William Stone - How We Survive - EMP Survival in a Powerless World

He whistled, long and low, gazing at it. Just like the movies, he thought to himself. He gave the barrel a spin and started to do a Clint Eastwood, but couldn’t remember how the line went. “Is this your lucky day, punk—no, that’s not right.”

Tossing the gun onto the couch, he moved on with his search, digging through everybody’s pocket at least once.

The couch wound up with five guns and two knives on it. “Is that all you guys got?”

“That’s it, I swear!” one of them answered. He was a slender-faced kid, possibly the gang’s leader.

Nathan stood there with the rifle trained. He liked seeing them squirm and knowing how scared they were. So he took his time pondering his next move. After circling them for another minute or two, he said, “Okay, I’m going to let you guys free. But only on one condition—and it’s totally non-negotiable: you have to let me into your gang.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. Actually, let me rephrase that. You have to let me run your gang. That means you listen to me and nobody else at all times. And if you think about ambushing me, you’d be re-think that. You see, when you came up the house, your faces—every one of them—were being recorded. And I have just the connections I need to send the National Guard after you. And if you don’t know what happens to people who are considered a threat under martial law, try me.”

Not a peep from the gangbangers.

“But on the other hand, you listen to me, you let me give you guys the structure and leadership you need, and we’ll turn this little amateur outfit into an army that even the National Guard can’t stop. You all with me?”

He got a round of enthusiastic howls in reply.

It took a while for him to find the switch that released the guys from the net, but once down, they were cooperative, having been seduced by Nathan’s promises of leadership and growth.

But most of all, they’d been persuaded by his BS. The only truth behind the threat he’d made was that the Nickersons had installed a camera system outside the home, capturing the gangbangers faces on video—or they would have had the system been working. Everything after that was a fabrication. He had no connection to the National Guard, and he had no idea what would or could happen to them under martial law.

None of this mattered to Nathan. As a good businessman, he knew the power of a good bluff.

THE REST of the ride from the shop was a little more peaceful. The chaos of gunshots, fires, and irate crowds faded the farther they drove away. But with the streets clogged with abandoned cars, any attempt to get away would be complicated. He grunted, “Looks like we’re going to have to go back through downtown. Make sure you brace yourselves. Things may get kind of—”

A glance to his side and into the rearview mirror told him nobody was listening. All sound asleep. The image brought a much-needed smile to his face. It didn’t seem to make sense that anybody could—or would—sleep with so much horror unfolding around them. But then he remembered something his father told him about drills done to new soldiers to help them maintain stamina in important times. He talked about how he’d heard stories of combatants in World War One falling asleep as tanks rolled over their trenches. “When the body craves something, it craves it,” he said.

Just about the only time he recalled his dad sharing a personal story was the time he talked about his dad making him stay up to clean the bathroom after writing a dirty word on the wall. “That night, my body craved sleep. All because it craved vandalism that day.”

He remembered the way they’d laughed together when he shared that story. Maybe their only shared laugh. It was fun to remember it. Sometimes he needed to remind himself that there were good times between the two of them. Not many of them, not enough. But some.

Something thudded against the back window, loudly enough to yank everybody awake and fill the car with screams. “What’s happening!” Jess yelled as a crowd scrambled after them.

“Downtown, honey,” he answered. “That’s what’s happening.”

He sped through the narrow streets, easily outgunning the crowd, but soon that wouldn’t be an option. Up ahead, less than a block away, another street clogged with abandoned cars forced him to find a detour.

He skidded left, finding a burning mess in the middle of the street—large enough that he didn’t risk driving through it. No choice but to screech to a stop, then try the other way.

But the crowd was already there, blocking the way with flapping arms, taunts, insults. They spat at the Hummer, tossed beer cans and sticks at it. Others tried to fight their way inside, tugging at the door handles, kicking, punching at the windows.

Hatfield stepped on the gas, raced to the other side, knowing there was no way to do that without people getting hurt. He kept going, soaring through an intersection, sensing another crowd was crouched behind a building somewhere, waiting to pounce. “Everybody okay?” he asked.

He got reluctant grunts in the affirmative. A quick survey of rattled faces suggested there’d be no more sleeping for a while.

Out of nowhere, a vagrant leaped from behind a dumpster, hurled a bottle at the Hummer, and cackled into the night as it cruised past.

Two blocks away, on the other side of the street, a small fire flew toward them—maybe a Molotov cocktail, hard to tell at the speed things were moving—then crashed against the windshield. Jess screamed, long and raspy like something from a nightmare. The fire fluttered out as they drove through the madness, now doing at least ninety.

With the world around them blurring past so rapidly, everyone remained on edge, eyes alert, leaned forward. At that speed, it wasn’t easy to negotiate the streets, swerving to miss objects thrown at them, puzzled pedestrians, cars left behind. Hatfield didn’t dare lift his gaze from the road no matter how crazy the distractions around him.

All the while, his wife’s fingernails dug into his shoulder. “Don’t worry, everybody. We’ll get out of this,” he assured them. “I promise.”

“Out of this and into what?” Justin asked.

“The homestead.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a place my dad was working on,” Hatfield said. “It was still being built when I…” He searched for the most delicate words. “… wasn’t living at home anymore. After my dad’s death, I found out they’d finished it.”

“But you’ve never seen it yourself, right?” Jess asked.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t.” This wasn’t the time for such an emotional conversation. Talking about his mixed feelings about leaving home at fourteen and never seeing either parent again could sting.

His wife seemed to sense this. She replaced her sharp fingernails with a gentle pat.

“It’ll be great to finally see the place,” he said.

“How long before we get there?” Tami asked.

The question made Hatfield smile, reminding him of the kids’ favorite question on their way to Disneyland or Mount Rushmore. “Hard to say,” he answered. “Usually, it would be a drive of about two hours, but with all this insanity swirling around, who knows?”

A clap of thunder startled Jess. A glance into his rear-view mirror told Hatfield it startled his kids also. “Don’t worry, guys. This is good news,” he said, watching the sky darken to gray as the final slivers of the sun disappeared. “Rain will help us. It should put out some of these fires.”

His wife shook her head. “When did you get to be such a glass-half-full guy?”

“It’s not like we have a choice,” he deadpanned. “This is what the world is now.”