“Venison, harvested by yours truly,” Arthur said, “with roast potatoes and pumpkin on the side from my woodfired oven, along with some home-brewed cider. Kate made some apple pie for dessert, too.”
“I thought there wasn’t any electricity anymore,” Nick said, with a puzzled look on his face. “How did you guys get this stuff and make it?”
“I’ve got a big cellar full of food stored for winter,” Arthur said, “all harvested from my land over summer and fall—just like our pioneer ancestors used to do in the days before electricity. And it hasn’t just been since the EMP turned the world upside down; I’ve been living without electricity—aside from a few small things, which I neither miss nor need—for the best part of twenty years now.”
Nick’s jaw dropped with surprise. “You’ve been living like this for … twenty years?”
Arthur grinned and chuckled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is how we were supposed to live. Human beings, I mean. I haven’t used any plastic for twenty years, haven’t contributed to the pollution that’s been destroying our natural environment for decades. I live in harmony with the land, like the wild critters around here. Well, I guess even living like this, I’ve made more of an impact on the environment than your average deer or mountain lion, but it’s nothing compared to the kind of impact the average city-dweller makes, no offense intended.”
“None taken,” Nick said, his mouth watering at the delectable scent of the roast dinner. “I’m well aware of how much of an environmental impact city life has on nature and stuff. Just … I can’t get my head around how you’ve been able to live without electricity, computers, phones, a car, a fridge, all that stuff. I honestly can’t imagine life without it.”
“You aren’t going to have to do too much imagining, Nick,” Jack said darkly. “Because that’s how life is now. Those things, they’re part of history. Life’s been given a hard reset, and we’ve rebooted in the year 1800, pretty much. Obviously, with some technology left over that still works, but not much. Arthur’s got an old truck here—that’s how he got us out of town when he rescued us—and some fuel, but it won’t last forever, and neither will whatever oil is left out there. We’ve got horses, though, and as long as we keep raising ‘em, we’ll have a fairly efficient means of transport.”
“Um, can I just back up a second quick?” Nick asked. “I don’t remember much of what happened after the whole town hall thing, and even that’s mostly a blur in my memory. I also seem to remember something to do with a red snowmobile and racing through the dark on it and getting shot at and stuff … but that mostly feels like it might have been part of one of those crazy fever dreams I was having.”
Susan and Kate shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, and the smiles faded from their faces at the recollection of that dark and terrible night and the horrific morning that had followed it. Jack scowled and gritted his jaw but realized that Nick had a right to know what had happened, as much as he hated thinking about it and recalling those terrible events.
Arthur noticed his brother’s tense attitude and decided that he should speak. “I knew Jack and his family would be coming here to my cabin after the EMP went off,” he said to Nick. “And I also knew that they would have to come through the town down the road to get here. So the day after the EMP strike, I took my truck down to the hills around town and set up camp to watch the main road in. I didn’t want to go into town because I knew that there would be trouble. In situations like this, the thin veneer of civilization crumbles pretty quickly, and people start acting like barbarians at best, or monsters at worst, within days. It happened here a lot faster than I could have imagined. The day after the EMP, shortly after I set up my camp—which was, by the way, very well-camouflaged—I was horrified to see a gang of marauders descend on the town and go on the rampage. The first thing they did was ambush and kill the local sheriff and the other two cops, and then they shot anyone who came out of their houses with guns or any sorts of weapons in their hands. They drove most folks out of town, including my parents, who are here, but out in the hot tub right now—”
“You have a hot tub?” Nick gasped, grinning with delight as he interrupted Arthur. “But with the whole no electricity thing, how does that work?”
“Geothermal energy,” Arthur said, smiling. “We’ve got natural hot springs near here, about a mile away. I just diverted some of the hot water into a rock pool I made with some concrete, and voila, a hot tub that’s piping hot all year round, powered by Mother Nature herself. You can have a soak in it, too, if you want, after dinner, under the stars. I bet you’ve never seen a starry sky like what you’re able to see out here with no light pollution. You’ll love it, kid, you’ll love it! Anyway, let me get back to the story…”
“Oh yeah, sure, go on, please,” Nick said.
“Anyway, those punks forced everyone they didn’t shoot out of the town. Folks were made to march into the blizzard on foot, carrying only what they could. The scumbags shot a bunch of ‘em for fun, too, and did worse things to the young women, it seems, from the evidence I found…”
“Evil, disgusting monsters,” Kate hissed, her fists clenched, her hands trembling at the memory of what the men had almost done to her. Jack reached over and took one of her hands in his, holding it tightly and whispering soothing words into her ear.
“I couldn’t risk taking them on initially,” Arthur said. “There were just too many of ‘em, and if I’d started taking them out one by one, they would have put together a hunting party to flush me out of my hiding spots and killed me. I rescued my parents first, who were among the refugees who’d been forced to march out into the wilderness, and then came back to wait for Jack and his family. I got back to town at night, after the gang had ambushed you guys with that burning truck by the river and couldn’t find y’all. For a while, I thought you’d drowned in the river, trapped in the Humvee. Something told me y’all were still alive, though, some instinct, so I stuck around. And when I saw the bell tower light up in the early with one of those goons tied to the bell, I knew it had to be Jack’s doing. I heard snowmobiles and gunshots, but I was on the opposite side of town, and by the time I got to you, y’all were already tied up in the workshop. I managed to sneak in and waited for the perfect opportunity to strike.”
“And when he struck, he hit the bastards hard,” Jack growled.
Arthur chuckled. “When I was a much younger man, before I decided to ditch civilization and live in the wilderness the way humans are supposed to live, I was a Green Beret for a few years. My experience taught me some … useful things. I managed to catch the punks off-guard, and … unleashed hell on them. One escaped, though.”
“Mark, their leader,” Jack muttered, spitting out the man’s name like a half-chewed morsel of rotten food.
“I could have hunted him down and finished him off,” Arthur said with a shrug, “but with the time that would have taken, I don’t think our young friend here would have survived. I only just gave him the medical attention he needed in the nick of time, and even so, I didn’t think he was going to make it. It’s a miracle you’re still here with us, Nick. You had to have had one hell of a strong heart to have fought off an infection that virulent.”
“I wouldn’t have survived without your help,” Nick said. “And for that, I’ll forever be grateful.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Arthur said. “I was just doing what was right, and that’s what I always do. I’ve never compromised on my morals and ethics and never will. Don’t worry about owing me anything. But if you want to stay here, you are gonna have to pull your own weight. There’s plenty of work to be done, especially with winter mostly over, and spring on the way. Lots of soil preparation to be done and crops to be planted.”
“I’m willing to work as hard as I need to,” Nick said. “As soon as I’ve got my strength back, of course.”
“Well, let’s get right onto that,” Jack said, smiling now. “Getting your strength back, I mean. This food is pi
ping hot, so let’s dig in before it gets cold.”
He said grace, and then everyone dug in. As they ate, Jack looked around him, and the smile on his face broadened. Just two weeks ago, it had seemed as if everything was ending, as if there was no hope and that all the suffering they had endured had been for nothing. Yet now, here in this place, hope had been born anew. Spring was coming, and as difficult as the future might prove to be in this strange new world, Jack had hope—a precious commodity in this upside-down world.
He tucked in and spoke a silent prayer of thanks in his head as he ate, grateful for everything.
36
Nick slammed his shovel into the soil and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. In the month that had passed since he had overcome his infection, he had regained almost all of his pre-injury strength and had been working hard for the last few weeks, under the supervision of Arthur and Jack. Nick had never done anything like this before, but he found that he enjoyed the slow pace of homestead life and the quiet serenity of living deep in the wilderness, at one with nature and the natural world.
He left the shovel embedded in the soil and walked over to the edge of the small field, where he’d left his bottle filled with crystal-clear water from the nearby mountain stream. He sat down, soaking up the early spring sunshine and staring up at the clear, blue sky and rested. It had been a long day of tough labor, but he had made some excellent progress.
After a few minutes, he heard footsteps approaching, and he turned around and saw Jack walking through the forest of pine trees on the edge of the field toward him.
“Working hard or hardly working?” Jack joked with a quick grin.
“Just taking a break,” Nick said, sipping on his cool water.
“I know, I was just kidding,” Jack said. “You’ve made great progress here, Nick. Well done. I’m surprised—in a good way, of course—how well you’ve taken to homestead life. Looking at you now, and what you’re capable of and what you’ve achieved, not even the most hardened pioneer or survivalist would have guessed that a month or two ago, you were a complete city slicker who’d barely ventured out in the wilderness for anything more than the occasional school field trip. You’ve come a long way in a short time.”
“Thanks, Jack. I really like it out here. There’s a kind of … deep peace, yeah, that’s it, and a really great feeling of satisfaction that comes from working like this. I didn’t think I’d love it out here the way I do. In fact, when you and Kate first told me about this place, I thought it would be like a prison sentence I’d have to get through. But now, after all this, I couldn’t imagine going back to ‘civilization,’ if such a thing even existed anymore.”
Jack smiled and sat down next to Nick. “Yeah, I hear you on that. I always knew my brother was right, even twenty years ago, when he first said goodbye to civilization and moved out here to live like this. I wanted to do it myself, really, but I was engaged to Kate at that time, and she’d always been a city girl, even though she and I came from a small mountain town. And to tell the truth, even though I knew Arthur was right, I was itching to get away from the mountains and give city life a go. I had career ambitions, ambitions that could never be fulfilled living in a small mountain town, much less so living out here in the wilderness. So I always told Arthur that I’d join him out here one day, but I wasn’t sure that day would ever come.”
“Here you are, though,” Nick said. “That day came all right.”
“It sure did. You see, maybe, I thought, when Kate and I had reached retirement age and Susan had grown up and gotten married and started a family of her own, we could come out here and live peacefully, in harmony with nature, for our golden years. I always thought I’d finish out my career in the city, then move back here. Kate believed the same, of course … but life has a way of upsetting even the most well-laid plans, and the EMP strike certainly did that in a spectacular way. But in a way, I’m glad it forced us out here, because like you, I never realized just how much I would love living like this and how deeply satisfying it would be. Of course, I don’t mean to say that I’m grateful for all the suffering that came with the EMP and everything it unleashed, but I’m glad that we made it out here alive and safe, and that we’re now thriving here.”
“It all worked out for us, didn’t it?” Nick said. “Well, speaking of work, I need to get back to it. There’s still a section of the field that needs to be worked, and if I go hard, I can get it done before sundown.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jack said. “Susan actually sent me here with a message for you. She wondered if you wanted to take a hike out to the big waterfall with her? If you leave now, you can get there and back before it’s dark. Go on. You’re well ahead of schedule here. You can leave the rest of this for tomorrow.”
Nick and Susan had grown very close since they had come here, and Jack and Kate approved of the romance that was blossoming between the two young people. Nick was an honest, honorable, and hardworking young man, and just the sort of man Jack had hoped his daughter would marry one day. That day was, of course, a number of years away, but Jack knew that it was good for both of them to have someone of their own age to hang out with, instead of being in the company of middle-aged adults the whole time.
Nick didn’t need much encouragement to spend time alone with Susan. He grinned at Jack. “Sure thing, I wouldn’t mind taking the rest of the day off and having a good hike out to the waterfall.”
“Go on then,” Jack said. “Susan’s waiting for you at the cabin. I’ll grab the shovel and the pick and get everything else packed up here for you. Go on, get outta here!” he said, playfully punching Nick on the shoulder.
Nick laughed and jogged through the woods to the cabin, where Susan, already decked out in her hiking gear, was waiting for him. “Took you long enough,” she joked, flashing him a wink and a sparkling smile that made him weak in the knees.
“I’ll be out in a second. Let me just put on a fresh shirt,” Nick said, running into the cabin to his room.
Half an hour later, they were deep in the woods on the trail that led to the waterfall. Its thundering roar boomed through the trees, and the low rays of the setting sun illuminated the forest with golden light. Nick and Susan walked along, hand in hand, chatting idly and enjoying both the picturesque, serene surroundings and each other’s company.
“It’s so beautiful out here,” Susan said. “I miss dancing and my classes and my friends, of course, but there’s nothing else I miss about the city.”
Nick was about to remark about how beautiful Susan was, following smoothly on from what she had said about their surroundings, but he paused before speaking, for he had noticed a smell. He glanced across at Susan and saw that she was wrinkling her nose, too.
“Ugh, what’s that smell?” she muttered. “Smells like a dead rat or something…”
Nick sniffed at the air. As they continued along the trail, the stench grew ever more powerful. “Smells like it’s gotta be something a lot bigger than a rat,” he grunted.
They went over a rise in the trail and then began to head downhill, toward the waterfall lookout point. The roar of the waterfall was like droning thunder in their ears now, but the horrid odor of death was thick and potent, like a wall of fog they had to push through.
“Ugh, Nick, let’s just forget about the waterfall and go home,” Susan said. “I can’t handle this smell any longer.”
Nick would have agreed to do that, but something pushed him on. He felt a pressing urge to investigate and discover the source of the foul stench, even though his sixth sense was warning him that it was something he wouldn’t like finding out. “Let’s go a little farther,” he said.
“Um, okay, if you insist,” Susan said, grimacing.
They headed downhill on the trail and turned a corner, and when they did, they saw it: the source of the reek.
“Oh my God,” Susan gasped.
“Shit,” Nick muttered.
They both covered their
noses with the crooks of their elbows as they approached the dead creature: a mountain lion, which had been skinned and decapitated. Its head was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t matter. What did was that a human had done this, and when Susan got closer to the body, terror tore through her as she realized just who that human was.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” she gasped, her voice shrill with alarm as she dropped down onto her hands and knees in front of the mountain lion corpse.
There, neatly lined up in a row in front of the dead animal, were seven bullets: one each for her, Nick, Kate, Jack, Arthur, and the men’s parents. She remembered that Jack had found four bullets lined up in front of the Humvee the morning after Mark’s thugs had prowled around it during the night on their way to the mountain town. The message was the same, and so too, surely, was the messenger.
“Mark’s here,” Susan whispered, every word laced with dread. “And he’s found us…”
37
“Dammit!” Arthur growled, staring at the drapes, which were closed against the darkness of night. Usually, he would have left them open until much later, but now, he had had to close all the drapes as soon as darkness had fallen with the threat of possible attack. He had also had to lock all of the doors, something he had never done here in the cabin. “That sonofabitch is like a cockroach you just can’t kill. I knew I shouldn’t have let him get away back when I had the chance to take him out.”
“If you’d done that, Nick wouldn’t be alive,” Kate said gently.
“I know, I know, I don’t mean that,” Arthur said. “I’m as happy to have Nick with us as anyone else is, I just can’t help regretting not putting that evil scumbag six feet under when I had the chance to. I know I couldn’t have done that and saved Nick’s life, of course. It’s just—it’s really frustrating.”
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 22 | The Coldest Night Page 19
