EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 22 | The Coldest Night

by Walker, Robert J.

  It was true that this area of the city had seen better days. Many of the buildings were rundown, there was litter all around, and more homeless people and beggars than there ever used to be. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the worst sections of the city, though, where drug addicts got their fixes in alleys, hookers sold themselves on street corners, and gangsters shot each other—and the occasional cop—in broad daylight. Even so, Susan felt on edge here, and she carried strong pepper spray in her bag whenever she came to the studio. She’d never run into trouble, but it was wise to come prepared in this area. Ellie had been promising to move the school to a cleaner and safer part of the city for years but hadn’t managed to raise the requisite funds to do that just yet.

  Susan watched as Ellie drove away, leaned against the studio's door, took out her phone, and started to browse idly through her Instagram feed as she waited for her mother to arrive.

  After a few seconds, though, her phone suddenly died. “Aw come on,” Susan muttered, “the battery was at eighty percent!” She pressed and held the power button, but the device remained dark. Grumbling to herself, she shoved the useless item back into her bag and twirled one of her blond locks around her finger as she waited for her mother.

  Just as she looked up at the street, though, she saw a horrifying sight: two cars collided head-on mere yards from her. Eerily enough, though, there was no screeching of tires, no revving of engines. Instead, there was simply the sharp, deep crunch of metal on metal and the bang of the two heavy objects colliding.

  “Oh my God!” she gasped, reaching instinctively for her phone to call 9-1-1, before remembering that it was dead.

  She was about to run out to check on the occupants of the vehicles when another car came speeding by mere inches from her, also completely silently aside from the droning hum of its tires on the street. A few seconds later, that car slammed into a traffic light at the nearby intersection, hitting the steel pole with a sickening crunch.

  Susan stared around her in mute horror and utter confusion as the chaos unfolded, scarcely able to process what she was seeing and what was happening. Why were these cars hurtling around in directionless silence like rudderless ghost ships at sea? Why had the entire city fallen eerily silent? That fact, she only noticed now, a few seconds after the accidents.

  People were running over to the wrecked cars from the sidewalks, and when Susan looked up and down the length of the street, she saw that the crashes that had happened in front of her were far from the only ones. There were, to her complete astonishment, dozens of incidents along the entire length of the street.

  If every car was crashing, and they all seemed to be dead. Suddenly she wondered, then what had happened to her mother’s car? She was on the road right now with all this madness, and something terrible might have happened to her.

  As a debilitating flood of panic and anxiety tore through Susan’s core, however, she happened to notice something else—all the lights in the stores across the street were out, and the big LED screen near the intersection, which beamed out advertising videos 24/7 was black. And as she noticed this, something her father had told her about a while back popped into her mind, and suddenly, everything clicked.

  “An EMP,” she murmured, scarcely able to believe what she was saying and what was happening. “It’s gotta be an EMP.”

  She was reeling from both the realization of what this was and from the thought that her mother, inadvertently caught up in the chaos, might have been involved in a serious accident. Susan felt paralyzed, rooted to the spot with panic and terror and indecision. A million thoughts were crashing through her head, bouncing around like out-of-control pinballs in her skull, and she couldn’t even manage to take a single step forward, back, or to the side. She was able to perform feats of incredible acrobatics and athleticism on the dancefloor of a studio or a stage in front of hundreds of people, yet now she felt as if she couldn’t even lift her feet from the ground.

  Something else happened, though, something that jolted her from the “freeze” phase of the deeply instinctual “fight, flight, or freeze” response that seemed to have completely taken over her nervous system. A brilliant flare of light lit up the sky above her, and something big streaked over her a few hundred feet above the ground. Seconds later, a tremendous boom, the sound of a mighty explosion followed. It rocketed through the streets, loud and deep, and Susan realized that it had to have been a missile of some sort. It had struck a building nearby, and after a few seconds, some of the smaller pieces of debris from the explosion began dropping onto the street right in front of her.

  That was enough to galvanize her into action, and she was able to banish the incapacitating fear and indecision from her system. She knew now, without any shadow of a doubt, that the city was under attack. Her father had told her that something like this might happen one day, and although her mother had always brushed off such things, she had taken it semi-seriously and had listened to her father’s advice on what to do in such a situation. He had prepared bugout bags for all three of them and told them to head straight home in the event of any sort of a disaster. From there, they would make their way to the mountain town where Grandpa and Grandma lived, and after that, they might even make their way to Uncle Arthur’s cabin, depending on how serious things were.

  “First things first, though,” Susan said to herself, as a sudden and unexpected wave of resolute determination took hold of her. “I have to get to Mom.”

  She knew the exact route her mother would be coming along; she never deviated from this path. She crossed the bridge over the river, came down onto the main street, and then took the second left. From there, she went all the way down that street before making a right turn onto this one. Right now, she could be at any point along this route, Susan thought, but she would more than likely be closer to the bridge than the studio.

  More missiles streaked through the sky overhead, and this spurred a spirit of urgency into Susan. Quietly sliding her trusty pepper spray out of her bag and into her hand, she took off at a fast jog, running in the general direction of the bridge, taking the same route her mother had.

  And behind her, from behind a dumpster on a slimy side street, two drug pushers watched her go with menace and lust in their eyes and slipped out of the alley to follow her.

  4

  Jack awoke to a shrill, constant whine that was so loud and intense that it seemed to be drilling through both ears and into the core of his brain. He was in complete darkness and feeling as if there were a tremendous weight pressing down on him from all sides. Worst of all, though, was the acrid stench of smoke and burning plastic in his nostrils, which was making the feeling of being suffocated even worse.

  His first instinct—upon regaining consciousness—was to cry out for help. For a few moments, his mind was awash with confusion, and he couldn’t remember where he was, what had happened, or how he had gotten here.

  Then, through the pain, the suffocation, and the frightening darkness, it came back to him. The EMP, the flash of light on the horizon, the missiles that streaked across the city, and an explosion.

  An enemy missile, it had to have been. It had hit this very building, either on this floor or the one above or below it. But it had been the middle of the afternoon—why was everything now dark?

  “Help!” Jack groaned again, but there was no response. He coughed, choking on smoke and the fumes of burning plastic. He found it increasingly difficult to breathe and knew that if he didn’t get out of here soon, he would die, if not from smoke inhalation, then from an even worse death from the fire that was undoubtedly spreading through the building.

  He quickly realized that no help would be coming and that the only person who would be able to get him out of this situation was himself. Jack found that he could move his right arm, and he felt around him, trying to figure out where he was and how he’d arrived here. From what he could feel, he was on the floor, and the wreckage of something heavy—probably his work desk—was on top of him.
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  That would mean he had been blown against the inner wall, sandwiched between the wreckage of his desk and probably the shelves, books, and the wall.

  If it had been a brick wall, he would have been dead. As it was, though, it was merely a weak form of drywall that had absorbed much of the impact and had caved in when his body had hit it. Something pinned his left arm, but he was able to move his feet at least a little. A weight was pressing down on his chest, but by wriggling his torso and hips around, Jack was able to draw his knees up into the space to get some pressure off his sternum.

  Once he’d regained some mobility, Jack started kicking and could feel the desk—or whatever it was—moving a little. He thrashed with more force, more frenetically, and eventually, it shifted enough that the pile of books covering his head and shoulders—which was the reason he thought he was in complete darkness—collapsed.

  After that, he was finally able to see again, and while he could breathe a little easier, the smoke was only getting thicker. Jack knew he had to get out fast. He saw the flames right away; they were raging through the communal space of the office just beyond his door and were spreading with voracious hunger. As for his own office, it was almost entirely unrecognizable. The wall dividing the communal space had been blown out, and everything in his office had been destroyed. Jack guessed that he had only survived because the wall and his big desk had absorbed much of the explosion’s force and impact. He could see that the missile hadn’t hit this floor but rather the one above it. The whole ceiling was simply gone, and Jack could see up into the burning wreckage of the level above this one. He surmised that this was another reason he had survived. If the missile had hit his floor, the force of the explosion would surely have killed him.

  Jack checked himself over, and aside from a few cuts and scrapes, and no doubt many bruises, he had no serious injuries. Even though he knew he had to get out right away, he couldn’t leave in good conscience without checking to see if there were other survivors. With a lot of struggling, he managed to wriggle his way out from under the wreckage and got to his feet, coughing and wheezing. He kept a small bugout bag in his office, and he desperately needed it now, but where was it?

  The tinted office windows were all blown out, and sunlight was streaming to combat the smoke-thick gloom, so he at least had some light to work with. He had kept his bag in one of the bottom drawers of his desk, which had been completely destroyed. However, he guessed that the bag and its contents would be largely undamaged, given that the drawer had been full of paper.

  He got down on his hands and knees and searched through the debris-covered wreckage, looking for the distinctive bright-orange material of the bag. To his relief, he soon found it, stuck under a pile of splintered wood and ripped-up papers from the desk. He yanked it out and unzipped it, and after taking a long drink of water—he replaced the water bottle in the bag every week—he grabbed the gas mask he kept in the bag and slipped it on.

  Also in the bag was a first-aid kit, some medicine, emergency blankets, a small camping stove, a multitool, a water purification bottle, spare socks and underwear, a knife, a small hatchet, a roll of duct tape, a length of sturdy nylon rope, and a 9mm pistol.

  With the gas mask on, he was at least able to breathe. Although the mask bought him a little time, he knew he had to get out of here as quickly as possible. The first person he looked for was Bill, but there was no sign of him in the office. Then, Jack caught sight of something that clued him in about what had happened to Bill. The windows had all been blown out, but a few still had shards of glass in the frames. One long, sharp chip had blood on the end of it, and a scrap of blue fiber—the same blue as the suit Bill had been wearing.

  “Oh God,” Jack murmured as the horror of his boss’s fate hit him. The man had been hurled through the window by the force of the explosion and had plummeted twenty floors down to his death. He couldn’t bring himself to look out of the window to confirm his theory; he knew in his bones that it was true.

  Jack swallowed a dry gulp of dread and fear and did his best to force some vigor and confidence into his aching muscles. He strode out into the communal area with the hatchet in his hand and immediately saw two bodies lying face down in the wreckage. He knew who they were and could tell right away that neither of them was breathing.

  He fought through the wave of grief and sorrow that hit him; there would be time to deal with the deaths of his friends later. Right now, survival was all that mattered. He hurried over to another private office and saw that its occupant was, like the two who had been out in the communal space, dead.

  Aside from the receptionist and the people already accounted for, there had been nobody else there. Now, with one last person to check on, Jack raced through the wreckage, skirting around the fire burning in the middle of it, and made a beeline for the receptionist’s desk.

  Before he even got close to it, he realized that one other person in the office had survived the explosion. He quickly heard a soft whimpering coming from under the rubble of what had once been the woman’s desk.

  “Help,” the receptionist, Carrie, was gasping plaintively. “Help, somebody … help me,”

  “I’m here!” Jack yelled, veering around another fire and sprinting over to the pile of debris. “Carrie, it’s Jack! Hang in there; I’m gonna get you out of there!”

  “Please, hurry,” she gasped. “I’m hurt … I’m hurt bad…”

  Jack found that the need to save another person’s life had injected a fresh boost of strength into his veins and had fortified his sense of determination and drive. That was helped, of course, by the fact that the fire was spreading rapidly through the office, and time was running out.

  He started ripping and yanking wreckage out of the way and hacking at pieces of it with his hatchet. His sense of urgency grew when he saw one of her legs sticking out from under the debris.

  “Almost there!” he yelled, ripping the last few pieces of metal away.

  Carrie, a young woman in her early twenties, was bleeding badly from a long, jagged cut on her lower leg. But worse than that, her right forearm had been broken a few inches above her wrist, and her hand was dangling at a grotesque angle from her arm. The bone, thankfully, hadn’t pierced the skin. Jack had done several advanced first aid courses and knew exactly what to do.

  “I’m sorry, Carrie, but this is going to hurt for a few seconds, but I have to do it, okay?”

  With tears in her eyes and coughing from the smoke, Carrie nodded. The shock of what had happened was too overwhelming for her to even think of disagreeing or arguing. Jack searched hastily for two pieces of rigid and sturdy debris to serve as a makeshift splint. Then, to properly see what he was doing, he had to lift his mask, which meant that it wasn’t long before he, too, was choking on smoke.

  It would be a crude fix, but there was no time for anything more sophisticated at this point. Jack took off his sweater, rolled up one of the sleeves, and handed it to Carrie. “Bite down on this,” he said.

  Teary-eyed, she took it and did as he said, and then he did his best to put her hand and wrist back into place and set the broken bone. And the moment he touched her arm, she screamed, an ear-splitting howl of sheer agony, even with the sweater sleeve she was biting down on muffling the sound.

  Jack did his best to get through the unpleasant task quickly. Soon enough, Carrie’s arm was set and wrapped, with a makeshift splint of two broken wood pieces and some duct tape. After that, he tied a tourniquet around her bleeding leg with his sweater, then helped her to her feet and slipped his gas mask back on so he could at least breathe more easily.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  She tried a few cautious steps, limping, and nodded. “It hurts, but I can manage,” she said.

  “Okay, then we have to get out of here. Come on, follow me. If your pain gets worse, let me know, and I’ll carry you.”

  She nodded, and they hurried out of the office, stumbling through the billowing clouds of black smoke that had
almost filled the place. They ran through the gloomy reception area to the elevators.

  “Take the stairs!” Jack yelled when he noticed Carrie staggering toward the elevators. “Those don’t work!”

  Carrie groaned, looking as if she were going to burst into tears again but nodded and followed Jack to the stairwell … and when they got there, they found that a roaring inferno of intense flames blocked the way down.

  5

  The water was already up to Kate’s chest, and the seatbelt was jammed.

  “Oh God, oh my God,” she gasped, her panic levels rising as rapidly as the icy river water filling the car. She wriggled and writhed and struggled with all her might against the seatbelt, but it just wouldn’t budge, and what made things even worse was the freezing water, which was quickly starting to numb her limbs and make movement even more difficult.

  She tried to reach for her handbag, which was in the passenger seat's floorboard—she kept a folding knife in there at Jack’s insistence. If she could just reach her purse, she could get the knife and cut herself out of the seatbelt. But the water was up to her chin now, and her fingers, fishing through the icy water, could only reach the passenger seat itself, not the handles of the bag.

  “Come on, come on,” Kate gasped, straining as hard as she could against the seatbelt, stretching her arm … and then, finally, her fingers brushed against the handles of her pocketbook, which was swirling around the passenger seat area due to the motion of the gushing water.

  The water level was up to her lips now and rising fast, and she knew that she could only take one more breath before water would cover her nose, too. That was it. It would either be her final breath before escaping the vehicle, or the final breath she ever took. She sucked as much air as she could into her lungs, and then the water covered her nostrils.