Dark New World (Book 2): EMP Exodus Read online

  Cassy sat next to her mother, staying quiet for several minutes. She enjoyed Mandy’s company, but at the moment she was just glad her mom, along with her kids, had survived long enough for Cassy to meet back up with them. Things had gotten dicey a few times on her way back.

  Mandy shifted and looked at Cassy. “So what’s on your mind, sweetie? I know when you’re thinking about something bothersome.”

  Cassy pursed her lips and nodded once. “Yeah. Well, I want your advice. I am worried about a situation that might blow up on us down the road, and I’m letting my own feelings get in the way of my judgment, I can feel it happening.” She paused and added, “I know I can trust you not to be a gossip. It bothers me that Jaz and Jed are getting closer than they ought to, him being married and all. But Jed’s wife Amber is spending more time than she ought to with Ethan. It’s hard to feel bad for her about Jed when she’s doing the same thing with Ethan. It feels like a soap opera without any commercials for going to the bathroom. Should I even bring it up? Leave it alone? I don’t know what’s best, Mom.”

  Mandy was quiet for a minute, and Cassy saw her brow furrow. Her mom always did that when she was working through a tough moral issue in her mind. Finally, Mandy said, “Well, Jed and Amber had problems before all this started, I gather. Seems reasonable they’d have even more now. Ethan and Jaz are both single and scared like the rest of us. Everyone wants someone to comfort them, I think. And I think that if Amber makes a move on Ethan before Jaz moves on Jed, all will be well.”

  She looked over at her daughter and added, “The world is different now, and people want different things than they did when they could distract themselves with TV and the Internet. There’s nothing wrong with people realigning themselves, and God will forgive ‘em if they handle it with honor and honesty. That’s all I can really say about that, sweetie.”

  Cassy stared into the burning coals in the fire pit. Maybe her mother was right. It was a new way of looking at things. The trick would be to see whether Amber stepped out on her marriage before Jed did, and the best way to make sure it happened that way was to try to keep Jaz away from Jed, at least for now. Running for their lives was not the right time for all this to happen anyway.

  When Mandy rose to attend the kids, Cassy didn’t even notice, lost in her own thoughts again.

  * * *

  1800 HOURS - ZERO DAY +7

  Cassy stopped with the others at the day’s destination and immediately took another Percocet, chewing it to get faster pain relief. Her shoulder throbbed constantly now, and for the last mile or two, every step had driven a sharp, fiery stake through her injured shoulder joint. It had been all she could do not to cry out, and now she was pale and noticeably shaking.

  At least they were done walking for the day. The sun would set in an hour, according to Ethan, and they had made it without incident to their designated stop point, an area of thick foliage just west of a village called Ludwig’s Corner. Along the way, they had seen burning houses, and bodies sprawled here and there almost always showing evidence of a violent death. Michael had said those were just the tip of the iceberg. The corpses they couldn’t see, tucked away in houses and in looted stores, probably vastly outnumbered the few bodies they had noticed. It bothered Cassy that she seemed to be getting used to the bodies of strangers.

  Twice they had been approached by small groups of people who Cassy thought looked like families, and begged them for food or water. The Clan was well-armed, and they had left without violence when Michael ordered them away. His military bark probably would have kept those timid souls away even without the guns, Cassy thought, but to hell with taking chances. Any one of them might have slipped a knife into their throats for food, Cassy figured, so she had no moral problem with the others pointing guns at the beggars.

  “Well,” Ethan said as he and Michael began the process of organizing an encampment, “I think pretty soon the only ones left will be farmers and people with guns, like us.”

  “But, don’t you think the railroads still work?” Grandma Mandy asked. “The engines don’t use electricity, right? They’ll be rolling food out from Iowa or wherever, real soon.”

  Cassy thought Mandy sounded more hopeful than certain. “Mom, the trains may run on diesel, but they have computers and circuits to control everything. They’re as fried as the rest of the grid. And without working trucks to get the food to the railways, how would the trains load and unload anyway? We’re on our own.”

  Ethan grunted. “The sooner we get used to the idea that this is going to get much worse before it gets better, the safer we’ll be. And don’t forget about the invaders. They’re attacking through Alaska, Florida, and as we know, New York. There may be other places as well. Nothing gets better until they’re kicked the fuck off U.S. soil.”

  Michael grinned and said, “Yeah, but every damn American has a gun, practically. I bet good ol’ boys are harassing them every time they step outside.”

  “Well, let’s hope so,” Cassy said. “The more soldiers who get tied up in New York, the better off we’ll be in Pennsylvania. And, unfortunately, the faster people starve off, the safer we’ll be on my farm when we get there.”

  Cassy saw Mandy staring at her with her jaw open in disbelief. She couldn’t look her mom in the eyes so she turned away to string up her shelter for the night. She heard Michael tell Mandy, “Don’t look at her like that. She’s being practical. You want your grandkids to live long enough to have families of their own? You better get practical, too.”

  Mandy spun on her heels and strode away, but not before Cassy heard her mutter, “God will punish the cruel and wicked.”

  Cassy hoped she was right, but she had in mind a different set of cruel people. “Save God’s wrath for the invaders, Mom,” she called after Mandy. To herself, she added, “They’re the ones who did this to us. If there’s a God, then He will know.”

  Ethan shook his head. “God’s not in right now. Can I take a message?”

  * * *

  Peter Ixin fumed in his camp. For the last half-hour, he had kept his prey in his rifle sight, rehearsing in his mind the look she would have on her face when death came for her as his bullet pierced her icy heart. He prayed she would live just long enough to realize her end had come. It took all of his will not to shoot her then and there, a second-by-second struggle between his head and his heart.

  But no, now was not the time. She had to live long enough to lead her group of refugees to wherever they were going. They clearly had a destination in mind, and by God, Peter would see where it was and then lead his own people there to take it. His people deserved it, and the spy and her cronies deserved nothing. There would be no mercy, Peter decided, when it came time to take out the trash.

  Peter slid his aim to the spy’s left. There was the muscle man, who had to be a soldier of some sort. He was always on point and had been their scout every time they moved out. Maybe it would be worth it to take him out right now. Of the group, he seemed the only real threat to Peter’s own men when they came a’ callin’. He slid his finger from the rifle’s upper receiver to the trigger, and calculated wind and distance, quickly doing the math. With his other hand, he clicked his scope’s dials, one click for windage, two for distance. That ought to do it…

  Then it occurred to Peter that the refugees might not make it to their base, or wherever they were headed, without Muscle Guy’s help. He weighed the pros and cons of just wasting the bastard right there and then. His finger rested lightly on the trigger as he weighed the options in his mind. Jaw clenched, he took two deep breaths and then held his breath mid-exhale.

  And made his decision.

  - 6 -

  1830 HOURS - ZERO DAY +7

  CASSY CARRIED AN armful of kindling and getting it had hurt like a bitch. She had to gather it on the ground first, stack it so that all the wood lay in the same direction, and then scoot down to try to get an armful. What a pain in the ass. Still, she thought, there was no way she was going to let h
erself be useless until her shoulder healed, whenever that would be. Though it might take forever to gather kindling up this way, she would otherwise be doing nothing at all.

  She bent over to drop the kindling onto her growing pile of wood and slammed her arm into a branch of the tree that sheltered the wood and the fire pit. She let out a scream of pain and then fell to her knees, clenching her eyes shut and gritting her teeth.

  She felt a hand drop onto her left shoulder, the good one, and lightly rub her arm, her back, her shoulder. When the pain subsided enough to speak, Cassy looked up. It was Jaz who had stopped to help her. Cassy didn’t quite know how to feel about that. Her smile turned to a blank expression, and she froze. “Jaz. Thank you,” she said, but her expression didn’t change.

  Jaz didn’t reply but bent over to grip Cassy’s good elbow and lifted. It hurt, but Cassy rose with her. Getting up with one good arm had been a problem, but apparently Jaz had noticed. So what the hell was that little thief doing helping her, Cassy thought, and why now?

  “Cassy,” said Jaz, unable to meet Cassy’s eyes, “can we like, talk or something? Just you and me? I need to say some things, and you might want to hear what I have to say.”

  Cassy fought the urge to roll her eyes. Jaz was pretty and dumb. Pretty dumb. At least that’s all she’d shown of herself so far, as far as Cassy was concerned. “Sure. I need to sit down, though. Over there,” she said and pointed to a nearby log. It was far enough away for privacy, but close enough that Cassy wouldn’t suffer in getting to it.

  They walked to the log, Jaz hovering around Cassy apparently ready in case Cassy fell, and the two sat down together.

  “What do you want, Jaz? You know how I feel about you, or at least some of it.”

  Jaz looked at the ground, then back up at Cassy. “So tell me how you feel about me, Cassy. All of it. I have some things to say, and it’s easier if I know, like, the whole story.”

  “Fine. You pretended to be friendly and stole my supplies. I could have died out there. Then you pretended to be friendly to the clan and nearly got them all killed. Yet they still accepted you, even knowing that. You don’t deserve them as friends, Jaz. And now you are moving in on Amber’s husband. You’re oh-for-three in my book, Jaz. The others like you because you’re friendly, and pretty, and nice to have around. But I don’t like you because you use that to your advantage, and all you seem to do is stab people in the back.” Cassy stopped and stared at Jaz.

  The young woman seemed to expect Cassy to continue, but after a long awkward silence, Jaz let out a deep sigh and looked down at her hands. “I can see where you’re coming from, Cassy. Like, if I didn’t know me I might think the same, so I can’t blame you. But there’s more to this, and you aren’t giving me any bennies of the doubts.” Jaz stopped and seemed to be considering what to say next.

  Cassy was content to sit in silence. She’d said all she wished to say on the matter, even if it hurt the girl’s feelings. Too bad.

  Then Jaz said, “Listen, Cassy, when I took your backpack I didn’t realize how bad things were going to get. It seemed harmless. The lights were supposed to come back on, right? I had nothing, and you were out on a pleasure hike, and it made me mad. It wasn’t until I was, uh, detained by some local hickerbillies that I realized just how bad things could get. How bad they already were. And believe me, Cassy, things totally did get lots worse than I ever thought they could. So bad that I sometimes wouldn’t have minded, you know, dying. Just to get away from it all. I’m glad I didn’t die, but something like that changes people, right? So when those bastards told me to scout out Frank’s group and signal when they were sleeping, I was going to do it. I was scared. But then I thought, ‘What if they did it to the girls here? What if they used them the way they used me, instead of killing them?’ I just, like, couldn’t even imagine doing that to people. Because I finally knew how bad things could get.” She paused, still staring down at her shoes. “I didn’t target these people, but I could warn them. It got me away from the hickerbilllies with my life, and it saved some good people. It was the best I could do.”

  Cassy turned to stare at Jaz. Crap. Jaz made sense, no matter how much Cassy wanted to hate her, but there was still one other thing. “Be that as it may, young woman, I am surely not the only one to notice that you have an unhealthy interest in a married man. You can’t blame that on what you went through before. It’s a choice you’re making right here and now.”

  Jaz actually smiled then, which irked Cassy. “About that… You see, like, he looked at me in that way, you know what I mean before I ever looked at him. And we’ve both been in the clan long enough to know that Amber is totally not into her man anymore. I don’t think they were solid before the lights went out, they just stuck for the kids. And it’s a whole different world now. They aren’t right for each other. That’s the reason Amber is all goo goo over Ethan. In this world, right here, right now, Ethan is the right match for her, just like I think Jed might be the right one for me. And me for him, and all that stuff. We just have to be legit with it, so no one gets hurt more than they have to, right?”

  Jaz let out a long breath and stood. Then she continued, “Cassy, you’re a good person and a good leader. I like you, and I trust your judgment, even if you don’t like me. If you need anything, you just holler, okay?” Then she walked back to the encampment and started talking to Michael’s wife, Tiffany.

  Cassy, lost in her thoughts, didn’t get up for nearly half an hour. What Jaz said was a lot like what her mom had said. Dammit. It made sense that people would reshuffle the relationship deck when the bedrock they were built on got shattered a week ago. Maybe Jaz had learned some hard lessons since the backpack thing. Hell, Cassy had more than a passing interest in Frank in fact, but of course she was mature enough to keep that to her damn self. “The hell I’m going to be like Jaz,” she muttered.

  Cassy shook her head to clear the thoughts and got up to help pass out rations.

  * * *

  Ethan finished the last bite of his MRE and dropped the various bits of wrapping into the low fire burning in the center of camp. As on most evenings, the whole clan—minus those on ‘guard duty’—sat more or less in a circle around the fire talking and joking, and planning the next day’s travel. Lately, the routine had become a bit awkward—Jaz hovered around Jed, and Amber spent her meal splitting her attention between Jed and Ethan. Cassy and her mom, Mandy, spent their meal watching the others but so far neither had said anything about the dance going on around them. Ethan knew the two were watching and figured it was only a matter of time before one of them broke the silence.

  In the meantime, knowing Cassy watched them made it awkward to spend time talking with Amber. That was a shame because Amber was a great woman, and he enjoyed spending time with her. If Jed would just make an actual move on Jasmine, Ethan figured, he could have a clear conscience when he did something real about Amber. His feelings weren’t love, exactly, but Amber was beautiful and clearly interested. Ethan hadn’t had a lot of women in his life over the years. More importantly, he could see that Amber was intelligent—too smart for Jed, for sure—and she had a razor-sharp wit. He enjoyed verbally sparring with her.

  Most of all, it was refreshing to finally meet a woman who understood what all his prepping had been about. She didn’t look at him askance when he explained why he lived in a bunker, or why he even had a bunker in the first place. All she’d said was that it would have been great if Jed thought ahead like he did.

  Amber made her way around the circle then, to sit next to Ethan. “Speak of the devil,” he said as she wiggled her way closer to him on the log “bench,” keenly aware of her leg brushing against his. Too aware, in fact. It was awesome and weird at the same time.

  “What’s up, Dark Ryder?” she asked.

  Using his hacker name was a bit of a joke to her, but she said it in a way that he felt was meant to be affectionate, not disrespectful. Just flippin’ perfect, his hacker handle turning out to be h
is pet name.

  Ethan grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Just counting the hours until I can get back online and do some good for the U.S. of A.”

  “You never really talk about what you do,” she said, but it was more a question than a statement. An invitation.

  “Sorry, girl, I can’t talk about some of it. It’s just better if you don’t know the details. But basically, I keep communications open between survivor groups, isolated military units, and freedom fighters. And a few prepper compounds, too, though they don’t really do much that’s useful.”

  “You were useful, Ethan. Maybe you just need to be smart enough to figure out how to use them right.”

  “I could be more useful, you know,” he said with an exaggerated wink.

  Amber snickered. “You’re incorrigible,” she said with a grin. “Although I can’t say I haven’t thought about it. About you and me, I mean. You always make me smile and laugh. I don’t feel so angry all the time when you’re around.”

  “I think that may have something to do with you not being invested in your marriage anymore. You haven’t been for a long time. At least, that’s my reading from some of the things we’ve talked about.”

  “That may be, hon,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “But Jed and I are parents, and we took vows.”

  “Well, I’m not saying that I want you to leave your husband, but so what if you did? The world has changed. We’re a clan now, apparently. I don’t think that will change regardless, so you’d still have your kid. The vows you took in the old world, it seems to me, expired when it did. Relationships don’t exist in a vacuum, they exist in a context. The context of your marriage isn’t what it was a week ago.”