End Days Super Boxset (169 page)

"Janice, we need to do what we've been planning for all this time. We have to take advantage of the bug-out house. We're not going to stay there forever, but it's going to be safer in the long run. Think about it. The longer we wait, the more dangerous it's going to get out there. The more dangerous it gets, the more unlikely our chances are to ever make it to Milledgeville." Mark paused. “Listen," he said, leaning in closer. "I talked to James. Milledgeville's almost two hundred miles away, and they're going through the exact same thing we are. We have no idea the scope of this."

Janice nodded but still couldn't feel the same urgency Mark did about leaving. "If we waited a couple of days, we could then leave late at night if we had to. It would be safer out. Fewer people, fewer everything."

"We can't sit here and wait for them to come for us. You saw how many people chased after my car in your parking lot. That was, what, a few hours after the attack? How do you think those same people are going to react after three days with no power?"

Janice said nothing as Mark placed his hands on her arms and looked into her eyes. "I don't want to do anything that you don't want to do. Just consider it. Think about what I'm saying. I'm only concerned about our safety. You're my wife, and I can't do any of this without you."

Janice felt her eyes water but tried to not to get more emotional. Everything she had dreaded was happening at a frightening speed. She looked into Mark's eyes and tried to arrive to an answer.

Monday, September 21, 2025 8:45 A.M. Atlanta, GA

Interstate 75 was a nightmare, typical of Monday morning rush-hour traffic. Terrance had left his house a little later than planned and was on his way to Dearborn, Michigan, in his eighteen wheeler semi. As of now, the forty-foot trailer hitched to his glossy red cab was empty. Thirty pallets of copper wire awaited him in South Carolina then on to the Wolverine state. By his own estimate, he was an hour behind schedule, which, in the trucking business, was not a good thing. He knew I-75 would be a pain, it always was. Once he found himself in the thick of it, he tried to think of alternative routes, but few existed. He called other drivers on CB radio, asking them how far the gridlock extended. The news wasn’t good, and Terrance soon found there was no way around it. Traffic was going to be crawling no matter which route he took. He only had himself to blame for any delays. If only he’d gotten out of bed earlier and hit the road.

He thought back to that morning. The cool bedroom, the soft pillow tucked under his head. It was still dark outside, and then the alarm clock buzzed. "Ten years," Terrance muttered under his breath as he finally sat up in bed that morning. "Ten more years and I'm done." He had a lot of years on the road. Could he do ten more?

Terrance felt the absence of his family every time he left home. He believed, over the years, that he would get used to it. Having a steady job, after all, wasn't something to take for granted. Even with Christina working, they were making just enough to get by.

His boys were in high school now, and all Terrance and Christina asked and hoped for was that they graduated. If they could make it that far, their parents would feel they had done their jobs. Terrance stared ahead, squinting against the rising sun. The light was blinding, even with his sunglasses on. Traffic clogged the road as far as he could see. "Dammit," he said, downshifting to a crawl. Terrance hated to be late, especially when it involved his haul, but had little control of the situation. He held the CB microphone in his hand and spoke, hoping someone was listening.

"Any way around this cluster in the Big A?"

A static-filled voice replied over the radio. "Clears up in about six miles," the man said.

"10-4,"Terrance said back, "You see the 85 exit up there, Big Boss?"

"That's a go," the man responded.

"Good thing. Got to get to the Carolinas before noon."

"What's your 99?" the man asked.

"Dearborn, Michigan."

"Good luck with that, buddy," the man said.

"Thank ya' much," Terrance said as he hung the microphone up.

He had left the house later than planned. Just a few more moments with the wife and kids had cost him dearly, but his next three weeks on the road would be lonely. In the end, he thought it was worth it. Terrance decided to crank up the radio and listen to some old-school R&B, which only made him think of Christina. He tipped the bill of his hat down to deflect the sun's blinding beams and took a sip from his large, steaming coffee cup. He’d picked it up at the 7-Eleven where he had fueled up before starting the journey.

The coffee tasted good, and it looked to be a nice, ordinary day, when suddenly, everything changed. Suddenly a bright flash streaked across the sky like some kind of all-encompassing lightning bolt. Following the flash, Terrance noticed silence on the radio. His switched to his CB radio, and heard nothing, not even static. His engine sputtered out, and a thin, wavy line of smoke rose from under the hood. Terrance stomped on the gas pedal, but the truck didn't respond. He shifted to neutral and coasted a few feet before applying his brakes to avoid hitting the station wagon in front of him. He shifted into park with a quick jerk of the stick and then applied the parking brake.

"Shit," Terrance said, removing his hat and wiping a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. His truck had died, and he wasn't even out of Atlanta yet. Of all the unpredictable bullshit in the world, he hadn't expected it. Maybe it was a blown gasket. Maybe the battery had failed. Something, somehow, had triggered a shutdown. In all his time driving, Terrance had never experienced a complete and random shutdown in the middle of the Interstate. He gripped the wheel with one hand and turned the key repeatedly in the other. He heard mechanical clicking noises from the steering column and little else. Then he heard nothing. The truck was deader than a twelve-hour roadkill.

He shifted from neutral to park to reverse and tried to start the truck in each gear. He was afraid for a moment that he was holding up traffic behind him and pushed the hazard light button on his dashboards. The lights didn't work anymore than the radio or anything else inside or outside the truck worked.

Terrance glanced into his side mirror, and then looked ahead. Traffic had stopped in both directions. An overhead traffic sign which had flashed “Heavy Congestion Ahead” a moment before was completely blank. Every car was frozen in time. Terrance rolled down his window manually and looked outside. A motorcyclist passed slowly in between lanes, gripping his handlebars to maintain balance as he doggedly pushed the bike forward with his legs. Terrance watched as the cyclist inched down the interstate. Drivers in cars around his truck appeared riddled with confusion.

Hundreds of engines had shut down in unison. Drivers were left at the mercy of their once reliable vehicles, stopped dead. It was only morning, and already hot. The weather forecast predicted peaks in the high nineties throughout most of the day. Terrance saw no coincidence in any of it, and believed something major had just happened.

To get a clearer picture, he decided to get out of the truck. No matter what he did, or how many times he turned the key, the truck wouldn't restart. Terrance climbed down the steps onto the pavement of the interstate and slowly walked in between cars on the five-lane highway to see if was any better up ahead. Other drivers and passengers had the same idea. Hoods opened, children cried, frustrated drivers cursed under their breath, and all the while, Terrance observed everything, trying to get an idea of what was happening.

"Just stay in the car, Linda, I'll handle this," a nearby man said. He sounded confident but looked totally dumbfounded as he examined the engine of his white four-door Buick Regal. His wife ducked back inside and sat anxiously watching from the passenger's seat.

"Son of a bitch!" another man shouted as he fiddled with the connectors of his car battery.

"What the hell is going on?" A woman asked a girl who was standing next to her. They stared at their smart phones in disbelief.

"My phone's out," a man said.

"Mine too," another responded.

Terrance hustled some distance down the road before he stopped and turned around. He reached into his pocket to pull out his older model flip phone. He was a man who still used road maps. Even his modest flip phone was completely dead, like the other more recent models of the people around him. He held down the power button, waiting for the screen to flash on, but nothing happened. He opened it from the back, took out the battery, then placed it back in. No results.

"Ma'am, is your cell phone working?" Terrance asked a sharply-dressed woman leaning against the side of her Volvo, wearing an exhausted expression. Her eyes looked away from her phone and up to him for only a second.

"I've got nothing," she said.

"No bars?" Terrance asked.

She looked back at him with a hint of annoyance. "No, I mean I can't even get the phone to come on, which is totally crazy, because I just charged this thing this morning."

"Thank you," Terrance said, walking back to his truck. The simultaneous loss of vehicles and cell phones were linked in some way he hadn't quite figured out yet. He had a handheld two-way radio in his truck. It was the same one that he had asked each member of his family to carry in case of emergencies. If the radio still worked, it would be the first time he had ever used it to contact them. The first time in which it had been necessary.

“Can't be true,” Terrance thought, shaking his head. “There's got to be another explanation.”

He suspected an EMP strike. It seemed plausible. The morning's events had hit him unexpectedly and hard, just like everyone else around him. He climbed back into his truck and searched the glove compartment for his handheld radio, wrapped in layers of plastic and aluminum foil. The added precaution was to ensure that the radio would function after such an attack. He’d read about it on a prepper forum. To protect a piece of electronics, they said, the item must be wrapped in a non-conductive material. Again, Terrance had no way to know for sure if the theory would work, but it had seemed worth the try. He had placed the radio in a Ziploc bag and wrapped it in aluminum foil. He then placed the wrapped radio in another Ziploc bag and, again, wrapped it in aluminum foil. For the final step, he placed the radio in a small brown paper bag and sealed it.

Terrance unwrapped the radio in anticipation, and once exposed, he quickly switched it on by the turning the volume knob. A red light came on, and static sounded through the speaker. He felt a flash of happiness and relief and was genuinely surprised to find that the radio had power. It was powered by four AA lithium batteries. He hoped that his wife and children had taken the same precaution and kept their handheld radios wrapped as well.

The semi sat in the middle of the highway, motionless, already an artifact in a sea of other disabled vehicles that showed no indication of moving anytime soon or possibly ever again. Terrance gathered the rest of his belonging
s
—a
backpack with snacks, bottled water, some clothes, soaps, some cash, and lastly, his snub nose .38 revolver. He closed the glossy red door of his prized semitruck and patted it gently. "Goodbye, Deborah," he said, while running his hand across her side. They had spent the last ten years together and had seen most of the better part of the entire majestic USA. With his backpack slung over the shoulders of his plaid shirt, Terrance walked down the highway, heading in the direction from which he had just come. His only option was to get back home and get his family together. He just hoped they had their radios on them.

The extent of what was happening, how it happened, and what was in store was not known by Terrance. He could only speculate. As he moved at a brisk pace, every other commuter on the road seemed engulfed in confusion. Some stood by their vehicles staring into their hoods in desperate anticipation of answers. Others paced, muttering under their breaths. Some, like Terrance, abandoned their vehicles all together. Others sat in their cars waiting for help that would never come. He came across a station wagon, at least ten years old, and found an elderly woman at the wheel, nearly passed out from the heat. Terrance lightly knocked on the side of her car to get the woman's attention. Her eyelids opened, and she glanced at him from behind the thick lens of her vintage-framed glasses.

"Excuse me, ma'am, are you okay?" Terrance asked.

"I..." she began.” I don't know. My car... it just stopped. I don't know what to do."

Terrance opened the long, squeaky door with care, so as not to alarm the woman. "Your car isn't going to start again," he said. "You need to find yourself some shade and hydrate. Here," he said. He then swung his bag around and pulled out one of his bottled waters and handed it to her.

The woman took the bottle and smiled. "Thank you," she said.

"What's your name, ma'am?" Terrance asked.

The woman thought for a minute, almost confused for a second. She took a drink from the bottle then answered. "My name is Maya," she said.

"Hi, I'm Terrance," he said, taking Maya's arm. "Let's get you into some shade."

Maya was apprehensive about leaving. "But, my car. We can't just leave my car there. It's not safe."

"Everything is going to be okay," Terrance answered. "Your car will be fine for the time being. It isn't going anywhere."

About a quarter mile ahead, they found a police car amidst the traffic. The uniformed officer stood outside his car, messing with his police radio. A small crowd had gathered around him, trying to get answers.

"People, people," the office said with his hand in the air. "I have no clue what's going on. I'm trying to contact the station and get some answers. Just bear with me here."

The questions came from all sides as Terrance approached the officer.

"This woman is in need of assistance, sir. She was very dehydrated when I found her. It's got to be at least ninety-five degrees out. Can you keep an eye on her? Make sure she stays in the shade?"

The officer looked at Terrance, startled, then to Maya. Clearly, he wasn't sure what to say. His stress level seemed to rise in sync with the rising red flush on his face. "I don't know. I guess I can try to... hold on," he answered while messing with the palm-sized mic in his hand. The officer turned back to them, flustered. "Just, just have her sit over there in the shade. I'll try to get her some help."

Terrance led Maya toward a large wall on the side of the road that divided the highway from the opposite lanes on the other side.

"Just stay here and hydrate," he instructed. The old woman nodded and leaned against the cement divider wall of graffiti while gripping the water bottle in her hand. "The officer should be able to help you soon," he continued. Still confused, she didn't respond but managed to give Terrance a smile. "Take care, Maya," he said.