Inception of Chaos: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Story

by Holden, J. J.

  In fact, the whole town seemed quiet. Too much so. It was like the battle itself had the wind knocked out of it. One gunshot rang out in the distance, then another, with seconds between them.

  It was a surreal moment. The battle seemed as dead as Mary, for a long moment.

  Christine blinked.

  More gunshots rang out, coming faster and faster, though nothing like they had been.

  David’s radio crackled. Orien’s voice. “David, status check. You there, boss?”

  The radio chirped. “David here. I’m alive. What’s going on out there?”

  “It’s not clear. I’m getting reports from all over—heavy casualties, but the bandits are falling back, more like running away. Some holdouts, and we’re moving teams over there, but… It’s like they just stopped trying to flank us, stopped moving forward… It’s weird.”

  Christine stood and walked over to Mary and grabbed her booted feet, then started dragging her toward the back door. David could deal with the bandits. Mary didn’t deserve to be cremated in some hellhole burning down. She deserved a burial. What was left of her did. Even if it would be closed-casket.

  Someone took the left foot from her, and she looked over to find Hunter, helping her pull her friend from the burning building. His smile, the precious thing about him…it was gone. When he looked her in the eyes, for just a brief moment, Christine saw…nothing. The boy looked like he had been hollowed out, and for that moment, Hunter was a stranger.

  She shook her head, clearing it. That was Hunter. That was her son. He’d be fine. He was strong—stronger than her even. He’d just had the wind knocked out of him, in a way. But in the back of her mind, unbidden, the thought arose that she was wrong, and what they’d all been through had killed the boy she’d raised and fought so hard to protect.

  Maybe that was what it took to survive, anymore.

  The cool, outside air, as they backed from the building, did little to cool the angry heat in her belly.

  Maybe she’d been hollowed out, too.

  83

  The aftermath of the battle was chaos, of course. Fire brigades had to be formed to save the buildings they could, though probably half the town would soon be cinders and ash. Pockets of bandits remained, the ones who’d been cut off or too wounded to run, though they were outnumbered, now. Dozens of wounded had to be cared for, and search teams organized to sweep the town for more. And for all of it, the townspeople looked to David for directions. It was overwhelming, but someone had to do it, and the old mayor didn’t even try to step in and direct anyone, so it fell to David.

  And throughout all of that, he found reasons to stay near where Christine and her kids sat beside Mary’s body, holding each other’s hands in silence. Something was different about her, and Hunter, too.

  As David leaned over a table he’d had brought to him, he heard Hunter shout, “Dad!”

  Hell, he’d forgotten that jerk had fled into the town ahead of the bandit horde. He looked up, surprised. Bryson stepped up to Hunter and wrapped him in a hug. Huh… Wherever he’d been stationed, they must not have had it as hard as the others, because his clothes were clean, his face unblemished with the soot, sweat, and blood he saw on the other faces surrounding him.

  Bryson said, “What’s with your mom? We won. Leave it to a woman to cry over a win.”

  Bastard. David headed toward them. This was not the time for Bryson’s brand of B.S.

  Before he got there, Hunter said, “Mary died, Dad.”

  “Small price to pay. You’re alive, though. She should be grinning. Always the drama.”

  As David drew in a breath to order Bryson removed, Hunter reached out and grabbed the satchel slung over Bryson’s shoulder, then looked up at his father. “Your mag pouch is full?”

  David stopped. This was interesting.

  Christine snatched the rifle Bryson had slung over one shoulder, and smelled at the chamber. She looked at Bryson. That damn coward… “Hey, Hunter. Check his mag.”

  Hunter took the rifle and pulled out the mag, then looked back up at his father. “Are you kidding me?”

  Hunter let the magazine and rifle fall to the dirt and turned away from his dad. “Mom, I’m going to go check on all the other kids.”

  “Son…” Bryson held out one hand, but as his son walked away, he let it drop. “Christine, I can explain—”

  “Shove it!” Christine blinked, surprised at herself. “Hunter was there when Mary died, and you have the balls to say it’s a small price? That could have been him. It almost was. And where were you? Hiding, while we fought. Just…go. Get away from me, and stay away from us.”

  She turned away from him, as David watched from a few feet away. She expected him to frown, but David only gave her a curt nod, then went back to his work. There was still work to be done, she realized, the fog beginning to lift. Mary had died…

  And yet, it wasn’t in vain. The town still stood, though the damage had yet to be assessed. Hunter stood, and Darcy, and Fran—people who mattered far more than sniveling, whiny Bryson—and the damage to them had yet to be assessed. Likewise for herself, she realized—she was still in shock.

  Still, it felt good to see the poison looks the people nearby gave Bryson, and the distance they were putting between themselves and him, most likely unconsciously.

  Hunter may have lost his youth, that day—she’d find that out in due time—but he’d gained an understanding of who his father really was. It was painful that it took the end of the world for Bryson’s true colors to shine brightly enough for his own son to see it. Definitely a rough day for the kid.

  But Hunter had stood like a man, and fought like one. She’d raised him well, it turned out. And he’d been a part of Weldona’s fight for life, not hiding with Fran like she’d ordered him to. Like a kid would have. Maybe it was time to start thinking of her son as a man. A man nothing like his father, thank God.

  But at what price?

  She walked after her son, ignoring Bryson’s pleas for attention. She stopped as she passed David and waited a moment for him to look her way. “I’m going after Hunter,” she said. “Keep that man away from Mary. We’ll bury her in Weldona. She died for Weldona—it’s her home, now, too.”

  He nodded, and she hurried after her son. Weldona was Hunter’s home, now, as well—and her own. Fran’s house, that was home. Nowhere had felt like “home” since leaving so many years ago, but she’d found she had roots, and in the last place she ever expected.

  84

  Wednesday, July 15th

  Cobi stood at the podium, half charred, within the town hall, half burnt away. It was a fitting symbol for Weldona, in David’s opinion. A bit to the east, the rumble of excavation equipment drifted faintly to David’s ears, lost when Cobi spoke over it. Cobi was halfway through his speech, or at least, David hoped he was.

  Cobi said, “…And though every living soul native to Weldona, townie and farmer alike, is at this gathering, with the exception of a dozen ‘deputies’ watching the makeshift checkpoints, there are fewer people here than any of us hoped. Our losses were tremendous. But our enemies’ were greater. So many of them died, trying to take what is ours, that we have to use a bulldozer to make their grave.”

  There was a fainthearted cheer from the people crowding the town hall.

  Cobi continued, “We have Officer David Kelley, now the Honorable Mayor, to thank for that. He found us on accident, thanks in large part to our own Prodigal Son returning—Christine, where are you? Oh, there. Wave, won’t you? Prodigal Daughter, I suppose… Yes, our new mayor saved us. I’m glad I spotted his talents and encouraged him to step into that hero’s cape he ought to be wearing. I suppose I did my part, as we all did. Well, not Chrissy’s ex-husband, but everyone else.”

  A few people laughed out loud, but not Christine, David noted idly. It was almost time…

  Cobi said, “Without further ado, let’s hear from the Man of the Hour, our own mayor, David Kelley.” He started applauding, and
the crowd followed suit.

  David grunted as he rose—he had some gnarly bruises on his leg and hip he couldn’t remember getting—and limped to the podium. When Cobi stepped aside, he leaned on the podium as much for support as to look out at the crowd of his people. His people…

  “Thanks, Cobi. Let’s hear it for the President of the Weldona Homeowner’s Association, and let’s try not to think about how many homes we just lost, okay?”

  He smiled, but only briefly. “It’s true, we did lose a good third of Weldona’s buildings, yesterday. And of our three hundred or so citizens, we lost a quarter. We also took out well over half of a bandit army at least three times our size, so I call it a fair exchange. Tragic, but far better than we had a right to expect.”

  A man shouted, “We expected to lose us all, David. You the man.”

  “Thanks,” David said, sans smile. “I joined the Denver P-D to protect people and enforce the law, but it never did feel like home, not even after most of a career spent there. The changes I saw in the hours and days after the C-M-E most definitely weren’t the ones I’d expect of any place I’d take into my heart to call home.”

  He glanced at Orien, who smiled and nodded. Orien knew what was coming, of course, but his approval had been a surprise. He looked back to the crowd. “It’s because of that feeling, the sense that this has become my home, that I want to announce my decision to stay in Weldona, as your mayor. I’m sure we’ll all welcome my partner as our new chief of police—”

  He paused as many in the crowd whistled and clapped. Hopefully, much of that was for Orien. The kid had earned his spurs, and his rank. Cobi even agreed, even though he’d tried to make it sound like his idea.

  David said, “Now, I disobeyed orders to stay here and fight with you. I may have a piper to pay, down the road, but I realized something. And that is, sometimes following orders isn’t the same as living up to one’s duty. Sometimes, duty is about what’s right, not following orders blindly.”

  I’ve saved more lives here, yesterday, than I did in a career of police work in Denver…

  “I have many more duties now than before, though. Seeing Weldona get rebuilt, that’s my duty. Seeing our fallen heroes buried and set to peace, at last, is my duty. Making sure we grow stronger, while the world around us falls apart—that’s my duty, too. And I swear to you all, as your mayor, I will live up to that duty. The world has become a scary place, but we—We, the People—will never let that fear rule us. We will never let that change who we are.”

  “Who are we?” a man shouted.

  David smiled. “That’s easy. We’re Weldonians. We’re Coloradoans. And, we’re Americans. We may be just one of many pockets of America still standing. Or, we may be all that’s left of the America that was. Either way, these troubles only make us stronger. They make us more determined than ever to carry on. And as long as we do carry on, the flames of Democracy shall not die.”

  He swept his hand across the audience. “You who survived, you will carry on. We can do that because those who aren’t with us today made a great sacrifice. The ultimate sacrifice. They will have our eternal thanks, and our eternal honor. I’m pleased to announce that, as we rebuild this town hall, we will use one brick, or board, or nail, from every building we’ve lost, every home they destroyed, every family with an empty place-setting at supper tonight. We will engrave, on bronze plaques, the names of each of our fallen guardians.

  “And when our town hall is done, we will adorn it with those plaques. And the next one to fall. And the next. So long as one of us remains, Weldona remains, and so shall the names of those we’ve lost.”

  Over two hundred people burst into applause, and David let them. He didn’t interrupt, though he wished he could. That applause should have been for the names on those plaques, not him, but it was needful. They needed a leader, and he was the one they had, even if, in the words of a better guardian than him, he wasn’t the one they deserved.

  But, he silently vowed, he’d spend the rest of his days trying to become that man.

  Gravel crunched beneath Wiley’s new boots as he swatted away a dive-bombing fly that had been bugging him for the last quarter-mile. For the foreseeable future, the best clothes were no longer expensive daydreams—they were there for the taking, from any one of the empty homes he passed. Empty, save for the occasional skeleton who had no further use for their primo hiking boots in the closet.

  A sound rose up in his consciousness, and he cocked his head. A car—the noise of engines might as well have been a bugle announcement, now. He unslung the assault rifle he’d cribbed off a bandit, miles and miles ago, but shoved aside bittersweet memories of Weldona. He ran off the desolate road’s shoulder, crouching behind a tree, and readied his rifle. The bag of magazines he’d found with the boots hung reassuringly heavy off his shoulder. Let ’em try. He was free, now, and damn well staying that way from now on.

  He peeked out from behind the tree and watched the car approach. Pearl black, it was an older Mercedes, perfectly maintained—he had a great view as it passed by only twenty feet away. Nice car… Once it passed by, he relaxed a little, removing his finger from the trigger.

  Just as he was going to step out, though, the car’s brake lights flared to life, and it rolled to a stop. Wiley watched it for a few seconds… Then, the white reverse lights lit up, and the engine whined a higher pitch as the Mercedes backed up. It came to a halt directly parallel to the tree Wiley hid behind.

  Wiley counted seconds, slowly moving his rifle to his shoulder. At twenty, he decided, he was gonna spray that beautiful relic of another world, and make his way north, away from the road—

  The driver’s door opened, and a man climbed out. He was tall, looked fit, but he was also handsome and well groomed. Clean shaven… Rare, anymore… The man smiled, and his voice, warm and friendly, rang out. “Hey there, buddy.”

  “Whaddaya want?” Wiley moved the barrel up a couple inches, casually aiming at the man’s chest over the car’s roof.

  “It’s not what I want that matters. It’s what do you want? But since you ask… It’s a lonely road, and I could use some company. Nice shooter, my man.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “In return for a ride, want to use it to keep us both safe? You know, these back roads do have bandits. They’re a problem. Not for you, I think, and if you come with me, maybe not for me.”

  Wiley paused. It could be a trick, of course… But the guy looked totally comfortable in his khaki pants and polo shirt, and even at twenty feet away, Wiley could see the watch was expensive. Not a Rolex, maybe, and not full of “bling”—not something a man would loot, more likely something he’d had a while.

  Well, hell. I’m more a threat to him than he is to me. Wiley paused again. A nice guy wouldn’t last long farther west, in Denver, and that was where his road eventually ended up. “I’m going to Denver. You?”

  “Same. I have business there. I figure, same as you. Hop in, and we’ll get there safer together in a car than alone. What do you say?”

  Wiley shrugged. “Sure. Try anything, you’ll regret it.”

  He smiled warmly. “I have every confidence in your abilities. If I were a threat to someone, it wouldn’t be you.”

  Wiley stepped out from behind the tree and walked to the car. A ride was better than walking, certainly. “Okay. I’m your guy, then.”

  “Of course, you are.” The man slid inside, and Wiley followed suit.

  The leather upholstery creaked as Wiley sat inside, and the interior was just as immaculate as the outside. Whoever this guy was, he took proper care of his possessions. That was a trait Wiley could respect. He closed the door, and it gave a satisfyingly heavy thunk, that German engineering at its best. How odd that a man like this would take the risk to pick up a straggler like Wiley.

  I wonder what that’s about.

  But his thoughts quickly drifted off to merely enjoying the scenery as the car sped west, toward Denver. He glanced in the side mirror,
half expecting to see Weldona shrinking behind him, but that was foolish, of course. It had left him behind, when his true past had come out.

  His memories drifted to Christine, and especially, her kids. They were great, and he’d done his part to make sure they got to grow up to be great adults, too, even if no one living in the closest place he’d ever had to a real home would ever know it.

  He knew, though, and that was enough. Those memories would keep him warm at night, because what he expected to find in Denver was anything but warm and cozy. But it was a place that deserved a man like him—and the place a man like him deserved. If he couldn’t find a decent home, like Weldona, then he’d damn well carve one out for himself in a place like Denver.

  “Vacation’s over,” he muttered, and ripped his gaze from the side mirror just as they passed a tiny little lake on the left, opposite a burnt wasteland he was almost certain had once been Lochbuie.

  Christine stood with one arm around Darcy, the other around Hunter, and smelled the good, earthy aroma of freshly turned dirt. The bugs, so thick on Fran’s urban farm in a way they never were on the big farms she remembered as a kid, hardly bothered her.

  No, her eyes were on the simple wooden box that David and Orien lowered into the deep hole she and Hunter had dug, after the town hall meeting. At one end, a simple wooden cross bore a single name, one she’d never forget. At the other, a mound of dirt that would soon cover the one whose name the cross bore.

  “Chrissy, you want to say something?” Fran stood opposite Hunter, cooling herself from the afternoon heat with a paper fan.

  Christine nodded, and slid her arms from around her children. She cleared her throat…