The Fractured Earth (4 page)

As I climbed out of the ditch and up onto the road, I looked both ways before stepping out.

Force of habit. I wondered if the next generation would need to look both ways.

"Is everyone okay up here?" asked Dad cautiously. I didn't see any fires or completely crumpled cars, so I was hopeful that no one was seriously hurt.

"I think so," said the man who still had a running truck, an older guy. "The big rig seemed to go out of control, like maybe the driver fell asleep, but at least he didn't kill anyone. Are you okay too?"

Definitely a northerner. Back in Texas where I grew up, he would have asked, "Are y'all okay too.”

"Yeah, we're fine," said my dad. "Could I ask you a question?" 

"If you want a ride somewhere, I can't help you—I'm sure the police will be along soon, son."

Son—Dad's almost sixty years old.
  I laughed silently. I liked this old guy.

"My name is Bill," said my Dad. "This is Mark. And it's not about that. There's something you should know about what happened here."

The old man looked at us curiously, taking in all our gear. His eyes flickered to the water and medical kit that Dad held, and he asked, "Are you a doctor or EMT?"

"No sir, just here to help if I can. Look, this wasn't a driver that fell asleep. His truck lost all power."

He looked at us like we were half nuts. "Now how could you know that?" he asked, incredulous.

I said, "Because the same thing happened to our truck, and those other two cars up there were already out of control before the semi showed up. And your truck is still running. Do you know what that means? Because we do.”

Less than one percent of Americans are prepared to survive for extended periods without the supportive infrastructure of a modern society. Less than one percent would recognize what had happened.

This guy is a ninety-nine percenter.

"What?" he asked.

"Sir," said my dad, "we've been hit by an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse. It's disabled all sophisticated electronics, like in those vehicles, but older ones like your truck can still work since they don't rely on them so much. Do you have a cell phone? I'll bet dollars to donuts it doesn't work anymore."

"That's crazy," he said, pulling out his phone. "It's charged, and I just called my sis…" He trailed off, looking at the device. He pressed buttons, shook it, then looked at us again with a blank expression.

"EMP," I said. "They can be caused by a strong solar flare, or … they can also be caused by a high altitude nuclear blast, theoretically before an invasion to cripple the country."

It was a long wait before he spoke again.

"Uh..." he said. "What?" he added a few seconds later.

"Sir," Dad said, "you have a working vehicle. Maybe the only one on this entire highway right now. That means two things: one, people are going to want your truck. And two, you could give me a ride home. The police aren't coming. This has happened all over the state, possibly the eastern part of the U.S. Maybe even further."

He paused and looked around at the scene. I looked too, belatedly realizing I should have been providing some kind of security watch as he talked to the old man. 

The accident victims were all out of their cars, and a few of them were looking from us to the truck driver and back again. I walked a ways away so I could keep everyone in view. Dad continued: "There are some people who will just take your truck. You've seen the riots in places like Ferguson and Baltimore. Hell, even in Keene, New Hampshire—students riot just because they are having a pumpkin festival!"

I pulled my water bottle off my bag, a bit of a stretching exercise since the pocket was hard to reach when the pack was on. I opened it and took a drink, then looped its paracord lanyard over my head. 

"It's going to get bad, sir," said Dad. "We can help protect your truck. We'd like to get a ride toward Salisburg as far as you'll go, and we can help protect you if you'll take us."

He paused again, but it didn't look like the dude was going to say anything. I tapped Dad on the shoulder and looked back down the road. He followed my gaze. 

Still looking down the road, he said, "You need to act quickly, though. Things are going to get really bad really fast. Anyone on this road or over on the other side," he said, pointing to the eastbound lanes, "might know what we know, and they might not ask nicely or take 'No' for an answer. Please?"

I sighed when the old man didn't speak and just stared at Dad with frightened eyes. My dad looked back to the driver. "Think about it, but don't think too long." He gestured with his head toward the east, back up the road. The old man looked back and saw what I had seen—three big guys walking down the middle of the road toward us. They'd been in the other car that the semi had forced off the road when it first lost power.

With that, Dad touched my arm and we walked over to the accident and started asking if everyone was okay. We gave a bottle of water to a disheveled woman and checked on the semi driver. He had climbed out of his truck window and was leaning against his tires, tapping at a cell phone with frustration.

"Damn phone, what the hell? It was charged," I heard him mumble.

"Hey, are you okay, sir?" I asked. "Looks like you've got a cut on your hand, there." I could see an angry red mark on his left hand.

"Yeah, scraped it on the door while climbing out. Listen, could I use your phone? Mine isn't working."

"Don't have one, sorry." No lie, I really didn't have one anymore. It was just a doorstop now, sitting in my dad's truck. A little doorstop in a really big door. "I have some water if you need it, and an antiseptic wipe and a bandage, though." I handed him the last water bottle and the bandage stuff. I had one more bottle in my backpack, plus my steel bottle. I didn't worry about water—Massachusetts is wet country, especially in the north near the New Hampshire border where I lived, and we had plenty of ways to disinfect it in the hunting belt and medical kit.

"Thanks," he said, taking the offered supplies. "What the hell happened, man? My truck just died! Those things are almost impossible to handle without any power."

"I think you did well. You recovered and slowed down enough, and no one is seriously hurt." I glanced back at the old man and his one working truck. He was talking to his other passengers and pointing our way. I shifted my glance down the highway. The three guys from the other car were about three hundred yards away. "No one is seriously hurt," I repeated, a little more quietly. I could make out the three better now, and one was actually a rather large woman wearing a plaid, long-sleeved shirt and dark sweatpants. She was dangerous just from a fashion sense—a guy could burn his eyes out looking at that getup.

Of course, who was I to talk, decked out in camo and sporting a machete? The other two had on camouflage pants and long sleeve shirts, and reminded me of a mechanic who’d once worked on a camper that died on a trip to the Smoky Mountains. I figured he could just lift that old thing up on blocks without a ramp.

I didn't see anything in their hands, which was worse than one of them with a tire iron. Dad had the same thought, pulling me away from the driver. "We can't anticipate what we can't see, so we'd better assume one of them has a handgun. A rifle or shotgun doesn't seem likely, since they all have their hands out and I don't see a barrel poking up over a shoulder."

Of course, those sweatpants could be hiding a bazooka and no one would know. I smirked, imagining her handing it to one of the Mongo twins and them saying, "Yuck, ma! That wuz down yer drawers!"

In any case, time was running out. They were two hundred yards away, and they weren't smiling.

We walked, at a normal speed, back to the old man's truck. "They're getting pretty close now. Do we have a deal?" asked my dad.

"How do I know you aren't just as bad, or worse?" asked the old man.

"Frankly you don't, but I can tell you this: I know a little bit about what's going on. I think I can defend myself and my son, and probably you and your family. And I think trouble is coming at you right now. But I'm not going to try and take your truck, nor am I going to defend you without being invited to. The law is pretty clear on this—I have to let them take the truck unless it's endangering my life or those of innocents. So take us with you or get out of the truck right now and let these people have it. Or take your chances."

I looked at the old man, and Dad, back at the three approaching strangers, and at the old lady in the truck. The old man just looked back. The old lady in the truck glared daggers at me. "Jonathan, you get in this truck right now! We're leaving and we aren't taking anyone with us, especially not some backwoods survival type nutcases!"

I looked at Dad and he shrugged, looking pointedly at the three others, now within a hundred yards, then back at the old man. The old man shrugged and got into his truck. I looked at the three people coming up, and they started jogging. I don't think they could run, but I didn't want to test that lugging all this gear. Dad and I began walking away. I took one last look at the truck with a question in my eyes, but they were just in there arguing and not looking at us.

We walked quickly off the highway and headed toward the brush, glancing back as the trio puffed their way to the truck, which was still just sitting there. When I reached the tree line, we turned left and headed west, still watching the accident scene over my shoulder. I could hear a loud discussion but couldn't make out any words.

Dad turned right again, with me following three feet or so behind, and headed into the trees and the brush. When we had a little bit of concealment, Dad stopped and we looked back at the accident. I was sure those three were going to demand a ride, and take one if it wasn't given. 

Dad had the same thought. "This isn't going to end well," he said. I had a sense that they understood what had happened too, and I wanted my gear and fragile flesh out of their reach.

"Did you see the other passenger?" he asked. 

"No," I admitted, "but it might have been someone small."

"Like a little girl or boy?" he asked. I nodded. I knew what he why he was asking.
Maybe a teenage girl
.

"Should we go back?"

"Mark, I hate this, but there's little we can do without risking our lives."

I fought the heaviness of my chest and nodded.

"We have no way of knowing what kind of weapons those three might have. All we have is the survival rifle and my Shield. A 20 gauge birdshot round would need to be right in their face, and you'd be lucky if the .22LR could penetrate their denim jackets and shirts with enough force to do any damage. Headshots might kill them, but that's fiction for the movies—we'll miss for sure. And with only two shots, you can't reload quickly enough. Only my handgun stands a chance."

I'd used my dad's M&P Shield. He had seven—no ... the bigger magazine—so eight bullets plus one in the chamber. Nine millimeter, plenty of stopping power, and it kicked like a mule.

"But I'd have to get close," said Dad. "If I was fifteen yards away, I might hit forty percent of my shots, so that's good for maybe three and a half bad guys. At thirty yards, I'd be lucky to hit two of them. And that's assuming they were standing still and upright, with nice white shirts against a dark background.

"Just too dangerous. If any one of them had a gun, we'd be dead for sure."

So we waited in the trees, watching the scene, and maybe we would have an opportunity to help. If the old guy had offered the ride, we would have lain in the back with the survival rifle pointing over the tailgate. Dad would tell the driver to get moving right away, maybe fire a warning shot as we yelled for the trio to stay clear. I'm pretty sure that would have worked okay. 

Dad said it's only an assault charge if you show a gun but don't shoot it. I wonder if that counted when you fired into the air?