Dawn of Destruction

by Ronald Williams

  “Zack across the street told me there were National Guard units setting up checkpoints between Coeur d’Alene and Spokane,” Jason continued. “Their progress has been slow because no vehicles are working and communication is down. It doesn’t look like this is a short term thing.”

  “Thanks for the info,” said Randall. “If I find out anything while I’m still here, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks,” said Jason with a nod. “Stay safe.”

  Jason headed into his house as Randall headed to his parents’.

  Randall unlocked the door with the key and stepped inside to the entrance with a split staircase heading upstairs and downstairs.

  “Hello?!”

  There was no answer. The inside of the home was dark.

  Randall raced upstairs to search the rooms, not bothering to take his shoes off. When he saw no one was upstairs, he raced back downstairs and searched all the rooms there too.

  Next, Randall opened the door to the garage and shined his flashlight in.

  The silver Lexus SUV that should have been there was missing.

  Now Randall understood: one or both of his parents had been away from home when the EMP had gone off.

  But where? Since it had been late at night when the EMP had happened, they couldn’t have been grocery shopping or running errands.

  Watching a movie at the theater perhaps? Possibly, but they would have been able to either walk back home or to his condo by then.

  They must have either gone on vacation somewhere, or they would have gone on a weekend trip to his grandparents’ cabin in Priest Lake. Those were the only two explanations that Randall could think of.

  If they were at Priest Lake, that was good news. For one thing, it would mean that his parents and grandparents were together. His grandparents’ cabin was the designated bug out rendezvous point anyway (his family had set a bug out location based on Randall’s suggestion from his writing), and it was stocked with supplies.

  But the downside was the cabin was over a hundred miles away. That was an issue Randall had brought up, but everyone else insisted it be the bug out location.

  Randall checked his analog watch. It was now almost twenty four hours since the EMP had gone off, and it had been nearly double that since he had gotten any sleep.

  He was exhausted and he needed to rest before resuming his search the next day. If Randall were to travel all the way to Priest Lake on bicycle or on foot, it would be a major commitment and he would have to gather more items and supplies from his condo before heading north.

  He would also need to search for his brother, Thomas, in town so they could work their way together towards the cabin.

  Randall stepped into his old bedroom. It was now a guest room, but his old bed was still there against the wall where it always had been.

  He plopped down on the bed, sinking into the soft mattress, and quickly feel asleep.

  * * *

  Randall woke up early the next morning to a disturbance: someone was knocking on the door.

  He had gotten six hours of deep sleep, but he was still tired. Nonetheless, he pulled himself out of bed, drawing his Beretta from his shoulder holster in the process.

  Considering the situation, Randall knew he had to be on full alert regardless of his mental or physical state.

  Randall held the Beretta behind his back as he walked to the front door and cautiously opened it part way.

  Thomas stood there.

  “You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” said Randall, relieved.

  Thomas quickly stepped inside and they embraced, glad to see the other was safe.

  “Mom and dad here?” asked Thomas.

  “No,” replied Randall.

  “Any idea where they are?”

  Randall quickly explained his belief that their parents had gone up to Priest Lake. Thomas agreed that it was likely, based on what they could tell, but not certain.

  “Still,” Randall said. “It’s the best place for us to go. It’s always been our plan if it ever hit the fan, right? Everybody get to the cabin and we’ll make a stand as a family there.”

  “What if mom and dad aren’t there, though?” Thomas asked.

  “We need to hold to the plan. It’s been more than twenty four hours since the EMP. At any moment the whole situation might tumble into complete chaos here. We can either get caught up in it, and do nobody any good, or we can bring ourselves and whatever supplies we can carry up to the lake. It’s uncomfortable math, but there’s safety in numbers, and we’ve set up the cabin for exactly this kind of situation. The more of us that get to the cabin, and the faster we get there, the better the odds we all have of surviving together.”

  “But mom and dad could be just a day from here. Why not try to find them?”

  “A day in which direction, Thomas? We have to trust that they’re following the plan, too. If they’re not here, they should be making their way towards the cabin. If so, our best chance of helping them out will be to head the same direction they’re going.”

  Randall could tell that Thomas wasn’t happy with the logic, but he also couldn’t argue with it.

  Finally, Thomas asked, “I came over without my bug out bag. You?”

  “I left it at home. I wanted to move quickly to get here, and to not attract attention to myself.”

  “Same. So, split up to get our weapons and gear and meet back here, or go together?”

  “Together,” Randall said immediately. “Things are close to the tipping point, so it’ll be best if from here on out, we use the buddy system. We need to start watching each other’s backs.”

  Thomas nodded in agreement. “My place is closer, let’s go there first.”

  Chapter Three

  The Woods of North Idaho

  Randall and Thomas turned to see three men with semi-automatic rifles and shotguns aimed at them.

  It was pretty clear they meant business, so Randall and Thomas both raised their hands.

  “Drop them,” one of the men said.

  He was tall and ruddy with a full mountain man beard, and appeared to be the one in charge judging by the way the other two men stood to either side of and a little bit behind him.

  The man to his left was shorter with fair hair and three days of stubble. The one to his left was tall, thin, and sported a neatly trimmed goatee.

  All three of the men were dressed in hunting camouflage, and carried pistols at their belts in addition to the long guns they held in their hands.

  Thomas and Randall both took a knee, carefully setting their rifles on the ground, and then slowly took the sidearms they were open carrying out and set them down as well.

  There was no need for either of them to reveal the presence of their holdout pistols.

  The man in charge looked at the guns on the ground and then at his prisoners. Randall watched the track of his eyes closely as the man scanned across his chest and waist.

  If the roles had been reversed, Randall would have been matching up weapons and magazines. That was exactly why, in his writing, he always advised hiding a concealed weapon’s spare magazines.

  “I don’t know where you two are from or where you’re going, but you just wandered into someplace you don’t need to be.”

  The man looked at the weapons on the ground in front of him again, and gave the brothers a hard, appraising look.

  The weapons Thomas and Randall had set on the ground were quality and obviously well-used. And both men had plenty of spare ammunition in practical rigs – no mall ninja garbage – and full rucksacks on their back.

  “Take off your belts,” the man said. “And drop your rucks and the rest of your gear.”

  After Randall and Thomas set the rest of their gear on the ground, the man said, “Now take three steps back, nice and easy.”

  The man gestured to his two companions to pick up the weapons and ammunition. They both dropped their aim as they bent over to pick up their ill-gotten loot. There was a very narrow window
in which only one gun was covering both Randall and Thomas.

  Randall knew that he wouldn’t be able to quickly get to his Beretta, which was in the shoulder rig under his zipped jacket. He glanced over at Thomas, who seemed to be doing the same math, and whose small Glock was easily accessible in its concealed hip holster.

  “Hey!” Randall said to the man who was picking up his M1A. “Careful with that. The scope’s worth more than you are.”

  The man taking Randall’s gun, the short blonde, looked up, scowling angrily. The leader of the captors swung his rifle to aim it directly at Randall.

  This gave Thomas the barest window of opportunity to act. His right hand snapped down to his waist, dropping right onto the grip of his Glock.

  It was a gamble that the man would turn to engage Thomas’s active threat instead of shooting Randall first, one that fortunately paid off.

  Not only did the muzzle swing away from Randall without a shot being fired, but the longer heavier weapon was harder to bring to bear on its target.

  It gave Thomas the opportunity to take a proper shooting stance and take aim. The young man was still turning when Thomas fired, hitting him square in the chest and knocking him back.

  Randall did not stay idle. He sprang into action, charging the blonde man who was still on a knee, holding the M1A in his right hand and a shotgun in his left.

  He had both weapons by the stock, thus had no chance of getting a finger on a trigger and taking aim in a timely manner.

  Randall didn’t bother trying to get at his Beretta, choosing instead to open his arms wide and take the guy down in a two-armed grapple.

  Thomas saw the leader of their foes still staggering backwards, and smoothly squeezed the trigger again, putting another round into his chest.

  Like the man taking Randall’s guns, the guy going for Thomas’s gear was also holding his semi-automatic shotgun by the stock as he reached out for the AR-15 on the ground.

  He reacted quickly to the sound of gunfire, and gave up on trying to steal the weapons in front of him, staggering backwards instead while trying to bring his shotgun to bear on the gunman in front of him.

  Thomas switched aim to engage the one with the black goatee and squeezed off three quick rounds. Unfortunately, between the distraction of his brother grappling with an armed man to his left, and the sudden surge of adrenaline after having just shot a man for the first time in his life, Thomas’s aim had gone jerky.

  There was no sign that any of the bullets had hit their target.

  Meanwhile, Randall’s opponent had broken free of the grapple, but had been disarmed in the process. When he realized he was no longer held, but that he also had no weapon, he scrambled to his feet and reached for his holstered pistol.

  Randall was just a hair quicker at picking up his Colt from the ground and snapped off a couple of quick shots. They were enough to rattle the blonde man’s nerve and he threw himself behind a tree for cover instead of returning fire.

  Randall kept his pistol aimed at the tree the blonde had ducked behind, picked up his AR-15, and found some cover of his own. The four men were now in a stalemate, each behind a tree, with the fifth man unconscious and dying in the middle of them.

  It was quickly apparent to Randall that the two men he was facing were definitely followers without a leader. Neither of them moved from where they were, and they were constantly talking to each other from cover.

  On the other hand, Randall and Thomas’s parents had always pushed their sons to be able to think and act in any situation. The boys had spent their childhood running through the woods together, chasing each other, playing hide and seek.

  And unlike many of the neighborhood kids whose parents actively discouraged it, Thomas and Randall played Army all the time. This childhood play translated into useful skills when it came time for their parents to take them out hunting together.

  They had learned early on how to signal each other silently as they moved into position when stalking wild game. It looked like their years of play and hunting together just might save their lives.

  Using hand signals and good buddy awareness, Randall managed to move sideways far enough to get cover behind a tree where he could see the goateed man that was watching Thomas, all without exposing himself for more than the second it took him to dash to the next spot of cover.

  The man with the goatee suddenly realized how vulnerable he was, as he saw Randall taking aim at him.

  The only option he had for cover was to edge around the side of the tree, exposing himself to Thomas.

  “A little help!” he shouted to his companion while he tried to make himself as narrow as he could.

  The blonde leaned around his tree to look for Randall. Thomas fired a quick shot at him, forcing him back into hiding.

  Black goatee thought he had a break for a moment, with Thomas distracted, to make a run for it. As soon as he was in the open, Randall fired three rounds after him, none of which landed, but they kept the guy moving.

  The blonde, seeing his leader dead on the ground and his buddy fleeing unloaded half of his magazine at Thomas’s tree, doing nothing but scattering splinters, then took aim at Randall’s tree, ready to fire if he saw anything move.

  Randall saw Thomas signal him to hold tight, so he did.

  The blonde fired one more burst of rounds towards Thomas then turned tail and sprinted off. The brothers considered firing after him, but he was moving too fast through the woods to allow for an accurate shot.

  “Cover me,” Thomas said, as the sound of footsteps faded away.

  Randall stood up behind his tree, keeping his rifle aimed towards the direction the two men had run off in, while Thomas went to the pile of gear to grab his weapons and kit.

  Once he was set, he found a tree where he could watch downrange, and Randall recovered his own gear, plus the shotgun he’d knocked out of the blonde’s hand.

  He next went to check the man on the ground, approaching carefully, pistol aimed and ready at the first sign of threat. When he got close, though, he could see that the man was done for. His face was slack and his eyes were open, staring unfocused at nothing.

  The man had been armed with an AR-15 with a collapsible stock, vertical handgrip, and a scope. He also carried a Smith & Wesson Model 686 that looked both very well cared for and well used. The leather holster attested to years of daily carry around the woods.

  Randall put the pistol and all of the extra ammunition for the M-4 into his ruck, and slipped the carbine through one of the larger loops on the outside of the bag meant for holstering rifles.

  He also relieved the dead man of his big hunting knife and SOG multi-tool. A quick check of the pockets turned up nothing at all.

  None of the men were carrying backpacks. He remembered seeing canteens, but no other provisions on the men. This suggested to Randall that they were on a short range patrol around the area, probably just for the day.

  That meant that they were close to the men’s home, possibly close enough that the gunshots of the recent fight might have been heard.

  “Let’s move,” he told Thomas. “Cover as much ground as we can without kicking up a trail a blind man could follow.”

  Thomas picked up the shotgun that the man with the black goatee had abandoned, and agreed.

  The two brothers knew they needed to get far away and fast, so they tightened their belts and made the most of the daylight they had left.

  Chapter Four

  The Compound

  The ice cold gray eyes of Lewis Butler gazed out the window of his office over the Compound, standing up straight with his massive hands behind his back.

  Butler was six foot three and forty seven years old. He was an intimidating figure, and though built on a rather lean frame, he was still strong and muscular. He had been in many brawls in his lifetime, and he couldn’t remember the last one he had lost.

  A two-tone SIG Sauer P220R pistol in .45 ACP rested on his desk.

  “Everything you have t
old me is the truth?” asked Butler.

  “Everything, Lewis. Gerald had us follow them for a while, until they stopped to shoot a deer. That’s when we moved in on them,” Jacob, the man with the black goatee, said.

  “You managed to surprise them, and they still killed Gerald and scared you two off?” Butler asked.

  “We were looking over their gear, and one of them had a holdout gun. Shot Gerald dead right there, just about got me. The other one got the jump on Billy and wrestled him down.”