SURVIVE AND ESCAPE: A Post Apocalyptic EMP Thriller (The Blue Lives Apocalypse Series Book 1) Read online

  A pickup truck sat still, with its hood open. Nothing seemed amiss in the engine compartment other than the thin layer of leaves and sticks that had accumulated. She moved closer to take a look inside the truck, finding the key pushed snugly into the ignition.

  “You find anything?” asked Sam while walking up to her.

  “Yes and no. All the cars are damaged. Obviously. But look at this.” Jane pointed to the open hood of the pickup truck. “There’s a good coating of leaves and sticks, like the hood has been open for a while—and the owner just left the keys in the ignition. Why would anyone do that?”

  “The only reason I would leave my keys in the ignition is if it didn’t matter.” Sam glanced at the vehicle. “If my car had just become a two-ton paperweight, and I knew it.”

  “Exactly.” Jane gazed across the parking lot of disabled cars. “Geez, what happened here?”

  “I’m not sure. Walking over to you, I noticed that most of the gas tanks are open. I think someone siphoned out the gas.”

  “Crap. This is more than some kids messing around drunk on a weekend. We need to get out of here, fast. Do you think you can fix the car?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure what’s wrong with it. The whole system seems to have died. I brought some very basic tools. I thought that if I could isolate the problem, then I could scavenge parts from the other vehicles to fix ours, “ he suggested.

  “You don’t sound optimistic?”

  “I inspected a few of the cars and trucks on the way to meet you. The engines looked fine, but none of them had power.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I tested them by hitting the hazard lights. The ones I tested failed to blink. This isn’t to say that all of the cars are disabled.”

  “I’m calling for a tow truck. I have to let Lea know we’ll be delayed,” she said.

  “I’m not sure we’ll get a cell signal out here.”

  “Sure we will. I called Lea one last time from here before we hiked out.”

  “That’s right. Give it a try. While we’re waiting for the tow truck, we can go to the ranger station and report what we saw on the trail.”

  Rummaging around her backpack, Jane finally got her hands on her cell phone. Her anxiety level eased when the phone powered up. The relief was short lived.

  “Darn it. No signal. I called Lea from this exact spot before we took off on the trail. The signal was fine then. In fact, I recall looking at the bars and being amused that we were getting a signal in such a remote area,” she said.

  “I know this might sound survivalist paranoid, but I have a bad feeling that it’s not just the cars or phone that don’t work.”

  “Me too. Everything feels off.” Jane rifled through her pack.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Jane’s hands moved quickly and deliberately through her belongings. She pulled out two concealed-carry holsters, handing the black leather holster to Sam and keeping the deep brown rig for herself.

  “Do you really think we need these?” said Sam, taking his holster reluctantly.

  “Better safe than sorry.” Jane removed the Glock 19 from her holster and chambered a round from the already seated magazine. “I suggest you do the same.”

  She replaced her pistol and lifted the right side of her shirt to slip the holster inside her pants and attach it to the belt holding up her shorts.

  “Whatever happened here is old news. Possibly a warm-up for what we may now be facing out there. We need to move fast and be ready to fight our way back to Lea, no matter what it takes,” said Jane.

  “I’m with you,” said Sam, strapping an identical pistol in place on his right hip. “We’ll get back to her—one way or another.”

  Chapter Five

  The ranger station sat two and a half miles from the isolated parking lot. Walking briskly down the tree-sheltered road leading to the station, Jane processed everything she’d seen, drawing some initial conclusions. A street gang was not responsible for the vandalism to the cars in the lot. Not this far into the forest. The assortment of people they’d seen walking through the park on their short hike out had the same general appearance—shaggy, scared and desperately seeking isolation. What had motivated them to seek refuge in the park? What exactly would they find in the world they’d left behind two weeks ago? She didn’t look forward to discovering the answers.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Sam said.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, you’re wondering why I didn’t listen to you and upgrade to the never fail, works when you really need it teleporter package on the Camry. It would have saved us a lot of heartache right about now.”

  Despite the situation, Jane laughed at his silly attempt at humor. Sam had a way of knowing how to defuse her anxiety with just the right mix of concern and levity. “Actually, I am starting to wonder why we’re walking over two miles to the ranger station. This will put two more miles between us and Lea.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. But my concern is that we don’t know what’s happening out there. The park is insulated from the outside. Once we get out of here, who knows what we’ll find. The ranger should be able to provide some answers.” Sam walked next to her, holding her hand.

  “If the station is still active. This is either localized to the park and immediate area, or it’s widespread. We really won’t know until I can make a call to the police station, or we manage to get out of the park,” she said.

  “That’s my concern, too. If we just start walking home without any situational awareness, we could be making a huge mistake. There could be riots, looting…hopefully nothing. I’d prefer to talk to the ranger first. Get some information. He should know what happened and how widespread it is.”

  “I’m just very concerned about Lea. Maybe the ranger will have a landline I could use to call the station. I could ask one of the guys to go to our house and check on her. I might even be able to arrange for someone to pick us up.” Jane compulsively adjusted the straps on her pack.

  “I’m frustrated too. If this is some sort of disaster, it would have been nice if it had waited until we were home. Being caught in the woods like this is really inconvenient,” said Sam, smiling slyly.

  Forcing a grin, Jane stopped and turned toward him.

  “Thank you.” Jane hugged him warmly.

  “For what? Stupid jokes, great sex or carrying the heavy gear for the past two weeks?”

  “All of it, and knowing when to distract me. We both know that if you weren’t here, I would’ve dropped this pack and started running the twenty miles home to find Lea.”

  “True. And heaven help anyone in your path,” Sam said, caressing her cheek with his strong hand.

  Continuing along the path, their moment of levity evaporated when the ranger’s station came into view. The door swung lifelessly in the wind. Most of the windows were shattered.

  “Not good,” she said.

  “Looks like the place has been trashed. Abandoned, too. Let’s have a look anyway. Maybe something in there will help us piece things together.” Sam disappeared into the building.

  Jane stood on the threshold of the ranger’s cabin, watching him pick through the wreckage inside.

  “They dismantled everything. Even the wires to the radios are gone,” said Sam.

  The shock of their situation and the ramifications for Lea started to settle in on her.

  “Lookey, lookey, what we have here. Nice piece of mountain ass,” announced a deep male voice, followed immediately by the sound of guys laughing.

  Jane spun to face the owner of the voice, catching her pack on the side of the door. She teetered on the granite steps for a brief moment, quickly regaining her balance. When she squared her stance in the doorway, she found herself facing three men in their mid to late twenties—all filthy and covered from top to bottom in scratches and cuts, big and small. They looked ragged, like they had been on the run and exposed to the elements for a long time. They reminded
Jane of the escaped prisoners her department had found in town after several days of living in dumpsters, eating trash and drinking from puddles. Except these guys looked worse.

  “You get lost from your nice little suburb, lady?” said another one of the men.

  “What’s in that sweet backpack of yours, baby? I could use a few things,” said the first man.

  “Looks like you could use some protecting out here. I’ll take real good care of you,” said the first man, taking a step toward Jane, with a hand on his crotch.

  Jane pulled her shirt up and reached for the gun tucked snugly in its holster against her right hip.

  “She has a husband who will blow your heads off if you take another step forward,” said Sam, suddenly appearing next to her, his pistol aimed straight into the group.

  “Damn, look what we have here. It’s Hawaii Five-0,” said one of the men, eliciting a round of laughter from his friends.

  “You ain’t got the balls to cap us, hoss. I can tell. Shit, you can’t even hold your gun steady,” said another man, a bold look on his grimy face.

  In her peripheral vision, she could tell her husband’s grip was shaky, which these punks mistakenly interpreted as weakness. Adrenaline, maybe, but not the kind of fear they assumed. Jane had no doubt her husband could and would drop all of them if necessary. She needed to defuse this situation before it reached that boiling point.

  “If he doesn’t, then I sure as hell do,” said Jane, drawing her pistol and aiming it at the leader’s head. “Evansville PD. Stop where you are and put your hands where I can see them.”

  “Peeee…Deeee? You a dying breed, police lady,” said one of the men, laughing.

  This group was unbelievably brazen, especially with weapons aimed at them. For a moment, she wasn’t sure this would end peacefully.

  “Come on, guys, a piece of old ass ain’t worth it,” said the leader. “You better watch your back, bitch. You ain’t got no backup anymore.”

  The men nonchalantly walked back to the trail, sneering at them and laughing until they were out of sight.

  “Old ass? Really? I should have blasted them for that comment alone,” said Jane as she holstered her Glock.

  “Maybe we should keep these out just in case,” said Sam, visibly shaken by the exchange.

  “No, my guess is that they’re gone, and they have no intention of following us. Guys like that focus on the low-hanging fruit. They had no weapons and rightfully assessed that they were outgunned in this battle,” said Jane.

  “I guess. What do you suppose he meant by the police being a dying breed?”

  “I’m not sure, but I didn’t like the sound of it.”

  “Neither did I. Maybe we’ll see someone normal on the trail. Someone we can talk to without a confrontation.”

  “I don’t know. Given the people we’ve run into thus far, I think we need to get off the trail entirely and avoid everyone unless we can somehow assess they’re not a threat,” she said.

  “Good point. Let’s look at the map and think about where to go from here.” Sam pulled a folded map from one of his cargo pockets. “Watch the door for us.”

  Sam spread the worn map across the counter in the ranger’s station and started tracing his finger across the trails while Jane positioned herself where she could see both the map and the door.

  “We’re here. So…if we take this trail north, we could ditch the trail at this point and cut through the forest to this ridge. We’d be heading in the general direction of Evansville, in a good position to exit the park tomorrow morning,” said Sam.

  “Tomorrow morning? You want to stay here tonight? I think we need to keep going. Who knows what’s happening with Lea. I don’t want to waste any more time. She could be in real danger.”

  “I know. But at a normal pace, we’re looking at a two-day hike to our house. Minimum. Two long days, taking the quickest route, and we really don’t know if that route will be clear. Besides, it’s almost five. We only have a few more hours of daylight.”

  She nodded, muttering a curse under her breath. “All right. Do you remember Charlie from the PD? You met him about a year ago at Sid’s retirement party. He lives in Porter. It’s roughly halfway between here and Evansville, pretty much in our path. I think we should head out before first light tomorrow and get to his house as fast as we can. He lives by himself in a fairly remote location. The guys always rib him about living like a hermit. We can figure out what’s happening and rest there before setting off on the second half of the hike.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Let’s get out of here before more hikers pass through. This is probably ground zero for anyone in the area looking for help, and the last place we should be.”

  Sam refolded the map with shaky hands, placing it back in his pocket.

  Jane gripped his hand. “Hey, it will be okay. We’ll get home.”

  “I’m not worried about that. It made me crazy to see those men acting like that toward you. What they wanted to do,” he said.

  “All in a day’s work. Those guys were relatively harmless. Just looking to score whatever they could. I could tell they weren’t the hardened types who will kill a person for no reason at all.” She squeezed his hand tighter.

  “I know you’re in danger every day, but seeing you in danger up close really rattled me.”

  Wrapping her arms around his waist, Jane hugged Sam tightly. “You did great back there. I could barely tell you aren’t a pro.”

  He forced a laugh. “Yeah, right. My gun was shaking so badly, I thought I would shoot you in the process of pulling off my knight-in-shining-armor routine.”

  Pushing back from Sam, but keeping hold of his hands, Jane smiled. “You have been and will always be my knight in shining armor. But maybe you should leave the gun flashing to me.”

  “Deal. You ready to get going?”

  “Ready as ever.”

  Chapter Six

  They hiked for almost an hour through the woods, mostly off the trail. For the short time they followed the trail, if they heard someone coming, they quickly sought cover in the trees and scrub until the hikers moved on. Sam now understood why the family they’d seen earlier in the day chose to scurry off the trail and hide from them. The family knew, as they did now, that the biggest threat to their safety came from the other humans. He finally found a tucked-away place to spend the night on the ridge they had identified on the map. The location was deep in the forest, off the beaten path and far from prying eyes. It also gave them a commanding view of the valley below.

  “Do you think a fire is a good idea?” asked Jane.

  “As much as I would like to say yes, I don’t think it is. Do you?”

  “Not really, but I was hoping you would talk me into lighting one. I could go for some hot food.”

  “Reconstituted chum isn’t cutting it for you anymore?”

  “Frankly, I’d rather go hungry than eat another one of your survival meals. What time do you want to get moving tomorrow?” She opened a zipped bag of granola.

  “The sun rises around 6:30 a.m. We should have enough light to make our way up and out around 5:30. If everything goes as planned, we should be at Charlie’s house around dinnertime or at least before it gets too dark again to navigate.”

  Jane exhaled while quietly staring at the ground. Sam knew something was wrong. Jane was not a quiet person unless she was either upset or sick.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Worried. What do you think is happening with Lea? It’s beyond frustrating to be this far away, unable to check in with her.”

  “I know. We’ll see her soon enough. At the very least, we’ll get a handle on what’s happening from Charlie. That will help us a lot. My guess, given the condition of the cars in the lot, is that an EMP caused the damage.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. I wonder what caused it and how far the damage spreads?”

  “If it is an EMP, the area affected could be widespread, as in half of the countr
y. The cause? We may never know. And it probably doesn’t matter. All we can do is focus on keeping ourselves safe until things get back to normal,” he said, adding, “If they ever get back to what passed as normal.”

  “I have a really bad feeling we may never see normal again,” she said before yawning deeply.

  “Come on, we should get some sleep, or at least try to. We have two long days ahead of us.” He took her hand and helped her up.

  Inside their two-person tent, Sam and Jane lay entwined in each other’s arms. Sam never tired of the moments he spent holding her. In her arms he felt both invincible and helpless. He loved her with the same intensity now as ever. Breathing in the sweet smell of her hair, he lightly kissed her head before drifting off.

  ~ ~ ~

  Jane lay there, recently woken from a light sleep. Darn it. I have to pee. She hated the complications of going to the bathroom in the woods, especially in the middle of the night. Prior to retiring for the evening, Jane always made a mental map of the site and a plan for later, when she would inevitably have to get up to relieve herself. Tonight was no different. She knew she needed to circle behind the tent in order to stay clear of the ridgeline and its obvious dangers. Trying not to wake Sam, Jane slowly and carefully unzipped the tent and made her way into the steamy night air.

  Standing up straight, she stretched her back and yawned. As she pivoted to head behind the tent, she froze. Shaking the sleepy haze, she stared over the ridge into the valley. That can’t be right.

  “Sam, Sam, wake up. You have to see this,” she hissed. She stuck her foot into the tent and nudged Sam’s leg. “Come on, wake up.”

  “What is it? Are you hurt?” said Sam, rustling to get out of his sleeping bag.

  “No, just get up. I need to show you something.”

  Sam slowly got up and joined her near the ridgeline. Standing side by side, holding hands, Sam and Jane looked in the direction of the valley—seeing a vast darkness. The sounds of the forest intensified, enveloping them in fear. The sheer expanse of the blackness was unlike anything either of them had ever seen. No lights twinkled in the distance. Not a single illuminated road snaked through the landscape. A changed world lay before them, requiring nothing short of raw survival.