EMP

by Jonathan Hollerman

  He looked them up and down. “Where’s your sister?” he asked suspiciously.

  “She is at our farm. We have been looking for a doctor for hours now, and she doesn’t have a lot of time.”

  “Please help us,” Maria pleaded with him. “She’s only nineteen.”

  “Where was she shot?” the man asked, softening his voice a little.

  “It went through the fleshy part of her arm and into the side of her chest,” Sean showed him with his finger as he was talking. “I don’t think it hit her lung, but the bullet is still in there.”

  “How’s her bleeding?”

  “I used a Quick Clot bandage on her arm and the granules on her side, so the bleeding has stopped; but her face is really ashen, so I’m worried about internal bleeding,” Sean said concerned.

  “As you should be,” he said. “You realize that I am not a surgeon. I’m only a general practitioner.”

  “But you’re still a doctor,” Maria pleaded. “None of us have any advanced medical experience for this sort of thing. You’re our only hope.”

  Mr. Sorenson looked back into the house for a moment before nodding his head and turning back. “If you want to bring her here, I’ll do what I can with the minimal surgical tools I have in my bag, but I’m not leaving my wife alone.”

  “I would never ask that of you,” Sean started. “We have all kinds of medical supplies at the farm and would be happy to have your wife come along.”

  “What kind of farm has all kinds of medical supplies and no doctor?” he asked suspiciously.

  Sean saw the conversation going in the wrong direction and tried to quickly explain. “It’s not really a farm; it’s more of a retreat. A few friends of mine and our families have been putting things aside for the last few years, fearing something like this could happen to our country.”

  “You’re one of those militia types, aren’t you?” he said, growing even more suspicious now.

  “No, no, no!” Sean defended the group. “We’re just a small group of Christian families that saw the writing on the wall and had the intuition to plan ahead for hard times. We are in no way a militia.”

  “I don’t know...,” Dr. Sorenson trailed off. He didn’t completely trust the two individuals before him, looking like they were dressed for war. He wondered if he was getting himself and his wife into a dangerous situation with possibly dangerous people.

  “Please, my sister’s life depends on you. I know you want to help and I know you don’t trust us, but I promise you no harm will come to you two while you’re with us.”

  “You say you have food?” Sean heard a woman’s voice from behind the door.

  “Yes. We have food, water, supplies, extra guns and ammunition, silver, gold... whatever you want.”

  “I’m still worried about leaving my wife behind. She has a pretty severe sprained ankle from stumbling around in the dark. I’m not sure how far away you live, and she can’t really travel like this.”

  “That’s not a problem. We have transportation.” Sean stepped back from the door and pointed down the block at the truck.

  Dr. Sorenson leaned his head out the door and looked where Sean was pointing; his eyes widened at seeing the pickup. That’s when Sean noticed the Louisville Slugger he gripped in his hand. Sean pretended not to see it, not wanting to make the man uneasy. He leaned back inside and said, “They have a truck,” to his wife.

  “How do they have a truck?” Sean heard her say, incredulous, as the man shrugged his shoulders.

  “What do you think?” he asked her in a whisper. Sean didn’t hear her response but a moment later he responded. “Ok. Let me grab my bag,” he said as he shut the door and locked it again.

  “Make sure you dress warm!” Sean yelled through the closed door. Maria looked up at him and smiled in relief. A few minutes later, the door opened once more and the two of them emerged with the woman hobbling on her bad ankle. Dr. Sorenson set his bags down and locked the door behind him.

  “They’re probably going to loot my place while I’m gone, you know,” he said to no one in particular.

  “We’ll replace anything worthwhile that they take,” Sean promised. Sean guessed they were in their early fifties and both looked gaunt as if they hadn’t eaten in a while. “My name is Sean and this is my wife, Maria.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” The man took Sean’s outstretched hand, easing his nervousness. “This is my wife, Kathy, and you can just call me Darren.”

  “Okay Darren, let me grab those bags.” Sean picked up the two bags for the man who offered a nod in thanks for the help. Maria offered to help Kathy along and she graciously accepted by placing her arm over Maria’s shoulder. They started to slowly make their way back to the truck when Sean saw Brody vault over the side and jump in the driver’s seat, pulling the truck up to meet them.

  “We gotta go, guys!” Damian said urgently from the bed of the truck. “We’ve had unfriendly eyes on us since we pulled up.”

  Darren reached for the front passenger door, but Sean stopped him. “We were hoping that you guys would ride in the back, okay?”

  Darren looked confused. “I figured I’d be riding in the back, but she needs to ride up front where it’s warm.”

  Sean tried to rationalize with the man without explaining his real reasons. “Actually, I need to sit passenger so I can fire out the window if needed.”

  “Ok, so she can ride in the middle, right?” he retorted quickly.

  Sean hesitated. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I have my reasons.”

  “Which are?” Darren crossed his arms across his chest implying that they weren’t going anywhere before he got an explanation.

  Sean sighed. “We have blankets for the people in the back to lie down, cover up, and stay warm. I don’t want you to see how we get to the farm or how we bring you home. When you get back here, if you tell your friends or neighbors about us or the amount of food and supplies we have, the word will spread. That puts our farm and families in jeopardy. We will have looters and beggars showing up from now till next Christmas. The beggars I can take, but the looters and takers pose a threat and I can’t risk that.”

  “We would never tell anyone,” Darren seemed offended.

  “Willingly,” Sean responded. “What if they forced it out of you? Or worse yet, what if they forced it out of your wife after you’re dead.” Darren looked at him incredulous. “The last place we came from was burnt down by looters. You think it’s bad now; it’s only going to get worse.”

  “Let’s go guys!” Damian cut their discussion off urgently. “I wasn’t joking when I said we have multiple eyes on us right now! No more discussion, you two are either coming or not, be we have to leave right now!” Damian reached down and dropped the tailgate reaching out his hand to Darren trying to urge him on.

  “Come on, honey,” Kathy said to her husband. “It makes sense what he is saying and they want to leave.”

  Darren reached up and took Damian’s hand to be pulled up into the bed of the truck, followed by Kathy. Maria was sliding across the passenger’s seat next to Brody when the door next to Darren’s garage door opened and a man walked out.

  “Threat right!” Sean yelled as he pulled his SU-16 up to his shoulder causing the man to freeze and put his hands in the air.

  “Don’t shoot him!” Kathy yelled. “That’s our neighbor.”

  “Please mister, I don’t have a weapon,” the man said as he lifted up his coat and turned in a circle to show he was unarmed. “I heard you say you have food earlier. I have a wife and two little girls inside and we haven’t had anything to eat for a week. I beg you, please! We’ll take anything you can spare.”

  Sean hesitated for a moment, and then relented when he saw the two little girls peeking out from the window. They looked like Randy’s little ones. “Damian, grab the MRE’s and Mountain House meals out of the top of my pack.”

  Damian huffed, then dropped his rifle to his side and started rummaging through Sea
n’s pack pulling out the meals. He tossed them into the yard in front of the man who rushed forward to pick them up.

  “Threat left!” Damian yelled from the bed of the truck. Sean swung his rifle around as the neighbor across the street was now standing in the doorway.

  “Brody, get us the hell out of here!” Damian yelled as he pulled the tailgate up. Sean jumped into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door. Other people were starting to come outside now as Brody pressed the gas. They only got about a hundred yards down the road when they were greeted by a cul-de-sac. Brody quickly turned the pickup around in a wide arc, causing the wheels to squeal as Sean rolled down his window and pulled his Glock 19 from his leg holster. They made their way back towards the road they came in on. Apparently the man never made it back to his house and was trying to fight off nearly a dozen of his neighbors. Sean saw a man pull a hammer out of his back belt and smacked Darren’s neighbor in the back of the head before Sean could react. Sean could hear Kathy screaming as he fired a few rounds into the air as they passed. He didn’t aim for the man, worried about hitting one of the others in the throng of bodies. They all hit the ground briefly, but Sean could see they were already back up and fighting before the truck even made the end of the block.

  Just as they turned onto the main road, Sean heard a gunshot from the direction of the fight behind them. Brody spun the tires as they drifted back onto the main road headed for home. Sean slowly rolled up the window and re-holstered the Glock. “I can’t believe what just happened,” Sean said dismally. “I didn’t...”

  “You couldn’t have known that would happen,” Brody said consolingly.

  “Just get us home,” Sean responded bitterly, not wanting to discuss it further. Maria grabbed his arm and put her head on his shoulder. He remembered back to when he had described to his coworkers how dangerous life would be if you stayed in the city. What just transpired would have been a perfect example.

  Chapter 18

  Everyone was sitting anxiously in the living room except for Brody who was on watch. Darren and Kathy had immediately kicked everyone out of the kitchen area after Allison had been placed on the large dining table. It had been over an hour. With the house’s open floor plan, they all kept very quiet to prevent disturbing Darren as he worked. They had hung a curtain next to the operating table to allow some extra privacy. Most people just sat in silence with some praying silently. The only thing breaking the silence was Darren occasionally giving instructions to his wife Kathy, a former nurse. Sean sat at one end of the couch with Maria’s head lying in his lap. He gently ran his fingers through her hair as she slept, exhausted from the excitement and emotion of the long day. He stared into the flames of the fireplace and watched them dance along the logs with an occasional crackle to break the silence.

  Sean wished his parents were there. If anything happened to Allison, he would never forgive himself for agreeing to make the dangerous journey with her. What if it was Maria in there, he thought to himself. The emotions of that thought started to well up and he pushed them back down. He would not let his thoughts drag him down into that dark place. All it would do is make him worry and stress out. He allowed his mind to wander for a while, thinking about simpler times, happier times, times when they were first married. They were inseparable.

  They had met while serving in the Air Force and married young. Maria had just turned nineteen. Sean was a Survival Instructor and Maria had been stationed straight out of Basic Training on their side of the base to process the students as they came and went through Survival School. Sean remembered the day vividly. She was moving into the co-ed dorms for a career field dominated by men. In fact, she was only the third female in the entire dormitory that housed three hundred men in a highly prestigious career field. Sean’s work was cut out for him. He had been bent over the engine of his old 81 Chevy pickup the day her parents drove up to drop off a beautiful Hispanic goddess. He had grease up to his elbows but quickly rushed in and cleaned his hands so he could help them carry her stuff in.

  They fell for each other instantly and spent nearly every second of their free time together for the next four months. One weekend they had been discussing their future and the fact that Sean’s four-year enlistment would be ending before long. He didn’t have any job lined up locally so what would become of them when he moved back to Pittsburgh? How would they stand being on opposite ends of the country? Sean threw out the thought of them getting married so they could get base housing and he could stay in town and use his GI money to go to college. She didn’t hesitate and the following weekend they eloped to The Hitching Post in the next town. However, Maria had never let him live it down that he never got down on one knee and that his marriage proposal was more of a conversation. It had stayed an inside joke between them.

  Sean brushed a strand of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. There had been really good times during their fifteen years of marriage and there had been really bad times, but through thick and thin they always found their way back together. Sean reached over and ran his hand over her belly. What kind of world was he bringing this child into? What would the world look like in seven months? Could he provide a safe environment for his child to grow up in? There was so much to think about, so much to plan. Sean’s mind had been running scenarios and trying to stay one step ahead ever since the lights went out. He just couldn’t turn it off. He wouldn’t. There was so much to stay ahead of and Sean knew that if they made just one wrong decision, it could mean the end.

  Kathy abruptly walked around the curtains looking haggard while wiping blood off her hands with a dish towel. Sean immediately thought the worst. His heart leapt up in his throat and panic set in all in a single instant. He jumped up off the couch, startling Maria awake. He rushed over to Kathy who put her hands up reassuringly and forced a small smile.

  “It looks like she is going to be okay,” she said out loud. Sean lost his motor functions and fell to his hands and knees as his worst fear was overturned. He gasped for breath as he started to cry which quickly turned to laughing in utter joy. Kathy shushed him and Maria was quickly at his side on her knees crying softly with her head on his back and her arms wrapped tightly around his chest. Sean looked over to see Randy give Damian and Andrew a high five as the women hugged each other.

  “She’s not out of the woods yet though,” Kathy started. “There is still some danger from infection that could set in and she needs absolute bed rest for the next few weeks. She has a broken rib and she lost a lot of blood. If you hadn’t used the quick clot to stop the bleeding, Darren said there is no way she could have made it so long.” Sean stood up and walked over to hug her. She accepted the hug awkwardly and held her hands out to prevent getting Allison’s blood on him. All of a sudden there was a line of children with heads wedged between the spindles of the loft railing. All the excitement and commotion had brought them out of the second floor playroom and they were wondering if they had missed something fun.

  “What’s goin’ on, momma?” Randy’s oldest asked.

  “It’s okay Sweetie. We just heard some good news, that’s all. You guys need to keep quiet. Go downstairs and get ready for bed. It’s way past your bedtimes,” Emily told the children, trying to coax them down to the basement sleeping quarters.

  “What’s the good news, daddy?” one of Caleb’s older sons asked.

  “Well, that friend of ours that was hurt earlier is going to be okay now. There is a doctor here that fixed her all up,” Caleb answered his boy. “Now listen to Miss Emily and take your sisters downstairs quietly and get ready for bed.”

  “There’s a doctor here?” he exclaimed excitedly. “Can I meet him?”

  “In the morning son, for now you kids need to get ready for bed. We have a busy day of chores tomorrow.” There were ‘ewws’ and ‘ahhs’ all around but in unison the children turned and headed down the loft steps for the finished basement sleeping quarters. Sean smiled at them as he turned back to Darren’s wife for more
details.

  She hesitated before slowly asking, “We were actually wondering if we could have something to eat? We’re both pretty famished.”

  “Oh my goodness, yes!” Rose said, jumping up from a chair as everyone seemed to hurry forward all at once to help in any way possible.

  Kathy held up her hands to stop them, “Just the ladies, fellas. Your sister has been through a lot and is finally sleeping. She is too fragile to move right now so we need to keep it quiet.”

  “Can I just see her real quick?” Sean pleaded.

  “Sure, just make it brief and don’t wake her,” Kathy said with an authority that only comes from being a nurse for twenty years.

  Sean walked around the makeshift curtain to see Darren slumped in the chair next to the dining room table and Allison’s still body. His eyes were heavy and he seemed to be on the verge of passing out. “Thank you Darren,” Sean whispered sincerely.

  “Don’t mention it,” he waved Sean’s thanks aside. “I’m just glad she pulled through.” By now the women were quickly yet quietly making their way around the kitchen, getting some food together.

  “What do you say we let the women folk rustle up some grub while you relax and join us over in the great room?” Sean asked quietly.

  “That sounds good,” he said while pulling himself slowly out of the chair. “Let me wash up and I’ll be right over.” Sean smiled and nodded before turning towards his sister. He saw Kathy watching him out of the corner of his eye, waiting to pounce should he disturb her patient. Sean knelt down next to his sister and softly placed his hand on top of hers. She was breathing easier now but still a little raggedly, probably from the broken rib.

  He watched her sleeping for a moment, then stood up and kissed her lightly on the forehead and whispered, “Way to be tough, kiddo. You’re going to be alright now. Sleep well, I love you.” Not wanting to disturb her any further, he left her and walked back to the great room just as Damian was coming up the steps from the basement with two brown bags in his hand.