Worst Case Scenario (2 page)

CHAPTER 4

“Thank God!” Leah Burrows said after hearing the call from her daughter.  She keyed the mike to respond.  She closed her blinds after counting three columns of black smoke rising around the city. 

“Tardis Blue, this is Momma B, I hear you.  Where are you?  Over.”

Leah waited 30 seconds.

“Tardis Blue, this is Momma B, I hear you.  Where are you?  Over.”  She repeated with a little more urgency.  There was no response from her daughter.

“Where are you Grace?”

Her eyes scanned the map of the city they had tacked to the wall several years earlier.

<  >

Six years ago she had approached her husband with her concern that their family was ill prepared for disaster.

“Disaster?  What kind of disaster are you thinking about?” Ian asked her as they sat on their back deck enjoying a summer weekend.

She had been thinking about broaching this subject for some time and this afternoon seemed better than any other.  “I don’t know,” she swallowed hard and pressed on.  “Things like tornados, hurricanes, the power going out or…or terrorism,” she said, feeling better about getting it out in the open.

Ian nodded, thinking about her concerns before answering, something he did before making decisions.  He could tell this was leading to a greater conversation or a family policy shift.  “I’ve been thinking about some of the same things,” he admitted.

“Really?”  The tension seemed to melt away from Leah’s shoulders.  She backhanded his arm.  “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, with the new position, I guess I’ve been busy or whatever.”  Ian had actually been thinking more and more about this very subject.  Everyday there was footage on the news about killings from terrorists or the government overstepping its bounds to control people.  He hated that he had actually put terrorism and the government in the same thought, but times were different now, and it caused him to question everything; regardless of whom he or Leah worked for.

“I really think it makes sense,” he rubbed the spot on his shoulder where she had hit him with a little too much drama.  “I mean to prepare for whatever,” he added to recapture his seriousness.

“It does doesn’t it!” she answered.  “I’m not so much worried about an invasion force, I think we can handle that,” she said with a wink to her husband.  “But with the tornadoes coming through town last year we got lucky that the power was out for only a day, but in reality, it could’ve been a lot longer.”

Ian nodded.  “It could have been a lot longer,” he admitted.  “Also, with my new job, I’m going to be traveling a lot more, and it will make me feel better knowing that you and Grace have a plan no matter what happens.”

<  >

And so, a decision to store a few gallons of water and some extra food had evolved into a second profession for both of them.  They were officially ‘preppers’; a position they didn’t speak about in public.

Besides Grace, no one else knew that they had an entire room dedicated to the survival of their family.  The room was only the start.  During their spare time Ian taught Leah about security and how to survive different scenarios; all skills he had learned as a former Army Officer. 

The most important thing they did was to devise a plan for the survival of their family.  No matter the situation, they had a plan for it. 

Leah looked at the plan, stuck to the wall of their ‘special’ room.  This was her baby; her strong suit, she was the plan maker.  The plan was very clear and very simple:

Establish family communication, if possible.

Assemble the family to one of two locations.

Perform a security and survival assessment.

Assess the risk of bugging out or staying home.

Make a decision and implement the plan.

Leah keyed the mike to the two-way radio again.  “Tardis Blue this is Momma B, what’s your location? Over,” she said, starting the first item on the plan: establish family communications, if possible. 

The situation seemed bad, but she was still not convinced that the situation was the worst case scenario that she and Ian had conceived.  Although, with the three columns of black smoke surrounding the city, things were looking bad.  

But, for this to be their worst case scenario, there had to be more.  Their idea of it all hitting the fan was that of a large-scale terrorist attack or enemy invasion. 
Was this one of those?

Ian had been convinced that a ‘dirty’ bomb or EMP would be the most likely way that terrorists could do the most damage against the country.  But every time they started planning for such an event, they ran into the problem of location and logistics.  In order for their family to survive, they would always have to be together and ready, and in today’s society, with each one of them having individual lives, that was not an option.

Ian was on the road a lot with his job and Grace was about to go to college.  Even Leah traveled internationally several times a year for the international charity she worked for.  So, at the end of the day, they had decided to plan as best as they could for as much as possible. 

The hardest decision they had agreed to as a couple was the likelihood that both Leah and Ian would not make it out alive in the first 72 hours if one of their worst case scenarios were to happen.  So they agreed between themselves that they would never both be out of town at the same time and leave Grace behind.  They knew that one of them would need to survive in order to help Grace survive. It was not an acceptable risk, it was just reality.

< >

“Tardis Blue this is Momma B, what’s your location? Over.”  She looked down at the radio.  It was on channel 25 and the batteries were strong.

“Okay Daisy,” she said talking to the dog in an attempt to drive down her own rising anxiety about the evolving situation.  She felt lost without information of the greater situation or the whereabouts of her family.  “What do we know, girl?”  She walked herself through a situational analysis.

The dog stared at her, her tail wagging gently at the attention.

“We’ve heard Grace’s voice so we don’t know exactly where she is, but we know she’s close.”  Leah looked at the city map again.  There was a blue ring drawn around part of the city.  Her house was at the center of the blue circle and the line represented the range of her two-way radio.

“So, she’s at least within 20 miles.  But, knowing that she was going out with Anna and that she has found the radio, I bet she’s at Anna’s house.”  She put her finger on a pushpin on the map representing Anna’s house.  There were other pushpins on the map, each one representing a place of significance to someone in the family.  Each pushpin was color coded to a particular family member.  Grace’s were blue, Ian’s were red and Leah’s were yellow.

The pushpin on Anna’s house had a number written on the head of the pin, it said, “8,” representing the number of miles from their house.

“Okay Daisy, she’s most likely 8 miles away.  That’s good, I think,” she said having a sudden thought and wanted to confirm all of the information that was swirling around in her head.  She wanted to convince herself that she was over reacting.
This is not the worst case scenario.
The last thing she wanted to do was confirm that her suspicions were right.

She grabbed the spare key for her SUV hanging in the room and went into the garage to see if it would start.  She opened the door and noticed that the dome light didn’t come on.

“That’s not good.”

She stuck the key into the ignition and closed her eyes for a second.  A small prayer passed her lips as she turned the key over.  Nothing.  She tried again.  Nothing.

“Damn it! It’s real,” she said to herself.  Realization hit her like the airbag of her car that would never work.  A wave of fear coursed through her body and she sat back in the seat feeling her breath falling short and the water of tears forming along the rims of her eyes.

“Damn it!  Damn it!” she said again, and pounded the steering wheel with her fists.  She put her head on her hands and rested on the wheel.  It was quiet in the car except for one small ticking sound.  “Son of a…” her eyes went to the analog watch on her wrist. It was still working.  It was 5:55 PM.

For the first time she realized that her husband was scheduled to make a connecting flight in Atlanta about now.  Her mind flashed to the pillars of black smoke she had seen around the city.

“Oh God, I hope he wasn’t in the air?” she said to Daisy as she exited the SUV and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Daisy, on me,” she said, commanding the dog to stay with her.

The dog stopped wagging and fell in step next to her master.

CHAPTER 5

Ian Burrows helped two more people out of the water before collapsing on the bank of the lake.  From the crash of the 40 passenger regional jet, 5 people had lived.  One was bleeding from a large gash across his head and there was a woman that was still unconscious.  Besides the lady that was sitting next to Ian, the only other person to emerge from the water was the co-pilot.  He looked shocked, but otherwise unscratched.

“How did this happen?” Ian asked the man.

The pilot sat looking at the nosecone of his plane sitting in the shallow water of the west Georgia lake. He had escaped through the top hatch; the pilot in command died on impact. In the distance, like a giant growing fungus, an enormous mushroom cloud reflected the light of the setting sun. The scene was surreal.

“I don’t know,” the pilot offered and then turned to look at Ian.  “Right before the shockwave hit us, we heard some radio chatter.”

“Chatter?” It was the man that had pulled Ian from the water.  “What kind of chatter?”  He asked as he tried to stop the bleeding and bandage the gash of the passenger with the head wound.

The pilot shook his head for a minute, not really responding.  He then closed his eyes and tried to recall what he heard. “I don’t know.  It was weird and only for a few seconds before Atlanta was hit.  Something about New York and DC.”

Ian had been in DC last week working with one of the Second Amendment lobby groups. 
Were they gone too
?

“What did you hear?” Ian asked.  He ran his hand over his head unsure if he was sweating or still wet from the lake.

“EMP,” the pilot said quietly.

The man that had pulled Ian from the lake tied off the bandage on the bleeding passenger and stood.  Ian noted that he looked visually shaken by the simple three letters.   “EMP!  EMP! A nuke on Atlanta and an EMP over DC and New York!  Holy crap, man!”

Ian also stood.  The three letters meant something to him also.  It meant that Atlanta wasn’t a one-off or an isolated event.  An EMP in the northeast plus a nuclear detonation in Atlanta meant terrorism on a massive scale and it meant he needed to get home…to get to his family.  This was his worst case scenario.

“What’s your name?” Ian asked the man that had rescued him.  He needed to push the shock of the plane crash and looming mushroom cloud from his mind.  He needed to focus.  He had a new mission in his mind; to get to his family and ensure their survival.  It was time for him to execute the plan that he and his wife had agreed upon.

“Dukes.  Everyone calls me Dukes,” the man said, putting his hand gently on the shoulder of the young girl that had helped pull them from the lake.  “This is my daughter, Penny.”

“Thank you for what you did,” Ian acknowledged the heroics of the man and his daughter for helping to save his life. He shook the man’s hand and looked into their eyes in order to solidify his thankfulness.

Dukes just nodded.  “I wish I could’ve done more,” he simply said, with a quick glance at the watery grave of the lake.

“So,” Ian let the comment go unanswered. “Where are we?  How far from that are we?” he asked, pointing to the mushroom cloud.

“Ah, about 75 miles.  You crashed in West Point Lake north of Columbus and west of La Grange, Georgia.  We should be okay, the winds are out of the…”

“West,” the pilot added, also finding his senses.  “The winds should take any fall out to the east.”  He pointed in the general direction of east.  “We were circling the lake until the ATL pattern cleared.  They always make the regional jets circle,” he added.

“Lucky for us,” the lady that had been sitting next to Ian on the plane, added.  She was pale and shivered, but for the most part, she seemed to be improving.  She had survived thanks to Ian.  “I’m Mary,” she added, walking up to Ian.  “Thank you,” she said quietly, holding her arms out to hug him.

Ian nodded and hugged the lady back.  He was happy to accept the human nature of gratitude from the lady. She started crying and Ian could only hold her. He caught the eye of Penny, who seemed to know what he was thinking.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Penny asked Mary, gently putting her hands on her shoulder and prying her away from Ian.  They took two steps back away from the water and sat down on a bed of pine straw.  Mary buried her head in the young girl’s shoulder and continued to cry.

“Do you have a phone, a radio, a CB or something?” the pilot asked.  “I need to get help on the horn,” his voice trailed off, as he suddenly seemed drawn back to the mushroom shape looming on the horizon.

“I don’t think help’s on the way,” Dukes said.  “I also don’t think any of that stuff will work anymore, not with the nuke and the reports of an EMP and all.”  Penny held up her dead cell phone as proof that it was true.

“Damn,” the pilot said.

“So, we’re on our own?” Mary asked, lifting her head off of Penny’s shoulder and sniffing uncontrollably.  “We’re out here alone?  No one’s coming to help us?  We crashed in a lake, for God’s sake!”

“Looks that way,” Dukes said quickly.

“Daddy, we have the short wave at home, maybe that still works.”  Ian saw Dukes eyes twitch a little as the girl revealed information.

Dukes smiled at his daughter.  “Good thought, Penny.  We should get you all back to our place so you can dry off and take a better look at your injuries.  We’re not that far.”

“Shouldn’t we go to the police or a hospital or something?” Mary asked, exasperated with the idea that they were on their own.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Dukes answered.  “The hospital is about 12 miles into town, and I don’t know how much good the police can do right now,” he remarked shortly, as if to say,
do you not see the mushroom cloud, lady?

Ian noted that no one wanted to admit that the world had just changed.  From what he knew thousands of people, if not millions of people had died today.  This group was on its own and he needed to get to his family.  If that meant going to Dukes’ house to find out more info then that’s what he was going to do.  He had already made up his mind that his family was alive.  They had to be.  This would be the vision that would drive him forward.

“It’s only a few miles or so up the road,” Dukes added.

Ian noticed for the first time that the man and his daughter were both wearing camouflage.  He watched Dukes pull a blanket and a long black machete out of a backpack that was sitting next to a shotgun. 

“You were hunting?” Ian asked, noting the gauge of the shotgun and that Dukes also had a side arm strapped around his shoulder.

“Yes.  We have a late turkey season along the lake.  We were headed to one of my blinds,” Dukes answered smoothly, noting that Ian was observant.

“What’re you going to do with those?” Mary asked as Penny stood to help her father. 

“Stretcher for the lady,” she said, pointing with the sharp end of the machete towards the unconscious lady on the ground.

“Oh.”

Within five minutes Dukes and Penny had crafted a stretcher from two saplings and the blanket.  Ian and the pilot placed the lady onto the stretcher and tentatively lifted her for the hike.

Dukes and Penny each picked up their shotguns before leading the survivors toward their home.  Ian looked back over his shoulder at the crash scene and at the mushroom cloud that reflected on the water.  He said a quick prayer for those that had died today and then looked at the analog watch on his wrist.  It was 6:30 at home.