Worst Case Scenario (7 page)

CHAPTER 15

Leah awoke around 5 AM after falling asleep on the couch earlier in the morning.  There was no sound in the house other than Daisy snoring in her bed in the corner. Usually there would be an air conditioner running or a ceiling fan spinning which created noise; even the LEDs in the clock had a noise; but now, there was nothing.  Leah pulled her wristwatch to her ear to hear the sound of the ticking. Her watch matched Ian’s; they had gotten them together.  It seemed to settle her. 

But, it wasn’t just the lack of noise that was bothering her; it was the lack of her family.  Ian traveled a lot, so she had grown used to him being gone for short periods of time, but not her daughter, and certainly not both of them.  She felt like she had let herself go soft from her life before she had children, but being a wife and a mother had changed her in a positive way that she never thought possible. 

Now, with that thought, she was fully awake, and her mind took over.  Have I followed the plan?  Did I give Grace the right instructions?  Why isn’t she home yet?  Is Ian okay?  Will he make it back alive?  Should I hunker down or should I bug out?  Can I leave my family out there and save myself?  Will I remember my training and the plan?  Should I forget everything and go find them myself?

Three days is what Ian and Leah had agreed on.  Three days was the time in which anything could happen. At the end of three days the magic window of anything happening closed, and it was time to make hard decisions.

Leah had followed the plan.  She had everything ready to hunker down and everything ready to bug out.  She had tripped her watch when the power when out, it had been about 12 hours. 

Originally, when they had been developing the survival plan, they wondered if three days to make a decision would be too long.  Now, Leah found herself wishing for more than three days in which to decide what to do. 

Again, Leah stared at her watch and wished for more time as each second ticked by on the analog dial…she shook her head clear from gazing at the watch.  There was no way she was going to make a decision, based on the ticking of a watch, whether she was going to leave her family out there to die or not. 

She got off of the couch, causing Daisy to stretch, yawn and also get up.

“Sorry girl.  I didn’t mean to wake you,” Leah said.  She looked at the two-way radio; it had been on scan mode the entire night, but never picked up a transmission. So, she left it on the counter, grabbed a few teabags, a gallon of water the camping coffee percolator and went onto the back deck.  Daisy followed her out and performed her morning ritual of sniffing and patrolling the entire back yard.

The air was cool, but not overly chilly for a morning in April; living in the South had its advantages.  She lit the side burner of their propane grill, filled the percolator with water and set the pot on the blue flame.  Once the water started steaming she threw the tea bags in the pot and let them steep.

The smell of fresh brewing tea relaxed her, but it was the caffeine that she was after.  She hated coffee, so this was her drink of choice in the mornings and it was one of the commodities that they had stocked up in abundance in case it all hit the fan.

“Hit the fan?” she mumbled to the dog as she hopped back onto the wooden deck.  The dog looked at her and wagged; pretty common response.

“What are we going to do, Daisy?” she asked, taking her first sip of tea and looking out towards the city. 

Their street was built along a series of small mountains and lakes.  Their house was at the highest point of the street, and afforded them a pretty good view of downtown during the early morning hours.  The city was about 20 to 25 miles from where they were, but the higher buildings and radio towers were usually visible from their back deck, even at that distance.

Leah took another sip of tea and then went inside to get her glasses.  She only just started wearing glasses.  It was seeing at a distance that seemed to bother her most.  When she came back out, the sun had spread a little more light on the area and she could see the city clearly for the first time.  What she saw frightened her.

Leah set the tea down and went inside to find the binoculars.  Once she returned to her deck, she focused in on the giant plume of black smoke that billowed over where the city had stood.

“Oh my God, I think they blew up the city,” she said to no one but herself and the dog.  She panned the view of the binoculars left and found another column of smoke.  This one was not as black and didn’t billow as much.  “That one’s almost out.”  She then walked to the front of her house, where she could see a third column of smoke to the east.  It looked the same as the second one.  “Airplanes…” she whispered.

“Daisy, an airplane hit the city, and it’s still burning,” she said, lowering the binoculars and her vision falling on her neighbor’s house across the street.  Her hand went to her mouth.  “Oh God, Amy.  Rob was downtown yesterday.”

She turned to go back inside and heard something.

“What was that?” she stopped and asked the dog, who also stopped at her knees and seemed to perk up.

Leah strained to listen.  Birds were awakening and starting their morning ritual of calling to the sun and the worms, but the noise wasn’t a bird, it was artificial.

Inside the house, the two-way radio crackled on channel 25 with the sound of a man’s voice.  Leah heard it that time, even from her front yard, and she took off around the house to get to her unlocked back door.  She burst through the door and was about to pick up the radio to answer, but the voice and the tone of the man froze her from action.

“Do you hear me?  You Jeep bitch, you shot my brother!  I have your map and your radio and I coming after you!  Do you hear me?”

With trembling hands, Leah turned off the radio and sank to her knees.

“Ian.  Grace.  Where are you?” she asked in-between sobs.

The dog nuzzled up next to her, trying to help in her own way.

“It’s time to go,” she said to the dog.  Tears ran freely down her face.  She was so tired and felt hopeless.

CHAPTER 16

Ian slept fitfully.  He could hear Mary tossing and turning on the couch.  He was sure that she really never slept either.

The last day had been unlike anything else he could have ever imagined.  Even as a soldier in combat, he had never seen anything like what the day had brought.  The scope and scale of the level of destruction that the country had endured, the millions of lives that were vaporized or killed because society was breaking down was like nothing he could dream of; and he had spent several years imagining some pretty horrific scenarios.

<  >

When they first started prepping, it was just a few items here, or an extra bottle of water there.  But, as time passed, and their belief that America was open to attack, their pastime became serious.

As a prepper, knowledge is power, and could be the difference between death and survival.  With this simple idea, they began to use their resources to learn about who the real threats were, and how they might reach the Burrows family.

Using her degrees in social behavior and previous analytical training, Leah focused on terrorism and the reaction that a community has to terror.  Through her research, she quickly identified a societal reaction pattern to when terror strikes, and dubbed it the Freaker Zone.

The Freaker Zone, or the first three days after a disaster is the most dangerous period of an event. During this window of time it was shown that people could lose all sense of morality, and revert to animalistic instincts for survival.  This was a very dangerous period, and one that Ian wanted to be overly prepared for. 

Grace took an unusual interest in her parent’s academic attitude towards the behavior of people.  She liked psychology, and shared her mother’s interest on how people would react in the first three days after a disaster.  She would often read the same data that her mother pulled up on the subject.  The data would spark deep discussion about the psychological and sociological development of the individual and the mob mentality. They would discuss how these aspects of human nature would change as the crisis evolved, or how a group might react to one scenario like a hurricane versus a terrorist attack.

Leah often remarked to Ian that their daughter would make an incredible leader. 

“She just gets people.  She can almost see into their minds and predict their behavior,” Leah offered.

“What do you think she can do with that?” Ian asked.

“I don’t know, phycology, business, politics…”

“She could go into the CIA,” Ian offered.

Leah exhaled slowly.  “Easy killer,” she smiled at him.  “Our family might not be big enough for another intelligence officer.”

“I think she quickly gets a handle on almost any situation,” Ian agreed, and then flipped the conversation to something more serious.  “So, our worst case scenario is a multifaceted terrorist attack.  Right?”  Ian asked the leading question.

“Yeah, or that coupled with an invasion.”

“Okay, so what happens if the big one comes down and Grace is on her own?  Like away from us.  Perhaps cut off from us, or,” he stopped, and shook his head. “Or, we’re dead, and she’s on her own.”

Leah thought about that.  She had been thinking about that for quite some time.  The odds were good that if something happened, it would happen while Grace would be separated from both of her parents.

“I think,” Leah offered, “that Grace is a very mature, level headed young lady who will make the right decisions.  She will follow our plan, or listen to our instructions.  Ian, we have been drilling her on this stuff for years.  She could teach it herself.  She comes by it naturally,” Leah answered with smile.

“You’re not answering the question,” Ian chided.  “Can she make it on her own?”

“Yes,” Leah said with confidence. 

“I agree,” Ian said with a nod.  “So, you’re okay with me putting the gun in the safe box on the Jeep?”

“Um,” Leah stalled to collect her thoughts.  “I’m okay with it, but let’s hold off on telling her right now.  Remember she drives the car to school, and they’re seriously anal about anything to do with a weapon.”

“Good point.”  They both laughed.

<  >

Now, Ian gazed at the smoldering embers of the all but dead fire in Dukes’ home.  He knew he had about an hour before the sun came up, and he wasn’t going to get any more sleep, so he quietly rolled out of the sleeping bag and made his way into the kitchen.  Once there, he found the ingredients to start a strong pot of coffee.

“So, where’re we headed?” Mary asked, surprising him in the kitchen.  She looked like hell.  Her eyes were swollen and the wet hair she had when she went to bed, had dried and frizzed in all directions.

People very seldom surprised Ian, but Mary had successfully gotten off of the couch and startled him in the kitchen.  He chalked it up to his weariness and the events that put them together.  He would have to refocus for them to make it.

“Hi,” he said, a little too quickly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s okay, it doesn’t happen often, consider yourself one of the lucky few.”

“I think I already do,” she said, really referring to the events more than her ability to startle Ian.

“Do you drink coffee?”  Ian let the comment go without follow-up.

“Yes, black,” she answered, watching Ian work the percolator and the gas stove.

“Last night we were all talking about the EMP effects from the bomb, and that all electrical stuff would stop working.

“Yes.”

“So, why does all of Dukes’ stuff work?  Why can I flip on the kitchen light?  Is it as bad as we think?”  She grasped at any straw that reality was not what it had become

“I don’t really know for sure,” Ian said, his eyes looking across the ceiling of the cabin.

“I’ll take your best guess, you seem to be pretty good at figuring things out.”

Ian nodded.  He found two mugs and poured two cups of coffee.  “Well, the reason electronics, or more specifically, electronic devices that use microchips don’t work after an electromagnetic pulse is that their circuits are fried by the over ionization of electronic molecules in the air.  It’s kind like a static discharge will fry your computer.  Everything gets fried by this huge pulse.”

“And that’s why we crashed, on the plane, right?” she asked, gingerly sipping at the rim of the mug.

“Pretty much that and the shock wave from the Atlanta explosion hit us.  A lot of planes are insulated from electromagnetic energy, but I guess we were so close to the explosion that it just overwhelmed us,” Ian said, looking up at the rafters of the house.  “But as to why Dukes’ stuff is still working is a mystery to me,” he admitted.

Mary nodded and took another sip of coffee.  “You know,” she started, and then took another sip of coffee in stead.

Ian waited for her to say what she wanted to say.

Mary swallowed and her gaze fixed into the mug of black water.   She didn’t say anything for almost a minute.

“Elizabeth was her name,” she simply said, followed by a sniff. She took another sip of coffee, and kept her lips on the rim.  She gazed into the distance, mulling over her thoughts.

“Who was she?” Ian asked, his tone soft.

“We had been together for almost 15 years.  We weren’t married, but next week would have been 15 years,” she offered.

“Oh,” Ian was taken aback.  He hadn’t expected that confession.  Mary kept surprising him.

“I talked to her right before we took off from Houston.  I know she was at home.  We lived close to downtown Atlanta, so…”

“Mary, I am so sorry,” he said.

She nodded and then looked up at June and Dukes as they came into the kitchen.

“I’m glad you found the coffee,” June said, seemingly happy that her guests had made themselves at home.  She seemed to gloss over the watery eyes of the other women, and didn’t want to pry.

“Sorry about barging into your kitchen, we couldn’t sleep,” Mary said, with a sniff.

“That’s just fine,” June said, opening a cupboard and producing a box of grits.  “I don’t think any of us slept last night.”

“Mary, would you be so kind to help me get things ready?” June asked the other woman and effectively shutting down the conversation, and shooing the men out of the kitchen.

Mary smiled at Ian in a way to say that they could talk later.  “You bet, what do you need me to do?” She wiped her sleeve across her eyes and looked as ready as she could look.

“Ian,” Dukes called him over to a door on the opposite side of the room.  Dukes opened the door and on the other side was a metal door in the floor.  Dukes pulled open the metal door and revealed steps leading down.

“Bunker?” Ian asked.

“Yup.  Come down with me, I’ve decided that we can help each other.”

“Okay,” Ian said, following.  Ian followed the man down to an expansive room under the small cabin.  “This place is huge!”

“That guy we were talking to last night, Birmingham Bob, helped me design this place,” Dukes said, flipped on a few lights; the room kept expanding with the artificial light.  “It’s about four times the square footage of the house upstairs.  I built this before I built the house upstairs.  All of my power supplies are encased down here,” he said very proud of the space. 

“Nice,” Ian said, taking the place in with awe.

Dukes opened up another door to show a battery bank and a power inverter.   “The entire bunker is made of four steel shipping containers.  I had them reinforced with steel I-beams and treated so I could bury them.  We’re about 15 feet under ground.”

“Dukes, this is impressive!” Ian gushed. 

“The house upstairs is actually three shipping containers that are welded together.  All of the glass is a fine wire mesh and all of my wiring is shielded.  I did a lot of research, and this is what I thought would do the trick, so…”

“So, all of your wiring, the lights and stuff upstairs?”

“It is all shielded from electro-magnetic interference.  The entire house is a Faraday cage.”

Ian whistled.  “That’s impressive.”

Dukes smiled proudly.  “I thought you might like to see the bones of the place.  My dad was a textile mill maintenance man.  He could fix anything and tricked out almost everything we had on our farm.  I helped him build a bomb shelter in the 60s and kind of took his idea, and along with some great ideas from my buddy Bob, I made it better.”

“So your dad inspired you?”

  “Yes, he did, and he financed the dream too.  When he and mom died, they left us with a fortune in pension money and land.  It kind of helps, you know, with all the prepping expenses and all.”

“I know that’s true!” Ian agreed.

“What you didn’t see outside last night was our hydro system,” Dukes said, leading Ian over to a small room.  “I’m kind of proud of it.  I designed it myself.”

Dukes showed Ian a small generator being turned by a gearbox that mounted to the exterior wall.

“It gets its power from a nearby creek,” he said, watching the generator turn slowly.  “It can get pretty hot down here sometimes,” he chuckled.  “Most of the power gets stored in the batteries, and that’s what’s going to save us now that everything else has failed.”

“It looks like all of your stuff is okay,” Ian offered, his eyes scanning for any fried wiring or charred electrical boxes.

“I’m sure I’ll have to rewire something,” Dukes agreed.  “An EMP as big as what hit us had to do some damage.  Probably the electric fence around the property and exterior cameras at minimum.”

“I missed those when we came in last night.”

“Recon man, recon,” Dukes said, with a smile.  “We know where to look for things and where other people look for things.  So, we know where to put things that other people would miss.  But,” Dukes admitted, “you’re pretty observant, yourself.”

Ian only nodded.

Dukes walked them out of the power generating room and through a set of steel doors.  “I now consider myself pretty lucky.”

Ian didn’t respond, he knew there was more coming.

“I say that because, thankfully, I wasn’t in Atlanta when that thing went off and my family was here too.  They’re safe.  We’re prepared to stick it out for the long haul.  And…and, I know that must be hard to look at, knowing that you’re separated from your family and all,” Dukes said, opening a shallow closet. 

Ian agreed by nodding his head and pursing his lips.

In the closet were a dozen backpacks hanging from hooks.  Each one was black and each one was packed so that every ounce of space was taken.  There was a numeric code assigned next to each hook.   Dukes took two down and handed them to Ian.  The code on one hook read 2D/2P, and the other code was 2D/2P + X.

“I want you to have what I have, I want you to make it back to your family.”

“Thanks,” his tone, solemn. 

“Well, I’m not done yet.  I think we can help each other.”

“Sure, how do you mean?”