Nick came jogging down the stairs holding the key to the dojo door. “The fighting outside has stopped, at least for now,” he said. “We’d better make a run for it while we can.”
“Agreed,” Kate said. “Lock this psycho in here, and we’ll go.”
“We’ll meet again, sheep,” the soldier snarled as they closed the door on him and locked it. “And when we do, you’ll regret not killing me because this is the only chance you’ll get to do that. Mark my words!”
He continued to yell at them in the dark after they had closed and locked the door, but his words were muffled and unintelligible.
“Are you sure the fighting’s over outside?” Kate asked. She quickly popped the M-16’s magazine out and saw that there were still a few bullets in it, not many, but enough.
“It’s quiet from what I can tell,” Nick answered, with blood still streaming down his neck from his mutilated ear.
“All right, then we’d better go … but first, I need to take care of that ear of yours.”
“It’s fine,” he said, still not having realized the severity of the injury. “It’s just a cut, and…” He reached up to touch it, and when his fingers found that half of it was gone, his eyes bulged with shock … and then he passed out.
13
“Stop shooting. Stop shooting. Are you crazy?”
Jack heard those words—which came from an older woman and were heavy with a foreign accent—yelled out from the other side of the store. They were not directed at him though—and couldn’t be because he had yet to fire a shot.
He was more concerned with all of the blood on the floor, which was certainly his. Had he been shot? He’d heard that when pumped up on intense adrenalin, one could get seriously injured but not realize or feel it until much later. With his heart hammering and his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, Jack checked himself over under the flimsy cover of the coat rack he was lying next to. He quickly saw where the blood was coming from, and luckily, it wasn’t a bullet wound. One of the glass shards had given him a nasty cut on his forearm, and blood was dripping out of it at a rather alarming rate. The gash would need stitches soon, but for the moment, it wasn’t a life-threatening injury.
“Hey, pal, are you uh, are you okay?” a different voice called out. This one had the accent of a local and sounded like it belonged to a middle-aged man. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shoot, just with that crazy shitstorm outside, we’re all shittin’ bricks here, you know what I mean?”
“I’m okay,” Jack called out warily, wondering if this was some sort of trap. “I just want to get away from what’s happening outside, that’s all.”
“You can stand up, man. I won’t shoot, I promise.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jack asked.
“I promise, man, shit. I’m really sorry about shooting at you. I uh, shit—I’m an idiot,” the unknown man said sheepishly.
Jack tucked his pistol into the back of his pants, where it wouldn’t be seen from the front, but where he could reach it easily if needed, and slowly stood up. He saw an overweight security guard with a bushy, red beard, and an elderly Korean woman, who looked as if she might be the store owner.
A look of immense relief came across the security guard’s face when he saw Jack stand up. “Oh, thank God,” he said, letting out a great, heaving sigh of relief. “For a second there, I thought I’d … you know. I’m so sorry, man. I just—We’re on edge here. The world looks like it’s ending, this place is has turned into a warzone, and I just, I’m freaking the hell out.”
“He being crazy! Whole world being crazy!” the Korean woman exclaimed.
“You two need to get out of here,” Jack said, walking briskly toward them as the sounds of the battle intensified outside.
“I can’t,” the security guard said. “My car’s out there. How am I gonna get home? I live across the bridge. It’s ten miles from here. I figured we’d just wait here until, until whatever that is outside is over, then I’ll make a quick getaway.”
“My car also outside,” the Korean woman said, pointing toward the battle-torn street.
“I’m sure you’ve both noticed that your phones aren’t working anymore, and neither is anything else that uses electricity,” Jack said as he reached them. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the same goes for your cars. You’ll never drive ‘em again. They’re as good as scrap now.”
The security guard’s face fell. “Are you serious, man? I just made my last payment!”
“I’m sorry, but your car’s nothing more than a lump of metal,” Jack said. “There’s nothing else I can tell you; every car made in the last fifty years is now as useless as a chunk of stone.”
“My new BMW is … broken?” the Korean woman asked, looking crestfallen.
“I’m sorry, but yes. It’s broken beyond repair. And even if your vehicles were somehow salvageable after what just happened … they’re getting ripped to shreds out there. They’re gonna be torn to pieces by the time that battle’s over.”
“What do we do?” the security guard asked, looking lost.
“I’d suggest taking all of the cash out of here,” Jack suggested, “although how valuable paper money is going to be given what’s happened is debatable. Get your hands on as many canned goods, dehydrated food, stuff like that as you can. And do what you can to get out of the city, although if you haven’t got a place outside to shelter from the blizzard, I guess you’ll just have to stay in your apartments here. But if I were you, I’d plan on getting out of town and getting as far away as possible as soon as the blizzard’s over.”
“You’re making this sound like it’s literally the end of the world,” the security murmured, with a look of incredulity drawn across his face. “I mean, sure, this is … war, I guess, but, but things will go back to normal, eventually. My grandpa lived in Poland in World War II, and he told me that things went back to normal after a few years, even after the Germans pretty much leveled the place. And hell, even places like Hiroshima, flattened by an atomic bomb, they got back to normal after a few years.”
“I’m sorry, but I really don’t think that this is like World War II or any other war we’ve ever known in human history,” Jack said. “This is the fall of global civilization as we know it.” He paused after saying those words, and the full force of what was happening finally hit him like a sledgehammer to his skull. He knew full well what the EMP strike meant and the consequences it would have, but saying it out loud, spelling it out in such clear and stark terms, really drove the immense impact of it home like nothing else.
The security guard and the store owner looked at him with expressions of utter disbelief. It was clear that even with the chaos erupting outside, the concept of everything they knew and valued no longer existing was simply beyond their ability to grasp or truly comprehend.
“Are you sure about this?” the security guard eventually murmured. “That … everything’s … broken, and can’t … be fixed?”
“I’m pretty sure about it.” It was about the only thing Jack could say.
“Your arm,” the Korean woman said, staring at Jack’s arm, from which blood was freely dripping, with a look of concern on her face. “You need see doctor.”
“I wouldn’t want to be going anywhere near any hospitals, not after what’s happened,” he said to her. Then, an idea popped into his head. This woman owned a clothing store and surely had plenty of experience with clothing. “Do you know how to sew?” he asked.
“Sew? Yes, I can sew.”
“Please, help me stitch up this cut,” he said. “It’s not too different from sewing fabric. I’d do it myself, but it’s not so easy to do with just one hand.”
“Oh, I … um okay, I try,” she said uncertainly.
The sound of gunfire outside intensified. “We’d better get to the back of the building before any of us get hit with stray rounds,” Jack said.
“Yeah, man, we’ve stuck around here too long already,” the security gua
rd said. “Come on, Mrs. Park, empty the tills, and let’s get outta here. There’s no point in staying. Your clothes aren’t worth dying over, and if someone steals ‘em, they steal ‘em.”
Mrs. Park stared at the store with a look of sadness and helplessness on her face, but she nodded. There was no reason to stick around, and right now, with bullets flying thick and fast outside, looters were the least of their worries. She hastily emptied the tills of cash, gave the security guard a few hundred dollars of it, and then they all ran out to the alley behind the store. With a few layers of brick and concrete walls now between them and the battle in the main street, Jack felt a lot safer—not safe by any means, but far safer than when he’d been inside the store.
He got his first aid kit out of his bugout bag, hurriedly cleaned the long, deep cut on his forearm with surgical alcohol, and then gave Mrs. Park some latex gloves, a needle, and thread. Her sewing experience meant that the job of sewing up Jack’s cut was relatively easy for her, and she did a good of it.
“Thank you,” he said to her when she finished. “I really appreciate that.”
“What are you gonna do now?” the security guard asked.
“Find a way across the river and get back to my apartment,” Jack answered. “I have to meet my family there.”
“Mind if I tag along, just until we get across the river?” the security guard asked. “I can watch your back; you watch mine, know what I’m sayin’?”
“Okay,” Jack said. “Mrs. Park, what are you going to do?”
“My apartment close. Three blocks that way. I go home,” she said, pointing north.
“Go straight there,” Jack said, “and when you’re inside, stay locked up. Do what you can to get and store as much food and water as possible. And try to get a gun if you don’t have one. Good luck, and thanks again for stitching me up.”
“Okay, no problem,” she said, giving him a weak, sad smile.
She turned around and walked off, and a pang of sadness ripped through Jack. She didn’t have much of a chance considering what was coming, he knew. He could only hope that somehow luck stayed on her side and that she survived what was coming.
“All right, man, let’s go,” the security guard said. He checked the ammo in his pistol and gripped it in both hands. The way he held it told Jack he wasn’t much of an expert when it came to firearms, but it was good to have a second pair of eyes and ears around for a while. “I’m Bernie, by the way.”
“I’m Jack,” Jack said, shaking his hand.
“Sorry again for uh, almost killing you back there,” Bernie said sheepishly.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said. “Just be a bit more cautious with that trigger finger in future. Now, let’s—” he paused before finishing the sentence.
A fat white snowdrop had just settled on his nose. He looked up and saw more snow coming down from the darkening sky, which was quickly growing thick with heavy clouds. Then an icy wind howled through the alley.
The blizzard was on its way.
14
“Wake up, Nick, wake up,” Kate said, holding Nick in her arms and lightly slapping his cheek while Susan looked on anxiously.
Nick’s eyes fluttered and then opened, and he looked around him in sheer confusion for a few seconds before he remembered where he was, how he’d gotten here, and who these two relative strangers standing over him were. As soon as it all came back to him, he reached for his injured ear. Kate, however, caught his wrist and prevented him from touching it.
“Don’t worry about your ear right now,” she said. “Yes, it’s bad, but we’ll do what we can to clean it up with Susan’s first aid kit as soon as we’re somewhere safe. But this place isn’t safe, not with these terrorists and murderers like that maniac back there running around shooting up the place. You have to get up, Nick, and we have to get out of here right now.”
Nick nodded and got up. Now that the adrenalin of the fight was wearing off, he was starting to feel the pain of his wound a lot more intensely, and his ear was throbbing with a burning agony that seemed to be growing worse with every passing second.
“Which way?” he asked, gritting his teeth against the pain.
“We have to get across the river, and then it’s a couple of miles from there,” Kate answered.
“Getting across the river won’t be a problem, even if there’s trouble on the bridge,” Nick said. “There are more kayaks moored by mine, so we can paddle across if it comes to that.”
“Good,” Kate said. “Lead the way.”
They headed out of the gym, wary and on the lookout for danger. The sight that greeted them in the street outside was a horrifying one; dead soldiers, police officers, and civilians lay all over the street and sidewalk. Two of the bodybuilders had been shot and killed, but there was no sign of the gym owner, the huge man who’d given Kate some whiskey to warm her up. They hoped he had been able to escape with his life.
Whoever had committed the massacre had moved on, but from the shouts, scream, and scattered bursts of gunfire that echoed through the streets from only a few blocks away, it sounded as if they were still very much a present danger.
Kate felt marginally safer now that she had a rifle in her hands but not much. She was still weak from her experience in the river earlier and had not recovered fully, but there was little she could do now but go on.
As they were running down the street toward the river, she noticed that snow was starting to fall and that the sky was growing ever darker with thick, ominous-looking clouds, and a fierce, biting cold wind was starting to blow. It wouldn’t be long before the blizzard hit, and Kate suspected with no small measure of consternation, it may well hit during the night instead of the next day, as the weather service had predicted.
“Looks like it’s starting, Mom,” Susan said, appearing worried.
“I heard it’s gonna be unlike any storm we’ve ever seen,” Nick said. “The article I read said scientists hadn’t seen a blizzard forming so fast and with such intensity in history.”
“I know,” Kate said. She was getting more worried by the minute. Her family had bicycles. There was a spare one that Nick could use but going out into the worst blizzard of a generation on bicycles seemed suicidal, as did walking, which was the only other alternative. The other option, though, was staying put in their apartment until the blizzard was over, by which time they might be trapped, and the chaos, violence, and anarchy in the city would no doubt be a hundred times worse than they were now. She could only hope that Jack had a plan to get them out of what was becoming an increasingly dire and desperate situation.
As soon as they got within sight of the bridge, they saw that there would be no getting across it by walking; the army—or the terrorist rebels within the army—had set up blockades on and around the bridge.
“Looks like we’re paddling across,” Nick said.
“What if they shoot at us while we’re paddling?” Susan asked.
“We won’t cross right here near the bridge,” Nick answered. “There’s another place half a mile upstream where a couple kayaks and boats stay docked. There aren’t any bridges nearby, so we should be safe to paddle across there.”
They kept close to the buildings rather than the street that ran alongside the water; they felt too exposed out in the open like that. Sounds of gunfire and fighting continued to ring out from nearby blocks, but they didn’t come across any immediate danger. Soon enough, they arrived at the small quay where several small boats and kayaks were anchored.
“These belong to the university,” Nick said, pointing at a handful of kayaks. “Under the circumstances, I’m sure it’s okay to take them.”
Kate and Susan had both paddled in kayaks before, so they didn’t have much trouble getting moving. Of course, Nick was an expert, so he reached the other side of the river in record time and was waiting to help Kate and Susan out of their kayaks when they got across.
“Whew, that’s one hurdle out of the way,” Kate said. “It so
unds as if the fighting is all on that side of the river, so maybe we’re a bit safer here … but don’t get complacent about it. Keep your eyes and ears wide open.”
The snowfall was starting to get heavier now, and a biting wind howled in from the east. Even though the three of them were dressed for chilly weather, they weren’t ready for the kind of cold that the wind blew in. It felt as if that single gust had caused the temperature to plummet by twenty degrees in the span of a few seconds. It rushed through the streets and then dissipated, but they knew that they were by no means safe. Whatever bearable weather now remained was the final calm before what was certain to be a horrendous blizzard.
“We’re gonna need ski outfits for when this storm hits,” Nick said. The icy blast of wind had caused his half-severed ear to throb with even worse pain.
“We’ve got plenty of extreme-winter clothing at our apartment,” Kate said. “My husband is about your size; you can take some of his stuff if you need it.”
“Thanks, Kate,” he said, “that’s really kind of you, but I don’t think I’ll need a whole set of clothes just to get a couple of miles home.”
Susan looked at both of them, wondering what was going on. It seemed almost as if her mother was suggesting that Nick accompany them into the mountains. She was excited at that prospect—given the fact that her attraction toward him was only growing—but wondered what her father would say about it or whether Nick would even want to come with them into the depths of the wilderness and Uncle Arthur’s cabin. She also wondered why her mother was dropping hints that Nick would be welcome to stay with the group. Of course, there was the fact that he had saved her life, but she wondered if there wasn’t also some strategizing going on. Her mother was a keen tactical thinker and great at strategizing. Whenever the family played board games like Catan or Risk, Kate would usually end up winning. She had been a chess champion back in her high school days. As a strong, athletic young man with plenty of energy, Nick could be a valuable asset to their group, especially considering that many of the challenges they would face in the days to come would certainly require a great deal of brute strength and extreme endurance to get through. Regardless of her mother’s motivation for subtly inviting Nick to stay with the group, Susan was glad of it, and when she glanced at him again, a glimmer of a smile broke across her face.
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 22 | The Coldest Night Page 7
