Then, as he got to the familiar street that their apartment building was on, he heard it, over the howling wind. It was a sound he knew very well: the deep rumble of his Humvee. It was coming up the street, and he knew it had to be them. It had to be. Using his last reserves of energy, he sprinted up the road and through the washes of snow on the wind. Two headlights were coming toward him. He stood in the middle of the street, right in the Humvee’s path, with a rifle in his hands and a smile on his lips. Against all the odds, he had made it.
He had found them.
20
Kate stared in sheer disbelief through the windshield, and for a few moments, she was convinced that she had to be hallucinating. It was Jack standing there in the middle of the road; she knew that face like she knew the back of her hand. Yet he was wearing a soldier’s jacket and carrying an M-16. Was it really Jack, or was her troubled mind simply projecting her husband’s face onto the body of some random soldier?
“Dad!” Susan shrieked from the back seat. “Oh my God, oh my God, it’s Dad! It’s Dad!”
Kate knew then that she imagining things. “Open the door, honey!” she said excitedly. “Let him in!”
Susan threw open the door and ran out into the wind and snow. She ran over to Jack and threw her arms around him, weeping tears of joy. Jack hugged her tightly, and tears stung the corners of his eyes, too. He slipped the fingers of his left hand through Susan’s, and hand in hand, they walked over to the Humvee.
“Jack,” Kate gasped, still scarcely able to believe that he was real and not some apparition her mind had conjured up. “I can’t believe it. We thought you were … we thought you had…”
“It’s a long story,” he said, “and I’m a little black and blue, but nothing some rest won’t heal. Who’s this?” he asked, not in an unfriendly manner but surprised to see someone else in the Humvee.
“My name’s Nick, sir,” Nick said, offering Jack a hand, which he took and shook.
“Nick saved my life,” Kate explained. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. We’ve also got a story to tell you.”
“They’re just giving me a ride home,” Nick said.
“Well, I thought maybe we could take you a little farther than that,” Kate said with a smile, “but we’ll talk about that later. Jack, how are you feeling? Do you want me to drive, or do you want to take over?”
“I’ve spent years working on this thing,” he said, flashing her a grin of boyish delight. “Don’t deny me the chance to drive her the way I designed her to be driven, honey!”
Kate chuckled, glad to see that Jack was relatively uninjured and that his spirits were high and his will strong. “Of course, come on, let’s trade places.” She got out, and then she and Jack shared a long, tight embrace and a passionate kiss before swapping sides.
As Jack drove, he told them what had happened to him—everything from almost being blown up in his office from one of the rocket attacks to the hostage situation down to having to paddle a flimsy dinghy across the river. Then Kate, Susan, and Nick told him their story, from Kate’s near-drowning in the river to their own hostage situation in the martial arts gym. By the time they’d finished swapping stories, they were out in the suburbs.
The drive out of their neighborhood was filled with obstacles in the form of piled up cars. Still, Jack usually had plenty of room to get around them by driving on the sidewalks. And, also, when the occasion called for it, he simply drove over dead cars’ hoods or trunks, for if they were the size of the average sedan or city car, his modified Humvee was easily capable of doing this.
“I had no idea I could have done that,” Kate remarked the first time he drove over a BMW sedan that was blocking most of a sidewalk. “And it’s a good thing I didn’t; if I’d known I could have simply driven over the cars that were blocking the street around the corner from home, we wouldn’t have turned around and gone back that way, and we wouldn’t have found you.”
“We’ve got someone watching over us,” Jack said, smiling.
He was concerned about the fact that the Humvee’s headlights might attract attention of the wrong kind, but driving without them was a sheer impossibility, given that visibility in the darkness and driving wind and snow was pretty much zero. Also, the winds had picked up to well over gale force, and the howling roar as the wind tore through the streets and alleys drowned out the sound of the Humvee’s motor to anyone who wasn’t within a few yards of the vehicle.
Thankfully, they didn’t attract any of the wrong kind of attention on the way out of the city. Jack kept to small roads and stayed well away from any of the main routes, and when it came to getting out of the city and into the suburbs, instead of taking the roads that led there, he drove the Humvee through the large park that separated the city from the western suburbs. The park was thick with snow, which had already piled up a few inches. Jack guessed there would be many feet of snow by morning, possibly even enough to bury some of the smaller trees.
Once they got into the suburbs, there were fewer signs of the chaos and violence that had devastated the city—there weren’t nearly as many abandoned cars choking up the roads, and there weren’t any corpses on the streets or signs of fighting—but there was one major clue that revealed that things were far from normal: the darkness.
Jack, Kate, and Susan were accustomed to experiencing true darkness without any hint of artificial light, from their frequent camping trips to the mountains, and their occasional visits to Arthur’s cabin, but Nick, who had only been camping a handful of times in his life, hadn’t experienced anything like it. For all of them, though, this sort of intense darkness was surreal to see in the suburbs. In one or two houses they passed, the dim light of gas lamps could be seen burning, but most houses were shells of utter blackness.
They drove through the suburbs in a silence that was heavily laden with a feeling of surreal dread. It truly felt as if this were some sort of bizarre collective dream they were experiencing … one from which there was no possibility of waking.
After a while, Nick spoke up. “My studio apartment is about a mile up that road,” he said, pointing to a road branching off the one they were on.
Kate wondered what she should say. When she’d first thought of asking Nick to accompany them to Arthur’s cabin in the mountains, she hadn’t been entirely sure that Jack would be with them, or whether he would make it out of the city. After she’d left her apartment for the last time, she’d been sure that Jack was gone forever. By then, she’d convinced herself that she needed to do whatever she could to convince Nick to stay with them, just for the sake of having a male presence to make potential predators—which she was sure they would eventually encounter on the road—think twice about attacking her and Susan. Now that Jack had returned, even though Nick would be an asset and an ally, she wondered what she should say. It wasn’t as if she and Jack would have an opportunity to have a private conversation about it.
Before she could open her mouth, though, Jack spoke up. “How’s that ear of yours feeling, son?” he asked Nick.
“To tell the truth, it’s starting to feel really hot,” Nick said. “I was almost thinking of asking if you could stop the car for a second so I could scoop up some snow to cool it down.”
Jack frowned. “That’s not a good sign at all,” he said. Then he turned to Kate. “You cleaned his ear up with antiseptic and surgical alcohol, right?”
“Of course,” she answered. “But I could only do that once we got back to the apartment since I lost my bag in the river. I did what I could, but I know it wasn’t nearly soon enough.”
“Nick,” Jack said, “if you’re feeling like your ear’s getting hotter, you’re probably developing an infection. I’m guessing you don’t have any antibiotics at home.”
Nick shook his head.
“The human mouth is full of very nasty bacteria, and if it gets into a wound, it can cause one hell of an infection. If you leave that untreated,” Jack said gravely, “it could prove fatal.
”
Nick swallowed slowly, looking suddenly fearful. “What do I do? I mean, it’s not like I can see a doctor or go to the hospital now, can I?”
Jack shook his head. “Every hospital in the city is probably swamped right now with people who’ve been shot, and thousands of others who were wounded in the rocket attacks—and I don’t think they’ll be able to do much for the vast majority of these people, seeing that most of their equipment has been put out of commission permanently by the EMP strike. There is another way, though.”
“There is?” Nick asked.
“There is, yes,” Jack said. “We’ve got some general-purpose antibiotics with us, but my brother Arthur has a lot of specific medication stored in his cabin. Before he became, well, a hermit of sorts, he was actually on his way to becoming a surgeon. He’s a very intelligent man and knows a lot about medicine. He could help you if you come with us.”
Nick nodded slowly, considering his options. Eventually, he spoke. “I don’t want to be a burden,” he said, “and I don’t want you to think that you owe me anything for saving your wife’s life. I did that without any thought of a reward or thanks. It was just the right thing to do.”
Jack smiled. “And that’s exactly why I’d like to take you with us, Nick. Look, it’s up to you, but I think I speak for all of us when I say we’d love for you to stay with us. An extra pair of hands would be a great help where we’re going.”
Nick reached up and gingerly touched his ear. He winced from the stab of hot pain that ripped through his skull at the slightest touch. He knew what Jack was saying was correct, and without antibiotics, the infection that was brewing in his ear could well turn fatal. “Okay,” he said, “okay, I’ll stay with you guys. Thank you, Jack, thank you so much for helping me out like this.”
In the back of the Humvee, Susan let out a little squeal of delight, which she promptly suppressed, and her cheeks glowed with embarrassment. Delight, however, sparkled brightly in her eyes.
Before anyone else could say anything, though, the mood in the vehicle switched abruptly from hope to alarm, for up ahead, through the curtains of wind-borne snow, they saw headlights coming toward them in the darkness.
21
The first thing Jack did was turn off the Humvee’s headlamps. He then swerved off the street, drove across the sidewalk, and into the nearby house's front yard. He hoped that the approaching vehicle hadn’t seen his lights, but that was probably a futile hope since he had seen theirs.
“Who is that?” Kate asked, her tone betraying the urgency in her voice.
“If we’re lucky,” Jack answered, “they’re people like us, who were ready for something like this and are now doing what we’re doing and trying to get out of this place.”
“And if we’re not lucky, Dad?” Susan asked.
“Then those are the people who pulled the trigger on this whole disaster,” Jack said grimly. “Get your guns ready, people, and put in earplugs in case we have to fire from inside the Humvee. I’m praying it doesn’t come down to that. A firefight is our absolute last resort, but we need to be ready for a worst-case-scenario situation.”
As the vehicle got closer, Jack did his best to scan the surroundings for an escape route. He had seen a few abandoned cars on the street, but now that his headlamps were off, visibility was close to nil due to the darkness, the wind, and the snow. All they could see were the two baleful headlamps coming ever closer in the howling darkness.
Before switching off the lights, Jack had seen that there were large open spaces around the nearby house; if needed, he might be able to veer off around the side of the house and tear through the backyard. He hoped that it wouldn’t come down to that, for not only would a car chase at high speed through the thick darkness and howling wind be dangerous due to the possibility of a wreck, but it could also end up with him getting hopelessly lost in the suburbs. Without any visibility to orient himself, it could take them hours to get out of this place … if they even escaped at all.
Everyone in the Humvee watched with bated breath as the vehicle got closer. And when it slowed down to a stop near them, they knew their headlamps were spotted earlier. Jack kept the Humvee in gear, ready to blast off in an instant, and the others readied their firearms.
They could barely make out what kind of vehicle it was, but the dim halo of light around it, created by the reflection of the headlamps off the wind-blown snow, revealed it to be a Humvee. And when Jack and the others saw the vague silhouettes of men with rifles getting out of the SUV, they knew these were no friendly survivors or civilians.
“I’m gonna try outrun ‘em,” Jack said to the others. “And it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Get your heads down so they can’t see you through the windows. Get ready and hold on.”
The soldiers could hear the Humvee’s rumbling motor over the howl of the wind, and they knew someone was in it. There were six of them, along with a driver who stayed in the vehicle. They fanned out, with their rifles shouldered, ready, and their fingers on their triggers, and they approached Jack’s Humvee warily.
What they didn’t know, of course, was that Jack’s vehicle was bulletproof—something he intended to use to his full advantage. He waited until the men were a mere few feet away from the Humvee, and then he punched the gas. For two terrifying seconds, the wheels spun on the icy, snow-thick ground, but then they gripped and launched the massive vehicle forward.
The soldiers opened up, peppering Jack’s Humvee with automatic fire as he sped away, but while their sprayed bullets drummed viciously against the doors and windows, none of them smashed through the bulletproof glass and steel.
Jack had to flip on the lights since there was no visibility, but he knew that he’d gotten a good head start on the soldiers, even though his taillights would be a beacon on the dark for them to follow. If he could get far enough away before they caught up, though, the wind and snow would provide enough cover to lose them.
He raced down the side of the house and veered into the backyard, sliding the big vehicle around a tight corner. There was a small wooden shed in his path, and he had no time to swerve around it, so he simply plowed through it. The shed exploded in a shower of shattered wood and flying debris, most of which was paint, tools and hardware items, and then, racing onward at breakneck speed, Jack smashed through the wooden fence and hurtled through the neighboring yard. He had no idea whether the men were pursuing him; he just knew that he had to get away as quickly as possible.
As he tore across the next yard, he smashed through an artificial fountain, leaving a plume of water shooting up into the air behind him, swerved around a sprawling tree, and then burst through another wooden fence, but this time he found himself hurtling onto a street. He slammed on the brakes and skidded, pulling a swift ninety-degree turn that almost had the Humvee up on two wheels, and then sped down the street, pushing the big vehicle to its limits as he dodged dead cars, lampposts, and trees. He had to rely on his catlike reflexes to avoid the many potentially deadly obstacles in his path. Thanks to the wind and driving snow and the darkness, there was barely any visibility.
He hurtled through another tight corner onto the next road and then plowed through another series of yards to take an improvised shortcut to another street. Once he was there, he finally slowed down and allowed himself to breathe. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his hands were tingling, tight with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke; they were all too shaken up from the intensity of the high-speed ride. Finally, Jack uttered a few words. “Is everyone okay?”
“I feel like I’ve just stepped off a rollercoaster,” Kate said, “but I’m okay.”
“Definitely shaken and not stirred,” Nick quipped, “but yeah, I’m okay, too.”
“I got thrown around a little,” Susan said, “and I think I’ve got a few bruises after that, but I’m okay, too, Dad.”
Jack breathed out a sigh of relief, slumped forward against the steering w
heel, and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, though, he saw a sight in the rearview mirror that sent icy dread coursing through his veins. In the distance, barely visible but rapidly coming closer, were the headlamps of the soldiers’ Humvee.
Kate also saw them in the rearview mirror. “Oh, no,” she gasped. “How did they find us?”
Then it hit Jack; in the snow, he couldn’t evade them no matter how fast he went, and regardless of whatever route he took, they would find him. “The tracks I’m leaving in the snow,” he said grimly. “They’re leading the bastards right to us.”
“What do we do?” Kate gasped. “There’s no way to escape!”
“There’s only one thing we can do,” Jack said. “We take the fight to them.”
22
“Whoa, whoa, hold up, hold up there,” Kate said, “I know we’ve got our backs against the wall, but these are trained soldiers we’re up against, Jack! We can’t just shoot it out with them; we’ll get killed!”
“And I don’t intend to do that,” Jack said. “But I’m not going to run around the suburbs, burning up precious fuel, wasting valuable time, and getting hopelessly lost while they run us down like hounds after a fox.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, Jack, just tell me. I’ll do it,” Nick said determinedly.
“There is,” Jack said, taking off at speed before the enemy Humvee got any closer to them. “It’s going to be risky, but I’ve got a plan that just might work.”
“Jack, there’s gotta be another way. We can’t fight these guys,” Kate said, grabbing onto a handrail as Jack skidded at high speed through an intersection.
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 22 | The Coldest Night Page 11
