NightFall (13 page)

“
Damn it. Forgot our
passports.”

“
Don’t worry, I grabbed
them,” Rob said.

“
Oh,” Mila said, relieved.
“Thank you.”

“
What do we need passports
for?” Josh asked.

Rob’s eyes looked into the rear-view
mirror. “Just in case we have to leave the country.”

“
You’re serious?” Josh
asked.

Their lack of response told Josh all
he needed to know.

Mila looked out the window, and then
covered her mouth with a slight gasp.

“
What is it?” Rob
asked.

“
I was on shift tonight.
Oh no. We should have at least swung by the hospital. They’re going
to be so worried.”

Rob gently placed a hand over hers.
“I’m sure you’re not the only one who didn’t show.”

“
But what about our
patients? Surely there has to be some kind of back-up generator or
something. Right?” She looked at Rob, frantic and waiting for an
answer.

“
Yes. I’m sure there are.
You need to put it out of your mind. Just for tonight.”

It all fell like a bad dream. There
very livelihoods had changed. Bills, school, work, exercise, family
time—all routines given an immediate moratorium. What would their
new routines consist of?

“
Almost there, gang,” Rob
said, as they ascended a narrow hill leading to a dirt road where
the cabin awaited. He could see the small wood structure in the
distance, concealed under a patch of Redwood trees. It stood ten
feet in the air, on wood beams—to keep wildlife and bugs from
getting in. Wooden steps led to the front door. Beyond the windows,
the house was as black as the night sky.

The air was cool and the town below
was indistinguishable from the blackness of the forest. Rob had
always wondered what a city without lights would look like in the
evening—what things must have looked like two hundred years before.
During their trip, his question had been answered, and there was no
comfort to what they had seen.

***

They soon settled in, unpacked, and
moved everything into their three-bedroom cabin in the rolling
hills of Bear Mountain. Within the camp, there were five cabins
total spread throughout three acres of forest. The others soon
showed up, just as Rob expected. There was Peter and his wife,
Krystal. The Santos family—Carlos, Mayra, and their children
Gabriel and Antonio. Elliott and Reba, an older couple, who had
long relocated to their cabin after retirement. And Brad and
Ashlee, a young couple with five children.

The initial reunion between families
was heartfelt and affirming. The families were excited to see each
other and overwhelmed by the crisis that had sent them into
mountains. But now, the real work was upon them. They were going to
have to hunker down and work together if there was any chance of
survival.

Days past, then weeks, and their
routines soon became second nature. The days consisted of fishing,
hunting, cooking, boiling water, gardening, and most important,
learning from each other. There was even a few rooms set aside for
the kids to go to school. It was life in the wilderness among a
tight-knit group of people who trusted each other, motivated by
their mutual longing for the return of normalcy so that they could
go home.

Two months had passed and Rob’s family
hadn’t left camp. Too many troubling developments were announced
over the radio. Gunshots and looting could be heard from the town
below. From their carefully placed look-out tower, Rob could see
fire and smoke almost daily from his binoculars. Nyack didn’t look
to be faring too well from afar. The faith and hope that had
brought the camp together was put to the test with each day they
remained without answers or assurances.

Their “temporary bug-out” had extended
past the two month mark, and the news had gotten worse. The power
grids were no more repaired than the cars on the road. The town was
too dangerous to venture into. Their supplies were dwindling even
with an emphasis on rationing. But plans were in the works for a
supply run. It had to happen, despite whatever madness had gripped
their town below.

Rob was on a morning walk when he ran
into Peter, who had just finished his guard shift.

“
Morning, Rob,” Peter, an
energetic gray-haired man in his fifties. He and his wife, Krystal
were both well-to-do realtors, and among some of Rob’s most loyal
customers—when he had his store.

“
Hiya, Peter,” Rob
said.

Peter held a hunting rifle in hand, a
camouflaged jacket, and black boonie cap. He looked worn from his
long guard shift.

“
I just wanted to share
something real quick.”

Rob looked on, interested. “Sure. What
do you have?

Peter brought his hand to his chin. “I
was thinking about what you were talking about the other day. About
when you and Mila went into the city to get your kids.” Peter
stopped, took his boonie cap off, and wiped his
forehead.

“
What about it?” Rob
asked.

Peter’s eyes were intense and wide.
“They’re doing that everywhere, not just through the Bronx and
Manhattan, or wherever you saw it. It’s part of a nationwide
operation to clear the most densely populated areas of the
country.”

“
I don’t understand,” Rob
said. “Where did you hear this?”

“
From a buddy on my mobile
HAM signal. It’s called Operation Urban Breach. A classified
operation where they make room for complete
militarization.”

Rob flashed him a skeptical look, but
wasn’t entirely dismissive. What he had seen was every bit as Peter
described.

“
They know that after the
EMP, millions of vehicles are nothing but useless hunks of metal
blocking the road. So what is the government going to do, just
leave them there? Who owns the roads, Rob? Think about
it.”

Rob was deep in contemplation.
Everything Peter was saying made sense. It just seemed so…
impossible. How could the government pull off such a
thing?

“
And no word on who
attacked us and why?” Rob asked. “Two months later, and none of
your buddy’s knows.”

Peter shook his head. “Haven’t heard
anything.”

Rob thanked Peter and went about his
morning hike. At the very least, he had quite the story to tell
Mila. He walked up a cliff and examined the open fields and tiny
houses miles away. Thin waves of smoke trailed in the distance. It
always smelled like smoke because something was always on
fire.

For the time being, nothing was going
to change. The outdoor life was just like any other. They were a
community of people who lived in the area, dedicated to one untied
goal of survival. And so far, it was working. Two months in the
mountains had left them with disconnected from their normal lives,
wondering if it was still possible to make the transition back to
who they were before.

Despite the relative anonymity that
surrounded them at camp, the times were changing. And on the
afternoon of Sunday, November 19, things were about to get a lot
more interesting. They had been discovered. And it was no accident.
The men who watched them from a safe distance believed them to be
thieves, for their latest supply run had crossed into gang
territory.

About a hundred yards from the camp, a
black fedora hat rose from the bushes, revealing a tall man in a
leather jacket. He had a small group with him. Bulky, intimidating
me, with tattoos, scars, gold teeth, while some were missing teeth.
The man, along with his gang convicts, had taken over Nyack and
claimed it as their own. Now they had an outside threat to deal
with.

Mayor Jenkins called his men to
advance, and they hiked up the latest hill, getting closer to the
stretch of cabins before them. They had been staking it out for
some time, studying their activities, defenses, and routines. The
gang held their rifles close to their chests and moved with a
stealth similar to the maneuvering that saw their prison
escape.

Jenkins halted them again. They heard
something not far ahead.

“
What is it?” Larry asked.
His braided long hair, hung over his jacket.

“
We need to be careful
from here on out. These people are armed and they know the area ten
times better. They’re not going to be as easy as the preacher and
his folks. Got it?”

“
Got it,” Larry
said.

They waited for a few minutes, and
then advanced further. The men were itching for a shootout. Murder
was on their mind and vengeance in their hearts.

The exciting tale of
survival continues in EMP: Book One

After adjusting to life at camp, the
group mobilizes to conduct a much-needed supply run. Rob knows that
venturing into town carries its share of danger, but what lay ahead
is worse than he could have imagined. The group narrowly escapes a
violent ambush on the streets of Nyack and escapes back into the
mountains to re-group and strategize. Having alerted a nearby
criminal gang to their presence, an avalanche of conflict soon
follows where lines are drawn between those who can survive and
those who will die.