Then, of course, there were more urgent questions relating to his present circumstances. Why were they taking civilians as hostages? What were they planning to do with them? How was he going to escape this perilous situation?
He looked around him at the other prisoners. They seemed to come from a number of different walks of life and represented a broad spectrum of society in terms of age and ethnicity. He suspected that the soldiers were simply luring anyone they could into the store and then taking them captive, with no preference for any group. Judging from how harshly they had already been treated, and the fact that dozens of powerful rockets had been fired into the city without any regard for human life, Jack was sure that these men would not hesitate to kill him and the other hostages if it suited them.
There only seemed to be three soldiers here—the guard and the two others in the store capturing people. The stockroom was gloomy since there was no window or any other source of natural light. Instead, the source of illumination in here was a single gas lamp, burning on top of a crate of tinned beans near Jack.
There were nine or ten other hostages in the room, and Jack knew that it would be foolish to count on them to act if he moved against the guard. He was, however, sure that Bernie would help him out. Even though the security detail didn’t possess much in the way of common sense, he had a good heart and was brave.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” the guard snarled. “Don’t fuckin’ look at me, you prick, or I’ll smash your fuckin’ skull in.”
Jack looked up and saw the guard glaring at a muscular young black man, who was staring up at him with defiant eyes. Another potential ally, Jack quietly noted.
As for the other hostages, most were adults in their thirties, forties, or fifties, although there was one nerdy-looking teenage boy and an elderly woman who had to have been in her seventies. All of them looked terrified, and Jack was quite sure he couldn’t count on any of them to help. So, he thought to himself, if he were going to act against the guard, he could only really count on Bernie and maybe the young black man to help him. He would have to act soon, though, while there was only one guard in here, and he would need to strike a vicious and devastating blow.
The shelves in the stock room were all basic steel shelves, and Jack was seated close enough to one of them that he could subtly slide backward along the floor until his hands were touching a section of the steel racks. He slowly began to rub the zip ties around his wrists along the relatively sharp edge of the steel edge, keeping a close eye on the guard as he did this. The zip ties were thick, but the sustained friction began to saw through them after a few minutes.
Jack had to stop when the door burst open and another man, captured by the soldiers, was dragged into the stock room. The new arrival was a guy in his sixties, dressed in a business suit. The soldiers manhandled him, too, and they smashed him in the stomach with the butt of an M-16 before slapping duct tape over his mouth. They forced him to sit near Jack, and then the two soldiers went back into the store, leaving the single guard to watch over the hostages.
The new arrival provided the distraction Jack needed. Once the businessman had gotten over the pain of being hit with the rifle, his eyes bulged with rage and indignation, and he tried to yell through the duct tape. No words could be heard, but the muffled cries coming from his gagged mouth sounded very angry.
“Hey, Grandpa, shut the fuck up, or I’ll break that loudmouth jaw of yours,” the soldier snarled.
The man simply tried to yell even louder, struggling violently against his bonds. With this distraction drawing the soldier’s attention, Jack rubbed the zip ties against the steel with increased speed and pressure.
“Do you wanna be the first hostage to die, motherfucker?” the soldier growled at the enraged businessman.
The man tried to yell something through the duct tape. His face was crimson with wrath, and he looked as if he were so angry he would either explode or pass out. The soldier was losing his cool, too, and he walked over to the businessman, an arrogant swagger in his stride, and stood over him with his gun pointed at the man’s forehead. Holding the firearm in his right hand, he ripped the tape off the man’s mouth with his left. “All right asshole,” he snarled, “go ahead, say what you want to say. But be aware that these are your last fucking words ever, so you’d better make ‘em profound. I’m sick of your shit now, and we’ve got enough hostages without you. After this, we’re stepping out into the alley out back, and you’re gonna have the honor of being the first of these sheep to die. Go on, tough guy, have your say. Last words, though, remember that.”
“Do you know who I am?” the man roared. “You’ve made the biggest mistake of your life, you fucking insect! If you don’t let me go this instant, you and your rat-bastard friends are going to pay very dearly for this. Trust me on that!”
With a subdued snap, the zip ties binding Jack’s wrists finally broke. He knew that he had to act now; the man’s yells would attract the other soldiers’ attention, and if they came in here and he didn’t have a gun in his hand, his chance to escape would be gone. The soldier was three feet away from him, and his attention was focused entirely on the ranting businessman. It was now or never.
Jack sprang to his feet, lunged forward, and aimed a vicious right cross at the soldier’s jaw. The soldier saw Jack jumping up and managed to half-turn in his direction but couldn’t swing his gun around in time. Jack’s fist rocketed into the side of his jaw, and the force of the punch whipped his head to the side and sent him stumbling back toward the other victims, but it didn’t quite knock him out.
Jack lunged for the soldier’s weapon and half yanked it out of the man’s hands. As stunned as he was from the sucker punch, though, the soldier managed to retain a grip on the rifle, although his hands were now no longer near the trigger. The soldier was about to scream out for help when a powerful foot came whipping through the air and smashed into the side of his head from behind him.
This time the blow was hard enough to knock the man out cold, and Jack ripped the firearm out of the soldier’s hands as his body went limp and flopped to the ground. Jack saw that it was the young black man who had jumped up delivered the knockout roundhouse kick to the soldier’s head.
“Behind you!” the businessman roared.
Jack spun around just as the two other soldiers burst into the room with their guns at the ready. His response was on the instinctual level, drilled into him by the years of combat-scenario firearms training he’d taken at his shooting club. In a split-second, he sprayed the two of them with bursts of automatic fire from the M-16 in his hands, and the soldiers dropped immediately to the ground before either of them had a chance to process what had just happened in the stock room, let alone squeeze the triggers of their rifles.
Jack walked over to them, keeping the rifle trained on them, and made sure they were dead. After that, he let out a long sigh of relief and found that his heart was pounding at a frenetic pace.
“You saved us!” the businessman exclaimed. “Excellent work, yes, excellent job! I’ll make sure you’re handsomely rewarded for this; I assure you that.”
“I don’t want a reward, and I’m no hero,” Jack said. “I just want to get home to my wife and daughter.” He picked up a box cutter from the shelf and went around to the hostages, cutting the zip ties from their wrists and ripping the duct tape from their mouths.
“Sorry I couldn’t help ya,” Bernie said sheepishly when Jack pulled the duct tape off his mouth. “I mean, I would have, but I didn’t know you were gonna move when you did.”
“It’s okay,” Jack said. “We’re free now, and that’s what matters.”
Next, he cut the zip ties from the young man’s wrists and took the duct tape off his mouth. “Thanks for jumping in there,” Jack said to him. “Your quick actions saved my life and probably the lives of everyone in here. If I didn’t get this rifle in my hands when I did, things would have turned out very differently when those soldiers came charging in. H
ow’d you learn to kick like that? Man, that kick looked like it could have felled a redwood!”
The young man grinned. “Black belt in karate,” he said. “I knew it’d come in handy one day. You moved real fast yourself, sir, and that was one hell of a right cross you threw. As soon as I saw you move, I knew I had to jump in. It was a life-or-death situation; I was just doin’ what needed to be done. I’m Tyrese, by the way.”
Jack shook the young man’s hand firmly. “Jack. Well, thanks to you, we’re free now.”
“What do we do with this guy?” Tyrese asked, pointing to the unconscious soldier on the floor.
“I’m no murderer, and as evil as he is, he doesn’t deserve to be executed in cold blood,” Jack said. “Let’s just tie him up and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. His buddies will come for him sooner or later.”
He and Tyrese used the zip ties to bind the unconscious soldier’s wrists and ankles, and they anchored him to one of the shelves. Jack put duct tape over the soldier’s mouth, too, so he couldn’t cry out for help when he came to. It would buy the escaping hostages some time. He took the soldier’s jacket and put it on as well. It might prove dangerous and mark him as a target, but if he didn’t wear a jacket now, with the temperature steadily dropping and the wind speed increasing, his survival outdoors might be put in jeopardy.
The other people thanked Jack and Tyrese for freeing them and then hurriedly left. The businessman—who claimed he owned half the buildings in this neighborhood—insisted on giving them a financial reward, and while Tyrese, who took one of the dead soldier’s M-16s, was happy to go with him to claim it, Jack wasn’t interested. Money wouldn’t be worth anything in the days to come, not where he was going. He said his farewells to them, and then he and Bernie went into the store, got some drinks, and then continued onward in the direction of the river.
The snow and wind were growing steadily more intense, and Jack could only hope and pray that he and his family would be able to get out of the city before they got snowed in … if his family hadn’t already left, considering how long he’d been delayed. With these worrying thoughts swirling around his head, he pressed onward into the driving snow.
18
The storage unit was a short walk from the apartment building, but even so, the temperature seemed to have dropped drastically from when Susan, Kate, and Nick had last been outside, and the wind had picked up greatly. While the heavy snow blowing in from the east made walking more unpleasant and difficult, it also provided the three of them with a camouflage benefit. They could hardly see a few yards ahead of them, but this also meant that other people couldn’t see them, something they were all thankful for, considering the fact that there could be murderous rebel troops around any corner.
“What do you think is in here?” Susan asked when they got into the storage unit compound situated in a large warehouse.
“We’ll soon find out,” Kate said, searching the units for number 79.
She found it without too much trouble. It was one of the ground floor units near to the entrance. With bated breath, she used one of the keys from the envelope to open it up, and when she rolled up the steel door, she gasped with surprise. Inside the unit was an extensively modified Humvee.
“Whoa, that’s one awesome ride!” Nick exclaimed. He walked around the Humvee, marveling at its modifications. “Jacked up suspension, bigger tires,” he said, and then, rapping on the window glass with his knuckles, his grin broadened. “Bulletproof glass, too. This beast will be able to tackle the most hardcore terrain out there, and it can take a few gunshots, too. Wow, I gotta say, I’m impressed.”
Kate smiled, but raw emotion surged through her, and tears rimmed her eyes. “Knowing Jack as well as I do, I’m not surprised.”
“Will it work, though?” Nick asked. “I mean, pretty much every other car we’ve seen is totally dead.”
“It’ll be fine. Jack wouldn’t have chosen this vehicle unless it weren’t EMP-proof. And I’m pretty sure I remember him telling me that certain model Humvees were one of the few vehicles that would survive an EMP strike.”
The Humvee already had heavy-duty off-road tires on it, but on the driver’s seat was a note explaining that if Kate and Susan had to venture out in the vehicle in heavy snow, snow chains had to be fitted. The note said that they were in the red plastic crate in the storage unit, along with the tools needed to fit them. There were also detailed instructions on how to fit them.
“We’d better get busy getting these snow chains on the tires,” Kate said.
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Nick said. “I’ve got an uncle in Colorado, and we visited him a lot. I helped him put snow chains on his truck a few times.”
While Nick and Kate got busy putting the snow chains on, Susan examined Humvee's interior. Inside, there were dehydrated and canned food, camping supplies, water purification bottles, gas stoves and gas lamps with extra gas bottles, extreme weather sleeping bags, and a number of other items necessary for survival in desperate situations. Jack, it seemed, had been very well-prepared for almost any eventuality.
Susan still hoped that somehow Jack would turn up but knew deep down that this wasn’t likely to happen. She was still trying to come to terms with having to leave without her father, and the emotional burden of this weighed on her heavily. She watched her mother as she and Nick put on the last of the snow chains. Kate was doing her best to concentrate on the task at hand but etched on her mother’s face, Susan could see the same pain tearing her up inside.
Finally, Nick and Kate got the last wheel done and back on the Humvee. They loaded everything they’d brought with them from the apartment and then climbed into the vehicle. Kate sat in the driver’s seat, with Nick upfront and Susan sitting in the passenger seat behind him.
“Here goes nothing,” Kate said, sliding the key into the ignition. For one suspense-laden second, the three of them waited, and then Kate turned the key.
The motor roared to life, chugging with healthy power, and everyone let out a sigh of relief. The gas tank was full to the brim, and they were ready to go. Even so, Kate hesitated for a few seconds before driving out of the storage unit. This was it; this was a final, silent goodbye to her husband. Once she drove out of the warehouse, there would be no turning back, and there would be no chance of ever seeing Jack again or finding out what had happened to him.
The weather outside was growing worse, and darkness was falling as day turned to night. With a sinking feeling in her gut and a heavy heart, Kate realized that she had to leave. She drove out of the storage unit and the warehouse into the howling wind and driving snow.
She knew the way to the mountains well, for she and Jack had driven it many times. Getting out of the city and onto the main road to the mountains, though, was a challenge she would have to overcome first. Every street had at least a few dead cars on it, but many were completely jammed with dead vehicles. In addition to the obstacles these cars presented, Kate was worried about the rebel soldiers. Thankfully, there were no more bridges to cross or rivers to navigate, but that didn’t mean that the way to the mountains would be danger-free—blizzard aside. Kate suspected that the soldiers might have set up roadblocks and barricades on many of the main routes in and out of the city.
Soon after getting out of the warehouse, Kate discovered that the route she wanted to take was totally blocked. Even though the Humvee was easily able to drive over sidewalks and other obstacles, when she turned a corner onto the road she intended to drive up, she found that there had been a pileup of cars in a wreck. It blocked the entire street and both sidewalks completely.
The other route she could take would take them back past their apartment building, and she didn’t want to go this way because seeing that familiar place again would send a fresh flood of emotional pain rushing through both her and her daughter. However, she quickly realized that it would be the most logical and sensible route to take and that the only other detour would add over two miles to their journey.
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Kate reversed, turned around, and reluctantly drove up the street their apartment building was on. She and Susan stared sadly at the doors of their building as they passed it, but then when Kate’s eyes returned to the road, she gasped with shock and slammed on the brakes … there was a soldier with a rifle standing in the middle of the road in front of them.
19
“I feel a lot better now,” Bernie said, after having downed a large Red Bull and a few donuts and candy bars from the convenience store. “Mm, yeah, that hit the spot after everything we’ve been through today, huh?”
Jack wasn’t really listening to Bernie, though, so he only offered a half-hearted grunt in response. Instead, he was paying attention to the steadily worsening weather. He liked the fact that the falling snow was providing them with visual cover, but his hands were starting to hurt from the cold and the going was getting tougher. They were almost at the river, but even after they had crossed it—if they could cross it here—there was still a mile to go before getting back home. He wondered if Kate and Susan had made it back. If they had, it would likely have been hours ago, and this prompted him to wonder just how long they would wait for him. He had told Kate that in a situation like this, where there was an imminent threat to their lives that grew exponentially worse with every passing moment, that she should only wait for an hour or two at the most before striking off on her own. And if she did head off on her own, she would have opened the letter that directed her to the Humvee. And if she had taken the Humvee already … Jack would be stuck in the city. And that could quite possibly lead to his death.
If this were the case, he knew he couldn’t blame Kate; she was only doing what she believed was best for her and her daughter. He also knew that she would have held on until the very last minute before leaving. She wouldn’t have left without him unless things had gotten so bad that it had become a life or death decision for her and Susan. He could only hope and pray that the moment for making such a decision had not yet arrived.
Survive the Day Boxset: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 62
