EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 21 | The Darkest Day

by Walker, Robert J.

  They were not the only people in the area, though. Ann looked out from under the front of the Subaru, and she saw what looked like a group of US Army troops running out from around the corner at the other end of the street. The sense of danger and peril in the air was buzzing like static electricity all across the surface of her skin, and a nauseating feeling bubbled in the pit of her stomach like it had when she’d watched the men in black pressing their rifle muzzles against the heads of the mayor and his staff.

  “Drop your weapons!” came a throaty roar from the direction of the army troops. “Surrender now, or we will use lethal force!”

  “Cover your head!” Ann hissed to Sandy. Both girls lay on their stomachs under the SUV, and Ann covered her head with her arms and hands.

  There was no response from the men in black. Instead, they opened fire. The battle that erupted was as violent and chaotic as it was brief. For a minute, maybe less, the entire street was a frenzied storm of automatic gunfire from both sides. Ann and Sandy screamed in terror under the SUV as a hail of bullets peppered the Subaru and all the other abandoned cars around them, and the thunder of gunfire seemed to hammer its terrible aural chaos into the core of their brains, no matter how tightly the girls pressed their arms into their heads.

  The minute of fighting that passed felt like it would never end, but finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the firefight was over. The silence that came after it was eerie and dense, and almost as scary as the thunderous roar of gunfire, but it was soon shattered by the gruff voices of the army troops.

  “All clear!” one of them roared from the far end of the street.

  “Check the bodies then move out!” another one of them yelled gruffly.

  Sandy and Ann watched in silent fear, with their hearts in their mouths, as at least two dozen feet and legs clad in combat boots and urban-camouflage uniforms jogged past the SUV. Thankfully, none of the soldiers seemed interested in checking any of the vehicles, and nobody noticed that two teenage girls were hiding under the red Subaru.

  When the soldiers got to the corpses of the men in black, Ann flinched as three more ominous shots rang out; the wounded had, she surmised, just been executed. She listened intently and heard the soldiers talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying. After a minute, they moved off, but Ann and Sandy waited for at least another two minutes under the SUV before they dared to stick their heads out and peek around to make sure the coast was clear.

  “This is getting like, way too crazy,” Sandy murmured. Her whole body was trembling, and her eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. “I– I can’t take any more of this, Ann, I’m scared. I’m so freakin’ scared. I don’t think I can go on…”

  Ann squeezed Sandy’s hand tightly. She, too, was terrified, but Ann knew she had to be strong for both of them. “It’s not too far to go now. We’re gonna make it, okay? We just have to be careful and use our heads.”

  “I’m so scared,” Sandy murmured.

  There was a faraway look in Sandy’s eyes, and Ann was worried that she wouldn’t be able to go on. There was nothing else they could do, however, but proceed; out here on the streets, there was only danger and death.

  “Come on, we’re almost there. Let’s go. I got you,” Ann said gently, doing her best to come across as brave and confident, even though she was feeling just as bad as Sandy.

  She crawled out from under the Subaru, then helped Sandy to get out too. Here in the open, she felt terribly vulnerable, especially after what had just happened, and it took every ounce of courage she possessed to simply put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Now that both girls were standing, they could see the full extent of what had happened a few minutes earlier.

  Dead bodies dressed in black were strewn across the intersection to their rear. A few were slumped dead over the hoods of cars, which they’d been using as cover during the battle. It hadn’t been a one-sided massacre, though; the men in black had killed a few army troops, too, although the number of Army dead at the far end of the street was a lot lower than that of the men in black.

  Ann’s first instinct was to move forward toward their goal as quickly as possible, but an injection of cold, rational thought popped into her mind. It was now as clear as the light of day that she needed a firearm, and she realized that this might be her only chance to find one.

  “Wait here,” she whispered to Sandy, and before her friend could answer, she jogged over to the closest of the dead men in black.

  A stab of disappointment cut through her when she saw that the army troops had taken the man’s rifle, as well as whatever handgun had been holstered at his side. Even his ammunition pouches were empty; the soldiers seemed to have searched the corpse thoroughly and taken all weapons and ammunition off it.

  There was no indication of who the man was, or with whom he and his fellow terrorists were affiliated. His all-black combat uniform had no insignia or badges on it, and a black balaclava covered his entire face, with only two dead, glazed-over, brown eyes visible. Ann was too freaked out by being so close to a corpse to peel back the balaclava and get a better look at him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sandy cried, her desperation and fear verging on hysteria.

  “Just wait a sec!” Ann yelled back, acutely conscious of how loud her voice sounded in the deserted street.

  She was feeling the beginnings of a state of panic set in and knew she couldn’t hold those feelings at bay for very long. She ran over to the next corpse—a man slumped over the bonnet of a bullet-riddled Mercedes sedan—and saw that the soldiers had taken his AK-47 as well. She knew that the longer she spent trying to search all the bodies, the more danger she was putting herself and Sandy in. Filled with despair, she was about to give up when she noticed a glint of metal under the Mercedes by the rear wheels. She dropped down onto her hands and knees and saw that the dead man had dropped a pistol there. It had bounced behind the far tire, where the soldiers hadn’t seen it.

  She got down and half crawled under the sedan, stretched across the asphalt, and managed to grip the muzzle of the pistol. She dragged it out from under the car and felt a surge of triumph rush through her when she curled her fingers around the grips. It was a 9mm, she noted, and she popped the ammunition clip out and saw that it was full, thankfully.

  The dead man’s ammo pouches had been cleaned out, so there was no spare ammunition for the gun, but at least she was now armed and had a means by which she could defend herself and Sandy against the dangers that lay ahead.

  Suddenly, while Ann was inspecting the pistol, a piercing scream of terror split the air. Ann almost dropped the weapon with fright, and she spun around to look behind her, for the cry had come from Sandy’s direction. When her eyes fell upon the sight that greeted them, her heart began to boost frantic rushes of icy, fear-laced blood through her veins, for she knew now that she was about to find out whether she had it in her to use this weapon on a living human being.

  10

  The rest of the journey through the subway tracks was quiet and uneventful. Neither Mary nor James spoke; neither really had much to say, and both were lost in their own thoughts. Both were still trying to process what had happened, and Mary was still trying to come to terms with the fact that she’d just killed two men. It had been a life and death situation, of course, but that didn’t make it much easier to deal with.

  James was similarly lost in introspection, but the thoughts that were going through his mind were quite different. For his whole life, he’d been beaten up, both by his alcoholic father and bullies at school. He’d always either run from them or curled up into a ball and simply taken the pain and humiliation they’d dealt out to him. Yet back there, under the train, when the man had attacked Mary—who was the closest thing to a mother that James had ever known—something within him had snapped. All the pent-up rage and frustration of a life of being abused and bullied had all come pouring out in a torrent of righteous violence. He didn’t fe
el a shred of remorse for the dead men; in fact, he felt his chest swelled with a very unfamiliar, yet very pleasing emotion: pride. And in the bleak darkness of the subway tunnel, the corners of his mouth curved up into a hidden smile.

  When they got to the next platform, they found it as deserted as the previous one, but there was no train here. There were a few abandoned bags and other hastily discarded or dropped items, like hats and umbrellas laying around that indicated that people had fled in a hurry when the EMP had hit, but aside from these few scattered things, there was nothing to indicate any sign of a human presence here.

  “This is our stop,” Mary announced, breaking the long period of silence. “Climb onto the platform, and we can get out of this place.”

  “I know the way from here,” James said. His father was usually too drunk to drive him anywhere, so he was used to getting around on public transport and knew the layout of most neighborhoods around the main subway stops.

  Mary paused, cocked her head, and narrowed her eyes, staring at James for a few seconds in the grimy-white glow of the softly hissing gas lamp. He had only said a few words, but he sounded quite different to the James she knew so well—a lot more confident and self-assured than she could ever remember him sounding.

  James seemed oblivious to Mary’s scrutiny and forged on ahead through the darkness. Mary grinned to herself—the first smile she’d had on her face for quite some time—and then hurried after him before he could melt into the shadows beyond the small ring of light.

  Despite James’s newfound confidence, he was still feeling shaken up by what had happened, as was Mary, and both of them jumped with fright every time they heard a rat scampering past, or when a gust of wind from the surface trickled down, rustling litter and plastic cups.

  Eventually, though, they got to the escalators that led to the surface, and both breathed out sighs of relief when they saw the light of day shining down, feeling like a couple of miners who had been freed after being trapped underground by a rockfall.

  “Go slowly up the escalator,” Mary warned. “Give your eyes time to adjust to daylight again. We don’t wanna be walking out of here blinded by the light.”

  James didn’t need to be told to wait, though, for something else was making him hesitate at the bottom of the escalator. From the city beyond the subway station exits, they could hear the dull roar of what sounded like a huge crowd. They made their way cautiously up the escalator stairs, and as they got closer to the exit, the sound became more distinct, and Mary and James realized that it was, without a doubt, a crowd of people. What was more, it didn’t sound like any ordinary crowd; there were shouts of both anger and panic, and it sounded almost like a riot was taking place.

  James paused halfway up the escalator and looked behind him at Mary, and there was an expression of worry and anxiety on his face. “What do we do?” he asked. “Things are sounding pretty crazy up there.”

  Mary was torn. She knew that it was a really bad idea in a situation like this to go anywhere near crowds, but here they were a mere half a mile from Ann’s school. There was no way Mary was going to leave Ann behind; she would rather die trying to save her daughter than abandon her to the unfolding chaos so that she could selfishly escape and survive.

  “It probably is crazy, but we have to keep going,” she said grimly. “Ann’s gonna be waiting for us at school, and we can’t let her down. We have to get to her.”

  “We could go back down into the subway,” James suggested, “and go two more stops, then loop all the way around and get to the back of the school.”

  “That would add three miles to our trip,” Mary said, shaking her head, “and we have no way of knowing if there are crowds and riots on that side too. No. I don’t like this any more than you do, but we’re so close now. We have to try to get through this.”

  “All right,” James said, looking nervous; his newfound confidence was already starting to fade a little.

  They headed cautiously up the escalator, their hearts in their mouths, and the closer they got to the surface, the more chaotic and unbridled the sound of the crowd became. Just before they got high enough up the stairs to see what was going on, a deep boom echoed through the subway station from above, and a chorus of thousands of people screaming in terror crashed in an aural wave from above; another explosion detonated, and from the sound of it, it was maybe only a block or two away.

  “Shit,” Mary murmured, her heart thumping in her chest. The blast only made her feel more desperate to get to Ann, though, and not a single thought of retreating or running away crossed her mind. “Come on,” she said, pushing determinedly past James and hurrying up the final few escalator steps. “Let’s move!”

  James hurried along behind her. When they got to the surface, a scene of sheer anarchy greeted them.

  “Holy shit…” James murmured, his jaw hanging open with shock.

  The subway station exited onto one of the main streets of the city, and this one—in utter contrast to the eerie, deserted streets they’d seen before heading down into the subway—was a rolling ocean of people. The police, dressed in riot gear, and the members of the US Army were there, and they were trying to stem the flow of people, who appeared to all be moving in one direction—away from where the explosions had come from. There were plenty of abandoned vehicles littering the broad, multi-laned street here. But these looked almost like they were being swallowed up and carried along by a tsunami—a living, seething tsunami of human bodies.

  Mary and James were faced with an additional challenge now because to get to the school, they would have to fight their way through the crowd, moving in the opposite direction of everyone else. It would be like plunging into a river in full flood and then attempting to swim against the current.

  Just as if they were wading into a raging river, Mary knew that she and James would need to be joined together to avoid one of them being swept away. “Grab the handle on my backpack!” she said to him in the entranceway of the subway station, before heading down the stairs and stepping into the flow of human bodies. “Hold on tight, and whatever you do, don’t let go!”

  James reached forward and grabbed the backpack handle. “I’m holding on!” he yelled over the clamor of the surging crowd. “Go!”

  Drawing in a deep breath and gritting her teeth, Mary strode purposefully down the stairs and stepped into the jostling crowd. The collective sense of fear and panic was so thick in the air she could almost taste it, and she knew that she would have to steal her will and keep her focus razor-sharp to avoid becoming infected by it.

  From the moment she stepped into the crowd, it was a fierce battle. Half of the people who were in the group didn’t seem to know where they were going or why; their faces were masks of confusion and panic, like a flock of sheep running from unseen wolves in the night. Even though Mary was a relatively petite woman, the big, bulky backpacks she was wearing meant that she couldn’t use her small size to her advantage and slip through gaps the way she would have been able to if she’d been on her own and unencumbered by baggage.

  She did her best to filter between people, but the press of bodies was tight, and she was met with anger and curses, with people shoving her and jostling.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Get outta my way, you stupid bitch!”

  “Fuckin’ idiot, why are you going that way!”

  “Move your goddamn ass outta my way!”

  “You’re blocking me, shithead!”

  Mary ignored the barrage of insults flung her way and pushed on determinedly against the flow of the crowd. Bodies thumped against her, and angry hands pushed and shoved her, and despite how determined she was to get through this mess and get to the school, she found herself quickly becoming overwhelmed with fear and confusion. As desperately as she fought against it, it was almost impossible to avoid becoming infected with the collective panic and fear of the crowd. She had no idea whether James was still holding on to her backpack either; the jostli
ng and shoving were so fierce that it was impossible to tell.

  Somewhere behind her, the police and soldiers were shouting something at the multitude, but Mary couldn’t hear what they were saying, nor did she particularly care. However, the angry yells from the authorities were quickly followed by other noises that ignited the entire crowd’s panic, turning it into an inferno, like burning matches tossed into a slick of gasoline: the sound of guns firing and tear gas canisters being launched.

  Mary barely had time to react before all hell broke loose. Suddenly, the crowd was no longer surging forward, all pressing in one direction. People started screaming and trying to flee in all directions, and sheer pandemonium erupted.

  11

  One of the men in black was not only still alive, but he was also holding Sandy in a headlock, with a hunting knife pressed against her neck. Ann was shocked to see this sight and guessed that the man had played dead while the soldiers were checking the bodies, but right now, how he had survived was not important. The crucial fact at this moment was that he had a knife pressed against Sandy’s neck.

  “Gimme that gun, or I’ll put twelve inches of steel through your friend’s throat,” he growled. “Put it on the ground, walk away, and I’ll let your friend go when I pick it up. Just gimme the gun, and I’ll let you both walk away from this.”

  Ann was torn with indecision and drenched with icy fear. She knew that if this man got ahold of the gun, he wouldn’t let them go; one of these terrorists had already tried to kill her and Sandy for no reason, and there was no reason for her to believe that this man would be any different.

  But what could she do? These black-clad men were cold-blooded killers, she understood this for certain now, and she knew that if she didn’t comply with what he said, he most likely would slit Sandy’s throat.