Getting Home: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The EMP Book 7) Read online

  Getting Home

  A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller - The EMP Book 7

  Ryan Westfield

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  About Ryan Westfield

  Copyright © 2018 by Ryan Westfield

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All characters and events are products of the author’s imagination.

  1

  Dan

  “I’ll be right back,” said Dan.

  The woman mumbled something unintelligible. Her hair was in her face, tangled and stained with her own blood. Blood ran down from her nose and into her mouth. The sleeve of her shirt was partially torn open, revealing the gunshot wound she’d received just minutes ago.

  Leaving the wounded woman lying against the house, Dan rushed around to the back. The back door was locked. He considered trying to break it down, but it looked sturdily made, with a deadbolt. Dan wasn’t big. He was just a kid, and much smaller than average.

  How was he going to get inside the house?

  He needed to do it soon. He needed to get himself and the woman out of view and into the relative safety of the home. They both needed to be out of sight. Dan didn’t know where they were, and who was there.

  Anyone could come by at any moment.

  Dan’s heart was pounding and his throat felt constricted as he scanned the back of the house, looking for a way in.

  There was a window low enough for Dan to reach.

  He had nothing with him. His knife was gone, as was his pack.

  Dan’s eyes scanned the dingy back yard frantically, looking for a rock. For something with enough heft to work.

  He was so anxious to get inside that he almost tried to use his elbow. But he managed to stop himself. It was likely it wouldn’t work, and he’d just end up with an injury that would hurt him down the line.

  Surviving was a constant compromise between immediate and future needs. Sometimes, the immediate was more important. Like when it was an obvious life or death situation. Other times, like now, it was important to take a mental step back and consider the outcomes.

  There were no rocks visible in the yard. But there were bricks that were half-buried in the ground, forming an outline of what once might have been a small garden plot.

  Dan quickly dug out one of the bricks. He didn’t want to injure his hand or wrist on the glass, so he took off his shirt and wrapped it around his arm. Using the brick, he smashed it against the glass window pane.

  It shattered, leaving long fragments of glass trailing out from the wood. It took just a few moments to knock them away with the brick.

  Dan dropped the brick, shook the glass out of his shirt, then got it back on.

  He was able to pull himself up and get through the window without getting cut. He stepped down gingerly onto the house’s battered wooden floor. The shattered window glass covered it, and it crunched underneath Dan’s sneaker.

  Dan suddenly realized that he’d assumed no one was home.

  But he hadn’t even knocked on the door to check.

  Considering what he’d just been through, it was an understandable mistake. He was overwhelmed and scared and knew he needed to act fast. But whether it was understandable or not didn’t matter.

  If someone dangerous was in the house, he might die. He had nothing to defend himself with.

  Dan stood perfectly still, painfully aware of how loud his breathing was. He waited and listened for any sounds.

  But there was nothing. Not a single creak of the flooring. Not the faint hint of someone’s breathing or movement.

  Nothing.

  Since the EMP, everything had gotten quieter. There wasn’t that faint background noise from distant traffic that you never even noticed. There wasn’t the sound of a heater or a water pump.

  Nothing.

  Dan had to get the woman inside the house. There wasn’t time to check every room, to be absolutely certain that the house harbored no one.

  He made his way into the kitchen, found the back door, and unlocked and unbolted it from the inside.

  He found the thirtyish year old woman still slumped against the outside of the house, right where he’d left her.

  “OK,” said Dan. “We’re going to get you inside. Don’t worry. You holding up OK?”

  The woman nodded vaguely.

  She seemed to be getting worse.

  “Can you answer me?” said Dan.

  “...Yes,” she said, after a long pause, blood from her nose entering her mouth as she opened it.

  Dan and the woman had been lucky. The pickup truck driver hadn’t spotted them jumping off. And none of the other soldiers had either.

  Hopefully, the soldiers wouldn’t know where Dan had jumped off. The route they’d followed was long. It’d be too hard for the soldiers to retrace and it and search each house along the way.

  Dan and the woman should be safe from the soldiers in the house.

  All he had to do was get her in there.

  “All right,” said Dan, crouching down. “I’m going to try to pick you up. OK?”

  He didn’t wait for her response.

  He grabbed her under her armpits and pulled hard. He knew how to lift, to use his legs rather than his back.

  It wasn’t that she was heavy. She’d probably been an average weight for her height before the EMP, and since then she’d obviously lost weight. Just like most everyone else.

  Dan was a strong kid. But he was just a kid. An unusually small short one at that.

  He strained as he tried to pull her up.

  He finally got her up into a standing position, back on her feet.

  There was no way he could carry her inside.

  “Can you walk if you put your weight on me?” said Dan.

  “I think so,” she said.

  She leaned heavily on him, and Dan pushed back against her with all his force. Like this, leaning crazily into each other, they managed to inch slowly step by step down the driveway to the back yard where the open door awaited them.

  Somehow, Dan got her up the small concrete steps of the back stoop and inside to the kitchen where they both collapsed, exhausted, on the floor.

  “OK,” said Dan. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be OK. I’m going to get that bullet out of you. You’re going to be fine.”

  But Dan didn’t know that everything was going to be fine.

  His eyes scanned the kitchen for something he could use.

  He checked the drawers and cabinets, opening them frantically. He
didn’t bother looking for food and water. They’d have to worry about those sorts of supplies later.

  Right now, he needed something to dig into the wound with, something to pull the bullet out with. He needed alcohol to sterilize the instrument with. And he’d need something to tie around the wound tightly, to stop the bleeding.

  He wasn’t expecting to find a full-fledged medical kit. On first impression, without careful inspection, it seemed as if whoever had lived in the house had abandoned it. If they’d had any time at all, they certainly would have taken with them whatever medical supplies they’d had.

  If Dan hadn’t lost his backpack, he’d be in much better shape.

  But he had nothing.

  There were some knives in the drawers. Regular dull kitchen knives, made of cheap steel.

  He couldn’t dig out a bullet with a knife.

  Dan’s eyes fell on an open door towards the end of the kitchen. It led to the dark basement below.

  Maybe there’d be tools down there. Maybe pliers would work. He could sterilize the pliers as long as he had some alcohol.

  It gave him a little hope, calming his mind a little.

  “I’m going to head down to the basement,” said Dan, crouching down to speak directly to the woman in a soft voice. “It’s going to be OK. I’m going to get something that will help us get that bullet out of you. Don’t worry.”

  Suddenly, there was a noise outside. From the back yard.

  It wasn’t loud. Dan wasn’t even sure what it was, or if he’d really even heard it.

  He and the woman both froze in place. Dan didn’t move a muscle.

  Then he heard it again.

  It sounded like a footstep. Unmistakable. Dead leaves in the back yard crunching under a heavy foot.

  Dan hadn’t heard the sound of any vehicles. Hopefully it wasn’t the soldiers who’d come back for them.

  But who was it?

  The best-case scenario was that it was someone inoffensive. Someone nonthreatening, nonviolent.

  The chances of that were slim. And Dan knew that.

  Dan’s eyes skipped across the room, towards the drawer he’d just opened that had the kitchen knives.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed with a kitchen knife.

  Another footstep. This one louder than the last one.

  They were out of view for now.

  But the window was broken, the cool air coming in. If Dan got up, surely the approaching stranger would hear him.

  He’d have to make it fast. Get the knife and be ready.

  That was the plan.

  2

  James

  James was exhausted. He stood there, leaning forward, hands on his knees. He gazed out at the bodies on the ground. They were in every pose imaginable. But most were lying face down in the dirt. There was blood on the ground and on the corpses.

  “Come on, James,” said his mother, speaking snappily. “We’ve got work to do.”

  James nodded.

  They were trying to clear away the bodies from the campground.

  There wasn’t any hope in burying them. It’d be far too much work. Someone had suggested burning them on a massive funeral pyre, but of course that might attract unwanted attention. Their little daily campfire was risky enough. They didn’t need to create a huge beacon that announced their presence.

  The bodies might attract animals, but it still seemed like the best option. It wasn’t like there were wolves in this part of the country.

  Georgia reasoned that with the human population dropping dramatically, the animal populations would start to surge. But that wouldn’t happen overnight. Hopefully it’d be a happy problem for the human survivors, meaning more food for them, rather than more danger.

  “Help me with this one here,” said Georgia, pointing to a heavyset male corpse. His long hair was stained and matted with blood. He lay on his back. Bullets had opened up his chest. There were scratches all over his bare arms that his torn-up flannel shirt revealed. It seemed as if many of his injuries had been sustained before he came to the camp.

  “You sure you can handle this, Mom?” said James. “I know you’re feeling better, but shouldn’t you take it easy? Especially with your back?”

  “I’m fine,” said Georgia as she crouched down and grabbed the corpse’s ankles forcefully. “You take that end.”

  James knew better than to argue with his mother about her physical capabilities. And it did seem as if she’d improved dramatically. She almost seemed tougher than before, if that was even possible.

  His hands gripping the corpse’s filthy armpits, James groaned as he lifted him up on his mother’s count of three.

  “Faster than dragging him,” muttered Georgia as they walked the corpse away from the campsite.

  Nearby, John and Cynthia were doing the same thing. Sadie was the only who wasn’t considered strong enough to carry the corpses. But Georgia wouldn’t give her a free pass, despite having been carried away. Instead, Georgia set Sadie to work gathering anything useful she could find on the corpses.

  “Right here’s fine,” said Georgia, abruptly letting go of the corpse, leaving James to carry all the weight.

  He dropped it too, his burning, exhausted muscles feeling immediate release as the corpse fell heavily to the ground. There were at least ten other corpses nearby, hidden from the camp’s view by only a couple trees. There were still five or so corpses near the camp that needed to be dragged away.

  “Can’t we get something to eat before we do the rest of them?” said James.

  “OK,” said Georgia. “Let everyone know. But we’ve got to make it quick. I want to get the rest of these corpses out of here before nightfall.”

  James made his way slowly back to the tent. He was practically dragging his feet with exhaustion. His idea was to get some of the venison out and lay it out for everyone. That way they wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of sorting through it themselves.

  But what James found, he wasn’t expecting at all.

  Part of the tent had been sliced open, leaving a huge gaping tear in one of the sides.

  James drew his handgun. He didn’t wait or call for help. He wanted to do this himself.

  It wasn’t likely there was someone inside, but he lead with his handgun, just to make sure.

  It was empty. There was no one there.

  But someone, or someones, had been there.

  Everything in the tent had been kept as neatly as possible. Georgia and Max wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  But now, everything lay scattered about, as if a small tornado had passed through the tent and thrown everything every which way.

  Of course, it hadn’t been a tornado. It’d been the mob. Some of them must have run through the tent while James and everyone else had been fighting for their lives.

  Clothes lay scattered on the ground, looking like they’d been trampled.

  Replacing his gun in its holster, James bent down and started sorting through the possessions, looking for the food.

  The venison they’d dried was completely gone. As were the cans of food from the pot farmers.

  James’s heart started pounding faster.

  They’d survived the rush of the mob. But how long would they last if all their food was gone?

  There was more food in the van.

  James hurried off to check it.

  He glanced over his shoulder as he left the tent. He didn’t want to tell anyone else yet. There wasn’t any point in worrying them unnecessarily. Everyone had already been through so much.

  His sister, Sadie, was sitting on the ground, looking beyond exhausted. There were no tears on her face, but it looked like she’d been crying. Her hair was dirty and tangled, and James remembered how much attention she’d paid to it before the EMP, before all this had started.

  John and Cynthia were bickering, anger on their faces, as they argued over the best way to move one of the corpses. They stood on opposite ends of the corpse, John at th
e head and Cynthia had the feet.

  Georgia hadn’t stopped to rest. Instead, she was regathering the woodpile for the fire.

  The back doors to the van were hanging wide open.

  James’ first impression wasn’t good.

  Gear spilled out of the back of the van. Shirts and jackets lay trampled on the ground.

  The food was gone. Completely.

  The mob had been so crazed that James doubted they were capable of systematically searching through the group’s possession and finding the food.

  It hadn’t been one of the crazed desperate people. It’d been someone with more of their faculties intact.

  Someone who’d used the mob’s attack as an opportunity to get what they’d wanted. And that meant that they’d been there, waiting and watching. For who knew how long.

  They might still be out there. Whoever they were.

  James gave up searching. He sat on the edge of the van’s floor, his legs hanging out the back door.

  It wasn’t all their food. They’d kept some of the canned food in pits dug into the earth, and they’d kept some of the venison hanging from a tree.

  But the majority of their food was gone.

  Sure, they could hunt more deer. Provided the mob hadn’t scared them all off. Provided someone else hadn’t hunted them all. They hadn’t seen a deer for some days now, which was unusual, considering they were in the state hunting grounds, known for their deer populations.

  The loss of the canned goods, which were meant to be used as emergency food, was a huge loss.

  James’ mind was panicking, and he couldn’t get himself to calm down. His thoughts were racing.

  He didn’t want to tell his mother what had happened. He didn’t want the others to know, even though he knew he had to tell them. They’d all been through so much. This was just another blow, one that he, even though it was irrational, wanted to spare the others from.

  “Let’s get a move on it, James!” called out Georgia, suddenly looking in his direction and seeing him just sitting there.

  James knew it was time. He had to tell her. He took a deep breath and stood up.