Age of Survival Series | Book 1 | Age of Survival Read online

  Age of Survival

  Book 1

  J.J. Holden

  Mark J. Russell

  Copyright © 2020 by JJ Holden / Mark J. Russell

  All rights reserved.

  www.jjholdenbooks.com

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Christian Bentulan

  About Age of Survival (Age of Survival Series: Book 1):

  When an EMP attack plunges the nation into darkness, the days of panic have only just begun…

  About to leave for Army Basic Training, Peter Meier awakens to a society on the edge of collapse. But when three strangers wander onto his family’s backwoods property in rural Wisconsin, a shocking turn of events plunges his world into turmoil.

  Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Bowman, Mayor Tom Grossman must work tirelessly to maintain a sense of calm. With no power, cars, or phones, will he be able to quell the rising tensions and keep the townsfolk composed? Or will the entire region unravel into madness in the midst of the disaster?

  Age of Survival is an exciting post-apocalyptic EMP survival thriller featuring regular people struggling to survive after an EMP.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

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  Also by JJ Holden

  JJ Holden Reader Group

  About the Authors

  1

  People used to say that Bowman was a typical rural Wisconsin town. More churches than stop signs, more bars than churches, and where a man drank told you more about him than where he prayed.

  Peter Meier, in his eighteen years, had rarely in his life been far enough from Bowman to know if other towns around were like that, or if things changed at all once you crossed the river into Minnesota. But he knew that Bowman had two sets of stop signs, three churches (Catholic, Lutheran, and Methodist), and five bars.

  Peter’s parents favored The Duck Blind, the only watering hole in Bowman that wasn’t on the main drag. The Duck Blind was built on a slow bend in the river just a couple hundred feet north of the town limits, on a dilapidated road that led up to a few small farmsteads and a dozen or so hunting cabins.

  As the name implied, The Duck Blind catered to waterfowlers. The place was decorated with stuffed ducks, geese, snipe, and coots. A few vintage shotguns were mounted on plaques, and covers from magazines featuring the Wisconsin Northwoods or sets of commemorative stamps were displayed in dusty frames on the walls.

  One wall of the dining area was devoted to tributes to regular patrons’ beloved water dogs. Faded snapshots from 1960s point-and-shoot cameras were hung side by side with newer photographs and painted portraits of retrievers or pointers rendered in proud and noble poses.

  Plenty of the Blind’s patrons hunted other game birds as well, but it was not a turkey and pheasant bar. It was a bar for people whose first passion was silently setting out for a blind or a shallow-bottomed boat before dawn on a cold morning, with a bundle of wooden decoys and calls.

  Even though it was August 31st, the day before the opening of the early goose and teal seasons, the spread of food and the two open kegs weren’t for hunters. The guest of honor was Peter, who was leaving for Army Basic Training in the morning. He was a handsome young man who wore his dark, thick hair in a slightly unruly mop, and despite being a little shorter than average, he had presence. A defensive lineman on the school football team, he was packed with compact muscle, accustomed to standing his ground and pushing bigger and broader men off balance. Even off the field, he carried himself with a certain confidence, as if telling everybody that he owned whatever piece of earth he happened to be standing on at the moment.

  “We’re only going to give you a couple of these,” Tom Grossman said, gesturing toward the bartender, who reached up for a bottle on a higher shelf and set up a line of shot glasses. A little knot of Peter’s family and closest friends pulled up while the bartender filled up the row of glasses in a single pour, without spilling a drop.

  “Now, it is my privilege as mayor,” Grossman continued, tapping the head of his cane on the bar for emphasis, “to temporarily declare the sovereignty of Bowman is above that of the State of Wisconsin, and suspend the drinking age for my good man here and his buddies.”

  “Now, go easy on this stuff,” Peter’s dad, Art, said. Where Peter was short and solid, Art was lanky and lean. Even though he towered over his son, he’d passed on his black hair and mud-brown eyes, and a broad, expressive face that could break into an infectious smile as easily as it could into a scowl that could darken an entire room.

  “This ain’t the first time I’ve had a shot of whiskey,” Peter said.

  That got a good round of laughter from the crowd as they took up their shot glasses.

  “I’m sure it’ll be the first time you’ve had one worth drinking,” Art said, holding his own glass up. Everybody gathered around and clinked a toast.

  Peter held the glass up to his nose and inhaled. While it was clearly smokier than the cheap stuff he and his buddies managed to nick for their clandestine house parties or long walks down the railroad tracks, there was an undeniable richness to it as well. Something in it reminded him of fresh-cut wood and vanilla. Putting the glass to his lips, he tipped a little bit in his mouth. He held the whiskey for a few seconds, letting it warm and feeling how the taste changed. He finally leaned his head back and swallowed it.

  “There you go,” the bartender said. “Enjoy it.”

  Peter took another sip while people patted him on the back. He’d already been served a couple beers to wash down a few plates of sloppy joe, potato salad, pulled pork, roast turkey, venison chili, summer sausage and cheese, and raw beef with onion served on thick rye bread. He’d been intending to keep a little room for dessert, but after the good whiskey, he wasn’t sure he wanted to put one of the sickly-sweet offerings on top of it.

  Toward the end of the evening, Grossman pulled Peter aside. “Let’s take a walk outside.”

  “What’s up?” Peter asked when they hit the far end of the parking lot.

  “Be
en a while since we had someone in town enlist.”

  “Yeah. Mikey, five years ago, right?”

  “Yep.”

  Peter waited a moment. The mayor was known for being very sparing with his words, but there had to be more than just that for their little walk out.

  “Used to be half the guys in every graduating class would ship off within a couple of weeks every year,” Grossman finally said. “Left the ladies pretty lonely for those few months until some went off to college. These days, I guess we’ve got the balance of men and women in town back. For what it’s worth.”

  Peter laughed. “Now everybody heads out to school at the end of summer.” Over the past two weeks, the town had hosted more than a dozen goodbye celebrations. None of them had been as nice as what the Blind had laid out for him, though. All of the college send-offs were backyard affairs, mostly attended by family and the student’s friends. Peter’s party was attended by a lot more of the adults in town, and the buffet had as many dishes prepared by the town’s couple of restaurants as it did potluck offerings. A good number of the men in attendance were wearing ball caps proclaiming their past service, or had old insignia pinned to the lapels of their leather motorcycle vests.

  “It’s good to see your generation hasn’t completely given up on serving. That’s really what I wanted to say. I know Art has never talked about his experiences, and I know that he wasn’t really in favor of you signing up, but deep down you understand that he respects you and your choice, right?”

  “I do,” Peter said. He had still been seventeen when he’d enlisted, so his parents had had to give their consent for him to join. His dad had pushed college real hard but had never outright said he wouldn’t sign the papers.

  “Your dad and I fought different wars,” Grossman said. Peter knew enough about recent history to know what he meant. Grossman had been a tank commander in the 2nd Armored Cavalry during the first Gulf War, back in 1991, and he looked the part. He was short and wiry, like you’d need to be inside a tank, and still kept his thin, gray hair in a tight buzz cut.

  He’d fought in the Battle of 73 Easting, which had been the last big tank battle of the twentieth century. When the twenty-first rolled around, ushered in by 9/11, things changed. Peter’s father’s service in Iraq twelve years later had been nothing at all like the mayor’s.

  “Still,” Grossman continued, “it’s a good calling, and I’m glad you answered it. Just wish you’d gone armor instead of engineer.”

  “Somebody’s gotta dig the holes you guys hide in,” Peter said.

  “I won’t argue with that,” Grossman said. “All right, my friend. I should let you go. Zero four thirty’s going to come really early.” Grossman looked at his wrist. “Speaking of which,” he said, switching his cane from his left hand to his right. He pulled a small box out of his pocket. Peter opened it, finding an analog wristwatch inside with large, luminous digits and hands.

  “It’s a wind-up. No batteries or charging cords needed. You do know how to read an analog dial, though, don’t you? Big hand and little hand and all that.” He held up his hands for effect. He was missing the ring and pinky fingers on the left.

  “Yes,” Peter said with a little eyeroll.

  “Good. Best thing to do is give it a good wind every morning when you get up. I give mine an even dozen turns.”

  “Thank you.” Peter slipped his expensive smartwatch off and replaced it with his new piece of older technology. He appreciated the solid weight of it, compared to the flimsiness of the gadget it was replacing.

  2

  Tom Grossman woke to the sound of somebody banging on the front door of his house. The first thing he did was slip on the pair of jeans from the floor beside his bed, which still had his concealed-carry holster clipped in.

  “Yeah, yeah!” he yelled, taking his pistol from the nightstand and tucking it into his pants. “I’m coming.”

  “It’s Mark,” came a voice from the other side of the door.

  Grossman was confused. On the one hand, he was relieved that it was just Mark Thorssen at his door at 2:30 a.m. On the other, if Thorssen was actually banging on his door at that hour, there was no way it could be good. He flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Looking around his living room, he realized the typical LED indicators on his television and computer were out, and the usual blinking lights on his router were dark.

  “Well, that must be why Thorssen is here,” he muttered to himself as he unlocked the front door, but there was still something nagging at the back of his mind. A power outage wasn’t the kind of thing Thorssen would feel a need to wake him up for. There had to be something more going on.

  “Hey, Tom,” Thorssen said as the door opened. There was a quarter moon in a mostly clear sky, which lit up the unmistakable form of Bowman’s fire and EMS chief. The last name wasn’t the only clue that Thorssen was derived from old Viking stock. The man was physically imposing, standing over six and a half feet tall, broad shouldered, and sporting a mane of deep-red hair with a matching mountain-man beard that was almost as wide as his torso.

  “What’s going on? Other than the obvious.”

  “This isn’t some regular power outage. Everything electronic is fried.”

  Grossman shook his head. Thorssen’s words had jolted him full awake.

  “Couldn’t sleep, so I was up and online in chat,” Thorssen said. Grossman knew that “in chat” meant one or more of the dozen emergency service forums he followed.

  “People started going offline in batches,” Thorssen continued. “Like, a dozen people suddenly vanished, then another batch, another. Somebody posted ‘EMP’ just before my laptop fritzed out as the power died.”

  “Wait, what?” Grossman asked.

  “Something in my laptop blew out, even though I had it plugged into a UPS and surge protector, at the exact moment my place went completely black. I heard a loud pop from the laptop and my phone, and both went dead. Now, if it was just a regular power surge down the lines, I could see it maybe overwhelming my surge protector, but my phone wasn’t plugged into anything at the time.”

  “Slow down.”

  “I know it sounds absolutely crazy, but the points fit the curve. My watch died, truck won’t start, radios are all down, TV’s out. Anything with a chip right now is dead weight.”

  “Okay…” Grossman said. Living in a small, rural town, he knew more than a few preppers, so he knew exactly what Thorssen was getting at. It just didn’t make any sense. He always classed something like an EMP or any one of the other SHTF scenarios as something you thought about and maybe even planned for, but never expected to actually happen.

  “Let me show you.” Thorssen reached up under the eave of Grossman’s garage to push the hidden button for the opener. He’d been friends with Grossman long enough to have blanket permission to just go in and borrow things if he needed them. “Nothing, right?” Thorssen said, hitting the button several more times.

  “Yeah. Any power outage will do that.”

  “Gimme your keys,” Thorssen said. Once Grossman handed them over, he unlocked the side door of the garage and flipped on a small pocket flashlight, just a simple thing. He put the key in the ignition of one of the motorcycles and got no response. “Dead.”

  Grossman nodded.

  Thorssen went over to the lawn mower and set his foot on the deck. One good pull of the starter cord, and the engine turned right over. “No circuits at all in this, unlike the fuel injection on your bikes. You want to try the other bike, then hit your snow thrower, you’ll get the same results.”

  “And you think this is all over the country?”

  “I can’t guess at the scale. The chat I was in was international, but mostly US and Canada. I didn’t have anywhere near enough time to figure out if the batches of users going dark were all geographic or not. It looked like I was one of the last ones online, though, so the entire US is a reasonable guess.”

  “Or all of North America?”

  “Mayb
e. I’m just glad I was farting around online when it all went down.”

  “Yeah. Fortunate. You’ve given me a few hours, maybe, before people get up and figure out what’s going on.”

  “So what do we do first?” Thorssen asked.

  Grossman knew that the sooner he got the police chief involved, the better. “Let’s divvy the town up. I’ll get Schuster and his deputies; you get your boys on the FD together and we’ll meet you at the firehouse.”

  “Get some shoes on first.”

  “Right,” Grossman said, following Thorssen out of the garage. He went inside to finish getting dressed and also grab his Beretta M9. It was the same model as he’d been issued in the Army. As he looked around his house with a critical eye for what electronics still were and were not working, the gravity of the situation started really sinking in. By the time he left the house, he was no longer feeling a bit ridiculous for carrying two handguns, one open, one concealed, and he started feeling under equipped.

  He was tempted to go back inside and throw his AR-15 over his shoulder but felt that would be too much. Not in the personal-protection sense, but politically. One of the lessons he’d learned in his career as an Army officer was that people cued off of their leaders. If the leader was losing his shit, everybody lost it. The last thing Grossman wanted was for his people to feel scared or powerless. If he was carrying a long gun, he worried that’s how people would feel. Openly carrying a pistol, he felt, would project a sense of caution and readiness, but not of fear.