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

by Walker, Robert J.

  “Good luck,” Callum said to Mary and Ted, and he gave Mary a quick, tight hug.

  She felt a sudden surge of affection for him as she hugged him back, and along with it, a sense of intense worry about him.

  “Be safe, and get back to us alive,” she whispered, her voice cracking unexpectedly with emotion.

  “You do the same,” he said, and then he and the others took off swiftly into the shadows.

  Mary looked at her father and gave him a determined nod. “Let’s do this, Dad,” she said.

  “In and out, real quick,” he whispered back. “Let’s go, baby girl, let’s go.”

  Then the two of them took off down the ominously silent street, watched by the unwavering and unnerving stare of the heads on the traffic lights.

  29

  It didn’t take long for Mary and Ted to come across a living person in this dead town. Mary was about to step in front of an abandoned convenience store—the whole storefront window of which had been smashed—when Ted grabbed her arm and held her back. When she turned around, he pressed his finger to his lips, signaling to her to be quiet, and then pointed inside the store.

  She followed the direction of his finger, and her heart almost stopped when she saw what he was pointing at. There, a mere six feet away from them, lying on the floor of the convenience store, surrounded by a chaotic mess of food wrappers and booze bottles, was a man. He had clearly passed out there after a night of excess and was so still that Mary wondered if he was alive or dead. When she peered in more closely, though, she saw that his chest was gently rising and falling; he was definitely alive and sleeping. He was a large, muscular man, dressed in the style of an inner-city gangster, and in his hand was a submachine gun.

  Chunks of glass from the broken storefront window were strewn across the entirety of the sidewalk like pebbles on a beach. Walking across this section without making a noise would be nigh on impossible. To get past the man, they would have to walk out in the middle of the street, away from the broken glass, right out in the open without any cover.

  “I don’t like having to go right out in the open like this,” Ted whispered softly, “but it’s the only way to get past him without making a noise.”

  Mary nodded, and they tiptoed out into the middle of the street, past the vast spray of glass shards. They felt terribly exposed in the bright moonlight with no cover or shadows anywhere near them, but there was no other option. With their hearts in their mouths, they walked along the street, keeping their eyes on the sleeping man but also frequently checking all around them to make sure nobody else was near; if there was one man here, there would likely be others nearby.

  As soon as they could, they returned to the sidewalk where, at least, there were small trees that provided shadows and cover to hide behind.

  “We’re almost there,” Ted whispered to Mary. “The locksmith’s place is around the next corner,” he said, pointing up ahead.

  They flitted from shadow to shadow, keeping their eyes wide open. They didn’t come across any more passed-out gangsters, but when they got to the corner, they came across something worse: voices. And while they were distant, there was no doubt that they were coming toward Mary and Ted.

  Mary’s heart started pounding frenetically in her chest, and waves of hot dread and panic pulsed through her body. Ted looked back at her, and his eyes were wide with sudden fear. Despite the anxiety surging through them, they managed to keep their cool.

  “Hiding place,” Ted whispered. “Find one, quick!”

  Mary hastily scanned the area, trying to work out the best place to hide. A large delivery truck had been abandoned in the street around twenty yards behind them, and both of them quickly decided that the truck would be the best place to hide; the shadows under it were inky black, and it would be unlikely that anyone would think to look under it.

  “The truck!” Mary whispered back.

  “Yeah, under it, let’s move!” Ted whispered.

  Going as fast as they could while retaining an element of stealth, they scurried back to the truck and scrambled under it. They lay there in the darkness with their hearts thumping in their chests, and their fingers on the triggers of their guns. The footsteps and voices became louder and clearer, and soon they turned down the street, Ted and Mary were on. The two of them held their breath as the people came nearer. It was clear from the staggering gait of their footsteps and the slurred nature of the voices that the men were drunk.

  “Yo, where the fuck is that fool, D-Ruzz?” one of the men growled as they walked in the direction of the truck.

  “He fuckin’ passed out in a sea of Cheetos again, yo,” the other said, laughing.

  “Motherfucker was supposed to be guardin’ the store,” the first man growled. “I’m gon’ beat his fuckin’ ass if he passed out in it.”

  “Shit man, ain’t as if there much left to guard,” the second said, and the jovial tone had left his voice. Now his tone sounded much darker. “We gon’ be all outta food soon, T-Dawg.”

  “We need to eat some real fuckin’ food, too,” the first man, evidently named T-Dawg, grumbled. “We can’t keep livin’ off a’ candy an’ chips an’ shit and cans a’ spam an’ beans. I need some fuckin’ steak man, an’ fried chicken an’ burgers. Shit, I’d even eat veggies. I have been feelin’ sicker an’ sicker eatin’ all this shit we been eatin’.”

  “There ain’t no real food no more,” the second man said. “It’s all rotten, all the meat an’ veggies an’ fruit an’ shit. No stores, no electricity, no fridges…”

  “That’s why we need to go to that farm or whatever the fuck it is that that motherfucker we caught in the woods told us about before we cut his ugly lil’ head off,” T-Dawg growled. “They got real food there, lots a’ it, he said … an’ we can take it.”

  Mary and Ted’s hearts started pounding even faster; the gangsters had to be talking about the homestead.

  The second man chuckled darkly. “We beat the shit outta him, didn’t we? And got all that medicine an’ shit he was carryin’, an’ another gun an’ ammo for our army—”

  “My army, motherfucker, my fuckin’ army,” T-Dawg snarled viciously. “Don’t you ever say ‘our’ again you piece a’ shit, your head end up wid’ the others on the fuckin’ traffic lights.”

  “S–sorry, T-Dawg, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, it’s your army, man,” the second gangster stammered. “Anyway, it was good that we caught that weak-ass lil’ fool. You right man, we need to go to that farm. We fuckin’ used up everythin’ here, an’ we gotta get our hands on some real fuckin’ food.”

  The two of them walked past the truck and headed over to the convenience store. Under the truck, Ted and Mary waited with bated breath and their hearts in their mouths, scarcely daring to even breathe.

  “D-Ruzz, you fuckin’ asshole!” T-Dawg roared, kicking the sleeping man in his ribs and giving him a violent and painful wakeup. “What the fuck you doin’, man? You were supposed to be guardin’ this store! Get the fuck up!”

  While T-Dawg berated the sleeping man, who was groaning and trying to apologize as he woke up, Mary and Ted shifted under the truck to try to get a better look at the gangsters. Both of them were big men, but while T-Dawg was tall and lean, the second man was obese. Both men carried M-16 assault rifles, which looked like they had been looted from army troops, probably in the wake of the urban battles the army had fought against the mysterious terrorists in black on the day of the EMP strike. In addition to his M-16, T-Dawg had army-issue grenades hanging from his belt, and a huge machete sheathed on his hip—the instrument, Mary and Ted guessed, that he had used to decapitate people.

  After kicking the man around for a while and yelling at him, T-Dawg tired of this, and he and the other gangster turned around and went back the way they’d come. They walked past the delivery truck, not suspecting for a moment that two people were hiding under it. Mary and Ted had remained undetected, but now they had another problem: the formerly sleeping gangster, D-R
uzz, was now awake and sitting on a chair on the sidewalk, keeping an eye on the street. The two of them were trapped; if they came out from under the truck, there would be nowhere to hide, and at least twenty yards of open space with no cover, illuminated by bright moonlight, stood between them and the corner of the street.

  “What are we gonna do?” Mary whispered. “If we move, he’s gonna see us.”

  “Let’s give it a few minutes,” Ted suggested. “Maybe he’ll decide it’s safe to go back to sleep. Right now, I’m a lot more worried about the fact that these sons of bitches not only know about the homestead but are intending to attack us. We have to abandon the hospital mission and get back and prepare defenses.”

  “I know, but none of that is gonna matter if we don’t get out of this town alive tonight,” Mary whispered back.

  “I’m thinking, baby girl, I’m thinking, give me a minute…”

  They observed D-Ruzz closely as they tried to come up with a solution to their predicament. He was muttering under his breath, probably cursing T-Dawg for the rude awakening and beating he’d just received and pacing slowly up and down in front of the convenience store, his submachine gun in his hands. Every now and then he would stop and peer up and down the street.

  “It looks like he’s got a bit of a routine there,” Ted whispered. “His movements are quite regular. See there, he takes about ten slow steps in one direction, then waits there for a while, looking up and down the street, then he comes back in the opposite direction and does the same.”

  “You think that we should make a break for it when he turns and walks in the direction away from us, right?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah, that’s about the only thing we can do, I think,” Ted said.

  It was risky, but they had no other choice. It didn’t look like D-Ruzz was planning on going back to sleep any time soon, and they couldn’t sit and wait under the truck all night. It would have been easy for Ted to line up the gangster in the sights of his AR-15 and take him out, but they knew that even a single gunshot would trigger a battle, and they had no idea how many enemies they would have to face … and from the fact that T-Dawg had mentioned an army, they were both sure the number of enemies would be significant.

  “Okay,” Ted said, “next time he walks in the opposite direction, we’ll get out from under the truck. You hide by the rear wheel; I’ll hide by the front wheel. We’ll wait for him to come back and look around, and then the moment he turns around and starts walking back that way again, we make a quick break and get around the corner. I just pray that there aren’t any more of these goons keeping watch on the next street.”

  “All right, I’m ready for this,” Mary said.

  They watched as D-Ruzz walked in their direction, and their muscles were taut and ready to spring into action. He stopped in his usual spot near the end of the convenience store and peered up and down the street with a bored, weary expression on his scarred face. Then he turned around to walk the other way, and Ted and Mary knew they had to move.

  They scrambled out from under the truck and pressed themselves against the side, crouching behind the wheels to prevent D-Ruzz from noticing the silhouette of their legs. Ted peered through the driver’s window, from where he could get a look at the gangster. It was risky, as part of his head would be silhouetted, but he had to see what was going on.

  D-Ruzz, looking as bored as ever, ambled along the sidewalk, reached his usual spot by the far end of the convenience store, stood there a while looking around, and then came back toward the truck.

  “All right, he’s coming back this way,” Ted whispered. “Get ready to move, baby girl. Stay crouched low and keep your footsteps quick and light.” He watched as D-Ruzz reached his spot and paused to look around. “Get ready, get ready,” he whispered. “Okay, three, two … one, go!”

  Mary didn’t look behind her at the gangster; with her pulse racing and her heart drumming a violent beat in her ears and temples, she took off at a quick, nimble run, doing her best to make her footfalls silent. The distance was only a short dash, but it felt as if she was sprinting the entire length of a football field, and it seemed to take forever to get from the truck to the corner. What was more, as silently as she was trying to run, she felt as if every footfall was a gunshot going off in the quiet night.

  Nonetheless, no actual gunshot or shout of alarm rang out behind her, and before she knew it, she had rounded the corner and had her back pressed against the wall of the store there. Ted followed right behind her and pushed his back against the wall. For a few moments, the two of them simply stood there, each hardly daring to breathe. They both half-expected D-Ruzz to suddenly charge around the corner with his gun blazing, but after around a minute, when there was no sign that they’d been spotted, they were able to let out a sigh of relief.

  “We made it, Dad,” Mary whispered. Her heart was still pounding, but now she was charged up on adrenalin.

  “We did, baby girl, but we’re nowhere near safe yet. We don’t know how many more of these goons are around here, lurking in the shadows. I hope that Callum and the others haven’t—and don’t—run into any of these scumbags either.”

  “Well, let’s not linger here,” Mary said. “Which way is the locksmith? I know we have to turn around and go back home to prepare defenses, but we might as well get the tools I need while we’re here.”

  “It’s just across the street,” Ted said, pointing at a store halfway down the street. “Yeah, we may as well look, it’s not as if we can go back the way we came anyway. We’ll have to take a detour around through a few of these back streets to get to the meeting spot. I just hope we don’t run into any more of these people. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad, after that, all my senses are on full alert.”

  They scampered across the street, moving between the cover of various shadows and racing through patches of moonlight as quickly as they could. There was no sign of T-Dawg and his friend, who had gone down this street, or any other gangsters. Both Mary and Ted knew that enemies could appear at any moment, though, so they were both vigilant.

  Almost all of the stores along this street had had their storefront windows smashed out, and their doors kicked in, and everything that was of any value had been looted. They passed a liquor store and saw that it had been completely cleaned out; not a single bottle of anything was left on the shelves.

  Ted shook his head. “They’ve drunk the place dry. You have to wonder if they even know what water is, or whether they’ve just been surviving off of booze.”

  The next store they passed was a small fishing and hunting store.

  “Should we check if there are any guns or ammo left in there?” Mary asked.

  Ted frowned. “I highly doubt there’s any guns or ammo, but there might be something that these clowns left because they don’t know how to use it. Let’s have a quick look inside.”

  The angle of the moon meant that a lot of bright moonlight was streaming into the store through the smashed-out storefront, so it was possible to get in and have a look inside without taking out a Zippo or lighting up a gas lamp. Mary and Ted crept into the store and walked cautiously through it, taking care not to step on broken glass or anything else that would make a sound.

  As Ted had predicted, there was not a single rifle left on the racks, and the ammo drawers had all been cleaned out. There was plenty of fishing gear left in the store, though, and a lot of camping and outdoor stuff.

  “The idiots are complaining that they don’t have any fresh meat,” Ted muttered with a scowl, “but there’s plenty of fish in the river and everything you need to catch your fill in here. They’d rather just take what we’ve worked so hard to raise and grow. Scumbags, absolute scumbags. I knew that this is what people would do in this kind of situation, I knew it.” Muttering to himself about the evil nature of people, Ted moved to the darkness in the back of the store, seeing if there was anything useful back there.

  A gentle breeze blew in thro
ugh the smashed-out storefront, scattering a bunch of paper notes that were strewn across the floor. The wind blew one of them onto Mary’s boot. She bent down and picked it up, and when she held it up in the light, a strange, sad smile came across her face, for the paper was a $100 bill. She looked down and saw that there were dozens, perhaps even a hundred of them strewn across the floor.

  “I wonder if this will ever be worth anything again?” she whispered, staring at the crisp bill, almost mesmerized by the sight of it. “A few weeks ago, people were killing each other over this, but now it’s nothing but scrap paper.”

  “Yo!” a new voice, deep and raspy, suddenly snarled from just outside the store. “Don’t fuckin’ move, bitch. Don’t even fuckin’ breathe! Drop the gun and put your fuckin’ hands where I can see em!”

  30

  Mary’s heart jumped into her mouth, and her blood turned to ice in her veins. She looked up and saw D-Ruzz standing outside the store, aiming his submachine gun at her.

  “I knew I wasn’t trippin’. I knew I heard someone runnin’ up the street back there,” he growled. “Drop that piece in your hand now, bitch, or your pretty lil’ head gonna end up wid’ the others on the lights. I ain’t sayin’ it again. Now.”

  Mary dropped her pistol onto the floor and raised her hands above her head. Her only hope now was that her father, who D-Ruzz had not yet seen, would be able to help her without waking up the entire town with gunfire.

  “Mm, you a sexy lil’ one, ain’t you?” D-Ruzz said as he walked into the store, his gun aimed at Mary’s chest. He smiled lasciviously at her and licked his lips. “T-Dawg’s gon’ want you for himself, but I’m gon’ take you for a ride first. Come here girl, let me—”