Survival EMP (Book 3): Solar Dawn

by Lopez, Rob

  Dee scooped Jacob up and carried him into the trailer. April followed her inside.

  “We want to help you, Dee. You’re, like, part of the team now. All for one and all that jazz. We’re your friends. You’re safe here.”

  Dee gathered some things and threw them into a bag. Supporting Jacob on her hip, she shouldered the bag and grabbed a couple of cans of food from the kitchen. Pushing past April, she left the trailer.

  “Dee, where are you going?”

  Dee strode across the clearing toward the trees. April hurried to catch up.

  “Hey! You don’t have to go. I’m sorry for what I said … whatever it was I said. Dee, come on. If you want me to leave you alone, just say so, okay?”

  The wooded slope dropped steeply down to the base of the hill. Dee made her way down with sure-footed, determined steps.

  April wanted to shout after her, but there was a policy in the camp of keeping all noise to a minimum. “Dee,” she hissed hoarsely.

  Without looking back, Dee continued on her way.

  *

  Lauren was standing guard at the OP when April came running over, clutching her belly.

  “Dee’s run off,” said April breathlessly.

  “What?”

  “I was talking to her and she didn’t like what I said so she took off down the hill.”

  “Wait here,” said Lauren. Dashing across the clearing she saw Chuck. “Where’s Packy?” she said.

  Chuck shrugged. “Haven’t seen him. What’s up?”

  “Dee’s run away again. Find Harvey and tell him I need backup.”

  Running into the trees, Lauren looked around. She caught a glimpse of a white shirt at the foot of the hill and slithered down in pursuit. By the time she got to the bottom, Dee was striding purposefully across the rail line that ran into town. Lauren sprinted after her but didn’t catch up until Dee was approaching the train station. In spite of being burdened with a baby, Dee was still capable of maintaining a fast pace. Lauren slid to a halt next to her.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she panted.

  Dee strode on, ignoring her. Lauren moved to block her way.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Out of my way,” mumbled Dee, trying to step around her.

  “Dee, stop! There’s nowhere to go out there.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “You’ll compromise our position if someone sees you.”

  “I said leave me alone.”

  Lauren watched her go. It wasn’t right to let her and her baby go off into wild territory, but she was tired of the woman’s petulance and her basic ingratitude. If she thought she could make it on her own, then to hell with her.

  Lauren seethed for a fraction of a second, then, hating herself for it, she set off to try and persuade Dee to return one more time.

  That was when she heard the sound of engines.

  Multiple vehicles were approaching the center of Old Fort from the direction of the interstate, and they didn’t appear to be coming slowly.

  Ahead of Lauren was the little train station building. On the other side of the road were a handful of rental lodges and a parking lot. Lauren didn’t think she’d make it to cover before the vehicles reached the T-intersection by the station. Grabbing Dee’s arm, she pulled her over the roadside barrier and down the steep embankment to the rail line. She’d just got her head down when the vehicles hit the intersection and turned their way, coming into view. Lauren pressed Dee into the weeds and released the safety on the M16.

  From where she lay, she could see the wooded hill where her camp was. Anxiously she tried to see if Harvey was coming so she could wave him off, but she couldn’t see him. Thankfully, she couldn’t see any other sign of life from the hill, which meant there was nothing to attract the occupants of the vehicles. If the convoy chose to investigate the hill for any reason, Lauren wasn’t in a good position to do much about it. She hoped the others were ready.

  The convoy drew level with her position and then turned into the parking lot by the rental lodges, engines idling. Lauren held her breath.

  Car doors creaked open, and old springs groaned as people got out of the vehicles.

  They were just yards away, and Lauren didn’t dare lift her head to see what they were doing. If they’d spotted her already, she wasn’t sure what she could do. She could maybe dash across the rail lines to the flat-roofed storage buildings on the other side of the track, but she’d be gunned down in seconds.

  The only option was to stay and fight.

  Heart hammering, Lauren gripped her rifle, ready to blast the first head that dared peer over the edge of the embankment. Jacob, meanwhile, squirmed in his mother’s grip, agitated by tension and the undue haste with which they’d descended. For a moment Lauren feared that the baby would cry out and that the next few seconds would explode in a hail of bullets, but Dee calmly uncovered her breast and directed Jacob’s mouth to it. Lauren had to admit it was an effective way of keeping him quiet.

  Nobody approached their position, and Lauren listened intently, trying to figure out why the vehicles had stopped here. She flinched as she heard audible cracks and the sound of metal cans being dumped on the ground. A voice called for some tubing. Then she realized.

  They were siphoning fuel from the abandoned cars in the lot.

  Lauren relaxed a little. All they had to do was stay quiet and wait. She glanced around to make sure other scavengers weren’t wandering different parts of the town, and her heart skipped a beat when she saw a face looking at her from the flat roof across the tracks. She brought her rifle to bear immediately before she recognized it was Packy.

  The idiot was visible against the skyline, and it looked certain that his curiosity would alert the scavengers.

  And what the hell was he doing there anyway?

  She waved to him to get his head down. He responded with his rodent grin and a finger to his lips before sinking out of sight.

  In spite of her annoyance, she was relieved to not be totally alone, though what Packy could do to help in the event of her being discovered was questionable. Even from across the tracks, the Mac-10 he favored would be incredibly inaccurate. Shooting it would be the same as throwing a bucket of bullets. In a real firefight, he’d be more likely to hit her than anyone else.

  Lauren waited out the scavengers as they dripped the last of the gas into the cans. Jacob finished his feeding and lay contented on his mother’s chest, looking sleepy. Car doors were slammed and transmissions whined as vehicles reversed back onto the road. The convoy set off and Lauren raised her head to watch them go.

  She counted four vehicles, all old and riding low with full loads. The rear vehicle was a pickup and it carried a different load from the others. Three women were tied up in the back, watched by a gunman who stood over them, holding onto the roll bar as the vehicle rocked. Dee’s head rose up beside Lauren.

  “They’re going to use them,” she intoned.

  Lauren had no doubt what the women would be used for, but she was surprised by Dee’s tone. She thought she caught a trace of fear mixed with pity, which was more emotion than Dee had displayed since she’d joined the group.

  “That’s why you need to stick with us,” said Lauren.

  Dee didn’t reply. Retreating back into her reticence, she picked herself up, adjusted Jacob’s sleeping form and walked back along the track, toward the camp. Harvey appeared from behind cover on the hill and waved the all-clear. Josh rose beside him, his rifle ready. Lauren was glad that they’d been there to back her up. Everybody had learned to function well as a team. As she watched Dee walk away, she wondered when the woman would consent to join it herself, rather than merely tolerate it. Dee seemed to switch between impenetrable and prickly, and Lauren wondered if she was too damaged to ever become sociable again.

  It wasn’t just Dee who wasn’t a team player, however. Packy also insisted on walking to the beat of his own, slightly bizarre, drum. Lauren crossed the tra
cks and found the ladder Packy had propped up against the storage unit to get to the roof. Climbing up, she found Packy moving around on his hands and knees on the flat roof.

  “What are you doing here, and what did I tell you about leaving the camp without telling anyone?” she said.

  Scattered about the roof were spent cartridges, Nearby, tangled up in clothing, lay a skeleton. Somebody had made a last stand here.

  Packy held up a brass case. “Don’t worry about that. Look at this. Perfect condition. If I can find someone to reload these, I can get a little industry going. And look what else I found.” He opened up his bag and pulled out bars of soap, disposable lighters and gold chains. “This is valuable currency,” he said.

  “Finding food would be better, Packy.”

  Packy dismissed her assertion. “You let other people do that, then you trade with them. You need to look for things that people don’t think about, because that’s the only stuff that’s left. All the obvious things are gone.”

  “I’ll remind you of that tonight when you’re feeling hungry. Maybe you can eat the soap.”

  Packy shook his head sadly. “You have no faith in free trade.”

  *

  Rick and Scott were walking the bluff high above the road when they witnessed the four vehicles returning to Round Knob. Rick noted the three female prisoners in the rear vehicle.

  “That brings the total number of raiders to over thirty,” said Scott. “And that’s just the ones we’ve seen.”

  “They’re confident,” said Rick, seeing how they were driving.

  “They can afford to be. And they got time to bring in entertainment, too. Once they find us, you know who they’re going to prioritize for capture. And who gets a bullet.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “We need to move on. This ain’t a good place to be. Let’s get deeper into the mountains, maybe up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. There’s bound to be some old cabin or abandoned mill we can settle in, away from everywhere.”

  Rick looked at him. “The Blue Ridge Parkway?”

  “Or thereabouts. Anywhere closer to Mount Mitchell. Nobody lives up there.”

  “And for good reason. That road gets blocked by snow and ice every winter, and sometimes as early as late fall. Even the animals go down into the valleys in the winter. If we don’t freeze, we’ll starve to death. That your idea of a good time?”

  “Just saying, because if we stay here, it’s full-on war.”

  “Scott, you’ve been in more wars than I can count.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t have a baby coming then.”

  11

  The fire burned low in the pit. They’d boiled their water for the evening and the next day, and cooked vegetables to go with the last of the dried meat they had. Rick sat and stared at the flames, absently scratching lines in the dirt with a stick. Footsteps shuffled in the nearby trailers as the others prepared their bedding for the night. Lizzy came out of the trailer with a blanket over her shoulders that trailed along the ground.

  “Good night, Daddy,” she said, giving him a hug.

  Rick kissed her without much feeling, still staring at the fire. From the next trailer, he heard Scott’s low voice as he recited a bedtime story to Daniel. Lizzy disappeared and was replaced by Lauren, who gazed down at her husband.

  “Staring at the flames ruins your night vision,” she said.

  “Uh huh.”

  Lauren settled down next to him. “What are you thinking?”

  “Zero sum game,” he said.

  “Sounds deep.”

  “These mountains aren’t big enough for all of us. There’s only so much to go around. At some point we’re going to have to fight for territory and take it from someone else.”

  Lauren looked at him for a moment. “Deeper than I thought. You really think it’s come to that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, uh, what territory are you thinking of conquering first?”

  “That’s just it. We don’t have the capability to conquer anything.”

  “That’s good. For a minute there, I thought you were going to turn into Attila the Hun.”

  “How long do you think we’re going to last, sitting on the defensive?”

  “We did okay last time.”

  “Sure. Trouble is, we’ve got to get lucky every time. Whoever hits us only has to get lucky once. Then we’re done.”

  Lauren was silent for a while. “So what are you thinking of doing?”

  “I don’t know. Just thinking.”

  “Well, don’t think anything crazy, okay?”

  “I see you’re siding with Scott, then.”

  “Why, what did he say?”

  “Pretty much the same as you.”

  “Could be a valid point then.”

  “Oh sure, and it’s noted. Trouble is, I’m getting a lot of cautions and no solutions. What do you think we should do?”

  Lauren sucked in her lip. “Stay cautious?”

  Rick drove his stick into the ground, snapping it. “I wasn’t trained to be cautious. I was trained to win, and the only way to win is to take the fight to the enemy. You don’t wait for them to make the next move.”

  “Scott was trained that way too, but clearly he’s got his doubts.”

  Rick picked up the pieces of his stick. “Scott’s changing.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Believe it. He’s losing his hardness.”

  Lauren squeezed her husband’s arm. “That’s not always a bad thing.”

  “It is in combat. Gets you killed.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. “Come on. This isn’t Syria.”

  “No,” said Rick. “It’s worse.”

  “I wasn’t in Syria, so I can’t compare. But so far, this is pretty good.”

  Rick gazed at his wife, and she gazed back, sticking her tongue out.

  “Someone’s got to be positive,” she said.

  A voice called out from the edge of the camp. “Hey, it’s me. Don’t shoot.”

  Chuck, on guard, replied: “Packy, what the hell are you doing out?”

  Packy came into the clearing, his hands full. “Doing my thing,” he said.

  Rick rose from his position. “What have you got there?”

  Packy carried three rabbits in one hand and a bag in the other. “Got supper,” he said. He looked to the embers of the fire. “You could have waited.”

  “Didn’t know you were going to be out getting anything. Where have you been?”

  “Visiting the good people of Old Fort in their hobo shacks. You know, they’ve got a lot of good stuff hidden away. Got other camps with women, too. And bees.”

  “Bees?”

  “Yeah, bee hives.” Packy’s bag clinked when he dropped it on the ground. He pulled out a jar. “Honey. Organic and pure,” he assured.

  Rick inspected what he’d brought. “How’d you get all this?”

  “Traded it.”

  “What with?”

  “Ahhh, I gave them one of the old rifles.”

  “You gave them one of our rifles?” said Rick, annoyed.

  “Sure. It was surplus. I mean, I got a bunch of them in the back of my truck. We can’t use them all.”

  “Packy,” said Lauren, “you don’t want to be giving away our stuff. That’s community property.”

  “And I am a member of this prestigious community, and I played my part in making sure we had those rifles. Plus, I figured you guys owed me for the ammunition you used up in that last fight, and I didn’t want to bill you or nothing, so I thought I’d be generous and use my cut to leverage something for you all. For the community.”

  “Don’t do that again,” said Rick firmly.

  “You don’t mean that. And you’re welcome, by the way.”

  “I mean it.”

  Packy dangled the rabbits in front of Rick’s face. “Fresh meat,” he said. “Now imagine what these babies are going to taste like when they’re fried. Give them a honey glaze, some
herbs – I got some of those too – and waffles.”

  “You got waffles?” said Rick.

  “No, but I wanted to see the look on your face when I said that. Wouldn’t that be awesome? That’d be a breakfast to die for.”

  “Dying will be the least of your problems if you go giving stuff away without my permission.”

  Packy waved away his concerns. “I know you’ve got to do the whole tough-guy act, and I’ll pretend to be affected. You know. I’m contrite. But dude, you’ve got to see what they’ve got up there. There’s even a cave. And for a gold necklace, I got one of the nice ladies there to cook me lunch and sew up my shirt.” He lifted his arm to show the repair. “That was bothering me some because it’s very important to keep up my appearance. I mean, who’s going to take me seriously otherwise?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And it’s still nobody.”

  Packy wagged a finger. “We’ll see. Tomorrow I’m going to drive into Marion and barter some of this honey, and the first link in the trading chain will be formed. You should come with me. You could learn something.”

  Rick stared at Packy for a long time. “I could learn something,” he repeated skeptically.

  “That’s right. Come on, man. What have you got to lose other than your corncob?”

  12

  The four horsemen rode slowly through the morning mist that rose from the French Broad River. At the top of sloping terraces stood the grand chateau of Biltmore house, its spires framed against the backdrop of Beaucatcher Mountain and the Blue Ridge range. Major Connors stood on his stirrups to survey what he could see of the six thousand acres of woodland and gardens that sat on the edge of Asheville.

  “Anybody live here?” he asked.

  Corporal Parson, who’d been trudging behind on foot for the entire four mile tour, shook his head wearily. “Not that I know of. Been patrolling the area to try and keep the looters away, but we’ve been focusing our efforts on the vineyard and the farm to protect the crops and livestock.”

  “Okay,” said Connors with a nod of approval. “This will be our headquarters. We’ll house the militia here and have my guys set up a gun range and training area. The river’s close by for transport.”