Unwanted World: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Survival Fiction Series (The EMP Survivor Series Book 4) (The EMP Survivor Series (5 Book Series))

by Chris Pike

  “You’re lying! TBS is a TV network.”

  “The network plays mostly teen dramas so the government can monitor who’s watching it.”

  “I knew it!” Stewart said. “I knew the government was behind this!”

  “You’re a smart kid, Stewart. And you know what else? It’s so covert and undercover that the local police don’t even know about it. Only teachers know about it. It’s a way for them to get rid of teens who cause trouble. And you,” Josh said pointing a finger at Stewart, “have recently been in the principal’s office.”

  “What? Those records are supposed to be private. I have rights!”

  “Shut up!” Gene screamed. “They’re playing you.”

  “We’ll play with you alright,” Josh said. “We know all about your school record. So you’ll know what’s in store for you, the TBS program allows us to strap you to the underside of a fighter jet. A microphone is hooked up to you so if you scream even once after the jet takes off, the pilot has the permission to press a button and drop you. Nobody will find you, except for the buzzards.” Kneeling, he put his face close to Stewart’s. “Do you know what buzzards do to a dead body?”

  Stewart shook his head.

  “First, they poke out the eyes. Then they devour the lips and cheeks until only the skull is left.” Josh thumped Stewart’s head. “A whole flock of those big, ugly, squawking vultures will tear apart a face in a matter of minutes. Later, at night, the carnivores come out, tearing and fighting over the corpse until the limbs have been torn off. They’ll gut you and eat your insides.” Standing, Josh said, “You don’t even want to know what they’ll eat next. The onions are their favorites.”

  Stewart closed his legs and a little bit of pee dribbled out, staining his pants. His face had gone white and he swallowed the bile in his throat. He cradled his flip flopping stomach with both hands. “I’m gonna toss.” He dry heaved, then sprung up and stumbled to a toilet.

  Nico bent down and got in Gene’s face. “Think we’re kidding now?”

  Gene didn’t answer.

  “I thought so. I’m with the government, so if you ever get into trouble again I know how to find you.”

  “I promise I won’t get into trouble. I promise.” Gene’s gaze bounced from Josh to Nico. “I promise.”

  “What do you think, Nico?” Josh asked. “Think we should let them go?

  Nico thought for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I think they’re good to go because if they get into any more trouble we’ll know about it.”

  “Gene, you can stand up,” Josh said. “Get Stewart some wet paper towels and tell him to clean his face. If I catch you here again, remember what will happen.”

  Jumping up, Gene said with all the enthusiasm of a kid waiting to get a cavity filled, “Yeah, I’ll remember.”

  Josh took a step toward Gene, crowding him against the wall. “Yes sir, I will remember, sir!” Josh yelled in a loud, authoritative voice.

  “Huh?” Gene’s eyes darted around in confusion. “What?”

  “Say it! Yes sir. Say it like you mean it! And straighten your shoulders when you talk to an adult.”

  “Okay, okay,” Gene said standing taller. “Yes sir, I will remember, sir.”

  “That’s better. You can go now.”

  * * *

  After Gene and Stewart left, Nico and Josh had a good laugh. “How’d you come up with TBS?” Nico asked.

  “I don’t know. It just came to me.”

  “Good one!”

  One of the doors to the stalls squeaked. Nico pivoted in the direction.

  A quiet child’s voice asked, “Are you telling the truth about TBS?”

  “Who’s that?” Nico asked, dumfounded anyone else was in the bathroom.

  “Her name’s Tracey. She’s been in here the entire time. I’ll tell you about it later,” Josh said. “Come on out, Tracey. It’s okay.”

  Tentatively, Tracey pushed open the door and stepped out facing Josh and Nico. “Is TBS true? Will you really tape them to the jet?”

  “No,” Josh said. “We only wanted to scare them.”

  Puzzled, Tracey thought. “So they’ll learn to behave?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Come on,” Josh said. “Let’s take you home. Your mother is probably worried sick by now about you.” He took her by the elbow and escorted her to the door.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Tracey asked.

  “What?” Josh wrinkled his brow, not understanding what she meant.

  “You need to wash your hands.”

  Josh laughed. “You’re right, I do.”

  Standing at the basin, Josh squirted pumper soap on his hands as a trickle of water came out of the faucet. He whispered to Nico, “She’s a little pistol.”

  Nico nodded. “In about ten or fifteen years she’ll be more than a little pistol. More like a .357 magnum.”

  “Sounds like Kate is a .357 caliber.”

  Nico’s thoughts went to Kate and how she must have been a pistol at that age too, probably giving her parents lots of gray hair and sleepless nights.

  Picking up on Nico’s silence, his faraway expression, and what it meant, Josh said, “You need to go to her.”

  “I know.” Nico wondered if she was thinking about him or waiting for him, or what she would say to him when he pushed through door of the hotel. Would she be happy? Scold him for being so late? No, she wouldn’t scold him. It wasn’t her style. From the little he knew about her, she could hold her own at the bar and put the drunks in their place if they got out of hand. If dogs mirrored their owners, she was a survivor like Reload.

  While it was obvious her soul had been wounded, she’d recover, and Nico planned to be the one helping her do it.

  Chapter 14

  A day after the incident at the Alamo Plaza where the policeman had been killed, Kate had risen early and was tending bar. From the shadows casting on the street, she estimated it was 11 a.m. Normally tourists filled the street along with buses and cars, or the guys working valet, zipping in and out of the valet area while horses clomped along the street carrying a carriage full of tourists.

  Today was different.

  The busy hum of the city had gone quiet. No honking cars or harried parents carrying crying babies or the influx of new hotel guests walking the halls dragging luggage behind them. No steady stream of sports news from the bar TV, only a black screen to reflect a changing scene when the door leading to the hallway opened.

  There had been no news reports regarding why the electricity was still off, or why cell phones or cars wouldn’t work. Without news, rumors started regarding the cause. Some thought it was some sort of conspiracy by the government to shut off electricity, therefore causing the good people of the United States to be completely dependent upon them. National elections were a year away, so now was the time to head off the competition by shutting down the media. If the current party swooped in and came to the rescue, they’d have the populace eating out of their hands and the election would be a landslide.

  Although most bar patrons scoffed at the idea, it did lead to lively discussions.

  Then there were the bikers staying at the hotel who came close to starting a brawl. One of them had challenged a drunk on the theory, saying, “I do believe you, sir, must be a student not of arts or philosophy, but a student who dallies in the grand platform of social media. Am I correct?”

  Kate recalled it had been the biker known as Doc Holiday who had delivered the line with the finesse of a concert pianist, resulting in the drunk looking dumbstruck, trying to decide if he’d been insulted or complimented. He had nodded in agreement, to which Doc Holiday said, “Thank you, sir, for your agreement.”

  It had taken another guest to tell the guy he had been insulted in a grand way.

  The night before, several of the Tombstone bikers who were stranded at the hotel stopped by the bar. Kate couldn’t remember their real names, but their nicknames sure were ones she could remember.
Doc Holiday had been there, along with Morgan and Virgil Earp. The others were Johnny Ringo and Ike Clanton. When she asked where Wyatt Earp was, she had been informed nobody yet had joined the group who they could crown with the revered name.

  The bikers didn’t need to give Kate a nickname since she shared the same name as Big Nose Kate, who was Doc Holiday’s sidekick. At the time when Kate had been given the nickname, she absentmindedly touched her nose. They assured Kate she did not have a big nose.

  “What can I get for you?” Kate asked.

  “A beer will be fine.” Virgil said.

  “What kind?”

  “Any will do.”

  Kate popped the cap and handed Virgil the beer. He took a long, satisfying pull, savoring the taste, albeit a warm one. Virgil had on the usual biker garb: leather jacket with the name of their group – Tombstone Gang – embossed in blazing black letters on the back of the jacket, faded jeans, and graying hair poking out of a doo-rag. His goatee lacked attractive fullness and Kate suspected the goatee was courtesy of the trip, and not one the man usually wore.

  Guessing the profession of the bar’s patrons was a pastime of Kate’s. She could gather a lot of information about her customers by the way they talked, their vocabulary, their hands, manner of dressing or length of hair. From her observations she discerned this current group of bikers were professional men on vacation.

  Take Doc Holiday, for instance. He sprinkled his conversation with words authors might use, but not ones which were pompous. Pretty words, she called them. Words giving life and meaning to his story. Perhaps he was an author and looking for another life experience, one he could use as fodder for a novel. He was a man who used his hands to make a living, but definitely was not a carpenter. His fingers were smooth and long, without scars or other blemishes. “What do you do for a living?” Kate finally asked.

  “I’m a surgeon.”

  “Of course. That explains your hands and your nickname.”

  “These,” Doc said, flexing his fingers, “are the tools of my trade. Two million dollars worth of insured tools to be exact.”

  “I thought you might be a concert pianist.”

  “I dabble a little in playing, but nothing special. I’m more of a science and math type of guy.”

  “Then you should play the piano. There’s a big correlation between science and the arts. Isn’t surgery an art?”

  “Now that you mention it, I suppose it is.” Doc thought about her statement. “The human body is my canvas, and the scalpels are my paintbrushes.”

  “Exactly.” Kate retrieved another beer and handed it to Doc. “Compliments of the house.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What about the other guys in your motorcycle club? What do they do?” Kate asked.

  “Bob, uh, I mean Virgil is a Federal firearms dealer. Johnny Ringo is an insurance executive in risk management, and Ike Clanton is an oil and gas VP.”

  “Hmm. I didn’t think y’all were part of Hells Angels.”

  Virgil laughed. “Not by a long shot.”

  “Why are y’all still here? Didn’t most of your group already leave?”

  “The guys with antique bikes already left. Not sure why those are working and ours aren’t. I guess the newer bikes are too modernized.” Doc took a swallow of beer then set the bottle on the counter. “Besides, we can’t leave Virgil’s trailer unattended.”

  “I think I can guess what’s in there. It might come in handy,” Kate said.

  “Any word on what’s going on, or when the electricity is coming back on?”

  “No. I hope soon because the natives are getting restless.”

  “Hotel guests?”

  Kate nodded. “That’s why the bar is still open. My manager wants to keep whoever is left happy. Besides, liquor doesn’t need to be refrigerated, which frees up the generator to keep hotel food at the proper temperature.”

  “How much food is left?” Virgil asked. He was curious how much longer the hotel would serve food.

  Kate looked left and right to make sure an eavesdropper wasn’t within earshot. She leaned over the bar. “We’ll serve food as long as we can. Right now we are only serving perishable food because the generators won’t hold out forever. My boss said we are running low on gas. He sent one of the valets to the closest gas station to get gas for the generators, but he came back empty handed. The pumps work on electricity.”

  “Can I let you in on a little secret?”

  “I’m listening,” Kate said.

  “If you need gasoline, take a sturdy knife and a container suitable to hold gas, then crawl under any car around here and poke a hole in the gas tank. You’ll get the gas you need.”

  “Excellent. I’ll be sure to tell my manager.”

  “Getting back to the food,” Doc said, “what about the non-perishables? Got enough for a while?”

  “We haven’t dipped into non-perishable food yet.”

  “Such as…?”

  “Chips, canned goods, pasta, rice–those types of food. We have a lot in storage, and since the majority of hotel guests have left, we’ll have enough food for a while in case the…”

  “In case what?” Doc asked.

  “In case of a real emergency.” Kate lowered her voice. “I’ve heard some rumors.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something called an EMP.”

  “That’s a bunch of bunk,” Doc scoffed.

  “No it’s not,” Kate shot back. “Military guys have told me about it. You know San Antonio has a big base, right?”

  “I know.”

  “Those guys come in and when they start drinking, they start talking. Several years ago Newt Gingrich made a report to Congress about EMPs and how the United States is vulnerable to an attack.”

  Doc shrugged in speculation. “I read the report. It’s fodder for science fiction writers.”

  “Maybe so, but science fiction has an odd way of coming true.”

  Doc acknowledged the statement with a nod.

  “Those guys have told me the military is already EMP proofing some of their planes.” Kate stood back from the bar. “Have you seen any Southwest planes lately?”

  “Can’t say I have,” Doc said.

  “Neither have I. The trusty orange and white has left the skies. The only plane I’ve seen was a military plane, flying low and fast.”

  The door leading to the street opened. A man stumbled in, laughing and tripping over his feet, filling the bar with a pungent mixture of old sweat and inebriation. His hair was sprinkled with gray, crow’s feet lined his eyes, and he had the beginning of a middle aged paunch. He brushed past Doc then plopped down on a barstool. He gave the interior a onceover then pounded his fists on the bar.

  “Excuse me,” he said in overly punctuated syllables. “I heard this joint is giving out free beer. I wanna free beer.”

  “It’s only for hotel guests,” Kate said. She folded her arms across her chest.

  The drunk straightened up from his slouched position. “I’m a guest.”

  “What room are you in?” Kate asked suspiciously.

  “Uh, I don’t remember.” The drunk’s head bobbed down. “604. Room 604.” He lifted his gaze to gauge Kate’s reaction.

  “Sixth floor?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sixth floor,” the drunk said. He let out a short-lived sigh of relief.

  “We don’t have a sixth floor so you need to leave.”

  “I’m not gonna leave. So there,” the drunk said with increasing anger. “Get me a beer.”

  When Kate didn’t move fast enough to the drunk’s liking, he reached over the bar and grabbed her by the shirt, jerking her toward him.

  Reload, who had been sitting quietly listening to the conversation, sprang up when the man grabbed Kate. In the dark corner he had been invisible, but it was soon evident he was large with an imposing frame and an impressive set of canines. He planted his front paws on the bar, bared his teeth and growled a low, guttural warning

>   The big dog surprised the man.

  Kate thrust her arm up and wrenched it away from him.

  “You got a dog in here? Dogs aren’t allowed in bars! What kind of piss ant place is this?”

  The man slapped both hands on the bar to try to scare Reload into submission. Undeterred by the man’s bluff, Reload barked loud and throaty.

  The man slapped the bar again.

  Reload lunged at the man, jaws snapping together. The man quickly withdrew his hand.

  “You better get your old cur to back down because if he bites me I’ll sue this place out of existence. Then I’ll sic the Department of Health on you and whoever gave you your bartending license to make sure you never serve liquor again!” The man stabbed an angry finger at Kate.

  Reload stared dog daggers at the man and bared his teeth.

  Kate said, “Down, boy. Down.”

  Reload acquiesced to the instruction. He took his paws off the bar and stood to the side of Kate. She was adjusting her shirt the drunk had pulled loose. Standing at five foot four, Kate was not an imposing figure, but when push came to shove, she’d give it her all. She squared her shoulders and said steadily, “You need to leave.”

  “Make me,” the drunk said in a condescending tone.

  One of the bikers who went by an alter ego, and who had been sitting quietly in the corner, observing, decided to get up. “I’d be happy to make you leave.”

  “Oh yeah? And who might you be? The bar police?” The drunk laughed at his cleverness.

  “Let me introduce myself. I’m Ike Clanton and this is my friend Johnny Ringo.”

  The drunk laughed. He looked at the guy sitting next to him. “I guess you’re Doc Holiday.”

  “As a matter of fact I am. I would express my gratitude followed by pleasantries then say I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, but evidently you are a boorish man, thus precluding formal introductions. Instead I will say you are a dolt, a simple word which perhaps is in your vocabulary. Unless you want Ike or Ringo to rearrange your face…” Doc Holiday leaned into the drunk, “…which might make you even uglier if that’s possible, this is your last opportunity to depart without physical discomfort.”