Event Horizon (The Perseid Collapse Post Apocalyptic Series) Read online

  “Small cuts. Nothing serious. Where’s your room?” Ryan asked, shining the light on her.

  “On the other side,” she mumbled.

  “You need to go back to your room and put on some shoes and long pants. Hiking boots if you have them. Then fill up any container you can find with water. Tell everyone to do this. It’s extremely important,” he said, stepping out of the doorway to let her by.

  “Okay. Water—uh—all right,” she said and disappeared.

  Ryan directed his light forward along the left side of the hallway, looking for the door to the stairwell he had used last night. He pushed it open and heard the hollow echo of screams and feet clattering against the stairs. Air quality in the stairwell vestibule was markedly better than the hallway, and he could see across to the door leading to the other side of his floor. The far door opened, and a shirtless student wearing red soccer shorts and flip-flops entered the vestibule, shining a flashlight in his face. The student nodded and rushed past him, yelling unfamiliar names into the hallway Ryan had just left.

  He joined the mass exodus in the dark stairwell and let it carry him to the ground floor, jostled and shoved until he spilled through a pair of double doors into the main thoroughfare connecting the three Warren Towers dormitory buildings with the cafeteria and main lobby. The lighting situation remained the same on the ground level, utterly dependent on the few students who had thought to bring flashlights to college.

  The emergency lighting system had failed to activate, which didn’t come as a surprise to Ryan based on conversations with his dad. Hardwired into the building’s electrical grid, the battery-powered lights were susceptible to a solar flare or EMP-generated electrical surge.

  He spotted a gap in the oncoming flock of students and dashed to the other side of the hallway, his feet crushing gravel as he ran. He flashed his light at the ground, exposing small pieces of concrete and dust. Before he could aim the beam at the ceiling, someone yanked the light from his grip. The light moved quickly away, darting through the swarm of students headed toward Warren Towers’ main lobby.

  “Fucking asshole!” he screamed, pushing his way in the direction of the wavering light.

  He considered chasing the thief, but quickly gave up the thought. The flashlight had already served its primary purpose, and the risks of pursuit far outweighed the return of an item he could replace at Chloe’s apartment. If the crowd became agitated by his antics, he could lose his bucket of dehydrated food or, even worse, his backpack. Ryan turned his back on the stolen flashlight and moved along the wall, against the flow of students, searching for one of the lesser-known exit doors leading directly onto Commonwealth Avenue. He ran into the door handle a few seconds later and stepped into a pitch-black stairwell, closing the door behind him.

  Ryan reached into the blackness and edged forward slowly, groping for the railing. He could pop one of the chemlights in the backpack to light the way down, but he wanted to save those for a real emergency. Walking down one flight of stairs while clinging to a railing didn’t qualify. His hand found the smooth metallic railing, and he took the stairs carefully. Less than a minute later, he emerged from Warren Towers and stepped onto the glass-covered sidewalk. The fires in most of the trees and bushes had been extinguished by the blast, but a few continued to burn, casting a hazy glow over Commonwealth Avenue.

  Burning ash, pulsing like orange fireflies, floated down the street—carried west by a warm breeze. A lone police siren wailed in the distance. Ryan walked into the eastbound lanes of Commonwealth, checking for traffic out of sheer habit, but he’d be surprised to see any cars. All signs indicated that the power outage had been caused by some kind of power surge, and he still couldn’t find a single light on the horizon. He continued east on the deserted road until the southern sky appeared behind Warren Towers. Ryan stared at the sky in awe.

  Definitely not an ICBM.

  An ugly column of uneven gray and white smoke streaked diagonally across the sky above the four-story buildings set back from Commonwealth Avenue, terminating high above Boston. He detected a faint difference between the distant, shadowy buildings and the lowest points of the sky. He checked his watch. Only eighteen minutes had elapsed. The sun would be up in thirty-five minutes.

  Staring at the trajectory of the contrail over southern Massachusetts, he roughly calculated that it must have landed in the Atlantic somewhere just beyond Boston. A chilling thought hit him. His family was on a sailboat off the Maine coast.

  Shit.

  Ryan took the smartphone out of his pocket and pressed the home button. The device activated, but couldn’t locate a signal, further evidence that the grid had been taken down by some kind of electrical phenomenon. But did that make any sense? If this whole mess had been caused by a rogue asteroid or meteorite, there should be no EMP—maybe. He tried the phone one more time, hoping it just needed a few moments to locate a signal. “No Service.” He really hoped his family was safe.

  Warren Towers disgorged a steady flow of panicked and injured coeds onto Commonwealth Avenue, quickly blocking the eastbound side of the road and spreading laterally. The lone siren had faded. He glanced at his phone one more time, just in case the initial cell tower failure had been a temporary glitch. “No Service.”

  He assessed the dense crowd approaching from the center of the dormitory complex and decided to head in the opposite direction. He’d been one of very few students wearing a backpack during the exodus and the only student carrying a bucket of dehydrated food. The crowd was more confused than hostile, but it wouldn’t take much to bridge the gap. If one enterprising and unscrupulous individual recognized the opportunity represented by Ryan’s gear, the situation could be turned against him. His best strategy was to avoid crowds.

  “Are you getting a signal?” yelled someone behind him.

  Ryan turned to face two guys supporting a blonde female student. She wore a pair of running shorts and a loose fitting T-shirt. In the dim monochromatic light cast by a dying tree fire, her ankle looked severely swollen. A two-inch vertical cut above her right eyebrow bled down her face.

  “We need to get an ambulance. She’s really messed up.”

  “I can’t get a signal,” said Ryan, approaching them, “and I don’t think help is coming. I heard one siren, and that’s it.”

  “Shit. Her ankle is smashed, dude.”

  “Looks like it’s broken,” said Ryan, kneeling in front of her leg. “I assume you can’t put any weight on this?”

  She shook her head and grimaced.

  “You need to get her to a hospital. I can patch up her head, put a compression wrap on her ankle—but that’s about it,” said Ryan.

  “Where’s the nearest hospital?” asked one of the students.

  “On the other side of the turnpike,” said Ryan, pointing south. “Brigham and Women’s Hospital. They should be able to fix her up.”

  Ryan led them to a small park next to Warren Towers, where they could avoid the prying eyes of several hundred desperate students. He carried a limited medical kit with enough basic supplies to treat three people for relatively minor injuries. Attracting a crowd might end badly. Treating the girl carried enough risk, but it was the right thing to do for now.

  “How far is the hospital?”

  “Less than a mile. You need to go west to St. Mary’s Street and take that south over the turnpike. You’ll keep going south. I don’t know the streets. What’s her name?”

  “Elsie. I think she’s from Denmark. You don’t think we can flag down a car or something to take her?”

  “I haven’t seen a single car. If we got hit by an EMP or solar flare, you might not see one all morning.”

  “This is unfucking-real,” said the student. “I need to get back into my room.”

  “You’ll be better off at the hospital. Set Elsie down on this bench,” he said, stealing a peek at the crowd.

  The ground-level structure blocked most of his view of the crowd, which was good for now. He drop
ped his backpack while they set her down, and removed the kit. Basic was an understatement for a disaster scenario like this. He could easily go through most of the gauze pads just treating the cut on her head.

  “Is this good?” one of them said, standing next to the bench.

  “Perfect. Do me a favor and keep an eye on the crowd back there or any people approaching us. This isn’t a big kit,” said Ryan.

  “Got it. Are you an off-duty EMT or something?”

  “No. I showed up here with the rest of you.”

  “Where did you get all of this stuff?” said the other student.

  “My parents are a little paranoid. Elsie? How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Dizzy and my leg hurts,” she croaked in a faint Scandinavian accent.

  “Swedish?”

  “Ja.”

  “My parents took us on a tour of Scandinavia. Stockholm first, then we drove along the coast to Helsingborg, crossing over to Denmark. We stopped in Iceland on the way back. One of our best trips.”

  “I love Iceland. We travel there every other year,” she said.

  “Elsie, I’m going to give you some ibuprofen to help with the pain, but—”

  “It’s not going to help,” she interrupted.

  “Exactly. Better than nothing, though. I need to disinfect your wounds, which will hurt. I can’t do much for your leg. Good to go?”

  “Good to go,” she said, extending a thumb.

  A few minutes later, Ryan packed up the kit and donned the backpack. Elsie sat up on the bench with three butterfly bandages on her lower forehead and a clean face. He checked the compression wrap around her ankle one more time before replacing her sock and shoe.

  “That should keep everything under control until you get her to Brigham,” he said.

  “I don’t know if we should go. I have shit in my room, and—”

  “Do you have any food in your room?” said Ryan.

  The guys shrugged. “Some chips.”

  “Guess what? The cafeteria is closed. Permanently. The stores are closed. Permanently. This is a major deal. Relief efforts will naturally focus on the hospitals. You want to be at a hospital, not here. Warren Towers is an empty shell. Eventually, you’ll have to leave. You safely deliver her to the hospital and find a way to help out. Get in at the ground level of volunteers. You’ll get a hot meal, water and a roof over your head, which is more than anyone around here will be able to say in two days.”

  They both nodded.

  “You cannot abandon her. It’s one mile. If you don’t want to stay at the hospital, you can be back in your tomb up there within fifteen minutes. You guys good with this?” said Ryan.

  “Do you really think this is an EMP? What about that?” one of them said, pointing at the sinister contrail south of Boston.

  “I don’t know what that is, but I guarantee this is not a regular power outage. We’d see some backup lights out there. I didn’t see anything from my room. Get her situated at the hospital, and talk your way onto some kind of volunteer detail. It’s the best you can do right now.”

  “Sounds like the best plan we’ve got. Thanks for helping out, man.”

  Ryan shook both of their hands and tightened his backpack.

  “Where are you headed in such a hurry?” said Elsie.

  “Boston College to find my girlfriend. Then north,” said Ryan.

  “How far north?” she said.

  “Maine.”

  “Sounds like a long way.”

  “It’s far enough to be trouble, but it’s closer than Sweden.”

  “Thank you for helping,” said Elsie, glancing nervously at her two caretakers.

  Ryan nodded and walked toward the road that took him behind Warren Towers. He agonized over the decision to leave Elsie, doubtful that the two students would carry through with their promise. He muttered, pounding his fist against his thigh. A diversion to Brigham and Women’s Hospital would cost him too much time. If he didn’t show up at Chloe’s apartment soon, she might come looking for him, which could put her in danger. Every scenario their parents had discussed led to the same conclusion. Ryan was the one to travel in the event of a disaster.

  Ryan kept walking, fighting the urge to look back. He reached the street and stopped. Damnit! He couldn’t shake the image of Elsie crawling along the sidewalk, trying to escape a wall of water. He returned to the park bench, noting that no progress had been made toward getting her ambulatory.

  “I’ll take her to the hospital. Go back to your bag of Fritos,” said Ryan, grasping her hand and pulling her onto her one good leg.

  The two students took off toward the dormitory without saying a word, validating Ryan’s decision. They would have ditched her somewhere out of sight, where their cowardly act went unnoticed.

  “Thank you. Those two would have left me for dead. They rushed to my room after the quake. You know—to help.”

  “Imagine that,” said Ryan.

  “Exactly. They’ve been attached to me like glue since I arrived, but they didn’t look too enthusiastic to help when they saw my leg.”

  “A busted leg is a deal breaker, even if you’re a hot Danish chick,” said Ryan.

  “Swedish.”

  “I remember,” said Ryan, putting her arm around his shoulder.

  “I really appreciate this. I know you’re in a hurry,” said Elsie.

  “We’ll have to move fast. As fast as we can manage,” he said.

  “I’m not sure how we’re going to do this. I can’t put any weight on the leg, and I don’t think hopping a few kilometers will work.”

  Ryan looked down at her leg. She had it bent at a shallow angle to keep her foot from striking the ground. Judging by the pained expression she displayed when he pulled her to her feet, he knew she was right.

  “How much do you weigh?” he said.

  “Is that a polite question to ask?”

  “It is if someone’s going to carry you a mile,” he said. “I don’t see any other way.”

  “I’m sorry this became your burden. 48 kilograms—give or take.”

  “I’m sure our paths crossed for a reason. What is that, like 220 pounds?” he said, receiving a playful slap to the shoulder. “You ready? This is going to hurt you a lot more than me.”

  “I guess.”

  He kneeled and reached under her good leg.

  “Now lean over my backpack and reach your right arm over my shoulder,” he said.

  She groaned as he lifted her off the ground into a fireman’s carry. He hooked his right arm under her knee and grasped the hand she had draped over his chest, freeing his left hand to pick up the bucket. Ryan took a few uneasy steps forward, wondering how the hell he was going to do this.

  PART I

  “Freedom Trail”

  Chapter 1

  EVENT +46:45 Hours

  Boston University

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Alex Fletcher sat against one of the interior walls of the elevator lobby and dug through his front cargo pocket. He retrieved the magazine he had ejected after shooting up the truck and thumbed four rounds into the palm of his hand. He tucked the half-emptied magazine into a “dump” pouch attached to the left side of his tactical vest and ejected the magazine in his rifle, adding the four rounds. Marines consolidated ammunition whenever practical, and he had a few minutes to burn before stepping off for Brookline—without his new entourage. The magazine slammed home in the HK416, and he stood up to prepare for his impending departure.

  “You can’t just leave us here,” said one of the students, standing in the semi-circle formed around Alex.

  “You’re not exactly equipped to survive on the streets.”

  “We don’t have much of a choice. You said it yourself,” said another student. “Nobody is coming for us. We’re running low on food and water.”

  “It’s not like I’m meeting my son at Denny’s for a Grand Slam breakfast before heading north,” said Alex, adjusting the straps on his backp
ack and checking for loose gear.

  “What’s a Denny’s?” said a petite brunette sitting in front of him.

  “You really don’t know what Denny’s is?”

  She shrugged.

  “How much water do you have?” said Alex.

  “Each of us has a few water bottles, and we still have, like, how many trash cans filled?”

  “Four. Some guy went around telling everyone to fill up containers right after the shockwave hit. It’s the only reason we’ve been able to keep a low profile. We haven’t left the floor,” said Piper, the young woman in charge.

  “Your son told me to do that. I saw him right before he left,” said a dark-haired girl, stepping forward into the red glow of the chemlight. “He seemed to know what he was doing. Like you. You have to get us out of here.”

  “I can’t take any of you out of this building. It’s not safe. They’re actively looking for me. The best I can do is let the marines know about your situation.”

  “Who’s looking for you?” said the leader.

  “I was hoping one of you could answer that question. A heavily armed, organized group appears to be in control of the streets. Any intel on who might be calling the shots out there?”

  “It looked like gangs last night,” said a pale kid to Alex’s left.

  “What do you know about gangs?” said the student with the bat.

  “I’m West Coast. We have gangs all over the place.”

  “Not where you’re from.”

  “I’m from LA, man. Ever heard of the Crips and the Bloods?”

  “Dude, that’s from fucking twenty years ag—”

  “Bullshit! It’s still the biggest gang in—”

  “Shut the fuck up! All of you! You’re at Boston University. The tuition is nearly sixty thousand a year. Nobody here has any street cred, all right? Just tell me what you saw,” said Alex, cutting them all off.

  “They were rough-looking dudes, mostly Caucasian. Armed with pistols and some hunting rifles,” said the kid from LA.

  “That changed today. There’s been a ton of shooting. Men—and women— running around with rifles like yours, but without all of the fancy optics stuff. They looked more like regular people, you know? I saw a pickup truck go by with a couple of them in the bed. It looked like a citizen’s militia,” said a student holding a baseball bat.