Getting Home: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The EMP Book 7)

by Ryan Westfield

  There wasn’t anyone there. The road was empty. But they’d be coming. He just hoped that Rob would be back out of the house with Olivia before they got there.

  How could he fight them off by himself?

  But if he had to, he was going to be ready. Gun in hand, he opened the door, shoving his weight against it.

  He got into position in front of the hood of the car. It’d give him some cover, and he’d still be able to see them coming.

  Dan glanced back at the house, the screen door still creaking on its hinges. The seconds were ticking by. Rob needed to hurry up.

  A thought crossed through his mind. Was it right, what they’d just done? They’d stolen the car from two strangers. They didn’t know anything about them. They didn’t know what kind of people they were, or what they’d been doing by making those strange noises.

  And if they came for the car, Dan would only have one choice. He’d have to shoot. Shoot to kill if he could.

  It didn’t seem right.

  But he couldn’t let that stop him.

  After all, he had been shot at. They’d opened fire first.

  Of course, they’d had good reason. Their car’d been stolen.

  19

  Mandy

  “I just can’t get it out of my head,” said Mandy. “It’s just so weird.”

  Max just grunted, saying nothing.

  “What do you think they were doing with them? Eating them? Fattening them up and eating them one by one?”

  “Doesn’t sound very efficient,” said Max. His voice sounded hoarse and tired. His face looked drained of its energy.

  “You feeling OK?” said Mandy. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine,” grunted Max.

  “Your leg OK?”

  He grunted again, giving a stiff nod.

  They’d been walking for a full day. They’d decided they wanted to get back as quickly as possible. Any time they stopped to rest, they’d be exposing themselves to more danger. And they’d have to take turns sleeping in case anything happened.

  They knew from experience that taking turns sleeping only led to both of them being semi-exhausted rather than fully rested.

  So they’d decided to press on, as far as they could. It was all a gamble. Exhaustion made them less able to fight.

  But since they didn’t know what the odds were, they were guessing as best they could.

  Nothing could be perfect. Not since the EMP.

  Mandy had been feeling all right. She’d been on her second or third wind for the last couple hours. She’d lost track.

  But now the exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks. She felt it in her muscles, and deep in her bones.

  She was out of breath. And all of a sudden.

  “You’d better eat something,” said Max, who must have been passing through the states of exhaustion at a different rate than she was. He was going slow and steady. “Here.” He handed her a bag of chips.

  “Jerky?” she panted.

  “You need the carbohydrate now,” said Max. “Trust me.”

  As they walked, Mandy tried to open the bag of chips with her hands, but she soon gave up, handing the bag to Max, who opened it for her.

  The chips tasted good. The salt was the best part of them.

  A few minutes after eating the chips, and drinking a healthy amount of soda, Mandy started to feel a little better.

  “Maybe I’m hitting my fourth wind,” she said. “Do those exist?”

  “Why not?” said Max.

  They were walking north. They’d left the highways behind and were walking on rural roads. They’d passed alongside a few small towns. They’d walked through old industrial areas, where the factories had closed down years before the EMP.

  They’d walked by train tracks and small rivers.

  They hadn’t seen anyone. Not a single car or a face. Part of that was because they’d kept their distance.

  “You think everyone’s dead or in hiding?” said Mandy.

  “A little bit of both,” said Max.

  “You OK?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “It’s just my leg.”

  “You want to stop and rest?”

  He shook his head. “I can keep going. Any idea how close we are?”

  Mandy had been thinking about their position for the entire trip, and while she didn’t know precisely where they were, she had a vague enough idea.

  “Maybe one day more,” she said. “We’re not going to be able to walk straight through.”

  Mad nodded. “Let’s keep going through the night, though,” he said.

  Their conversation grew sparser as the day turned into night and the serious fatigue set in. Mandy had gotten far past any third or fourth winds.

  She’d gotten to the point where she had to actively concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. It was like consciously sending messages to her body to keep moving.

  If something happened, if someone came along and they had to fight, she knew she wouldn’t be any good.

  But they pressed on, hoping that the cover of darkness would help them. Mandy had rubbed dirt on her sneakers, and Max had cut the reflective pieces off with his knife.

  They had no packs, and no flashlights either. It was hard to see at times, but their eyes adjusted somewhat. It’d be hard to spot them unless someone really knew where to look.

  The darkness was, at times, so intense that Mandy found herself engulfed in terror. Before the EMP, the night had always been something that had frightened her. First, as a child, she’d been scared of the usual monsters under the bed and the unknown that the yawning blackness offered.

  Later, as an adult, it had been a matter of practicality. Night was when people got mugged and attacked.

  She was trying to remind herself that the night was to their advantage now.

  But it didn’t quite work.

  Her rational mind knew that the night now offered more serious threats than before the EMP. After all, she’d lived in a relatively safe area with little crime. And the monsters from her childhood had never even been real.

  Somehow, they managed to trudge through the entire night, and when the sun rose, they found themselves standing on the side of a familiar road.

  “This’ll take us back to camp,” said Mandy. They were the first words either of them had spoken in hours.

  “You sure?”

  Mandy nodded. “I don’t know how it happened, but somehow we’re back on that road…”

  But she couldn’t remember the name of it. Max seemed to understand, and didn’t ask her. He must have trusted her. Maybe as much as she trusted him.

  “We’re going to make it,” said Max.

  He put his arm around her back and pulled her close. They stood there together on the edge of the empty road with the sun rising.

  20

  John

  John was the one who saw Georgia first.

  She looked beyond exhausted. Her face had gone completely pale.

  His first reaction was to grab his rifle and point it in her direction. After all, the way things had been going, there could easily be trouble. People behind her. People following her. Anything was possible.

  He waited for Georgia to call out, for her to tell him that everything was clear.

  But she said nothing.

  He walked forward slowly, keeping his eyes trained on the surroundings rather than Georgia.

  But there was nothing.

  When he got to her, he gave her his arm.

  “You OK?”

  She nodded.

  But she didn’t seem OK.

  “Anyone follow you?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Let’s get you back to the van. Are you injured?”

  She shook her head.

  She leaned most of her weight against him and together they limped back to the van.

  Sadie, James, and Cynthia came running over.

  “Mom, are you all right?”

  “I’
m fine, kids.”

  “Get her some water. And something to eat.”

  “Exactly what food are you talking about?” said Cynthia.

  “Just get something,” snapped John.

  There was food and Cynthia knew it. Just not a lot of it.

  When Cynthia came back with some water and a can of tuna fish, Georgia started to feel a little better.

  “What happened, Georgia?”

  Before she would tell them what had happened, she ordered her kids and Cynthia to get back on watch duty. “And be careful,” she added. “There’s another mob out there.”

  “Are they headed this direction?”

  “Just get out there. We can’t all be here in the van, relaxing.”

  John let out a little laugh. “Well, you heard her.”

  James and Sadie seemed reluctant to leave their mother’s side, but they agreed, grabbed their rifles, and set off with Cynthia.

  Georgia began to tell John the whole story, how she’d run into those two men, and how her old injuries had gotten the best of her.

  “They’re not exactly that old. You’re trying to do too much, that’s all. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I know I’m going to be fine,” said Georgia. Her voice had come back, almost to full strength. “But there’s a deer out there that I left. And there’s another huge mob of people.”

  “How many?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You think they’re coming this direction?”

  “Really no way to know. But if they’re looking for something, they’ll end up here.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We’ve got weapons. Some food. They’re desperate.”

  John said nothing for a moment. He was running through the possibilities in his head.

  “Well,” he finally said. “We got through it last time.”

  “Just barely,” said Georgia.

  “I wish Max and Mandy were back.”

  “Me too.”

  He told her about the ditches. They’d gotten about halfway done encircling the camp.

  “You think they’ll be effective against a big group of desperate people?”

  “They’ll do something. Sounds like we were digging in the wrong place, though.” He pointed to the other side of the camp, where’d they’d done most of the digging.

  They hadn’t even broken earth on the side of camp that Georgia had come from, where the mob was most likely to come from.

  “Well,” said Georgia, sitting up from the seat she’d been reclining in. “We’ve got work to do, that’s all.”

  She was already trying to get up, with one hand holding onto the above-door handle, trying to pull herself out of the van.

  “You’re crazy, Georgia,” muttered John, grabbing her by the sides and restraining her. “We’ll do it. You rest.”

  “I can’t sit back and watch everyone else work.”

  “That’s fair. But give it half an hour, OK?”

  “All right, fine. Half an hour. I’ll be as good as new.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” He took binoculars that he’d been carrying around his neck and handed them to her. “We’re going to need a good lookout if we’re all going to be digging.”

  John was tired and hungry, but not too far gone to do some more work. He shook his fatigued arms as they hung at his sides, trying to get his muscles to loosen up.

  With James’s help, he marked out a line that they could dig along.

  “Is my mom going to be OK?” said James.

  “She’s going to be fine, yeah. She’s tougher than she looks.”

  “You don’t need to tell me that.”

  John laughed as much as he could. There was something about exhaustion and hunger that sapped the laughter right out of someone.

  It was a shame they couldn’t get that deer. They desperately all needed a good meal. A lot of protein, and plenty of fat.

  John could almost taste the venison in his mouth. What he craved most of all was the fat, the delicious hot gristle, roasted over the campfire, that melted in your mouth.

  There wasn’t anything to do but dig. And dig some more.

  They kept going. John tried to set an example of going at a slow and steady pace. After all, James and Sadie were just kids. They needed someone to look up to, to follow. Cynthia was pulling her own weight, but she wasn’t always the best example. She had, as John knew well, a tendency to run her mouth, to make sarcastic remarks, and to complain when it suited her, without considering how it might affect the morale of everyone else.

  “Hey!” shouted Georgia, out of nowhere.

  John glanced back over his shoulder to see Georgia waving at him from where she sat in the open door of the van. He groaned. He wished that she hadn’t moved herself from the relative comfort of the van seat.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s someone out there!”

  Georgia had dropped the binoculars back around her neck in favor of her rifle. Her eye was pressed to the scope.

  James, Sadie, and Cynthia had already grabbed their rifles.

  John took his from where he’d had it strapped to his back. It felt good to have it again in his hands.

  But it didn’t feel good to know that someone was out there.

  “Get back,” hissed John in a voice that was both a whisper and a command.

  John didn’t see anything out there in the woods. It looked as it always had. Leafless trees. The ground. The sky.

  It was all normal.

  Then he saw it. A flash of movement.

  A torn white t-shirt off in the distance. Heading towards them.

  John wasn’t going to take any chances. Not this time.

  The way he saw it, he was done with asking questions first and getting shot at second. If he kept doing that, he’d wind up dead before long. It was a surprise he wasn’t dead already.

  The way John saw it, if someone was approaching the camp, then it was their responsibility to announce themselves, to declare themselves innocent, to put down their weapons and approach with their hands up.

  He’d grown harsher, yes. But that was the way it was.

  He already knew there was another mob out there.

  John got the white shirt in his sights. It belonged to a tall, lanky man. He was unkempt. A patchy beard and long hair. He was smeared with dirt.

  And he was coming towards them.

  John pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked. The shot rang out.

  The white-shirted man didn’t fall.

  He’d been shot in the shoulder. A splotch of blood appeared there, but the man continued to stagger forward.

  Before John could get off another shot, another rifle rang out. Then another. And another.

  The white-shirt man crumpled to the ground. His chest had become pockmarked with bullet holes.

  The gunshots faded away into deafening silence. No one spoke.

  John waited, not moving.

  He knew that if there were others, the gunshots would only attract them. To a group of people who had become so desperate that they’d lost their individuality completely, gunshots didn’t mean danger. To them, gunshots meant opportunity. It meant a chance to swarm, to find food, to find supplies, a chance to grasp at the possibility of living another day.

  Sure enough, another person appeared. A woman. Off in the distance.

  Then another. A man.

  Then another.

  And another.

  It was happening.

  John hoped they could hold them off this time.

  They’d barely made it last time. And they’d been comparatively well-fed. Comparatively rested.

  This was going to be tough.

  21

  Dan

  Dan saw them coming running down the road, brandishing their weapons and yelling.

  Dan glanced back at the house. Still no movement. What was taking Rob so long?

  Dan didn’t have much time. He’d been found, and the men would close t
he distance fast.

  Even if Rob appeared at the door with Olivia in the next five seconds, it still wouldn’t be enough time to get away without a fight.

  Rob would be burdened down carrying Olivia and the gear. He wouldn’t be any use in a fight like that.

  It was up to Dan.

  And Dan alone.

  Dan ducked down behind the car, hoping they hadn’t seen him at all.

  He could hear their shoes slapping against the pavement. They were close. Very close now.

  Dan started counting the seconds in his head.

  One Mississippi…

  He had a plan. When he got to the count of five, he’d pop his head up and start shooting.

  But he didn’t want to go through with it. Every fiber of his body was screaming out, telling him not to do it, telling him it was a terrible idea.

  And it was a terrible idea.

  Waiting until they got close enough to actually hit him? And then exposing himself?

  But it was the only thing he could think of. He knew that with his inexperience, he didn’t have a chance at hitting the men from any real distance. He needed them to be close.

  Two Mississippi…

  An idea popped into Dan’s head.

  Another plan.

  He was small. Short and skinny. He could use it to his advantage.

  Without thinking, he threw himself down onto the pavement, facedown. He did it too fast, and his nose bashed against the hard surface.

  It began bleeding, blood dripping down. But he ignored it.

  There was just enough space underneath the car for Dan to get under it.

  With gun in hand, he squeezed himself all the way underneath the car.

  Three Mississippi…

  He kept crawling, his elbows and face occasionally scraping the rough pavement. He knocked his head against the car.

  He ignored it all and kept going.

  Four Mississippi…

  There wasn’t much time.

  He could see their legs out from the other side of the car.

  They were getting close.

  If he didn’t make the shot, he’d be stuck underneath the car. If Rob and Olivia came out of the house at the wrong moment, they’d be completely exposed and completely undefended.