A Town Called America Read online

  Once the fire was strong, Rick sat on the couch and placed a shotgun on the cushion next to him.

  “And now we wait,” he said quietly.

  FIVE

  Shawn had woken up in a bad mood and didn’t feel like going to work. Although jobs were scarce, and six bucks a day was an OK wage, today he’d rather stay home.

  After he had called in sick to the store with much hesitation, Amber had agreed to work his shift. She really didn’t care about him or the fact that he said he was sick. Amber wasn’t doing him any kind of favor, and he knew it. The only thing she cared about was the extra money she’d make from the deal—fifteen bucks Shawn had agreed to give her.

  After crawling back under his sheets, however, Shawn realized he couldn’t sleep. It had been a terrible couple of days for him, and he didn’t want to do anything. The makeshift generator the heated his building quite working again, and the night before he had gotten into a heated argument with his landlord over late rent. There was only one thing he thought he might miss by staying in bed, and that was Chris coming to the store.

  Shawn knew she flirted with him not because she liked him but because she wanted smokes or whatever. But he didn’t care. He liked her regardless, and he knew it was obvious to her. They had known each other since they were kids and even had gone on a couple of dates before her aunt had died and her life had fallen apart. Although they hadn’t spoken to each other much in the last couple of years, he still cared about her a great deal.

  Shawn didn’t know the extent of how bad things were for her at home, but he had an idea that they were rough. A couple of weeks back, when Chris was at the store, she had dropped something and bent over to pick it up. When she did, he saw bruises on her back and neck. He wanted to help her but didn’t know what to do. If he said anything to her, she may never speak to him again. So he kept quiet and let her walk out of the store.

  Not being able to sleep, Shawn figured he’d walk across the street to the store and see if he might run into Chris. His apartment was on the backside of the building across the street, so he couldn’t see the store until he got outside and around the corner. He didn’t care if Amber saw him after he had called in sick; after all, he was paying her.

  Shawn left his one-room apartment and descended the rickety stairs until he reached the outside door, which hung on only one hinge. He pushed open the equally broken screen door and stepped outside. Man, it’s cold, he thought.

  Shawn was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Hell with it, he thought, as he wrapped his arms around his body to stay warm. Once he was around the corner of the dilapidated apartment building and on the street, he saw a black El Camino pull away from the store. The driver seemed to be in a hurry, as the car peeled off leaving a trail of smoke and dust behind it.

  Shawn crossed the street and headed toward a small crowd that was beginning to disperse into various homes and buildings. As he approached, he saw a familiar face standing in the parking lot, staring down the street.

  “Oh, hey, Shawn,” Old Man Smith said.

  “What was that all about?” Shawn asked.

  “Rick drove in here and almost took out the fence across the way, along with the store. Damn good thing that beast of a car stopped, otherwise the whole building would be gone.”

  “I don’t get it,” Shawn replied.

  “What you don’t get? Rick’s a nut job. He was screaming about the end of the world. Told us to get inside or we were all going to die. I’ve seen him around a few times, but the sheriff knows him better than I do.”

  Shawn shrugged. “OK, whatever.”

  “Not whatever, Shawn. You know that girl you have a thing for… um, what’s her name? Amie?”

  With hesitation Shawn replied, “Chris.”

  “Yeah, her. She got into his car and drove off with him.”

  “There’s no way she’d—”

  The old man shook his head. “No, she left with him. I already talked to Sheriff Parker, but he just said that Rick’s an OK fella.”

  “Where would she go with him? He’s just a worthless scavenger.”

  “Well, I heard Rick tell some woman he was headed up to his cabin—you know, that nice one outside town near the lake. I think that’s his place.”

  “Yeah, I know where it is, but I can’t see Chris going outside the fence so close to nightfall. Not unless…” Shawn didn’t finish his sentence; he was thinking this Rick guy had to be the source of Chris’s bruises.

  Shawn hurried to his apartment, grabbing his jacket and a few other belongings before running back outside to the attached shed. He knew what he planned to do would be a mistake, but it didn’t stop him.

  A 104-cubic-inch Harley-Davidson engine came to life with a thunderous roar. It was a Fat Boy, and everyone in Brick Creek knew it was his bike, as he was the only one in town with one. When Shawn hit the throttle, his machine screamed out of the shed onto the ice-covered road. Within seconds he was gone. The faint sound of his bike in the distance lingered in the air for a moment until there was only silence.

  SIX

  Rick and Chris sat inside the cabin; the only thing breaking the silence was the windup clock ticking on the wall.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  It was 6:00 p.m., and the sun had set. Since they’d arrived, neither had spoken a word, and in the silence, it felt as if some unknown evil were looming nearby, an evil that was waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Rick had fallen asleep on the sofa, waiting for whatever was to come next. Chris, for some reason, had found a comfort in Rick that was unusual for her. It scared her, and she tried to rationalize it in her head, but in the end, her feelings overtook her mind. Later that evening, eventually succumbing to her feelings, she lay down next to him on the sofa. Chris lifted Rick’s arm from his sleeping body and put it around her waist, as if he were her savior and protector.

  The next morning Chris woke, slid off the couch where Rick was still sleeping, and staggered to her feet. She wasn’t a morning person by any means, but the sound of the constant rain battering the cabin’s metal roof had woken her early.

  As soon as she stood up, she smelled smoke in the air. It was sobering, especially because she knew it wasn’t from the fireplace, as the flames were dying out.

  “Rick, Rick, wake up,” she said, shaking him lightly.

  The lantern had gone out some hours before, and the room was in complete darkness other than the faint glow of embers smoldering in the fireplace.

  Rick sat up, rubbing his eyes and running his fingers through his thick hair a few times in an attempt to focus. On his feet, he fumbled, almost losing his step, until he finally found the lantern and lit it. In the soft glow, Chris explained that she had tried to use the sink, but the water wasn’t working.

  “Look, here’s the deal,” Rick said quietly. “Yesterday the announcer on the radio was talking about a total system failure. He said the M.M. apparently has set off multiple EMPs. If that’s true, then power, water, generators—all of it will be permanently useless. I couldn’t understand everything he was saying, but I did hear him say the M.M. was heading toward a town not far from here.”

  “What’s an EMP?”

  “Look, you know the power grid has been in shambles for years, and most people don’t have electricity anyway. But what it means is that they’ll set off an electromagnetic pulse.” Chris looked confused, and Rick knew she didn’t understand what he was saying. “Think of it like this. A huge wave of invisible electricity blasts this room—it would fry anything electronic. If it hit our town—or even somewhere close to it—nothing will work, not ever. No vehicles, no watches, not even a toaster. Anything with a circuit board will be permanently dead.”

  “Well, what causes them?”

  Rick took a deep breath. “It can be from energy from the sun—like a solar flare—or manmade machines like a warhead or missile. I’m not an expert, so all I can say is that if they were announcing this on the radio, we’re in a bad way. I can�
�t remember the last time I heard anything on a radio, so if a town is sending out an emergency broadcast, we’re in trouble.”

  Chris gave him a skeptical look. “How do you know so much about EMPs?”

  “I read, Chris. I like to read.”

  Suddenly Rick noticed a faint smell in the air, like something burning. From his expression, Chris knew what he was thinking. “I smell it too,” she said, “but I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

  Rick walked around the cabin in circles, attempting to follow the smell, until he stopped at the door. Opening it slowly he realized something was very, very wrong.

  “What time is it?” he asked Chris.

  “Not sure. The wall clock isn’t working.”

  Rick couldn’t be certain, but his best guess told him it had to be at least 6:00 a.m., yet there was very little sunlight. Looking down at his wrist, he saw that his watch wasn’t working either.

  Holding his shotgun at the ready, he slowly opened the door. Immediately he saw a dark haze covering nearly the entire sky. Smoke rose from something burning in the distance, just above the tree line. Before Rick could close the door, the sound of a violent explosion shook the cabin, startling him and Chris and also almost knocking them off their feet.

  Rick thought the explosion was far off in the distance, but he knew the blast had to have been huge.

  “What the hell is going on, Rick? Talk to me.”

  “I’m not sure…just what I heard on the radio yesterday. What I told you is all I know. Anything else is just speculation on my part.”

  “You said everything will be dead. What exactly is everything?”

  “I don’t know, but my guess is we’ll find out soon enough. I’m going to take a look around outside. Stay here until I get back. Don’t open the door for anyone, and keep quiet. There’s a pistol in the drawer next to the sink.”

  Rick put on his leather jacket and boots and headed outside.

  Chris attached a worn leather holster around her hips. It gave her a sense of strength she actually liked. She placed a few small logs in the fireplace and blew three good breaths under them, causing a small flame to come to life. After restarting the fire, she poked around the cabin, looking at the few pictures on the walls. They were mostly of Rick, but in a few of them, he was holding a young child in his lap. He looks happy in these pictures, she thought. After a time she made her way upstairs to the loft.

  In the bedroom there was a queen-size bed with dark plaid blankets and a small wooden table next to it. In the corner stood a large gun safe that was almost as tall as Chris. Books—many books—were neatly stacked on the floor all around the room and almost covered the entire desk in the far corner. The desk sat near the only window in the room, which Rick had boarded up the night prior. Peering between the boards, Chris couldn’t see anything, as the air was dark with smoke.

  Rick had walked around the cabin and up the small trail to the top of the hill. After moving up the narrow path and through the trees, he stopped just under a deer stand far above in one of the trees. He climbed up to the stand then sat in silent awe and disbelief at the scene before him.

  The longer he sat, the darker the sky became from the massive amounts of smoke. The smoke was so thick that it nearly blocked the sun and made it difficult for him to breathe. Covering his mouth with his shirt, Rick stared at the few rays of light that were breaking through the sky and casting a golden haze on the earth below. In the distance he saw the freeway he had traveled on the day before. Following it with his eyes toward town, he saw everything was still and silent—no people moved, and the buildings didn’t have a single light on, nor was there any noise. It felt as if time had stopped, and everything was frozen in place. In his heart he knew Brick Creek was gone.

  Then it happened again: another thunderous explosion in the distance. Rick instinctively grabbed the side of the deer stand to keep his balance nearly thirty feet above the ground. The explosion rocked the small stand, almost causing him to lose his footing and plummet from the tree. His eyes were now straining to see through the smoke and haze; he just barely made out the flames from the burning buildings inside Brick Creek’s walls.

  For the next few minutes, he sat on the stand, feeling confusion and deep sadness as he watched his small town turn into a fiery mass. This is it. The world is ending, Rick thought.

  Unable to breathe and beginning to choke, he climbed down from his perch, as he’d seen far too much for his mind to process. He followed the trail back toward the cabin and stopped at his car. As he sat in the driver’s seat, he took a moment to try to ponder everything he had just witnessed. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before turning the key in the ignition and driving away.

  An hour later Rick returned, exited his vehicle, and made his way toward the cabin. He stopped on the porch to gather some logs, which he took inside. He placed the logs next to the fireplace and spent the next few minutes breaking off small pieces of kindling.

  “I tried to start a fire, but it went out,” Chris said from where she sat on the stairs, only a few feet from Rick. “It went out, though,” she said again, speaking softly, knowing something was wrong but not wanting to press him.

  Rick finished up with the fire, and once it was going, the heat radiated throughout the room. As the fire burned brightly once again, Chris found herself staring into the shadows while Rick explained what he had witnessed. The only sound besides the crackling of the wood was her panicked breathing as she sat next to Rick in disbelief. Sometime the previous night or early that morning, he said, Brick Creek had come under attack, and it wasn’t clear whether anyone had survived.

  He explained that he had driven toward town but pulled off the main road so as not to reveal his presence to any M.M. soldiers who might be nearby. The last thing he wanted was for them to spot him or follow him back to the cabin. When they had stormed the town, they had destroyed everything.

  From what he could gather, they had rolled over Brick Creek as if it were nothing more than a speed bump in their path of destruction. Women, children—it didn’t matter; they’d killed them all. Bodies were everywhere: shot, stabbed, murdered. Although Rick never had dealt with the M.M. personally, from everything he’d heard about them, their modus operandi was to strip a town of all its resources and take slaves before moving on to the next town.

  Chris sat silently, listening to Rick’s soft voice. She couldn’t help ask herself whether it was good or bad that the town was gone, as most of her memories in Brick Creek were bad. Regardless she knew the people there didn’t deserve what the M.M. had done to them. She had her personal feelings about a few of the residents and wasn’t unrealistic about the state of the world. However, this was the last thing she could have imagined happening. Panic ran through her mind, as she questioned not only their safety, but the likely hood of them even being able to find food.

  SEVEN

  To understand the magnitude of what had occurred, you would’ve had to experience it personally. Words can’t describe the horror of what took place in Brick Creek. Anything mechanical instantaneously was rendered inoperable by the EMP. Radios, vehicles, watches—nothing electronic operated. Even if something was off, it didn’t make a difference; everything was useless.

  They might as well have been in the Dark Ages, and it all happened in a millisecond.

  When the M.M. struck Brick Creek, the economy was nearly nonexistent. Food was scarce, and electricity was rare for one to have. The government already had collapsed, and the M.M. had been trying for years to establish a foothold throughout the country.

  After the US government collapsed, the dam outside Brick Creek was in complete disrepair. The filtration system began to clog after employees stopped maintaining it, and eventually the water stopped flowing altogether. The water finally spilled over, causing the structure itself to erode, and very quickly the flooding began. Between the flooding from the dam and the, the sewers filling up, and the water poured into basements and substruct
ures. The buildings and homes in neighboring towns weren’t built to sustain such tremendous water damage, so many of them also collapsed.

  When the US government fell apart, it had taken only a few days for grocery-store shelves to be stripped due to looting. After that the animals and bugs moved in, along with violent gangs from the cities that devoured any scrap left behind. The stench of rotting food and dead flesh filled the air. Bodies lay in the street, also looted of anything of use.

  With riots and fighting in the streets, gunshots became the norm throughout the days and nights. The local governments quit long before this began; they also didn’t have any answers. Bands of gangs eventually marauded towns, killing anyone in their path. They burned buildings and shot anyone on sight.

  Around that time Brick Creek, with its few remaining residents, banned together and built the wall around the main part of town. After the defenses were in place, it was a while before anyone had come through trying to cause problems, most likely because there wasn’t much left for people to take, and the outsiders knew it. In the months after the M.M. stormed Brick Creek, almost everyone they hadn’t killed eventually starved or just left.

  After Brick Creek the M.M. tore across the country, looting and burning remaining towns and cities. The few hospitals left were either burned or bare of supplies. Children across the country were now without antibiotics. Well, a person can guess what happened to the children after that.

  In the months after the attack, a handful of people were still holed up in Brick Creek, in some of the older brick buildings they’d fortified. Eventually fewer and fewer people came around, but when they did arrive, the first thing they saw was a large sign outside town that read, PRIVATE PROPERTY: WILL KILL ON SIGHT! WE HAVE NO FOOD, WATER, OR SUPPLIES!