by Bowman, Dave
The three of them set off on foot through the streets again. Jack knew how hard it was for Naomi to leave, but he was glad she had decided to come with them. It wouldn’t have been safe for her to stay behind.
They walked in silence. At least this time, they had a city map to guide them that Naomi had brought from her house.
Jack kept his eyes peeled for any older vehicles, or bicycles, they could take. But so far, there was nothing.
It was starting to get dark. Once they got outside the city, they could look for a place to spend the night.
But where? There seemed like so few places that would be safe. Gone were the days of simply renting a hotel room while traveling. Just like that, the whole world had changed.
They would have to cross four large states. They knew no one along the way.
Traveling on foot, with no way to purchase anything. No law enforcement to protect them. And the world seemed to be full of people who, at best, were cruel or indifferent, and at worst were psychopathic.
It didn’t seem like the odds could be stacked against them any higher.
They crossed the street full of shouting, fighting people. Jack didn’t know what they were arguing about. But it didn’t matter. All around them, the city was in turmoil.
A terrible image flashed through his brain.
He imagined Annie, scared and alone on the street in Austin, fighting her way through crowds, struggling to get home. Or worse, something even more horrific happening to her.
Jack shook his head, clearing the image away. That couldn’t happen to his wife.
She must’ve found a way home by now. Maybe she found a bicycle and was cruising unfettered to their suburban home at that moment. Or even better, maybe she had somehow found a way to their country home.
Either way, Annie had to be safe.
She just had to be.
Jack, Brent, and Naomi trudged on through the dim streets.
“It’s going to be really dark without streetlights,” Brent complained.
“It already is dark,” Naomi said. “It gives me the creeps walking through the city without any lights like this.”
Jack looked down at the map again.
“I figure we’ve got about another couple hours of walking before we’re out of LA proper,” he said. “Then we can start to look for a place to spend the night.”
Naomi groaned. “I have a feeling we’ll be sleeping under a bridge tonight.”
Jack smiled. “Hopefully we can find something better than that.”
But he knew that her prediction might not be that far off. They just didn’t have a lot of options.
If Jack were on his own, he wouldn’t care as much as sleeping conditions. But now that he had two other people to think about, he felt the need to secure relatively comfortable arrangements.
Which wasn’t going to be easy.
“But first things first,” he said. “We’ve got to cover some ground before we can think about sleep.”
“Yeah, we have to walk two more hours,” Brent chimed in. “What a day. I woke up this morning thinking I’d be delivering a foolproof presentation to Harris. I just knew it. I was supposed to be celebrating my big promotion in the hotel bar right about now.”
“Sorry, kid,” Jack offered. “I didn’t plan on any of this either. But aren’t you glad you didn’t stay for that presentation?”
Brent frowned. “Yeah, I am. I guess I never thanked you for getting me out of there. Honestly, I thought you had gone crazy.”
Jack chuckled. “I would’ve thought the same.”
“It just sucks, though,” Brent continued. “Like, a lot. This whole thing. The world is falling apart. And I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now, Naomi.”
Naomi didn’t respond. She just kept walking, but she looked away.
“I mean, how could this have happened?” Brent wondered. “And in multiple cities across the US? If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I never would have –”
Brent stopped talking abruptly. He stopped where he was.
Jack and Naomi stopped moving as well.
A low rumble, almost like thunder, came from the sky.
Everyone turned around toward the direction of the noise and looked up.
A shockingly bright light flashed.
The light blotted out everything.
“Get down!” Jack yelled.
14
The Porsche sped down the street.
Wide-eyed and in shock, Annie looked at Charlotte.
“Who the heck was that?” Charlotte asked.
Annie paused while she caught her breath, jolted from the fright.
“I have no idea,” she panted.
“He sure seemed to know you,” Charlotte said. “It almost seemed like he was the parent of one of your students.”
Annie shrugged. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Dan drove the car through the street at high speeds, sending people rushing out of his way just in time. He smiled at the women crammed in the passenger seat, then returned his eyes to the road.
“That’s not the first time I’ve seen something like that today,” he said.
“You mean someone lunging at you like that?” Annie asked.
Dan shrugged his shoulders. “I mean just general hysteria. People don’t know how to react to the events of the day.”
“That’s for sure,” Charlotte said. “We’ve seen all kinds of insanity today.”
“If someone was a little . . . unstable before the electronics stopped working and the bomb went off, then now they’re just off-kilter,” Dan said.
Annie could agree with that. “The attacks seem to have brought out the worst in everyone.”
“Take this gentleman right here,” Dan said, pointing out a skinny guy running around screaming. He bounced from stranger to stranger, yelling something in each of their faces.
When he heard the vehicle approaching, he threw himself at the passenger window, his hands on the frame.
He looked straight at Annie and shouted, “We’re all going to die!”
“Never mind that,” Dan said as he drove through the street. “I’ll get you two home safe and sound.”
Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are for the ride. Annie and I have been walking through this town for hours.”
Dan glanced at their wet hair. “And swimming, too, from the looks of it.”
He met Annie’s eyes and flashed her another smile.
As Charlotte chatted with him, filling him in on their river crossing, Annie tried to fight back her apprehension.
She didn’t know what it was about Dan that made her uneasy. There was something unsettling about him that made her skin crawl. Ever since the first day she had seen him in the school, she had avoided him.
It’s something about his smile. Something’s not quite right with him. And you can see it in his smile.
But this was not the time to be picky.
As they drove through the streets, the crowd parted to make way for the blue sports car. Annie had to admit it was a relief not to be in those crowds, fighting her way through.
The fast pace of the vehicle was a welcome change from their glacial speed on foot. They had left the Mexican restaurant hours ago, and they still weren’t even halfway home.
Annie scolded herself for being so untrusting.
Don’t be so hard on him. He’s just a nice guy. He can’t help it if he’s a little awkward.
Charlotte and Dan were discussing the EMP and the nuclear attack.
She seems perfectly at ease with him.
See? You’re just being overly cautious.
They approached a man on the street carrying a television under his arm. He whipped his head around to see them. Annie got a glimpse of his wild eyes and a wound on his forehead that was bleeding profusely.
“Give me that car!” he roared.
Dan laughed. “As if I would just hand it ov
er to him.”
But the guy grabbed a handgun from his waistband and aimed it at Dan.
Annie’s heart pounded furiously as she saw him lift the pistol and aim. They were some distance away, but approaching him quickly.
“He’s got a gun!” Charlotte shrieked. “Get down!”
Annie and Charlotte ducked down as low as they could. Dan moved lower in his seat.
“Hang on,” he said, stepping on the gas.
They lurched forward as the car sped up.
The guy pulled the trigger, and a round fired. He missed, but the deafening noise made Annie’s ears ring.
She peered over the dashboard as the guy stumbled backwards from the force of the gun. Then he took aim again.
He fired several more times. Only one of the rounds hit the vehicle, grazing the side of the car.
Annie and Charlotte trembled in the seat as they drew closer to the shooter. The guy was on Dan’s side of the car.
The car windows were already broken, which made Annie feel even more terrified. There was no glass to offer even a little protection.
She looked at Dan as his hands clenched the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white.
His eyes grew round and angry. His pupils dilated.
His rage was driving the car now.
Annie watched his intense concentration as he jerked the steering wheel suddenly to the left. They headed right for the shooter.
The anger in the shooter’s eyes quickly turned to fear.
He dropped the television set and jumped out of the way, diving at the sidewalk.
Dan pulled the steering wheel back to straighten the car out, just barely missing the shooter and a crowd of people.
Annie and Charlotte looked behind them to see the man sprawled out in the sidewalk. He scrambled to grab his gun and started to take aim at the car again, but he gave up. They were already too far away.
The two women looked at each other incredulously.
“I thought we were goners for sure,” Charlotte said, out of breath.
Annie’s hand was on her heart as she collected herself from the fright. Her head was pounding from the deafening noise of the gunshots being fired as they drove past.
Dan sat up straight in his seat. He scowled.
“He hit the car,” Dan grumbled.
“But at least it still runs, right?” Charlotte asked. “That’s the important thing.”
Dan didn’t answer, but he gripped the steering wheel more tightly.
“Anyway, you did a great job,” Charlotte said. “That was a really close call.”
Dan nodded his head begrudgingly. “Yeah, I guess I taught him.”
“For sure,” Charlotte said, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear and smoothing out her skirt. She looked over at Annie briefly.
Annie was exhausted.
Her feet were swollen and painful from getting cut on glass and walking barefoot across the sidewalks. She had been pushed, elbowed, kneed, and trampled on.
Her stomach ached from hunger. Her clothes were still soaking wet from the river.
She was shaken from the past few hours, to say the least.
And now, the clock was ticking for them to get to shelter as soon as possible.
Charlotte crawled into the backseat. Annie sat tensely in her own seat in the front. She leaned her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes.
She wished she could shut out the rest of the world. Instead, she would settle for just a moment of quiet as Dan drove in silence.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that they were finally leaving Central Austin. There were still crowds around them. But the road they drove on opened up and widened, so they could travel a bit faster.
Annie watched the familiar landmarks in the next few blocks blur by.
She had started the day thinking she’d be driving her own vehicle past all this. She had expected to arrive home without incident.
The news from the fertility clinic had been more than enough for her to deal with this week. She thought she’d be spending the evening watching a comedy to cheer herself up.
She had never imagined all this would happen.
Now, she would be lucky if she made it home in one piece.
Up ahead, she saw the street sign indicating the turn to her neighborhood.
She sighed in relief. They would be home soon.
It had only been about ten minutes since the bomb went off. They would make it home in time. Maybe, finally, everything would be all right.
But instead of slowing down for the turn, Dan switched lanes and sped up.
Annie clenched her teeth, and a flash of anxiety swirled through her core.
“Wait!” she said, sitting up in her seat. “You missed the turn to Bee Cave.”
Dan smiled at her. “Don’t worry. My house is closer than yours.”
As they sped through the intersection, Annie turned to look down the road he should have turned on.
“No, no,” she protested. “You said you’d take us to my house!”
Dan held his hand up as if to shush her. “It’s been too long since the bomb went off,” he said calmly. “We’ll never make it to your house in time. You don’t want to be caught in radioactive fallout, do you?”
Annie was speechless.
“But you said – “ she finally sputtered.
“It’ll take more than twenty minutes to get to your neighborhood. Especially having to dodge all the wrecked cars on the road.”
Annie swiveled in her seat to look at Charlotte helplessly. Charlotte threw up her hands futilely, as if to say she sympathized with Annie’s frustration.
“Dan,” Annie started, “we need to go home. To my home.”
“Relax,” he said. “I have a house on the lake. You’ll be more than comfortable there.”
Annie stared at him with a mixture of anger and disappointment. He met her gaze and smiled reassuringly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to deceive you. It was a last-minute call based on the time we have left. I’m just trying to look out for you. I promise.”
What should I do, what should I do?
Annie debated getting out right there. But then where would she go? She wouldn’t make it home in time by foot, and she didn’t see any places around that would let her stay and hide during the fallout period.
And there was another nagging concern: would Dan even stop the car to let her out?
She turned around to look at Charlotte again.
“It’ll be okay, Annie,” Charlotte said, shrugging her narrow shoulders in resignation. “It’s just a couple of days, right? Then Dan will give us a ride home. Right, Dan?”
Dan grinned widely. “Of course.”
Annie turned back around to face the road. She fidgeted with her hands in her lap.
“You’ll like my place,” he offered. “It might even be like a little vacation for you.”
I highly doubt that.
Annie sighed. She gave up.
Getting out of his car at that moment would probably mean eventual death from radiation poisoning. The fallout would arrive within minutes.
There was nothing more to do but go to his house.
I’ll just wait it all out. The fallout, my time with Dan, Jack’s absence. It won’t be fun, but at least I won’t die from the radiation.
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, she found a tiny smile turning up the corners of her mouth.
It was such a ridiculous predicament to be in.
I’m worrying about radioactive fallout. A few hours ago I was worrying about parent-teacher conferences.
What a crazy world.
Dan noticed her demeanor brightening a little.
“That’s the spirit,” he said. “It won’t be so bad. We’ll hunker down for a while. You’ll enjoy the lake views out there, I promise. Then you’ll go home.”
“To my husband,” Annie said pointedly.
“Right, to your husband,” Dan said
without letting his smile falter.
A few hundred feet ahead, the road narrowed. There were abandoned cars lining the side of the road. Dan slowed down to weave his way through them.
Annie drew a sharp breath of air.
A large group of people, maybe twelve or fifteen, stood huddled off to the side. They looked up when they saw the moving vehicle.
Without hesitation, they all ran out to the road.
Within seconds, they had surrounded the Porsche.
Suddenly, their hands were everywhere on the car. Pounding on it, rocking it. Their faces were angry and panicked as they shouted at Dan and the women inside.
“Get out! This car is ours now!”
Dan drove as fast as he could without crashing into the empty cars on the street.
For a moment, he picked up speed and left the crowd behind. But then he had to slow down to drive around a large truck. The truck had crashed into a building and lay sprawled out horizontally across the road.
The group of people caught up to the Porsche again, running up beside it.
“Get them!” they shouted.
A couple of guys ran up on Dan’s side. Dan looked out nervously as he tried to steer around the truck, then an RV that was parked right beside it.
“Grab him!” yelled one of the men.
One man, then the other, reached inside the driver’s side window and grabbed Dan by the shoulders.
In the backseat, Charlotte screamed.
A dark thought crossed Annie’s mind.
We’ll never make it out of here alive.
15
Frank was waiting patiently.
Patience had always been one of his strong suits.
The ability to stay calm in the middle of chaos was another quality that had served him well. First in prison, and now in this new post-EMP world.
In the county correction facility, he had heard some guys talking about something that would disable all electronics. Or most of them, anyway. The government could do it. And enemies of America could, too, by dropping a nuclear bomb.
It didn’t even have to be something as big and complicated as a nuke. People could make some in their backyards. Hell, it could be done by a big solar flare.
What would they do if an EMP went off when they were in prison? Would they be stuck in their cells, left to rot and die there without food or water? Or would there be some way to escape, with the electrical grid down?
