Grid Attack (Cyber War #2)
Grid Attack
Cyber War
Book TWO
Emerson Hawk
Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters or incidents are all a product of the author’s imagination. Any likeness to persons, places, and things are purely coincidental.
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Chapter 1 - Anthony
There are times in a mans life where he wishes he would have made different choices. Better choices.
Right now was one of those times for me. If I had listened to Katherine when she said for us to leave, it would have been much easier than to try to leave now.
By now, we were sure that most of the roads were probably blocked or guarded by people who didn’t have any qualms about taking a life for food or anything else for that matter.
The National Guard had been called out and apparently were trying to help people. But there were some others who were using the situation to kill and loot from people.
We had been watchful for the last couple of weeks, trying to lay low and hide away in our home. For the most part, no one knew we were there. And if there was any major looting going on, they chose not to come to our house.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that our home was a huge brick house set up high and there was no real easy way to loot the place without being noticed easily.
It had gotten pretty cold over the last week, and we figured people didn’t care to be out in the cold. We thought that maybe that kept people closer to their own location instead of venturing out too far and finding us.
We could smell wood smoke through the area so we knew that other’s had held up in their homes as well, probably sharing with their neighbors. It wouldn’t last, though.
Two weeks ago, some men who were dressed to look like military came around and shot anyone who answered doors. Maybe they had gotten enough supplies through that method, but we knew we wouldn’t be safe here for much longer. We knew they would probably be back to take whatever they wanted and we didn’t have enough people to fend them all off if there was more than a few.
Kat was right. We should have packed up what we could and left. Now we had no choice. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get out of the city with what we could and not get shot in the process.
I found Kat upstairs digging through some boxes, frantically looking for something.
“Babe? Whatchya doin?” I asked her.
She rubbed her face with her hands and then put her hands on her hips.
“I’m trying to find the maps!” she said, flustered. “I had put some maps of the state away in case we ever needed them. I was going to toss them, but I just couldn’t, even though we never used them.”
I decided to help her look through some boxes when I spotted what looked like a small magazine box on the book shelf. Walking over, I pulled it out, and it was full of folded paper maps.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” I asked, with a bit of a smirk.
She softly punched me in the arm. “Now why couldn’t you have come up and done that an hour ago?” she said, with a slight smile.
She went through the maps and found the one for Missouri.
“Got it, woot!” she said and kissed me on the cheek as she took her candle and went downstairs.
We pulled the map open and began to look at the different routes out of town. Carl, Kat and I followed the roads with our fingers, talking about ways to get through and places to turn around if we needed. Damn, I missed having a maps app right now.
We figured if we could get across the Missouri river, we would have a much better chance of getting free from marauders. We just had to decide if we wanted to take side roads or main roads.
“Carl, see if you can get anyone on the radio talking about the roads. Even if it isn’t in our area. If we can find out what other’s are doing, it will only help us.”
The local radio bands had all finally went silent so the only real contact we had now was Carl’s portable HAM radio.
He pulled out his radio and sat on the recliner, trying to find anyone talking about roads. There was all kinds of chatter about everything including about how police were taking people away to the FEMA camps. It was hard to tell what was the truth and what was just conspiracy theories.
We took our time and plotted our route, allowing for backtracking if needed and also considered what would happen if our vehicle got stolen and we had to hike the rest of the way.
That wasn’t a pleasant thought. The idea of having to hike 60 miles in this kind of weather was not something I wanted to do, much less subject Katherine to.
She also would never let me live it down. And in general, I just didn’t want to disappoint her.
I knew it was important to her to get to her mom’s. Her mom lived in a small town just near the river. Damn, if I only had a boat we could get to a waterway and float all the way down.
It was a historic town with residents that never seemed to leave. I loved the area, but I had always wanted to stay close to the city with the conveniences that go with it.
The country life was never something I envisioned for myself. Now, I kinda wished we had lived in the country. We would probably have been better prepared.
Carl couldn’t find anything on the radio about the roads, so he helped us map our way.
“Carl, do you want to come with us? I mean, we can bring you along if you like?” I said, without asking Kat if she was okay with it.
Kat glared at me. But I knew what I was doing. I figured it was probably going to be a rough trip. We could use Carl to help us get through some things, especially if we ran up against anyone that would do us harm. He was a good shot, after all.
“I dunno, man. I really don’t have any reason to go with you. Plus, your mother-in-law doesn’t know me. She may not be keen on the idea of a stranger.” He said.
“Well, you think about it. It will be a day or so before we head out. I just wish we knew if the weather was going to cooperate or not.” I said.
I looked over at Kat who was motioning for me to go upstairs. I was about to get a tongue lashing for inviting Carl without asking her first.
I guess the apocalypse never changes certain parts of a relationship.
Chapter 2- Katherine
“What the hell are you thinking? We can’t bring anyone with us. We have no idea what lies out there. I don’t want anything to happen to Carl, and it be our fault because we invited him to come!” I whisper yelled at Anthony, totally pissed that he’s invited Carl to come along without consulting me first.
I mean, it’s wasn’t HIS mom’s house, it was mine. And I knew my mother was probably worried sick about us. The last thing she needed was to have some strange person that she didn’t know in her house, and trying to feed him as well as us.
“Babe, listen, please…” Tony started. “I know that Carl will help us out on this. He won’t just mooch off your mom or us for that matter. He will contribute to working and figuring out things that may make all our lives easier. He’s smart like that. Plus, we need an extra person for security.”
“Security?” I said.
“Yes, think about it. If it’s just you and me, we are the only ones that can monitor things on the way down, as well as at your mom’s place. That means that it’s much harder because only one of us can be on security watch while the other person drives or sleeps. Your mom and step-dad are not agile enough to do security. So Carl will allow us to rotate security, and watch out for people that don’t have a good nature about them.” He said.
He had a good point. If it was just the two of us and things were bad down there, it would be really hard for just he and I to manage things. Having one extra person would help out tremendously. Providing we could actually get out of the city and down there to begin with.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “Then what about Alice? We can’t just leave her.” I said. The thought of just abandoning her after her husband just died wasn’t something I could do.
“We need to offer to her to come as well, I suppose.” He said. I could see he was having the same thoughts as I was. It was hard to think in terms of keeping people around just because of their usefulness. But that is what we were faced with. If someone wasn’t useful to us, it made sense to let them find their own way.
What a horrible world we lived in now. But I decided I wasn’t about to leave her here, alone. No way. She was always working before and I had no doubt that she would make herself useful now.
“Speaking of Alice, where is she? I haven’t seen her in a while.” I said.
“Alice?” I called out quietly. I didn’t want to speak too loud, even in the house. We never knew who might be just outside.
She wasn’t upstairs and I didn’t remember her being on the main floor when we were all looking over the map.
I went down to the basement, and she wasn’t there either.
“Tony, where the hell is she? I didn’t even hear her leave…” I felt a knot in my stomach. Where had she gone?
I knew she was terribly heartbroken over the death of her husband. As much as I tried to console her, there was nothing anyone could do to speed up the emotional healing when it came to the death of a loved one.
We all grabbed a couple of flashlights and went outside to look. We had to be quiet, because we didn’t want everyone to know we were still there. We kept the flashlights off for the most part allowing our eyes to adjust to the dark as we walked around looking for her, but stayed within earshot of each other.
We all met up by the garage where Ernie’s body was.
I whispered to Carl and Tony, “You don’t think she would be in there, do you?” I asked.
Carl shrugged and Tony said he would go take a look inside.
Carl and I both stood outside, waiting and watching to make sure no one would sneak up on us. Thank goodness we had installed the gate between our two houses when we put our fence up.
Alice always liked sharing her food with us and we would share eggs from the chickens. So when we put up the privacy fence, we made sure to add a gate between our two back yards. It made it easier for us to pass things through and chat with each other without having to go all the way around to the front of the house.
