The Defiant: Grid Down Page 3

  His clothes were torn and singed. Scrapes, cuts and bruises covered the skin that was exposed. His rugged face covered by a thick beard showed the signs of trauma as well; his nose was broken, lips scabbed, and his right eye was swollen shut, dark purple bruising extending out from it.

  If someone were walking down the beach, they might have thought he was a dead man, but he wasn’t. Killing Michael McNeil was something his enemies had tried, but once again he had narrowly escaped.

  A larger wave crashed over him.

  His left hand moved, fingers grasping at the sand. With all the effort he could muster, he pushed the weight of his large muscular frame onto his back. With a loud gasp he took in a breath. The one good eye opened but quickly closed as the bright morning light hurt.

  “Argh!” he said out loud. Allowing his eye to adjust, he looked around the secluded beachhead but found nothing to his left or right but seagulls, sand crabs and endless beach.

  A painful grimace gripped his face as he tried to get up. After a minute of struggling, he was sitting up.

  More waves lapped his legs. The water was warm, but he would need to find new clothes or at least dry the ones he had on before nightfall.

  He didn’t recognize the beach and couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. He struggled to recall how he’d gotten on the beach and in the condition he was in, but nothing came to him.

  Out just beyond the horizon, a large plume of smoke billowed from the waters. He wondered if he came from there. Was he on a boat? He pressed his one eye closed and placed his head between his legs and said, “Think, damn it, where are you?”

  Nothing came.

  He looked out towards the water again and the thick black smoke still hung in the sky. His gut instincts told him that smoke and his physical condition were connected, but how?

  Knowing he couldn’t survive on the beach, especially in his current state, he stood. A crooked grin stretched across his face when he discovered his legs could support him.

  He was unsure which direction he should go. By the location of the sun, he guessed the beach ran north-south. In those directions he saw nothing but beach, with no signs of people or structures. To the west the wide beach ran into a steep cliff, but west was where he knew he needed to go if he were going to find help. Not knowing what body of water lay out there like an ocean or sea and with nothing to guide him, he decided to go north; no real reason, it was just a snap decision.

  An hour of lumbering north didn’t produce the results he had hoped for and needed. Tired, he looked for a shady place along the cliffs to take a break. His head throbbed, and upon an examination of the back of his head he found a large lump and cut buried beneath his thick brown hair. Running his fingers over the jagged cut, he had no doubt this wound was the cause of his memory loss.

  The salty sea air blew harder as morning turned to afternoon. His mouth was parched and his stomach tightened and growled with hunger. A strong urge to lie down and sleep hit him, but he now feared he might have a concussion. Determined to find a safe place to care for his wounds, he got back to his feet and continued north.

  The sun beat down on him. His thirst more than anything was becoming unbearable. How funny to be next to this large body of water but not be able to drink a drop. Fatigue was hindering his already slow pace, and when he looked down the beach he saw nothing. The cliff was lowering but nowhere was there a break in the sandstone to begin his climb west.

  He stopped and looked all around him. The smoke he’d seen earlier was still there but farther south. He had covered some distance but not enough to lose sight of it. His body ached and a feeling of vertigo began to grip him.

  He took a step, but upon going for a second, his legs gave out. He tumbled to the ground, his knees hitting first followed by his right arm then head. As he lay upon the warm sand, he searched for anything that might help him. Nothing came. Amnesia had stolen his memory and soon his fatigue, thirst and hunger would steal his consciousness. The darkness came quickly, but just before he closed his one eye, a voice called out in the distance.

  USS Harpers Ferry, 125 Miles off the Coast of Southern California

  “Vincent, get off your ass; we have a formation on the flight deck, right now!” Gunny Roberts yelled into the berthing space.

  “Roger that, Gunny,” Vincent replied, swinging his legs out of the rack.

  The Marines of Weapons Company, First Battalion, First Marine Regiment began to stir and grumble as they laced up their boots, buttoned their blouses and grabbed their covers.

  Sergeant Gunner Vincent was the Marine’s Marine, even his name portended his beloved career as a military man. Born and raised in the small mountain town of Challis, Idaho, he was a mountain man through and through, but even though he loved his snowcapped granite peaks, he couldn’t wait to leave and sail the world. He knew he’d end up back in Idaho someday, but for now he believed his life belonged to the Marine Corps. He was tall, standing at an even six foot and his build was lean and mean. His esprit de corps was at ten on a scale of ten, but when it came to his hair, he couldn’t do the high and tights. Maybe it was because of his father’s premature baldness that he chose to have the bare minimum regulation haircut so as to preserve his sandy blond locks.

  When he exited the hatch onto the flight deck, he noticed a sense of excitement not typical of a normal formation. He was running late and rushed to his spot within the ranks, barely making the call to attention.

  Gunny Roberts called the unit to attention, turned and waited for the company commander, Captain Dupree, to approach.

  Dupree marched over to Roberts, turned and stood. Roberts saluted and said, “Weapons Company all present and accounted for.”

  “Thank you, Gunny,” Dupree said, offering his salute.

  Roberts brought his salute back and marched off.

  Looking out over the men all standing at attention, Dupree finished by yelling, “Weapons at ease!”

  Dupree was a tall and sturdy-looking man. He had a hardened face, light eyes and thick, dark hair that he kept groomed with a flattop haircut. His stature coupled with his personality made him appear like a giant to some of the Marines. He looked out on the three hundred Marines in front of him. While Marine life was difficult for many, it came easy to Dupree. This occasion was different, though; to have to address the Marines about any situation back home was difficult. The whole reason these Marines traveled so far from home was to defend their loved ones, but now their homeland was threatened, their loved ones in harm’s way, and they weren’t there to protect them. “Marines, I am not going to stand here and bullshit you. You know me well enough to know I am a plain-spoken Marine. I tell it like it is. I never sugarcoat it,” Dupree said as he began walking back and forth in front of the assembled Marines. “So I will tell you right now that our mission has changed, effective immediately.”

  The Marines of Weapons Company all started looking to one another for clarification. Their overseas deployment was days from being over. The units that comprised the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit were two days sail from pulling back into home port in San Diego.

  Dupree stopped his pacing to drop the real news. “Marines, initial reports suggest our country has suffered a massive attack. The intelligence we have received so far indicates that a nuclear weapon was detonated in the atmosphere above the Midwest.”

  Marines began to chatter and talk.

  Roberts hollered out, “At ease, Marines!”

  “At this time we have been given orders to steam back to Camp Pendleton. We’ll disembark via the LCACs and assist the Marine units there,” he said and paused. He looked out over his men and smiled and continued. “Men, we’ve been through a lot together, we’ve fought together, we’ve bled together and some of us sacrificed all for God, country and Corps. This news of an attack on the homeland comes as a shock, and I know all of you must be thinking about family and loved ones back home. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t, too, but we have a new mission; we are
United States Marines and we must not fail. Our country needs us now more than ever!” He stopped his pacing and looked at his Marines, their stiff bodies swaying with the movement of the ship on the waves. He was proud of what his men had accomplished in the six-month deployment overseas, and he knew he would continue to be proud of them in this new mission. Finished, he walked back to his position centered on the company, stood at attention and yelled, “Company, attention!”

  Gunny Roberts walked around Dupree until he faced him, and then saluted.

  Dupree saluted back and said, “Get these Marines prepared to disembark in two days.”

  “Yes, sir,” Roberts replied.

  Dupree cut his salute and walked away.

  Loud chatter erupted the second the berthing door closed behind Vincent and his fellow Marines. A range of emotions was on display as some vented their anger by punching wall lockers, others yelled and some just sat in silence pondering what type of world they were heading into.

  Vincent wasn’t one to get emotionally worked up or charged. He went back to his rack, climbed in and closed the curtains. Dupree was right, he was one of the Marines who were very concerned about his family, but they were all the way up in Idaho.

  A tap on his rack jolted him from his worried thoughts. “Yes, what is it?”

  “Sergeant Vincent, it’s Berg.”

  “What is it?”

  “I just came from the CIC, and you gotta hear what they’re saying,” Lance Corporal Berg said, the tone of his voice showing a glimmer of excitement. Something that Vincent found disgusting.

  Vincent pulled the drapes aside and asked, “What’s the scoop?”

  “So the intel coming in says a nuclear weapon was blown up in the atmosphere, and you know what happens when that sort of thing occurs, right?”

  “Yes, an electromagnetic pulse. I know this, you know this, we all know this.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but the initial reports they’re receiving is nothing is working, I mean nothing. In fact, even a lot of the equipment—Humvees, MRAPs, cars, trucks, you name it—at Pendleton is down.”

  “I don’t get your point?”

  “The point is a conventional EMP shouldn’t do that. You remember from our NBC classes at SOI, EMPs aren’t universal in their effects and the range can be limited.”

  “Get to the point, Berg, would you?”

  “I heard them say this was a super-EMP, a weapon designed to inflict widespread and universal damage. Dude, the grid is down coast-to-coast, no cars are working, the world has come to a fucking halt. It’s crazy train back home.”

  “Why am I getting a sense you’re a bit too happy?”

  “I’m not, but I am too. It’s almost as good as a zombie apocalypse. This shit is crazy.”

  “If that’s it, I want to get some shut-eye,” Vincent said and closed the drapes.

  “Are we getting chow together in a couple hours?” Berg asked.

  “Sure, now leave me alone,” Vincent pleaded. His mind drifted back to his family. He could see his mother doing what she does best, but his father, he could see him getting very upset by this.

  How could this sort of thing have occurred? he thought to himself. How was it possible to pull this off? Confusion led to anger, which transformed into concern for his family. He had joined the Marine Corps to keep the country safe and secure by fighting their enemies overseas and thousands of miles away from home, but that had changed. The bastards, he thought, had pulled off an attack that had crippled his beloved country and put his family in direct jeopardy, but he was unable to go help them. How could this be? He stopped asking the questions because it didn’t matter, it had happened. What he needed to focus on was his new mission, but more selfishly, he needed to find a way to check on his family. Just how he’d do that was still unknown.

  Carlsbad, CA

  Nicholas grunted as he pulled the manual cord to disengage the electronic garage door and pushed it up. Light poured into the windowless garage.

  “I’m here. What do you want to show me?” Becky asked.

  “Where’s Abby?” he asked.

  “Getting ready for school.”

  He climbed into their Mercedes GL450 SUV and hit the ignition button. Nothing happened. “Um, I don’t think we’re going anywhere. The car won’t start.” He dug in his pocket to ensure he had the smart key on him; it was there and he tried again. Nothing.

  “Really?” Becky asked, astonished.

  Abigail appeared, dressed head to toe like a defiant teenager, wearing tight jeans and a low-cut top. “Take your time, Dad. I don’t need to go to school today,” Abigail said with a snarky grin stretched across her face and her phone in her hands. She was still relentlessly trying to get it to work.

  “Your dad’s right. You’re not going anywhere, and it’s not because of the car. Go back upstairs and change your clothes,” Becky snapped.

  “Whatever, Mom,” Abigail replied, then mouthed what Becky had just said.

  “What was that?” Becky asked Abigail.

  “Nothing,” Abigail answered, walking back into the house.

  The blood ran out of Nicholas’ face as his deep-seated concern turned to fear. He stepped out of the car, exited the garage, and quickly walked down the driveway towards the street.

  “Where are you going?” Becky asked as she followed him out, her bathrobe flowing.

  Nicholas didn’t answer. He reached the street and looked towards the main road in the distance. Their house was perched atop a hill and had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view, including the road that fed into Rancho Del Sur.

  “What are you looking at?” Becky asked, now standing beside him.

  “Do me a favor. In the second drawer there’s a set of binoculars; get those for me,” he said.

  “Binoculars? What are you trying to look at?” Becky asked.

  “Never mind, I’ll do it myself.” He marched off. A moment later he came back with the small black binoculars. He put them to his eyes, adjusted the focus and looked at the road. Just as he assumed, no cars were moving. What vehicles he did see were stopped and people were milling around them.

  “Nic, what’s going on?” Becky asked, now concerned.

  “I don’t know, but I want to see if the cars I saw earlier are still at the entrance,” he answered.

  Becky looked at him, concern written on her face. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Look,” he said, handing her the binoculars. “Look at Poinsettia Road, tell me what you see.”

  Nervously she took the binoculars and looked where he told her. “I see cars stopped in the road and people walking around.”

  “Here, give them to me,” he said.

  She handed them over. He briskly walked around to the back of the house. He again put the binoculars to his eyes and said, “Fuck me.”

  She hustled up behind him and asked, “Same thing?”

  “Yep, I-5 is dead. Nothing is moving. It looks like a traffic jam, but nothing is moving. I don’t see any lights, nothing.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it some kind of terrorist attack?”

  “You tell me. Nothing works, our car won’t start, our phones won’t work, the power is out and every car I see isn’t working.”

  They both just stared into the distance. He wanted to give her an answer to what might be happening, but he didn’t really know for sure. His old Marine Corps training gave him some clues and his most recent training with prepper groups had given him greater insight, but seeing it all now seemed so surreal. The world that man had built had come to a halt, but Mother Nature didn’t. The waves of the ocean still crashed against the beach, the cool sea air still blew, the clouds still raced across the sky, and the animals continued upon their daily routines.

  “This is a terrorist attack, it has to be,” Nicholas said.

  “Should we contact someone?”

  He turned and looked at her. “With what, cups and a string?”<
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  “You don’t have to be an ass.”

  “I’m sorry, but I knew something bad would happen one day and it’s here.”

  “Nick, it’s not that I never believed you, it’s just—”

  “So all of the eye rolling every time I bought more guns or food or took classes, that wasn’t saying something?”

  “Let’s not get worked up. We don’t know how big this is,” Becky said, trying to convince him but mostly trying to reassure herself that the situation wasn’t as bad as he might now think it was.

  “Are you trying to convince me or yourself that this isn’t a big deal?”

  “I need to check on my parents.”

  “One thing at a time,” he said. He headed back to the garage and looked at both their cars. He jumped into the second vehicle, a BMW 3 Series, but like the Mercedes, it was dead.

  Frustrated, he leaned his forehead against the steering wheel and muttered, “Idiot.”

  “Should we be doing something?” Becky asked, now standing next to the car.

  The question was exactly what he needed to hear. He was a man of purpose and having something to focus on was critical to his mental stability. The walls of the garage showed months of preparedness. One shelving unit after another was filled with large plastic containers of freeze-dried or dehydrated foods, fifty cases of bottled water and large plastic bins with camping gear, backpacks, clothing, boots, and seemingly endless smaller items he had acquired for his family’s survival. The one thing that was missing was a vehicle that worked.

  “Nic, are you listening to me?” Becky asked.

  He was lost in thought but came back when she touched his shoulder. “Nic?”

  “We need more water.”

  “Where are we going to get more bottled water?”

  “Not bottled, from our taps.”

  “I’m not drinking tap water,” she replied, her face cringing.

  “You’ll bathe in it, but God forbid you have to drink it? Go get Abby, start filling all the tubs and sinks, then fill every container we have with tap water. We have a solid supply of drinking water here, but we can use tap water for cleaning and hygiene. Let’s conserve it now,” he said, getting out of the car and rushing inside.