Days of Chaos Read online

  Days of Chaos

  EMP Survival Series Book 2

  Jack Hunt

  Contents

  Also by Jack Hunt

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  A Plea

  Reading Team

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 by Jack Hunt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  DAYS OF CHAOS: Book 2 is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Jack Hunt

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  The Agora Virus series

  Phobia

  Anxiety

  Strain

  The War Buds series

  War Buds 1

  War Buds 2

  War Buds 3

  Camp Zero series

  State of Panic

  State of Shock

  State of Decay

  Renegades series

  The Renegades

  The Renegades Book 2: Aftermath

  The Renegades Book 3: Fortress

  The Renegades Book 4: Colony

  The Renegades Book 5: United

  The Wild Ones

  The Wild Ones Book 1

  The Wild Ones Book 2

  Mavericks series

  Mavericks: Hunters Moon

  Time Agents series

  Killing Time

  Single Novels

  Blackout

  Defiant

  Darkest Hour

  Final Impact

  For my Family

  Prologue

  13 days after EMP

  His leather jacket scrunched as he bent down over the gagged couple and lit a cigarette. In the darkness of the room, the small flame flickered, illuminating gasoline-drenched faces. Magnus Hobbs inhaled deeply and the end of the cigarette glowed a bright orange. The man and his wife whimpered watching the flame burn down the match until it went out.

  “Look, I get it. I really do. You were just trying to protect your wife.” He blew smoke into his face. “I can respect that, however, what I can’t accept is rudeness. Now if you had just answered my question, you wouldn’t be in this situation right now.” He reached for a can of beer, taking another swig from it. “So if you want to blame anyone, blame yourself. You see, for every action we take in this life, there is a consequence. You made a call, and it backfired, didn’t it?”

  The man didn’t answer. Not even a word.

  Was it a final act of defiance or fear?

  Magnus kept his eyes fixed on the man. Even in the dark he could register the familiar expression. They all had it. Of course they didn’t start that way. Everyone was a hero until they were counting down the final minutes of their life.

  He removed another match from the large box, struck it and waved it front of their faces, taunting them, and waiting for them to break — everyone did in the end.

  The smell of gasoline lingered.

  A muffled cry came from the woman.

  He smiled, feeding off their terror.

  “Magnus, we should get back,” Sawyer said from behind him.

  “Not until I get my answer.”

  “Cole’s waiting for us.”

  “So? He can wait longer.”

  Sawyer leaned in and grabbed him by the jacket and he shrugged him off.

  “Not until I get my answer,” he repeated in a firm tone.

  Sawyer shook his head and walked away.

  Magnus looked back at the two and tilted his head and ran his hand over the wife’s leg. Both of them were in their early twenties, and if the framed photos on the fireplace mantel were anything to go by, they were newlyweds. After not hearing back from Trent or Austin, and heading into Lake Placid to find out the state of things, they’d found their lifeless bodies, or what was left of them.

  He’d grown up with both of them. They were his cousins, but felt more like brothers. When they entered Austin’s home it stank to high heaven. They’d expected to find them riding out the EMP just like them. Instead he found both of them lying in the middle of their living room sporting gunshot wounds. Whoever killed them didn’t even have the courtesy to bury them. It was almost like they were sending a warning to anyone who knew them. There was no note, no sign on the wall, no details, just the smell of death.

  After they’d explored the house and taken in the sight of what remained of Lake Placid, he’d decided to drop by one of the neighbors to see what they could tell them. Magnus had no intention of it going this far. Contrary to what Cole and the others thought, he didn’t get off on the suffering of others but after seeing how his kin had been treated, he sure as hell was ready to dish out punishment.

  “Now I’m only going to ask you one more time. Who killed them?”

  He leaned forward and pulled the gag down from the man.

  “I told you, we don’t know. There were a couple of break-ins along our street two weeks ago, and we heard someone was killed. My guess is your cousins murdered the man and someone retaliated. That’s all I know. Now please, let us go.”

  “Let me guess, you won’t say anything?”

  He nodded.

  Magnus’s lips wormed into a smile before covering his mouth again with the gag.

  “And what about you, darling?” He reached over and pulled her gag down. “You got anything else to add to that?”

  She spit in his face. “Let us go, you pig.”

  He reached up and wiped her spit from his lower jaw and tasted it. “I have a good mind to drag you into the back and—”

  “Magnus!” Sawyer hollered. “We need to go, there are people on the road with flashlights.”

  He eyed the woman and then covered her mouth with the gag. He rose to his feet and looked at them, shaking his head. “Utterly useless.”

  He crossed the living room heading toward the window so he could see. Sure enough outside there was a group of four armed men. In the two days they’d been in Lake Placid, they’d noticed that the town had some kind of neighborhood watch in place. They weren’t cops as they were dressed like ordinary folk.

  “We’ve been here long enough. It’s time we head back and speak with him. Maybe he’ll know what to do,” Sawyer said.

  Magnus eyed him. “Are you serious? The only thing he’s going to do is a line of coke and lie around like he has for the past two weeks.”

  “They’re gone, Magnus, and if we don’t go soon, we might end up like them.”

  He glanced outside and observed the men going house to house. It wouldn’t take them long and they’d be on the doorstep. He turned back toward the couple and Sawyer pulled at his arm. “Come on, leave them.”

  He headed toward the back door and Magnus
followed.

  After Sawyer exited, Magnus stood there for a second, then without any hesitation, he took out a match, lit it and dropped it. A blue flame crept across the floor, slithering its way toward the couple. Their muffled cries were the last thing he heard as he closed the door behind him.

  Chapter 1

  Lake Placid

  They knew he was dead from the moment they walked in. Elliot Wilson stepped over the broken glass as he entered the home of Lake Placid Police Chief Derek Wayland. He hadn’t been seen in several days and with a town of over two thousand people, and a limited number of vehicles old enough to operate, it had become tough checking on everyone’s welfare. That’s why Mayor Hammond had appointed neighborhood watch groups who were meant to do the rounds. Problem was, in light of dwindling resources, fewer people felt obliged to do anything.

  Patrol Sergeant Gary Westin put a hand up to his nose. “That is rancid.”

  “Oh, you should smell the toilets in Rikers, now that’s bad,” Damon said.

  It had been over two weeks since the EMP and the death toll was still climbing.

  FEMA had been broadcasting updates on the situation, and Elliot’s worst fear had come to fruition. The attack had come from North Korea. There were no details on how they’d managed to pull it off as FEMA’s only concern was for the safety of Americans. Media reports leading up to the event had already stated how experts believed it could happen but people had underestimated the threat. FEMA had relayed that three high-altitude detonations had occurred in the upper atmosphere over California, Kansas and West Virginia and discussed how the weather would affect the power grid, crops, livestock and the water system. The problem was none of this was known until seventy-two hours after the event, leaving little time to alert the townsfolk. Under the circumstances they did the best they could by gathering together groups of ten or more people from different zones in the city and having them post flyers directing people to find the nearest concrete building, stay inside and get as far below ground as possible. Residents were instructed to stay inside for at least five days, fourteen was advisable but how long depended on multiple factors like the distance from the initial blast, wind direction, strength of the explosion and whether it hit the ground or detonated in the air. All they knew was West Virginia was over seven hundred miles away. What Elliot was able to make clear to the others was that up to 80 percent of the radiation reduced rapidly within the first twenty-four hours. Elliot had to assume that the winds must have worked in their favor because they were five hundred miles away in New York when the attack occurred, and none of them had experienced symptoms of radiation poisoning, something that he had feared from the moment the power grid went down. After making it back to Lake Placid, Elliot and the others had destroyed their clothes, bathed with shampoo and retreated to the safety of the bunker. Even though the two men who attempted to kill Rayna had destroyed the hinges on the shelter and lock, it didn’t take long to patch it up and ensure the seal was airtight.

  After twelve days of being inside and using a Geiger counter to assess radiation levels they felt it was safe to venture out. Outside it was far worse than they could imagine. Chaos was now in full swing. While some had heeded the advice and barricaded themselves inside their homes, others had chosen to take advantage of the opportunity and loot the pharmacies and grocery stores. Some had even broken into homes and killed others to take what they wanted. One of the first to die was Chief Derek Wayland.

  They stood back observing his body. They’d gutted him like a fish. He was sprawled over the kitchen table with his entrails hanging out.

  “You know what this means,” Damon said slapping Gary on the back. “You’re in charge now.”

  “Dear God, man, do you not have respect for the dead?” he shot back.

  Damon raised an eyebrow. “Oh I’m sorry, was I meant to care?”

  Through gritted teeth he spoke, “That’s my friend.”

  “And?”

  Gary shoved him up against the wall and before Elliot could intervene, Damon lashed out knocking him to the ground. “You touch me again, and it’ll be the last time.”

  “Damon,” Elliot said.

  He threw a hand in the air. “Ah screw this.” He trudged off out of the house, his boots crunching glass. The echo of a bucket being kicked across the lawn was the last they heard before it went quiet.

  Elliot extended his hand and pulled Gary up.

  “Seriously, Elliot, I don’t know why you let him stay.”

  “Because of the fallout and…”

  “And what? The guy is a known criminal.”

  “Yeah, well that criminal helped us get home.”

  Gary brushed himself off. It wasn’t like the animosity between the two of them was strange. They’d been stuck inside that bunker for the past twelve days, and the tension between Gary and Damon wasn’t the only thing he’d noticed. As they went about checking Wayland’s home for anything that might be of use, Elliot thought back to the grueling days underground.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did you notice the tension between Rayna and Jill?”

  “No. Why?”

  Elliot shrugged. “I dunno, I just noticed they kept their distance from each other and the few times they chatted it seemed cold like they were only doing it out of necessity.”

  “No idea,” Gary said. “Maybe it was just stress. All of us have been a little stressed out.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

  They continued rooting through Wayland’s home, thinking that perhaps Derek’s death had been a retaliation of some form and not just an attempt to steal what he had. But it seemed by the looks of how bare his cupboards were, it was both. “You know we need to start thinking about water.”

  “There are enough streams around here, we should be fine.”

  “Yeah if you want to get waterborne diseases.”

  “The flyer we handed out already told people about disinfecting the water with purification tablets or adding 1 teaspoon of bleach to every 10 gallons of water.”

  “I’m not on about that, Gary, heck, fallout particles can’t be removed from the water through just boiling or chemical disinfection, we need to look at the least radioactive sources such as wells, water tanks, covered reservoirs, seepage pits and deep lakes before we move on to ponds and streams. Most of the fallout particles settle at the bottom so the deeper the body of water, the safer it will be. Also bear in mind that we can use roof gutters because most of the particles would have run off with that downpour we had a few days back.”

  “If this stuff settled, we can’t go drinking that,” Gary said.

  “I just told you, we’ve had showers since. Any fallout particles will have run off. What I’m saying is that we should at least give people the heads-up on how to remove fallout particles or dissolved radioactive material from water by using filtration through the earth’s soil.”

  Gary turned and chuckled. “You always did pay better attention to this stuff than me.”

  They made their way out and took in the bright morning sun. After being stuck inside the bunker it had been a relief to step outside. It was January, still freezing cold. Much of the snow seemed to have melted, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be another drop in temperature. The east coast was notorious for changes in the weather, and they could go several days, even a week without snow, and then get hit again and find themselves digging themselves out of a hole. And rain? That just meant the sidewalks and roads would be hard to walk on.

  “You know Damon was right. With Wayland gone this whole thing might fall on your shoulders.”

  “I think we are beyond who’s in charge,” Gary said. “But, no, Ted Murphy is the assistant chief. He’d be calling the shots.”

  Elliot snorted. “Well let’s hope for your sake that’s not the case.”

  Ted Murphy had been a pain in the ass for Gary for as long as they’d worked together. Before Elliot left for New York, Gary was always saying how Ted liked to ex
ert his power over him. It probably didn’t help that Gary had been in line for the assistant chief position and Ted had scooped it out from underneath him by making up some bull crap story that had made Gary look incompetent.

  The radio on Gary’s chest crackled.

  “Come in, Gary, this is Foster. You might want to see this.”

  Gary pushed the button on his radio and brought it to his lips. “Go ahead, over.”

  Static came over the line and then Foster Goodman responded. “We headed over to that house that was on fire yesterday, looks like I’ve found the cause.”

  Foster Goodman worked with the local fire department as the fire marshal and though they were limited by what they could do (and right now that meant letting fires burn out), Gary wanted to at least know what the cause was. There had been a surge of fires prior to going underground and even more since coming up topside — it made them believe that it was being used as a distraction while other homes were being raided. The department didn’t want to waste their time attending every blaze especially when their resources were already spread so thin, so Foster and a few of the guys were tackling it as best as they could.

  Foster continued. “We got two dead bodies. Whoever did this must have soaked them in an accelerant. That’s just my determination based on the pattern of the fire.”

  Gary went quiet. Elliot could see him wrestling with the new burden. Towns and cities all over the country had to have been in the same position.

  “What do you want us to do?” Foster asked.

  Gary shifted one foot to the next casting a glance across the yard to Damon who was sitting on a swing. Chief Wayland had been divorced for some time. All that remained of his family life was a rusted swing set and a few photos. According to Gary, his ex had taken his daughter to live in Saranac Lake. His son had already passed away in a car crash. Elliot shook his head as he looked at a photo of the family. Death was the new reality.

  “Just continue your rounds and report back on those additional fires.”