Supernova EMP- The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  And then she hated herself for even thinking it. He was a guy in need, and you didn’t turn down a guy in need. What had she become?

  Damn the supernova. Damn this world.

  “You can come along if you want,” she said.

  Greene’s smile rivaled the dawn light.

  “No! Maxine, no!”

  “It’s just for the night. We take her up to the lodge. I’ll make sure she can’t get free and come back to the ranch, and when Creggan has come and seen the grave, and they’ve done their inventory, then we can decide what we’re going to do next. There’s no point starting a war now!”

  Donald thumped the kitchen table and looked up to the ceiling, as if his eyes could drill through the timbers right into the room where his wife was imprisoned.

  “If they come here, Dad, and they think she’s infected, they’ll kill her. That’s what they’ve been doing in Pickford! Killing anyone who’s been affected like Mom. They think it’s a disease. A plague. A biological weapon. They might even kill us because they think being in contact with her has infected us, too.”

  Through the window, she could see Storm out near the paddock beneath an oak, digging the grave she’d asked him to. Storm was getting stronger by the day. No longer suffering from the chemotherapy he’d received in Boston all those weeks ago. The last course of treatment seemed to have done the trick, and it gave Maxine the hope that his cancer would never return. If it did, in this post-supernova world, then who knew how her son might survive? Storm rested his hands on the shovel and took a breather. His face was healthily flushed as he surveyed the mounds of dirt and sod he was creating.

  “Tell Storm to leave the grave open. If Creggan comes here, I’m going to kill him.”

  Maxine sighed and reached across the table to take her father’s hand. The years peeled away, and suddenly, feeling the back of his hand under her palm, her mind was transported back in a flash of teenage memory to a time when she would have reached for his hand, and Donald would have stiffened rather than responded. A time when she’d told him she was moving from the farm to the city to study, and that she’d made up her mind and that was that. Donald had stiffened in exactly the same way he did now, as if he were a dam about to burst with rage and anger, but because he didn’t want to lose the control, he held himself in, denying the expression completely. Maxine imagined Donald doggedly putting the stones back into the wall of his self-preservation, which her notion of letting Creggan come to the farm, had displaced. Donald was getting himself back behind his baseline tortured equilibrium in front of her. He wouldn’t make eye contact with her, staring instead at a spot on the wall behind her, his lips thin and bloodless. His eyes filmed over with tears that refused to fall over his eyelids’ lips.

  “Dad, please. He’s coming up here tomorrow. I wouldn’t put it past Creggan to come early, maybe even tonight just to keep us off balance. Let me take her. I’ll make sure she’s comfortable, and we can go get her as soon as Creggan and his men have gone.”

  Donald said nothing. The muscles at the side of his mouth bulged.

  He said nothing.

  But he didn’t say no.

  The lodge was the grand name for a shack that Donald had built deep within the pines and used for years as a place to store equipment and canned goods for hunting trips that had become less of an event as he’d gotten older. The door was still padlocked, and although one of the small windows next to the door was broken—perhaps by a falling branch in a storm—the lodge itself was intact.

  Maria had walked alongside Maxine, across the fields and away from the ranch to the closely forested foothills of Alleghany Mountain. The day wasn’t too warm, and Maxine had balked at tying Maria’s hands together with farm rope, but knew there’d been no choice. What was strange was how Maria, still wild-eyed and tousle-haired, had come from the room without incident. It was as if the mere fact that she’d been locked up in the room had been the thing that had angered her the most. When they’d been outside the ranch house and ready to set off, Maria had faced the sun, as if drinking in the radiance of something she hadn’t experienced for a long, long time.

  Maxine didn’t want to steer her mother on a lead, and so she’d tied a rope around each of their waists with a yard and a half of linking rope to keep her mother close as they walked—close enough, she figured, to catch her if she made a break for it.

  Maxine carried the chain from the bedroom in her rucksack, figuring on using it when they got to the lodge to secure Maria overnight. She wasn’t entirely sure how she would do that yet, but there were enough sturdy beams from when Donald had constructed it to provide a strong fixing point. She’d stuffed tools and fixings into the bag, too.

  Maria had been humming to herself as they came into the trees, making childish noises of appreciation as they walked in their shade. She’d drunk from the canteen Maxine offered her—not holding the canteen itself, but allowing Maxine to bring it to her lips so she could sip at the water inside.

  Once they sighted the lodge, five miles from the ranch and deep in the forest, it was already afternoon, and Maxine was ready to rest. She’d left Storm and Donald to finish the counterfeit grave, but had been exhausted enough already by her argument with Donald before she’d set off, and felt that tiredness all the more after their five-mile trek up to the tree line and beyond to the top of it. The weather was holding, however, and that seemed to be the only blessing visited upon them today in this hellish situation.

  Maxine opened the padlock on the door and pushed it open on squeaking hinges. The inside of the lodge, just a dusty room with flat board walls, was dry and still. There was an empty gun locker affixed to one wall, its door swung open so anyone looking through the window could see there was nothing inside worth stealing. There were a couple of chairs, as well as a small table on which sat a cardboard box of canned meats. There was a wood stove to boil water collected from a brook running down from the mountain about five hundred yards to the west of the lodge, plus a couple of bed rolls tied with twine. There’d never been electricity in the lodge, but there were two oil lamps hung from hooks on a ceiling beam that would provide enough warm light to illuminate the space.

  “Donald.”

  The first coherent word from Maria that Maxine could remember hearing since she’d come back to the ranch hung in the air for three or four seconds before Maxine could bring herself to respond.

  “Mom…?”

  Maria was looking next to the woodstove. On a small stool, covered in dust and cobwebs, was a battered Stetson. Maria lifted her tied hands and pointed towards the hat. “Donald,” she repeated.

  The hat was one of Donald’s cast-offs—filthy with age and frayed at the brim, but his all the same. And that moment of recognition from her mother blossomed a flower of hope in Maxine’s heart, that Maria might make it through this madness.

  Maria walked towards the hat, and, of course, the rope that joined them together meant that Maxine had to follow.

  Maria bent, picked up the hat, and held it between her fingers. Running them around the brim as if she were reading the very braille of memory.

  But the next words she spoke toasted the flower of hope in Maxine’s heart immediately to ashes.

  “Gabriel,” Maria said, her eyes fixing Maxine to her as surely as the rope. “Gabriel Angel gave it to Donald.”

  16

  The firing was coming from behind them.

  Josh and the others ducked as the first ranks of people running from city hall went down in a welter of bullets. Bodies splashed down in their own blood as the machine gun rounds chewed into them. Josh couldn’t help noticing the blissful expressions on some of the dead as they went down, as if they were happy to be released from their torment. Such was the rush of people from the building that the next wave began tripping and falling over the bodies of their dead and dying compatriots.

  Josh and his men found their own weapons and set to firing into the crowd of attackers. The city-hallers began to scatter
, running back up Bull Street and around the corners out of sight.

  It was all over in twenty seconds, and a terrible silence descended that was only punctuated by the sounds of boots thumping over the hood of one of the wrecked vehicles in the barricade.

  “Are you guys crazy? Don’t you know coming out here in daylight is going to get you killed?” The voice was female and sounded like it had lived a thousand lifetimes already. It belonged to a thick-set woman who was nearly as tall as Josh. She looked to be in her mid-forties, with thick blond hair tied back in a rag. Her face was streaked with dirt and dust, and her clothes—denim shirt and pants stuffed into the tops of tan leather cowboy boots—had all seen better days.

  “No, don’t answer that,” she said, holding up her hand. “Of course, you didn’t know. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have done it.”

  She’d been followed over the barricade by a man who appeared to be in his thirties, just as dusty and crumpled as the woman. He had a beard you could hide a rat in and was slinging an AR-15 by its strap over his shoulders. He walked stiffly past Josh and the woman to the straggling line of people who’d been shot. Those who were still alive, he dispatched quickly and cleanly with a Beretta pulled from a leg holster.

  “We can’t leave them alive,” the woman responded to the look of distaste on Josh’s face. “They try to attack again. They crawl after us. If you don’t finish them off, then when they can’t get at you, you just hear them sobbing all night. It’s… kinder this way.”

  Josh shook his head and sighed. The woman had spoken so matter-of-factly, as if she were reeling off a shopping list or what she wanted to watch on the tube that night. “I understand. It’s just…”

  Josh didn’t get any further, as he was interrupted by Timothy groaning, resting his hands on an overturned SUV and suddenly vomiting copiously, only just avoiding his shoes with the spatter.

  “It got me like that the first time,” the woman said to Timothy.

  Timothy nodded as he retched.

  Her name was Jayce Barker, and the man was Elvis Mandle. Once Jayce had gotten over laughing, like she said she did every time she introduced Elvis to other people, she led Josh and the others across the barricade and into the store next to Berkovich Jewelry and Couture Pieces. There was a nondescript entrance, a discrete frontage, and a name above the door, Ballantine, which didn’t in any way prepare Josh and the others for what lay inside.

  It was a gun store. And not just any kind of gun store.

  Beyond the nondescript entrance was a hefty security door which had to be opened with three keys. And through that was a glittering Aladdin’s Cave of weaponry and ammunition. This was the kind of luxury gun store where billionaires sent their assistants to buy silver-plated Purdeys. There were racks and racks of high-end firearms from manufacturers such as the aforementioned James Purdey & Sons, plus Holland & Holland and Westley Richards as well as such Italian manufacturers as Fabbrica Armi d’Abbiatico e Salvinelli and Perazzi. There was a display for a BA338TP hunting rifle that looked like it had been made for a science fiction movie, which boasted not only a “Jet Lock Targeting System”—Never miss another shot!—but also a price tag that looked like it could finance a science fiction movie all on its own.

  Josh asked Timothy for the map and the instructions from Harve. Ballantine’s wasn’t marked on the map or the scrawled piece of paper. That meant that Harve, Parker, Lacy, and whoever the Harbormaster they were working for was couldn’t know about this place. Looking around the space with its myriad of weapons, Josh thought that if they had known about it, they would have been there already. In spades.

  “We didn’t know about this place,” Josh commented, looking around in wonder.

  “It’s not the kind of place that needed to advertise,” Jayce said. “It’s the kind of place that, if you had to ask where it was, you knew you couldn’t afford to buy anything there. Come on up. Meet the others.”

  At the back of the store was another security door that led to a set of concrete stairs placed next to yet another security door marked “Vault. Strictly No Admittance to Unauthorized Personnel.”

  Josh and Timothy exchanged glances as they followed Jayce and Elvis up the stairs. What could be kept beyond this door that needed to be kept away from the treasures in the main store? At the top of the stairs was a cramped corridor leading to a small, wood-paneled office that looked like it dated from before the Civil War. There were the obligatory dead-eyed computer monitors, but also green steel filing cabinets, ink blotters, and leather chairs that spoke of quiet business acumen and whispered conversations. Beyond the office was a large room that, when Ballantine’s had been operational, might have served as an area for entertaining favored clients. Long green leather antique armchairs set against more wood-paneled walls, a long mahogany boardroom desk, an empty fireplace, a drinks cabinet, and dark portraits in oils showing men in historic garb pointing their rifles and shotguns at various flocks of game birds, with their faithful gundogs at their feet to patiently guard a brace of pheasants. If it hadn’t been for the motley crew of Jayce’s people, numbering around ten, and the sheepish faces of the men Josh had sent to Raynesford Jewelry, he might have thought he’d been transported back in time to Merrie Olde England in a time machine.

  In front of them, Crane stood up and sketched an embarrassed wave.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Jayce and her boys picked us up before we had a chance to get anything and brought us here. They were going to come looking for you guys, but when we told them where you were headed, they knew they just had to wait for you to fetch up here.”

  Jayce smiled and crashed her bulk down on one of the sofas. “Well, aren’t we all a happy family? So, you’re the guys who’ve been keeping us locked down in this city with a bunch of crazies—shooting at us whenever we try to get out. Give me a really good reason why we shouldn’t just shoot you ourselves?”

  Josh stood his ground. “I guess if you’d wanted us to be dead, you wouldn’t have saved us at the barricade.”

  “Good point,” Jayce said, her face becoming grave. “Crane here told me the story. Luckily for you, we found him first, or we really would have left you to the crazies.”

  The mood settled into one of exchanging information and introductions. Elvis and Jayce had met up on the night when the effects of the Barnard’s Star supernova had come down on everyone. She’d been a detective in the Savannah PD and Elvis had worked in Ballantine’s. They’d taken refuge here, as the city had turned to chaos, and collected a number of sane compatriots to do what they could to survive the initial mayhem. When things had seemed hopeless, and it had become clear that the government or the National Guard weren’t going to turn up to bring order, they’d tried to leave the city. But at every turn, they’d met resistance from Parker’s teams of killers. They hadn’t really known who was behind stopping people leaving Savannah, or why they were doing it, but had sure enough understood that no one was meant to get out. “We thought it might be a plague? That maybe we were all infected? But Crane tells us it’s all because some headbanger named Trace Parker is working for a bigger headbanger called the Harbormaster. And we’re basically just crossfire fodder. That about the size of it?”

  “If only it was,” Timothy said. He looked at Crane. “Did you tell them about the kids?”

  Crane nodded. “But I don’t think they believed me.”

  “Sounds like something out of a horror movie. I’m really having trouble getting my head around it,” Jayce said, looking like she thought someone wasn’t totally on the level.

  So, Josh and Timothy put the jaws of Jayce and her buddies on the floor as they corroborated Crane’s information about their children, the cage, and what would happen to them if they didn’t return with armfuls of gold and diamonds.

  In a world where everything had already fallen off the hinges, hearing about the plight of the children sucked the air out of the room. When Josh and Timothy had finished, all that could be heard was the ticking of a ca
rriage clock on the marble mantle above the fireplace.

  The only thing Jayce could think to do, it appeared, was to change the subject. To focus on something, she could fit into her head.

  “Salvage jewelry? That’s insane,” Jayce said.

  “Not as insane as putting these guys’ kids in cages,” Josh spat. “But there’s no talking to Parker. Believe me, I tried, and I have the bruises to prove it.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jayce gave a small shake of her head and puffed out her cheeks. Elvis was looking at his shoes, and the others were expressing their sympathies through their eyes.

  “Thanks,” said Timothy. “But because of that, we can’t stay here. We have to get back. Soon.”

  Josh filled in some gaps. “I think Parker’s hoping that driving you all back into the city to do all the killing for him will sanitize the place. He figures guys like you will wipe out the crazies, and then he can come in and mop up after you. But it was taking too long, and there’s pressure on him from above. So, he’s been sending people like us in to salvage what we can. But it’s inefficient and costly.”

  “We’ve got a pretty good thing going here right now. Plenty of food, more ammo than we can use, and if we can get that vault open, we’ll have enough firepower to break us out of the city past Parker’s men,” Jayce said.

  Josh raised an eyebrow. “Firepower?”

  “RPGs and grenade launchers,” Elvis said, and the huddle of Jayce’s guys smiled and nodded. “Ballantine’s did a little… arms dealing on the side.”

  Elvis looked at Jayce. “But don’t tell the cops.”

  Jayce held up her hand in mock surrender. “Elvis, I swear on your grave at Graceland that your corporate secrets are safe with me.”

  Elvis smiled and Jayce playfully punched his shoulder—and silence, save the ticking of the clock, came back to the room. As the slanting rays of the horizon-bound sun painted the walls a deep orange, Josh thought it could not be lost on any of them how stuck they all were in an impossible situation.