“That was as close to seeing someone die as I’ve ever come, man,” the janitor said, breathing hard from the effort of pulling Jack up. “You scared the hell outta me, buddy!”
“Thank you, you saved my life,” Jack said, scarcely able to believe he’d survived. “If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“You’d probably be down there now, in multiple pieces,” the janitor chuckled, shaking his head and grinning. His smile faded quickly, though. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but there was one crazy explosion a few floors up, and all the power went out. Seems like there’s one hell of a fire burning up there, too. I was helping people to get down the stairs when I saw this young lady climbing on the balcony. She almost fell off, nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“He saved my life, too,” Carrie, who was a total nervous wreck at this point, said to Jack.
“I’m guessing nobody else is coming down?” the janitor asked.
“No, the others up there … They didn’t make it,” Jack said, and a rush of intense emotion crashed through him.
The janitor nodded sadly. “I knew people wouldn’t make it when I heard that explosion and felt the whole building shake. Man, I knew it. The world’s gone crazy. It’s like another 9/11 … only worse, my gut tells me. Things are already bad, but I got a feeling they’re about to get a lot worse. Come on. We better get outta here before things get even crazier.”
The fire hadn’t spread to this section of the building yet, and most people had already evacuated, so the three of them didn’t have much trouble getting down the many flights of stairs to the bottom of the building. Just as they got to the main entrance hallway, Carrie’s boyfriend came rushing over to them after pushing his way through the crowd gathered there. The two of them lived in an apartment only two blocks away.
“Carrie! What happened to your arm? Baby, are you hurt?” he asked anxiously.
“It’s broken,” she said, grimacing and fighting back tears. “And I got a really bad cut on my leg, too. But Jack and this kind man helped me. They really saved my life.”
He and Carrie hugged tightly, and then the young man gave Jack and the janitor a firm, grateful handshake. “Thank you two for saving her,” he said. “She means everything to me.”
“You’d better get her to a doctor, son,” the janitor said. “Those wounds need seeing to.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. The hospitals and emergency rooms would be overflowing now, but would anyone there even be able to help, seeing as everything electronic—the vast majority of hospital equipment—was now dead? After a few moments of thought, he decided that it would be best for Carrie to attempt to see a doctor. Even without electronic equipment, they could clean out her wounds, properly set her broken arm, and give her some painkillers, which she sorely needed. And it would be better to go now before things went from bad to worse.
“Yeah,” he eventually said to Carrie’s boyfriend. “You better get her straight to the hospital.”
“What about you?” the young man asked. “I can take you as well if you want. You look like you took a bit of a beating yourself. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jack said. “A few cuts and bruises, nothing that some rest won’t heal.”
Carrie gave Jack one last hug, and then she hobbled off with her boyfriend.
Jack turned to the janitor. “Where are you headed now, friend? You got a family to go to?” he asked.
The janitor nodded. “I’m headed straight home, man. I’ve got a wife and two teenagers; we’ve got a small place about two miles from here.”
“Get as much food as you can, and store as much water as you can,” Jack said. “Both of those things are going to be in short supply for a very long time. And if you don’t have one of these,” he continued, opening his bag and showing the janitor part of the 9mm pistol hidden in there, “do your best to get your hands on one. Things are going to get way worse, trust me on this. And forget about all your electrical and electronic items; they’re as good as scrap now. If you have somewhere out in the country or the mountains where you can go and shelter for a while, I’d advise you to do that rather than sticking around in this place.”
“Man, things are looking grim, huh?” the janitor remarked, shaking his head. “World War III, that’s what I’m thinking. Say, I got a cousin who lives in a small town in the hills not too far away. He’s got a small piece of land, grows some vegetables and raises chickens and stuff. You think I should take my family there?”
“In my opinion, that’s the absolute best thing you could do,” Jack said. “And if you can somehow get them out of here before the blizzard hits tomorrow, that’d be even better.” Hope bloomed within him; he’d been feeling sorry for this kind, honest man and his family, but now that he heard that they had a possible escape from what was coming, made him feel a lot better.
“I’ll do that,” the janitor said. “And don’t worry, I’ve got an old pump-action shotgun under the bed. I knew it’d come in handy someday. Good luck, man, and thanks for the advice.”
“Good luck to you, too,” Jack said, shaking the janitor’s hand. “And thank you again for saving my life.”
He and the janitor left the building, pushing through the crowd of anxious, frightened people gathered both inside and outside the entrance. The fear and anxiety in the air were almost palpable, and Jack could practically taste the collective panic. There hadn’t been any more explosions after the first wave of rockets, but he had a feeling that whatever uneasy peace had now settled in would soon be shattered.
His new mission was to get home, get his bugout supplies together, and wait for his wife and daughter. The imminence of the incoming blizzard, as well as its purported severity, would make everything a lot more difficult and dangerous. But Jack’s intentions were now single-minded. He had to get his family out of the city before the blizzard hit, no matter what. It would be dangerous traveling during the storm, but sticking around and getting trapped in town by the snow would be a death sentence for all of them. He was certain of that.
“One problem at a time, Jack, one problem at a time,” he murmured to himself as he strode purposefully along the streets.
He noted that despite all the signs of an apparent act of war against the city by an unknown power, there had been no visible response from the military. He wondered if the attack on this city—and very likely others across the country—had been preceded by strategic strikes against military bases, to cripple any possibility of an effective response. Aside from a few cops who’d been walking the beat, and who were now desperately overwhelmed with trying to control crowds of confused, frightened, and panicking people in the street, he hadn’t seen any sign of a significant police response, either. Nor had any firefighters seemed to have been deployed, despite the fact that many buildings were now ablaze after the rocket strikes.
He knew that this was likely because the vast majority of the police force’s and firefighters’ equipment was now dead and little more than useless piles of junk, but even so, he had expected some sort of massed rapid response to what had happened. Police officers could still come out on foot and try to control the growing, agitated crowds. Firefighters couldn’t use their trucks, but they could use human chains of buckets and the river water if it came down to it. He’d never been one to trust the government or public institutions. As he made his way to his apartment, he found himself wondering if this whole thing was indeed an attack by foreign powers, or if it was something more sinister … some sort of inside job.
He wasn’t sure how or why, but some sort of gut instinct, a sixth sense started tingling in his core; it was almost as if warning bells were pealing inside his mind. Feeling as if he may have to use his pistol, he slipped off the street into a side alley and took the firearm out. He flipped off the safety and curled his hand around the grip, holding the handle of the backpack with his pinky and ring fingers. That way, he could keep the gun mostly conce
aled while holding the backpack, and if he needed to use it in a hurry, all he had to do was let go of the bag and the pistol would be ready in his hand.
With the pistol and the bag in his hand, he stepped back out onto the street, with all his senses on full alert for any signs of danger.
And when he turned the corner and stepped onto the next street, the one that would take him over the bridge to the side of the river his apartment was on, he found it. This was where they all were, Jack saw—the police, the military—and just as he walked out onto the street, a full-scale battle erupted.
10
“What was that?” Kate gasped as the booming crackle and hammering of automatic gunfire thundered through the gym. It sounded as if it were coming from right outside.
“I don’t know, but we’d better stay in here for a while,” Nick said, looking worried. “This way, there’s a martial arts dojo in the basement. We can lock ourselves in there and wait this out.”
Kate was worried about potentially getting locked inside the gym. Still, she was more concerned about getting hit by stray bullets from the firefight that had erupted in the street or being shot by whoever was fighting if they decided to come in here. “Lead the way,” she said to Nick.
He ran through the free weights section and led Susan and Kate through a door and down a flight of stairs at the back of the room. Since this section of the gym was underground, by the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, everything was almost pitch black. Outside, the sound of gunfire and fighting intensified.
Kate couldn’t explain it, but she had a bad feeling about going any deeper into the darkness. She could only just make out the indistinct outline of Nick’s figure, but she could see enough of him that she was able to reach forward and grab his arm. “I don’t think we should go in there,” she whispered.
“What? Why not?” he asked, speaking at his usual volume level.
“Shh!” she hissed back at him. “I just … I have a bad feeling about this.”
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Susan asked from behind, also speaking normally.
All three of them froze in their tracks as the sound of a firearm being cocked inside the inky darkness shattered the silence.
“Don’t even think of trying to run, because I’ll cut you all down, the kid, too,” a deep, threatening voice growled. “Get in here and put your hands on the backs of your heads. Do it now.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate stammered, “we, we were just looking for a place to hide from the firefight outside. We’re not, we, we don’t have anything to do with it.”
“Yeah, I’m a college student,” Nick said, “I just train at this gym, I don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up!” the voice in the darkness roared. “Get in here now, all of you, or I will open fire, I swear to God! Do it!”
“Okay, okay,” Kate said, trying to sound as calm and non-threatening as possible. “We’ll come in. We’ll cooperate and do what you say.”
“Fucking civilians,” the man growled. “Sticking your stupid noses where they don’t belong. Getting involved in things you have no comprehension of…”
He sounded unhinged. There was an edge to his voice that suggested to Kate that he was just as fearful as they were, although he was doing his best to conceal this and come across as dominant and in control.
“Like I said,” she said calmly as she walked into the pitch-black space with her hands behind her head, “we don’t know anything about what’s going on out there. We don’t want to get involved in it, not at all. We were just trying to hide from the gunfire.”
“Well, now you’ve gotten yourselves involved, whether you like it or not,” the man snarled. “You three know I’m down here, and when they start cutting your fingers and toes off with bolt cutters or pulling your teeth out with pliers, you’ll blab. You’ll tell ‘em where I am. You’re nothing. You’re just soft little civilians without the first fucking clue about what’s just happened. And when they torture you, you’ll talk.”
“We don’t know who you are, why you’re here, or what’s going on,” Nick said, and now there was a confrontational edge to his voice.
Kate knew that was not a wise move on Nick’s part, considering their unknown adversary’s already fragile mental state.
“You sound like you’ve lost your mind, man, you know that? Look, we don’t know who you are, and we don’t care, either. Nobody’s going to torture us and do all that batshit-crazy stuff you just said. I’m walking out of here, and I’m not looking back.”
“You do that, and I’ll blow a hole the size of a fucking grapefruit through your skull,” the man snarled. “You don’t know what I’m capable of, you mouthy little shit.”
“Nick, just do what he says. Don’t do anything stupid,” Kate said.
“No, screw this crazy asshole,” Nick said coldly. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m—”
The loud bang of a gunshot thundered through the dojo, and for a split-second, the muzzle flare of the assault rifle illuminated the space. Kate, Nick, and Susan caught a fleeting glimpse of a burly soldier in full combat gear standing perhaps ten feet from them. The sheer volume of it left their ears ringing, and the unexpected shock of it chilled the blood in their veins.
“Don’t test me!” the man screamed, sounded more unhinged than ever. “You try fuck with me, pretty boy, and the next bullet is going through your head! Do you understand me?”
“Y–yes, we understand,” Nick stammered, suddenly sounding a lot more meek and submissive.
“Get in here!” the man yelled. “Walk to your left, all of you, until you feel the wall, then sit down! And keep your hands behind your heads!”
Kate swallowed a dry mouthful of fear. She wished her instincts about this place had kicked in a little sooner before it had been too late. There was no time to mull over missed opportunities, though; she had to figure out a way to escape this situation with all three of their lives intact. Considering the man’s mental state, she knew that attempting to talk her way out of this would be difficult, but she would have to try. She also wondered how he was able to see them so well down here in the darkness. His eyes may have had longer to adjust, but even so, he surely couldn’t see them very clearly, she thought. Perhaps she could find some way to use the darkness to their advantage and create an opportunity to escape.
She, Nick, and Susan walked slowly to their left, as instructed by their captor, until they felt the wall. Then they sat down and put their hands behind their heads.
“That’s right, that’s good, now you’re listening to me and doing what I tell you,” the man said.
“We’re all sitting down, with our hands behind our heads,” Kate said calmly, just to reassure him and keep things stable.
“They thought I was a spy. My COs thought I was a spy for them,” he muttered, and Kate was not sure if he was talking to them or himself. It sounded like a blend of both. “They thought I’d infiltrated the plot, but I’d been in on the plot all along, and I was just feeding the bastards false information. They wanted to stop the revolution, they wanted to kill it before it could even hatch … but those stupid motherfuckers didn’t realize that something this big couldn’t be stopped. I led them right into a trap. They thought that Lieutenant Jones was a good, loyal soldier, a little government bootlicker like they all were. But they didn’t know a fucking thing about who I really was. And now we’ve done it … the revolution is here.”
Kate guessed that the firefight outside had something to do with the military; from what their captor was saying, it sounded like this whole thing was some sort of coup by a group of plotters within the United States Army … although how much of what this man was spouting was true was certainly questionable.
She and the other two sat in uncomfortable, nervous silence, not sure whether the man was looking for a response from them or just rambling and ranting.
“I knew you wouldn’t care,” he growled, and this time his words were most definitely directed at them.
“That’s why this country is in such a mess, all the riots and looting and protests for months and months, all the job losses and the recession … because people like you, you selfish, self-absorbed, ignorant little civilian sheep, you don’t give a damn about anyone but yourselves. You have no respect for anything. Well, we’re gonna change that. We’re changing all of that now…”
The man sounded angrier and angrier, and Kat grew increasingly worried that he might snap and do something terrible. She had to figure out a plan to get the three of them out of this situation. First, she needed to figure out just how much the man could see in the gloom. His eyes had had more time to adjust than theirs, but he was, after all, only human, and certainly could see in the dark the way a cat could. Moving slowly, she removed her hands from her head to see if he would react.
“What’s the matter?” he suddenly snapped, making her heart jump into her mouth. “Nothing to say? Bah, I didn’t think so. You’re scum, useless, selfish sheep. But we’re gonna cleanse this country of all the scum, yeah, we are…”
His outburst wasn’t connected with what she’d done, though, and she realized that he hadn’t seen her. She knew it would be risky, but she had to confirm this theory. She slowly waved her hands in the direction of his voice. Her eyes were adjusting to the gloom, and she could vaguely make out his outline. He didn’t seem to notice her moving hands and certainly didn’t react.
This was it, Kate realized. She had to make a move before he did … and if risking her life to save Susan’s was what was necessary, then that was exactly what she would do.
“You idiots can’t even begin to understand what we’ve set in motion today,” the man growled. “But soon, everyone will know. They’ll all see … all the sheep will see…”
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 22 | The Coldest Night Page 5
