Eliot Strange and the Prince of the Apocalypse

11) Here and Now - Months After the EMP

Days pass while Steven and I try to maintain a survivor's state of mind. Shortly after moving back in the house, we decided that we needed to mix things up in our living arrangements. We go from inside to outside every few days so that other people can't find us. I know it sounds irrational, but we are hiding out, just like my dad said. I don't know who we are are hiding from because our town feels deserted. Residents have packed up and moved farther South. Even refugees are walking on past our exit now. I guess they don't believe the welcome signs anymore.

We have been hiding and debating on whether it is time to go. Steven may be all I have left. All of our friends are gone. Are they dead or did they just leave? We hope they followed the advice of the real soldiers coming through town and evacuated. Even city slickers know cities are not safe. Get out of town. Head to higher ground. Abandon ship. 

I stay because I think my mom will be home any day now. I am going to wait for her. My mother was hundreds of miles away on the day the lights went out, but I know my mom. She will get home if there is a way, even if she has to walk.

Even walking she should have been home a month ago. I am going to give her one more week, then me and Steven are heading to the mountains. It is not safe here. We can see smoke in the distance. We hear the occasional gunshot. I hope it's someone hunting for game. We can hear distant sirens going to the rescue, but even those sounds are scarce now. 

We are hungry. We are rationing our food, but even with rationing, our supplies are getting low. If Nana had not canned her entire garden last summer, we would have already been eating the family pets running around loose. Their owners let them go when they could no longer feed them in what they thought was an act of mercy.

I am in complete denial - my mom is not walking home. She was in the air on a plane home when the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) - that exploded, or pulsed, or erupted, or whatever it did that ended our world - did its thing off the coast of Maine. The EMP caused anything electronic to stop, including airplanes with mothers on their way home to their babies. Hundreds of planes fell that day and caused even more destruction on the ground. The video I saw on the last day of school keeps replaying in my mind, but I refuse to believe it. 

My mother is never coming home, but I am still waiting and hoping - hoping she didn't get on that plane and is trying to find a ride home. And, I have to face it, though I keep telling Steven we need to go. I am afraid. Our days have a desperation about them that was not here when all this started. It is a long way to find my dad in his hideout in the mountains of western North Carolina. And though I profess to be an expert at survival, I am a fake. It is one thing to be responsible for myself, but now I have Steven, and I am terrified my decisions will get us both killed.

It is scary to be responsible for another person, especially when there are people out there who are hell bent on burning down the country. There are rumors - the terrorists who ended it all are on the move. The One Nation Army is on the way. The news says they are cutting a path through Northern Virginia like locusts. Killing and burning down everything in sight, they say. Join or die, they say. Never, Steven and I say, but without much conviction because we just want to survive. We don't want any part of a war. We are teenagers, and we want our world to go back to the way it was before.

Steven and I say our prayers together before we go to sleep every night. It is the last thing we do. Before the EMP we were not regular church goers, but we always believed and were members of Young Life at school. We decided early on in our exile that praying everyday might not change anything, but it certainly couldn't hurt either.

Steven proclaimed: "We were good people before this all started, and we will stay good people, no matter what happens."

Every night in my prayers, I pray that my mother has not met the One Nation Army on her way home. I pray that my aunt and uncle and Carli are safe. Somehow, I know my dad is safe. I pray he is waiting and watching for me, and that he will welcome Steven as my family when I get there.

Me and Steven are waiting for my mother to come home and waiting for his Nana to leave before we can go. We know Nana can't make the long journey, but we won't leave until she is safe. Nana is moving out of town too, but her ride has not shown up yet. We will not leave her behind, and we won't leave her for the One Nation Army. They are killing anyone they think is not useful. Anyone old or too young or sick. Anyone they deem not useful. They are killing people like Nana.