Get Out of Denver (Denver Burning Book 1) (4 page)

“But this neighborhood should be okay. Nobody has any reason to come here except for those of us that live here.” Carrie looked to McLean for some comfort.

“For the time being,” he said, shrugging and refusing to elaborate.

“Hold still! I got two little pieces of metal out of here. There might be more, but if I dig any deeper I’ll probably reopen the bleeding. I’m going to bandage it up and you’ll have to get it looked at by a doctor later.”

“Thanks. You’re quite a surgeon yourself.”

“Two years of nursing school, thank you very much. And I help the physician’s assistant that serves in our rescue mission with basic wound care sometimes. But this is actually the first time I’ve ever treated a gunshot victim.”

“I’m not a gunshot victim. I got dinged by some shrapnel, that’s all,” McLean snorted. “Those might be fragments of my truck, actually,” he added, peering at the metal bits Carrie had dropped into the bloody water bowl on the table.

“Well, here you go,” she said, smearing what felt like half a tube of antibiotic ointment on the wound and plastering his shoulder with gauze and medical tape. “I’ll leave you some freedom of movement with this tape, but try not to rotate your shoulder too much, it might start bleeding again. What hospital or clinic do you go to?”

“Haven’t been to one in ten years, and I certainly won’t be starting today,” McLean replied.

“That’s a little risky,” Carrie said. “Don’t you think--”

“Not nearly as risky as going to one of those places right now,” McLean said. “It’ll be utter chaos at every medical facility in Denver right now. And anyway, we have some work to do. I think we should fix a few things up around here to make this place more… secure for you.” He had almost said ‘defensible’, but didn’t think Carrie needed to consider that possibility just yet. One could always hope that the violence remained downtown and didn’t spill into the residential areas. But he wasn’t going to bet Carrie’s life on it.

McLean spent the next few hours preparing Carrie to shelter in place. He scrounged some supplies for her from a gas station nearby that was still conducting cash transactions. He shut off the gas and electric lines to the apartment, got what water he could from the pipes, which were already losing pressure, and covered the windows with thick blankets that would insulate the interior and prevent candlelight from acting as a beacon to anyone who might pass by.

He also reinforced the front door with a makeshift cross bar made from a coat rack and two L-shaped pieces of a disassembled nightstand. He had to borrow some tools from the neighbor downstairs, the only other guy that was home in the six-plex. Carrie and her roommate were apparently more into cooking and art than woodworking and didn’t have so much as a screwdriver. The guy downstairs was pretty skeptical when McLean told him what he wanted the tools for, but McLean noticed him pulling his bike inside later and reattaching a ‘Beware of Dog’ sign that had fallen in the grass by his patio fence.

The news of the extent of the day’s attacks would soon spread by word of mouth, McLean knew, along with a lot of inaccuracies and rumors. But he didn’t say more than necessary to the neighbor or to the gas station attendant. People would soon be desperate for news, advice, and conversation, but he wanted to fly as low under the radar as he could for as long as he could. There was no upside to being known as the knowledgeable guy, not at the moment anyway.

“Thanks again for all this,” Carrie said as McLean came back from returning the tools. “It was really sweet of you to stay and help.”

“I couldn’t turn my back on you,” was all McLean could think to say. ‘Sweet’ wasn’t the word he’d have used. They were way beyond sweet now; on a day like this a man simply had to do what was necessary.

Now that it came to it, he was surprisingly reluctant to leave. He realized he’d been finding excuses to stay longer, little things to do that Carrie probably could have managed on her own. Where had all his intentions gone to get out of Dodge and never look back? He wondered how his little ranch was faring, and he felt eager to get home, but at the same time he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his mind off of Carrie once he left.

“I hope Shauna gets back soon,” Carrie said. “I’m worried about her. Are you headed back to your ranch?”

“That’s right,” McLean said. “Half the reason I started it was to be a refuge during disasters. And today definitely qualifies.”

“Well, I hope you’ll be safe there, and during the drive. You probably better take two-eighty-five, to avoid downtown.”

“Actually I need to plot another route that avoids all the highways. They may not be passable. I’ve got a map in the truck.”

As McLean walked toward the door to go for his map, a flash from outside pierced through the crack in the heavy curtains he’d put up and lit up the windowsill. McLean felt the same strange feeling go through his body that he’d felt earlier near the freeway. Carrie gasped.

“No, no, no!” McLean cried. He ran to the door and looked out, Carrie trailing after him.

Checking the sky, he saw nothing unusual, no mushroom cloud or anything nightmarish. He ran down the stairs three at a time and dashed to his truck. He unlocked it and slid into the driver’s seat. Inserting the key into the ignition, he offered up a prayer and tried to start the engine.

Nothing.

He tried again, and got no response at all from the starter.

Carrie came and stood outside the truck, looking nervously around. McLean reached over and picked up the Maglite she’d left on the passenger seat. He clicked the button to turn it on, but it was dead, its twenty-four-inch length apparently sufficient to conduct the EMP and fry its circuit. Everything electronic was now a useless and inert.

He sat inside the quiet truck for a moment, taking stock of his new situation. Because he’d stayed to help Carrie, he was now stranded in the city, a worst-case scenario he’d planned for but hoped never to have to deal with. If he wanted to get home now, he had a very, very long walk ahead of him.

He climbed out and handed the flashlight, now an inert steel club, to Carrie. “Going to be really dark around here tonight,” he said. “But this doesn’t work anymore, so you better get out your little LED’s.” He thought about opening the hood to check the engine, but knew it would be pointless. Even if he could get replacement parts from an automotive store, they would probably be dead on arrival.

“What’s that?” Carrie asked, fear in her voice. She was pointing up at something behind him in the sky.

They watched as first one, then two, then three and four and five fighter jets spiraled down toward the earth, electrical systems too fried to even ignite the pilots’ ejection seats. As the planes impacted one by one all around the South Platte River Valley, McLean felt them as nails in a coffin. They signaled the defeat, at least for now, of the United States military, and the loss of all hope for a swift return to order and stability.

“What’s going on, McLean?” Carrie whispered. “I think I know, but I don’t want it to be that.”

McLean sighed, and walked around to the bed of his truck. He unlocked the cargo box and pulled out his bug-out bag. As he went through it pulling out things they would need that night, he explained to Carrie.

“I’m pretty sure we’ve been hit by an electromagnetic pulse. Two, actually. The first one knocked out the power grid and, somehow, even most of the cars and other electronics. The second one, the one that took out my truck, seems to have been timed to neutralize whatever response our military managed to send up from their hardened bunkers. That means it’s probably an attack by some foreign power, and a very effective one at that. Much more effective than the tests I’ve read about. Which means whoever’s behind the attack knows what they’re doing.”

Carrie nodded, lips pursed. “I’ve heard of EMP’s. But how does that explain all the chaos in the city?”

“Some panic and looting is to be expected,” McLean said, “accompanied by some accidents and fires. But the speed with which criminals and terrorists were popping up back there makes me think there’s something more to it. They must have had a heads-up that today was payday for anybody with a weapon and a bad attitude.”

“You think it’s a Middle Eastern terror group?”

“I doubt it. If those were high-altitude nuclear EMP’s, like I think they were, that means it was a military with some serious nuclear armaments. And if the Russians or Chinese got pissed off and finally decided to throw down with us, I’m sure they will have used more than one method of attack. Probably cyber stuff, psychological warfare to freak everyone out, maybe sleeper agents in our government. The first thing you and I noticed was the sudden loss of power, but who knows what else is going around the country. It wouldn’t have taken much to tip people over the edge these days, but whoever’s behind this sure isn’t holding back.”

Carrie let out a heavy sigh. “Well, how do we find out? I would really like to know what to expect, what to do. Is there any way I can find out what’s going with my parents in Washington?”

“If anybody’s transmitting on the radio we might be able to get some news that way. I’ll keep checking periodically. I know some people that have shielded radio equipment precisely because they thought something like this could happen some day. But even if we hear things over the radio, it’s going to be ninety percent rumor, panic, or propaganda. I don’t think the police or the government has enough of a handle on this to announce anything helpful. If you want to know what to expect, I can give you a pretty good idea. But it isn’t encouraging.” He stood up, shouldering his pack. “I’ll stay here tonight if I may. We’ve only got about two hours of daylight left, and I don’t fancy a stroll through the city tonight. We’ll see how things are in the morning and make our plans from there.”

When darkness came, it blanketed the city like a massive blindfold. They could see a few flashlights and candles winking here and there across the street, but otherwise they might as well have been at sea, or out in the middle of the Sahara. They couldn’t even see the outlines of rooftops or trees against the black night sky, through which a few stars were peeping, but only the barest sliver of a moon.  No one was moving around outside. It was eerie, being in a city of two million that looked like it was as desolate of humanity as the backwoods.

“Where is everybody?” Carrie asked. “I’ve only seen four neighbors since we got here.”

“Yeah, those are the ones that work from home, or didn’t have anywhere to be today,” McLean said. “I don’t think anybody else has made it home yet.” He didn’t mention that beyond the difficulty of walking home through a city in full melt-down, there was the matter of those gunmen he’d come into contact with. If there were more of them, if they’d managed to get control over part of the city, they might not be allowing people to move around freely. Or people might be too scared to travel, after having witnessed what they were doing.

McLean and Carrie had no way of knowing what the situation outside the neighborhood might be at this point. At sundown the smoke was everywhere, but there wasn’t much else to be seen or heard. The neighbors they’d spoken with didn’t even know as much as they did, not having been downtown to see the chaos. One woman had walked to a three-mile-distant daycare and back to collect her child, but from what she described everything on this side of town looked normal aside from the complete lack of traffic movement, and the smoke from the fires. People always left the suburbs en masse in the morning, and didn’t return until evening, so she wasn’t bothered by how few people were out and about.

McLean had a hand-crank radio in his pack that charged okay, but it wasn’t picking anything up except static. He wondered if lingering atmospheric effects of the EMP could be interfering with radio transmissions generally, or if there was really no one with a working transmitter. He prayed it would be the former and that it would be a temporary problem, and he wished he’d devoted more time to a study of communications.

McLean pulled a couple more candles out of his bag, which was a high quality internal frame backpack, and put them on the table next to the lit ones. The candles gave the room a cozy, warm glow but didn’t do anything for the falling temperature. Neither of them had much appetite, but he and Carrie ate some of the perishables from the refrigerator before they had a chance to spoil.

“Carrie, we should make some plans,” McLean said. “Just in case. If everything works out great, maybe we’ll be back on our feet in a couple days and this will all be a bad memory. But if it gets worse, and you can’t stay here, you should be ready to move, and know where you’re going to go.”

“I don’t
have
anywhere to go, McLean,” Carrie said, sitting on the couch. “My life consists of working at the clinic, sleeping here at night, and the occasional weekend trip. Spokane is a long, long way from here without a car, and my parents live in a retirement community anyway.”

“Well, look,” McLean said. “You have at least one friend in the country. No pressure, but you’d certainly have a place at my ranch if it came to that. Provided we can get there, that is.”

Carrie looked at him, considering. “You’re very kind,” she murmured. “I’d never impose like that as long as I can salvage things around here.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to have to walk away from your life here. I just mean, if the unthinkable happens-- continues to happen-- I want you to keep in mind that there’s a reason I came back for you this afternoon. I’m going to head out in the morning to meet up with some friends and get back to my place. But I’ll try to stay in touch when I can, so that if you ever need to, you can count on me.” He knew it didn’t sound as romantic as he might have made it if they had been in more desirable circumstances, but he hoped he’d gotten the point across. Carrie didn’t say anything more.

They both started yawning, and McLean felt the toll the day’s stresses had taken, mentally and physically. Carrie got up to go to bed.

“I put some blankets on the couch for you,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything, or if Shauna gets back.”

“I will,” McLean said. “Lock your bedroom door, but leave the window cracked open if you’ve got one in there, so you can hear anything going on outside.”

“Why should I lock the bedroom door?” Carrie asked, with mock naïveté. “Can’t I trust you, McLean?”

He blushed. “Of course you can. I’d kill anyone that tried to come after you, myself included. But I can’t stop thinking about those gunmen I saw at the Capitol. And the looters, and the shots that were fired at us. If anybody comes around here tonight, heaven forbid, I want as many barriers between them and you as possible.”

“My loyal guard dog,” Carrie said, smiling. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, McLean. But thanks for your concern.”

“You’re welcome. Good night.”

“Good night.”

After Carrie had locked herself in her bedroom for the night, McLean pulled out his shotgun, checked it, and laid it just under the couch where he could grab it at a moment’s notice but wouldn’t trip over it. He knew he sounded paranoid to Carrie, but he was guided by too many years of careful preparation to let his guard down now. He made sure his pack was secure and ready to go, with his pistol and tactical flashlight easily accessible. Then he blew out the candles, made sure the bar was firmly in place across the door, and looked out through the window nearest to the couch, cracking it open so he could hear and smell.

All was quiet and still, but he could see a faint glow over the treetops in the direction of the city’s center. He also spotted a few winking flashlights on the larger street outside the neighborhood. Probably a few residents straggling back home in the dark. Chances were slim that any violence would break out of the rougher neighborhoods or the downtown targets of the gunmen, at least for tonight. In the coming days the looters would begin to spread out, looking for more lucrative and uncontested pickings.

McLean had seen it before, after a hurricane had torn apart a community in Mexico where he’d spent time as a young man. With the power down and law enforcement on indefinite hold, desperate characters had invaded even the gated communities, looking for homes whose owners had fled, and killing those who confronted them. A similar experience in Tennessee after tornadoes took down power there for a couple of weeks convinced him it wasn’t just a third-world problem. He’d been there as a volunteer aid worker, but the stories he heard from residents convinced him never to trust the general population when all bets were off.

He stretched out on the couch, relaxing his muscles for the first time since that morning. He still couldn’t allow his mind to relax, though, and didn’t know when he’d next be able to do so. Listening to the night sounds outside the window, he drifted into a light sleep that left his senses engaged and his body ready to leap up again at a moment’s notice.

That moment came around midnight, by McLean’s tritium-glowing analog wristwatch. He awoke to the sound of running footsteps on concrete, drawing closer. He rolled off the couch and put his hand on his shotgun, listening and blinking away the sleep from his eyes. As the footsteps rapidly approached the apartment building, he could also hear ragged breathing, great gasps for air and lung-bursting sobs. Whoever was coming, they were nearly at the end of their strength.

McLean crawled to the window and slowly moved the curtain until he could peek out without being seen. In the moonlight he could see two people heading straight across the parking lot toward the apartment stairs, a woman and man, obviously tired and desperate. There was no sign of anyone else on the street, and no other sound.

Moving silently to Carrie’s door and lightly knocking, McLean whispered loudly enough for Carrie to hear but not the people outside. “Carrie, come out here for a minute. Some people are here. It might be your roommate.”

Carrie was at the door by the time he finished the sentence, and came out. Her eyes widened at the sight of the shotgun in his hands, but he shook his head. “I think we’re safe for the moment. Check them out through the window,” McLean whispered. “If you recognize them, I’ll get the door.”

Carrie peered out into the night, and immediately turned to McLean. “That’s Shauna! Open the door!”

McLean lifted the cross bar and unlocked the front door. He opened it smoothly as the two people outside ascended the stairs so they wouldn’t pound on it when they got to the top, and he held the shotgun out of sight behind the door so he wouldn’t alarm them. Carrie rushed to the doorway.

“Oh my gosh, Shauna! You made it! Are you okay?”

It was all the large, blonde girl could do to make it to the top of the stairs, and she nearly fell through the doorway. Carrie caught her in her arms. The dark-skinned, well-dressed man with her followed them into the living room more slowly. He started visibly when he noticed McLean standing there.

McLean’s gave him a friendly nod and shut the door quietly, secured it with the cross bar, then went to light a candle at the kitchen table. Carrie’s roommate collapsed onto the couch.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Carrie said, holding her by the shoulders. “It’s safe here. That’s my friend, McLean, who’s been helping me since this morning.”

Shauna gestured at the man who had accompanied her, but couldn’t muster the breath to speak. The man had sunk to his own knees on the carpet, breathing heavily, but managed to get some words out.

“I’m David. I work with Shauna. We… we had to run for our lives. Well, we were stuck across town originally. The cars, and the airplanes, the fires. But then, this afternoon, some of us tried to walk out to the suburbs. And we made it to Paris Boulevard, but then… then the shooting started. It’s a nightmare. A total nightmare. You can’t even imagine.”

McLean brought the candle over with two bottles of water. “We want to hear everything you can tell us. But first, I need to ask whether you think anyone else is coming. Were you chased, or followed here?”

David shook his head, but Shauna started to cry. “They were chasing us,” she sobbed through heaving breaths. “They came after us. They tried to… to kill us.”

David explained. “At Paris Boulevard there was a massacre, a total massacre. People were just getting mowed down everywhere. Some of our coworkers died. We ran, and somebody shot at us, but Shauna and I weren’t hit. And then somebody else shot at us, from up high somewhere. We ran and got lucky again. But this lady, I saw this one lady go down, blood everywhere. It made me throw up.”

“But that was earlier, right?” McLean asked. “Is anyone after you now?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What made you run so hard to get here?”

“Well, we were trying to get through the neighborhood just west of here, and some guys were smashing windows and taking stuff. A group of them came after us when they saw my phone that I was using as a flashlight. Maybe they thought I was recording them. I dropped the phone when we ran, and they let us go.”

“Our phones still work,” Shauna nodded. “They’re like the only things that do. But no reception, not even for texts.”

McLean was at the window, looking out through a crack in the curtain that he covered completely from the candlelight with his body. “Okay. When you catch your breath, you can explain what you’ve been through, what you saw on the way here. But keep your voices down. Do you guys need anything? Are you hurt at all?”

“My ankle hurts,” Shauna said, tears welling up in her round blue eyes. Carrie had her take off her shoe so she could look at it.

As he watched the street outside, McLean listened for a few minutes to the chatter of the two arrivals, obviously more shaken than they had ever been in their lives. Between the two of them, they told a fragmented but chilling tale of setting out from their law office in a group with five others, and running into all the symptoms of accelerated societal collapse that McLean and Carrie had seen the beginning of. It seemed that not only were fires raging through downtown buildings that were without power and water pressure, the opportunistic looters were being outdone in their efforts to sow chaos across the city by masked gunmen.

These terrorists, matching the descriptions of the ones McLean saw, were going about their work in a much more dedicated fashion, ambushing policemen, blockading tunnels and bridges to harass refugees, and sniping from rooftops anyone that banded together or moved with purpose. At Paris Boulevard a larger group of them had marched toward a string of people wending their way homeward, and began firing indiscriminately at anyone and everyone that didn’t lay down and play dead.

“They were laughing as they did it,” David said, shaking his head in horror and disbelief at the memory. “It was sick, man. Just sick.”

Out of the original group of seven, all of Shauna and David’s coworkers were presumed dead, and they had been running for their lives for over an hour to make it to the apartment. David lived in Englewood, but had despaired of ever getting home again.

“The whole city’s doomed,” he told McLean, running a hand over his thick black hair to brush away some dust and debris. “There’s no way any of us are gonna make it. It’s a matter of time. If the fires don’t get this far, the bad guys will. Where’s the military? Where’s FEMA? We’re toast if they don’t get here soon.”