THE ALEX FLETCHER BOXSET: Books 1-5

by Steven Konkoly

  “Kate?” he yelled.

  “Yeah?” she replied from the kitchen.

  “Is the sink backed up in there?”

  “Sort of. It’s filled with mud, but I’ve managed to clean some of it out. It’s draining really slowly.”

  “How about upstairs?”

  “Everything looked normal up there, like nothing happened,” she said.

  Alex leaned out of the bathroom door. “I think we should restrict our use of the bathrooms to the upstairs, and stop using the toilets at the first sign of a backup. I’m afraid to flush the one down here. The last thing we need is raw sewage in the house.”

  “I’ll let the kids know; then I’m going to start on lunch. I think we can skip the water hoarding. Between the garage and closet, we’ll be leaving most of it behind when we head out,” she said.

  “Yeah, I agree. Sounds like they finished filling the tubs, anyway. That should be enough, just in case something keeps us from leaving.”

  “So Ed’s Jeep works?” she added.

  “Apparently. It’ll get us to Boston a hell of a lot quicker than biking down,” said Alex.

  “Why don’t we ferry the rest of the group back and forth to Limerick? I don’t know about leading a group of nine women and kids on bikes through this crap,” said Kate.

  “Once you get a mile or two inland, you’ll be on dry pavement,” said Alex.

  “Easy for you to say, cruising by in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. You could at least get us to Route 11.”

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Kate. It’ll take at least two round trips if we do it that way. That Jeep will have a big bull’s-eye on it wherever it goes. We can’t have it repeatedly cruising back and forth through Scarborough, or any towns, for that matter. We especially can’t bring it back here. The neighbors will be all over us. Once that Jeep drives out of the garage, it can’t come back. Which reminds me, before we leave, we have to sanitize the house of any information that could lead people out to Limerick, or we’ll have a refugee camp on our hands.”

  “Could you turn any of these people away if they showed up out there?” Kate asked.

  “No, but I don’t plan on making it easy for them to find us.”

  Kate flashed him an annoyed look, which he could live with for now. He crossed the sludge-covered floor to the small study that Kate and Alex used as a temporary refuge from the noise level created by teenagers and the ever-blaring television in the family room. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelf had been emptied of its contents, with the exception of the top shelf, which had stubbornly held onto several overturned picture frames. Hundreds of books lay in various states of damage at the base of the bookshelf, forming a two-foot high, unstable pile of soggy pulp and wilted hardcovers. The brown leather chairs were covered in half-dried filth, one of them home to a mangled, brushed silver lamp and one half of the window’s plantation shutters. He remembered seeing the other white shutter under the bench in the mudroom. He opened the study closet to take his first real inventory. In all likelihood, they wouldn’t need much more than what he could salvage from the closet—aside from the guns, ammunition and a few select gadgets. Actually, this closet was just the “tip of the iceberg.”

  The right side of the closet housed built-in shelves that held a dozen 2.5-gallon jugs of spring water, two 120-serving “grab and go” buckets of freeze-dried vegetables and a black nylon duffel bag filled with twenty military-grade MREs. This stockpile represented more than enough food and water to satisfy the needs of his family during tomorrow’s exodus. He knew that Charlie and Ed kept similar stockpiles on their first floors, so there would be no need to waste time retrieving additional food or water from the basement. Two dark green, metal .50 caliber ammunition cans sat on the top shelf, below the wall’s high-water mark. He pulled both of them down and set them on the antique cherry wood desk against the interior wall of the house.

  He opened the canister marked “EG” to confirm that it had not leaked. From what he could tell by visual examination, the waterproof seal had held as advertised, sparing the electronics gear from any water damage. The converted storage can held two Iridium satellite phones, a handheld GPS plotter, a pair of two-way VHF handheld radios, a handheld radio scanner and three thirty-round .223 AR magazines. He reached deep into the canister to feel for water or moisture. Thankfully, it was bone dry. He pocketed the full AR magazines before closing the canister.

  The second canister, marked “RG,” held each item’s charging kit and adapter, in addition to a folding solar panel, battery power pack and AC inverter. Ziploc bags filled with loose AA and AAA batteries sat at the bottom of the can. He quickly checked for water damage, finding the same result. No leakage.

  Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the individual BOLT (Basic Operations for Limited Time) kits assigned to each member of the family. Stuffed together on the floor to the left of the shelving unit, each rucksack was identified by a strip of duct tape with a name. The mud and water that had reached the ceiling earlier had peeled the tape and faded the lettering, but he still recognized the names. He plucked his pack out of the mud and grunted at the waterlogged weight. They’d have to unpack each kit and scavenge for items they could add to the dry rucksacks hauled out of the sailboat.

  He hoped that the national state of emergency had shut down the court system. There was little doubt in his mind that Kate would present him with divorce papers after riding for thirty-five miles with the “three day” pack on her back. Kate was going to kick his ass when she heard the news, but there was little way around it. The larger, infinitely more comfortable internal frame packs he’d chosen for their BOLT kits wouldn’t dry by tomorrow morning, and their commercial hiking packs were buried under ten feet of water in the basement.

  He carried the MOLLE II rucksack to the kitchen island, and dropped it onto the granite. Kate, who was in the middle of preparing cheese sandwiches on an area of the counter she had cleaned, stared at the pack with a look of disgust. She shook her head.

  “I can’t ride to Limerick with that piece of shit on my back.”

  “It’s smaller than this pack. Might be easier to balance while riding,” offered Alex.

  “No. We can dry these in the sun on the patio. I’m not putting that thing on my back again. Mayonnaise on your sandwich?” she said, displaying her patented “I’m happy” smile.

  “I love you,” he said, unzipping one of the outer sustainment pouches on the pack.

  “Really? Even though I fully blame you for ripping my shoulders up with your crappy backpacks?”

  “Especially after that,” he said, pulling a compressed, lightweight sleeping bag out of the sustainment pouch.

  She eyed the dripping, down-filled ball that once qualified as a sleeping bag.

  “I have a feeling those won’t dry by tomorrow,” she said.

  He shook his head and removed the other item stuffed in the pouch, expanding the grayish, universal camouflage-patterned Gore-Tex sleeping bag shell and shaking the water from it.

  “This is probably all you’ll need if you get stuck overnight. Maybe one of the emergency blankets. I’ll strip the packs down and hang them on what’s left of the deck in the sun,” he said.

  “I’ll have some lunch ready in a few minutes. Sandwiches and canned vegetable soup, plus a bag of barbeque chips that I found in the family room,” she said.

  “Sounds like heaven,” he replied, turning his attention to the basement door.

  He pulled an LED flashlight out of the MOLLE pack and tested it, pleased to find that neither the water nor the EMP had knocked it out of commission. As far as he could tell, most handheld electronics or battery-powered devices continued to function, consistent with the CNI Revised Report’s assessment of the effects of an EMP burst on portable electronics. Then again, the Revised Report seemed to be all over the place in terms of accuracy. The predicted 60% failure rate for automobiles seemed generous at this point. His own observations supported a rate i
n the high nineties.

  Alex opened the door to the basement and flashed the light down the stairwell. The light reflected a Stygian pool that reached the fourth stair from the top and rose above the bottom of the basement ceiling. He extinguished the flashlight and stepped into the stairwell, closing the door behind him. He was immediately cast into absolute darkness and silence. Peaceful, yet suffocating. He let his eyes adjust for a few moments, peering into the water, searching for any sign of light from the basement windows. Nothing. This wasn’t good. He needed a few specialty items locked away in his bunker. Actually, he didn’t really need them, he wanted them. And he wanted them badly enough to consider taking a swim in the blackness beneath him. He opened the door, grateful for the sunlight.

  “The basement is a total loss. Water up to the ceiling. Look at this,” he announced, looking back down into the impenetrable darkness.

  Kate joined him at the door. “I don’t think you should go down there.”

  Alex shut the door. “Who said anything about me taking a swim?”

  “I can tell by the way you’re staring down at the water, like your mind was plotting something that it really shouldn’t.”

  “My night vision gear is down there, along with most of the weapons and ammunition,” said Alex.

  “Uh huh. I thought there was enough ammo in the BOLT kits.”

  He didn’t feel like getting into it with her. She was right, sort of. Each pack held two full, thirty-round AR magazines, in addition to two fifteen-round 9mm magazines for the Heckler and Koch P30C pistol. When you added it to all of the ammunition available in the study closet, it equaled far more than enough to handle a worst-case scenario, “guns blazing” transit from Scarborough to his parents’ farm, but Boston presented a whole new level of shit storm to the equation, and he had no intention of underestimating the level of chaos he might need to navigate to find their children.

  Even his firearm situation was less than optimal given the circumstances. He had a rifle, shotgun and one pistol upstairs, which once again sounded like overkill, but he’d need the rifle and pistol for Boston, leaving Kate with the shotgun. Not exactly the ideal firearm to haul along on a bicycle. He needed to grab his backup AR and a pistol for Emily, some rifle attachments stored in one of several sealed canisters next to the gun safe, ammunition for the rifles and pistols, and his night vision gear. The night vision would provide a significant tactical advantage inside Boston, allowing him to detect and avoid most potentially hazardous human situations.

  “I’ll grab the kids for lunch,” he said.

  Alex removed his shoes once he reached the top of the staircase, wondering why he’d bothered. Judging from the multiple mud prints leading in every direction on the hardwood floor, neither Kate nor the kids had bothered to do the same, and it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. His whole body was still dripping dirty water from their ditch crossing. For tactical reasons, he supposed he should keep them on, especially with the state of uncertainty smothering them from all sides, but he’d already left them at the top of the stairs. He turned left into Emily’s room and found her packing a laundry basket of personal belongings. Small items from what he could tell.

  “You all right, sweetie?”

  “We’re not coming back here, are we, Dad?” she asked, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “Not until it’s safe, which could be a while.”

  He stepped into her room and touched one of her picture collages on the wall near the bedroom door. They’d given her a framed collage of family photos every year on her birthday, starting when she was three. He loved looking at them, though they visually represented how quickly she had changed from a squeaky little girl to a headstrong young woman. They’d have to leave all of this behind, and hope it would still be here when they returned. He turned around with watery eyes and fought not to say anything about the laundry basket of stuff she wouldn’t be able to bring.

  “Mom made some sandwiches. Everyone needs to fuel up on some real food before we get to work this afternoon. We still have a long day ahead of us.”

  “What’s happening out there? I mean, what is this?”

  “Mr. Thornton got a broadcast on his satellite phone. They say that an asteroid broke up over the U.S. and hit the East Coast. I think we got lucky.”

  “I don’t feel lucky,” Emily said, wiping her eyes and walking to the door.

  “I do. I’ve got you and your mom safe. Ethan too. Once we get Ryan back, I’ll be the luckiest man on the planet,” he said, hugging her tightly.

  “You’re the corniest dad on the planet. You said Mom made some real food? What’s the occasion?”

  “Digging on your mom and dad in the face of the apocalypse?” said Alex.

  “You know I love you, Dad. I’ll get Ethan and meet you downstairs,” she said and disappeared.

  He glanced at the laundry basket, wondering if there was any way he could sneak the contents into one of the spare rucksacks and stash it in the Jeep. Not likely, but he might give it a try anyway. Alex ran into Ethan and Emily on the way out of her room.

  “Tell your mother I’ll be right down.”

  Once they had descended the stairs, he hurried into the bedroom and vanished into the darkness of the walk-in closet to change out of his putrid clothes into shorts and a T-shirt for now. His right arm ached as he lifted the shirt over his head. He’d have to tend to this injury immediately after lunch. Losing the effective use of his dominant arm would be a showstopper for Boston. He pushed the pain aside and finished changing. He reached for the bedroom door, but paused, thinking about what Charlie had said. He didn’t expect Chinese paratroopers to drop from the skies, but it couldn’t hurt to be ready for trouble.

  Alex parted the shoulder-level curtain of clothing at the back of the closet and touched the keypad, illuminating the numbers. He’d felt confident that the keypad would function, but had the option of opening the gun safe manually with a hidden key if the electronics had succumbed to the EMP. Alex punched in the eight-digit code on the keypad mounted on the stand-up gun safe, and heard the mechanisms within the door shift.

  He pulled on the handle, activating a small blue LED light within the safe, removed the HK P30 pistol sitting on the shelf above the rifles, and started to move it to his drop-down holster. He stopped, realizing that he’d have to thoroughly clean the holster first. The pistol could wait.

  The rifle emerged next, along with a green polymer thirty-round .223 magazine. He inserted the magazine and rapidly pulled the charging handle, chambering a round. He placed the rifle against the side of the safe and took the MOLLE tactical chest rig from a hook on the back wall. He donned the rig over his clothes and filled the eight magazine pouches with spare rifle magazines from the top shelf of the safe, bringing his immediately available total to twenty magazines, or six hundred rounds. He may not have to dive for the additional .223 ammunition from the basement, which suited him fine.

  He swapped out the two mud-encrusted pistol magazines from his holster rig and replaced them with clean polymer fifteen-round 9mm magazines from the safe. Three additional pistol magazines filled the smaller pouches on the left side of his modular chest rig. A total of six pistol magazines would be more than enough. Standing in his closet, he carried more ammunition than he’d fielded during combat operations in Iraq. Alex closed the safe and picked up the HK416 rifle.

  He ran into Kate at the bottom of the stairs, holding a plateful of sandwiches out to him.

  “We’re already at this point?” she commented, nodding at his gear.

  “We were there as soon as the EMP hit. Eating upstairs?”

  “We could all use a break from the mud. The kids will bring the rest of the food up. I say we clean up and start over. Wash the day off while we still have running water. Lunch once everyone looks and smells human again,” said Kate, handing him the plate.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “I’ll grab one of the coolers from the garage. I put some
beers and sodas in the freezer for now. I’ll dump the drinks and some ice in the cooler and meet you upstairs,” she said.

  “Good. I could use a beer before swimming around the basement,” said Alex.

  “You’re still planning on going down there?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t see any other option, unless you want to ride to Limerick with a shotgun.”

  “No thanks. You still need a shower, by the way—not that I can smell you over myself.”

  “The whole neighborhood is going to smell ten times worse in a few days. This crap isn’t going anywhere,” he said.

  “Good thing we won’t be here.”

  Chapter 11

  EVENT +09:57

  Scarborough, Maine

  Alex sat on the top stair and splashed his feet in the pitch-black water, desperately trying to convince himself that he didn’t need any of the equipment in the basement. He could think of twenty good reasons why he shouldn’t submerge himself in the darkness below, most of them safety related, some of them purely irrational. His overly active imagination had swept the worst sea creatures conceivable two miles inland with the tsunami, to be deposited through the basement window.

  He wore a blue swimsuit, tight-fitting polyester running shirt, and swim fins. A diver’s mask and snorkel, which he’d taken from the boat and stashed in his rucksack, sat on his lap. He’d gotten lucky with that decision. Since the Maine coast wasn’t exactly renowned for its crystal-clear waters, the rest of their snorkeling gear was in the basement, where it waited for a trip to Florida or the Caribbean. They’d always carried at least one snorkeling kit onboard the sailboat for practical reasons. Over the past five years, he’d gone over the side more times than he could count to clean seaweed from the propeller or disentangle a lobster pot line from the rudder.

  His biggest fear was the electricity. What if the grid was restored while he was submerged? He knew this wouldn’t happen, but the thought dogged him. The waterline was well above the breaker box, exposed directly to the house’s external utility feed. He pushed this thought as far away as possible, focusing on the more immediate, tangible challenges he’d face underwater. Breathing always came in at the top of his mental list.