Final Panic: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (Surviving Book 2) Read online

  Final Panic

  A POST-APOCALYPTIC EMP SURVIVAL THRILLER - SURVIVING BOOK 2

  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.

  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

  Note from the author

  About Ryan Westfield

  1

  Jim

  It hadn’t been long since the EMP. But it’d been long enough for society to start to unravel. Violence was everywhere. Those who’d survived were in hiding, trying their best to seek out whatever meager existence they could.

  Jim, Aly, Jessica, and Rob had taken shelter in Aly’s uncle’s lake house, a couple of hours from Rochester. They’d only barely survived an attack by a neighboring family. Aly had been shot, and when the infection had gotten bad, Jim had ventured outside the relatively calm area of the lake to get the antibiotics she’d needed.

  Jim had just barely made it back. And his wife, Aly, had just barely recovered from her infected wound.

  It wasn’t like there were any hospitals or doctors they could get to. If the penicillin hadn’t worked, there wouldn’t have been much more they could do.

  Shortly after Aly had woken up, her uncle Jordan had reappeared.

  It was his lake house that they’d taken shelter in. And, frankly, Jim had been glad to see that Jordan had been gone when they’d arrived.

  The brother of Aly’s mother, Jordan was the black sheep of the family. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t earned his reputation. He’d been an alcoholic for years, if not decades, and he’d spit in the face of every opportunity he’d been given. He’d been arrested for minor and major infractions more times than one could count.

  How Jordan had even supported himself had always been a mystery to Jim.

  Right when the Carpenters had been defeated, when Aly was recovering, when it seemed like the lake house was enjoying a period of relative calm, Jordan had shown up, looking like he’d been through hell.

  Jordan was emaciated, looking like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. His hair was longer than Jim remembered, and filthy. He wore a patch beard on his dirty face, and his unpleasant stench filled up the room.

  “What the hell did you do to my house?” said Jordan, his lips twisting up viciously.

  “Let’s take a step outside,” said Jim, gripping Jordan’s upper arm firmly. “Just you and me. We’ll discuss this. Aly’s weak. She’s still recovering.”

  Jordan gave him a stiff nod. Maybe he realized he didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  Jim caught Aly’s concerned look as he led Jordan out of the room.

  When they were finally outside, out of earshot of everyone else, Jim said, “Where have you been, Jordan? We thought you were dead.”

  “Is that why you’ve taken over my house? And thrown everything out?”

  Jim just stared at Jordan for a moment, studying his face. There were scratches on his cheek, and what looked like the remnants of a black eye. Had he been in a fight? What had he been doing since he’d disappeared?

  “We threw out the trash,” said Jim. “You didn’t exactly keep a clean house. There were empty bottles everywhere, and fast food wrappers. We practically couldn’t move. It was disgusting.”

  “You’re not answering my question. What the hell are you all doing here?”

  “What everyone else is doing, trying to survive.”

  “Trying to survive? Don’t give me that line. That’s what I’ve been doing all my life.”

  Something wasn’t adding up. The conversation was strange. But then again, it nearly always was with Jordan.

  “We had nowhere else to go. Rochester was becoming dangerous. Fast. We didn’t think you’d mind your niece and husband staying with you, considering the circumstances.”

  “You could have called first. Set something up. Isn’t that the way things are normally done? Even these days.”

  Suddenly, it was if a light dawned on Jim.

  “Don’t you know about the EMP?” said Jim.

  “The what?”

  “The electromagnetic pulse. It knocked out all electronics. Everything’s down. Society’s falling. And fast. You don’t know, do you? Where have you been?”

  Jordan stared at him with a blank expression on his face. “I’ve been getting sober.”

  Jim looked Jordan up and down. “You don’t look sober.”

  Jordan held out his hand, flat, with the palm down. “Look. It’s not shaking. And I haven’t had a drink in three months.”

  “Where were you? You don’t look like you’ve been in rehab.”

  “Rehab? That doesn’t work. None of that stuff works for me. I did it my own way. Living rough in the woods.”

  “You’re telling me you’ve been living rough in the woods by yourself while trying to kick drinking? For several months? And you’re just coming back to society now, and have no idea what an EMP is or what’s happened?”

  Jim wasn’t exactly buying it. It was too far-fetched. But then again, Jordan really didn’t seem to know what was going on.

  But did Jordan ever really know what was going on? He was an exceptionally odd guy and always had been.

  “Hey there!”

  Jim spun his head and reached for his revolver.

  Someone was shouting at them, from somewhere down by the road.

  Jim and Jordan were standing only partially out of view from the road, next to a large pine tree.

  “Get down,” hissed Jim, as he crouched down.

  “Get down? What the hell are you talking about?”

  Jim’s eyes scanned the area, looking for who had shouted.

  “Hey! I see you two over there. Come on, I’m not going to bite.”

  Jim finally located the source of the voice. The man was standing on the other side of the road. He was far away, but Jim could make out his clothes.

  He wore a police uniform. Pants, shirt, and everything. He even had one of those wide-brimmed hats that highway patrolmen sometimes wore.

  Jim’s mind immediately jumped to the cops that he’d been forced to run away from. And to the memory of breaking Aly out of a jail cell in Pittsford.

  “What the hell are you doing down there?” said Jordan loudly. “Stand up like a man. You’re scared of a cop? I thought you were on the up-and-up. And what’s all this about society falling apart?”

  “I’ll have to explain it to you later,” hissed Jim.

  The cop didn’t stop waving, and now he was walking towards them. He took long strides, closing in on them fast.

  Jim stayed in the crouching position, with both legs bent. He held his revolver steady and pointed right at the
oncoming cop.

  2

  Jordan

  The story Jordan had told Jim wasn’t entirely true. Well, “not entirely” might even be a stretch.

  The part about being away for a long time was true enough. But Jim had already known that.

  The rest, well, that was more or less a complete fabrication.

  Jordan had actually sobered up quite a bit. But that had purely been by accident.

  He’d been having trouble making ends meet for years now. He’d lost one job after the other. And the ones that he had managed to keep, where the boss would tolerate his drinking, well, he had always ended up realizing that he didn’t like working that much. The pay was too low for the effort, he thought.

  So, when a job had come along that paid a lot more for a lot less effort, Jordan had jumped at the chance.

  He’d left his home at the lake and traveled northeast, up near the Canadian border, where he’d worked growing and harvesting marijuana for some guys he’d met through the local bar.

  They’d worked out in the boonies, far away from any stores, and they didn’t like to travel into town much since they were trying to keep a low profile.

  Jordan didn’t know quite how he’d gotten more or less sober. Maybe it’d been the work, being outside, less access to alcohol, or the increased availability of pot.

  But the reality was he’d only had a couple small nips of vodka yesterday. And none today. That, for him, was as close to sober as he was ever going to get.

  He’d been at the pot farmers’ camp when the EMP had hit. Of course, they hadn’t known what it was that had happened.

  There’d only been three of them total at the camp. They’d just sold off a good haul the past week, and they’d sort of been sitting around trying to figure out whether to split with the money or stay around and get another crop going. Earning even more money, of course, was tempting.

  When the cell phones had gone down, Jordan had seen his opportunity. He hadn’t known it was an EMP. All he’d seen was an opportunity.

  He’d taken all the cash and split.

  Of course, given his luck, the car had broken down about a hundred yards from the camp. The noise had woken up his “colleagues,” and they’d come after him. He’d had to evade them in the trees, running until he couldn’t run any longer, and hiding when he’d been too exhausted to move.

  He hadn’t done badly for a man in his sixties. An alcoholic in his sixties, on top of that. But then again, he’d never really been one of those alcoholics with completely ruined health. Instead, he’d always had that kind of old-time wiry strength that you can’t get from going to a gym or training. It was just something natural to him. He didn’t look muscular, but he was incredibly strong.

  His colleagues had chased him through the woods for miles. They’d been desperate for the cash.

  In the end, he’d gotten away from them, and without resorting to violence. Which was good. He wasn’t necessarily the violent type. Not that he was a pacifist. Far from it. He’d been in his fair share of bar fights over the years. And while he hadn’t won each brawl, he’d rarely come out without inflicting some serious damage on his opponent.

  So, he’d gotten away from them without a fight. Merely by hiding. By being clever. But what had been difficult had been the journey back home. That’s what he’d barely survived.

  It hadn’t initially occurred to him that heading back home wasn’t the best idea. After all, they’d be looking for him.

  But when he’d gotten close enough to home, without any other plan, he’d said “screw it,” and decided to head home and have a well-deserved drink. Or a couple of drinks.

  It had been a weird journey. And it had just gotten even weirder, now with all these people in his house. And the power was out? What the hell was going on? And what was Jim talking about?

  Jordan had spent the entire journey home in the woods, avoiding the roads and civilization. Sure, he’d noticed a complete lack of light pollution in the sky at nights, but he’d just shrugged it off. Obviously, his first thought hadn’t been that the power had gone off everywhere and that civilization was on the verge of collapsing.

  And now that’s exactly what Jim was telling him was happening. And while Jordan didn’t exactly like Jim, he never figured him for the type of guy to just make stuff up. Jim wasn’t frivolous, and he wasn’t paranoid. In general, he had his head on pretty straight.

  And Jim had never seemed like the type of guy to lose his head and go nuts. But then again, stranger things had happened.

  And now Jim was there, pointing his gun at a cop. That definitely was something the regular Jim would not do. Unless he’d lost his mind. Or civilization was collapsing and the cops could no longer be trusted.

  Jordan had to consider both options.

  After all, Jordan’s number one rule had always been to look out for himself. And to protect himself, he either needed to align himself with Jim, until a better opportunity came along, or else he needed to get the hell out of there. Being on the same side as a nutjob with his gun trained on a cop wasn’t exactly where Jordan wanted to be. Especially with his various priors and his extremely checkered past.

  “What the hell are you doing, Jim?” snapped Jordan. “You can’t shoot a cop.”

  “My worry is that he’s not a cop.”

  The cop stopped about ten paces away and put his hands in the air. “I’m unarmed,” he said.

  “An unarmed cop?” said Jim, his voice full of suspicion.

  “I barely got out of Rochester alive,” said the cop. “They took my gun from me.”

  “Who did?” said Jim.

  “A mob. I don’t know. Does it matter anymore?”

  “A mob?” said Jordan. “What are you talking about?”

  “He doesn’t know about the EMP,” said Jim.

  “Have you been living under a rock or something?” said the cop.

  Jordan said nothing, just nodded vaguely. He was trying to put all the pieces together, his mind working as fast as it could.

  “I’m Andy,” said the cop. “By the way.” His hands were still in the air. It seemed like an odd way to introduce himself.

  Jim said nothing for several moments. His face was impassive, as if he was thinking deeply.

  “Come on, Jim, put the gun down,” said Jordan. “Whatever this EMP thing is, I’m sure we can work it all out. This guy looks like he needs our help. Isn’t that right?”

  “I’m just trying to stay alive,” said Andy the cop. “Just a meal, and a place to stay. That’s all I need. I’m trying to rejoin up with the force, or the National Guard. Or the army. I’m just trying to serve my country.”

  “Listen to him, Jim.”

  “We’re already short on food,” said Jim. “We don’t have room for one more.”

  “You mean two more,” said Jordan. “Me plus him. Listen, Jim. Whatever’s going on, it’s my house. And that means I get to choose who we let stay or not.”

  Jim was silent, but the changes in his face let Jordan know he’d struck a chord. Jim had always been really hung up on personal property, personal rights, and all that stuff. Much more so than Jordan himself was. Jordan knew how to play right into people’s belief systems. He knew how to manipulate people based on their sense of right and wrong.

  Jordan knew which strings to pull. That had always been something he’d been good at, knowing how to get people to do what he wanted.

  And in this case, strange as it may have seemed, he wanted the cop to stay with them.

  Jordan’s hunch was that the cop really was a cop, even if Jim still seemed suspicious.

  If those pot farmers came looking for their money, it’d be good to have an extra guy around. Someone who really knew how to use a gun.

  Sure, Jim had his little revolver there. But as far as Jordan knew, Jim didn’t really know how to use it. He’d been a city guy all his life, tinkering away at his little electronic store or whatever it was.

  A cop, though, would
know how to use a gun. He’d protect Jordan from whoever came looking for him.

  Jordan surreptitiously patted the wad of cash that was tucked away safely in his pocket.

  He had big plans for that money. Big plans.

  “So, what do you say, Jimmy? Put the gun down.”

  “How do we know he’s really a cop?”

  “He’s got the uniform and everything.”

  “Anyone could get that uniform.”

  “It fits him and everything. Look at it.”

  “Let’s see some ID,” said Jim to Andy the cop.

  “They stole my wallet,” said the cop.

  “Badge?”

  “Yeah, let me see here. I took it off and hid it.”

  The cop rolled up one of his torn pant legs and pulled something out of his sock. It was a shiny police badge.

  “Looks legit enough,” said Jordan, peering forward.

  “All right,” said Jim, grimacing. “But this is on you, Jordan. We’re already having trouble feeding the four we’ve got here.”

  “Four? You’ve got four people crammed into my house?”

  “They’re guests of your niece. Nothing you can do about it.”

  “You could be a little more polite with me. It is my house, after all.”

  “New circumstances, new rules,” said Jim.

  “Can I put my hands down now?” said the cop.

  Jim gave a brief nod.

  “I really appreciate it, guys,” said the cop, ambling over. “I thought I was done for. But don’t worry, we’ll get this country back on track. Have you seen any other members of the force around here? Or the military?”

  Jim shook his head. “Not around these parts,” he said.