FACING UNFAMILIAR GROUND _an EMP survival story Read online

  He wandered past the reception area and into the hallway toward what used to be the emergency room. Maybe it still was the emergency department, he didn’t know for sure. No one stopped him, but he could see guards posted at the stairs. He nodded at them as he went by. The emergency department was deserted. Apparently, only the rich had emergencies that actually got treated in a hospital, and only on the upper floors.

  That suited Melvin just fine. He found the room where casts used to be applied to broken limbs and started searching. The place had been looted, the drawers and cupboard doors left open, and while there was plenty of trash in the form of packaging, there was little that was useful.

  In a drawer he found enough cotton batting to wrap a child’s arm and in a cupboard enough ends of casting tape to go over the batting. He even saw stockinette, lots of it. Maybe looters didn’t think the thin bandages were worth stealing. Melvin loaded his pockets with the things he needed and strolled back down past the guards, nodding as he passed them and on into the lobby.

  Grady and his mom still were there. He wasn’t surprised, but then he wouldn’t have been surprised if they had left either. Melvin tested the temperature of the water in the thermos lid. It was drinkable. He fished the casting supplies out of his pockets and then rooted around for a bottle of painkillers.

  He cut a pill in quarters and gave one to Grady and the cup of warm water. The others he gave to the mom. “One quarter every four hours,” he said and watched her slide them into her own pocket.

  He busied himself setting out the supplies, keeping a surreptitious eye on Grady to be sure he swallowed the medicine. Then he sat back down on the couch and had Grady sit on the edge of the table. “Hold your arm like this,” Melvin said, demonstrating with his own arm.

  Grady complied, and Melvin got to work sliding the stockinette over the arm, up over the elbow to the armpit, being careful not to bump the area with the break. He smoothed the light fabric so there weren’t any wrinkles, and then began wrapping the cotton batting, adjusting the position of the boy’s arm.

  The casting material he put on looser than he might have before the EMP blast. The arm might swell, and no one would be there to remove it. On the other hand, he didn’t want the child to reinjure his forearm because the cast wasn’t tight enough. It was a tricky balance.

  When he was done, the arm was wrapped in black, blue, red, day glow green and yellow, which seemed to please Grady. Of course, he didn’t know that he was lucky to have a cast at all. Materials were harder and harder to find. Even scraps were being scavenged by people like him. The good stuff was being hoarded by people like the ones upstairs. Skilled and privileged, wanting for nothing, and giving nothing away. Melvin despised them.

  He had Grady sit where he was, and he went hunting again. He only needed a scrap of material and was eyeing a privacy curtain in one of the rooms when he noticed a stack of pillowcases that had been knocked to the floor on the far side of a bed. He grabbed them and returned to his patient.

  He used two of the pillowcases to make slings for the boy, ripping them into strips. One he tied around the child’s neck and arm, adjusting it so there weren’t any pressure points. Melvin had had a lousy experience with pressure points before the world went wonky. One of his nerves had not recovered, and he suffered from tingling on occasion.

  The other sling he gave to the boy’s mother so she’d have a spare if needed. She looked tired, her eyes dull and heavy, barely responsive.

  “Let me carry him home for you,” he said. “I know he’s old enough to walk, but I also know that you aren’t going to let him. So let me. You show me the way, and I’ll leave you a couple of blocks from your home if you like, so you don’t have to worry about me showing up unexpectedly.” And asking for sex, he didn’t say out loud.

  She agreed and led him out of the hospital and in the general direction of her own neighborhood. She tripped on a rough spot on the sidewalk, and he caught her elbow to steady her. She gave him a small smile, and he shifted Grady so he could carry the boy with one arm and keep his other hand on her arm. She was so tired that he thought if she was alone, if she didn’t have the responsibility of the child, she would have sunk to the sidewalk and slept there.

  He was surprised when she turned and walked toward a small apartment complex. The kind that has two stories with ten or twelve apartments surrounding a small courtyard. But she walked steadily through the common area and out the back, where there were storage sheds for the tenants to use. She led him to the furthest one, tucked in the corner of a paved parking area surrounded by a chain-link fence.

  He left them at the door to the shed, where she was fumbling with the lock. When he turned back to make sure they were safe before leaving they had disappeared inside and pulled the door closed. It was only then that he realized he never had asked her name.

  He hurried away. There were several blocks to go before he arrived in his own neighborhood, and it was long past dark. He strode quickly, not paying much attention to the buildings he was passing, except to watch for marauders on the street. They could be hiding between buildings or in doorways, so he walked in the middle of the street to give himself some notice. It was as dark as the deepest mine. At least that’s how it felt to Melvin. There was a hint of light where the road crossed a drainage ditch, and he looked down. A family was huddled around a fire built in a small ring of rocks near the entrance to the drain pipe.

  He turned aside, climbing down the embankment to approach them.

  They huddled together when they noticed him, the parents shooing the children behind. They knew the drill, the smallest stood between their parents and the older children for safety.

  Melvin raised his hands, palms out to show he meant no harm, but they didn’t relax their guard. So many families had been torn apart, wives and children sold into slavery, the men killed or sent to work for the current powers that be. It was brutal.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “but it isn’t safe to camp here. That is an active storm drain, and it doesn’t take much rain to fill it. You’ll drown if you stay here.”

  The mother sighed audibly, but the father protested. “There’s no rain expected tonight,” he said. “I have a friend who reads the weather.”

  “That may be true,” Melvin replied, “but rain isn’t the only condition that will fill the drain.” They looked miserable. They were sniffling, with red noses, and the younger children had mucus crusting their nostrils. All eyes were on him, and they were red-rimmed and watering, every last one. He rummaged in his pack and brought out the remainder of his packets of dried soup. “Do you have a way to heat water?” he asked.

  They fetched a pan. Melvin poured the last of his hot water into it, and they added water from their stash. The mother produced a grate and laid it across the top of the garbage can where the fire was burning.

  While the water was heating, Melvin went back into his pack and pulled out a tattered ziplock bag full of gummy vitamins. He handed them out, making the adults take them as well as the children. He gave the remainder to the mother, “Everyone gets one every day until they run out. Okay?”

  “Yes.” She nodded tiredly. “Thank you.” She produced a variety of cups and bowls, and when the soup was hot, Melvin helped her pour it out. He refused any for himself and sat on a rock to watch them eat while he decided what to do about them.

  One of the corpses he had rolled to the curb today had been a man he’d recognized. He’d lived in an apartment building not far from the one where Melvin had lived. If they acted now, they might be able to commandeer it before anyone else did. It seemed like the ideal situation if you weren’t the dead man. He waited patiently while they sipped their soup, the youngest draining their cups quickly and asking for more. He obliged until all that was left were a few short noodles stuck to the sides of the pan, and those were gobbled up by a boy. He ran his finger around the edges of the pan, sucking the remnants from his finger.

  “I know a better place for you to
stay,” he said once everyone had settled down. “It’ll keep you out of the weather, and if you are careful about never leaving it empty, you could stay there indefinitely. And you won’t be in danger of being swept out into the lake by a storm surge. Do you want to see it?”

  They did want to see it. The group gathered their belongings, which didn’t take long, and followed Melvin up the embankment onto the street. They walked huddled together down the dark avenue, Melvin leading them. They were skittish in the dark, the children especially seeing things that weren’t there, but finally, they arrived at a modern apartment building.

  They went in through the parking garage, where a door to a stairwell was propped open with a spare tire. They trudged up five floors, and Melvin led them to the door he believed belonged to a now-empty abode.

  He knocked, and there was no answer. No one yelled for him to go away or that they had a firearm and were ready to shoot. So, he pushed the door open. What had once been a lovely midrange apartment with three bedrooms and two baths now looked like it had been ransacked. And it was possible that had been, but it was also possible that the open drawers and toppled furniture were camouflage. There was no point in sacking a room that already had been rifled through. So, if you gave the impression that a place already had been gone through, you had more of a chance of retaining your belongings.

  The homeless family surged in, making noises of appreciation. While the children claimed bedrooms and discussed whether they could flush the toilets, Melvin showed the mother and father how the door had been modified to include not just an extra deadbolt but also a two-by-four slid into brackets on either side of the door frame.

  “When I leave,” he said, “you must lock all the locks and bar the door. Someone should stay in all the time with the door secure. If you do that, then you can stay indefinitely.”

  “How do you know the owner won’t come home?”

  “Because I rolled him into the gutter this morning,” Melvin said. “Just good timing I guess.”

  They thanked him, and he left, finally heading for his own home.

  Chapter Five

  Glen groaned when he and Christian left the building and discovered Mia and Sally surrounded by a group of women. A dark-haired woman had their attention, the girls’ faces reflecting their surprise and horror.

  “Damn,” Glen said. “We shouldn’t have left them alone.”

  “Why?” Christian asked. “What’s up?”

  “Because that woman is telling the girls horror stories about the city,” Glen said. “I’d put money on it.”

  They approached the group, and Glen smiled, “what’s up?”

  Sally looked up at him, confusion and anger on her face. “Did you know that there are gangs in the city?” she asked. “People die on the street, and their bodies are rolled to the gutter to be picked up during the night? They don’t even know what happens to the dead.” She looked shocked and distressed, along with the anger and confusion. “Why are you taking us into that?”

  “Maybe we should talk in private,” Glen said. “I really don’t feel the need to explain myself to people I’ve never been introduced to.”

  The women began getting up. “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude,” an older woman said. “We wish you all the luck in the world. I understand you are attempting to do good, and I hope you are able to accomplish that goal.” She nodded her gray-haired head to him and led the others away.

  “Well?” Sally was standing, hands on hips.

  Glen looked down at Mia. “You aren’t upset?” he asked.

  “No, I had a good idea of what we’d be getting into, but I couldn’t see staying in New Town just keeping our little group safe. People need help in the cities. Someone has to help restore order. Why not us?” She sat back against the tree. “But that’s just me.”

  Glen switched his attention back to Sally. “Yes,” he said calmly, “I knew there was likely to be danger, and I was planning on telling you once we got closer to the city. I didn’t want you to be worrying the entire trip. I’m sorry if it seems as if I was withholding information from you. Traveling is so much better if you’re having an enjoyable time. I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”

  Sally deflated. “I guess that makes sense,” she said. “But I might have stayed with Anthony had I known. That wouldn’t have been so bad.”

  “You are right,” Glen said, “I should have been more specific about the kind of danger you might be getting into. I apologize.”

  “Don’t,” Christian said. “We all know what the city is like. We came from there. We’d just forgotten how bad things were.”

  “And that things probably were getting worse, not better,” Sally said sadly. “A big city doesn’t recover as quickly as a small town, does it?”

  The shuttle, when it arrived, was like something from a Mad Max movie. Whereas Glen had envisioned an airport parking lot shuttle, the vehicles that pulled into the rest area were a mismatched assortment of owner-modified vans, cars, motorcycles, pickups and one truck-trailer pulling an old school bus with the windows boarded over and a platform welded onto the back where four men with firearms sat.

  The school bus doors opened, and an assortment of people as mismatched as the vehicles streamed out. They disappeared into the trading post as quickly as they had appeared. Passengers also disembarked from the vans, but these people were cleaner, more relaxed. Glen realized these were the comparatively wealthy, those who could pay to ride in relative comfort.

  The driver of the semi jumped down from his cab and started calling for travelers to the city to gather round. He was like a circus barker, yelling “Roll up! Roll up, now, folks! I’ve got something to say.”

  When Glen finished listening to the driver he went back to tell the others that the shuttle wouldn’t be departing until morning since it wasn’t safe to arrive in the city after dark.

  “We’ll need to set watch,” Glen said. “As long as one of us is awake to scare the bad guys away we should be fine.”

  “But no tent?” Christian asked. “I feel kind of vulnerable sleeping out here in the open.”

  “The trouble with a tent,” Glen said, “is that you can’t see them sneaking up on you until it’s too late. It would take a lot of bodies to surround us out here.”

  “I see your point,” Christian said, but his expression told another story.

  “Mia,” Glen said, “you take first watch. It’s the easiest, then me, then Christian, and then Sally for the last.”

  “Why do I get the easiest?” Mia was affronted by his lack of confidence in her.

  “Because you and Sally are the most vulnerable. You are the smallest of us, and most likely to attract attention, but if there are other people still awake and watching, you’ll be less likely to become a target.”

  Mia didn’t look happy, but agreed to take first shift. It was only two hours. She settled herself with her back against a tree and Glen sat against a nearby tree and let his chin drop to his chest. Not a great way to rest, but if someone approached he’d be awake and alert at a moment’s notice.

  Glen awoke and knew something had gone wrong. His internal clock told him that Mia should have woken him by now, and when he looked for her, she was nowhere to be found. Christian was snoring gently, but Sally was not in her bedroll.

  “Christian, wake up!” Glen barked.

  The boy was startled awake and sat up. “What?” he said, looking around sleepily.

  “The girls are gone.” Glen tried to keep the panic from his voice. “We need to find them.”

  “Are you sure they aren’t in the ladies room?” Christian asked. “You know about women and bathrooms.”

  “Mia wouldn’t have left her post without telling me,” Glen said. “Get out of that sleeping bag and put your shoes on.”

  While Christian was struggling out of his bed and into his shoes, Glen gathered up the most important of their belongings. He noticed the radio had gone missing along with the women, and he wondered
how the thieves had known about it. Of course, Mia and Sally probably showed it to the other women who’d approached them today. They would have trusted a kind older woman. No one’s grandma was a robber.

  When Christian was ready, Glen led him back to where the tent rentals were. He leered at an older woman sitting outside and asked, “Where would I find a little company, love?”

  She directed him around the back of the clump of rental tents, to what must have been an old maintenance building. Another older woman was sitting in a plastic chair outside the door, and Glen recognized her as one of the women who had been talking with Sally and Mia earlier that day. He didn’t stop to chat, but went right past her and yanked the door open.

  “You can’t do that!” the old woman yelled, but Glen and Christian ignored her.

  The inside of the building had been partitioned into makeshift rooms. Glen slammed open the first door, but the woman inside wasn’t Mia or Sally. “Where are my friends?” he shouted, but the woman just cowered, so he moved on. Christian, taking his lead, took the left side of the corridor, while Glen took the right. The old woman was pulling at their arms and shouting at them, telling them they had no right and to get out. Glen turned and glared at her.

  “Either you tell me where my friends are, or I will open every single door in this building,” he said. “And if I do not find them, I will beat every person in this building until someone tells me where they are. So, either cooperate or get out of my way.”

  The woman shrunk back against the wall and Glen opened yet another door to yet another woman who wasn’t either of his friends. They kept moving, but the woman had begun to speak, and now she was grabbing at Glen’s arm so he would listen to her.

  “I’ll show you,” she said. “They have not been harmed. I will show you where they are. Just stop this.” She did not look defeated, but rather like a woman who knew that you don’t win every hand, and perhaps this was the time to fold gracefully.