By the Dawn's Early Light

by David Kershner

  “That’ll fill this beast up,” Carlton replied as he pulled the hood halfway down. “Gimme a hand pushing this thing out of here. Let’s try and give’r a jump.”

  With air in the tires, it only took minimal effort to push it far enough out. While Emily’s husband was putting the F-150 into gear, the corpsman went back into the garage and retrieved the ether and cables. Juan’s truck was pulled alongside.

  As he attached and grounded the jumper cable, Gregg busied himself by pouring a gallon of gas in the tank. He wasn’t about to dump a full can into something that might not even start. While he did that, he asked, “Did you guys find anything else useful?”

  “Sam found his old double barrel ten gauge shotgun in the back of a closet along with a big ass muzzleloader.”

  Gregg whistled at the proclamation. “.50 cal?”

  The man nodded.

  “There’s a man’s gun for ya,” he declared. “Were there any shells for the shotgun? Primers, powder pellets, and rounds?”

  “Yeah, all of that stuff was sitting on the shelf. Miss Jenny might rest a little easier knowing it didn’t wind up in some strung out gangbangers hands,” Carlton answered. “Hop in and try and start it. Let’s see if all of this oil and grease on my dress uniform was worth it. I’ll hit the carburetor with the ether just to be sure.”

  Gregg climbed in and the old shocks creaked under his weight. Out of habit, he put his foot on the brake so he could attempt to turn the key. Idiot, he thought and shifted over to the accelerator so he could give it gas if it happened to spin.

  When he turned the key, Carlton gave the carb a quick shot of ether. Beneath him in the cavernous engine cavity he could see the starter belt jump into action and begin the herculean effort of turning the crankshaft. It didn’t start, but all least they had juice flowing through the system. He tried a few more times. Each time he rotated the key, he could tell that it wanted to turn over. He could hear the engine become more and more powerful with each revolution.

  After several unsuccessful attempts, Carlton came around to the open passenger window and asked, “What do you want to do? I’m not a mechanic so I’m out of ideas.”

  “Let’s leave the cables on for a few minutes, put a charge on the battery, then we’ll give it another shot. This bitch wants to run… I know it does.”

  “Wait, lemme try something,” he said as he turned and took a seat in Juan’s truck and revved its engine a few times. After a couple throaty roars, he let it come back down to idle. He repeated the procedure two more times. Once he was finished, he returned to the F-150.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Beats me. I always see the old timers do it so I figured I’d give it a try. Hit it again.”

  The man shrugged and turned the key. The 351 modified big block engine coughed once then rumbled to life. Gregg slowly began depressing the accelerator as black acrid smoke began billowing out of the dual tailpipes. Every time he mashed on the pedal, the frame rocked side to side from the torque.

  “What’s going on out here,” came an elderly voice from out in the darkness.

  He quickly shut it down, exited the truck, and pulled his Glock. “Who goes there?” the Corpsman asked in a commanding tone.

  “Carlton? Are you in there?”

  “Mr. Barrington?” he answered.

  “Thank Heavens! I thought it was a home invasion,” the neighbor said in relief. “You finally got that thing working?”

  “Oh yeah, she’s just purring like a kitten,” he replied calmingly. “Everything alright over there with you two?”

  “We’re doing just fine. She’s madder than a hornet that she couldn’t watch her game shows, but we’re doing good. How’s Miss Jenny doing? Is she okay? I didn’t see her out and about today.”

  Gregg heard their new medic say ‘damn’ under his breath. This guy’s with the program. He knows we can’t take everyone with us.

  “Oh, you know her, already turned in for the evening. She said me and my mechanic friend could tinker on Mr. Jerome’s old truck. I was thinking about buying it from her. Sorry if we woke you.”

  “It’s no bother. I’m just glad it was you and not some of those damn hoodlums. Have a good night.”

  “You too, Mr. Barrington.”

  The pair watched as the elderly neighbor shuffled down the street and entered his house. The soft glow of the moonlight glinted across the long barrel of his .44 Magnum as he swung the storm door open. They both swallowed hard. Neither had realized the man was armed with the hand cannon.

  “Damn, that was close. Let’s put these things in there and lock it up. I’ll take the first watch. Get yourself cleaned up and grab something to eat. We’ll swing by your place and grab your stuff at sunup.”

  The pair split up, started both trucks, and slowly pulled them into the out building. Gregg let the Ford run for a few minutes to try and put a charge on the battery. If push came to shove, they could jump it again in the morning. Thankfully though, the structure was more akin to a small barn than a garage, so there was plenty of room for both.

  Once the door was closed and relocked, he asked Carlton, “Why didn’t you say anything to the old man?”

  “Wasn’t much point. Both of them are Type I diabetics and she’s practically home bound. If they’re lucky, they might make it a month or so depending on the amount insulin they have.”

  * * *

  Josh backed the deuce into his friend Bryan’s driveway until the rear end was next to the gate for the backyard, then he killed the diesel behemoth’s engine. Before he doused the lights, he took in the sight of the empty lot where he and Amanda had shared a home and shook his head. It was nothing but a bare patch of dirt now.

  “Thirty minutes and we’re out of here,” Josh decreed to Sarkes and Agent Monahan as he exited the cab and stepped down onto the asphalt driveway.

  Before he even had a chance to knock on the door, Bryan was standing on the stoop holding it open. “I figured I’d be seeing you again. Come on in. Kristin and I are just about packed.”

  “What? Are you guys playing house now?” his old friend asked as he entered the dimly lit family room.

  All of the blinds were closed, but the battery powered Coleman lantern was on low. It managed to illuminate a space that didn’t look all that dissimilar from the last time he’d been in the home, almost a decade earlier. The chief difference in the layout was extremely noticeable. The love seat had been pushed to the other side and was replaced by a building pile of toolboxes and electrician gear.

  “What the hell is all of this?”

  “Hi, Josh,” Kristin said cheerfully as she came down the stairs with a suitcase in each hand. “We knew you wouldn’t leave us to rot in this affluent target of a suburb. When the alarm didn’t go off this morning and the cars didn’t start, we started packing instead of panicking.”

  “Uh huh,” he responded as he crouched down and began picking mother boards, circuits, and testers off of the well-formed debris pile by the back door.

  “Well, get a move on. Ya’ll have thirty minutes and the clocks ticking. I’ve got a Secret Service Agent that thinks this was a bad idea and a nervous ex-President waiting in the cab.”

  “Really?” Bryan asked. “The President is in the truck? Wait. Sarkes or Rayburn or that socialist excuse for a Commander in Chief?”

  “Sarkes. Now quit yapping and start packing this crap up. We gotta go before the gangbangers get bored downtown.”

  “Oh, we’ve got more to worry about than those idiots. According to the chatter I heard on my HAM, the British have seized the Federal Reserve building up in Cleveland. They been emptying the vaults all day and loading it on their ship. I tried reaching you, but you weren’t on.”

  “Mine’s still locked up and protected. How’d you manage to keep yours up and running?”

  “Please, I’m an electrical engineer. After your last little visit, you didn’t have to tell me twice. I started swapping out parts and building a
Faraday cage the minute you pulled out of the driveway,” Bryan answered.

  “Pretty smart guy. I knew I always liked you,” he provided sarcastically. “As for Cleveland, we already knew all about it.”

  Kristin and Bryan’s eyebrows shot up curiously.

  “Sarkes has been in contact with Rayburn so there isn’t much we don’t know about the Treasury building. That area is a burning wreck. The troops they had in place held for a couple hours, but then the British offloaded their heavy machinery and it was a slaughter.” Josh then shifted the conversation to something they could control. “What about your boys? Were you able to warn them and get them out of Houston and New York?”

  “I contacted them via email and told them to start getting someplace safe. Peter landed back in the US a few weeks ago. He’s with his mother in Sedona. George is with friends at a ranch in north Texas, and Callen’s with his girlfriend and her family in western Pennsylvania.”

  Josh nodded and pointed at the pile. “So what’s all of this?”

  “That,” he replied as he approached the hardware, “Is all of the stuff from my trunk and basement. I figured we might need to build some communication devices in order to distribute them to friends and neighbors... like the French during WWII. If I know anything, there’s going to be a resistance and I’m guessing you’ll be right in the middle of it.”

  His friend sheepishly shrugged. “Yeah well, I’ve kind of grown accustomed to my freedom.”

  “Josh!” Agent Monahan yelled from outside. “You better come out here!”

  The three quickly exited the house to see the driveway filling up with former neighbors.

  “Uh oh,” Bryan said as he cleared the end of the parked behemoth and saw the phalanx of flashlights dancing on his driveway.

  “Who’s truck is this? Where are you headed?” a man asked in a cordial, but distressed tone.

  From behind him, his old neighbor stepped out and replied, “It’s mine.”

  “Simmons? Where did you come from? Where’d you get this?” the neighbor wondered as he directed his beam.

  “You don’t need to concern yourself with that right now, Tim,” Josh answered bluntly. As the crowd grew deeper, he knew these curious onlookers weren’t going to just up and disappear without a satisfactory bit of information.

  As a result, he hopped up on the front bumper of the deuce and addressed the gathering mass. “Listen folks, I know you’re confused and seeing a running vehicle is just adding to it. I’m will tell you what happened and then I want you to disperse and decide what is best for you and your family.”

  Josh quickly leaned down and grabbed Bryan’s shoulder. Quietly he whispered, “You and Kristin head into the house. I’ll keep their attention on me. Load as much of your stuff into the back in the next five minutes. Go!”

  Bryan grabbed Kristin’s hand. “Let’s move,” he said and the pair discreetly disappeared behind the deuce.

  “First, I see a lot faces that I know, but there are some new ones as well. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Josh Simmons and I used to live right there,” he began and pointed to the barren patch of dirt across the street. “What I am about to tell you is likely to produce several reactions. Some of you won’t believe me. That’s natural. Some might be upset while others will become incredibly angry. Regardless, I’m not going to lie to you. However, I’m a rip the band-aid off kind of guy so it won’t be sugar coated either.

  “On December twenty fourth, the plane that crashed through your suburb was brought down by Iranian terrorists using something called a portable EMP device.” Josh said this even though it had no real bearing on their current predicament. This statement wasn’t for anything more than shock value, an attention getter. It was merely a piece of information that each of the assembled could quickly relate too.

  “At 5:30 this morning, these same terrorists detonated a nuclear missile above the continental United States. The resulting electromagnetic pulse destroyed most, if not all, of our electrical and communication infrastructure. That means water, phone, power, gas... everything you knew, or that you thought defined your reality, has changed. We are going to have to reinvent this country from the ground up starting at a Pre-Industrial Revolution point in time. On the plus side, any debt you may have incurred has now been wiped clean. Sadly, any savings you squirreled away in retirement accounts has also been taken out. What you do from here on out, is entirely up to you.”

  There were several muted conversations starting, but the grumbling could be heard.

  “Listen folks, let me finish. Given the wide scale nature of the EMP, I would not expect that any of the services you have grown accustomed to will be returned in the next nine to twelve months. That’s a best case scenario. Now, knowing this, each of you is faced with a decision.”

  “What choice could we possibly have?” a man shouted from the back of the crowd.

  “I’m getting to that. Please be patient. As I see it, this neighborhood has two choices. You can stay here in the relative comfort of your homes. However, spring isn’t going to be here for a few more months so heat and food will be scarce.”

  Josh didn’t want to ‘out’ anyone that may have stockpiled anything so he left his previous comment where it stood.

  “Given that, I would recommend that families start doubling up in order to share resources.

  “Also, at some point, you may be forced to defend what you have from roving gangs and marauders. If you opt for this, if you intend to stay, you need to begin planning your defenses, blocking access to the neighborhood, figuring out who owns what, and who needs what.”

  “What’s the alternative, Josh,” Tim demanded angrily from the front of the crowd.

  “The other option is to flee. If you have an older car, it might still run. If you have bikes, pull behinds carriers, wagons, a jog stroller even, I recommend that you utilize these –,”

  “Why can’t we just ride with you?” a panicked mother asked with a toddler on her hip.

  “Ma’am, we are unable to provide this type of assistance at this time. Believe me when I tell you that you do not want your children in this vehicle. All I am able to offer you now is information,” Josh replied.

  “Why not? What’s in the truck?” came from the back of the crowd. “You said you weren’t going to lie to us, but you won’t answer a simple question?”

  He sighed and mumbled, ‘You’re an idiot’, under his breath. “You’re right, I did. Currently, this vehicle is loaded with extra ordnance. These munitions are live and I cannot, and I will not allow any of you or your children to ride in the back until it is unloaded.”

  “What do you want us to do, Josh?”

  I know that voice. “Bob, is that you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s me. We’ll catch up later. Why the bikes? What do you have in mind?” the man replied.

  “Those of you that decide to flee, I am recommending that you utilize any and all forms of transportation that are available and strap on enough food, water, clothing, and any weapons that you might have. Use these means of transport to lessen your load. You’ll make it further faster if you reduce the physical burden of having to carry some, or all of it.”

  “Where do we go? What are we fleeing from? I mean, really? This all just sounds like a bunch of Fox News scare tactics,” a woman’s voice he didn’t recognize offered.

  There were nods and laughs emanating from the audience.

  “Oh, shut up you liberal hack!” someone barked at her. “You and your left wing socialist Nazi’s flushed this country right down the crapper! If the idiots in Washington had protected the grid when they had the chance we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead, they created a hand-out dependent nanny state while the Islamists were re-arming and re-grouping!”

  “Whoa! Whoa! Everyone just calm down,” Josh proclaimed as he raised his hands. “The people that did this want us to behave in exactly this manner. They need you turn on one another to succeed,” he stated
then paused. He audibly sighed at the fact that he was actually going to have to spell it out for them.

  “Ma’am, I don’t know you, but some of your neighbors here do. They can attest to what I am about to say. A number of years ago, both of my daughters were abducted during a home invasion. They were held prisoner for several days, drugged, and then raped. This event took place when we had a functioning judicial system and rule of law.

  “What do you think is going to happen to you and your’s when the public servants don’t report for work because they have to protect their family? There’s no police force, no fire, or EMS to call in an emergency. On top of that, when the medications for the psychotic, depressed, schizophrenic, and bi-polar run out, how’s that gonna go?”

  The color drained out of her face as well as a number of others.

  Josh paused and surveyed the crowd. Their stance coupled with the demoralized gazing at their feet said they were starting to understand. “How many of you are Buckeye fans?”

  Just about every hand went up.

  “Okay. Less than a mile from here are over fifty five thousand college students. In about three days, those that weren’t smart enough to get as far away from campus and the downtown area as possible, are going to come looking for food. Where do you think they’ll head first? I don’t know about you, but I can’t hold off their offensive line on my best day.”

  Many of the residents had season tickets to the OSU football and basketball games or graduated from the school and were avid supporters. Hitting them where they lived only served to drive his point home regarding just how vulnerable they truly were.

  For any last minute doubters, Josh added, “The suburb of Upper Arlington was a target long before the power went out. When the gangbangers get bored tearing up high rises or run low on supplies, they’ll head this way make no mistake. Towns like Bexley, Victorian Village, Grandview, and German Village too. All of these suburbs are perceived to be affluent and they will be targets.”

  “Listen folks, I’m not here to scare you into doing one thing or another. I am presenting fact and then leaving the decision up to you. However, to answer your question, Lake Hope State Park is currently being prepared to receive refugees. Those of you that choose to flee should head there. If you have an alternate location with family or friends outside of the cities and suburbs, then you might consider heading there. Does anyone need to know how to get to the park?”