Dawn of Destruction

by Ronald Williams

  Behind him stood his brother, Thomas Parker, watching intently. Though an inch shorter and two years younger, Thomas was also broader in shoulders than Randall and more muscular, and he looked older too.

  The brothers were making their way north towards their grandparents cabin near Priest Lake, living off the land as they traveled.

  They figured that since their grandparents cabin was the designated bug out location for their family, it was the only place they had any hope of finding their parents, grandparents, and their uncle’s family. They had been unable to find any of them after the electromagnetic pulse had thrown America back to the 1800s.

  It had been a long journey since there was a good hundred and twenty miles between Priest Lake and their hometown of Coeur d’Alene, but they were making good progress and only had around twenty miles left to go.

  Once they had exhausted the food they had brought with them, they were forced to scavenge what they could find in abandoned homes and towns, or otherwise hunt for small game and birds in the woods.

  This deer, though a small one and no more than eighty pounds at the very most, would be an awesome feast that would easily last them for the rest of the way with more left over once they reached their family.

  “Are you going to shoot?” whispered Thomas, watching the deer beginning to stride up the hill.

  “Ssshhh,” replied Randall under his breath, taking his time.

  Randall understood that ammunition was now a precious commodity. A single rifle round alone was highly valuable, and he didn’t want to have to use more than one to make this kill.

  Both brothers were heavily armed and they knew how to use their weapons. In addition to his scoped M1A, Randall carried a Colt 1911 .45 ACP and KA-BAR knife on a black leather gun belt, and a Beretta 9mm concealed in a shoulder holster. He had a few extra magazines for each firearm.

  Thomas’ primary weapon was a custom AR-15 with a scope and muzzle brake, having built the rifle himself by purchasing each of the components and then putting them together into just the combination he preferred.

  The muzzle brake meant that his AR-15 was excessively loud when fired, but it kept recoil down and allowed him to make fast and accurate follow up shots. It was a trade that he felt was worth it, even if Randall vehemently disagreed.

  Thomas also wore a tactical vest that held spare magazines for his AR and his sidearm of choice: a Smith & Wesson M&P in 9mm with an extended slide and barrel.

  Like Randall, Thomas also carried a concealed backup firearm, in his case a small Glock 9mm kept in an IWB holster under his jacket on his right hip.

  The deer was nearly at the top of the ridge when it stopped and looked around.

  Randall had been following it in his sights, and the crosshairs of the scope were now positioned directly behind the deer’s shoulder over its vital organs.

  Quietly, he clicked the safety off the rifle and rested his finger over the trigger. It was now or never.

  Suddenly, Randall and Thomas both heard a twig snap behind them, followed by the words:

  “Drop your guns.”

  Chapter Two

  Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

  Randall had been in his downtown Coeur d’Alene condo typing away on his laptop late at night when the EMP hit.

  He worked as a freelance ghostwriter for various large wilderness survival and disaster preparedness websites, in addition to running his own blog and writing his own survival eBooks under the pen name, Jack Cobb.

  Randall had been working as an independent writer since 17, the result of a desire to never enter the rat race and instead pursue his passions.

  Going to college only to get a 9-5 job that he hated for the next forty years while saving up for retirement was the life Randall had been determined to avoid, and avoid it he did.

  Everyone he knew thought he was crazy when he began searching for work as a freelance writer online. After six months of trying and being rejected, he finally secured his first gig and worked his way up from there.

  Eventually, Randall had begun ghostwriting articles and books for some of the biggest survival publications on the internet, and the result of all the research he had done to write those articles and books meant that he had gained a formidable array of knowledge on survival and disaster preparedness.

  This meant two things. First, it meant that Randall was able to use this knowledge to simultaneously start his own survival blog and eBook publishing business under his pen name, which created a consistent passive income that allowed him to travel the world visiting countries he never thought he would. Already, he had been to three continents and had a trip to Australia and New Zealand scheduled in the spring. He was very much looking forward to it.

  Secondly, it meant Randall was also able to use this knowledge in his own life to become more prepared for disaster. He had a bug out bag ready to go, in addition to a six month long stockpile of food and water in the condo.

  Randall had always held an interest in survival, shooting, and the outdoors, but it didn’t stem from the writing he had done for those websites.

  It stemmed from when he was younger and would go on annual camping and hunting trips with Thomas, their father Marcus, and Marcus’ brother Bruce and his son Robert. From hunting to fishing to hiking to rafting to mountain biking, they had done it all.

  Randall had learned how to shoot at the age of 7, and he had been given his first firearm, a Ruger 10/22, at the age of 11 that he still had in his safe. It was a gun he would never sell.

  Randall’s personal armory had since grown to around a dozen guns, which he had started actively accumulating when he was 18. He kept the safe with the guns in the utility room of his condo.

  Randall had been working on the last chapter of his latest survival book, furiously trying to finish it, when the inside of the condo and the city lights outside his window had suddenly gone completely black in less than a second.

  Randall immediately knew that this wasn’t your ordinary power outage. His MacBook Pro’s screen had gone black when the lights went out, which wasn’t usual because in a normal power outage the MacBook would switch to battery mode and still be on.

  His next instinct was to check his iPhone 7, but sure enough, the screen was black as well.

  An EMP attack or solar storm were the first two explanations that popped into Randall’s mind.

  He slowly peered over his desk and out the window. There were no car lights on at all and the utter darkness meant it was very hard to see the street below.

  Randall hurriedly grabbed his Beretta from the nightstand, jammed it in his waistband under his fleece jacket, and ran out his condo and down the stairs.

  He didn’t bother trying the elevator; if an EMP had indeed gone off, it wouldn’t be working anyway (hopefully no one was trapped inside, he thought).

  When Randall finally made it outside he heard screaming. He breathed in smoke. The world was dark with no street lights.

  All the cars has quit working and were completely still. Several were crashed into one another, and people were helping injured drivers and passengers out.

  Large crowds had gathered. People were asking each other what was going on. A police officer on scene was trying to calm people down but faced a torrent of questions. The situation was abnormal, to say the least.

  “Do you know what’s happening?” a woman asked Randall, concern written all over her face.

  “I wish I knew,” Randall replied.

  Of course, Randall knew what was happening. He knew at this point an EMP had gone off and that it was time to put all the skills he had learned through his years of research and writing to the test.

  But Randall also didn’t want to get drawn into a long conversation with this woman or anyone else. If he did and revealed all he knew in the process, that would draw unnecessary attention to himself.

  The last thing Randall wanted was people knocking on his door looking for answers or for anyone to know that he had a stockpile of provisions in
his condo. That would make him an instant target.

  If things didn’t return to normal in the next few days, once conscientious people would start turning on one another like savages. Mobs would form in the streets. Grocery stores, restaurants, and gas stations would be looted and set ablaze. To stay alive, desperate people would do desperate things.

  It was safer indoors than it was out for now, Randall knew. He retreated back into the condo, passing by the person at the front desk without even a glance, and took the stairs back up the way he came.

  Randall spent almost the entirety of the next twenty four hours in his condo, not getting any sleep. He kept the door locked, the window blinds shut, and a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun and Ruger AR-15 close at hand under his bedside.

  He had plugged up all the sinks and bathtubs in the condo and began filling them up with water, until the water supply had quit working. All in all, he was able to collect nearly a hundred gallons. He wasn’t sure if it it was totally safe to drink, but even if it wasn’t, he would still be able to purify it using eight drops of bleach per gallon.

  Besides, Randall had a six months supply of water and food stockpiled in the condo, so he was good for now.

  None of his electronic or technological devices were working, and Randall felt vulnerable at the fact that he had no way to communicate with his friends or family or find out what was going on with the outside world.

  So many questions were zooming past Randall’s mind. He developed a headache just worrying about all of it.

  Who detonated the EMP?

  Why did they detonate it?

  Was the United States at war?

  Would more attacks follow?

  Were his parents okay?

  What about his brother?

  Randall watched events unfold through the window in his condo. The cars, many of them crashed and wrecked, were left abandoned. Large crowds had remained in the downtown street, flooding all the gas stations and grocery stores there were.

  In the far distance many miles away, likely across the state border in Washington, Randall could also see a large volume of smoke billowing in the sky. He assumed it was a jet airplane that had crashed and had set the surrounding trees and vegetation ablaze.

  Randall hoped that things would soon return to normal and it would be as if the EMP had never happened, but as the day wore on it became clearer and clearer to him that wouldn’t happen.

  At the end of the day, Randall decided he couldn’t just wait and sit around any longer. Things were about to get even more deadly once people started turning on one another, and he needed the opportunity to get to his parents house around 10 miles away in Post Falls before it would become too dangerous to venture out at all.

  After eating dinner, he strapped on his shoulder holster and Beretta and covered it with a jacket, and pulled his bicycle out of the utility room.

  It had been over a year since Randall had ridden the bike, but he knew his blue Ford Escape wouldn’t be working so this would be his quickest mode of transportation to get to his parents house.

  He needed to find his family so they could all decide what to do, and more importantly, so he could confirm they were safe.

  Outside, Randall began casually riding his bike down the sidewalk, taking the shortest possible route to his parents house.

  The smoke from the plane crashes in the distance filled the air, making it hard to breathe. Randall wrapped a bandana around his nose and mouth. Many people were coughing and kept the lower part of their faces buried in their shirt and jacket collars.

  Most of the businesses were all closed down. The few that were still open were flooded with people buying necessities: food, water, personal hygiene items, etc.

  The businesses that were closed down didn’t seem to be broken into, but Randall knew that would certainly change in the coming hours.

  When Randall rode past someone, they were carrying several grocery bags filled with items and they looked worried and afraid. Not yet paRandalling, but on the verge of it. Soon the panic would be on a mass scale and be uncontrollable.

  Randall avoided making eye contact with anyone around him, but he couldn’t help but hear what people were saying:

  “Did you hear a jet airplane fell over Spokane?! Crashed into a field by the airport!”

  “Are we being attacked?!”

  “Where’s the military?!”

  “Hey, a hundred bucks for half the food you have there!”

  “Is your car working?!”

  One person even had a red wagon that was filled up to the brink with supplies. They were walking quickly and didn’t stop, forcing Randall to ride around them.

  There were police officers posted at various checkpoints, many of whom were armed with shotguns and M4s.

  Randall made sure to ride around the checkpoints rather than directly through them. Most of the officers were talking with concerned civilians anyway, so they shouldn’t pay much attention to him.

  Out of the corner of Randall’s eye, he saw a man running down the street with a bag full of groceries and a woman and several police officers in quick pursuit. The man had stolen the woman’s groceries.

  Randall slowed down the pace on his bicycle to watch the two police officers tackle the man to the ground and restrain him. The groceries were sent flying over the ground, and several more people ran over to scavenge them for themselves.

  Randall continued on and quickened the pace on his bike, putting as much distance between himself and the scene of the crime as possible.

  While the hospital was in another part of town, Randall was certain that the situation there was full blown chaos. Patients dependent on electronic items or respirators to survive would be dying if not dead already, and the hospital staff would be completely overwhelmed with more injured people from the car accidents flooding the building. It wasn’t a sight he particularly wanted to see.

  In short, the situation was exactly as Randall had always imagined it would be.

  When it became too dark to see, Randall pulled out his Fenix E12 flashlight and held it in his mouth in order to see where he was going.

  There was some light provided by the fires from the plane crashes in the distance. An orange glow in the distance contrasted itself against the dark blue sky.

  Cars littered the roads as Randall zoomed by them. Along the way, he kept an eye out for anybody who seemed suspicious. Situational awareness was extra important now.

  Randall didn’t quit pedaling until he reached his parents’ neighborhood in Post Falls. He had been pedaling for two hours and normally his exhaustion would have caused him to rest. But today, under these circumstances, stopping to rest didn’t even come to mind.

  When Randall finally turned onto the street of his parents house, his dad’s red GMC Sierra truck was parked in the driveway as it always was. Of course, his mom’s Lexus may or may not have been in the garage, so there was no way for him to tell yet if they were home.

  Jason, his parents next door neighbor, was walking back to his house after talking to another neighbor across the street.

  Jason was a retired cop around 40 who currently worked in construction. He and his wife had three kids. They had always been good neighbors back when Randall still lived with his parents. Randall also trusted Jason and had always respected his opinion.

  Randall brought his bike to a halt. He noticed that Jason had a mid-sized Glock, likely a 19, strapped to his hip.

  “Are they home?” Randall asked.

  “Who?” Jason asked.

  “Marcus and Susan,” said Randall, pointing to his parents house. “You remember, me right? I’m Randall.”

  “Sorry, didn’t recognize you at first,” said Jason. “Been a long time. To be honest, I don’t think so. I knocked on their door earlier this morning and no one answered. I don’t know where they would be. Sorry.”

  Randall nodded his head. Inside his heart sank because he knew if they weren’t home, his search was far from over.


  “You gotta be careful being out here all alone,” said Jason. “Things are about to get real bad by the looks of it. Do you want to come inside?”

  “No, that’s alright,” said Randall. “I have a key to their house. Do you have any knowledge of what’s caused this?”

  “Nothing definitive so far,” said Jason. “I’ve been trying to listen to the NOAA weather radio frequencies, getting nothing but static.”

  Why didn’t I think to check my radio? Randall thought.