Where Hope Remains : A Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (One Family's Survival Book 3)

by Ronald Williams

  Bonnie Meier took the lead, with the Wilkersons flanking her. The Chandlers came next, with Mark and Ed at the tail. They staggered themselves on either side of the road, keeping to the very edge where they’d make the least noise from either kicking up gravel or rustling through the brush at the side of the road.

  “Remember, as you walk, always look ahead for a good spot if we need to get off the road. Between that, keeping eyes ahead, behind, and to the sides looking for trouble, it’s going to be taxing. So we’re going to stop every twenty minutes or so to step off the road, lay low, and refocus,” Bonnie told them. “The worst thing you can do is start daydreaming or walking without paying attention to your surroundings. We need to stay sharp whenever we’re moving, alright?”

  Everybody nodded silently. All of them had a lot on their minds, between the challenge of what lay ahead, their reasons for why they were in on the rescue, and the mental exercises of preparing for the chance they might have to shoot somebody to get the job done.

  “We all ready,” Cole asked when the quiet got too much for him. Everybody nodded again. “Then let’s make it happen.”

  They knew the risks of moving around in the daylight, that they’d be easier to see, but hoped that by moving in an openly armed, clearly organized pack, they’d deter any sort of trouble from home owners in the area. With at least ten hours of marching ahead of them, they didn’t want to wait until dark to start the trek, and then be looking for vantage points into the camp after the sun was already coming up. They wanted to get close to the dam in darkness and be all well situated and stationary before dawn.

  As the hours went by, eyes peeled up and down the road, into the brush at the sides, five minutes of rest for every twenty walking, the Chandlers all regretted having dumped the truck owned by the looters that had invaded their property a few nights earlier into the lake. Nearly half a day of walking would have been cut down to less than an hour of driving, and they’d have a vehicle to use for their escape. Nobody had any idea what kind of shape Bill might be in when they found him – strong, fierce, and prepared to fight and run, or busted and broken, or gravely injured. Even something otherwise as minor as a sprained ankle would slow them down immeasurably and seriously cut down their chances of getting him back to the cabin. The bicycles were and asset, to be sure, but if Bill had any injuries to his legs, or bad enough damage to his arms or body in general, he wouldn’t be able to pedal worth a damn either.

  Sally turned these thoughts over in her mind, and quickly found herself repeatedly beating herself up over getting rid of the truck. What seemed like a good idea at the time – hide any evidence that the looters had been on their property, was now a golden opportunity lost. On one of the rest stops, though, she thought back to what Bill had done on the lake. He’d put himself at risk of dying in the most horrifying way he could imagine, to give her the chance to get to the kids. That hadn’t been part of the plan, of any plan they’d ever come up with in case it ever hit the fan. Even when they’d been talking for too long about what to do and were getting ridiculous, they’d never thought of a scenario where one parent would have to play decoy to let the other escape to get to Cole and Jenny. What Bill had done was make the best call he could in the situation he’d found himself in.

  When they decided to dump the truck, Sally, Cole, and Jenny had made a judgement call, and did what they thought best with the situation they had. Besides, Sally told herself. That truck wasn’t something we had to begin with. We didn’t throw away something we had, we just didn’t keep something unexpected that we got. No net loss of resources there.

  Putting it into those terms, the truck being an opportunity not taken rather than a resource lost, helped her get her mind off of its loop and back on task when they hit the road next. Twenty more minutes of one foot in front of the other, eyes constantly moving as she walked, with five minutes of rest.

  Despite the breaks, the rhythm hypnotized the rescue party. They didn’t really notice the march of the sun overhead and to the tall horizon to their left. It was only when they started having a hard time seeing too far into the woods at the side of the road that they realized the sun was behind the mountains and that the shadows they were in were going to start deepening fast.

  Bonnie waved everybody to gather around her at the next five minute rest. “It’s a risk to cluster like this, but I think right now’s our best opportunity to do so. Let’s all gather round and take a longer break, and chow together. Danny, Cole, Ed, and Jenny. Get tight over here and get yourselves fed. The rest of us, north, south, east, west, stand guard until they’ve eaten and come to relieve us.”

  All told, the dinner break was a little over thirty minutes. Sandwiches and fruit eaten together did more for them than MREs on the march would have, and it left them all ready, even a little bit eager, to get back on the road and start putting more miles behind them.

  As they went along, they were surprised at having encountered no traffic at all on the road during the daylight hours. No vehicles, nobody on bikes or on foot. During their break, Bonnie speculated that the Army might be having a hard enough time keeping things under control in the population centers that they couldn’t get out into the rural areas and patrol. Or, they just may not have had the fuel reserves to run their vehicles for anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

  They had decided to skirt wide around the bridge over the lake, the one where Bill had been initially captured. But they had chanced sending a few people through the woods to get a look, and they reported that the Army camp was still there, but greatly reduced. It looked like it had just half a dozen people manning it.

  When they finally got close to the Libby Dam, there were no lights. They were not surprised to see that the dam itself had no power but had expected to see some generator-powered light masts, as Sally had seen on the bridge the night of Bill’s capture. This reinforced their theory that fuel was in precious short supply.

  Another hour of travel, and they got to the spot where they’d agreed to split up and get off the road to find their observation posts.

  “Do you suppose they’re out of fuel entirely, or are they just severely rationing it?” Cole asked.

  “I don’t know. I’d like to think they’re keeping at least a couple vehicles ready to roll in an emergency. Whether or not enough of those have come up to deplete their supply or not, I couldn’t guess,” Bonnie said.

  “If somebody gets sight of their motor pool, see if anybody goes out there at all. If any of the vehicles are operable, they should still send people out for daily checks,” Sally said, remembering some of Bill’s old routines.

  “In case it becomes relevant later,” Bonnie said. “Those old tactical vehicles don’t have ignition keys, but the common practice is to padlock a chain around the steering wheels while they’re parked. So, if you get a chance at the motor pool, you’ll either need to get the padlock keys, or a bolt cutter.”

  There was enough of a moon, and the group had been marching in the dark long enough, that they could make out a broad picture of the terrain around them. Taking the road any closer to the dam than they were would put them way too close to it. They didn’t know if any sort of night vision equipment had survived the event, but the knew that once they were within a half mile or so, it was best for them all to stay off the road.

  “Remember what I told you all,” Bonnie said. “You’re all hunters, so act like you’ve got something good in your sights. You all know how to move careful and quiet through woods. Tread carefully and do your best to watch for trip wires. The next couple hours are going to suck. Take all of the vigilance we’ve had to use to get this far and concentrate it. But once you get yourselves set in a good place, get some cover and then set up your shifts so you can get some rest. Unless things get really active tomorrow, once the sun goes down, let’s all regroup back here and make our plan to get Bill out.”

  Chapter 7

  Once Bill got his lockpick shaped as well as he figured he was
going to get it, he took a short break to let blood flow back into his hands and for the cramps in his wrists, arms, and legs subside. Even without the contortions necessary to grind down the pick, his position, face down with his arms behind his back, ankles around a pipe, would have been horribly uncomfortable.

  By this time, he was also hungry enough to not think about what Benton had done on the floor, and he opened the MRE, eating all of the dry goods in it, but leaving the entrée for later. After the humiliating experience of licking crushed crackers and dehydrated fruit off the ground, he started to work on the handcuffs. Working the double lock gave him the most trouble, because he hadn’t practiced picking one of those in college. He knew enough about the mechanism, though, that eventually he got it. He was sure it took him at least an hour of fiddling about, dropping and needing to recover the pick, and learning to feel out the mechanism before he was able to get it. Once he got that, picking the primary lock only took a couple of minutes, and he had one of his hands free.

  Bill left the other wrist cuffed and went for his ankles. Another hour or so, by his guess, and he had freed both. Once he was able to move about freely, he took a couple of minutes to devour the rest of his MRE. Fed and free from his restraints, blood flowing into his limbs, Bill knew he was still terribly weakened by what he’d just gone through, but the change in his situation, the control he suddenly had over his immediate future, filled him with life and vitality like he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  A good part of that energy was a hefty dose of anger. While he’d been chained, he needed to keep his anger at a low simmer. He needed it to give him enough heat to sustain his resistance, to power his resolve, to focus. Now that he was no longer chained down, Bill was able to let it flare up a bit more. Not so much that he’d get stupid, but enough to let himself want to do bad things.

  Bill took the time to undo the last cuff and took an inventory. He was wearing nothing but a filthy shirt and socks. He had two pair of handcuffs in his possession, and a few odds and ends from his MRE at hand. He remembered his original plan for the instant coffee and picked that packet out of the pouch.

  The whole time Bill had been shaping his pick and undoing his cuffs, he’d been repeating a little song he’d made up. The number of steps he’d taken and the turns between the first and second pipes he’d been shackled to. He reversed the order of it and got to what he figured was halfway down the main passage through the turbine room. In the distance, back the way he’d been taken from, he could see a diffuse glow of light. He figured those were the workmen that Benton had mentioned needing to bring over to where he’d originally been held.

  It was a big risk, but Bill decided to go for a look. He followed the glow for what were about the right number of steps to the first turn, and saw three guys huddled around a control panel, working on something by the light of a white gas camping lantern. With all the background noise, Bill knew he could get close without being heard, but wasn’t so sure about not being seen. They seemed pretty absorbed in the work they were doing, and he figured that if they did catch sight of him, he could take the chance on asking them for help. But if he didn’t need to interact with them, all the better.

  Because off to one side of the light, there was an open toolbox. That was what Bill had his eyes on. He crept over to a bank of equipment and pressed himself as tight to it as he could. Step by step, he crept closer until he felt he was at the edge of where he’d be seen if any of the workmen looked towards him, then ducked behind another cabinet and waited. After a while, he saw, by barely peeking around the edge of the cabinet, the men stop what they were doing and lay something out on the ground where they could get a good look at it. After what seemed like an interminable amount of time messing around with it, they finally picked it up and went back to the console it had been in. That was Bill’s opportunity. As soon as all three men had their backs turned, he ran for the toolbox and pulled out the first two things he saw – a big, adjustable wrench and a screwdriver. Not the best weapons, but better than nothing.

  He retraced his steps back towards where he thought the middle of the main passage was, crouched down, and prayed that his best guess as to his situation was correct. A long time later, he got at least partial confirmation, when he saw the distant light start to waver. A little bit after that, he saw the lantern itself, and by its light, the three workmen. Bill made himself small in a little nook and watched. Not thirty feet from where he was, they turned right, up a short flight of steps, and they opened a door.

  As soon as the door closed, Bill felt his way along, looking for the steps. If his assumption was correct, Benton wasn’t coming in to torture him while the workmen were in the room. The next time that door opened, it should be Benton and one of his pet MPs.

  Chapter 8

  Because Cole was still so worked up, he took first shift on watch after he, Jenny, and Sally found a good vantage point. There was not much to do or see for those first few hours. It looked like there were some bamboo outdoor torches lit in a few places down below around the dam, but that was just about it. Using the scope on his rifle, he’d try to make out any details, but the best he got was the occasional silhouette of somebody passing a torch. When the sky started to noticeable lighten to the east, he realized that he’d put his nervous energy to good use by keeping watch over the least interesting hours and woke up Jenny.

  Together, they had breakfast while she woke up and he finally let physical exhaustion from the long march of the day before catch up with him so he could get some sleep. Jenny traded the shotgun for Cole’s rifle, so she could also use the scope to start getting a solid look at the camp. The morning shift change seemed to confirm Danny Wilkerson’s guess of the number of people interned and guarding the camp. She saw a group of men in coveralls walk from one of the buildings towards the door into the power house of the dam under an escort from two soldiers. She could see MP armbands and markings on the soldiers’ helmets. From having grown up with a Marine officer in the house, she guessed the MPs were active duty soldiers, and that the rest of the men she saw were National Guard, based on their bearing and the way them moved.

  She remembered to keep an eye on the motor pool as well and saw that two of the five vehicles down there got some attention in the morning. All this information she passed on to Jenny when it was her turn to take over the watch.

  By mid-afternoon, the three had a good set of notes on the routines of the camp. They had all gotten sight of the man in the green beret moving around and noticed that one of the MPs seemed to be his right-hand, and everybody else gave him wide berth.

  At a little after four, two MPs went to the dam’s power house and escorted the three workmen back to the building they’d left that morning. Shortly afterwards, the Green Beret and his pet MP went into the power house.

  Chapter 9

  Bill had set himself up next to the stairs that led to the door out of the turbine room. He’d carefully tried the knob already, and found the door locked. The landing at the top of the stairs didn’t seem wide enough for him to get far enough to the side of the door to not be seen by anybody opening it and coming through, so he needed to get somewhere close to the door where he could remain hidden. Knowing Benton would be turning to the right at the bottom of the stairs, Bill was over to the left.

  He didn’t have to wait long before the door opened. He shut one eye and forced himself to remain stock still. Surprise was the only advantage he had in the situation. Of the two men he assumed were coming through the door, he had to assume Benton was the more dangerous of the two.

  An MP stepped through the door first, Bill flattened himself up against the wall as hard as he could, not even daring to breathe. From the corner of his eye, he allowed himself one quick glance past the MP into the sliver of what he could see of the world beyond the door. It looked like another large room full of mechanical and electronic equipment. With that little bit of information, Bill put his eyes back on the MP. He had a flashlight in his hand,
with a red light filter on it. Major Benton followed right behind. Once the door shut and the room was in darkness again, Bill switched which eye was open, to use the one that still had its night vision unspoiled. The beam of the flashlight gave him more than enough light to see, and with so much din, Bill was able to get real close, unheard, and bash the wrench into the side of Benton’s skull.

  Knowing he didn’t have time to savor the moment, Bill shoved Benton to the side and took a swing at the MP. The wrench impacted his helmet, knocking the soldier to the side and sending the flashlight clattering to the floor. Bill could barely make out the man going for his holstered pistol. The best thing to do was keep that from happening, so he launched at the man, ducking down a little as he did so. He wrapped the MP in a bear hug, his weight hitting the man in the lower ribs and lifting him up while also pushing him back.

  As they both went to the ground, Bill on top, he put all of his concentration in keeping a death grip on the MP. The soldier struggled ineffectively for a second before training kicked in, and he started a series of twists that would quickly break him free. Bill knew the trick and how he should have countered it but didn’t have the strength to resist. He did still have the screwdriver in his left hand. Just as the MP broke out of the bear hug, Bill let his left arm fly wide, which he turned into a backswing to give power to a desperate stab with the screwdriver. It hit the MP in the chest and while it didn’t penetrate as well as a sharp knife would have, it caused damage and pain. In the split second of surprise, Bill pulled the screwdriver out, put his right hand on his left, and drove it down with his full body weight behind it. This second blow went in deep, and the MP’s struggles became tortured convulsions. Knowing he’d made a deep puncture, Bill did the one thing you’re never supposed to do in that situation if you’re trying to save a life. He pulled the screwdriver out of the man’s chest, so the blood could flow freely.