by Nate Castle
SURGE PROTECTION
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Nate Castle
¶
PRONOUN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Judgment Day
2 Change of Plans
3 World of Hurt: 48 Hours Earlier
4 Aphrodiasiac
5 Band of Brothers
6 Herding Sheep
7 No Way Out
8 Keep Your Enemies Closer
9 Second Wind
10 In Due Time
11 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
12 X Marks The Spot
13 Guilty Pleasures
14 Thunderstruck
15 C’Mon Man
16 No One Likes A Quitter
17 What’s Love Got To Do With It?
18 Total Containment
19 Transformation
20 Multiply By 5
21 A New Normal
22 Ace In The Hole
23 Never Forget
1 JUDGMENT DAY
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WHAT LOGAN SHEFFIELD WAS MOST excited for after completing the 2650 mile Pacific Crest Trail hike was pounding some beers with the boys at Kildare’s Irish Pub in Seattle. He had just reached the end of his 5 month expedition.
A KIA Sorrento was sitting there waiting for him at the finish line. Caleb had dropped the car off there the day before, so that when Logan reached British Columbia, he wouldn’t have to fiddle around and could immediately drive the car to Kildare’s.
Logan takes one final “selfie” standing at the finish line of the PCT, so he could show his friends that he indeed completed the hike. He started the car and began the trip south to Seattle.
The selfie showcased Logan’s muscular build, the kind of guy that looked like he frequented the gym, but hadn’t picked up a weight since his college football days almost six years prior. He was 5’10”, with a well groomed chinstrap beard, and brown hair that naturally curled when it got too long.
He figured he would get in traffic on I-5 and he did, but it wasn’t due to too many drivers on the road.
Logan started to panic. On both sides of the interstate there were stalled vehicles blocking all lanes. He began driving in the grass next to the center divider because there was no other option.
He drove for twenty minutes and finally one car passed him heading north. The first thoughts that crossed his mind were ‘terrorist attack’ or ‘nuclear bomb detonation’. He decided to continue on to Kildare’s and see if he could locate his buddies.
Lights were on when he walked into the bar and the jukebox was playing “Welcome to the Jungle”. Logan immediately had to step outside and vomit.
Inside the bar were roughly 30 people on the floor dead. It looked as if their stomachs had been branded by cattle irons to the point where you could see all the way through them.
Logan decided this was a problem that he couldn’t solve without the help of his friend Johnnie. He gathered the courage to walk back into the bar, grab a bottle of Johnnie Walker and down a more than advised amount before walking back outside.
He started thinking about his options and narrowed it down to one:
*Find other survivors and use their knowledge and help to determine what caused the attack.
Walking back to the KIA, it almost ended right there for Logan. A Ford Explorer police edition sped by doing 60mph and barely missed hitting Logan. Had it not been for Logan’s prior bull riding experience, he wouldn’t have had the reflexes to swan dive over a parked car to safety, and this story would be over.
“What the hell just happened,” Logan said out loud.
He decided from that moment on that he needed to be prepared for anything, including fellow Americans becoming violent with him.
The KIA Sorrento just wasn’t going to cut it, he needed something with a bit more power. He drove the KIA back to the interstate and luckily found a rest stop that also acted as a storage area for the Transportation Authority vehicles. The Super Duty truck with the snow plow on the front was the best option. Using a tire iron from the KIA, Logan smashed the window of the little office shack that was next to the vehicles. He unlocked the door and saw the keys to all of the vehicles hanging on the wall. Good thing, because hot wiring a car in a video game versus in real life are two different animals. The Transportation Authority didn’t figure that anyone would want to steal a snow plow truck, and that worked to Logan’s advantage.
Logan started the truck driving south once again. The snow plow truck was just what he needed in case he a)had to move other vehicles out of the way and b)caught up to that douchebag driving the Ford Explorer. A billboard on the right said “Exit now for Cabela’s”. Pulling off at the next exit, Logan thought it would be a good idea to get some guns and ammo. When he got to the entrance of the Cabela’s he peaked through the window and saw two other people browsing the archery section of the store. Logan calculated if he was quiet enough he could make it to the gun department and grab a firearm, this would give him the best chance of success when he approached the people. He did just that, and hoped to God that the two men in the archery section would be intimidated enough by the .45 caliber (that had no bullets in it) that he was holding.
“Come out where I can see you,” Logan yelled.
The two men took their time but eventually appeared in the aisle. Logan had the .45 in his right hand.
“I’m not looking for trouble, but before I shake your hands, I need you to answer a few questions,” Logan said.
The men nodded.
“Tell me your names, where you’re from, and what you have been doing for the past 24 hours.”
“The name is Sal. I live in Olympia, I’m a deckhand on a tug boat out of the Port of Seattle, I got off my shift about twelve hours ago. This is Garrett who works on the same boat as me. We got to our cars at the Port and saw bodies everywhere, even the security guards at the port were dead. It didn’t look as if this sort of thing could have been done by humans. We got out of there as fast as possible, decided to take one car, safer in numbers you know?” said Sal.
“We came here to Cabela’s to stock up on survival supplies and hopefully find some survivors like yourself,” said Garrett.
Sal was tall and skinny with jet black hair tied into a mid-length pony tail. He looked like he had some Native American blood in him. A plaid shirt was neatly tucked into his faded jeans. Garrett was the shorter of the two, no taller than 5’8” with bright red messy hair and pale complexion, freckles on his arms. He wore cargo shorts and a long sleeve shirt underneath a plain white t-shirt. A pair of sunglasses hung from his neck being supported by Croakies.
“That’s a good enough answer for me,” said Logan as he put the gun down on the counter, and walked over to shake their hands.
“If we stick together we can make it through this, whatever the heck ‘this’ is,” said Sal.
An hour later, the three of them had loaded the snow plow truck bed with as many supplies from Cabela’s as they thought could come in handy and started once again driving south.
Sal decided to take over driving the rig after witnessing Logan grind the gears for fifteen minutes. Logan didn’t argue with him.
“You know the one thing that all those bodies we saw seemed to have in common?” Sal said.
“Let me guess, their stomachs all looked like there was a hole burned all the way through?” Logan said.
“True, but the thing that stuck out to me was that every person had a cell phone right next to where they were lying. Do you think that all of these people happened to all be texting or whatever at the exact moment they all got killed and that explains the
cell phones next to their bodies?” Sal said.
“Garrett, write this down on the pad of paper, under the heading ‘Observations’ that way we can remember everything we observe about the dead bodies etc.,” said Logan.
“I think it’s also important to know if this just affected Washington, or the whole United States was hit in this ‘attack’,” Garrett said.
“Good point Garrett. This means we’ll have to keep driving until we reach Oregon, so that we can get our answer, “ said Sal.
They drove until they all were starving and the gas gauge was on ‘E’.
Eugene, Oregon was their stopping point. They parked the rig at a 76 gas station and Logan pulled out his debit card to begin the gas transaction.
“What are you doing?” Garrett said.
“What do you mean, we need to fill up the truck,” Logan said.
“Yes, but do you see anyone working at the gas station? No, they are all dead. Which means that the gas is free. Don’t pay with your debit card, let me handle it.
Garrett walked inside the gas station and found the register. With a little trial and error he was able to find a button that manually started the gas pump if you simply put in the amount of gas the ‘customer’ prepaid for. He typed in $400 when prompted. He figured it would take roughly $200 to fill the truck up with diesel and then the other $200 was to fill up 5 gallon gas cans to store in the bed of the truck.The whole process took about 15 minutes. Next door was a Texas Roadhouse restaurant. They left the truck at the gas station and walked inside. Bodies, everywhere.
Logan led the way into the kitchen and right away they knew they would have to cook their own meals at this restaurant. Logan grabbed three ribeye steaks from a nearby freezer and threw them on the grill.
“I used to come to Texas Roadhouse for my birthday dinners when I was growing up. It used to piss me off because the food was so damn good and then I would have to wait until my next birthday before I could have it again. My parents wouldn’t take me unless it was a special occasion,” said Sal.
Logan did a pretty solid job cooking the meal and the three of them wasted no time eating it.
Logan said “How about we look into the whole cell phone hypothesis, why doesn’t each one of us find the cell phone on a different dead body and bring them back to this table to compare?”
“Now you’re thinking,” Garrett said.
They returned less than a minute later with two iPhones and one Samsung Galaxy phone. The power was off on all three.
“Press the power button to see if they turn on,” Logan said.
“I get some sort of cryptic message when I turn this one on,” Sal said. “I can’t read it but it’s as if greek fraternity letters were combined with Arabic, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Garrett said, “I’ve got the same message on this phone.”
“Me too. I think we can conclude that cell phones played a role in the attack,” Logan said.
Walking back to the truck, they see a car approaching in the distance. A black Ford Explorer, what are the chances.
Logan runs to the truck and grabs the .45 caliber pistol, loads it with a few bullets and runs towards the frontage road. When the car is within 50 foot range, Logan empties the clip, aiming at the tires of the car. He is successful as, the car screeches to a halt with two of the tires blown from the gunshots. The driver doesn’t exit the car, so Logan starts cautiously approaching it. Garrett and Sal realize what is going on and join Logan with shotguns on their hips, ready to provide backup.
Logan yells “Get out of the car, you have 5 seconds or we shoot.”
A 40-something year old woman rolls her window down part way so that she can be heard.
“You almost ran me over in Seattle,” Logan says.
The woman says, “There’s no hope for the human race.”
She rolls her window back up.
Now Logan is beginning to get irritated. He runs around to the passenger side door and begins prying on the handle, attempting to get the woman out of her car, but he can’t unlock the door.
“I’ve lost my patience lady. My friend has remained calm and given you a chance. You best be out of the car or else I shoot your passenger window out,” said Sal. “5-4-3-2-“
BANG!
Logan looked over at Sal and Garrett with a confused look on his face. His ears began ringing immediately after the boom.
“Cover your eyes,” Sal said
Sal took the butt of the shotgun he was holding and rammed it into the passenger window. Glass went flying everywhere.
There in the drivers seat, the woman sat in a pile of blood, a gunshot wound had penetrated her head, and a 9mm pistol laid there on her lap.
On the dash board, was sheet of paper with a handwritten note that read, “Airplane Mode saved my life.”
2 CHANGE OF PLANS
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“SIR, WE NEED TO LEAVE here immediately and head back to DC,” said Army General Kaplan.
“What’s the problem?”
“You’re not going to like the news sir, we don’t have time now I’ll brief you in the car, “said General Kaplan.
Thomas J.Taylor, the President of the United States had been skiing at Stratton Mountain in Vermont at the time of the attack and left his cell phone with the secret service.
General Kaplan was scheduled to have dinner with President Taylor in Stratton that day. He had just witnessed the aftermath of the attack about an hour earlier, and hoped he wouldn’t arrive at Stratton Mountain to find the President to be one of the victims.
~~~
There weren’t too many other skiers on the mountain that day. The resort, knowing in advance that the President would be skiing, cut their maximum capacity in half for security reasons. President Taylor saw no other skiers on his final run down the mountain, he figured it was probably closing time and chair lifts were shutting down for the day.
100 yards from the lodge, he could see the outline of what looked like an NFL linebacker. He knew instantly it was Kaplan, you couldn’t miss that guy. President Taylor immediately knew something was wrong. Why would Kaplan be there with none of the secret service detail? Kaplan was supposed to meet him at a restaurant later that evening, not at the mountain!
~~~
“I need to grab my things from the hotel room,” said President Taylor.
“It’s already been taken care of sir.”
President Taylor was 45 years of age, but was one of those guys who experienced gray hair early. He wore it well though and typically went with the combed over at the front hairstyle. Across his forehead was a large noticeable scar. Standing at 6 feet tall and 175 pounds, when you shook his hand it made him seem a lot bigger, the guy had a forceful grip.
General Kaplan sported the completely shaved head look which was fitting for him.He was 53 years old and still in tip-top shape. He looked like he might be able to compete in a bodybuilding competition. Just his stature alone was plenty intimidating, but when you factored in his handle-bar mustache, he was a guy that you didn’t want to mess with.
On the brief walk to the SUV, a black Suburban complete with bullet proof glass, President Taylor noticed the dead bodies scattered throughout the lodge.
“Don’t stop to look, keep walking sir.”
“What about my family are they safe?”
“They’re gone sir, I hate to be the one to have to tell you that.”
The President didn’t say another word for the first two hours of the eight hour drive. He sat in the back seat with his head in his hands. General Kaplan knew that under these extreme circumstances, he couldn’t allow the President to mourn for too long. He was relieved when the President finally spoke up.
“What kind of attack are we dealing with General?”
“I’ve never seen anything of this nature sir. At first I thought it might have been a chemically engineered virus developed by a terrorist organization, but now I’m having doubts.”
�
��I’m listening,” President Taylor said.
“From observing the victims of the attack, it makes me think that the target of the attack was cell phone users. All of the victims had a cell phone next to their corpse. I tried turning on a few of the phones and they all showed the same cryptic message. I then proceeded to take the phones to Langley assuming the CIA could decode them, but the problem is, they are all dead at the CIA headquarters.”
“Holy Shit. From what I’m hearing, this is sounding more and more like an extraterrestrial attack on the human race. I should have paid attention more attention in those National Security Summits. Meacham, my former counter-terrorism adviser, would get up in front of all the department heads and give presentations on the “Technological Advancements of Non-Ally Countries pertaining to nuclear Energy, Chemical Warfare, and Cyber Security”. The problem was, Meacham would lose half his audience within the first 10 minutes because he used those damn PowerPoint presentations. Did you ever have to use those in college General?”
“No sir, I didn’t attend college. In the military I preach hands on learning though over pen and paper classroom learning, so I’m with you.”
“Anyway, during those meetings when Meacham would start boring me with the Powerpoint slides, I would pretend like I had to reply to an important email or something and pull out my Blackberry to play “Words With Friends”. It’s kind of like Scrabble except you can play against the world. It’s quite addicting. Had I not discovered it, I truly believe I would have accomplished more during my time as President.”
General Kaplan stayed silent, waiting for the President to speak again.
“Ahh, what the heck, I can’t believe I’m talking about Powerpoint presentations and Words with Friends, when I should be dealing with bigger problems.”
“I was getting worried, sir, I was pretty close to pulling the car over and slapping some sense into you.”
~~~
They arrived at the White House at 1:30am. While getting out of the Suburban, President Taylor said to General Kaplan, “I don’t know about you, but there’s zero chance I’ll be able to get some sleep tonight. Too many things on my mind bugging me. I imagine you’re in the same boat?”
