Could I do this?
It was a one in a million shot, but so was throwing a stick through Carruthers bicycle spokes.
Every part of me wanted to shake, to breathe rapidly.
But I didn’t.
I stayed calm, drew a deep inhalation, steadied the barrel as it remained aimed towards the front of the vehicle…
Forty yards.
Thirty.
Boom.
It didn’t even register into my thought process that the trigger had been pulled. Some primal part of my mind had decided upon the act, that I would be dead if I didn’t. Like forcing yourself to hold your breath until your brain tells your mouth to open up because it’s not giving you a choice.
It struck the car, that much I knew, but the vehicle was moving at such speed that I couldn’t even determine where it had hit.
But it didn’t seem to matter.
I moved out of the way, but if I hadn’t hit the car then I wouldn’t have even managed to dodge the speeding metal death machine that was flying in my direction. It swerved sharply away, continuing on at speed, before swerving again rapidly.
It carried on, moving across both lanes, until it took a hellish, speeding swing to one side that sent it off the wheels on one side, spinning after it’s terminal velocity at the angle it was taking had been pushed too far to bear.
It was like watching something out of an action movie.
The car took off, spinning in crashing cycles against the road before veering into the field on the other side of the road from us, out of sight.
After the footsteps of Luke and Helen joined me, silence continued to reign over the scene, as if nothing had happened. The crops in the fields blocked any view of an anomaly; only the rubber marks on the road remained.
‘Don’t ever mention this to anyone,’ I said, looking at neither of them. Helen reached out for my hand, grasping it tightly, and I drew her in to kiss her lightly on the forehead.
I glanced at Luke, who nodded at me knowingly with a flat but reassuring smile. I knew what he was thinking. I had said the same thing to him not long ago after shooting a man in the face, after making him stare down the barrel of a gun for what he had done to a defenceless old man, after letting him know that his end was about to occur, and there was nothing that he could do about it.
This hadn’t been like what had happened in the city in the city, though. That was an act of vengeance.
This was an act of necessity.
Chapter Two
Farm
Redwood. I hadn’t been back for months, but it felt like much longer.
Despite the exhaustion that we were now facing, the sight of the town sign about a hundred yards off gave us all a second wind. We pushed our legs against the resistance of the pedals and passed the sign in the morning heat. I checked my watch – it was just about to pass 11. In the distance the sun was rising steadily towards its peak above us.
That was the thing that had caused all of this, but how could anybody who knew the truth be angry? It had been the life giver for everything on this planet since the beginning of time – depending on what you believed, but let’s not get into that right now. If it had never existed, we wouldn’t either. Now, on a random day in the year 2017, a single blip in its cosmic lifespan, an event that would likely not even be worthy of register if it the giant star were under monitor by some faraway colony of beings, had managed to bring an entire intelligent civilisation to a standstill.
And as we approached my Dad’s farm on the edge of town, just a few hundred yards past the welcoming sign, I remembered his words once again.
Nature doesn’t give a fuck about you, son. It can seem beautiful and picturesque one moment, and the next it’ll rip the carpet out from under your feet and shoot you in the face while looking you dead in the eye. Nature will kill you if you don’t keep an eye on it at all times. Know that, son, and remember it.
I had taken his words with a pinch of salt, but I always carried them with me in one way or another. I was reminded of them every time a news report popped on TV about some flash flood wiping out a village in Asia or a hurricane in the remote Northwest killing a family in their homes. There was no conscience on the side of nature.
I kept my eyes peeled despite my fatigue as I slowed my bike and steadily pulled left off the road and onto the fenced dirt path that led up to the house. We hadn’t been picky about the bikes when we had stolen them from the college, but they weren’t coping on the terrain that we were now crossing. I called back to Luke and Helen and we dismounted them, wheeling them up the path. It stretched just shy of a hundred yards from the road to the front porch – I knew because I had measured it on a slow afternoon in Autumn when I was eight years old, and could remember how disappointing it was to discover that it fell short of triple figures by just a few feet.
Acres and acres of grassland surrounded the two-story house, which was flanked on one side by a grain silo and a John Deer combine that hadn’t run in years.
That wasn’t what I was focusing on, though – what I was concerned about was the fact that I couldn’t see my Dad’s truck parked in the clearing that was set out before the porch. It was a 79’ red Hyundai, a little beat up but with an engine that had been passionately taken care of by my father with his many free hours over the past decade or so. It could run.
It wasn’t here, though. I hurried along to the clearing, propping my bike up against the fence and running towards the barn. There was no sign of the car, or my father there. Nor was there any sign of him around either side of the house or in the back yard as I sprinted around it, circling until I arrived back at the front to meet my friends and catch my breath.
‘Where the hell is he…?’ I muttered to myself desperately, looking around frantically. I went up the porch and tried the door – locked. I checked beneath the loose panel of wood beneath one of the sills on the front window frames, looking for the spare key that he always left there. My fingertips didn’t stop on the small metal shape that I was looking for, though – something else was there.
I paused, resting my hand upon it, before steadily pulling out a spool of paper, rolled up and hidden within.
It was new, clean, tightly taped and with the obvious presence of the key within it. I carefully pulled away the tape and unrolled the paper. Words were printed across it in his handwriting, with the key taped right at the bottom – and another, unrecognisable key right next to it. I took up the letter and read it back.
Dear Sammy,
If you’re reading this then it means a few things. First of all, I’m gone – I’ve gone to the mountains in the North. I understand that that sentence might read as something of a shock to you. A few years ago I bought a small hunting cabin up there, just as a small project. I’m sorry that I kept such a thing secret from you, but when you live a life such as mine you have to do things sometimes to keep your mind busy. It’s quiet, and peaceful.
Second, it means that the solar flare has hit us. Yeah, I could rant at you about how right I was and so on for days and days, but what would be the use? You’re a smart boy, smarter than most of the idiots who wander around in their day to day lives completely unaware that something of this magnitude could and can and will happen. I left on the morning of 26th July 2017, just before it was due to ‘miss’ us.
If it didn’t hit, then this is just another near-event and the townsfolk will surely call me a kook and every other word under the sun – that word is a fresh wound, so I’ll use it lightly. In the event of a false positive then I’ll be back to see you soon. But if it did hit, then let me say this – I’m so proud of you for getting out of the city and making it to the farm. You must have seen and experienced some things that you probably never thought you would in your lifetime. I never wanted you to be drawn into the lifestyle that I’ve lived because of how incompatible it is with the modern world. I wanted you to live your own life. That said, I hope the small things that we did together and the skills we practiced from time to time over the ye
ars help keep you safe from here on out.
I’ve left a few things for you in the basement. I’ve loaded up the car with plenty of supplies for myself, but I’ve left you with plenty to keep going for a little while at least. IMPORTANT: Remember to use the key at the bottom of this letter – the door to the basement is booby-trapped with a surplus military grenade which will EXPLODE if the key is not used first. BE CAUTIOUS – and that doesn’t just go for the grenade.
Please do not come looking for me. I’m an old man and I’m getting older. You might not think so, but even with my knowledge of the world in circumstances such as these, in the long run I would be nothing to you but a liability. Trust me. I’m happy and safe in the mountains.
Look after your friends, and be wary of EVERYONE.
I love you,
Dad.
I finished the letter and sat down on the porch, silently processing everything that I had just read. Helen and Luke had been staring at me with confused expressions the entire time, until I handed it over to her, and she read it while Luke peered over her shoulder at it. Her eyes were frantic whilst Luke wore a frown, glaring at the letter as if it were a small child that he was about to tell off.
‘So he’s just gone?’ Helen said, looking down at me.
I didn’t say anything – all I could manage was a steady nod as I stared at the dusty clearing outside of the front porch. Through the dirt I could still see the tire treads where his truck was usually parked.
‘You all right?’ Luke asked quietly.
‘Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine. I guess it’s just the idea of never seeing him again. He raised me like that, to know that things could be ripped away at any moment, but I never really thought that a scenario would exist where I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye.’
I wasn’t a crier – you would never see anything like that from me. I had to see things head on, without being phased by them, and this was just another one of those. I’d be a straight-up liar, though, if I said that it didn’t sting a little as I sat there trying to adjust to the thought of never seeing my father again.
‘He’ll be okay,’ Helen said, looking down at me and crossing her arms. Trust her; she knew when and when not to baby me.
There was one part of this situation that I could sit easy on, though. He was safe. He had gone to live a life that he wanted to live, one that he had probably been looking forward to for years. Whether I was with him or not didn’t matter. He was happy. I know that might sound a little weird, or very, with him just leaving like this, but that’s just the way things were between us. Detachment had been a common concept ever since my mother had passed, and one that we had both dealt with in the way men often do.
‘I don’t mean to be that guy who lowers the tone…’ Luke said, sliding the letter out of Helen’s hands and reading a certain part of it closely once again. ‘But is there seriously a live grenade in your family home?’
Chapter Three
Basement
I had read that part of the letter a few more times before finally opening the front door. I had to make sure that it was the basement he was talking about. Even if it were the front door I still had a key, but as I opened it onto the front hall and looked in, I remained cautious and reluctant in my movements. My father had begun to forget more than a few things as he had gotten older, and while I didn’t think a tripwire linked to an explosive would be something that would slip his mind, I didn’t want to take any risks.
‘Hello…?’ I called out instinctively, searching in the silence. Nothing.
I warned Helen to watch her footing while the two of us scattered and wandered through the house, and Luke stayed at the door to keep watch. Nothing much had changed – a few family pictures had been taken and the vast majority of food and drink that wouldn’t spoil, but other than that it was as if my father had just gone out for a few hours.
It was a spacious farmhouse, with a wood structure and an open ground floor that allowed you to walk all the way through the house in a full circle before arriving back where you started. Helen and I crossed each other’s paths at the back of the house, and I checked everything in an effort to determine if there was some exception to what the pulse had destroyed.
Nothing worked. The faucets spurted out a little water before ceasing completely, and the refrigerator light was off. Things had already started to turn. We carried on before arriving back at the door to meet Luke. I headed up the stairs, one step at a time, and waited quietly for any sign or semblance of movement. Nothing.
We were entirely alone.
‘Wait over here,’ I said, fishing the basement key out of my pocket and spinning it in the tips of my fingers.
‘Why?’ Luke asked, looking at me sceptically.
‘Because if this thing does actually blow up then there’s no sense in it taking all three of us out.’
‘Christ, Sam…’
‘I don’t know how long we’re going to be staying here for. Everything’s off, and there are things in that basement that could keep us alive. The electricity went down less than 24 hours ago, and if things were ugly in the city then they’re gonna start to get real bad from here on out. We need to defend ourselves.’
‘Just be careful.’
‘I will… As much as I can be when handling a live grenade.’
I took a deep breath and crossed to the door, examining it. I pushed the key into the lock and spun it carefully, hearing and feeling every vibration of the turn as it spun around 360 degrees. The click of the lock receding into the innards of the door sounded, and my heart rate tripled. I stood back, looking over at my friends… And nothing happened. I turned the handle slowly and carefully opened it towards me, inch by inch, to see the contraption of wires linked together along the hinges and through the woodwork.
Taped to the bottom of the door, just high enough so that it didn’t scrape across the first step of the stairs, was the grenade. I examined it carefully before reaching down and picking it up, making sure that the trigger and the pin were still attached and secured.
For a brief moment I stood there, holding its light weight in my hand. A few small hand movements and it could kill all three of us.
Rapidly I walked towards the door, Luke and Helen standing aside as I did so. I hurried to the barn and let myself inside, placing the grenade inside an old, empty toolbox on a nearby shelf. I had no intention of being around that thing right now, but if I needed it I knew where it was.
I returned to the house and we all headed into the darkness of the basement. I still had the wind-up torch in my back pocket, which I put to use as we descended the steps. No tripwires in sight, but it was evident from a single glance in the light from my hand that the basement had been mostly emptied. I knew that my dad had been collecting things for such an event down here, but not the amount that he had clearly emptied and dumped into his truck.
There was, however, still his workbench, on the far side of the small basement, but there was something else, too. Parked in the centre of the floorspace was an army footlocker, the kind that you’d see at the end of a bunk in a war movie base camp. I had never seen it before in my life, but the moment my eyes set upon it, it both excited and frightened me. There was an ominous look to it, just sat there, all alone.
I approached it steadily, handing the torch to Luke, which he beamed down upon it as I crouched by the front. There was no lock – my dad probably figured that the grenade would have been enough to permanently deter any potential intruders from entering the basement in the first place.
I held my breath, closing my eyes slowly and lightly, undid the latch by the feel of my hands, and opened the lid.
Before I even had a chance to open my eyes, Luke let out a shriek, and I let go of the lid and dived onto my back away from the container. I opened my eyes and looked up to see my friend looking down at me with an expression that said what the fuck are you doing?
‘What the hell did you do that for?!’ I yelled up at him.
‘I
don’t know… I couldn’t help myself.’
‘How does that explain you scaring the shit out of me with that scream? What, is there a severed head in there or something?’
‘No, it was just a reaction.’
‘You’ve been shot in the shoulder and then cycled fifty miles, and you scream like a little child when a container lid opens?’
‘Man, what do you want from me, I’m tired. And so are you, considering the fact that you still haven’t gotten up off of the floor.’
Even with the possibility that some other trap that my father could have forgotten about could have been waiting for me the moment the lid was opened, I was still lying on the concrete floor of the basement. A position had never felt so natural, and even with the stress of the moment I still felt like I could drift off to sleep.
I still had work to do, though.
I sat up and crossed to the footlocker, flipping the lid once again and looking inside this time.
There were a small number of useful spread out inside; a pistol, several stacks of rounds, two hunting knives, a prized bottle of whisky from my father’s private stash, a gallon jug of water spare from the others that were stacked in the corner of the room, and two metallic sleeves with mobile phones inside.
‘So who was your dad again?’ Luke said, frowning over my shoulder.
‘A man who lives alone. When you’ve got that much free time you can do a lot of things.’
‘What do you wanna do with it?’
‘We need to get some sleep, even if it is ten in the morning. I know that we need to think practically about this, but we can’t do any thinking at all if we haven’t had any rest. We’ll set up the beds in the living room. I’ll take first watch, and I’ll wake Luke up in a few hours.’
‘I’ll take last, then,’ Helen said. I looked at her exhaustedly, actually able to sense the dark rings that lurked beneath my eyes. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she continued. ‘I can look after myself. You knew that when we started going out. Besides, we’re only keeping a lookout. If anything happens then I can just wake you guys, or vice versa. The drive is more than a hundred yards, there’ll be plenty of time to prep if we come under attack… Or something.’
The Solar Pulse (Book 2): Escape the Pulse Page 2
