Survival EMP Box Set | Books 1-4

by Lopez, Rob

  The gallant knight, however, was nowhere in sight.

  “What’s it going to take to make this man fight?” mused Connors.

  “You’re wasting your time,” said Fick. “And if you don’t act now, you’re going to lose your bait.”

  For a cantankerous old has-been, Eagleburger fought well, and Lauren continued to teeter on the edge in spite of the best efforts of Barbara and her clan. One of Eagleburger’s deputies struggled to get through the crowd to help his superior and got involved in another scuffle as the onlookers closed ranks against him.

  “Barbara sure knows how to attract enough people to raise hell,” said Connors. “But you’re right, it was a wasted effort. Still, we might be able to salvage something from this mess. You wait here.”

  Leaving the office, Connors walked down the hall to another room where Governor Jeffries stood at the window, also watching the spectacle in the park.

  “You have to stop this,” said Jeffries. “It’s barbaric.”

  “It’s out of my hands, I’m afraid,” said Connors, joining him at the window. “This is a civil matter, and it’s out of my jurisdiction.”

  “But this is anarchy.”

  “Sure seems that way,” said Connors, watching as Eagleburger’s gun was wrestled from his grip. “Doesn’t look like the sheriff is able to keep order in his own town. I’d say he’s out of his league with people like that.”

  “Do something!”

  “Pains me to say it, Governor, but the solution is in your hands, not mine.” Connors pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “You need to call out the national guard. It’s your call.”

  Jeffries took the paper and read the handwritten statement. “Martial law?” he said. “In the city?”

  “You’re the only one who can authorize it.”

  Jeffries studied the sheet. “There’s no end date on this.”

  “That’ll be for you to decide, not me. Until then, we’ve got a problem that needs solving. Seems to me that folks have become more feral than we anticipated. Can’t have a functioning democracy with that kind of raw material.”

  Jeffries hesitated. “I never thought I’d have to order soldiers onto the streets.”

  “Me neither, but it is what it is.”

  Jeffries stared at the paper for a moment, then grabbed a pen and dashed his signature onto it. “Now, restore order,” he said, handing the sheet over to Connors.

  “Will do,” said Connors, folding the sheet carefully and putting it in his pocket. “Oh, and you might want to sign another order, postponing the hanging until further notice.”

  “Yes, now go. Hurry.”

  Connors left the office and rejoined Fick.

  “Okay, break it up,” ordered Connors.

  Fick opened the window, pulled a flare pistol from his armored vest and fired it, the red flare arcing high over the city.

  Upturned faces in the crowd around the scaffold watched its progress, wondering what it might mean, then the sound of galloping hoofs echoed in the downtown streets.

  *

  From the gabled window of a loft apartment over an abandoned restaurant, Rick watched the flare. From his position, he had a distant view of the scaffold in Pack Square Park. What he didn’t have was a clear target of whoever was trying to hang his wife, even through a sniper scope.

  He witnessed the arrival of Leon and Taft, the two Special-Forces veterans charging their horses into the crowd, using their mounts to force bodies out of the way. Two convoys of vehicles followed in their wake, militiamen leaping out of the cars and leveling their weapons at the mob. Leon reared his horse, scattering bewildered onlookers, and rode forward to the scaffold. Standing on his stirrups, he cut the rope and dragged Lauren onto his horse, backing away. Taft fired shots into the air and rode around Leon, completing the rout of the crowd.

  Rick lowered his rifle. The formerly deserted streets filled with arriving militia, and he shrank back from the window. He watched Leon carry his wife over to the courthouse, where Fick was waiting. He saw how Lauren was lowered down and helped to walk.

  She was okay.

  For the moment.

  Now he had to wait until night to sneak back out of the city.

  5

  Josh woke instantly from a light sleep, eyes wide open and checking his surroundings.

  There was a time when he used to have problems waking up. Like a typical teenager, he’d stay sleepy and groggy for hours after waking, slipping back into sleep at every opportunity. On school days, his mom had to wake him several times, getting more insistent and then angry when he wouldn’t leap out of bed like a newborn lamb. On weekends, well, there was little reason to get up, and he could easily sleep through half the day until hunger compelled him to drag his ass into the kitchen, and even then he’d spend the rest of the day in a somnambulist haze, snacking and playing computer games.

  Those days were gone, and while sometimes he missed them, most times he didn’t. His early teen years, or at least what he considered his teen years since the age of ten, were a blur of nothingness, and he realized he’d wasted a lot of time hibernating in his insular world. It took the cold shower of the solar storm to wake him from that, and now every second was precious.

  In the mountains, the morning chill was still cold enough to bite, but it was getting noticeably less each day. That was another change for Josh. For the first time, he noticed the seasons as they passed. The bitter days of winter were behind them, and the coming of spring was tangible. Not just in the warmth, but the smell of new growth in the woods. The dawn sun slanted almost horizontally through the trees, casting a grid shadow on the forest floor, and the birds sang loudly, looking for mates to make babies with. The renewal of the new year was bursting out of the ground and in the air, and clouds of insects were making their return. Squirrels bounded afresh along the branches above, and that meant one thing to Josh: it was time to hunt.

  Casting off his blankets, he sat up, putting his hand to his Ruger .22 rifle. The weapon had become part of him now, and lay at his side when he slept. It was covered in morning dew, and he took an oiled cloth from his jacket pocket and wiped the blued metal to keep it from rusting. Reminding himself to get a protective cover for it one day, he removed the magazine, opened the breech, inserted a bore snake and cleaned the rifle’s bore. When he was done he inserted the magazine, cycled a round into the breech and checked his safety was on.

  The next important part of his routine was to change his socks. The ones he was wearing were still a little damp from his trek through the mountains the day before, and he’d been taught the soldier’s drill of looking after his feet. He should have changed them before he went to sleep. Placing the socks on a rock, he put on a dry pair from his pack and laced up his boots. When he had a chance, he’d try to wash the socks and have them dry and ready for tomorrow.

  Nearby, Red poured dirt into the fire pit, extinguishing the embers. He’d prepared breakfast on it while it was still dark, but now it was important not to allow smoke to reveal their position to hostile eyes. Josh hadn’t quite acquired the knack of waking before dawn, so the beans Red passed to him were barely warm. He quickly ate half the plate anyway, then nudged Lizzy awake.

  Cocooned in her blankets, she took a little longer to rouse, but when her bewildered face blinked at the sunlight, she took the plate and spoon and gratefully finished off the rest. She too had changed, reordering her priorities now that home comforts were a thing of the past. She’d covered a lot of miles with Josh the day before, over rough terrain, and he hadn’t heard her complain once.

  Ned rolled up blankets and tied them to packs in preparation for a move. He was a prematurely balding guy whom Josh didn’t know too well, but he took his lead from Red, and seemed fairly easy going. So easy going, in fact, that he looked incongruous when he carried his AR-15, because he looked like he really should be working customer service in an office. His friend Ralph, on the other hand, standing guard a few yards away, might have cl
eaned the windows of the same office. Or collected the trash. But the two got on well, nevertheless.

  Strange as they appeared, the elder Clement was the odd one out, squatting on the ground and brooding with his rifle. He was the only Clement now, his younger brother having died in his arms in the battle of Round Knob, and he’d since been filled with a burning desire to kill every Asheville militiaman he could find. Not that he’d found any yet, and as a card-carrying granola hippy, he had more desire than ability when it came to combat. Or at least, that was Red’s assessment. Clem, as he was now known, had followed Rick and Red, looking to get his revenge, but was bummed by the fact that no one was willing to point him in a direction and let him loose on the enemy. Neither of the others knew what to do with him, and as he didn’t appear amenable to persuasion, they let him tag along.

  This pitiful little group were the only survivors of Round Knob still actively resisting Asheville’s diktat, though as a guerrilla force, they were plainly out of their league. Josh thought they more resembled a group of outlaws, licking their wounds after being whipped by a posse.

  They weren’t led by any old-time train robber, however. They were led by, or simply followed, his father. But nobody knew what his father was looking to achieve.

  “Are we moving out?” asked Josh.

  “Not yet,” replied Red. “He told us he’d be here at dawn. I’ve a mind to wait another hour, but after that we need to go. If he stirs up a hornet’s nest or, worse still, gets caught, then we need to be gone before they send patrols out.”

  “He won’t be caught,” murmured Josh.

  Seeing his father’s mood of late, Josh was convinced Rick would go down fighting. In fact, that may have been his intention all along. It wasn’t rational, but then neither was his father. Not right now.

  Red seemed to understand what Josh was hinting at. “Well, be that as it may,” he said, “we’ve got to think of ourselves. Especially now that you’ve brought your sister along. I don’t know what you were thinking, kid.”

  Josh exchanged a look with Lizzy. “He’s our dad,” he said. “The only family we’ve got left.”

  “And I don’t want to be responsible if anything happens to you guys, so pack your gear. We may have to leave in a hurry.”

  A piercing whistle cut through the trees, and Red motioned Josh to get down. As the others grabbed their rifles and spread out, Josh lay down next to his sister, keeping her protectively behind him as he aimed his rifle into the woods, releasing the safety.

  A tense moment followed and even the birds went silent, and a solitary figure came into view as it climbed the slope.

  It was his father, walking at an easy pace, head down, deep in thought. While the rest of the woods were filled with dappled sunlight, a dark cloud seemed to surround his father. In some ways, Josh found it difficult to recognize who this man was. If he stared at him for long enough, he could believe he was actually someone else. Unshaven and dirty, he had the menacing look of a thug looking for a fight. If he walked into a bar, everybody would likely make way for him while trying at all costs to avoid eye contact. Josh had seen his father angry before, and when he was a child, his dad was basically God, but he’d never seen him like this. There was something cold and unearthly about him, and Josh had a flashback to the moment he witnessed his father slice a man’s throat.

  That was an eye opener, to be sure, but it could be passed off as a momentary lapse. This, however, was something else, even without the action.

  Rick exchanged a curt comment with Ralph and ambled into the camp. He stopped when he caught sight of Josh.

  “What are you doing here?” he growled.

  Red stepped hastily forward. “I brought them,” he said.

  Josh stood up straight to face his father. “That’s not true,” he countered. “We brought ourselves.”

  Red took a breath and turned away with a you’ve-done-it-now-boy look on his face. Rick stared at his son, slightly taken aback by the direct answer.

  “Why?” he said cautiously.

  “To see you,” replied Josh.

  Lizzy took a stand by her brother, wiping bean sauce from her face, and Rick gazed at them both.

  “Anything wrong at Camp Grier?” said Rick.

  “Yes,” said Josh. “You’re not there. Scott’s dying, Dad. Nobody knows what to do.”

  Rick narrowed his eyes. “You dragged your sister all the way here, through the mountains alone?” he said slowly.

  “Yes,” said Josh defiantly.

  “I wanted to come,” added Lizzy.

  Rick exploded. “How can you endanger your sister like that! What the hell were you thinking? What if you ran into trouble on the way, with no one to help you? You’re only twelve!”

  Josh withstood the barrage. “I’m thirteen, Dad. My birthday passed sometime this month, but you missed it. Like all the others.”

  Rick paused, like his son had hit a sore point.

  “I can look after myself,” continued Josh. “You taught me how to shoot. You taught me how to kill. You taught me how to hunt.”

  “And I learned how to hide,” chipped in Lizzy.

  Red and the others stood around the edge of the campsite, unwilling to get involved but unable to completely ignore the unequal standoff.

  “You can’t abandon us, Dad,” stated Josh. “With Mom gone, you’re all we’ve got left.”

  “She’s not gone,” barked Rick suddenly.

  In spite of himself, Josh flinched. “We have a right to know what’s going on,” he stammered. “You can’t just forget about us. We want to know what’s happening. They told us Mom was going to be hanged. If you’re going to get her back, we want to help.”

  Rick’s face twitched. It looked as if he was having trouble controlling his anger, but Josh stood his ground and stared him out.

  “This is no place for you,” hissed Rick.

  “Yes, it is,” said Josh, feeling his own anger build. As the tension built between them, he felt the knot in his stomach harden until it hurt. He’d stepped over the line and he felt vulnerable, expecting his father to strike him at any moment. He’d rehearsed this moment in his mind throughout his journey here, and considered every possible outcome — most of them bad — but he’d come too far to step down. “Wherever you go, we go. We’re your children.”

  “You’re going right back now to where I left you. Red, take them back.”

  “No,” asserted Lizzy, stepping forward. “We won’t go.”

  “Red,” snapped Rick.

  “Nope,” said Red, emboldened by the children’s stand. “I ain’t doing it. They’re your kids. You ought to listen to them.”

  Stupefied by this mutiny, Rick glared at them all, then turned on his heel to storm out of the camp. Josh ran after him.

  “Dad! Where are you going?”

  “Get back to the camp.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Josh had almost caught up with Rick, and was surprised when his father whirled around and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifting him up to eye level.

  “You’ll do as you’re told,” yelled Rick into his son’s face.

  Josh recoiled from the venomous gaze, his toes barely touching the ground. He’d never been handled by his father like this, and it shook him to the core. “Dad,” he stuttered. “This isn’t what Mom would have wanted.”

  The veil of possession dropped from Rick’s face for a moment, and he seemed to realize for the first time what he was doing. Slowly, he lowered his son to the ground.

  “I’ve got to get your mom back,” he said contritely.

  “I know,” said Josh, subdued by the sudden transformation.

  Rick straightened his son’s shirt. “I can’t rest while they’re still holding her.”

  “You can’t get her by yourself, Dad. And we want her back too.”

  Rick looked off into the distance. “There’s too many holding her. I don’t know how we’re going to do it.”

&n
bsp; “What happened, Dad?”

  “It was Connors. He started all this. They tried to hang your mom yesterday, but didn’t. It was a trap. It’s me Connors wants. That’s what all this is about. It’s because of me.”

  “You didn’t do anything. It’s not your fault. If you give yourself up, they’ll kill you, and Mom wouldn’t want that, either.”

  Rick sighed heavily, and Josh could see now that, beneath the anger, his father had been struggling with this choice: his life for Mom’s.

  “Don’t do it, Dad. Don’t give up. You’re better than that.”

  Rick looked at his son. “No, I’m not.”

  “You are. And Connors wants you to give up. But we don’t. And Mom doesn’t, either.”

  “I don’t see that we’ve got a choice.”

  It was Josh’s turn to get angry. “No! You told me to be smart. Now I’m telling you. There has to be a way. And you’ve got to figure it out.”

  Rick looked away again. “I’m not as smart as I thought I was.”

  “But you’re trained for this.”

  “That don’t mean nothing. I still make mistakes.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes, Dad.”

  “Exactly, and I don’t want to make a mistake that will get you or your sister killed. The best way to avoid that is for you both to get back to Camp Grier, keep your heads down and wait for me.”

  “Not going,” said Josh petulantly. “Not without you. Scott needs your help and you need to figure out a better plan to get Mom. We need to figure out a better plan.”

  Rick gazed at his son for a while. He looked weary. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do here right now,” he said.

  “But we can come back, right?” said Josh.

  Rick didn’t answer. With a heavy sigh, he steered his son back into camp.

  “Saddle up,” he told the others. “We’re moving out.”

  “About time,” said Red, grabbing a pack.

  “Are we running away?” said Clem in annoyance. “I want to get those bastards back for what they did to my brother.”