Final Dread: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (Surviving Book 3) Read online

  Final Dread

  A POST-APOCALYPTIC EMP SURVIVAL THRILLER - SURVIVING BOOK 3

  Ryan Westfield

  Copyright © 2019 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

  1

  Jim

  Jim, Aly, Jessica, and Rob were headed down south in the RV of the demented college professors who had kidnapped Aly. The plan was to leave New York state if they could, entering Pennsylvania. They hoped to find a remote place out in the woods to park the RV. They’d live in it, hunt and scavenge for food, and hope to avoid the intense violence that seemed to be overtaking the country.

  Just the other day, the lake house had burned to the ground. Aly’s uncle had died in the fire. He’d been too drunk to even notice the flames or the smoke, and Aly had been too weak from her injuries to drag him to safety.

  They’d been through a lot. But what was important was that they were alive. And that they had a vehicle, as well as guns, knives, some food, and other basic supplies.

  They’d gotten about an hour south of the lake house when Jessica spotted something from the passenger seat.

  “You see that?” she said.

  “No, what is it?” said Jim. His eyes were getting tired, and it didn’t seem like he could see as well as he normally could. He hoped it wasn’t a permanent change.

  “I can’t tell yet, but there’s something in the road.

  “A car? A vehicle?”

  Jim felt his heart rate increasing. They’d been through a lot during the last few days. The last thing they needed now was some new obstacle. Jim wanted nothing more than to simply park the RV in the woods, as far away from the chaos as they could possibly get, and sit there, doing absolutely nothing. He was tired of feeling constantly on edge, with his mind constantly stimulated.

  But he knew that peace, calm, and quiet weren’t going to come easily. In fact, they’d probably never come again. This was life now. Violence and danger were never going to go away.

  There’d been no sign of any sort of government response to this chaos, to the complete collapse of modern society as they knew it. Of course, Jim imagined that something, somewhere was going on. The government must have been rallying its forces, in whatever way it could, but where it was happening, it was so far away from Jim and his friends that it might as well have been happening on Mars.

  “What should we do?” said Jessica.

  “Everything OK up there?” said Aly, from behind them.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Rob, leaning forward between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

  Jim said nothing for now. He just kept driving.

  As they got closer, Jessica was the first one to spot what it was in the road.

  “Can you see it?”

  “It’s a car. And a blockade.”

  “A roadblock?”

  “Yeah, like those wooden things when a road is closed.”

  “We can drive through that. Is anyone there?”

  “Someone’s getting out of the car. Looks like an SUV. Oh, wait...”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a cop car.”

  “A cop car?”

  Jim’s mind went immediately to Andy, the guy who’d impersonated a police officer in order to gain their trust. Jim had known there was something off about the guy, but he hadn’t gone with his gut instinct enough, and he’d let Aly’s uncle Jordan say that it was OK that Andy stay in the house. In the end, Andy had stolen their most important gear and their food, and then tried to kill Jim when he’d tracked him down by swimming after him.

  “You think it’s a real cop?”

  “Who knows.”

  “What’s he doing out here?”

  “No idea. You think this means there’s a functioning police station?”

  “Maybe things are better down here,” said Aly. There was hope in her voice. “Maybe everything didn’t collapse. Maybe they weren’t even affected by the EMP.”

  “I doubt it,” said Jim, grimly.

  “But it’s possible, right?” said Aly.

  “Possible, but not likely,” said Jim. “I’m not going to stop.”

  “Good,” said Jessica. “Don’t give anyone else a chance to screw us over.”

  “But what if it’s a real cop?” said Rob. “Maybe he could help us. Or give us some advice.”

  “Real cop or not, it’s too big a risk,” said Jim. “If society hasn’t collapsed down here, then we’ll know about it soon enough. I’d rather spend my days safe and warm in a nice jail cell if that’s the case, rather than...” He didn’t bother finishing the sentence. There were simply so many horrible things, worse than death, that could happen to them if they fell into some trap.

  “If other areas of the country weren’t affected,” said Jessica, “they would have come to help us. They would have sent in the National Guard, the military, the firefighters. Everyone would have been there. But they weren’t.”

  It was a good point.

  They were closer now. Jim could see the cop clearly. Or the fake cop. Or whoever he was. Jim could see his face, and he could see him reaching for his sidearm in its holster.

  The barricades weren’t much at all. Jim was surprised they were still there. After all, it’d been a long time, relatively speaking, since the EMP. Wouldn’t someone have driven through them by now?

  The RV was big, and it was heavy. It had enough power to drive right through those barricades.

  So that’s exactly what Jim did.

  He pushed the pedal to the floor. The engine roared. Those college professors must have really shelled out for this RV, because it wasn’t lacking at all in horsepower. Of course, aside from driving through barricades, that wasn’t exactly good. It would drive down the gas mileage.

  The cop had his gun in hand. But hopefully it wouldn’t matter. He moved out of the way, just before the RV hit the barricades.

  The RV knocked the barricades out of the way like they were nothing.

  They were roaring down the open road now, and Jim didn’t let off the gas pedal. He glanced in the rearview mirror, but he couldn’t see what the cop was doing.

  Suddenly, gunshots echoed.

  “What’s going on?” someone shouted.

  Jim caught just a flash of a figure, emerging from hiding on the roadside, gun in hand. And then he knew it: it had all been a trap. The fake cop was there just to slow people down, while the assailants waited not far down the road.

  A round slammed into the passenger’s side window, shattering it, creating a fine web of cracks. The round didn’t penetrate the window. There was no hole.

  “Everyone down!” shouted Jim, as he kept the accelerator jammed to the floor. There was no point in duck
ing himself. He needed to drive, and at this point it was just random chance whether or not he got hit.

  Bullets, probably coming at odd angles, made rain-like sounds as they glanced off the metal outer shell of the RV. Another round made its way through, punching a hole right through metal, and burying itself in Jim’s seat back. He felt the slight vibration of it as it hit.

  But there was nothing to do but drive.

  Now they were on the open road, no one in front of them, and no one in the rearview mirror. The whole incident had taken mere seconds, since the RV had been traveling upwards of eighty miles per hour.

  “Everyone OK?” said Jim. “Anyone hit?” His heart was still pounding in his chest, even though the danger seemed to be gone. For now.

  The answers came back, each of the other three checking in, saying that they hadn’t been hit.

  “What the hell was all that?” said Rob.

  “An ambush,” said Jessica. “What in the world did you think it was?”

  “I don’t know. It didn’t make sense to me.”

  “What didn’t make sense?”

  “Well, if that was an ambush, why would they set it up like that? Have the guys with guns farther down the road. Why not just put them right at the blockade?”

  “He’s got a point,” said Jim.

  “Maybe they’re just new at it,” suggested Aly.

  There were a couple laughs.

  “No,” she said. “I’m serious. Maybe they’re just regular people, doing whatever it is they think they need to do to survive these crazy times.”

  “You mean they’re not criminals or anything?” said Rob.

  “Exactly. Maybe it’s a family, hardened by circumstances, and this is the first time they’ve tried their hand at piracy.”

  “Piracy?”

  “Well, the basic idea is you stop the vehicle, whether it’s a boat or a car or van or whatever. Then you kill the occupants and take what they have.”

  “Pretty foolproof,” said Jim. “Except that we’re going to fight back.”

  “You think it’s going to happen again to us?”

  “How could it not?”

  They drove for another ten minutes, and Jim felt his heartbeat slowly reducing. His adrenaline must have been slowly lowering as well, because that shaky-excited feeling began to diminish.

  They were on a two-lane road. The sky above was the normal gray, but the leaves on the trees were green, helping to offset the grayness. If it had been in the days before the EMP, Jim could see thoroughly enjoying the drive. It wasn’t the type of road that probably got a lot of traffic, and really sometimes there wasn’t much better than being out on the road, listening to some good tunes.

  Of course, now, the radio didn’t even turn on. And if it had, there’d be nothing but static or dead air.

  As he drove, Jim made sure to check the rearview mirror periodically. But he saw no one.

  Jessica moved into the back, and she and Aly and Rob began discussing the routes that they could take. Occasionally, they would ask for Jim’s opinion and hand him a map to study, which was difficult to do while driving, let alone driving and keeping a lookout for anything that seemed odd, dangerous, or out of place. So there was only so much he could add to the conversation.

  “Why don’t we just go down 219?”

  “Because it’s a big highway.”

  “It’s not a four-lane highway, is it?”

  “I think it is.”

  “When was the last time you were on it?”

  “A few years ago.”

  “I don’t want to go on any big highways,” said Jim. “All I’d expect to find are dead cars from one end to the next. I doubt we’ll even be able to drive on a road like that. It’ll be packed.”

  “But isn’t it worth checking out?” said Aly.

  “Maybe,” said Jim. “It depends what the other options are.”

  “Well, we’re still working on that.”

  Up ahead, the road they were currently on was transforming from a remote country road with nothing but trees on the side to a road that was lined with parking lots and stores.

  “Jessica,” said Jim. “I need you up here and on the lookout.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re back to civilization. There’s more of a chance that we’re going to run into trouble up here.”

  Jim was keeping his eyes peeled, making sure to keep them scanning the area. It was tiring, even exhausting, having to always be on edge, always on the lookout. But hopefully once they found a place to rest the RV, the constant threats would die down somewhat. Of course, he could only realistically hope for so much.

  They were now driving by the first store. It was a pharmacy, a squat little building, with a large parking lot. There were a few cars in the lot, but it wasn’t full by any means.

  There was no sign of anyone. Only the squirrels and birds seemed to be out. But Jim knew that, simply speaking statistically, it was unlikely that someone wasn’t lurking in at least one of the buildings or cars they’d drive by. There were many places to hide, and many motivators.

  “See anything?” said Jim, carefully and consciously moving his eyes from one end of the parking lot to the other.

  “Not yet,” said Jessica.

  The big trees and their green leaves were long gone now, having been replaced by parking lots and pavement. It was a world made for automobiles, for industry, for commerce. Which was fine, except that none of that stuff mattered now.

  With the sun behind the ever-present gray clouds, the day no longer looked pleasant in the least bit. Instead, it took on that perma-gray depressing quality that Jim had always associated with Rochester, Buffalo, and the area in between.

  “You think we should stop and try to get supplies?” said Jessica, just as they were past the exit lane for the pharmacy parking lot.

  Jim shook his head. “What would we get? We’ve got more painkillers than we could ever use, hopefully.”

  “Food,” said Jessica. “I bet we have about a week’s worth right now. And pharmacies usually carry things like beef jerky, canned tuna, dried noodles, plenty of soda. A lot of good food for travel that keeps a long time. A lot of high-protein stuff, too.”

  It was true. They were going to need food.

  “It’s a huge risk,” said Jim. “We’re opening ourselves to whatever danger’s lurking in that pharmacy. And there’s no way it hasn’t already been looted.”

  “There’s always a back area,” said Jessica. “There’s always more than it seems in a place like that.”

  “It’s a risk, though.”

  “It’s a risk running out of food. We’re going to have to figure out what we can hunt in our new location. We’re going to have to perfect a system of butchering the animal and storing the meat. Those aren’t easy things to learn, and none of us have a lot of experience in that area.”

  “Good points,” said Jim.

  But he kept driving.

  “Look at it this way,” said Jessica. “Even if we find our ideal spot right away, we’re not going to have food right away. It’s going to take time to figure out how to feed ourselves off the land. Meanwhile, our food will run out.”

  “Leaving us more vulnerable,” said Jim, finishing her thought for her.

  “Exactly. So what do you say?”

  “Let’s do it,” said Jim, making a quick decision.

  He was always ready to change his mind. Especially if it meant increasing the survival chances of the group.

  Without waiting for anyone to object, Jim swung the wheel and made a U-turn. Surprisingly, the turning radius of the RV wasn’t too bad, and he was able to get it without backing up at all.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” said Aly, as Jim took the turn into the pharmacy parking lot. The RV bumped across a couple potholes, but the suspension was good, and they hardly felt it at all.

  “Nothing’s a good idea anymore,” said Jim. “It’s about finding the idea that’s the lea
st bad.”

  Jim put the RV in park and cut the engine.

  He left the keys in the ignition. He was already thinking ahead to a quick getaway.

  Jim felt for his gun and got his other hand on the door handle before speaking.

  “I’m the only one going in,” he said. He spoke fast so that no one could interrupt him. He knew that one of them would want to come with him.

  As he expected, Jessica, Rob, and Aly all started speaking at the same time. But he simply raised his voice and talked over them.

  “It’s either just me, or I’m simply driving off. I don’t want to hear anything about backup. The simple facts are that if there’s a trap in there, it’ll get everyone who goes in. So logically, we only should risk one of us. The more we lose, the more the group loses.”

  “But...” came Aly’s voice, rising above the rest.

  “If I’m not back in ten minutes,” continued Jim. “You’ve got to drive off.” He glanced down at his watch, noting that the minute hand was precisely at the top of the watch. That meant that he didn’t have to bother setting the timing bezel of his diver’s watch. It was already perfectly aligned.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Jessica. “We’re not going to leave without you.”

  Jim glanced back at Aly, who looked too upset to even speak. They may have had plenty of arguments and difficulties, but he knew that the thought of losing her husband right here and now in some generic pharmacy was too much.

  Jim said nothing more. There was no point. They’d either do as he wished or they wouldn’t. Words could only do so much to convince someone.

  Jim opened the door and stepped down out of the RV, drawing his sidearm as he did.

  He took long strides across the pharmacy parking lot. He kept his head moving as he did so, looking for any sign of movement, of anything that shouldn’t have been there.