Sudden Chaos

by T. L. Payne

  He jogged faster. His heart raced, and his breaths became gasps. When Erick reached the exit, he turned right onto Euclid. Under the overpass, Erick stopped, bent over and put his hands on his knees. The world was spinning, and he could not get his breathing under control. After taking several deep breaths, his heart rate slowed. He stood upright, removed a bottle of water from his pack and took several long drinks.

  Erick surveyed the scene at the exit as he screwed the lid back onto the bottle. Wrecked cars blocked the exit and motorists stood in the street among the vehicles. Burned out, smoldering cars dotted the landscape. The smell in the air was unlike anything Erick had ever encountered. The smell of burned plastic, fabric, metal, and fuel all mixed together was indescribable.

  Breathing easier in spite of the foul air, Erick stowed the bottle of water and proceeded west on Euclid. Within a few steps, he heard shouts and screams ahead. Erick looked behind him and from side to side. The commotion seemed to be getting louder and coming closer. Looking around again, the only way to avoid the chaos was to go back the way he came, but that would add time to his journey—time his wife and child may not have.

  Erick dropped his pack and removed an oversized zip-up hoodie. He zipped it up and pulled the hood up over his head. He reached in and removed his stainless steel Dan Wesson 1911 in a pancake holster and one additional full magazine. He stuffed the extra mag into his left hoodie pocket. After lifting the hoodie up from his hip, he slid the holster down over his belt, drew the 1911 from the holster, snicked the safety off, and pulled the slide back an inch. Seeing a chambered round, he let the slide go, snicked the safety back on, holstered the weapon, and pulled the hoodie down over it. Erick put the pack back on and continued with both hands in his hoodie pockets and his head down.

  As he approached a convenience store on his right, he could see the disturbance was coming from a parking lot filled with cars and people. A fight had broken out and dozens of young men and women were in an active brawl.

  Erick planned to run past the store and violent activity as quickly as possible. He ran into the street and was weaving in and out of the stalled cars, making his way past the crowd when a young Hispanic man stepped from between two stalled cars and stood directly in Erick’s path. He was dressed in baggy black pants and a white wife-beater T-shirt with a blue bandana around his neck. The only way to avoid the confrontation was to turn and go back around the cars, and he did not want to turn his back to the man.

  “What’s in the backpack, homey?” asked the man.

  Erick slowed and looked around. It didn’t appear that anyone else was approaching him. He considered his options.

  This man likely also had a weapon. If there was a gun battle and Erick survived, the others fighting in the parking lot might take notice and return fire. His chances of escaping unharmed could be low in a gun battle.

  Erick continued walking toward the man.

  “It is just some clothes and stuff for an overnight trip,” Erick said, dropping his shoulder to allow the pack to fall forward as if he would give it to the man. As he did, he reached under his shirt and slowly slid out his knife and kept it between himself and the pack.

  “I have a bottle of water and some energy bars, but nothing of value,” Erick continued as he walked toward the man.

  “How ‘bout your wallet and cell phone then?” the man asked. He stood with his legs apart, and head cocked to one side. His body language said he did not feel threatened.

  “I have a couple hundred dollars, but my cell phone is dead. I’m not sure what happened to it,” Erick said, appearing to reach for his wallet. He was within a few feet of the man by this time. He removed his phone with his left hand and extended it to the man. As the man reached for the phone, Erick raised his right arm and shoved the tip of the knife straight up into the man’s skull between his chin and his neck with all his strength. Erick caught the startled man as he fell backward and let him fall quietly back onto the ground. Adrenaline raced through Erick’s shaking body while he scanned the area to see if anyone had noticed them. The crowd continued to watch the fight in the parking lot.

  “I’m sorry. I need to get home to my family. I couldn’t risk getting hurt,” Erick whispered to the man.

  Erick stepped over him, swung his pack back on, and ran away from the scene as fast as he could.

  Chapter 2

  Erick jogged and fast walked the last five miles home. When he reached his street, he slowed for a moment. Fear gripped him by the throat. He ran down the block to his house, shoved his key into the lock, and called his wife’s name as he threw open the door.

  “Amy? Amy, are you all right?”

  He listened but heard no reply. The house was eerily silent. He’d never heard it without the hum of the refrigerator, the noise of the washing machine, or sound of a dishwasher. No air conditioner was churning. No fans blew. No music played. It was a house devoid of life.

  Erick dropped his pack and ran through the house calling Amy’s name. He searched every room. He pulled a stool from the kitchen island and sat down. He felt dizzy. His head was spinning. His thoughts were jumbled. He placed both palms on the cold marble surface and took several deep breaths. He straightened and looked around the tidy white kitchen. He stared at the key hooks by the door to the garage.

  Erick rushed over and pulled open the door. His red ’56 Ford pickup sat in its usual spot, but his wife’s Audi was missing. His chest tightened. He instinctually hit the garage door opener button and ran to his truck. He jumped into the driver’s seat and shoved the key into the ignition. It started on the second try.

  He was gently revving the engine and waiting for the garage door to open when he remembered his get-home bag. He jumped out of the truck and realized the garage door was still closed so he pulled on the handle and rolled the door up, releasing a garage full of exhaust into the driveway. Erick ran back through the house to get his pack, locked the front door, then headed back to the garage.

  After backing his truck out, he got out and pulled the garage door closed. He was concerned that it wouldn’t lock and someone might break in, but there was nothing he could do about any of that now.

  He hesitated before backing into the street. He wasn’t sure where to go. The hospital was east, and his mother-in-law was north. He threw the truck into park and turned off the engine. He locked the truck’s doors and ran back up the front steps and fumbled with his keys to get the lock open. Once inside, Erick ran to the nursery and saw the baby’s diaper bag still sitting on the changing station. If his wife had gone into labor, she wouldn’t have left without the bag. He ran into their bedroom and opened the closet door. His wife’s hospital bag sat just inside the door. He was at a loss as to what could have happened. His mother-in-law was supposed to come by after she got off work and stay with Amy.

  She was supposed to be on bed rest. Why would Amy leave before her mother arrived?

  A knock on the door caused Erick to jump. He hurried to the living room to find their neighbor, Marty Simpson, standing on the steps.

  “Hey Marty, did you see Amy today? She isn’t home and…”

  “She called me. Her mother had been in an accident, and she was heading to Lake Zurich to pick her up. That is why I came over. I knew you’d be worried,” Marty said with a look of compassion on his wrinkled, round face.

  Erick had only known the man since he moved in with Amy a little over a year ago. Amy had lived in the house since she was a child, and Marty had been her neighbor there that whole time. He’d watched her grow up, and they were quite close.

  “Thanks, Marty. I was worried. The phones are out, and when I got here she was gone. I thought the worst.”

  “I noticed that your truck is running.”

  “Yeah. I was surprised. I had to leave my car at the airport. It wouldn’t start.”

  “Mine won’t start either. I’m worried about my mother. I know she will be frightened with the electricity out. Would you mind dropping me off at
the nursing home on your way?” Marty asked.

  Marty was only recently retired. He had owned an insurance agency and likely could have afforded to move to a nicer area but had chosen to stay even after the neighborhood had declined and gang violence had begun to rattle the peace in this part of the city. Marty looked like he could handle himself. Amy said he was a former wrestling coach. Erick thought he looked like the colonel from the fried chicken franchise.

  “Sure. Of course, I don’t mind. I am sure your mom will be glad to have you come sit with her until the lights come back on. Just let me grab Amy and the baby’s bags, just in case we can’t make it back.”

  “Can’t make it back?” Marty asked.

  “Let me grab some things, and I’ll fill you in on the way,” Erick said, turning to go back inside. He took a deep breath and let it out. Relief washed over him, and he could feel the tension leaving his body.

  Amy is fine. I’ll go up to Sharon’s and find her. We will get through this—whatever this is.

  Marty was seated in the passenger seat of Erick’s truck when he returned. As they drove through town, Erick noticed most of the city of Palatine’s police officers were huddled around an older vehicle in the parking lot of a shopping center. They all turned and stared as Erick drove by. Erick weaved in and out of the stalled cars and turned to head north to Lake Zurich. The little-used stretch of road was free of stalled cars.

  “Did you cut yourself?” Marty asked.

  “Um, what?”

  “You’re bleeding,” Marty said, pointing to Erick’s right hand on the steering wheel.

  Erick looked down. Erick pictured the look in the dying man’s eyes as he slid the knife into his throat, and it sent a shiver down his spine. The blood wasn’t Erick’s, and he wanted it off of his body—now.

  “Oh, I must have. I didn’t realize it. Would you mind handing me the wet wipes from the glove box?” Erick asked.

  He steered with his left knee, as he wiped his hands with a moist towelette, then pitched the crimson mass out the driver’s window.

  “What could have caused the power outage and the cars not to start, Erick?” Marty asked, breaking the silence.

  Erick didn’t feel up to getting into a deep discussion with the man about all the theories his preparedness group had studied. He wasn’t sure he believed any of it himself. It had all seemed so far-fetched at the time. He had believed in the “mutually assured destruction” theory to prevent hostile nations from attacking the U.S., and now he saw how stupid he’d been in putting faith in the government's ability to detect and stop an attack of such magnitude.

  As he thought about how he would reply to Marty without sounding like a paranoid doomsday prepper, he realized something he had missed about the situation at the airport. The planes were grounded long before the power went out. That could only mean that the government knew an attack was imminent or there had been terrorist threats of some kind.

  “What do you think happened, Erick?” Marty pressed.

  “I’m not sure, but it looks like a cyberattack—but that doesn’t fit with cars and other electronics being knocked out. This looks more like an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. I haven’t studied much about EMPs, but my buddy, Larry, is pretty much an EMP expert. He has been pretty vocal about the chatter he was hearing from others who were preparing for such an attack.”

  Erick thought for a moment. He had visited Larry’s farm a few weeks earlier where Larry and another man had gotten into a heated debate about something they were calling a Super-EMP, and how Faraday cages might be ineffective in such an event. He tried to recall their conversation, but he just couldn’t remember any specifics.

  “I think this may have been a combination cyber and EMP attack. I just read something about it in an article in the Washington Examiner. The government just released a report by some expert warning us about just such a combined attack. Kind of suspicious timing, don’t you think?”

  Marty nodded his head, then ran his hand through his white beard.

  “Yeah, I’d say,” Marty said, turning to look at him. “Did they say how bad it would be? Like, how long it might take to get things back to normal?”

  “The expert basically said we were screwed,” Erick said.

  Marty and Erick looked at each other.

  The two men rode in silence. Erick contemplated the change in scenarios. Although his personal preparedness revolved around more temporary economic collapse that the country could recover from, most of his like-minded friends were preparing for a much higher level of disaster.

  This was going to suck so much worse than he imagined it would. He could not wrap his head around a world without electricity.

  With the next turn, they were back onto a crowded street with abandoned cars everywhere. The usual twenty minute drive to his mother-in-law’s home turned into an hour-and-a-half due to rerouting through neighborhoods and frequent backtracking to find alternate routes.

  The new route caused them to enter Lake Zurich from the west side. Instead of dropping Marty off at his mother’s nursing home, they went straight to his mother-in-law’s house.

  Turning onto Honey Bee Road, Erick’s heart leaped, and a knot formed in his throat. He could not wait to hold his wife. As he pulled into the driveway, he breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of his wife’s Audi. He had barely put the truck into park before he threw open the door and sprinted up the driveway. He bound up the stairs and flung open the front door. His mother-in-law would likely have something biting to say about him barging into her home that way, but at the moment, he couldn't care less.

  “Amy? Amy, honey, I came as quick as I could,” Erick called.

  He stopped in the foyer and listened.

  “Amy? Sharon? Anyone here?”

  Erick continued down the dim hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. Amy’s purse sat on the marble counter. He continued to call his wife’s name as he searched from room to room. Sunlight from the bathroom window illuminated smears of blood on the floor near the toilet. It looked like someone attempted to clean it but only halfheartedly.

  “She did say Sharon had had an accident,” Marty said, walking up behind Erick.

  Erick jumped and turned toward Marty.

  “That must be it. She must have taken Sharon to the hospital.”

  “That is a reasonable assumption,” Marty said.

  Erick and Marty jumped back in the truck and headed to the hospital.

  They passed confused motorists walking along the streets and sidewalks as they weaved their way across town. Smoke rose from a shop on one corner where a vehicle had driven into the storefront. The tail-end of the vehicle protruded from the shattered doors. Flames danced on the roof. No fire engines were present to put the fire out. It appeared to have ignited the roof of the adjacent building, where thick, black smoke escaped through its windows.

  “Do you mind if I check the hospital before I drop you off at your mother’s nursing home?” Erick asked.

  “No. Not at all. She isn’t going anywhere. Let’s go find your wife,” Marty said.

  Chapter 3

  Erick didn’t see Sharon’s car as he drove into the parking lot of the hospital. He was surprised to see a line of people out the door to the emergency room. Some held rags to their heads, while others held their bandaged arms.

  Erick and Marty pushed their way through the mass of people, elbowing their way to the information desk.

  “Ma’am, I’m looking for my wife and mother-in-law. My wife is eight and a half months pregnant and…”

  “Sir, you will have to go to the end of the line and wait your turn,” the round receptionist said, without looking up from her notepad.

  “I’m not here for treatment. Like I said, I’m...”

  “Like I said, you will have to wait your turn.”

  Erick leaned forward and placed his elbows on the counter. He bent over and pushed his face close to the pudgy woman. She stiffened and stared wide-eyed at him over her
round reading glasses.

  “Listen, lady. I came here to find my pregnant wife. I am not leaving this desk until you tell me if she and my mother-in-law are here. Now, look in your freaking book and tell me what I need to know and then I will go away,” Erick said in a low, gruff voice. His eyes bore into her. He felt a rage he had never felt in his life, and the adrenaline appeared to be back to wreak more havoc. He could not contain his anxiety any longer, and he feared what he might do if the woman did not comply.

  Marty pulled on Erick’s arm, but Erick shrugged him off. The woman looked around, her eyes wide, then up at the towering, angry man staring her down.

  Erick reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out the picture of him and Amy and shoved it into the woman’s hand. She looked at it and back up at him.

  “She was here, but they transported her and the baby to the Red Cross shelter about an hour ago.”

  “The baby?” Erick asked, his voice shrill.

  “Yes, she had given birth at home. Since she and the baby were both fine, we could not keep them here in this situation,” the woman said.

  Erick looked to Marty. Marty smiled broadly.

  “Congratulations, Erick—you are a father!” Marty said.

  “Where were she and the baby taken—was it a boy or girl?” Erick stammered.

  “The Red Cross has a shelter in Rockford. Your wife did not want to go, but she changed her mind when told the lack of electricity and water here would be detrimental to a newborn. And it was a girl—you have a healthy baby girl. Now, please, if you don’t mind, I have very injured patients here to process.”

  Erick stepped back away from the counter. He stared down the hall and saw both sides were lined with people on gurneys. The silhouettes of other injured people milled about in the only light that came from the expanse of glass windows in the lobby. He wondered why it was so dark there, why the generator wasn’t powering the lights.