Fallen Earth | Book 2 | Aftermath

by Morrow, Jason D.

  When she had the thought, she heard a squeaking noise behind her. She turned and saw a man struggling to run out with a thirty-six pack of bottled water, and her eyes lit up. Her first response was to scan the destroyed room to see if there were any more. When she saw the empty pallet, she raised a hand and called out to the man.

  “Sir! Please! I need some water!”

  The man didn’t even look at her and instead trudged out the door.

  Thinking he simply hadn’t heard her, she called out again and ran to the drugstore entrance. “Sir! Please!”

  Finally, he turned to her with a grimace on his face. He was about to say something when a series of loud bangs burst through the air. The pack of bottled waters crashed to the ground and split open with bottles rolling in every direction as the man clutched his gut and his chest, blood spilling from his wounds.

  He had been shot three or four times and was dead before he hit the ground. Cora stood in the doorway with her mouth hanging open. Her legs felt like concrete blocks as two more men stood over him and started grabbing up as many loose bottles of water as they could.

  One of them looked at her, his gun in one hand, his other hand scooping up the bottles. When he had as much as he could carry, he motioned for the other man to follow and they ran away.

  She stared at the dead man for a long moment, petrified. As an ER nurse, she had seen gunshot victims and even dead bodies, but they had never been shot right in front of her.

  There was no question, this man was dead. There was no resuscitating him. There was no closing his wounds.

  Cora dared to stand over him on the sidewalk and started taking bottles of water. She tried not to look at his eyes, but she couldn’t help it. They stared, open and lifeless—executed for grabbing water and trying to survive. It could have been her as easily as him. It could still be her.

  The thought made her move more quickly. With seven bottles stuffed into her backpack and a kitchen knife firm in her left hand, she started back toward the apartment building. She tried not to look in any direction in particular, but she caught the eyes of another pair of men who had watched the assassination from across the street. At first, she expected them to ask if she was all right, but instead they started toward her as though she had something they wanted. Maybe she did. Maybe it was water. Maybe it was something else.

  She picked up her pace, and when she looked back, she noticed that they also picked up their pace. When she started to sprint, so did they.

  Her heart pounded in her ears, blood throbbing through her body. She all but slammed into the glass door of the apartment building and shoved the key in. She got the door closed and locked just as the men reached it, but that didn’t keep them from kicking at it. She didn’t wait around for the crash. Instead, she bolted up the stairs.

  One flight. Two flights.

  Crash!

  The men were in the apartment building. She could hear them get onto the stairwell, cursing and yelling as they climbed. In a split decision, she exited on the fourth floor and darted down the hall, then she got onto a different flight of steps. She didn’t stop until she reached the tenth floor. There was no reason either man would know what floor she lived on or which apartment. When she got to her apartment, she swung the door open, slammed it shut, then locked it. Then she crawled to the other side of the couch and shoved it against the door.

  She rested for a moment with her back against the couch. She thought everyone in the building would be able to hear her breathing, and she wasn’t able to catch her breath for a solid five minutes. But that was at least enough time for her to realize that she had probably lost the men.

  Did she really think she could make it out of Chicago? She couldn’t even make it one block without witnessing a killing and being chased by strangers.

  Whatever was happening, she hoped it would be over soon.

  She unzipped the backpack and took out a bottle of water. With all the running, she could have downed the whole drink in just a few seconds. But the worst part of something like this was conservation. So, she took only a couple of sips, then screwed the lid back on.

  She would wait there until the power came back on or until help arrived. That, or until she needed more supplies. She feared she wouldn’t survive such a scenario.

  Chapter Seven

  The town of Hope was still reeling just two days after it had been taken over by a large group of prisoners from the nearby Lone Oak State Prison. With the help of the town’s sheriff, Leland West, and several others, most of the prisoners had been killed, while a few had been retaken and jailed in the sheriff’s office. Not only had the takeover been devastating to the town, but now it had to deal with the fact that the power was still out and they had received no aid from neighboring cities or towns.

  They were in this alone.

  Like everyone else in the country, Leland thought to himself.

  He stood a few feet away from Bill, a local mechanic, who thought he might be able to get one of the cars started for Leland’s journey to Chicago. If all this was an EMP attack as Henry Tash suggested, then this old beat-up SUV shouldn’t be affected too much. Just a few replacements on the electrical parts and it should start and run just fine. Apparently, newer vehicles were most at risk in an attack like this, while older vehicles that didn’t rely on electricity so much were more easily fixed.

  Bill hunched over the front hood as he tinkered with components Leland couldn’t see. Occasionally, Leland would glance toward the middle of town, and thoughts of the previous couple of days would play over in his head. Whatever the worst-case scenario could have been, it had happened and there was no getting around it. The prison had failed to lock down in a crisis and the result was Hope being overrun with murderers and thieves. The fact that no police force or soldiers had arrived to aid them was a telling clue to the scope of the problem.

  Part of Leland doubted what Henry had said about an EMP attack. It didn’t make sense to Leland. He certainly understood it as much as he could understand any terrorist attack, but he couldn’t work out how any one person or secret organization could have done something so massive. At the end of the day, no matter the reason, no matter who was behind it, the only thing that really mattered to Leland was making sure his family was safe. If Chicago had even remotely gone through what Hope, Wisconsin had gone through, then it would be absolute chaos. And his other daughter, Cora, would be right in the middle of it.

  Some of the townsfolk had tried to tell him he needed to stay. One or two of them went so far as to say that it was his obligation to stay considering his position within the community. But Leland didn’t wear a uniform anymore. He had already set his badge on his wife’s headstone, leaving behind the persona of protector and defender of Hope. He was no different than any other person in town now, and any other person in town would go after their family if they had the ability to.

  He had led the small task force to help liberate Hope from the prisoners, but it had only been because his other daughter, Gwen, had been stuck. If she had not been part of the equation, he may have still tried to defend the town, but he would have gone about it in a much less aggressive way. In fact, had his daughter not been held hostage, he would probably still be in a standoff against the prisoners.

  Bill expected there to be no problem so long as he could replace some of the wires. Apparently, the fuses had blown and left the car dead, but with a few tweaks and a couple of replacements, it would be running within an hour or two.

  Leland didn’t like the idea of leaving Gwen behind so soon after she had been held hostage, but surely his second daughter understood his need to go. Of course, running into the center of Chicago didn’t sound like the best idea, especially since it was fairly unfamiliar territory to him. He didn’t know what to expect, but Henry seemed to know exactly what they were about to face.

  The former prisoner, former lifer, was anxious to get out of Hope. There were a few people who had seen him in his prison jumpsuit during th
e whole fiasco, which naturally meant that everyone within the town knew that Henry was an escaped convict. None of them liked the idea that he was running about free unlike the few other prisoners that had survived the scuffle. In their eyes, he was just as dangerous as the rest of them. But with Leland’s word and Henry’s desire to lie low on the edge of town, the people of Hope realized that they had far more worries and troubles ahead of them and quickly left Henry to himself. Still, the 23-year-old convict was anxious to get out of there and look for his brother, who also lived in Chicago.

  In fact, not only did Henry’s brother live in Chicago, but he actually lived within a few blocks of Cora. This presented a compelling case for the two of them to go to Chicago together and help each other find their family members.

  Both of them knew it was a long shot that they would find their family. Their best chance at finding them was going to their apartments and looking for them there because they likely wouldn’t have any other place to go. However, if they had run out of supplies such as water or food they would have to leave their apartments. In that case, they could be anywhere and they might not have a good enough reason to return to their apartments. Leland knew each and every one of his family members pretty well, and he suspected Cora was sitting in her apartment, shaking. Petrified.

  Cora wasn’t as brave and headstrong as Gwen, but what Cora lacked in tenacity, she made up for in compassion. She could be easily motivated to help someone in need, which was probably why she had become a nurse. It was also a terrible trait to have in a survival situation.

  Henry didn’t say much about his brother, only that he lived alone and didn’t have many friends that he knew of. The two of them hadn’t talked much since Henry had gone to prison, but he got a phone call about every six months to catch up. Neither of them had much to talk about as both of their lives seemed pretty mundane and boring. Henry didn’t seem to know what a reunion with his brother would entail, but he was motivated to find him and get him out of Chicago nonetheless.

  As far as Leland was concerned, he was happy to help Henry so long as it didn’t interfere with him finding his daughter. Henry had been instrumental in saving the town of Hope, and in turn, saving his youngest daughter, so Leland felt like he owed Henry.

  In truth, Leland had been avoiding Gwen because he knew she would want to go with him to Chicago. There was, of course, absolutely no scenario in which he would allow her to accompany him into such a dangerous place. He already knew the argument that would take place. He would say something along the lines of how much it took to save her life already. She would turn around and say that the last couple of days had given her confidence to fight. Leland would end the conversation by closing his mouth and refusing to argue any further, and Gwen would fume, trying to think of ways to argue Leland into a corner. She would fail. He would feel guilty for some reason. And their relationship would deteriorate even further.

  So, when he saw her approaching, his stomach twisted and he prepared himself mentally for an argument.

  “When do you head out?” she asked him.

  “Just as soon as Bill fixes the car.” Leland hadn’t expected such a cordial question. Instead, he had expected an immediate rush to argue along with the demand for her to go with him.

  “Do you really think going to Chicago is the best plan right now?”

  Leland looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “And what do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe wait around and see if she comes here.”

  “Well, if Chicago is experiencing the same thing we are, then she won’t get here for a long time. If she can get here at all.”

  “Are you sure this is a widespread thing?”

  “I think if it wasn’t then we would see rescue vehicles or other police officers in the area.”

  They had already sent out people to neighboring towns to see if others were in the same boat. They were, and things looked dire. Leland wouldn’t have been surprised if the attack was on Chicago alone, and places like Hope were just feeling the effects of it. If the attack was large enough to take out a major metropolitan area, then it could take out towns hours away in every direction. Leland had little doubt that Chicago was a big part of this, but he still wasn’t sure it was a country-wide phenomenon. That seemed too bizarre, too sinister.

  “I want to go with you.”

  There it was.

  “What do you think my answer is going to be?”

  Gwen swallowed and stuck her nose in the air. “I’ve been to Chicago four or five times. How many times have you been there?”

  It was a good question. And it felt more like a jab than a probe for information. He had been to Chicago one time to help move Cora to her apartment. And for the last few years, he hadn’t visited her there. She had come to Hope a few times, but Leland didn’t like the big city. He never liked cities. Too much crime happened in big cities, and he had had enough of that from his early career as a police officer.

  “I’m not taking you with me,” Leland answered. “Do you know the hell I had to go through to make sure you were safe?”

  The muscles in her jaws pulsated. He hadn’t meant to hit a nerve. Gwen had been through plenty of hell, too. Probably more than he had. He looked down at her wrist, which was wrapped in gauze. Savage had burned it over a candle, and the thought made Leland wish he could kill the man again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t risk losing you out there. It’s going to be dangerous.”

  “It’s going to be dangerous here,” Gwen said. “People are getting antsy.”

  “Not like in Chicago,” a voice said from behind them. It was Henry, who carried a backpack slung over one shoulder. “If I had to bet, I’m guessing we’re about to run into a mess. I won’t be surprised if we have to turn back.”

  Leland held his tongue, forcing himself not to say the first thing that came to his mind. You might turn back, but I’m not.

  “We won’t be more than a day or two,” Leland said. “I will come back with Cora.”

  “What about you?” Gwen asked, looking at Henry. “Are you coming back too?”

  Henry seemed stunned by the question. He shook his head. “I don’t suppose I am. The people of Hope don’t seem to want someone like me among them, and I understand that. I guess it sort of depends on what happens.”

  “Well,” Bill said as he slammed the hood of the SUV down. “Let’s give it a try, shall we?” He slid into the driver’s side and turned the key. The engine hesitated to turn over for a brief moment but then purred, the car idling as well as it ever had. “You want these older vehicles for times like these!”

  Leland was pleased, though he tried not to show it too much. A large part of him wanted to get out of Hope to just clear his head. People here were looking to him as a leader, but he didn’t want to lead them. He didn’t want to guide them through this crisis. But who else did they have? The mayor had been killed, and the rest of the city council was made up of regular people like the rest of them. Leland was the only one with real leadership qualities to look to in a time like this.

  But he couldn’t leave Cora in Chicago. Family came first. Then Hope. They knew what to do. They knew what it would take to survive for a few days. There were groceries, water, and medicine. One or two days was not going to change any of that. He would come back to the same people he left.

  He thought about the prisoners of Lone Oak taking over Hope, and he grimaced. Could something so terrible happen to the town again?

  Unlikely, he thought. The prisoners had been led or organized by a man named Savage—a man that many of them followed with almost religious devotion. Now that he was gone, it was doubtful there would be more prisoners. Leland actually feared neighboring towns even more than prisoners now. There were some communities not too far away that didn’t have grocery stores or drug stores. They would become most desperate quickly. That didn’t mean they would attack Hope, but it was certainly a concern.

  Bill reached d
own and put two large cans of gasoline in the back of the SUV, then set another bag of supplies next to it that Leland had brought.

  Leland checked another bag—one filled with guns—and handed a rifle, a shotgun, and a nine-millimeter to Henry. He packed his own Colt revolver in a holster on his belt and made sure his 30-30 was nestled between the seats next to him. There was plenty of gas. Plenty of ammunition. Plenty of food and water. They were as ready as they could be for a journey of this magnitude. The only thing they weren’t prepared for was the city itself. Neither of them truly knew what would happen when they got there—if they could even get there.

  Leland had limited knowledge of Chicago, but he knew the traffic started long before one got to the city, which would mean a lot of stranded vehicles and a lot of desperate people.

  Leland pulled out a set of radios from the bag and handed one of them to Henry.

  “What’s this?” Henry said, looking at the radio with a raised eyebrow.

  “These were in a drawer in my office. They weren’t affected for some reason.”

  “Faraday cage,” Henry said.

  Leland shook his head and shrugged. “They’re not bouncing off any tower. They are connected to each other. Just keep it on channel two. It’s in case we get separated.”

  Henry nodded and clipped the radio to his belt. Leland did the same.

  When he looked back at Gwen, she was almost to the other side of the garage, backing away as though she was about to bolt. Leland opened his arms for a hug, but she simply looked down at the ground.

  He let his arms drop.

  “I’ll be back in a day or two, I promise.”

  “Of course,” she said. “You’ve always got to be the hero. It’s your duty to go save someone. But other people can do stuff too, you know.”

  “I know you can,” he said. “But I just need to do this one thing. I just need to save Cora.”