Countdown to Armageddon (19 page)

     He went into his Dad’s office and found the folder with his name on it. He opened it up to find three pages of instructions from his father:

     Dear Zach,

     If you’re reading this note, it means that the EMP has hit the earth and that the power is out for good. It also means that you’re the first one home.

     It’s probably getting pretty close to dark. There are some things you’ll need to do before the sun goes down. The first thing is, lock the front door again. Do not leave it unlocked for your mom and brother and Joyce. They have their own keys and can get in. If you don’t lock it, looters may come in and could hurt you.

     If you haven’t already done that, do it now. Then come back and we’ll continue.

     Now turn your walkie talkie back on. You can leave it on now, unless you hear someone breaking in. Then turn it off immediately and hide.

     Having your walkie talkie on constantly should help calm your nerves, and will make it easier to find out where everyone else is.

     I will probably be too far away to reach when you get this. But you can try everyone else. Remember not to panic, though, if they do not answer. It doesn’t mean anything has happened to them. It only means that they are out in the open where other people can see them.

     The next thing I want you to do is open my bottom right dresser drawer. You’ll find a larger version of the Faraday box that was in your back pack.

     Open it up and you’ll find six miner’s lights and several packages of AA batteries.

     Put the batteries in all of the lights. Put one around your neck and give the others to your mom and Jordan and Joyce as they arrive. That will make it easier for everyone to see once the sun goes down. When it gets dark, just put the light on your forehead, tighten the strap and turn it on. The light will shine at whatever you’re looking at.

     Okay, good. You’re doing fine.

     Now go to the kitchen and pull out a stack of dinner plates from the cupboard. The white ones with the blue trim. They are light and shatterproof.

     I know this will seem dumb to you, but do it anyway. Take the dinner plates and place one on the floor in the center of each room. Then come back here.

     Now go to the bottom left drawer of my dresser and open it. You’ll find twelve large room candles. They’re kind of heavy, so you can probably only carry two or three at a time. Go put one candle on each dinner plate. Each candle has three wicks, and will light up each room after dark.

     There are three lighters in the same drawer. Put one in your pocket and the other two on the kitchen counter.

     Now go around the house and close all of the blinds and draperies. It will make it dark in the house, but you’ll have your miner’s light so you’ll be okay.

     The last thing I want you to do is go to my bedroom and watch out the window. You’ll have a clear view of the whole street.

     Just stay there and watch. When you see Joyce or your mom or your brother arrive, meet them downstairs and give them a miner’s light. Then go back to the window and watch again.

     PAY ATTENTION TO THIS ONE. IT’S VERY IMPORTANT… If you see someone approaching that you don’t know, and if they break into the house, crawl under my bed and stay there quietly until they leave. Don’t try to confront them or fight them. You might get hurt. Just let them take whatever they want and leave.

     Also, if you hear someone breaking in the back door or breaking a window, do the same thing. I don’t think the looters will come out until well after dark. I also don’t think they will try to break in the back. Duke will bark and probably chase them away, unless they are bold enough to shoot him. I don’t think they’ll do that. I think they’ll just go elsewhere. But remember, expect the unexpected. Just in case.

     Remember that I love you, son. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.

     -Dad-

     Zachary knew his father had planned this for a very long time and trusted his judgment. Even though he thought it very strange to put each candle on top of a white dinner plate, he followed instructions to the letter.

     It took him almost an hour to get everything finished. When he finally looked out the window, he could tell from the position of the sun that it would be getting dark soon.

     For the first time since the ordeal began he felt lonely and sad. Maybe it was because this was the first time since the ordeal began when he had absolutely nothing to do.

     Except wait.

     Then, suddenly, it dawned on him. He’d been so busy doing the things on his list, he’d never turned on his walkie talkie.

     He ran downstairs from his father’s room and grabbed the small radio from his back pack. He put the extra set of batteries into the front pocket of his jeans and walked back up the stairs, turning the radio on as he went.

     He looked through the curtains of his dad’s bedroom window and saw a couple of kids playing in their yard three doors down. Four of the moms had gathered in one of their front yards a little farther than that.

     There was no other activity.

     He keyed the microphone.

     “Dad, this is Zach. Come in.”

     No answer.

     “Mom, this is Zach. Come in.”

     No answer.

     “Joyce, this is Zach. Come in.”

     Despite his dad’s pleas not to panic, he started to feel a little anxiety.

     Then his walkie crackled to life.

     “This is Joyce. Where are you, sweetie?”

     “I’m at home. Watching the street from Dad’s window. Where are you?”

     “I’m close. I’m taking my final break, and then I’ve got about a mile to go. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

     Zachary finally breathed a sigh of relief.

     “10-4.”

-35
-

     Joe saw Linda coming from a great distance away. Long before she saw him.

     And normally Joe Warner wasn’t a bad man.

     But these were desperate times. And in desperate times a man, any man, will often do things he ordinarily wouldn’t.

     Joe was tired of walking. And it would be dark soon.

     He’d spent a lot of years in the Navy. Hadn’t really done much of note. Mostly rode a desk and did just what he had to do to get his paycheck. But he did go to sea a couple of times when he ran out of ways to dodge it. And one of the things he remembered from his Navy days was how to read the sun.

     As long as he knew what day of the month it was, he could estimate the setting of the sun within three or four minutes, three or four hours in advance.

     And his training taught him, within three or four minutes, that he had an hour and ten minutes left before the sun disappeared beneath the horizon.

     Something else his Navy days had taught him was that he wasn’t much of a man. Not, at least, when it came to defending himself in hand to hand combat. He was a mousy kind of guy, whose mouth always got him into trouble, and who got challenged to fights on a regular basis.

     He ran when he could. And when he couldn’t run, he got pummeled.

     The memories still stung. But they also made him very aware that he was a coward and a weakling. And that he would not survive well in a hostile environment of any type.

     The sixty extra pounds he’d packed on since the Navy didn’t help his situation any either. He was desperate to get home, so he could barricade himself in his house and pull out his weapons for self preservation.

     But he knew he couldn’t make it before it got dark, and that terrified him.

     Yes, in the bleakest of circumstances, desperate men will do desperate things.

     And there was a woman, alone on a bicycle, a block and a half away.

     And she was coming right at him.

     Linda was making good time. She was less than an hour away now. She was off the freeway, and it should be smooth sailing from here.

     She was surprised. She was expecting it to be much more chaotic than it was.

     Perhaps it hadn’t sunk in yet that this was more than just an occasional power outage. Perhaps people were waiting for the power company to get everything turned back on again. They’d still be without cars and cell phone service. But at least they’d be able to have lights in their houses. They could cook their dinners and turn on their televisions to the evening news. Maybe there they could find out why all the cars stopped working. And more importantly, when they would start back up again.

     She’d seen a few looters breaking into a darkened convenience store, and two teenaged boys smashing car windows and then rooting through the cars. But most of the people she saw looked relatively calm.

     But then again, she had yet to encounter Joe Warner.

     Joe was crouched behind a Ford Expedition, waiting for just the right moment to pounce. He’d already taken his 9 mm Colt from the holster on the back of his waistband. It was legal. He had a concealed carry license and all. He never expected to use it in a situation like this. But he would do whatever he needed to do to get home to a safe environment.

     And he was running out of daylight.

     When Linda was almost parallel to the Expedition’s back bumper, Joe Warner pounced. Instantly, he was on the roadway in front of her, in a shooter’s stance, both hands on the butt of the weapon and his finger on the trigger. One nervous twitch, and Linda would be dead.

     “Stop right there!”

     She did.

     “What do you want?”

     Even with the gun, he was more frightened than she was. She could see his hands shaking.

     “Take it easy, Mister. I am no threat to you. Don’t do anything that’s going to ruin both of our lives.”

     “Get off the bike.”

     She did as she was told. With another assailant she might have argued the point, tried to talk him out of taking away her transportation.

     But she could see that he was unstable. Dangerously so.

     She popped the kickstand and stood the bike up. Then she held both hands out to her side and backed away from it.

     “Take it, Mister. I’m tired of riding anyway. It’s all yours.”

     She continued walking in the direction she’d been headed, backwards, so she could keep a close eye on this crazy man. She watched him get on her bicycle and very clumsily ride off in the direction she’d come. It was obvious he hadn’t ridden a bike in many years. He wobbled and swayed and almost hit a couple of stalled cars before he finally got the hang of it.

     It didn’t help that still clutched in his right hand was his 9mm pistol. He dared not holster it until he was far away from Linda, for fear the petite woman who was one third his size would pounce on him and beat him to a pulp.

     When Joe Warner was almost out of sight, Linda turned away from him and resumed her walk. Losing the bike would set her back, but she’d still be at the house before dark.

     Ten minutes later she heard a flurry of gunshots in the direction Joe Warner had ridden.

     They were a bit unnerving. But they were too far away from her to cause her any real concern. So she didn’t put much thought into them.

     She would never know that Joe Warner lay mortally wounded in the middle of the street two miles back.

     She would never know that the teenaged boys she’d seen breaking into cars had noticed her riding past.

     And that they laid in wait for her, thinking there was an even chance that she’d soon be returning from whatever trip she was taking.

     The boys’ weapons weren’t legal like Joe’s was, of course.
Texas was a big second amendment state. Texas loves its guns, and even crazy schizophrenics like Joe Warner were able to easily obtain one. Or a hundred, if he wanted to.

     If it were up to the
Texas legislature, they’d have issued a gun permit to everyone upon birth. But they weren’t quite there yet.

     So it was still impossible for fifteen year old thugs to walk into a gun shop and buy a gun legally. These boys’ guns came from burglaries.

     But that didn’t matter. Wherever they came from, they still worked, and were just as lethal as Joe Warner’s.

     They hadn’t given Joe the same option he’d given Linda, to walk away and stay alive.

     Joe, in fact, had never seen them. They’d hidden behind a parked car, just like he had, until he’d ridden past. Then they shot him four times in the back.

     Joe Warner drifted off to eternal sleep wondering what hit him. But he’d never know.