The Pulse: An EMP Prepper Survival Tale (9 page)

He turned the key and felt the miraculous
roar of the Plymouth's engine.

"Yes!" he shouted, hitting the steering wheel
with excitement.

He revved the engine methodically then held
the gas pedal down. He had always kept the car below half a tank to
prevent corrosion. Now he had to fill it up with twenty gallons
worth of fuel reserve. Out of ten fuel cans, he would have six
left. He hoped that would get them to Milledgeville, if there were
no gas stations operating. He shut the door and idled out of the
shed onto a path that led him to the front yard. He waved again to
Mr. Harper and sped off down the street in hopes of finding Janice.
Mr. Harper waved back and smiled, still unaware of anything out of
the ordinary.

Janice paced back and forth the parking lot in
front of her building, wrestling with her options. Without a car,
she didn't have many. She could walk home under the hot sun, or she
could wait, and hope that Mark would soon arrive. She thought of
their bug-out car, and wondered if there was any chance that it
still ran. Perhaps an EMP had nothing to do with anything going on.
Maybe it was all in her head. Her co-workers wandered dazed through
the parking lot examining their cars and trying to get their cell
phones working.

The highway was a sight to behold. Commuters
walked down the highway like some kind of mass protest. Janice was
caught between a desire to maintain her routine, and the
realization that things were different now. She decided to wait.
The power company had to intervene at some point. They would have
the protocols in place to deal with such a thing. The government as
well. She thought of the hospitals, prisons, schools, gas stations,
and banks. There had to a plan to deal with a crisis of such
magnitude.

She looked out toward the highway again and
there, right before her eyes, saw the results of an aerial
electromagnetic pulse. If an EMP had been launched, it meant
America was at war with someone. Janice thought about their home,
their investments, and lives. Her head spun with panic. She looked
back to the office building. More people had walked out, and were
chatting with each other. She could feel sweat building on her
back, under her shirt. Only ten feet away from her building, and
dehydration had kicked in. She walked back to the building and
stood under the shade of a nearby oak tree.

Mark drove the Plymouth
through back roads to reach Janice's office. He wanted to avoid the
highway as much as possible. Too many cars as roadblocks, and too
many people. The back roads were not without their share of
wanderers and broken-down vehicles either. He felt no satisfaction
passing anyone
,
but
he had his hands full as it was. He was only a few miles from
Janice's building.

The Plymouth crept down back roads, its loud
motor gained attention from everyone in its path. Mark drove
slowly; cautiously attentive to whatever obstacles might be in his
way. The paralyzed traffic created an eerie silence, pierced only
by the sound of Mark's car, which could be heard miles away.

Janice heard the sound of Mark's Plymouth in
the distance. She was standing under a nearby Oak Tree next, as
many others convened outside the building. She saw the mysterious
Plymouth as it turned into the parking lot, confounding every
bystander along the way.

"Hey, man!" a young man covered in tattoos
shouted. He held his arms out as if flagging Mark down. "Let me get
a ride!" he said as Mark passed him by. The man jogged after the
car, and soon others joined him. Mark looked in his rearview mirror
and saw that he was being followed. A large group of desperate
people trailed behind him. He would have little time to get Janice
if she was still there. He gripped the steering wheel, and his eyes
swept the parking lot as he searched for his wife.

Janice’s attention was drawn to the odd sight
Plymouth. People were following it like parishioners after their
prophet. The car sped up, but couldn't shake them loose. Suddenly
it dawned on her that the Plymouth was no ordinary car, it was
Mark's bug-out car coming to get her.

A sudden sense of relief and happiness swept
over her. Mark slammed on the brakes in front of the building and
kept the engine idling. He looked frantically for Janice in the
crowd. Against his better judgment, he pressed down on the horn as
it sounded a muffled blaring. Janice ran toward the car, away from
her perplexed co-workers. The mob behind the Plymouth had gained
ground and had almost reached the rear bumper when Janice flew to
the passenger's side. Mark leaned over and pushed the door open for
her, his face filled with both anxiety and relief. Others were
crowding closer.

"Janice, thank God!" he said, and reached
across to help her inside. "Hurry up and get in!"

She swung her legs inside, and plopped down
into the seat. Her door swayed open as Mark pulled away from the
building and drove in the opposite way, trying to lose the mob
following them.

"Come on, asshole!" a sweaty man billowed out
in raspy breaths. "Give us a break here!"

Janice slammed the door shut, and hunkered
down in the seat. The mob tried its best to keep up, but soon the
Plymouth moved out of range, bumping over a parking median and onto
the main road. They weaved between perfectly still vehicles in
their way. Mark feared that their path would soon be blocked by a
pack of frustrated motorists.

"We have to take the back roads," Mark said.
"The highway is much too dangerous."

"What's going on, Mark? Is this an EMP?"

Mark kept his eyes on the road, taking a
moment before answering. "Pretty damn good chance," he
responded.

"What are we going to do?" she asked. "My
friends at work are stranded. I didn't know what to tell them."

"Right now it's the only thing that makes
sense. We have to assume the worst. We have to be prepared. This is
what it's all about, Janice. We knew something bad was coming."

"I know,
but
─
" Janice began.
She stopped and covered her face with her hands,
grief-stricken.

They pulled off the main road, going back the
same way Mark had come. It was longer than taking the highway but
safer. Mark looked at Janice sympathetically and trying to think of
how to console her.

"How are you holding up?" he asked her. "Are
you okay?" He reached over and placed his hand on hers.

Janice looked up and sighed. "I was sitting
at work, talking with one of our applicants when the power went
out, just like that." Janice snapped her fingers.

"Same thing happened with me."

"At first I didn't think much of it,” said
Janice, “like it was just a downed power line or something, but as
soon as I saw the cars, I knew it was something different. Then the
cell phones and everything else went."

"Electromagnetic pulses. That's what they
do," Mark said.

"Yes, but for how long?"

"What?" Mark asked.

"How long will it be like this?"

Mark couldn’t answer. He looked around and
took the next turn towards home. Their windows were down allowing
in cooling gusts of wind. They passed stranded motorists by the
dozens, careful not to make eye contact. It felt wrong to leave
them, but there were far too many.

“There's nothing we can do for them right
now. Right now it's just you and me," Mark said.

"How long will everything be like this?"
Janice asked.

"It could be days, months, or years. The
government is supposed to have taken measures to minimize the
effects of an EMP blast. There's no telling what they came up with,
or what sort of emergency plan they have in place."

Suddenly in the creeping silence, Mark and
Janice heard helicopters in the air; an army of helicopters it
seemed. Janice looked into the sky and saw them coming into view.
They were painted blue and white, and looked to be law enforcement.
Mark grew paranoid at the presence above, as they would clearly
identify their Plymouth as one of the few, if not the only, cars
moving on the road. However, they flew over them without a care,
and over the horizon, out of view.

They made it back to the house, without any
clear answers. Janice was shaken, where Mark was focused. He felt
that they needed to get to the bug-out house as soon as possible.
As they pulled into the driveway, Mark looked over to Mr. Harper's
front porch. His neighbor was no longer there. Only an empty swing
remained. They parked, and Mark helped Janice out of the car,
holding her hand as they walked back into the house.

"Silly question," she said, "but our house...
is it...?"

"No power, sweetheart. Just
like everything else." Mark led Janice inside. The house was
stunning in its silence, and humidity. Mark walked through the
living room, shutting the blinds to block any view from outside.
Janice sat on the couch, and looked at her silver shiny wrist
watch. The hands weren't moving. It had stopped at 9:10
a.m.

"Thanks you for getting me," she said. “I
guess you were right about that old car.”

Mark turned from the window to look at her.
“I never knew for sure. We're very lucky.”

The smile on Janice's face vanished as a
distressing thought came to mind. "Our finances," she said. "What
about our money?"

Mark walked to the couch and sat next to her,
placing a hand on her knee. "I'm not going to lie, honey; right now
it doesn't look good. Our gold investments should be okay. We have
a few thousand in cash stored in the safe. As far as our savings, I
just don't know. The banks are down. We can't call them. The ATMs
aren't working. Even if we showed up there, they can't do a thing
until the system is up. In another day or two the banks will
probably be either the most secure or dangerous places on earth.
Everyone is going to want cash, and once they realize their credit
cards are worthless, they're going to get angry and desperate."

Janice rested her head on Mark's shoulder,
and for a moment they were just quiet.

"Is it Milledgeville, then?" she asked
softly. After doing the math in her head, Janice, like Mark, had
soon came to the conclusion that the bug-out house was the place to
be.

"It's looking that way," Mark said. "Why
don't you rest for a minute? I'm going to try to get in contact
with James."

Mark got up and walked toward the basement.
Janice looked at him curiously. "How are you going to do that?" she
asked.

"I'm going to try him on the radio," Mark
answered and continued walking toward the stairs.

Oh, well. Good luck with that. Janice
stretched her legs out on the couch and lay back. Her mind raced in
a million different directions. She looked up at the popcorn
ceiling and became paralyzed by her thoughts.

Mark found the radio, secured in a thick metal
case. Once it was set up on the table, it looked like something
from an old war movie. The 500Hz main transceiver sat in the
middle, fitted with plastic knobs and buttons. At the end of an
attached, coiled cable was the receiver. Mark flipped the power on
and could hear static through the handheld microphone. The radio
ran off of a 12-volt battery attached inside. It was an ideal means
of communication in emergency situations. Mark trolled the
frequencies, moving through its digital display, searching for
anything resembling radio activity. He reached 1407, which was a
station he knew James sometimes frequented.

"Red Raven, Red Raven, this is Badger Beast,
do you copy?"

He released the button on the handheld mic
and waited. There was nothing but static. Mark continued. "Red
Raven, come in Red Raven, this is Badger Beast, do you copy?
Over."

A sudden sound crackled over the mic. "Badger
Beast, this is Red Raven. Over."

Mark was elated. As a result, he fumbled
slightly with the receiver.

"Awesome! So glad you're there. Over," Mark
said, foregoing any type of radio etiquette.

"How you holding up on your end? Over," James
asked.

Mark held down the button on the handheld and
spoke. "It's pretty bad here. Possible EMP strike occurred early
this morning. All power is out. All devices. Bug-out vehicle is
operational. Over."

"Same here. EMP has spread to Milledgeville
and beyond. Over."

"What is the status of our rally point?
Over." Mark asked.

"Rally point is a go. Over."

"Great, we'll leave first thing tomorrow
morning. Over."

"Sound good. Over."

"Will see you soon. Over and out," Mark
said.

Mark switched off the radio and set down the
hand mic, pondering their urgency. He estimated that they had at
least a week or two of normalcy, waiting for emergency assistance
like everyone else. But even before the black out, things had
reached a tipping point. All the economic problems and general
discontent going on throughout the nation only needed one match to
light the fire. Driving to Milledgeville days after the fact would
almost guarantee trouble at the hands of an even more desperate
mob. They had to leave soon. Mark went to the living room and stood
over Janice as she lay on the couch, still deep in thought.

"I think we should leave tomorrow morning,"
he said.

Janice sat up and stared at Mark, considering
his suggestion, but she looked more worried. "What about our house?
All of our stuff?"

Mark sat down next her, sinking into a plush
cushion. "We’ll take everything we possibly can. We’ll hide our
valuables, or pack them up. It's going to take some work, but we
can do this."

Janice seemed wary of Mark's suggestion. "Do
you really think we need to leave so soon? We don't know what could
happen. They might have the power back on in a few days. Like you
said, they have protocols for this sort of thing."