Blackout: A Tale Of Survival In A Powerless World- Book 1 Page 15

  Jacob nodded, powering through his own lunch without complaint. He tore a piece of bread in half and wiped broth from the edge of his bowl. “I’m going to ask him to get Ludo to drop the tribunal. The camp’s rules should include a bylaw for mental illness in situations like this. It’s not fair to Pippa. Don’t you think?”

  “I totally agree.” I pushed the stew away in favor of my own roll of bread. It was easier to eat that than the tough meat in the bowl. “I find it hard to believe that no one at this camp has ever suffered from depression before. They’re treating her like this is a choice.”

  “That’s how it is though, isn’t it?” Jacob asked. “It’s an invisible disease. People would rather pretend like it doesn’t exist.”

  “They don’t get it,” I added. “She needs time. I would love to help her. I actually think she would benefit from meeting with the camp counselor, but she has to be the one that decides that she wants to go. That’s the hard part.”

  “She listens to you,” Jacob said. “She likes your advice. Don’t you remember? Before all of this, she used to call my phone and ask for you when she had trouble at school or whatever. Don’t give up on her, Georgie. Please. I might be able to buy her a little more time, but I think you’re the one who’s eventually going to get through to her.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ll do my best. When is your meeting with Sylvester?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Well, good luck.”

  AFTER LUNCH, I picked up the baby from the childcare building and stopped by the breach in the wall to look for Eirian. Most days, he didn’t have much time to spend working communications with me. I’d seen him less and less since Camp Havoc had broken in. I spent a lot of time by myself, but the sight of the new barrier the construction crews had erected to fill the gap in our defense helped to set my mind at ease.

  Eirian was busy hammering together a new section of the barrier. When he bent down to find another nail, he caught sight of me lingering just outside of the construction zone and jogged over.

  “Hey there,” he said, grinning down at the baby tucked into the sling in the front of my coat. “I see you brought company.”

  “I thought she could use a little fresh air.” I stood on my toes to kiss him, and a few of the other guys whistled and catcalled while they continued their work. “Oh, shut up!”

  He took off his work gloves and tapped his fingers against the baby’s lips. She hummed, spit bubbling as she gummed Eirian’s fingers. “Any word on Mom?”

  “Ludo wants to hold a tribunal for her,” I reported. “Jacob’s pissed. He has a meeting with Sylvester tomorrow to ask him to postpone it.”

  Eirian raised his eyebrows. “Really? That’s surprising. Is he going to ask about your dad too?”

  “I didn’t ask him to,” I replied, rocking the baby side to side. “It’s too much. Besides, back when I requested a meeting with Sylvester, I flat out told Jacob that I wouldn’t bother to mention Jove. Why should he go the extra mile for me?”

  “A lot has happened since then,” he said. “The two of you are in better spirits now.”

  “I guess.”

  The baby wrapped her tiny hands around one of Eirian’s fingers, and he smiled widely. “She still doesn’t have a name, huh?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Pippa hasn’t picked one yet.”

  “Sounds like she’s not going to,” he said. “A pretty girl should have a pretty name.”

  “Or a badass name,” I said. “After all, she was born into this insanity. She’ll have to be a badass in order to survive it all.”

  “Like what?”

  I pondered the question, looking down at the little girl in my arms. She would grow up in a completely different world than the one the rest of us had known. She would never know the United States as it was before the EMP blast. She would grow up similarly to Eirian, on a homestead, watching the country rebuild itself from the ground up.

  “Athena,” I decided.

  “Goddess of wisdom and war,” Eirian added, nodding in agreement. “Got a thing for the Greeks, I see.” He smoothed out the tuft of hair on Athena’s forehead. “It’s perfect.”

  “It’s temporary,” I reminded him. “We can’t really name Pippa’s baby.”

  “Until then,” he said, “she remains a tiny goddess.”

  “Eirian!” Ludo trotted across the construction site to catch up with us. “What are you doing right now?”

  “Sorry, boss,” Eirian replied. “Just saying hi to the kid.”

  Ludo waved away his excuse. “I’m not worried about that. I need to speak with you. I’ve been sending scouts out to Camp Havoc ever since the breach. So far, they haven’t picked up any useful information.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “Kirsch and Peters headed out last night,” Ludo said. “They were supposed to return by lunchtime today, but no one’s heard hide nor hair of them.”

  “Did they take a radio with them?” I asked.

  “They did,” Ludo replied. “But we can’t reach them. Either the signal doesn’t reach that far, or they aren’t able to answer.”

  “So what happened to them?” Eirian said.

  “I’m thinking that Camp Havoc got a hold of them.” Ludo planted his hands on his hips with a grimace. “I want a second team out there ASAP to figure out what those idiots are planning.”

  10

  There was nothing to do but watch as Ludo sent out a second group of scouts, heavily armed, to check if Camp Havoc had appropriated the first security team. The night was tense. A pall hung over the compound. Even the children were quiet. It was as if everyone knew that something wasn’t quite right. Dinner at the Bistro, usually a chatty occasion, was a hushed affair, and the community event was canceled on account of lack of interest. We were all waiting to hear back from the scouts. When they didn’t reappear by curfew, Ludo ordered the camp to bed, and we trudged to the dormitories on worried, wearied feet.

  The morning brought no news, which in any other circumstance, I would have considered good news, but times were changing, and to hear nothing from our comrades was a sure sign of trouble. Ludo felt it too, but he hid it beneath his usual gruffness as he went about his scheduled business of assigning jobs for the day. It was a smart move on his part. If Ludo panicked, the whole camp would panic, and that was the last thing we needed. I went to the Communications office as usual to pass out radios and walkie talkies for the day. After that was through, I started scanning the waves for signs of other operators outside of Camp Haven.

  At lunchtime, I took my stew, the portions of which seemed to be growing smaller with each passing day, and ate around the back side of Dotcom since the tension in the Bistro was so smothering. As I fished through the gravy for the vegetables, I caught sight of Jacob heading up the hill to Sylvester’s cabin. His meeting about Pippa was today. I shifted sideways to get a better view as he approached the front door and knocked. When one of Ludo’s security boys answered the door, I rolled my eyes. Of course Sylvester himself couldn’t be bothered to receive guests at his own house.

  It wasn’t long—fifteen or twenty minutes—before Jacob reappeared. He waved in thanks to the security guard who saw him out then trotted down the hill. He was smiling. When he saw me sitting on the bins behind DotCom, he walked over.

  “Looks like good news,” I said.

  “It is,” he replied. “Pippa’s tribunal is going to be put on hold indefinitely.”

  I set down the nearly empty bowl of stew to hug him. “Jacob, that’s great! I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “That Sylvester guy is a trip though.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “What was he like? Who is he really?”

  “I never actually saw him.” Jacob sat down on the bins next to me. “We spoke through the door of his bedroom.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Jacob shook his head. “His voice is weird too, like he’s changing it to sound less like h
imself. I couldn’t get a read on him at all. Kyle, the security guard up there, says that Sylvester’s the most paranoid out of all the campers. That’s why he quarantines himself.”

  “Sounds like my dad, but at least he went outside,” I said. “So what happened then? You were only in there for a few minutes. I can’t believe it was so easy for you to convince him.”

  “All I had to do was explain the situation.” Jacob pulled his gloves from the pocket of his coat and put them on. “I told him everything. That we’re new to the camp, that we lost both of our parents, that Pippa has been having a hard time adjusting. As soon as I mentioned that she was having trouble with depression, he agreed to postpone her tribunal right away.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “Listen, while I was up there, I had the chance to look around a bit.” Jacob unzipped his coat and reached into its inside pocket. “Georgie, it was like looking into your childhood photo albums. If I had to guess, Sylvester didn’t touch anything in that cabin other than whatever’s in the bedroom. It looks like a damn shrine.”

  My rib cage tightened around my lungs. Suddenly, the air felt too cold to breathe. As the months passed me by in Camp Haven, I had dwelt less and less about the time I’d spent on this land before the EMP blast went off. Now, it all came back in full force. This place was the home that my father had made for me. Why had he left it so suddenly?

  “I found this,” Jacob said. Something small and sparkly glinted in the palm of his hand. A gold wedding band. “Look familiar?”

  Gingerly, I took it from him. “This was my mother’s.”

  “I guess as much,” he said. “I figured you should have it.”

  Once more, I linked my arms around Jacob’s shoulders and pulled him close. “Thank you so much.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Boots scuffled through the dirt and snow, and Eirian skidded around the corner of the building, heaving for breath. “Georgie!”

  Jacob immediately released me. “It was just a hug, man. I swear.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Eirian said. “It’s Camp Havoc. They’re at the gates. Actually, they’re all around. It’s bad, guys. Really bad.”

  I caught Eirian’s forearms and made him sit on the bins. “Slow down, Eirian. What are you talking about?”

  “Ludo’s scout team never came back,” Eirian said, pushing his fingers through his curls in an effort to get them away from his eyes. “Not the first or the second. I was working security at the front gates just now. We saw them coming up the hill. There’s hundreds of them, more than we could feed here at Camp Haven. And they’re all armed. We couldn’t have stopped them. We had to come inside.”

  “Holy shit,” Jacob muttered. “They’re storming the camp. What are we going to do?”

  “There’s nothing much we can do,” Eirian said. “Other than buckle down and try to defend the place. Ludo wants the miscellaneous crew to meet in the square with the other security guards. He’s redirecting anyone able to work with security. Are you two in?”

  “Hell yes,” I said. “There’s no way I’m letting those idiots take down all of our hard work. Jacob?”

  “I’m in too,” he said. “Pippa’s safe here. That’s all that matters. Let’s go.”

  But we didn’t even make it around to the front of DotCom when a series of four explosions rocked the entire camp. They came from different directions, one from each corner of the camp.

  “No,” Eirian whispered.

  There was one moment of silence. Then the camp exploded in chaos. Camp Havoc had blown the wall in four different places. Their people poured in from all sides, dressed in crude combat gear and armed with homemade weapons. They threw our campers to the ground, where they were trampled by more invaders or others trying to flee. The trespassers tossed firebombs into the windows of the buildings, where they exploded amidst screams of terror. Camp Havoc didn’t just want our supplies. They wanted to bring the compound to the ground. Eirian dragged Jacob and me between DotCom and the Bistro, which the invaders had yet to discover.

  “I have to get to Pippa!” Jacob yelled, his eyes bulging out of his skull. “I can’t lose her! I can’t!”

  “She’s at the med bay with the baby for a checkup,” Eirian said. He grabbed Jacob’s coat to keep him from running out of the alley. “I can get you to her, but you have to calm down and think rationally. Follow my lead. Don’t get ahead of me. Do you understand?”

  Jacob nodded furiously. Eirian pulled his gun from its hiding place and cocked it. I followed his lead. Ludo had assigned me a weapon once he considered me trustworthy enough to handle it. With Jacob between us, we dove into the melee.

  The camp was already trashed. Fires burned in nearly every window. People ran to and fro. Some of them screamed for mercy. Others had found weapons of their own to fight back with. Gunfire and explosives filled the mountain air as our trio scuttled along the front of DotCom toward the med bay. Bullets from an automatic rifle lodged themselves in the concrete block of the building right above my head. I crouched lower, my thighs aching in protest, and darted after Eirian and Jacob. As we passed a fallen body, I grabbed the high caliber rifle from its still hands for my own use.

  The med bay had barricaded its doors, following the lockdown procedures, so we climbed through a shattered window instead. On the other side, I coughed debris and dust from my lungs only to find Nita pointing a gun at me through the haze.

  “Nita, it’s me!” I said, putting my hands up.

  “Georgie!” She lowered the gun and hugged me fiercely, then embraced Eirian and Jacob as well. “Thank God the three of you are all right.”

  “Where’s Pippa?” Jacob demanded.

  “In the back,” Nita said, pointing toward the exam rooms. “Room two. I told her to hide with the baby.”

  Jacob ran to find his sister, navigating through the devastated bay. The place was a disaster, but the patients from the last attack had finally healed, so the cots were empty. Nita had piled them up near both of the exit doors.

  “How are you still alive?” Eirian asked, taking in the state of the bay.

  “I heard the bastards coming.” Nita wiped sweat from her brow. “So I barricaded the doors and took cover behind one of those cots. I shot at anyone who tried to come through the window.”

  “Thanks for hesitating when we came in,” I said. “Where’s Jax?”

  “No idea. It was a slow morning, so she was running errands for Ludo.”

  I wandered over to one of the shattered windows and chanced a look outside. Bodies littered the ground, but plenty more were still actively tearing Camp Haven to shreds. “They’re raiding the Bistro and DotCom. Why haven’t they come here yet?”

  “They probably think they nabbed all our medical supplies during the last visit,” Eirian said. “Get away from the window, Georgie.”

  I joined them at the center of the room again. Jacob emerged from the back room with Pippa in tow. They had fashioned a baby harness out of a spare sheet so that Athena could rest safely against Pippa’s chest while keeping Pippa’s arms free. I hugged Pippa and kissed the top of her head.

  “What do we do now?” Jacob asked, flinching when another bullet hit a window pane and sent glass flying everywhere.

  “I say we hole up here,” Nita offered. “Nowhere else is safe. They’re destroying everything, but they’ve spared the med bay. Our best bet is to stay here and defend the place. It’s worked for me so far.”

  Eirian stared out of the windows. “But everyone else—”

  I took him aside, away from the others. “You want to go out there, don’t you?”

  “Ludo’s out there,” he said. “And so are a bunch of other guys that I know.”

  “Yeah, and they’re most likely going to die,” I replied. “Eirian, it’s you against all of Camp Havoc, and in case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot more of them than there are of us. If you go out there, you’ll get hit in less than a minute.”

  “I ca
n’t let my people suffer without trying to help them.”

  “You won’t be able to help them anyway if you’re bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds,” I said, smoothing down his wild hair. “I can’t tell you to stay here. It’s not my place. But I also can’t bear to lose you. Please stay. Buckle down with us. When all of this is over, we can comb the camp for survivors. They’ll need you, Eirian. I need you.”

  He rested his forehead against mine, breathing evenly in and out, but he winced when another explosion went off outside. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

  “Get over here, you guys!” Nita shouted. She had tipped more cots on their sides, forming a square of relative safety in the rear corner of the med bay. Jacob was already crouched beside Pippa, his little sister and her baby safe within the circle of his arms. Eirian and I stepped over the cots to join them. We knelt next to Nita, who had her gun propped up on a metal leg of the bed, aimed at the window. As soon as I got comfortable, a man in dirty combat pants shoved his boot through the last remaining window and climbed into the med bay.

  “Hey, we got live ones!” he shouted outside, setting eyes on our meager bunker. With a grin, he raised his gun, but he didn’t get a chance to fire. Nita, Eirian, and I all pulled our triggers at the same time. The man fell to the ground, dead and gone.

  “Call your shots,” Eirian said. “So we don’t waste ammo like that again.”

  Another man crawled through an open window.

  “Mine,” I said, and shot him through the leg.

  We held our own for some time, but the battle outside didn’t die down. The ground shook with new explosions as Camp Havoc wreaked destruction on years’ worth of our campers’ dedication and hard work. We popped each and every person that tried to enter the med bay, but I feared that we were the only people who had managed to set up a relative safe space to duck and cover. Who would be left after all of this was done?

  “I’m running out of bullets,” Eirian said, checking his pockets for spare ammunition.

  “I’m already out,” Nita replied as she lowered her rifle. “Shit.”