Chasing the Dark: The Demon Inside

by A. P. Texan

  “Thank you for reminding me,” I answer “We need to get a cargo trailer for the truck. I saw some that would work at the feed store, but we need someone to go get it. Then we also have the two utility trailers for the side by sides, and the airstream. More than likely, we will have to make multiple trips to the farm. I don’t want to, but I think we are going to have to. To answer your second question, use your best judgement and let your morals be your compass. I have seen a lot of death in the last 36 hours, most at my own hands, I pray I won’t see more but I am sure I will.”

  Over the next hour we settle down and finish up the plans. We use a map of Keller, I got from the chamber of commerce, to map out known stores, doctor’s offices, clinics, and the hospital. We also add the feed store and vet clinics because we can find additional meds there.

  1000 12 September 2021

  Miami Florida

  Roger Harmon is sitting in his Miami apartment contemplating his next move. He knows he needs to get back home to Cynthia and the girls, but he is working out the details on how exactly to get this done. He spent the last 24 hours working it in his head what has happened. He, like most of the family, thought his brother-in-law Chase was a bit nutty talking about how someone was going to attack the most powerful nation in the world with an EMP. But it would appear that Chase, was in fact correct and now everyone is royally screwed.

  After he came to that conclusion, he set about preparing for a long journey home. He woke up around 6 am and began the task of finding everything he could to assist him. So far in his apartment he has 3 liters of water, 6 cans of Condensed soup, 4 packs of Ramen Noodles, and no weapons of any kind other than a few Kitchen knives. The problem is this apartment is only used Mon-Fri as a place to sleep and eat an occasional meal. Truth be told most of his meals are eaten in restaurants around town with coworkers. To top of his frustration, he doesn’t even have a vehicle here since the Cruise line he works for supplies him with a car and driver. What he does have is a small day pack and a couple good pairs of jeans and a pair of Merrell MOAB Walking Shoes.

  The trip out of the city is going to be one of the hardest parts of the trip. He can already here the looting and gun fire going on around town and it has only been 30 or so hours since the event happened. Chase always said the biggest problem with a massive grid down situation would be the civil unrest in the cities and once again it would appear, he is in fact right.

  He sat and wrote out a list of things he would need. More food and water or a way to get more water, a quality knife of some kind, a compass and map, and hopefully a gun of some kind. With three hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket and his day pack on; he heads out the door of the apartment to see what he can find.

  1200 12 September 2021

  Keller Texas

  “We’re Back” Charles announces as he opens the front door,” Aunt Christine is with us but Junior stayed.”

  Mom stands up from her place on the couch and gives my sister a big hug. Christine’s eyes are red, and you can tell she has been crying.

  “He is such a goober!” Christine says. ”He wouldn’t leave, he swears we are all idiots and he is staying because the power will be back in a day or two and if it isn’t the government will swing in to help with trucks of food and water. Even after what his family went through in Puerto Rico, he still thinks the government can help everyone.”

  “Honestly, we are probably better off without him, He would be another mouth to feed and wouldn’t give anything back to help us.” I manage to stand up. The vertigo no longer there. “I’m sorry sis but his lazy ass won’t make it in this new world. But I’m glad you left and came here.”

  “I didn’t really have a choice, your son said I was coming back here if he had to pick me up and carry me. “

  “Yeah”, Charles says “Junior didn’t like it much but that’s his problem, besides he should have regained consciousness by now”

  “I have never seen anyone move with the speed and precision as this kid”, Rob starts to tell us, “Junior started to stand up from his chair to grab Christine and before I could blink Charles had him on the ground in a sleeper hold and in seconds he was out like a light. It was amazing!”

  Charles was a champion wrestler in high school and has continued to practice as well as run and workout almost daily. But he isn’t bulky, and you would never imagine he would have the strength and speed he does. In fact, he reminds me of the videos I’ve seen of Bruce Lee.

  “Yeah, he is pretty impressive, and so is QuikTrip” I clap Charles on the back as I walk into the kitchen and grab a bag of Jack’s Links Original Beef Jerky off the counter. “Okay, since you guys missed most of the planning session here is what we came up with.”

  “Three teams”, Sandy starts up reading from her notes, “Cynthia, Robert, and Laura are team one in the Kubota and trailer. Their primary objective is the hospital at 35 and Golden Triangle. Grab as many Medical supplies as they can find focusing mostly on Meds and Oxygen. Team two is Elizabeth and Savannah in the Kawasaki and trailer. Primary objective is the Medical Plaza and Emergency Clinic on 377. Again, grab as many Meds and other supplies as you can. Team three is Chase, Isabella and Myself in the truck. First thing we are gonna do is go to the feed store. Grab a trailer and then anything from the feed store that may be useful. Then we are going to hit everything we can, Pharmacies, Grocery stores, Wal-Mart, Sam’s. Objective is Medical supplies, Baby Supplies and then extra clothes and gear focusing on Winter and cold weather gear. We only have two radios so one will go to team two and one to team three. They are the smallest and weakest and we will have the fastest vehicle. We leave as soon as it gets dark tonight.”

  “Thanks babe, any questions…. Okay let’s all get some rest and then get to it”

  The meeting breaks up and everyone goes their own way.

  Sandy comes over and rubs my head. “How are you feeling Mi Amor, I’m worried about you”

  “I’ll be fine, the headache is going away, and my hearing is almost completely cleared up. It sure didn’t help my tinnitus any though. Which reminds me before we go to the feed store and get a trailer, I want to go over to the gun store on the other side of 1709. We are going to need more guns and more ammo. Plus, I want to see if they have any of the electronic headphones. Some that are radio equipped would be optimal.”

  “Great idea, but they have the bars up and I guarantee most of the guns will be in safes.”

  The bars we can pull off with the truck as far as the guns, I imagine the handguns might be in safes but more than likely everything is out and secured with either bars and Padlocks or steel cables and locks. I’m hoping for steel cables, they will be easier than cutting steel bars and padlocks. We have the cordless angle grinder either way. In the meantime, I don’t care what my ex-wife says I am taking a nap. I am exhausted.”

  With that we walk back to our bedroom laydown in each other's arms and drift off to sleep.

  1400 12 September 2021

  Keller Texas

  BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG

  Someone is beating on the front door

  I sit-up straight in bed and reach for the 1911. It isn’t there crap I didn’t get it back from Charles. I jump out of bed and head out to the living room. There against the Recliner is my AR and my battle belt with the pistol in it.

  BANG, BANG, BANG the beating starts up again. The living room is now filling with people from different parts of the house.

  I grab up my AR and check the chamber to make sure it loaded and then peak out through the peep hole in the door. All I can see is people. Lots and lots of people.

  “Somebody look through the window, tell me what you see.”

  “Jesus, that’s a lot of people looks like the whole neighborhood is out there!” Laura says from the kitchen window.

  “WE KNOW YOUR IN THERE AND WE KNOW YOU GOT LOTS OF FOOD, OPEN THE DOOR WE NEED TO SHARE TILL THE POWER COMES BACK!”

  They are now shouting through the door at us. “Oh my God do t
hese people listen. I have already told them I am not sharing, and the power isn’t coming back on!” I really don’t know what to do at this point. It isn’t like I can just start shooting people they really aren’t a threat to me or my family at this point and I’m not going to just shoot innocent people.

  “GO GET YOUR OWN FOOD AND SUPPLIES THAT’S WHAT WE HAVE DONE AND THAT’S WHAT YOU WILL HAVE TO DO!” I shout back to them.” Keep talking to them I’m going to go out back and come around them. See if you can get Bob on the radio and have him come outside as well. Charles grab one of the duty belts from the convicts and grab my battle belt. You're coming with me.”

  With that I move towards the back door and slip through it into the backyard. Charles catches up to me and hands me my belt then adjusts the black tactical duty belt and puts it on. It is a standard cops duty belt. Glock in a holster on the right. Taser in a cross draw. Baton behind the Glock, with pepper spray in front of the handgun 2 sets of handcuffs and 2 extra 9mm Magazines for the Glock.

  “Hand me that Taser, and you get ready with the pepper spray if anybody acts squirrely, we will light them up. But I don’t want anybody dying today if we can help it.”

  “Why don’t we just give them some food and let them be on their way?” We are going to get more tonight anyways.” He looks at me and asks

  “I am willing to help anyone who is willing to help themselves. However, if all they want to do is come demand food from my family then no, I’m not helping them. We have worked and risked our lives for what we got I’m not just giving it up.”

  I open the Gate that goes from the backyard to the front of the house and slowly creep up to the corner of the building where I can see into the front yard. Must be 30 people standing around screaming. Good God this is only the second day with no power and people are already starting to lose it. Society is collapsing under its own weight in front of my eyes.

  Stepping around the corner where I can be seen I yell as loud as I can so I can be heard over the racket they are making. “GET AWAY FROM MY HOUSE”, Several people turn and look at me and then a couple start to move towards Charles and myself. I raise the Taser and point it at the closest one who stops where he is.

  “What are you going to do shoot us just because we want some food.” One of the ones walking towards me says

  “Nope, just you. The way I see it when I kill you everyone else will scatter. Nobody wants to die.” With that I pull the trigger in the taser the two barbed wires contact him in the chest and upper thigh, I hold the trigger down for the full five second charge the 50000 volts running through his body. He drops to the ground and pees all over himself the dark stain appearing on his blue jeans. The rest of the crowd seeing him fall and not knowing what is going on. Begin to take off in all directions. Pee-boy starts to stand up and I pull the trigger again. Another 50000 volts coursing through his body.

  “The next time I’ll use bullet’s” I say as his body stops twitching and I eject the spent taser cartridge. “Now get up and go away and do not come back.”

  Charles and I run to the back door and inside the house. Where I hand him back the Taser. “Change of plans, somebody get Bob and Elizabeth over here!” I shout to no one particular.

  A few minutes later Bob, Natalie and my Ex walk through the door. Natalie holding a sleeping Alexandra. She heads back to one of the bedrooms to deposit the baby

  “We need to move up the plans and get out of here. As we just saw the natives are already getting restless. I didn’t think it would start to get bad for another day or two but I think we need to get out of here first thing in the morning, and we are going to have to find a way to get everybody and all the supplies in one trip. If we don’t, I got a feeling some of the neighbors are going to end up dead and I really don’t want that to happen. So, let’s get everything together and get out of here on our runs. I would prefer to leave at dark but I don’t know if we can now.”

  “I agree, besides more people than just us will probably be doing the same thing and like us they will probably want to do this at night.” Bob adds

  “One last thing, watch for another old truck we need another vehicle to get all the people and supplies up there. Mom you coordinate efforts here to start getting as many of the supplies as you can loaded into the airstream. Pack it to the gills. Everything else have it staged in the garage where we can get it loaded as quickly as possible. Charles help with the loading and staging, but most importantly protect everyone and everything.”

  With the plans moved up everyone breaks off into their assigned teams and jobs and we start to head off. We climb in the truck I’m driving Sandy in the middle and Isabella my 17-year-old daughter is riding on the passenger side. I crank the old truck up and it starts without so much as a stutter. We head out of the neighborhood headed north towards the Gun Store on Hwy. 1709. We get there in less than 2 minutes and I stop the truck and scan the parking lot and the building. I don’t see any movement anywhere. Hopefully most people are home. And not out and about. I back the truck up to the front door and grab a heavy-duty recovery strap I had put in the bed earlier. This is rated for 40000 pounds so it should do the job. I wrap it through the bars on the front door and then the tie outs on the bumper of the truck. Getting back in the truck I put it in gear and slowly let out on the slack in the strap. Once the strap is tight, I give the truck some more gas the big 460 cubic inch engine screams but all we do is smoke the tires. I back the truck up and look at the girls.

  “Hold on to something” as I say, then I slam the gas to the floor and the truck launches forward.

  The bars and front door as well as a large piece of the wall come exploding out into the parking lot.

  “Izzy, get that strap off the truck; when you get that done meet us inside, we got to make this quick.”

  I grab the cordless angle grinder and hop out of the truck. I was right it is bars across the long guns and a cable running through the trigger assemblies of all the handguns. I point to the cable and Sandy goes to work on it with the bolt cutters, as I go over to the wall with the “assault” Rifles. I see what looks like a dozen AR 15s of different Manufacture and another half dozen AR 10s. I only want the 5.56mm AR-15s and the .308 Caliber AR 10s. I go to work cutting the hasp apart where the heavy-duty padlock is. I know what you're thinking why not cut the lock. Well as luck would have it, they are smart enough to use the kind of locks where you can't get bolt cutters on it. As I’m working on the hasp Isabella comes in asking what she can do. I direct her to the ammo and tell her to grab everything labeled 308, .223, 5.56mm, 9mm, or .45 After about 2 minutes the hasp breaks free and I get the bar out of the way and start grabbing rifles. I end up with 4 AR15s in my hand and three AR10s. I run them back out to the truck where I see Sandy dumping a backpack full of handguns into the bed. We both run back inside, and Sandy starts helping Izzy.

  I am grabbing some optics and headsets and we are out of here. I smash the case holding the optics and just grab them and throw them in the bag I’ve got. Then turn to find the headsets. I’m running up and down the aisles when I finally find them. I grab all of them I can hold not even bothering to see what the boxes say and head for what is left of the front. I drop everything in the bed of the truck when I hear.

  “FREEZE DON’T MOVE” I stop in my tracks raise my hands above my head and slowly turn around. What I see amazes me.

  Standing before me Glock in hand is an actual Keller Police Officer. I can’t believe he is at work, let alone trying to arrest someone. He has obviously been on duty for way past his normal time. There is no squad car or motorcycle around he has a serious five o’clock shadow going, and his uniform is dirty, wrinkled and torn in some places.

  “Listen, Officer you are obviously having a bad day as we all are. So why don’t you holster your sidearm and we can talk about this. You look like you’ve been on duty for a while. Don’t tell me you have been at work since this went down.”

  “Get on your knees and place your hands behind your
back. Do it I’m not going to tell you again.” I do as he says and get down on my knees. He must not realize I have an accomplice in my act of civil disobedience because he turns his back to the gun store as he approaches me from behind. I hear the distinct pop and hiss of a taser being discharged and spin around to see what is going on. Apparently, he holstered his weapon to grab his handcuffs and when he did my wife decided to use the other taser we had on him. He is face down in the parking lot twitching. As soon as the electricity stops coursing through his body, I grab his hand cuffs and hand cuff him.

  “Grab the rest of the ammo and let’s get out of here.” I remove his duty belt and throw it in the truck then pick him up and unceremoniously deposit him in the bed as well. “Sandy you drive, Head to the feed store I’m going to ride back here with our new friend.”

  We leave the parking lot and head West for two blocks before turning south on Hwy 377.The feed store is about a half mile down on the right and they have several cargo trailers in the parking lot that they rent out. The plan there is to acquire a large trailer and load up on antibiotics, animal feed, dog food, and anything miscellaneous we see that may be of use.

  “YOU NEED TO LET ME GO!!!! YOU CANNOT KIDNAP AN OFFICER OF THE LAW!!!”

  “I’m sorry Officer Adams,” Getting his name from his name tag,” But trust me when I tell you this is for your own good. There is a lot more going on than you know, and I am attempting to save your life and help my family at the same time. Now what I need you to do is lay here in the bed of this truck for a couple hours and be a good boy until we get back home and we can have a through talk.”

  “YOU SIR, ARE GOING TO JAIL FOR A VERY LONG TIME” Officer Adams screams his face getting redder and redder.

  Reaching into my pack I grab a zip tie and a roll of duct tape. After Sandy backs us up to what looks like the most suitable trailer in the parking lot, I grab the officer and flip him over onto his belly and sit on the backs of his knees. Grabbing his lower legs in one arm I slip the loop of the zip tie over his feet and onto his ankles and pull it tight. I then wrap his legs and ankles several times with the Duct tape over the top of the zip ties eliminating the possibility that he can run. I then turn around to where I can get to his hands and completely incase his hands in the tape as well, I start halfway up his forearms and begin to wrap his arms downwards to the tips of his fingers and back up. This whole time he is screaming about me going to jail and how many different felonies I’m committing. What he fails to realize is that there is no more law, no more jails, and no more courts. For the time being we are in a survival of the fittest society and I plan to thrive on pure determination, if need be. After I finish with his arms, I open my IFAK on my pack and pull out a wad of clean gauze. In his screaming I shove the gauze into his mouth and then cover his mouth and lips with the duct tape.