EMP (The Districts Book 1) (12 page)

Sutherland stepped through the door for the first time since setting foot in the bunker. He raised his hand to his face to shield his eyes from the sun, which seemed so much brighter than he ever remembered.

“This way, Sir.”

He looked over to the young man who had spoken. Sutherland nodded and followed him across the meadow at the mouth of the bunker entrance. He did have to admit, whoever had built the bunker had done a pretty good job at concealing its location. They were in the middle of a national forest and the entrance to the bunker was hidden behind a patch of old growth pine trees.

Sutherland glanced over at Rogers, but she seemed lost in her thoughts as they walked. She had seemed to be in a much better mood since he agreed to go help district four.

“So,” he said, “how exactly am I going to get to district four?”

She glanced over at him before answering. He started to warm up to her after their last conversation and for the first time he actually felt like she was actively trying to find his wife and daughter.

“Our recon team just got back from Ft. Drum. As you know, it’s home to the 10
th
Mountain Brigade.”

“Yes… but how does that help?”

“Apparently,” she said, “there is a DC-2 at the base. The 10
th
Aviation Brigade restored it at some point.”

“I thought aircraft were knocked out by the EMP?”

“They were… but apparently this plane was built in the early thirties. It should be fine.”

“Should be fine?”

“Yes,” she said, “it should be fine.”

Sutherland shook his head. He didn’t like the idea of their half-cooked plan, but he didn’t see any other option… with each hour they waited, the fate of the personnel of district four became more uncertain.

“And we have a pilot?”

“Well… not exactly.”

Sutherland stopped and stared at Rodgers. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t still walking. She turned around and walked over to him.

“We need to go,” she said, “the clock is ticking.”

“Yes… thank you. I’m well aware, but we can’t fly halfway across the country in a plane from ninety years ago that has no pilot.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“I know… and it’s not good enough,” Sutherland said.

“You have to trust me. We have Avery.”

“Who is Avery?”

“He’s our pilot.”

Sutherland shook his head in confusion. He started walking again. She hadn’t convinced him in regards to the pilot situation, but they really didn’t have any time to waste.

“I thought you said we did really have a pilot?”

“Well, he’s not a military pilot… but he has assured me that he’s more than capable of flying the DC-2.”

“Fine… as long as you trust him. My life is in your hands.”

“I trust him,” she said.

They reached the other end of the clearing where the two black SUV’s were waiting. Sutherland sighed and turned to Rodgers.

“Two SUV’s full of men? Is that all I get?”

“Sorry… the plane only has twelve seats plus the pilot and co-pilot.”

“We can’t squeeze a few more in?”

She shook her head and bit her lip. Sutherland was a little worried… their plan was terrible and he could think of a dozen ways it could go horribly wrong.

“Our most recent intel suggests there’s no viable airstrip close to district four… so you might have to make a hot landing.”

Sutherland rolled his eyes and headed for the passenger side of the lead SUV. He opened the door, got in and rolled down the window as Rodgers walked over.

“Be safe,” she said, “and get in contact with me as soon as you’ve secured district four.”

“You’re assuming I’ll be able to do so….”

“I have complete faith in you,” she said.

Sutherland turned to the driver and nodded. The man mashed the gas pedal to the floor and they sped off, leaving Rodgers in a cloud of dust.

~~~

It took the better part of two hours for them to reach Ft. Drum. Sutherland, and the men in his SUV, had been silent as they drove… the empty roads had made the trip pass quickly enough and it was clear they were all focused on the batshit crazy mission they were about to embark on.

The driver didn’t slow down as they reached the checkpoint at the front gate, instead speeding up as he drove the SUV straight through the chain link fence.

“Where is everyone?” Sutherland said.

“Sir?” the driver said.

“This is an Army base… where is the Army?”

“They all left, Sir. There is no government anymore… and no one to give them orders. I would guess they went to find their families.”

“What about you? Don’t you have a family?”

The man shook his head. Sutherland had wondered how they had selected staff for the bunker… and picking government employees without family actually kind of made sense. They wouldn’t be worried about anything else other than their job when things got bad.

They drove to the far side of the base, where the airfield was. There were only two long runways, with two shorter ones cutting through the longer ones. The driver stopped the SUV next to a small hanger, which Sutherland thought was pretty small to be housing an airplane.

The men jumped out of both SUV’s quickly and cleared the area. There was no one around, but Sutherland understood their insistence and being overly careful. Two of the men pulled the hanger door open and they all walked inside.

The DC-2 was inside the hanger, its shiny metal reflecting the rays of the sun as it dipped lower in the sky to the west. Sutherland sighed at the sight of it. It looked fine, but there was no denying it was built in a time where building planes out of metal was still new and that worried him.

“Let’s get going,” Sutherland said.

The men quickly climbed inside and Sutherland looked around to make sure everyone had gotten on board. He climbed in and pulled the door closed behind him. Sutherland walked between the seats, glancing at each of the men as he did so. He only recognized a couple of them, they had worked security in the bunker.

Sutherland made his way to the front of the plane and climbed into the cockpit. He sat down in the open chair and turned to the young man sitting next to him.

“Are you Avery?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Can you fly this thing?”

“Yes… probably.”

Sutherland was sure his heart skipped a beat as he watched Avery reach his hand out and begin flipping switches. The roar of the propeller engines coming to life reached his ears.

“How nice of them,” Avery said, yelling so his voice would carry over the engine noise.

“What?”

“They filled up the fuel… it
should
be enough to get us there.”

Sutherland looked over at the man he was about to trust his life to, along with the lives of twelve good men, and Avery had a huge grin on his face.

“Why… why are you smiling?”

“I’ve always wanted to fly a real plane.”

“What? Did you say ‘I’ve always wanted to fly a real plane’?”

Avery nodded. Sutherland closed his eyes and said a prayer as the plane started to roll forward. He opened his eyes and looked out the window as they exited the hanger and Avery pointed the plane toward the closest runway.

“I thought you said you could fly?”

“Well,” Avery said, “I… I used to play a lot of air combat flight simulators.”

Sutherland closed his eyes and screamed in his mind. He was about to trust their lives to a young man who played video games. Sutherland was sure they wouldn’t make it off the ground, let alone halfway across the country.

Anthony paused and tried to decide what to do. He could feel blood making its way down his leg and it had started to fill his shoe. He wanted to wait them out, whoever they were… for all he knew they could be armed and ready to shoot him if he moved an inch down the hall. It was a risk he didn’t want to take… but one he had to.

He could see the bathroom, it was ten feet down the hall, but there was also a closed door at the other end. He swallowed, shook his head and tried to move silently. Anthony knew if he could get in the bathroom, close and lock the door, he might be able to at least defend himself should the person attack him while he tried to fix his leg.

He slowly moved down the hall, the shotgun aimed at the closed door the entire time… his finger hovering over the trigger, just waiting to squeeze it. Anthony reached the bathroom and stepped inside. He closed the door and locked it. He kept the shotgun aimed at the door, really expecting someone to kick it in or take a shot through it.

“Please don’t kill me!”

Anthony spun around and looked in the bathtub. There was a young woman in her mid twenties curled up in a ball with her hands over head. He almost shot out of instinct, but he held back and pulled his finger away from the trigger. Anthony still didn’t trust her… and kept the shotgun trained on her.

“Take your hands away from your face,” he said.

She slowly pulled her hands away and tears rolled down her cheeks. He could see her eyelids flutter as she struggled to keep them closed.

“What’s your name?”

“Beth,” she said, speaking between sobs.

“Beth… I need you to do something for me.”

She put her hands back over her head and turned her face to the side of the tub.

“Beth,” he said, “get out of the tub… right now. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He tried to be calm, but firm with her. He needed her help and really didn’t want to threaten her in order to get it. She shook her head and continued to cry.

“Look… if you don’t get out of the tub and come help me… well… I’m going to go in the other room and I’m going to shoot who I assume is your husband or brother.”

She pushed herself into a sitting position and pulled her hands away from her face as the tears continued to stream down her cheek.

“I… I though you already… shot him.”

“Well, I did… but he’s going to be alright… if you help bandage me up, then we can see to him.”

She stepped out of the tub and took one hesitant step toward Anthony.

“I… shouldn’t I help him first? You look like you’ll be fine.”

Anthony had lowered the shotgun slightly and her comment made him raise it back up until he was aiming at the middle of her chest.

“No,” he said. “You help me and then we can both help him.”

She nodded as she tried to force herself to stop crying. Beth wiped the last few tears from her cheek and opened the medicine cabinet over the sink. Anthony stepped around her and winced in pain as he sat down on the toilet.

“What happened?” she said.

“You're… whoever he is… he shot me.”

“Paul… he’s my husband.”

Anthony nodded. He felt a twinge of guilt for ending Paul’s life and making the beautiful young woman standing in front of him into a widow, but he knew he did exactly what he had to.

Beth took a pair of tweezers out of the cabinet and a roll of gauze from the top drawer of the vanity. She walked over to him and kneeled on the floor in front of him.

“This… I’m sorry, but… I think it’s probably going to hurt.”

“Ya don’t say,” he said.

She forced a half a smile on her face as she leaned forward and slowly lowered the tweezers to the entry wound on his leg. Anthony found himself looking down her loose T-shirt as he noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra. It served as a nearly ample distraction from the pain until she started to dig around inside his leg with the tweezers.

“Fuck!”

“Sorry,” she said, sounding fairly sincere in her apology. “I’ll try to make it quick… but that thing is really stuck in there.”

Anthony nodded as he bit down on his lip. He wished she hadn’t been in the bathroom, he would have almost rather done it himself. One last stabbing pain shot through his leg and Anthony felt dizzy… like he was about to pass out. He swallowed and forced every thought out of his mind and just closed his eyes.

“Got it!”

Anthony focused on breathing evenly as he felt her wrap the gauze around his leg several times and finally tie it off. The pain was still intense, but Anthony knew it would feel better in the next couple of days once it started to heal. He opened his eyes and saw the tweezers and the bloody pellet sitting on the counter. He took a deep breath and turned his gaze back to Beth. She smiled at him, it was forced… but it still made him feel a little better.

He couldn’t believe it… she was the first woman he had seen since the event and even through the pain in his leg was almost unbearable, he found himself wishing for a second look down her shirt. Her breasts had been perky and perfectly formed… and he wondered what the rest of her looked like naked.

“Can we go check on Paul?”

“Sure.”

Beth smiled at Anthony and helped him stand up. He put some weight on his leg, and it was painful… but he had to get back to base, whatever it took. She nodded, turned her back to him and started to walk out of the bathroom. Anthony, who never had any intention of letting her see Paul, lifted the shotgun and brought the butt of it down on the back of her head. Beth moaned and her body crumpled, hitting the floor with a thud.

Anthony opened the drawers in the bathroom until he found some painkillers and chewed on three of them. He took a deep breath and stepped over Beth. He quickly looked in the room with the closed door, which turned out to be an empty guest room, and headed for the stairs.

It took him a few minutes, but Anthony was able to make it down the stairs without too much pain. He headed back to the kitchen and opened the pantry door as he looked for some rope to make a sling for the shotgun. The pantry was almost bare, more people that hadn’t prepared for the event… and he knew even if Beth survived potential raiders, she wouldn’t last long without food and no weapon. That wasn’t his problem… he had to worry about himself and his men.

Anthony felt the pain in his leg fade a bit as the painkillers started to kick in. He wasn’t sure what to do… it was a long walk back. The sling for the shotgun only took him a minute to make and he put it over his shoulder as he grabbed his rifle and headed for the back door.

He headed toward the barn, deciding to check it first. Anthony couldn’t take anything with him, but he could send his men back to butcher some of the cows. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. A wicked smile formed on his face. There were five cows along one side of the barn and some chickens in a small coop on the other side… but what really got him excited was the pickup truck in the middle of the barn. He walked over to it and tried the door, but it was locked.

“Smart boy, hiding your truck… well, not that smart, you still got yourself killed.”

Anthony pushed the barn door open the rest of the way and headed inside to look for the keys. He was dreading the walk and now he could drive there easily and take as much of their remaining supplies as he wanted. Anthony looked around the kitchen, but didn’t see the keys. His best guess was they were in the dead man’s pocket, but he didn’t want to head upstairs until he was ready to leave.

There were a few cans of food and some bottles of water. Anthony had noticed a hand pump on the well, next to the barn, and he made a mental note to send his men back for the jugs of water and to fill up some of their own. If they were lucky, no one else would take up residence in the house once he was gone and they could use it for a water source as long as they wanted.

He put the canned food in a grocery bag along with a box of shotgun shells he found in one of the drawers. He found a roll of duct tape in one of the drawers, which he left on the kitchen counter. Anthony carried the bag outside and tossed it in the bed of the truck with the shotgun and his rifle. He went back inside and slowly climbed the stairs.

The pool around Paul had gotten larger and had started to soak into the wood floorboards by the time Anthony made it back to him. A quick search of the dead man yielded the truck keys, which Anthony tucked into his own pocket.

Anthony went to the bathroom… where Beth was still out cold on the floor. He felt a momentary pang of guilt for knocking her out, but it faded quickly when he realized how much easier it would be for him to take her that way. When he and his crew originally conceived their post event plan, none of them ever mentioned women… they were all single guys, but Anthony had started to miss the smell… the touch… the presence of a woman. He knew the other guys probably wouldn’t be excited about his bringing another mouth to feed, but he didn’t care—he was in charge and he wanted to feel the touch of a woman’s hand on his body again.

He bent down, forcing the pain of doing so out of his mind, and scooped her up. Anthony stood up and slung Beth over his shoulder. He slowly made his way down the stairs, doing his best to take care and not fall. A moan escaped her lips as he reached the kitchen and Anthony realized she was starting to wake up.

Anthony dropped her on the floor, possibly harder than she deserved, and she groaned. Beth put her hands on the floor and lifted her head up, but Anthony was next to her with the roll of duct tape. He quickly pulled on the loose end, pinned her hands together and wrapped her wrists in tape. He used his teeth to rip the tape and then moved to her feet where he did the same.

“Hey… what… what’s happening?” she said, her words slow and slurred.

Anthony finished taping her ankles together and flipped her over. A look of realization and horror filled her eyes. Beth tried to scream, but it was too late… Anthony placed a strip of tape across her mouth at the same moment that turned her cry for help into a muffled moan. A wicked smile formed on his face as he tossed the tape aside and stood up.

“You… and me… we are going to have some fun.”

A tear rolled out of the corner of her eye. It dropped to the floor and splashed against the linoleum. The floor… the floor she had begged Paul to replace for the past two years… and now she knew she would never see it again.