EMP (The Districts Book 1) (8 page)

Sandra pulled her truck through the open gate, got out, and closed it. She pushed the lock into place and tugged on the gate. She looked back at the farm. It was her life. She didn’t like leaving it—even if it was just to run into town.

She climbed back in the truck and put it in gear. As she pulled onto the main road she thought about the last few days. She still had no power and she couldn’t figure out why. She wasn’t too concerned. There was a power outage when she was a child that lasted almost a week, but it was from a wet snow that crippled the area… and the weather had been beautiful as of late.

Loveland, the closest town to the farm, would be the best bet for her to find out when power would be restored. She had caught up on her chores, to a certain point, but there were plenty of things she needed to do around the farm that required electricity.

As she drove down the dirt road, Sandra spotted a large SUV barreling down the Stevenson’s driveway. She took her foot off the gas and let the truck slow. She wrinkled her brow. Sandra had never seen the SUV before, it was more of a city-going vehicle and not something one of her neighbors would own. Without slowing down, the SUV crashed through the gate and took the turn onto the main road. It disappeared into a cloud of dust as Sandra put her foot on the brake and stopped her truck at the bottom of the driveway.

Something’s not right
, she thought. When she looked toward the house, see saw that the front door was wide open and looked to be broken and hanging on by just the bottom hinge. Sandra cranked the steering wheel and headed up the driveway. She threw the truck in park and dashed up the porch stairs.

The house had been ransacked. A shelf in the living room had been tipped over and there were books strewn about the room. Sandra made her way to the dining room and discovered more of the same. A mirror along the back wall had been smashed and pieces were littering the floor.

“Hello?”

She listened, but there was no response. She walked through the rest of the wrecked house. Sandra couldn’t believe that people would do such a thing. In the kitchen, Sandra found a pad of paper and left a note for the Stevenson’s.

When I was headed to town, I saw a large, black SUV coming down your driveway. They are the ones who damaged the gate and broke in and stole from you. I’m heading to town right now (it’s sometime around mid day) and I’ll give a statement at the Police department and have them send someone out here.

Sandra

She went back outside and got in her truck. The whole thing made her sad. She couldn’t imagine coming home to something like that. She stopped her truck at the bottom of the driveway and looked back toward her own house.

In all the years Sandra and her family had lived at the farm, there had never been much crime in the area and certainly not something to the extent of what she had just witnessed. She wondered if perhaps she should go home and not head to town. Sandra didn’t want to come home to discover that the same people who robbed the Stevenson’s had also broken into her house.

Sandra decided it was a risk she was willing to take. Not to mention there wasn’t much in the way of valuables in plain view in the house. She gave the truck gas and turned it toward town. She told herself she would be quick—find out when the power would be coming back on and she would tell the police about the break in at the Stevenson’s before heading home.

Nick dropped his pack on the porch and leaned against the wall of the cabin while he waited for Mike to unlock the door. Carrying back the smoked elk meat had take them a couple of days and Nick couldn’t think about anything other than how good it was going to feel when he got to sit on the loveseat and put up his feet.

Mike opened the door, put his pack on the floor next to supply shelf and grabbed his bottle of water. Nick picked up his pack, followed Mike inside, and set it down next to the loveseat. He plopped down, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. It was everything he had been dreaming of while sleeping on the hard ground as they waited for the elk meat to smoke.

“What are you doing?”

Nick opened his eyes and looked at Mike, who was standing next to the door and checking his Glock.

“What?”

“What are you doing?” Mike said, repeating the question.

“Nothing…just trying to chill out a little. Why?”

“We have work to do.”

Nick took a deep breath. He knew this was the life he chose when he left with Mike, he just felt like Mike was pushing him harder with each passing day. Nick was already feeling exhausted, but he didn’t question Mike and instead got up and followed him outside.

“What do we need to do?”

“We need to get started on the pitfall,” Mike said.

Nick sighed and walked over to the pile of sharpened branches. He still couldn’t believe Mike made him carve them and then carry them all the way back. Nick had to just keep telling himself there was a reason for everything Mike did and he just needed to trust him. It wasn’t easy for Nick… he had never had so much faith in a person… he never felt like his entire life depended on a single person the way it did on Mike.

Mike grabbed the pickaxe that was leaning against the cabin and walked toward where his truck was parked. He took the sharp end of the axe and drew a large square into the ground just a few feet from the truck. Nick guessed it was about eight feet on each side.

“Is that how big we have to make it?” Nick said, instantly regretting that he had asked such a redundant sounding question.

“The idea is that it’s a trap… so it needs to be large enough to be able to actually trap something.”

“What exactly are we trying to catch?” Nick said.

Mike lifted the pickaxe over his head and slammed it into the rocky soil. The force of his swing buried it a few inches into the ground and he pulled it free before answering Nick.

“A person.”

“Wait… we are going to dig a big hole… fill it with spikes… and hope a person falls into it?”

Nick was a little mortified by the idea. He was having a hard enough time accepting the fact they would have to continue to kill animals so they wouldn’t starve. Nick suddenly felt sick. He dropped the sharpened branches and leaned against the closest tree.

“Well,” Mike said, “I don’t want to catch a person. This is more of a defensive measure. Like I told you before, we have to be ready to protect ourselves and what we have by any means necessary.”

“And the pitfall will help with that?” Nick said, taking a deep breath as he finished.

“Yes. The hope is that if someone tries to come here and harm us or steal the truck… well, they will step on the top of the pitfall and fall inside. It’s not pretty, but if that’s what it takes to keep us alive….”

Nick knew Mike was right. He wondered how long he would have survived without his former neighbors’ help. Nick decided not to even think about it, and instead tried to focus on the pitfall instead. Mike swung the pickaxe again and loosened some more of the dirt.

“Grab the shovel from over there,” Mike said.

Nick walked back to where Mike got the pickaxe from. He wrapped his hands around the weathered handle of the shovel and looked down.
You need to forget who you were… you need to be strong now or you’ll never survive what’s still to come
, he thought. Nick took a deep breath and turned back to Mike, who was starting to get into a furious rhythm with the pickaxe.

“What can I do to help?” Nick said.

Mike stopped and swept his hand over his brow to mop up the perspiration that had formed after only a few minutes.

“Every time I loosen up some dirt… you come in and just get as much as you can with the shovel.”

“Where do you want the dirt?”

“Just behind you… wherever. We’re going to need it, so try to keep it in a relatively neat pile.”

Nick nodded as he pushed the shovel into the rocky soil and lifted out as much as he could. He turned and dumped it on the ground as Mike swung the pickaxe again. It was going to take them a long time to finish the hole, but Nick took solace in the fact he was going to soon be in the best shape of his life. He knew it was silly, it didn’t really matter that much to him, but it was something he might be able to use to motivate himself.

~~~

Nick collapsed onto the loveseat and closed his eyes. He didn’t care what chore or job Mike might have for him… there was no way he was getting up again without sleeping at least six or seven hours.

The two men had dug the pit for three hours until the last of the light faded from the sky and a chill filled the air. They hadn’t gotten as much of it dug as Nick had hoped and he felt like it was going to take the better part of a week because of the hard rocky soil.

“Is everything alright?” Mike said.

Nick opened his eyes, but didn’t lift his head to look at Mike.

“Yeah… I guess. I’m just tired.”

Mike didn’t answer. Nick heard him opening the door of the wood stove and striking a match. He turned his head enough to watch as the small flare caught the wood shavings and began to grow.

“What’s your plan for when
all this
ends?” Nick said.

Mike stood up and turned toward Nick. He ran his hand through his hair, walked over to his bed and sat down.

“What do you mean?”

Nick put his hands on the cushions of the loveseat and pushed himself into a sitting position. He was tired, but still interested in what Mike had to say because he was still feeling so lost in the new world that was now his home.

“I mean like… what are you going to do once everything settles down and people start to rebuild?”

Mike kicked off his shoes and methodically took his socks off as he thought about his answer. It kind of surprised Nick actually… Mike seemed so prepared for every situation that he assumed he would know what he would do next.

“I’m not sure. I have some family in Lincoln, Nebraska, but they aren’t exactly survivalist types. I guess I could head that way just to see what happened to them.”

“That makes sense,” Nick said.

It made Nick think about his parents. He wondered what happened to them and he was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he would probably never find out. Florida was a long way without airplanes… and driving was kind of out. Nick took a deep breath and tried to not think about what had happened to them.

“But,” Mike said, “I don’t want to get ahead of myself. At any moment this whole delicate reality we live in could come crashing down around us… and then… well, then it won’t matter what my plans are.”

It was a scary thought… one Nick didn’t want to hear, but he knew Mike was right.

Sandra drove the shovel into the ground and turned the chocolate brown soil. The days were beginning to blend together, in her mind, and she was starting to wonder if the power was going to ever come back on. She pushed the shovel into the dirt again and paused. A noise reached her ears and she turned. It sounded like someone talking and it was coming from around the side of the house. She had no idea who could be approaching.

She climbed the back steps, taking them two at a time, and grabbed her shotgun that she had left leaning against the wall on the back porch. Sandra had already made it a habit to keep her only protection close by in a time of uncertainty. She opened the back door, closed it, and made her way through the house.

As she neared the front door, the voices grew louder. She froze as a hand rapped on the front door. Sandra lifted the shotgun to her shoulder and pointed it at the door. The buckshot she had loaded in it wouldn’t kill a man, most likely, but if the door opened she was ready to shoot whoever stepped through it.

“Sandra? You in there?”

Her mind raced as she tried to recognize the voice. There was a familiarity to it, a man’s voice that she felt she had heard many times before, yet she couldn’t quite place it. The floor of the porch creaked as whoever called out moved to the right… toward the window that Sandra had forgotten to close the curtains of. She swung the barrel of the shotgun to the right and waited for the man to show himself.

The footsteps on the wooden deck halted. The deck creaked as the man made his way back to the door and knocked again. Sandra let out a sigh of relief. She was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a killer and didn’t want to test the limits of the human condition.

“Sandra, if you’re in there, it’s me, Nathan.”

A smile crossed her face as her brain put the name and voice together. Nathan had been a summer farm hand when she was growing up. Her mind drifted back to when she was a teenager and Nathan was a strong, strapping man and she was sure he was the most beautiful creature that had ever walked the earth.

She rested the shotgun against the wall and reached for the doorknob. As she turned the worn brass, she remembered what her father used to tell her. He would say "Be cautious and don't trust just anyone," but she quickly pushed the thought from her mind and pulled the door open.

Nathan, who was standing with his back to the door, spun around and flashed a smile at Sandra. She smiled back as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. For the first time since the power went out Sandra felt safe.

Sandra peered over Nathan’s shoulder. He moved so that she could get a better view of his companion. She looked the man up and down and turned back to Nathan. She had never seen the other man before. He looked old and worn out, Sandra thought, but when she looked into his eyes she could tell that he was much younger than his body led her to believe.

“This is Manuel.”

Sandra nodded at him and he returned the gesture.

“We’ve been working together for the last six months as roughnecks on the rigs out east. He’s real quiet to be around too, seeing as how he’s mute and I don’t know sign language,” Nathan said.

“Well, any friend of Nathan’s… they are a friend of mine, too,” she said.

Manuel smiled at her and nodded. She stepped back inside the house and held the door open.

“Well, come on in… you both look like you could use some water.”

Sandra closed the door behind them and they followed her into the kitchen. She retrieved three glasses from the cabinet next to the sink and filled them with her water pitcher.

“Still using the hand pump well I see,” Nathan said.

"Yeah, and thank god for that."

Sandra handed the glasses to the men, which they promptly finished.

Nathan had stopped by a few years earlier, the last time they had seen each other, and he had bugged her to upgrade to a more modern well. Sandra smiled because she knew he was thinking about the same thing.

"You never did like listening to me."

She smiled. He was right, she was stubborn and tried to desperately grasp onto the things on the farm that reminded her of her parents.

“And I’m glad that I didn’t listen to you, for once… otherwise we wouldn’t have water.”

“Speaking of,” Nathan said, looking down at the empty glass.

Sandra shook her head and got the pitcher. She was glad to see Nathan again and she knew things were looking up. She refilled their glasses and sat down across from Nathan.

“So,” she said, “have you heard anything about when the power is coming back on?”

Nathan took a long drink of water and looked down at the table. Sandra could tell he was avoiding the question… she just didn’t know why.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Nathan finally looked up at her. The joy that had been in his eyes moments earlier was gone and replaced by sorrow. It worried Sandra… she knew something was terribly wrong.

“The thing is… I… I only know what I heard from others, so I don’t know if it’s true….”

Sandra held her breath. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he believed what he had been told, but was feeling bad about telling her.

“Nathan… just tell me. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

He nodded and Sandra could see his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed.

“I know you’re not. Things… things out there are bad, Sandra. In the last couple of days I’ve seen things I never thought I would. The world is going to shit and people are acting like it’s the end of days.”

Sandra wasn’t even sure how to react to that. She knew something had happened which was obvious from when she went to Loveland… but that hadn’t revealed much other than people seemed to be on edge and the power was out.

“What did you hear?”

“We… we caught a ride from a guy just outside of Greeley. He said there was an attack… that someone dropped a nuclear device on the United States.”

Sandra wrinkled her forehead. She didn’t think it made any sense. The United States had been a different place the last few years, but the people are strong and the military was still one of the largest in the world.

“It… it doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“It does, though. Think about it… he said that it would cause some kind of electric magnetic thing, which is what wiped out all the electronic devices.”

Sandra thought back to the large flash in the sky. She had convinced herself it had been in her mind, but now that Nathan explained it… it started to make sense.

“Holy shit,” Sandra said.

“Yeah….”

“My god… what… what should we do?”

Nathan shrugged. Sandra suddenly felt lost. It was the first time since her parents died that she was so unsure of what she was supposed to do.

“I don’t have any answers,” Nathan. “We came here because you were the only person around here I could think of that I wanted to see.”

Sandra smiled even though her heart wasn’t in it. She was glad to see Nathan, but she felt like she just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep forever. She stood up from the table and walked to the kitchen window. Sandra did nothing more than look out the window, lost in her thoughts, for the better part of an hour. Manuel and Nathan, realizing she was in shock, sat at the table and waited for her.

She eventually turned back to the men. The color had returned to her face, which Nathan was glad to see, and she walked over to the table. Sandra put her hands on the curved back of the chair and took a deep breath.

“Well… if what you say is true… then we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

“How so?” he said.

“I guess we need to get ready for whatever is coming,” Sandra said.

“Yeah? What did you have in mind?”

“Well… I guess we should expand the garden… that should be the first thing. Right now it can grow plenty of stuff for the three of us, but I have a feeling there might be more mouths to feed very soon.”

Nathan nodded. Sandra didn’t even consider what she would do if more refugees came to her farm… she already knew she would take them in just like Nathan and Manuel. She also knew that if what Nathan had told her was true, they all stood a better chance if they stuck together.

Sandra sighed and smiled at Nathan. She had a feeling deep in her gut that times were going to get a lot tougher and they could use all the help they could get.

“You’re right,” Nathan said. “What we have to work with right now?”

Sandra wracked her brain while she tried to figure out what they needed. She had some seed, enough to grow her normal supply of vegetables, but that wasn’t going to be enough—they were going to have to go to town and try and find more. Sandra wasn’t eager to head back to town, but she really didn’t see any other option.

“We need some seed,” Sandra said. “I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty scarce here in not too much longer.”

“Is Rick’s Farm Supply still around?” Nathan said.

She nodded in response. It wasn’t the first place Sandra would want to look, but she had a feeling it would be much safer… a thought reinforced by the image of what had happened to the Stevenson’s house. She realized it wasn’t some random robbery… it was probably someone who knew what had happened.

“Yeah… I think maybe we should check there. I’ll go get my keys.”

Nathan stood up from the table, shaking his head.

“I think we should walk… Manuel and I will go get the seed while you stay here.”

“That’s like… like a six mile walk… each way.”

Nathan nodded.

“Why?” Sandra said. “It’s just a few minute drive.”

“Twelve miles is still twelve miles… whatever gas is in your truck right now is all you’ll have for the foreseeable future.”

“I’ve got about half a tank.”

“Yeah… it’s not worth it. Just let us walk… we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“Are you sure?” Sandra said.

“Yeah… I’m sure. I want to be able to contribute. You’re allowing us to stay with you… you didn’t have to.”

Sandra smiled and nodded. She had always thought of Nathan as an honorable man and wasn’t about to argue with him. She knew he was right about conserving the fuel… they might have to get off the farm in a hurry and that gas could be more precious than all the food they could ever grow.

“Should we try to get any particular seeds?” Nathan said.

“Not really… whatever you can get.”

Nathan nodded and smiled at her. He and Manuel both stood up from the table and walked toward the front door. Sandra followed them, grabbing her purse off the counter. She took all of her cash, about two hundred and twenty dollars worth, and handed it to Nathan.

“This is all I have… I guess just use your best judgment and buy as much as you can with it.”

Nathan shoved the wad of cash into his pocket and smiled at Sandra.

“I’ll do my best… Manuel and I both have some money, so we’ll get as much as we can possibly carry.”

“Thank you… so much.”

“Of course,” Nathan said. “Keep your door locked and your shotgun handy… I have a feeling things aren’t going to be getting any safer… even around here.”

Sandra swallowed and nodded. She knew he was right… even though she didn’t want to think about how her beloved home state might have changed in a matter of a few days.

~~~

Nathan and Manuel stopped just down the road from Rick’s Farm Supply. They ducked into the backyard of a clearly abandoned house… the doors were all open and the contents of the house had spilled into the yard. Nathan stopped, looked and shook his head—it made him sad because he couldn’t tell if they had left in a hurry or something worse had happened. He had a sick feeling in his stomach that it was unlikely they had left their home, the place they had worked their whole lives to fill with memories, in such a hurry.

They climbed over the fence and into the yard of the next house.

“Wait here,” Nathan said, whispering to Manuel. He didn’t think there was anyone around, but he didn’t want to take that chance.

Manuel nodded and crouched down next to a bush, which was large… but not nearly large enough to conceal his companion. Nathan wanted to laugh, he knew Manuel had done it on purpose, but he forced himself to stay calm and keep his cool.

Nathan crouched as he approached the wooden fence. He held his breath as he tried to listen. The walk had been uneventful and they hadn’t encountered a single living soul… which really worried Nathan. He raised his head and peered over the top of the fence. The store was across the street and a hundred yards down.

He watched the front of the store, noting that the automatic doors looked to be open, but there weren’t any people going in or out. There were two trucks in the parking lot, but no people near them. Nathan wondered if the store was even open… they would be, he thought, because they had products people would want in case of a blackout.

Nathan crouched back down and made his way over to Manuel.