Survive the Aftermath (Small Town EMP Book 2) Read online

  Small Town EMP

  Survive the Chaos

  Survive the Aftermath

  Survive the Conflict

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

  RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, AUGUST 2019

  Copyright © 2019 Relay Publishing Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Grace Hamilton is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Post-Apocalyptic projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.

  Cover Design by LJ Mayhem Covers

  www.relaypub.com

  Blurb

  The New World Order is at hand.

  Civilization has crumbled since the EMP thrust humanity back into the Stone Age, and dangerous factions now scavenge for scarce resources in this terrifying new world.

  Austin Merryman wonders what the future holds for his teenaged daughter, and if the madness surrounding them is even worth surviving. For now, the group is safe in his brother’s prepper house nestled in the Rockies. But the calm can’t last forever. With sixteen people crammed together in the tiny mountain home, tensions are bound to erupt. It doesn’t help that his brother’s lazy friend gets twisted pleasure from stirring up animosity, pitting brother against brother and daughter against father as battle lines are drawn.

  But decisions about who stays and who goes are ripped from their hands as information on the USB drive lays bare pieces of the NWO’s plans. Austin realizes the horrifying truth of why he’s in their sights, as well as the danger he’s brought down on those he loves most. When tragedy again strikes the small group, it will be up to Austin to make the hard choices necessary to ensure their survival.

  Until a dying man utters the single word that changes everything…

  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

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  End of Survive the Aftermath

  Thank you

  About Grace Hamilton

  Sneak Peak: Survive the Conflict

  Also by Grace Hamilton

  Want More?

  1

  Austin Merryman walked outside his brother’s luxury home, which had been built with the apocalypse in mind. The place was a treasure, given all that had happened, but that didn’t stop it from being cramped. Breathing in the fresh air of the outdoors, he took a minute to look around and take stock of who was where. It was tough keeping up with sixteen people. He could hear male voices coming from the right, mingled with the repetitive thwack of an ax hitting wood.

  Down the driveway, he saw a couple of the women from the revivalist crew. They were carrying plastic grocery bags filled with what looked like weeds. Well, scratch that—they actually were weeds, technically, but the women were using them for some project or another. He couldn’t remember what it was.

  Thinking he just needed space, he started walking into the trees to find a little peace and quiet. Ever since they’d gotten into the USB the day before and scanned through the litany of files on the thing, his mind had been in overdrive. He’d barely slept at all, thinking about everything he’d seen and trying to make sense of it.

  “Hey, is everything okay?” Amanda Patterson asked, her voice coming from behind him.

  He turned to look at the woman who’d saved his life and become what he had to think of as one of his best friends. She was stubborn, opinionated, intelligent, a heck of a shot… and very easy on the eyes.

  “Everything’s fine,” he acknowledged, and when she didn’t look like she believed him, he moved to sit on a large rock surrounded by tall pine trees, out of sight of the house.

  “I wanted a minute to think without being asked what to do next,” he explained quietly. She smiled back at him, and he could tell just from her expression that she understood his feelings.

  “There’s a lot of people who are lost and confused… needing some direction. I guess you’re the guy to give it,” she said, sitting down beside him and nudging his arm.

  “Lucky me,” he grumbled.

  His eyes moved around the area. It was pretty. A place he would have loved to park his fifth-wheel and hang out for a couple weeks. His brother’s property was high up in the mountains north of Denver, Colorado, completely off the grid and off the beaten path—way off. There wasn’t a single road that would lead directly to the house. You had to take a series of dirt roads and know the way if you wanted to find it without getting turned around, which made it an ideal hideout in a world gone bad.

  It was a safe haven, without a doubt, and he was grateful for the roof over his head, but he didn’t know if it was the right choice for a long-term living situation. With all that had happened, though, how could he know what the right choice was? He needed a few minutes to himself, away from the busy household filled with relative strangers. It had been nearly a week since they’d all begun cohabitating, and he’d barely said more than a few words to most of them. He didn’t know them and wasn’t sure he could blindly trust anyone. They were living in different times that required him to be a lot more careful than he’d once been.

  But Amanda was something else. Outside of his brother and his daughter, she was the one among them he felt sure he could trust. After all they’d been through together, he had to trust her.

  Beside him, she picked some dry moss from the base of the rock. “Good tinder,” she muttered.

  He looked down at the moss in her hand. “I suppose.”

  She frowned back to him. “Come on, Austin, what’s the deal? We walked how many miles to get here? We’ve barely caught our breath! And now that we’re here, you’re thinking about leaving, aren’t you?” she asked.

  He couldn’t stop the slow grin from spreading over his face. “You think you know me so well.”

  “I think I know you well enough to see you’re feeling a little stir-crazy.”

  “Do you ever get that feeling that the other shoe’s about to drop? I keep looking over my shoulder. All that stuff on that drive…” He stopped talking, shaking his head at the thought of what they’d been caught up in.

  “I get it, I do. But let’s celebrate our win. You’re here, Savannah is here, and the house is solid,” she said.

  Austin nodded, knowing she had a point. He was happy to be reunited
with Savannah, and grateful to the revivalists for keeping her alive and getting her to the house, but he wasn’t sure where they went from here. There’d also been no talk of the others moving on since they’d arrived, and that only served to complicate things. He didn’t want to be ungrateful, but how long could the house support all of them?

  “We have to figure out what happens next,” he said. They’d been putting off the conversation, but it had to happen.

  “Austin, everyone is recovering from the long journey here. Let’s give everybody a minute to figure stuff out.”

  “If they don’t leave in the next couple months, winter will set in and traveling on foot will be impossible. The Loveridge family has a home in Salt Lake City—that was their original destination. Is it still? How do I ask them if they plan on staying or going without sounding like a total jerk?” he asked.

  She shrugged, her eyes ranging over the forest around them. “Like I said, give it a few days. Tonya Loveridge is still grieving and recovering from the trip. I don’t know if she can make it on her own.”

  “She has Malachi and the others,” Austin pointed out.

  “You know what I mean. None of them are ready for that.”

  He nodded, knowing she was right. “That may be true, but sixteen people in that house all summer is going to be rough.”

  Summer promised to be hot and miserable in a world without AC. Fortunately, the house was surrounded by trees and lots of shade, but that only went so far, and it was one of the few things they had going for them. The metal walls and roof were great for keeping out unwanted guests, but they promoted the feeling of living inside a steel box. The only opening was the front door, which they’d taken to leaving open all day to allow fresh air into the house.

  “It is getting a little stuffy in there,” she commented, her eyes moving around the area before she spotted more hanging moss and moved to climb up on another rock to pluck it down. She added it to her little pile of tinder and then crouched to rub some more moss from the rock where they’d been sitting.

  He looked down at her, watching her gathering supplies even as they chatted. Looking for supplies had become second nature. Today, her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, showcasing her pretty eyes, and she was so easy to look at—watching her had become second nature for him. “Yeah, stuffy is one way to put it. I wish Ennis would have stockpiled deodorant,” he muttered.

  Amanda chuckled. “I know you’re not telling me I stink,” she said, nudging his knee.

  He smiled. “No, you know what I mean. We need to get better ventilation in there.”

  “It’s only going to get hotter,” she replied with a grimace on her face, finally looking back up to meet his eyes.

  Austin nodded, staring off into the trees and thinking about the many issues they had to deal with. He felt like they were treading water, barely getting by and not making any real plans for the future.

  “It’d be nice to have more blankets or sleeping cots, too.”

  “Who needs a blanket when it’s eighty degrees in the house?” she quipped.

  “Sleeping on the hard floor is getting old. It’s like we have everything except for comfort. It’s better than sleeping outside on the cold, rocky ground, sure, but I think it would be a morale booster if we could all sleep better. Let’s face it, almost none of us are spring chicks anymore,” he said.

  Amanda laughed. “Speak for yourself, buddy. I’m young and spry.”

  He chuckled in return as she gave up on the moss and sat back down beside him. “I’ve seen Gretchen weaving pine needles,” he told her. “Maybe she can make sleeping mats. She could use grass, maybe, which might be softer if we could find enough. Anything would be better than sleeping directly on the floor. If only we had yarn. I heard one of the other women say she loved to knit.”

  “I know how to knit,” Amanda said casually.

  Austin turned to look at her. “Really?”

  “Yep. I’m pretty good at it, too.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything you’re not good at,” he offered, making her blush a little.

  “What else is running through your mind? Besides knitting, I mean,” she joked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot. I’m thinking long-term, just in case we have to stay here. You say the Loveridges aren’t ready to travel, and that’s fine, but I think we need to know what everyone is planning, and when, or we’re going to be caught unprepared. Right now, we’re burning through resources pretty fast. We need to be thinking about how to make it all last.”

  “Like what?”

  “The propane, the food, the water—everything,” he murmured.

  She nodded, looking unsurprised. “The propane is definitely going to be an issue. We can’t keep using the stove to heat water. It’s wasteful. We should be cooking our meals outside.”

  “The ladies did build a fire the other day to heat the water,” he commented.

  “Yes, but we need a stove. It wouldn’t be hard to make, what with all the rocks around here. If we’re here in the winter, we’ll be able to use it then, too, if we build a cover over it,” she added.

  “Good idea.

  Amanda looked off into the trees, lost in thought as she continued and he listened. “We can use foil to make a solar oven and save on using the propane stove, as well. We won’t have to worry about building a fire. We can make bread, stews, or even casseroles in it,” she said. “And we can use it to boil water.”

  “You sound very excited about aluminum foil,” he teased her, but a smile had come to his own face also—maybe he just needed something to focus on, he thought, to feel like they were doing something instead of treading water.

  She all but giggled, knocking her shoulder into his as she replied. “Foil’s better than gold in this off-the-grid situation. There are so many ways to use it! If those windows were exposed, we could cover them with foil to block the sun or use it in the winter to keep the heat trapped inside. It’s a great way to clean dirty pots and pans, too. Trust me, foil is a big deal,” she said.

  “All right, I’m going to take your word for it,” he told her, and then he caught her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. He didn’t need to tell her that part of what she’d offered him that day was simple companionship—a like mind to share the worry. That meant as much as any idea, no matter how valuable.

  “I think your idea of weaving a grass mat is good, too, Austin. It will give Gretchen and the others something to focus on that could really help. I feel like they’re always waiting for something, for us to tell them to do something,” she added a moment later.

  Austin raised an eyebrow. “We’ve been here a week. Didn’t you just tell me to give it some time?”

  “Ha. Yeah, fair enough. But in terms of routine, and them looking to us for direction, it sometimes feels like a month,” she admitted. “I’m not saying I want them to leave,” she quickly added.

  “If they are all going to stay, I think we need to build some shelters.”

  “Like cabins?” she asked.

  “Yeah, why not? Ennis has plenty of tools around here. It would make the sleeping arrangements a little more tolerable. Four people to a room is crowded,” he pointed out.

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. That is a good idea, though. The shelters wouldn’t have to be big, either—just large enough for a few people to sleep in,” she said.

  “What about winter?”

  She let out a sigh. “One problem at a time.”

  “Alright, so how about we at least bring it up tonight—test the water, see what people are thinking. And if they’re not thinking on the lines of staying or leaving yet, that will get the conversation started.”

  “Okay,” she said, more slowly. “But we won’t push anything, right? I still feel like everyone needs more time to adjust and decide what they want. We can give them a few days.”

  “I agree,” he said. “We’ll give them a couple days, at least, to decide what
they want, but tonight we can start the discussion and make sure everyone’s thinking about what the long-term plan is. And, meanwhile, we can get started talking about what arrangements will have to be made to make it all work. If everyone wants to stay, we talk about building small cabins,” he said. “In the meantime, I think we really need to drive home the need to conserve resources.”

  “That’ll make everyone understand we’re not in more than a temporary holding pattern, too,” Amanda said. “It’ll help folks make up their minds.”

  That said, she offered him a grin that suggested she might expect to see one on his own face, but it faltered when he didn’t return the expression. Instead, he shrugged and looked back off into the trees, down toward the house. It was good to have a plan, and to have her on his side in being ready to start this conversation… but he didn’t feel as optimistic as she apparently did.

  “Okay, Austin, come on, what’s really got you out here sulking and crawling inside your own head? It isn’t the heat because the heat isn’t intolerable. Just wait until July.”

  Austin stared down at the ground littered with little green vines and plenty of dry pine needles. Amanda knew him way too well. He liked it and hated it at the same time. It reminded him of what things had been like with his late wife. Having someone know you better than you knew yourself was comforting. But he wasn’t sure he was ready for any of that to come back—not yet.