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

by Walker, Robert J.

  20

  “Dad, is it … is it really you?” Mary gasped. She was so overwhelmed with emotion—and with everything that had happened to her in the last few hours—that she felt as if she was going to pass out, or throw up, or run around in circles screaming like a maniac … or all three simultaneously.

  “It’s me, baby girl,” he said. “And I recognized you the moment I laid eyes on you. You’ve grown up to look just like your mama; you’re the spitting image of her right now. Is that … your son? Is he my grandson?” he asked, pointing to James, who was groaning and starting to come to after having been knocked out.

  “No, not technically,” Mary answered. “He’s uh … I’ll explain later. But you do have a grandchild, Dad, and she’s in the Hummer. She needs medical attention, though, and she needs it bad. I … I don’t know what I’m gonna do, my, my baby’s, she’s…” Then the tears started flowing. Now that she’d found her father, against all the odds, Mary no longer had to hold it all together and keep up her strong, stoic façade. She could finally allow all these pent-up emotions to be released.

  “It’s okay, Mary, it’s okay!” her father said calmly from across the river. “We’ve got a doctor here on the homestead, a damn good one. A nurse too. Your daughter—my granddaughter—will be in good hands. We just have to get her there. You can’t drive across the river here; we deepened this section on purpose, to keep vehicles out, but there is a ford half a mile upriver. I’ll have to show you the secret track through the woods, though.”

  “I don’t think there’s enough gas in the tank for that,” Mary said, sniffing and sobbing, but trying to retain some semblance of control over her emotions. “It’s been running on empty for a while.”

  “Okay, that’s fine. I’ll take her with me on the dirt bike, leave her with the doctor, then come back for you two. I’ll cross the river, there’s a secret path with stepping-stones just fifty yards upstream. Carry her up there, I’ll meet you on the riverbank.”

  “Okay, okay,” Mary said, She was too overwhelmed, exhausted, and mentally drained to do anything but agree and go along with whatever her father said at this point.

  “Ugh, what’s happening, where am I?” James groaned groggily from the muddy ground. He had risen to his hands and knees but was still feeling too dizzy to get up onto his feet.

  “James, are you able to stand, honey?” Mary asked, bending down next to him. Across the water, her father walked upstream to get to the point where the stepping-stones were.

  “My head hurts,” James groaned. “My glasses, I can’t see anything, where are they?”

  Mary groaned; she was running out of time, and now there was another problem to have to deal with. James was as good as blind without his glasses, and it seemed that they’d been knocked off when the attacker had smashed a rifle butt into the back of his skull. She could only pray that they hadn’t been hurled into the fast-flowing river and been lost forever. For a few moments, she was torn with indecision; should she help James try to find his glasses, or leave him on his own while she carried Ann up to her father? Given the urgency of her daughter’s situation, the answer to this dilemma came to her quite quickly.

  “James, you just wait right there, okay? I have to get Ann to my father. I’ll be back in a couple minutes to help you find your glasses.”

  “Uh, okay, okay, Aunt Mary. Just uh, don’t take too long, okay? I can’t see anything; I feel like I’m blind.”

  She felt bad for leaving him there like this, but she had to get her daughter help as soon as possible. She hurried over to the Hummer, glancing with burning contempt at the dead bodies of her would-be rapists as she stepped over them and picked up one of the gas lamps that were still burning on the ground where the goons had dropped them. She shone the lamp on Ann’s face, and her heart sank when she saw how pallid her daughter was looking and how shallowly she was breathing. None of the gunshots had woken her up; she really was out cold.

  “Is she conscious?” Mary’s father called out from upstream.

  “No, she’s out like a light!” Mary called back.

  “Take the belts off those dead scumbags then,” her father called back. “I’m gonna need ‘em.”

  Mary did as he said and removed the belts from the corpses. After that, she picked up her daughter, struggling with her weight; even though Ann was a relatively petite person, like Mary, she was a dead weight because of the fact that she was unconscious. Gasping and grunting with effort, with her limbs shaking from exertion, Mary carried Ann upstream, her limbs and back burning with every difficult step. Her father met her halfway, though, for he had crossed the river quickly, and he took Ann’s body from Mary, cradling her gently in his strong arms.

  “She’s a beautiful kid,” he said, smiling proudly.

  It was a surreal moment, and Mary felt as if she was in a dream. She, Ann, and her father were standing in a patch of bright moonlight, and she could see his features clearly. He had lost much of his hair, and the lines on his face were deeper and more pronounced, but his strong jaw, tall, proud nose and deep-set eyes, which burned with keen intelligence, were just the same as she remembered from twenty years ago. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing about her. There was so much she wanted to tell him, so many things she wanted to say, and she was sure he had plenty to say to her as well, but in this urgent moment, there was only real-time to say one thing. “Thank you, Dad,” Mary murmured with tears glistening in her eyes. “You saved our lives.”

  He smiled and gave her a simple nod of acknowledgment in response. “We’ll talk later,” he said. “Right now, you need to help me with her. I’m gonna sit her down on that tree stump over there, and you’re gonna use those belts to tie her shoulders to mine and link her waist to mine. That way, she won’t fall off the back of the bike when I’m riding.”

  They did this, using the dead men’s belts to strap Ann’s body securely to his back. Once they were done, he told Mary to wait in this spot, and that he’d be back in around an hour to pick her and James up. He promised that Ann would be in good hands. Mary watched her father go, crossing the river via the hidden stepping-stones, with her daughter—his granddaughter—strapped to his back. She still couldn’t get over just how surreal this all was.

  After a few minutes, she heard a dirt bike being kick-started to life across the river, and she had to smile. Mary recognized the engine note at once; it was the same old dirt bike she’d ridden as a girl, the first machine she’d learned to wrench on. She listened as the bike drove away, standing still and almost drowning in a flood of memories. Only when the sound of the bike had faded completely into silence did she move again, walking back along the river to the Hummer and James.

  “Who was that guy you were talking to, Aunt Mary?” James asked when she got back to him. “Did I hear you calling him Dad?”

  “That’s right, James,” she answered. “He’s my father … I haven’t seen him in twenty years. I still can’t believe it’s him, but it is. It’s him all right.”

  “Where’s he taken Ann?”

  “Back to the homestead. There’s a doctor and a nurse there. He’ll be back for us in an hour. While we wait, we’d better find your glasses. How’s your head feeling?”

  “It really hurts. I’ve got one hell of a headache,” James said, rubbing his head. “And uh, there’s a dead guy right behind me, isn’t there? And one a couple yards away.”

  “There is, yes. Try not to be too freaked out by it, though,” Mary said, even though she was feeling just as freaked out as James was by the close proximity of the corpses. Anger still ran hot through her veins every time she looked at the bodies, and if they hadn’t been dead already, she’d have put bullets through each of the men’s heads. The thought of what these monsters had been planning to do to her and Ann made her blood boil. She forced herself to look away from the bodies and focus her attention on James. “Come on, let’s look for those glasses.”

  She handed him one of the gas lamps, even thou
gh she knew he was barely capable of finding his lost glasses even with the assistance of the light, and she took another one and searched the area in front of him. A quick search revealed that there was nothing nearby, and she was becoming increasingly certain that the glasses had been flung into the water. She squatted down by the edge of the river and held the light up over the surface of the water. The water was clear and clean, and she could see the rocky bottom of the river in the area immediately around the gas lamp, but there was no sign of the glasses. She dipped her hand into the cold water to get a sense of the strength of the current and found that it was quite powerful.

  “Did you, uh, did you find ‘em yet?” James asked, sounding worried. “There’s nothing by me.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said despondently, “but there’s nothing here either. I’ll keep looking, though, okay? They have to be around here somewhere.”

  She said this, but at this stage, she was quite certain that the glasses had been swept away by the current. Nevertheless, she continued to search for a while longer. Not surprisingly, her search was fruitless. “I’m sorry, James,” she eventually said. “I think they’re gone. It looks like they got thrown into the river and carried away.”

  “Oh no,” James murmured, his face falling. “What am I gonna do? I can’t see a thing without my glasses.”

  Mary wasn’t really sure what to say. “You remember your prescription, right? We can, um, we can find a pair that’ll work for you.”

  “Find a pair where?” James murmured, sitting down and holding his face in his hands. “The whole world’s been shut down. That’s what you told me. It’s not like any optometrists are gonna be open now. Maybe they won’t ever be open again. I’m … shit, I’m gonna be pretty much blind for the rest of my life, aren’t I?”

  “You’re not gonna be blind,” Mary said gently, sitting down and putting her arm around James’s shoulders. “We’ll make a plan. There’ll be a way to get you a new pair of glasses, even if it means we have to break into an optometrist or something. Don’t worry, okay, we’ll figure something out.”

  “It just … it just sucks, Aunt Mary,” James said, shaking his head sadly. “I wish I had a good pair of eyes. Now, now I’m just gonna be a burden to you and your dad. You should have just left me back at my dad’s. I’m useless now. I can’t help you guys do anything.”

  Mary gave James a sympathetic squeeze. “James, have you already forgotten that you saved my life? Come on, kid, don’t put yourself down like this. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it here. Yes, it’s true that you’ve got a temporary disability now, but seriously, don’t talk like that. Don’t say you’re useless because you’re not. You’re absolutely not, you hear me? I don’t regret bringing you along, not one iota. I’m glad I brought, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ll find a way to get your sight back. My dad will figure something out, trust me, he’s like MacGyver.”

  “MacGyver?”

  Mary chuckled and shook her head, grateful for this moment of levity in what was a dark and grim situation. “You’re far too young to know what I’m talking about. It was a TV show when I was a kid.”

  “TV,” James murmured, getting a faraway look in his eyes, almost like a drug addict thinking about his next fix. “Do you … do you think TVs will ever work again?”

  “Sorry to break this to you, kid, but no. I’m pretty sure they won’t.”

  “No TV, no computer, no phone, no Xbox,” James murmured sadly. “What am I gonna do all day?” he asked earnestly.

  Mary chuckled again. “Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty out here to keep you occupied, and none of it bad for your mind and health like all those things you just mentioned. You’re going to have to go on a forced detox from all that stuff, but you’ll be grateful that you got away from it all after a few weeks of country living, trust me.”

  They carried on chatting for a while and started to feel relaxed as if their ordeal was finally coming to an end. Mary got some drinks and snacks out of the backpacks and enjoyed a leisurely meal in the moonlight by the river. Their relaxation session was, however, interrupted by the distant sound of an engine coming steadily closer. But it wasn’t Mary’s father’s dirt bike.

  “Oh no,” Mary said, her pulse starting to race again. “Just when I thought we were safe … Get in the Humvee, James, hurry!”

  She pulled out her .45 and waited with bated breath as the sound of the vehicle grew ever louder, her finger on the trigger, praying that she wouldn’t have to fight anyone else tonight.

  21

  As the sound grew nearer and clearer, though, Mary could hear that it was coming from across the river, on the side of her father’s homestead. Her rapidly pounding heart slowed, and a sense of relief slowly washed over her. It was her father; it had to be. Sure enough, after a few minutes, she saw two headlights slashing through the dark forest across the river, and when the vehicle got close enough for her to get a look at it in the moonlight, she saw that it was an old ‘60s pickup truck. This made her certain that it was her father who was approaching, and no more enemies. This suspicion was confirmed when the truck pulled up to a stop on the opposite bank of the river, and her father got out.

  “You all right over there, baby girl?” he called out to her.

  “We’re fine, Dad,” she answered.

  “Wait there,” he said. “I’ll come across and help you with your stuff.”

  He shut off the truck engine and headed upstream to the secret stepping-stones, and after a few minutes, he got to the Humvee. Once again, a surreal feeling came over Mary, and she could scarcely believe the man standing next to her was really her father, or that she was here, experiencing this moment, in reality. She was quite sure that he was probably experiencing similar feelings.

  “Dad, this is James,” she said. “He’s our neighbor, but I regard him as part of the family.”

  “Pleased to meet you, son,” Mary’s father said, extending a hand to James, who took it and gave it a firm handshake. “My name’s Ted.”

  “Great to meet you, uh, Mister Ted, sir,” James said, somewhat awkwardly.

  Ted chuckled. “Just call me Ted, son, just call me Ted. Now, first things first, let’s gather up these scumbags’ guns and ammo; we don’t want to leave any weapons lying around for any other nasty scavenger types to pick up.”

  “What about their bodies?” Mary asked.

  Ted shrugged. “There are wolves and bears around here. Nature will take care of ‘em. And these bodies will hopefully serve as a warning to any other marauding types who come around here with the intention of thieving and plundering. These three had it coming to ‘em, by the way. I’ve seen ‘em around these woods before. I chased ‘em off my land a few times before. Dismantled some illegal wildlife traps they set, too, and caught ‘em dynamite fishing in a section of the river last year. Real scumbags, these three. They harassed my female students relentlessly whenever they went into town. When these assholes weren’t out here maiming wildlife for fun, they were drinking all day, looking for fights in town, and harassing anything with a skirt on.”

  “I’m glad you stopped them before they…” Mary trailed off. “What were you doing out here anyway? And who are these students you’re talking about, anyway?” she asked, hurriedly changing the topic.

  “I was on sentry duty tonight,” he answered. “Ever since we saw smoke rising from the city earlier, the students and I have been rotating guard duty at various points around my land. I knew trouble would be coming, and when I heard your Humvee coming up the road from a few miles away, I headed down there to see who it was,” he continued, patting the pair of binoculars that hung around his neck. “My eyes almost popped out of their sockets when I saw who it was, of course! I also saw these bastards following you. They were camped out in the woods about a mile from here. I think they’ve been living in the woods for a few weeks. I guess they got evicted from wherever they were staying in town.”

  “And who are these
students?” Mary asked.

  “You’ll see when you get to the homestead,” Ted said with a smile. “Things have changed a lot since you were last here, baby girl. I don’t know how much of the place you’ll recognize. All the changes have been for the better, though; I think you’ll be impressed. Anyway, we’ll have plenty of time to catch up later … and Lord knows we have a lot of catching up to do. For now, though, let’s get your supplies out of this vehicle and across the river.”

  “What about the Humvee?” Mary asked.

  “What about it? You said there’s not a drop of gas left in it, so there isn’t much we can do but leave it here. I’ll come back tomorrow with a can of gas and drive it back to the homestead. Don’t worry about it, just get your supplies and let’s get moving.”

  “Oh, Ted, I can’t really see too well right now,” James said. “I lost my glasses in the river, and I’m pretty much blind without ‘em.”

  “That’s okay, son,” Ted said. “I’ll make a plan to get some new glasses for you, and I’ll carry you across the river.”

  Mary didn’t doubt that Ted could do this. Even though he was in his sixties, he was strong and fit. Mary guessed that he still did plenty of wood-chopping, hiking, hunting, and gardening, as he’d done in his younger days. The three of them gathered up the weapons and supplies and then headed over to the section of the river where the stepping-stones were.

  “Come here, son, I’ll carry you piggy-back across the river,” Ted said to James.

  James felt more than a little embarrassment at having to be carried like a child by a man in his sixties, but there was no other way he could get safely across the river. He reluctantly got up onto Ted’s back.

  “All right,” Ted said, easily coping with the teenager’s weight, “leave those other backpacks here. I’ll get you guys across first, then I’ll come back for ‘em. Mary, you need to pay very close attention to my feet; step exactly where I step. I don’t wanna have to fish you out of the river a mile downstream, because if you take one wrong step, you’ll be in six feet of fast-flowing water really quick.”