“I will,” Alex said leaning over to kiss his wife on the forehead. “Nothing is going to keep me from getting back to you.” He pulled his wife close to him and hugged her tightly. He did not want to rush the moment, knowing that his return was not guaranteed.
After a minute, Alex and Olivia let go of each other and Alex went to get his things together for the trip. He flipped on his headlamp and went down to the dark basement to retrieve the bike. After carrying it up the stairs, he wheeled it to the front hallway, where he gave it a quick inspection and made sure it had enough air in the tires. He did not use the bike very often, since he usually didn’t have reason to travel far from the neighborhood. The last real trip he made was to visit the Walkers, during the first week after the EMP.
Alex went back to the basement and got his old Kabar knife, which was bigger than the small Mora knife that he usually kept on his belt. The Mora was handy for cleaning game while hunting, since it had a much smaller blade. After removing the smaller knife, he looped the Kabar onto his pistol belt in its place behind the M&P pistol holster. Next, he grabbed one of his small LED flashlights and stuck it in a pouch on the belt beside his shotshell pouch and extra magazines. His headlamp wasn’t waterproof, so he would leave it behind. Besides, he had no plans of alerting anyone to his approach and wouldn’t use the light unless it was absolutely necessary.
Alex then grabbed his poncho that doubled as a tarp, which he often used on hiking trips prior to the EMP. He decided that he wouldn’t use the hood, since the noise of the rain hitting the hood would affect his ability to listen for potential threats and might affect his peripheral vision as well. Instead, he would just use the poncho to cover his body and grabbed a Red Sox baseball cap to keep the rain out of his eyes.
Before returning to the first floor, Alex grabbed a shotgun scabbard that was collecting dust on a shelf in the corner. When Tony gave him the Mossberg 500, he also gave him some accessories with it, but Alex never saw a use for the scabbard before. Even though Alex was already carrying his M&P and a couple of extra magazines, he wanted to take the shotgun with him as well. Alex knew he’d be carrying one of the Walker’s backpacks on the return trip, so he needed another way to carry the shotgun other than having it slung over his shoulder.
Alex then returned to the first floor and worked on mounting the shotgun scabbard to the frame of the bike, using some heavy duty zip ties through the molle webbing on the scabbard. He then removed the sling from the Mossberg and slid the shotgun into the scabbard to see how it fit. When he was finished he tested to see if he could pedal without obstruction. Satisfied with the outcome, Alex put on his poncho and clipped one of his two way radios to his belt, snaking the earpiece up through the neck of the poncho before putting it into his ear.
He pushed the transmit button and radioed Erik to check in.
“Hey Erik, I’m just about to leave. How are you guys doing over there?”
“We’re all packed up and ready to go when you get here,” Erik replied.
“Alright, I’ll see you soon,” Alex said, ending the transmission.
Ready to go, Alex gave his wife a final hug and kiss goodbye.
“I love you,” Alex said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Be safe out there,” Olivia said giving him another concerned look.
“I will,” Alex said before trying to shift the focus to something positive. “Bella is going to flip, when she wakes up and finds Samantha here.”
Olivia smiled at the thought. “They're going to have a lot of fun together. I think Leo will probably flip too, when he meets Nina.”
Alex laughed quietly. “I don’t even want to imagine the trouble those two are going to cause together.”
Alex wheeled the bike out the front door, carried it off the porch and walked it to the end of the driveway as Olivia watched from the doorway. He knew she would watch until he disappeared into the darkness, but he did not look back, trying to avoid letting his emotions distract him from the mission at hand.
He climbed on the bike and rode towards the parkway past the Kim residence, where he could see Tony watching from the window. His friend waved and called down to Alex as he rode by.
“That was some damn good coffee, Stone. Good to the last drop!” Tony said with an annoying smirk plastered across his face, like he was starring in a sick, apocalyptic coffee commercial. Alex shook his head in displeasure, as he rode off into the dark and stormy night.
CHAPTER 6
Alex’s nerves were on edge as soon as he rode off, as evidenced by the awkward feeling in his stomach and bowels, which he was trying to ignore. He hated the thought of stopping to find a safe place to drop a deuce, especially since he didn’t think to bring any toilet paper. Besides, he didn’t have time to waste and just wanted to get to the Walker’s house as quickly as possible.
As Alex reached the end of the parkway, he crossed the River Street bridge that spanned Mother Brook and reflected on the fact that the waterway was a lifesaver for his brother in law and his family, giving them a safe means of travel from their home in Dedham to that very spot where they came ashore at the bridge a little more than three weeks earlier. The reunion with his relatives wasn’t without challenges though and Alex thought about the fact that Erik took it upon himself to leave his own family to help David, Lilliana and Eli, while the Oaktree Lane neighbors were fending off the attack by Frantz’s gang.
That selfless act was typical of Erik, though. He had always put others before himself and was tireless in his efforts to help others. The fact that he went a step further and killed Frantz at the bridge meant that the entire neighborhood was indebted to him, even if he never saw it that way. Where many people acted out of selfish ambition and thought about how they could personally gain from a situation, Erik just wanted to help. That was probably one of the reasons why he and Alex always got along so well. They always had each other’s back and neither one was keeping score.
Alex rode on past the bridge, both annoyed by the rain and grateful that it would reduce the likelihood that he would run into anyone else in the middle of the stormy night. He tried to remain vigilant, though, and thought carefully about his route options. The more direct option would take Alex through an area where he was almost ambushed by a group of teens the last time he visited the Walkers. Luckily the group was not armed and he was able to narrowly escape the hooligans by retreating from his planned route and taking some back streets instead.
Alex approached the intersection where he could take the detour, but he chose to ride on, taking his chances on the main road. When he reached the corner, where the gang of youth had previously been congregated, it was eerily desolate looking. There used to be a couple of homes in the area as well as a pair of small three-story brick apartment buildings. All that was left of the homes were ashes and ruins. The apartment buildings were the only structures left standing, but fires had clearly gutted those as well and there were no doors or windows to speak of. Alex had driven through this area daily on his way to and from work, but he barely recognized the area now.
The landscape in Boston and everywhere else on the East Coast had certainly been devastated by fires in the days that followed the EMP, after the planes plummeted from the skies like bombs, exploding and leveling neighborhoods. But Alex suspected that the devastation to this area was all orchestrated by thugs in the aftermath. One significant piece of evidence was the condition of the cars. He remembered that the street only had a few cars on it, when the EMP hit. The last time he rode his bike by this area, they were still intact and simply appeared to be frozen in time where they were abandoned by their owners. All that was left now were their burnt out frames and they were far enough from the burnt homes and buildings that they couldn’t have all accidentally caught fire.
Alex approached the small bridge that crossed over the commuter rail train tracks and he was reminded of the journey that he and David had from Randolph the day after the EMP. He began wondering about his
friends, Rob and Adam and their families. “God, I hope they are ok. Please keep them safe,” Alex prayed quietly as he pedaled on.
As he began to pass the bridge, his thoughts were interrupted by an overwhelming odor that almost caused him to lose his balance on the bike. Alex swerved hard as he reeled from the smell that forced him to stop momentarily. He pulled the flashlight out of the pouch on his belt and flashed the light to his left, immediately wishing he hadn’t.
Alex saw a number of badly decomposing bodies piled up next to a car parked on the bridge. He could not be sure how many bodies there were and it just appeared to be a mass with random hands, legs and heads sticking out. However, one of the bodies stood out from the rest. It was much smaller than the others and the sight of it shocked his senses, because it was clearly a child. In this fallen world, Alex knew that the fight for resources and survival would cause people to make inhumane choices, but there was just no reason imaginable in his mind that could justify hurting a child.
Alex let the bike fall as he collapsed to his knees and vomited. He felt a cold sweat consume his body and for a moment, he worried that he might black out. He shook off the feeling and forced himself to get up in an attempt to escape from the horrific scene. He continued to dry heave, but managed to get on the bike and began pedaling away as quickly as he could. The further away he got, the fresher the air became, and he suddenly found himself welcoming the cleansing rain as he felt like it was washing the stench of death off of him.
Alex tried to force the thoughts of what he had just witnessed from his mind. Wondering about what happened to those people would only distract him and he needed to regain his focus, in case any threats to his safety remained in the area. He didn’t have far to go from there, so he simply focused on his mental map of the area leading up to the Walker’s house.
A short distance from the bridge of horror, Alex rode past a large industrial park that also housed a couple of popular indoor recreation facilities that his children enjoyed visiting prior to the EMP. Since this section of Hyde Park was sparsely populated with only a few houses in the area, Alex hoped that it had remained lightly inhabited in the aftermath and his trip would continue to be a quiet one.
He soon reached the Dedham town line and, shortly thereafter, approached the steep hill that represented the last obstacle to Alex reaching his friend’s home near the summit of the hill. He hopped off the bike at the base of the hill and began walking alongside it. It was too steep for Alex to ride up and he figured it would be quicker and take less energy to walk up the hill rather than shifting gears and pedaling like crazy.
While he pushed the bike up the hill, he passed a few more homes that had been ravaged by fire.
“At least the friggin pyromaniacs are enjoying the apocalypse.” Alex said to himself.
Fire was one of the threats that Alex was most concerned with when thinking about how to protect his family in their new lawless world. Alex had a few fire extinguishers on each floor in his home, but he knew they would only be helpful with a small fire. Without an effective way to fight it, a large fire had the potential to destroy the family’s home and all of the meager supplies that the Stone family had been able to store and save. Their disaster preparedness plan before the EMP had not been as robust as some of the super preppers on TV. Nonetheless, their resources were helping them to survive more comfortably than most and he hoped to keep it that way, while they lasted.
Even if the Stones somehow lost all of their supplies, though, Alex knew that their home was still a safe and familiar place for his family. The fact that they had been able to remain in their home had spared them some of the psychological distress that would surely be felt if they were ever displaced. This was especially true for Alex’s autistic son, Daniel, who refused to ever sleep anywhere other than his own bed. This rigidity often made it challenging for the family to plan vacations away from home. For the sake of his family, Alex hoped that they would not have to encounter a scenario where they had to find a different place to live, like the Walkers were experiencing.
His thoughts were suddenly cut short by the sound of glass breaking up ahead. Alex found himself exposed on the hill, since there was not much cover between him and the summit. He nervously looked around and tried to formulate a plan.
A long wood fence on his right blocked him from any cover on that side of the road and the hill had a steep drop-off on the left with the only possible cover being a short metal guard rail. Alex couldn’t see the source of the noise yet, so he grabbed the Mossberg from the scabbard, quietly laid down the bike and headed for the guard rail, which he quickly climbed over and squatted down behind.
He heard more loud noises, but didn’t see anything, so he started to creep up the hill on the precipice of the steep muddy slope, trying to keep from losing his balance and tumbling down the side. Alex wished he had thought to wear a pair of his hiking boots, as his running sneakers had no traction and he was struggling to move forward without dropping his slingless shotgun.
When he finally got to a position where he could see over the summit, he was glad to see that the noise was not coming from the Walker’s house, which was diagonally across the road from him. He could see that the front window was broken, as Emma had explained earlier. Otherwise the home looked intact from the outside. While watching and listening, he heard a scream and noticed some movement in front of the house next door to the Walker’s home. He recalled that an elderly couple lived there and knew that Erik frequently checked on them.
Alex suddenly remembered his radio and pushed the transmit button on the earpiece.
“Erik you there? I’m across the street from you and it looks like trouble next door.”
Emma responded a couple of seconds later. “Alex, be careful out there. Erik just went out the back to sneak next door when he heard the commotion, but he didn’t bring a radio. I’m afraid he’s going to get himself killed.”
Alex knew he needed to come up with a plan quickly, but he was not sure what to do. Erik would probably want him to stay with his family to keep them safe, but Alex knew his friend needed backup and was likely outnumbered. For the moment he was frozen with indecision.
CHAPTER 7
“I’m heading over to help Erik,” Alex finally said after what felt like an eternity. “Do you have any weapons?”
“Erik makes me carry one of his guns,” Emma replied.
“Good. Barricade that door and if anyone tries to get in, use it. If we don’t make it back, you wait until it’s quiet and then take Sam and head straight for my house. Don’t take more than your essentials. I didn’t see anyone on the way over and Nina will get you there in one piece.”
Alex tried to sound convincing, but he was not sure about the backup plan. Either way, he needed to move fast and just wanted to make sure Emma knew what to do if something went terribly wrong. He rethought his choice, but knew he needed to help Erik, who was in more immediate danger, leaving his family to fend for themselves.
“Ok, be careful,” Emma said.
Alex quickly crossed the street and headed for his friend’s yard, while crouching as low as he could. A short brick wall separated the Walker’s yard from that of the elderly couple next door, so Alex crouched behind the wall to try and listen for what might be going on inside the house. He could hear angry voices arguing and one particular voice barking orders at the others. He couldn't make out everything over the noise of the rain, but it sounded like they were looking for something and were having trouble finding it.
At that moment, Alex heard a loud noise, like the sound of a door being breached followed by a series of gun shots that erupted inside the house.
Erik reached the kitchen door at the backside of his neighbor’s house. He checked the doorknob with his left hand, while still shouldering his AR15 with his right hand. He was surprised to find that the door was locked, because he knew that his neighbors frequently left both of their doors unlocked. They had apparently heeded some of his warnings a
bout safety in the days after the disaster, which gave him hope that they were somewhere safe in the house.
Erik easily kicked the door in and when he entered the kitchen, a startled stranger turned to face him. The scraggly looking man paused for a moment and then quickly reached for a machete on the counter beside him. Erik hit him center mass with two shots from his rifle and the man fell to the floor with the machete falling beside him. He cried out in pain and Erik shot him a third time in the head. This wasn’t a movie, where people always died instantly from being shot and Erik could not afford to have the bad guy get back into the fight.
His ears were ringing from the shots, but he could still hear movement in the other room, so he took up a defensive position behind the island style counter in the middle of the room.
In the living room, the three men were surprised by the commotion coming from the kitchen. Only one of the men had a firearm with him and he quickly raised the .22 rifle and aimed in the direction of the kitchen and slowly approached the doorway. He had to step over the lifeless body of the elderly woman. Her husband lay just as still in the corner of the room near the front door. As the home invader stepped over her body, he slipped on blood that had begun pooling around the body. He was able to catch himself and continued his slow deliberate movement towards the kitchen.
When he reached the door, the man peeked quickly into the room, but did not immediately see Erik behind the countertop. Erik fired a succession of shots towards the corner that was shielding the man. One of the shots went through the drywall and hit the man in the hip, causing him to fall backward. He cried out in pain, as he became acutely aware of the burning sensation in his side. He floundered beside the body of his victim and his blood began to mingle with hers in the growing puddle on the floor. Despite the panic he was beginning to feel from his injury, he tried to keep his wits about him. He was the leader of this group, mainly because he was the one with the gun, and he was not going down without a fight.
The Power Struggle Series (Book 2): The Downward Spiral Page 5
