EMP (The Districts Book 1) (6 page)

Sutherland moved his hands down the front of his uniform. He had fallen asleep, sitting in a chair, with it on. The sheer number of wrinkles made him cringe. A search through every cabinet in his quarters yielded no iron.

He did find some clothes in the armoire that would fit him. There were white shirts, pants and shoes. It reminded him of something to wear while working out, not something to wear while trying to prevent the collapse of a nation. The clothes felt so sterile. As Sutherland sifted through the clothes, he noticed there was a red “1” on the chest of the shirt, the thigh of the pants and the heel of the shoe.

“Well, I’m certainly not wearing
that
.”

He put the clothes back, took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Everyone that walked by him was wearing the white uniforms. There was something about them that make a shiver run through his spine. None of them stopped to salute Sutherland. He wrinkled his forehead as he watched them walk by without so much as looking at him. Sutherland felt like the lack of the white uniform somehow made him invisible.

Sutherland headed down the hallway with the goal of exploring more of the bunker... mostly just as something to keep his mind off his family and his country. So far the only thing he had seen was the conference room and its attached bathroom, and his living quarters. Everything else, including his food, had been brought to him by the people working in the bunker. Several times he had tried to engage them in conversation, but they had done their best to deflect his questions.

Feeling lost in the maze of the bunker, Sutherland backtracked to the conference room. He was getting sick of only being there or in his quarters. There was a young man, someone he hadn’t seen before standing guard at the door to the conference room. He wrinkled his brow as Sutherland approached.

The young man stepped aside and opened the door. Sutherland walked inside and pulled out a chair at the table.

“Please wait here, Sir. I’ll let vice regent Rodgers know you’re here.”

Sutherland nodded and sat down. The young man turned and walked out of the room. He was getting tired of it all. Sutherland wanted to know where his family was. He had a sick feeling in his stomach, but he knew that the attacks had been high enough in altitude that it was likely his wife and daughter had survived. What Sutherland didn’t know was whether they were safe and if they had lived through the resulting panic.

The door opened and Sutherland turned to look. He took a deep breath, and readied himself to confront Rodgers as he watched her walk through the door. She sat down across from him and dropped a folder on the table and pushed it to Sutherland.

He opened it and looked at the top paper. It was a form that seemed to be written by a lawyer. His eyes moved to the bottom of the page. There his name was written and there was a blank line for his signature and a spot for the date.

“What is this?”

“That is an extension form.”

He looked at it again.
Extension form? What do they want me to extend?
Buried in the bureaucratic document was a line that caught his eye,
District One agrees to extend the lockdown period from one to six months.
Sutherland put the paper down and looked back to Rodgers. Her eyes were locked on him and he refused to look away.

Sutherland wasn’t sure what Rodgers was up to, but he was certain she was never telling him everything.

“I have no idea what this is. This job was never something I wanted, but for now I’m doing my best to embrace it. My problem is that you haven’t been forthcoming with what we are dealing with exactly.”

Rodgers was silent as she stared at Sutherland. He felt a chill move down his spine.

“Furthermore, you said you sent out a team to find my family and so far I haven't heard anything.”

Sutherland stood up from the table and walked toward the door. He was tired of playing her games. For all he cared, she could run the district and he could figure out how to get out of there and find his family on his own, because it didn’t seem like anyone in the bunker cared what was happening in the outside world, except for him.

“Wait.”

He turned around, but stood his ground. Sutherland wasn’t about to budge.

“I personally sent out a team to look for your family and they haven’t returned,” Rodgers said. “I think you underestimate the level of chaos out
there
. As soon as they return, you will be the first to know, either way.”

Sutherland nodded and made his way back to the table… it was enough of a gesture by her that he would give her his attention. Rodgers reached into her pocket, pulled out a black pen and slid it across the table to Sutherland.

“This extension form is for the safety of us all. The other districts have already signed theirs and we are just waiting for you, Sir.”

He picked up the pen and twisted it to expose the tip. He pressed it down and looked across the table. Sutherland signed his name, put the paper back in the folder and pushed the pen and folder back across the table. Rodgers picked up the folder and stood up.”

“I’ll be in touch,” she said.

Sutherland watched as she walked out of the room. He always felt so unsatisfied after conversations with her. No matter what he did or said, he never felt like he was able to get past her tough exterior and it had started to bother him. He worried that she was up to something.

If she finds my family, then I might be able to trust her
, he thought. There was something about Rodgers that made him feel uneasy and he still couldn’t pin down exactly what it was.

Nick was sitting on the loveseat, thinking about the conversation from the previous night when Mike came into the cabin and retrieved a long plastic tube from the corner. He unscrewed the cap and turned the tube over. Mike caught the two pieces of a fishing rod as they fell out. He set the rod down, kneeled on the floor next to the bed and pulled out a tackle box from underneath it.

Mike assembled the rod and attached a reel as Nick watched. Fishing wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to Nick, his father had taken him as a child, but it had been enough years since that it was safe to say he was a novice. Mike pulled the line through the eyes of the rod and tied on a black and red lure.

“Let’s see what we can do. You do much fishing?”

“Eh… not really. I used to, but it’s been a few years.”

“No worries. It’s like riding a bike… and the best part is you don’t need a fishing license.”

Nick shook his head and smiled at the bad joke. Mike smiled back and walked out of the cabin. Nick followed him and they headed to the river. Nick had never contemplated the significant impact that running water could have. So far they used it to wash their dishes and clothes, filtered the water for drinking, boiled it to cook with and now it would become a food source.

“The great thing about this river is that it’s small enough that it’s easy to read and figure out where the fish will be. I usually can get a fish or two per hour, if I move up and down the river a little. Plus, now more than ever, I don’t want to fish out one particular spot.”

“How long have you been coming here?”

“To the cabin? I bought it about ten years ago after my business started to pick up. I knew I would need it eventually. I tried to make it out at least once a month to check on everything and make sure the cabin was stocked up.”

Nick tried to remember what Mike had told him he did for a living.

“What do you do, for a living?”

“I
had
my own consulting business. I ran a website for preppers. People would present me with their current list of supplies and their basic plan for post-event and I would provide them with a written analysis and suggestions on improvements.”

That’s a new one
, Nick thought. He wasn’t surprised. A week ago he would have thought the idea of that being a business to be laughable, but now…. From what he could tell, Mike certainly seemed to know what he was doing. He had a plan for every situation, as if he knew this was going to happen.

“It was good. It allowed me the freedom to stay connected to the industry and gave me the freedom to prep my own supplies,” Mike said.

Mike handed the tackle box to Nick and they headed for the stream. As they walked, Nick thought about all the clients Mike must have had over the years. He figured they were the people that would begin to rebuild society. Nick wondered how long it would be before that happened and if survivors would head back to cities and towns to help rebuild.

The men walked along the bank of the stream in silence for the next twenty minutes. Nick had questions about what the future would be like and he wanted to ask Mike, but something told him to hold off. He wasn’t too worried, he knew they had the next few months together with little or no other human contact.

Mike stopped on the bank of the stream where a natural pool had formed. Nick set down the tackle box as Mike unhooked the lure from the lowest eye on the rod.

“I’ve had some success with this lure, before.”

Mike held out the lure to Nick, who took it gently in his fingers for fear of being skewered. He looked at the knot and nodded… it was something he would watch Mike do the next time. Nick handed the lure back to Mike and he turned toward the stream.

Mike cast the lure into the stream and slowly reeled it back in. He repeated the process for the next ten minutes without so much as a bite.

“Let’s try another spot,” Mike said.

Nick picked up the tackle box and followed Mike upstream. They stopped at the next area where the water was slow and Mike cast the line in again. As he reeled in the line after his second cast, the rod doubled over with the weight of a fish. Mike yanked the rod up to set the hook and started to reel it in.

Mike stepped closer to the edge of the stream as Nick watched. The fish splashed in the shallows. Mike lifted the rod above his head and swung the fish onto the shore. The sun cascaded off the scales of the Brown Trout. Nick watched as the beautiful fish labored to breathe without water. Mike picked up a rock and brought it down on the head of the trout. It gave one last twitch and was still.

Nick swallowed the bile that had made its way to his throat. He wasn’t sure he could ever get used to seeing death, even if it was an animal they were going to eat. Nick knew that he was going to have to come to terms with it eventually if he was going to survive… and it certainly wasn’t something he would ever admit to Mike.

Mike took a two foot piece of twine from his pack and ran one end through the gill of the trout and out its mouth. He cast his line back in the water. Part of Nick wanted that to be the only fish they caught. He decided he would rather eat beans again than see Mike kill another one.

“You have to get used to the idea of eating what we catch or kill. You won’t survive otherwise,” Mike said.

Nick didn’t know what to say. It was like Mike could read his body language and know exactly what he was thinking.

“I know. It’s just hard when you have to actually see the animal die.”

“But you ate meat from the store?”

“Yeah, it’s not the same though.”

Mike cast the line out into the stream again before speaking.

“No, it’s not. You have to make a choice. Do you want to live?”

“Of course I do,” Nick said.

“Well… if you want to survive
this
, then you will need to realize that doing whatever you must to live is the only way. I promise that killing an animal for food is going to be one the easiest things you do in the coming months and years.”

Nick knew, once again, that Mike was right. Every moment in life had become a balancing act—Nick was beginning to become aware of how fragile everything was.

Mike moved up river and continued to fish, both men silent, until the sun dipped behind the mountains. Nick was glad that the days were growing longer, but he was already beginning to worry what would happen in the fall when the sun set earlier and earlier with each passing day. He pushed the thought out of his mind. It was scary and he decided he would rather face it when the time came.

Nick picked up the tackle box, and single fish Mike had caught, and the men headed back to the cabin as the last rays of the sun disappeared.

“Good,” Mike said.

Nick had done it, finally. Two days of practice and instruction from Mike and he could disassemble any of the guns they had, clean it, and reassemble it without a hitch. Mike had insisted that Nick learn each of the guns inside and out.

“Now, you’re ready to learn to use them.”

“I thought you didn’t want to fire guns around here?” Nick said. He turned around to face Mike, who was standing in the doorway of the cabin.

“I don’t. We’re going to hike into the mountains and do some target practice. If we come across some game it would be a perfect chance to see what you can do. We could use the meat, too.”

“I thought we had enough food for four months.”

“We do, but I want to supplement that with fresh meat and make our canned and freeze dried food last longer.”

It made sense to Nick. He didn’t like it, but it made sense. The thought of killing an animal, even if it meant he had food, was something he had never considered doing and it made him a little uneasy. He did know he was going to have to do it eventually, he had already resigned himself to that.

They each filled their packs with enough canned food to last three days. Mike handed Nick a plastic water bottle from the shelf. Nick turned it over in his hand. It was clear and running down the inside of the bottle was what Nick could only assume was a filtration system of some kind.

“If we don’t have to carry water, we can carry extra food and ammo,” Mike said.

Mike retrieved the Faraday box and took out the two-way radios. He turned them both on, to test the batteries, and handed one to Nick.

“Carry this at all times. We shouldn’t need them, but they’re handy in case we get separated.”

Nick nodded and tucked the radio into his pack and zipped it shut. He put his arms through the pack and waited for Mike to finish packing. Mike put on his pack, handed the .308 to Nick and picked up the AR-15. They walked outside and Mike locked the cabin door.

Mike headed for the river and Nick fell in behind him.

“I’ve only set off from here once to hike, but if I remember correctly, in five or six miles we’ll be on national forest land. We can hunt there and not worry about anyone hearing the gunshots.”

“There won’t be people, like us, hunting out there?”

Mike turned upstream as they reached the river and walked along the shore. He spoke up so that Nick could hear him over the water.

“Not likely. Most people will be less concerned, at this point, with what others are doing and be worried about themselves. I would say that, by now, most people are starting to realize that the power isn’t coming back on and they will be heading into towns and cities to try and get supplies.”

They stopped a few hundred feet upstream from the cabin, at a spot where a large rock jutted out into the stream. Nick followed Mike’s lead as they filled up their water bottles.

“It filters as you drink.”

Nick nodded and took a sip of the cold water.

“Quite handy. It makes me feel better about drinking river water,” Nick said.

“Now, especially, it’s not a good idea to drink water unless it’s filtered. The risk of Giardia is too great. It won’t kill you, but being out of commission and stuck in one place for a few days can.”

“Yeah… I would really prefer to avoid that.”

Mike laughed and started walking. Nick wished that he had spent more time at the gym and less time at home, watching TV and playing video games, over the last few years. He wasn’t in horrible shape, but he wasn’t in good enough shape to easily keep up with Mike.

“What are we hunting?”

“Anything we can find. At this point, with our food supply, we should focus on large game. I want to get a deer or an elk and smoke the meat while we’re out there and just pack the rest back.”

“Can we eat that much meat? How long will it last if we smoke it?” Nick said.

Mike stopped, took out his water bottle and took a long drink. Nick took the opportunity to sit on a large boulder next to the stream and drink some of his own water. Before Nick could catch his breath, Mike was off again.

“We could, but we don’t need to. If we smoke it for a couple of days, it should last for a couple of weeks.”

The image of killing and cutting up an elk flashed through Nick’s mind and he quickly pushed it out. There was a part of him that was still wary of killing animals, but he wasn’t about to say anything to Mike. He took a deep breath and focused on walking… Nick was already tired and he had a feeling they were going to still be walking for a while.

~~~

“OK, now just squeeze the trigger like I showed you. Do not pull it.”

Nick tried to even his breath as he looked through the sights of the .308 at a six-point elk. It looked massive to him, even at a few hundred feet away. He made sure the sights were on the neck of the elk. The huge animal froze and twitched its ears. Nick squeezed the trigger and a sound like thunder ripped through the valley.

He lowered the rifle and looked at the elk. It staggered backward, tried to run and collapsed. Mike slapped Nick on the back and jumped over the log they had been hiding behind.

“Nice shot!”

Nick put the rifle over his shoulder and followed Mike. When they reached the elk, it had already died. A clean shot, right in the neck killed the animal almost instantly. He understood the need for killing the elk, it would provide them with enough meat for weeks, and he was glad it didn’t have to suffer due to a misplaced shot on his part.

Mike pulled out his knife and started to skin the animal. Nick fought the urge to look away. He knew that he might have to someday do it himself, even if it was hard to watch. He couldn’t always count on Mike doing the dirty work.

Once he finished skinning the elk, Mike pushed his knife into the ground. He rolled up the elk hide and set it aside. Mike unfolded the sheet of canvas that had been attached to his pack, and set it flat on the ground.

“Nick, can you go get some green branches for a fire? We need the fire to create as much smoke as possible without too much heat.”

Nick nodded, turned, and headed into the woods. He pulled out his pocket knife and cut as many green branches as he could carry. Mike was waiting with some of the elk already butchered when Nick got back. Nick dropped the branches on the ground and looked at the small structure Mike had built. He had used tent poles to make a five foot tall tepee with a tarp wrapped around the outside, leaving just one side open. Mike had tied some thick wire around the poles at two different levels, which Nick guessed was where the meat would hang.

“Can you dig a fire pit?” Mike said, as he pulled a shovel folded into thirds out of his backpack.

Nick nodded, took the shovel from Mike and unfolded it.

“Right here?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, pointing to the area under the tepee.

Nick kneeled on the ground as he tightened the shovel. He took a deep breath and started digging. Every day was a new experience… it wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful, but he still wished for his old life back. He was just glad Mike had gotten most of the butchering done with while he gathered wood.

“How big do you want this?” Nick said.

“Someone between twelve and eighteen inches deep and maybe thirty to thirty-six inches across.”

Nick nodded and continued to dig. The soil was wet… like it had rained recently, which made his job that much easier. Even with the soft ground there was a hint of sweat on Nick’s forehead by the time he finished the hole.

Mike set to making the fire as soon as Nick stood up. Mike took a windproof lighter out of his pack and eventually got the green branches to catch. Nick folded the shovel back up and put it away.

“It’s not always easy to get the green branches to catch,” Mike said, “but it’s really the only way to generate enough smoke to do this.”

Nick nodded and stepped around Mike for a better view. Mike stood up, grabbed some of the meat and started to drape it over the wire. The smoke started to drift toward the meat and Nick took a step back to avoid getting it in his eyes.

The whole thing was simple… Nick felt like he could recreate the tepee and the fire if need be. The only part he would struggle with would be the butchering of the elk. He hoped the need would never arise, but he knew thinking like that would be foolish. Nick promised himself to watch Mike closely the next time he butchered something.