanks. I aimed my rifle at that animal and shot, but with everything going on, I didn’t hit it. I tried again but my rifle jammed. I mean, how much more could go wrong? That thing crouched, preparing to jump to finish me off, but in the confines of the room it didn’t have enough space to maneuver, and when it landed on the wood floor, it lost traction. I took my chances and hoofed it to the cellar and bolted myself in.” Uncle Grant hung his head. “I couldn’t help my dog. I feel real bad about it too.”
“Don’t, Uncle Grant,” I said. “There was nothing you could do.”
“After that, I lost track of time. I could hear it in the house, its claws tapping on the wood floors. I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid if I fell asleep it would find a way into the cellar. It was driving me insane.”
“You looked like a wild man when we found you,” I said.
“I thought I’d lose my mind.”
“Uncle Grant, what are we going to do?”
“Ella, we are going to hunt that thing down and kill it, so it can’t hurt anything else.”
“How?”
“I’ll figure that out later. For now, we are going to bug in for a few days. Nobody, I mean nobody, goes anywhere by themselves. At least two people together at all times. Is that clear?”
We nodded in unison.
“We are all going to learn to be proficient with firearms, and that means you too, May. Got it? No more excuses for not learning,” Uncle Grant said, looking pointedly at May.
May nodded. “I’ll do my part.”
Afterwards, Uncle Grant prepared breakfast for us of venison steak and fresh dewberries he had picked a few days prior and stored in the cellar where it was cool. He rounded it out with camp biscuits he prepared then placed in foil to bake in the coals from the previous night. We had all the fresh milk to drink, albeit warm. Kyle stood guard while Uncle Grant cooked the venison and camp biscuits. Since May wasn’t proficient enough in handling firearms, and I was still weak, Uncle Grant instructed us to stay inside.
He said it would be best for me to rest so I could fight another day.
I did live to fight another day.
We all would, but for now, we were safe, we were together, and that was all that really mattered at that moment.
When the going got tough, we did what was necessary to survive. We successfully escaped my hometown, we fought off the attackers who had planned to execute the president, and we came together as a team.
We stood our ground.
And I’m proud to say I did too. It wouldn’t be the last time I’d be required to take a stand either.
Chapter 27
Central Texas
Fifty Years in the Future
“Ella? Ella! Stop! Don’t talk anymore.” Teddy removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Hmm?” I gazed at Teddy, wondering what was the matter with him.
“You’re shaking.”
“I am?” I clasped my wrinkled hands together to quiet their trembling. “I was back there,” I said apologetically.
“You were worrying me. I don’t think it’s a good idea to continue.” He flicked off the tape recorder. “It’s too horrible for you to remember what happened to you. I can’t make you do this anymore.” Teddy gathered his pencils and pads, opened his satchel, and tossed them where they fell to the bottom.
“But what about your thesis?” I asked. “You can’t quit now.”
&nb
sp; “Screw the thesis. I had no idea your experiences were so horrific. You’re reliving everything bad that happened.”
“What did you expect? An ice cream party?”
“No, but—”
“The United States was decimated. Millions of people died during the initial attack, and the survivors were left to fend for themselves.”
“Don’t you realize what’s happening to you?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“You’re trembling all over. You’re incoherent at times. Your eyes rolled into your head when you were talking about Tommy being killed by that, that—”
“We called them tearawolves.”
“Right, that’s what you said earlier. They’re so scarce there’s only two in museums. What exactly was it?”
“Wolves that mutated from the biological agent.”
“That happened very quickly,” Teddy commented. “I’ve never heard of mutations like that.”
“The people responsible had set up a secret lab west of here where they did animal testing to see what would happen when the animals were exposed to the biological agent used in the attack. Some of them mutated, including the wolves. The tearawolves escaped when the scientists died.”
“A lab? I never heard of a lab.”
“My uncle told us about a foreign country that had been quietly purchasing land west of where the ranch was located. Over several years, they bought about ten thousand acres, and my uncle also said some men had visited him, and offered to pay him and my dad double over market value for the ranch.”
“What did your uncle say to them?”
“He pointed a rifle at them and told them never to come back.”
Teddy laughed. “I can imagine them running away. Still, I don’t quite understand something. How did you discover the lab?”
“When our supplies became low, we foraged for anything we could find. We stumbled upon the lab by accident.”
“What did you find?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to get into that right now.”
“Too much?”
I nodded.
“What about the tearawolves? Were there many more of them? Were others attacked?”
“Teddy, I’m trying to be truthful, and not give you some sort of sanitized version of what happened to us. I’m especially against telling you what you want to hear. Not everybody lived happily ever after. This isn’t the Hallmark Channel.”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind. It was a joke.”
“I don’t think we should continue,” Teddy said. “Regardless of how you look or feel, you’re not a young woman anymore. I’m not insulting you, I’m stating a fact. Fifty years of surviving without modern conveniences or medicine would do a number on anyone.”
I steepled my hands in front of me. “I don’t think it’s me you need to worry about,” I replied. “The truth isn’t pretty. Freedom isn’t pretty. People died for the freedom you have now, so you can damn well listen to their story. You began this, so you need to finish it.”
“Ella, it’s late, I’m tired.” Teddy slouched in his chair. “Let’s do this another day.”
I sat forward and put my hands on the table. With renewed conviction I said, “No. We’ll do this now.”
Teddy looked at me long and hard, staring right through me, challenging me. His jaw was clenched and sharp. He had some fight in him after all. I liked that.
“I have a suggestion,” I offered. “Let’s take a short break. Stretch our legs. Get some fresh air.”
Alright,” Teddy said. “That’s a good idea. I could also use something to eat.”
“I have banana bread I made with wheat I grew. It’s not very sweet, but it’s filling and will stick to your ribs.”
“Sounds good.” Teddy stood and stretched.
I reached into my satchel to get a piece of banana bread I had wrapped in a hand towel.
“How about I make you a fresh pot of coffee?” Teddy offered.
“I’d like that.”
“Don’t take the banana bread out yet,” he said. “Let’s eat it with a cup of coffee. Also, I have a question.”
“Go on.”
“History has told us the reason for the biological attack, which you guessed correctly was to steal the pod’s new technology—that’s a story all by itself—and the nation survived—”
“Barely,” I reminded him.
“Right, and all of that is in the history textbooks being used in schools today.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“But what’s not in the textbooks is what happened to everyday people like yourself.”
“I survived. That’s what mattered. Winning against evil mattered.”
“It does. I also want to know what happened to Kyle and May.”
I didn’t answer immediately, letting my thoughts turn to Kyle and what happened after he saved me. I reached to my shirt, lifting out the necklace I found in the pool. I never took it off once I put it on. Perhaps it did bring luck because I could have bled to death in the treehouse, yet I didn’t.
I thought about my sister May, so fragile compared to me. She wasn’t though. Dynamite definitely came in small packages.
My dad was right, and I recalled his sage advice from years ago. When you get older, when things are tough, when your mom and I are dead and buried, when your friends have their own lives, you’ll understand your sister will be the only person you can count on.
My friends did leave, my parents died, yet I still had my sister. Family was there for each other by supporting one another and helping when the going got tough. My dad taught me that with how he helped his own brother. He lived by a certain code, one which still lived in me; a code of doing whatever needed to be done to survive.
I sometimes wondered why I lived, and I now believe it was so I could tell my story, about the time immediately after the attack, unfiltered, with all the triumphs and tragedies. Not only mine, but everyone else’s whose voices were silenced.
During everything that happened, I never lost hope, though, because hope was for the living. I was still hopeful, and though my life wasn’t what I thought it would be, I’d lived an honest one, a meaningful one.
I had no regrets.
The End
Behind the Scenes
A Note from the Author
Hi readers, this is Chris. Well, I hope you enjoyed Book 1 of the American Strong series. I tried to do something different by mixing some sci-fi into the story, yet not straying too far away from reality. Having a secret lab could lead to all sorts of possibilities in future books!
I have a follow up book planned about the survivor’s struggles, and I hope to get it out as fast as I can. If you’d like to be put on the mailing list for notification, email me at [email protected] to let me know.
The inspiration for the series came to me while driving to work one day on Interstate 10. I was traveling east, stuck in traffic, when clouds peeked over the Loop 610 and I-10 exchange. I wondered what would happen if the clouds were the result of biological warfare. A morning commute led to this book.
Deciding on character names is always a difficult task because names need to be easy to spell and remember, yet not be overused. Since this book was about two sisters, I decided to name the main female character from genealogy research I did several years ago. I discovered a gggrandmother whose name was Cindrella (not Cinderella), but since the name is too long to keep for a book, I shortened it to Ella. The character May was named after my grandmother’s sister, who died as a young teenager. Even when my grandmother got into her 80s, she still talked about and missed her sister.
For those of you who have read the EMP Survivor Series, I’m still thinking about a short series with Nico and Kate after they leave the Double H Ranch. If you haven’t read the series, here are the books in order.
Available books in the EMP Survivor Series:
Unexpected World – Book 1
Uncertain World
– Book 2
Unknown World – Book 3
Unwanted World – Book 4
Undefeated World Book – 5
The series is available on Amazon here:
The EMP Survivor Series by Chris Pike
Before You Go
* * *
One last thing. Thank you, thank you, thank you for downloading this book. Without the support of readers like yourself, Indie publishing would not be possible.
I’ve received a lot of emails from my readers, and for those who have written me, you know I always answer your emails, and I don’t spam either.
An easy way to show your support of an Indie author is to write an honest review on Amazon. It does several things: It helps other readers make a decision to download the book, and it also allows the author to understand what the readers want. For example, my readers asked for no F-bombs or adult situations. I listened and followed through with the requests. I’ve learned good writing and editing is extremely appreciated and I will always strive for that.
So please consider writing a review. It will be forever grateful. A few words or one sentence is all it takes.
* * *
I’ve had a lot of help along the way from some special people, first and foremost my husband, Alan. He was the brains behind the expert firearm and knife content in the book, and was my consultant on shootouts.
Writing a book is not a solitary undertaking, and many people have helped me. Special thanks go to those who have inspired, cheered, edited, proofed, provided cover art, formatted, legal advice, narrated, or were sounding boards: daughters Michelle and Courtney, son-in-law Cody, editor Felicia, proofer Mick, cover artist Hristo, friends Anne, Mikki, and Mary, and formatter Kody. A special thanks goes to you ladies and gents.
For my readers who have written me and have connected with me on Facebook, y’all are the best! You’ve encouraged me and have allowed me a glimpse into your lives. I am truly honored. Thank you. For anyone else who would like to connect with me, email me at [email protected].
