The looters froze. Not another sound.
Still unable to see them, he pulled himself farther out, arching his body to find the assailants. Three people stood there motionless. In the violent rain and the dark, he couldn’t tell anything about them. But he knew they meant him and his family harm. Raising his gun, he screamed again, this time louder until his voice had nearly worn itself out. “Move back from the car! Now!”
All three of them obeyed, hands high.
“Now get out of here! And if you take longer getting out of here than I want you to, you might just catch one in the back!”
“Please don’t shoot! We were just trying to help!” A voice whimpered. High and soft, kind of motherly. A woman?
“Step forward!” he commanded, then added, “Slowly.”
They followed his order. It seemed odd to him that looters would be so reasonable and so afraid.
The closer they got, the better he could scope them out. All three of them wore hooded, camouflage raincoat parkas. “Take those hoods down!”
They did as he demanded, revealing the faces of two bearded men and a woman, her face trembling and streaked with tears.
“Why did you approach my car?”
One of the bearded men spoke. “At first, we just needed a lift back to our homestead. Then we saw you crash and wanted to help you up and out of the mud.”
Hatfield studied their faces. The men were young, teens, maybe twenties. One of them had dark hair, sharp features, his beard thick and long, but more hipster than Amish. The other was a redhead, same age. His thin goatee was barely visible against his pallid face. The men were less afraid than the woman in the center, but they seemed honest. No obvious agenda beyond getting home and helping a stranger along the way.
“Tell me about this homestead.”
The dark-haired man shrugged. “What’s to tell? It’s a giant cabin.”
“And?”
His friend spoke more calmly. “We’re not at liberty to give more information than that.”
Hatfield lifted his gun again, trained it on the redhead. “Why not?”
“Security purposes. If we gave you a complete rundown of the facilities, we’d be putting ourselves at risk. Don’t get me wrong, we’d appreciate a ride there, and we’d be happy to offer you a meal in exchange for the assistance, but that would be it.”
The other one spoke. “You mind if we continue this conversation inside the Hummer? I’m sure your passengers would rather not be tilted at their side like that. And we’d much prefer not to be in this rain.”
“So you’re going to help set the Hummer down?”
“Yes, sir. That’s why we came over in the first place.”
Hatfield gave their faces one final scan, then holstered his gun. “Okay, let’s do it.” He looked back inside the vehicle to see all three faces aimed at him in curiosity and a little fear. “I’ll be back in a second, guys. Keep your belts on; things might get a little shaky.”
He yanked himself completely out, then jumped down, landing in a pool of light-brown water littered with tree branches, trash, and leaves. The five of them positioned themselves in front of the car. “Okay, guys,” he yelled. “We’re gonna lift then go right. After that, we let it down nice and easy.”
With a huge collective grunt, they heaved the Hummer up and over. Hatfield then arranged for them to bring the car down slowly to the ground. It came down without a sound. He waved the three strangers toward it. “Come on!”
The four of them settled inside. “Jess, Justin, Tami, meet…”
They introduced themselves with warm and polite handshakes. They were Grace, Andy, and Gary.
The woman’s name put a grin on Jess’s face.
After intros, Hatfield gazed into the sky. “Looks like it’s easing up a little.”
“Should be stopping altogether soon,” Gary, the older man, said.
Hatfield turned. With a smirk, he said, “According to what? Some folk wisdom?”
“We’re not at liberty to say,” he answered.
“Why not?”
“Like I said, for security purposes, we can’t divulge the kind of equipment we have at the homestead. But let’s just say you’d be impressed by our ability to predict weather trends.”
The smirk on Hatfield’s face disappeared. Dad would be impressed, he thought to himself.
Jess turned, offered the strangers a friendly smile. “Look, I don’t mean to be indelicate, but we know your names, but not… your story.”
“Far as I can tell, these three good Samaritans were on their way home. All they need is a lift, right?”
She said, “Honey, why don’t you let them tell their own story?”
Knowing when he was outranked, her husband lifted his hands in mock surrender.
“Well, ma’am,” Andy started. “as the gentleman said, we just needed a lift back to our homestead. Nothing more. We saw the Hummer got into a scrape, so we came over to help, simple as that.”
“So, if you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing off of the homestead? Especially with all this going on?”
The young man said, “It’s a long story, but if you want us to really get into it—”
But Gary interrupted him. “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we—”
“Aren’t at liberty to say,” Hatfield finished with a groan.
“I’m sorry,” Gary added.
Jess patted her husband on the thigh. “Let’s just be thankful we got some help when we needed it.”
He nodded, then twisted the key in the ignition and waited. A tense quiet fell over the Hummer as it wheezed a few times.
“You know, guys,” Andy chimed in. “With the rain easing up, we could probably walk from here. It really wouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, no, hold on.” Hatfield tried again. After a few false starts, it whimpered to life. His face aglow, he turned to his kids and the strangers in the back. “Everybody ready?”
Enthusiastic “yep” from the back seat. But nothing from Jess.
Hatfield turned to see his wife wordless, head bowed, eyes shut. After the engine’s surprising start, he needed no explanation. “All right, guys, let’s go. Heads down.”
Confused, the younger guy asked, “I’m sorry?”
“Just giving thanks, that’s all.”
11
“Just take Decatur Street till you reach the school up ahead,” Gary said. “Then take a right on Delaware.”
The farther Hatfield drove, the more familiar the land looked. Kennedy High looked a lot different than it had the last time he’d been around. Wilton looked like a different place. Hipster coffee shops where Mike’s Garage used to be. A mall in place of a football field. A parking lot in place of E & R’s Diner. He kept his nostalgia to himself. This wasn’t the time to share unhappy adolescent memories with strangers.
Gary said, “Just keep going down Delaware, way past the lake. The homestead’s a good distance down there.”
The trip was beginning to feel downright eerie now. As they stayed on Delaware, he wondered if they would soon pass the place he and his family used to live. Maybe he’d see the homestead. After another half a mile stretch of abandoned land, a weird question snapped into his head. “Guys, this homestead of yours… where is it located exactly?”
“Out close to the river,” Andy said.
“About a mile and a half away from the river’s bank?” Hatfield asked. “Next to a clearing?”
The young guys looked at each other. “Yeah,” they answered in tandem.
By now, they could see the homestead in the distance. It was a giant cabin surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.
From the back seat, he heard his daughter’s voice. “Dad, are they going to be able to help me in there?”
Grace, the woman, spoke for the first time, asking, “Is that thing broken?”
“Her wrist looks broken, yes,” Jess answered. “We were hoping there were supplies in there.”
“
Sure,” Grace said. “We’ve got plenty. Sedatives, stitching equipment if she needs that too. Material for a cast.”
“Now, all we need is somebody who knows how to use it all.” Gary chuckled.
“We get by just fine,” Grace said.
Hatfield pulled up the barbed wire. From there, he could see the old trailer at the side of the house. “They keeping the trailer up as a souvenir?”
Andy answered, “Storage room. We got so much stuff, we have to stash what we can’t use at the moment in that old heap of junk.”
Hearing the home he grew up in referred to that way made Hatfield grin. He wasn’t sure whether he was insulted or amused. But he was sure that thing was a piece of junk when he lived there. And it certainly had to be by now.
A minute passed with all of them staring at the cabin. Hatfield was too engrossed by memories to notice how much time had passed.
From behind, Justin called, “Dad, what are we waiting for? Tami’s wrist really needs to be worked on.”
Grace, inspecting Tami’s wrist, said, “Guys, I’m seeing redness on her wrist. That can’t be good, right?”
“She’s going to need more ice soon!” Jess said. “Honey, scooch up a little so I can take a look at your wrist.”
Hatfield’s gaze hardened. “Guys, we really need to get past that fence! Can you open it up, please?”
The three homesteaders exchanged glances. Grace said, “We can’t do that.”
“What are you talking about? You told us if we gave you a lift, you could let us in and have a meal!”
Gary swallowed hard, his face growing red. “Maybe we shouldn’t have promised that much.”
“What?” Jess cried.
Andy said, “Look, when you asked why we had left the homestead—”
“You said you weren’t at liberty to tell us—for security reasons.”
“Yes,” Andy said. “And that was true. But there was a little more to the story than that.”
Hatfield aimed his eyes at him like lasers. “What is the rest of the story?”
More exchanged glances. Andy said, “Our reasons for leaving the homestead were a little… complicated.”
“How so?”
Hatfield saw their glances brush past him and onto something else that made their eyes huge. He turned to see what they were staring at.
Three men in camouflage trained M-16 rifles at them. Five more leaped out of the bushes. Within seconds, the Hummer was surrounded. A loud voice came from the cabin’s porch. “Please leave the area. You are trespassing on private property! If you continue to do so, you will be risking bodily injury!”
Enraged, Hatfield yelled to the back seat. “Will you tell these people you are with us!”
Gary said, “That’s the part that gets a little complicated.”
“What the hell does that mean!” Hatfield exploded.
Voice soft and humbled, Gary said, “The three of us were VVs.”
“What is that?” Jess asked.
Grace said, “It stands for voluntary vacate. It means we took off without permission.”
Andy said, “You could think of it as going AWOL.”
“What’s the punishment?” Hatfield asked.
Gary said, “There is no punishment. Only banishment. That basically means everyone is free to leave, but once they do, they’re not allowed back in.”
Hatfield pounded his fist against the dashboard, feeling his rage on the cusp of boiling over. His wife massaged his shoulder and address the three VVs in a calmer, softer voice. “If you knew that was the price to pay, why did you think you’d be allowed back in?”
Her husband yelled, “And why in God’s name did you promise we could get a meal and some help in there!”
“We’re really sorry,” Grace said. “It was wishful thinking, I guess. We had a VV take off a few months before we did and was later allowed back in. They made an exception for him. We figured they’d make an exception for us.”
“I guess things have changed since then,” Andy said. “The other guy was before the EMP attack. Now they know how scarce their resources are.”
Hatfield’s stare landed back at the armed men in camouflage. With his options running short, he said, “I’ll be back, guys. We gotta put an end to this!” He swung open the door and bolted out, knowing Jess would urge him to stay put.
As expected, she yelled, “Honey, no—” when he took off. But it was too late by then.
Emerging from the car, he lifted his arms in surrender when all rifles suddenly brought their scopes to him. The voice from the porch said, “Please leave at this time! You have been warned. If it becomes necessary to issue another warning, you will be fired upon!”
Another voice—from one of the armed men—joined him. “Sir, please step back into the car!”
“We have three of your people with us!” Hatfield screamed.
“We are aware of this! Please return to your car!”
“Look, I’ll be honest!” He said. “We really need medical help! Desperately! My daughter broke her wrist and—”
“Sir, our medical supplies, like the rest of our resources, are limited. It pains us to say this, but this means we must turn everyone who seeks help down!”
Hatfield scanned their faces, going from gunman to gunman, looking for sympathy. He found nothing. “Please?”
“We’re sorry.”
He turned headed back to the Hummer, then, before getting there, yelled. “My dad would be ashamed of all of you! Every last one of you cowards! If he were alive today, he’d regret the day he built this thing!”
In a softer voice, the gunman answered, “Your father?”
“Yes, my father! This was his dream, his plan! He didn’t live to see it completed—and it’s a good thing he didn’t, because—”
“Your father was Sergeant Hatfield?” he asked.
“First class. I’m his son, Trevor.”
Another gunman asked, “What was your mother’s name?”
Exasperated, Hatfield screamed with all the energy he had left. “My mother’s name was Evelyn, okay! Evelyn Mary Hatfield, maiden name Scott! My father’s full name was Ernest Thomas Hatfield! They met in Casagrande, Arizona in—”
“Do you have any ID?” one of them asked.
Sensing an opening, Hatfield calmed down a little, hurriedly pulled his wallet out of his backpack, handed it over.
The gunmen held it under a flashlight, checking it out. They exchanged some words, then handed him back the ID.
One of them stepped forward, lowered his rifle. He made a gesture with his hand, which prompted the others to lower theirs. “Sir, I don’t think we can persuade our leader to let you remain here permanently, but I’m sure, if nothing else, he’d love to meet you. In the time it takes to do that, I’m sure your guests can be fed and receive any necessary medical treatment.”
Hatfield smiled, his heart now warming. “Great news. And by the way, those aren’t guests. Three of them are my family. The other three are yours.”
“Fine. Your family can eat and receive whatever care they need. The others have been banished. Is this understood?”
He nodded. “Perfectly clear.” He started back to the Hummer, then caught a glance of their faces. As angry as he was at them for concealing the full truth, he couldn’t forget the reason they met in the first place. He turned, headed back to the fence. “Guys, I really must insist on the other three eating as well.”
“What?”
“They helped us out of a tight jam.”
“Mr. Hatfield, those individuals are—”
“Yes, I know. They vacated voluntarily or whatever it is. But, letting them back in is something Dad would have wanted. I’m sure of it.”
The gunman’s face softened. He lifted a hand, then spoke on a walkie-talkie. “Yes, it is confirmed that he’s got some VVs with him. Looks like Donaldson, Tyler, and Wynn. Yes, sir. Ten-four.” He put down the walkie-talkie and addressed Hatfield again. “Okay, you’re all welc
ome. Come on in.”
With his face glowing, Hatfield turned to the Hummer and waved everybody forward.
12
Nathan and his gang waited outside the hospital, crouched in the bushes. “You sure they got good stuff in here?” he asked Gio.
“I’m telling you, dude! My girlfriend’s mom is a nurse. She tells me they got everything backed up on old diesel generators here—you know, just in case of power outages and whatnot. So they’ll have some stuff, trust me. Food, medical supplies, lots of stuff.”
“Good,” the boss answered, binoculars raised to his face.
“I just hope there’s a way we can take stuff and make sure it’s not stuff that, like, somebody needs.”
Nathan brought his binoculars down, slowly turned to the gang’s former leader, eyes like concrete. “This ain’t the time for compassion.”
“All I’m saying is, you know, I’d feel bad if some kids had to, like, die or something—”
His boss shook his head. “You want to quit this gang and go start a charity organization?”
“No,” he mumbled.
“I’m starting to wonder about you. I don’t see how you could have been the leader before me with that sympathy you were pouring out.”
“Sorry, man.”
“From now on, it’s all about us first, everybody else last,” Nathan said. “You got that?”
Gio gave him a weak, “Yeah.”
“And the rest of you?”
Same answer from the rest, same tone.
“Good. Anybody who’s not ready to shed some blood—man, woman, children’s blood—you can turn around right now and take off. We are better off one man short than having a man we can’t trust because he might be too much of a pussy to pull the trigger when he needs to.”
He turned and redirected his attention to the hospital’s front door. A drowsy guard stood outside it. “Okay, guys,” Nathan whispered. “We know what to do. Let’s execute.”
Gio nodded, then reached for a glass bottle at his knee and tossed it to the front door. The guard sprang forward—just within the view of a rifleman at Nathan’s side. He fired three shots, striking the guard twice in the chest and once in the belly.
Survive the Day Boxset: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 7
