Jason inventoried the cities between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City: San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Saint George, Cedar City and Provo/Orem. Six hundred miles, four big population centers and a passel of small towns, any one of whom could block the road. The Virgin River Canyon, between Mesquite and Saint George, would be the ideal place to stop the tide of fleeing Californians entering Utah by closing off the gorge. For about ten miles, the Virgin River ran with a cliff on the left and a cliff on the right and a hundred foot-wide interstate running down the middle. If the good people of Saint George panicked, they would barricade the gorge just as sure as the Pope wears a funny hat. Two eighteen-wheelers could plug up the interstate in ten minutes.
Jason prayed for Cameron and Anna, frustrated he couldn’t do more.
With the power out, it would be hard to call the members of the Homestead—his group of a couple of hundred preparedness-minded friends. There had been two warning emails to their group, one after the dirty bomb hit Saudi Arabia and another when the stock market first halted, but sending emails was probably unnecessary. With the California nuke, Jason expected to see them all by the next afternoon.
They had always joked about being “the Zombie Apocalypse Club,” even throwing a huge “Zombie Apocalypse” Halloween party a couple of years back at the Homestead, complete with army tents, a bio-hazard banner, fire barrels, zombie costumes and military transport to and from the door. But the average member of the Homestead, including Jason and his wife Jenna, didn’t actually believe that American civilization would collapse. They prepared anyway, more as an insurance policy than anything else. Plus, they were all friends, and any excuse to hang out was good enough for them. Shooting guns, baking bread and growing a community garden had always seemed like great fun.
Still, the group had been chosen with care. It took years of nominations and discussion to finally reach the ideal size of two hundred souls. Along the way, folks were encouraged to take professional firearms training, going together in big groups to Front Sight Firearms Training outside of Las Vegas.
Members of the Homestead got into hobbies like beekeeping, ham radio, gardening, canning, and shooting. With all the work they had put into it over the years, it wasn’t hard to attract doctors, nurses and Special Forces veterans like Jeff Kirkham, Chad Wade and Evan Hafer.
Even this late at night, it was going to be difficult for Jason to get to sleep, but he knew tomorrow would be a ball-buster of a day. He took a final look off the balcony, contemplating the dark void where the Salt Lake Valley slept, wondering if he would ever see it sparkle again.
Kirkham Residence
Salt Lake City, Utah
“Jeff. I think we should go to my parents’ cabin.” Tara Kirkham planted her feet.
Jeff looked at her long and hard before speaking, thinking through the tactical situation, both on the ground and in his marriage.
“The cabin won’t hold us all and I can’t control the threat angles.”
“Threat angles?” she asked, cocking her head.
“Never mind. I’m saying that I don’t feel like I can do my job at your folks’ cabin.”
“We can all fit in the cabin. It’s small but we’ll make it work. It’s in the woods and that’s better than being near the city. We can pack up our emergency supplies and ride this out with my mom, dad and brothers,” Tara argued.
Jeff shook his head slowly, struggling to find a way around his wife’s reaction to the chaos they had been watching on TV. The power had gone off in the middle of a newscast, suddenly blacking out the television. The outage punctuated the bad news they had just been watching, almost like God alerting them to the chaos that knocked at their door.
“Sweetheart, I would love to protect your family, but that’s a luxury we can’t afford.”
“What are you talking about, Jeff Kirkham? You can’t seriously be thinking about leaving my parents in the woods alone?”
“The tactical situation at your parents’ cabin couldn’t be worse. Plus, the command structure almost guarantees we will not survive an attack.”
Tara looked at him and shook her head. “Sometimes, I just don’t know who you are. My family’s life is on the line and you’re talking about tactical whatever and command structures? I’m talking about my parents and brothers being in danger, Jeff.”
Jeff broke her gaze and looked at the wall. A picture of their three boys stared back at him.
“Tara,” he tried again, “there’s only one thing in this world that will keep me from protecting your family.”
Tara followed his gaze and her eyes softened.
“Jeff, you can protect them all,” she argued, her voice reaching out.
He shook his head, still looking at the photo of the boys. They had been playing in the leaves that day, burying their little brother. Jeff took a wallet-sized version of that picture with him to Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq, always stowing it in the radio pocket of his plate carrier vest. If he were mortally wounded in combat, he figured it would be even odds that he could get to the photo and look at his boys one last time before dying.
“I wish I had time to explain to you how that cabin could turn into a deathtrap. You’re going to have to trust me on this, Tara. I know how command works and I know it’ll be days, if not weeks, before your dad and brothers start trusting that I know what the fuck I’m doing. I’ve never been your dad’s favorite person and your brothers feel about the same. They’re not going to take orders from me until things get really, really bad. By then, I might already have lost one of you…” Jeff choked on the words and he mashed down his emotion.
Tara took a step toward him and Jeff looked down.
“Tara, I don’t think this will end well. I think you should call your parents right now and tell them to go to the Ross place. Your parents’ cabin won’t fit my team and I’m pretty sure it’s going to take a team to survive this―a team of commandos and a lot of food and water. That’s impossible in your parents’ three-bedroom cabin.”
Tara reached out and put her hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “What team, Jeff?”
“Evan and the guys. We need them and they need us.”
“Okay, but we hardly even know Ross. Why would we trust them over my family?”
Jeff put his hand on Tara’s. “We don’t know Ross, but it won’t matter once my team gets to his place. Ross won’t be an issue. I’m not going to let anyone do anything to jeopardize my family. You should call your parents right now. I’m not sure how much longer cell phones are going to work.”
4
“WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE, GOOD people of Planet Shortwave. This is JT Taylor, Alcoholic of the Apocalypse, fellow Drinkin’ Bro at your service, broadcasting from a SINCGARS Humvee that I borrowed from Fort Bliss. A hearty shout-out to the Army Electronic Warfare team trying to cruise-missile my ass.
“We’re hearing from Drinkin’ Bros in the military all over the globe, violating the shit out of the chain of command, bouncing little signals off the ionosphere down to my earholes all night long. Thank you for the news not fit to broadcast. And here it is, friends, the real deal from the horse’s mouth:
“So… a nuke went off in Los Angeles Harbor. You heard it here first, folks. I am the first broadcaster to admit the obvious: Martians are attacking America. It really is Independence Day and we really are being attacked by Martians. Will Smith is in the air, in his F-18, right now… Give ’em hell, Will. The trick is to fly right up their main weapon butthole when they’re about to shoot it.