After the EMP (Book 8): Hope Stumbles Read online

  Hope Stumbles

  AFTER THE EMP BOOK EIGHT

  Harley Tate

  Copyright © 2018 by Harley Tate. Cover and internal design © by Harley Tate. Cover image copyright © Deposit Photos, 2018.

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The use of stock photo images in this e-book in no way imply that the models depicted personally endorse, condone, or engage in the fictional conduct depicted herein, expressly or by implication. The person(s) depicted are models and are used for illustrative purposes only.

  Contents

  Hope Stumbles

  Six Months Without Power

  Prologue

  Nine Months Without Power

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Day 281

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Day 282

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgments

  About Harley Tate

  Hope Stumbles

  A POST-APOCALYPTIC SURVIVAL THRILLER

  In a world without power, could you survive a brutal winter?

  When a freak animal bite sends Madison limping through snow drifts to the cabin, the Sloane family’s stable life is shattered. Rabies doesn’t wait for sunny weather. Without a vaccine, Madison will die, but Tracy braves the cold to search for a cure. She’ll save her daughter no matter what.

  If danger comes out of nowhere, would you shoot first?

  While out on a scavenging run, a gunshot pierces the frozen silence. Colt bolts for the street, finding blood on the ground and Walter missing. When his initial search turns up nothing, Colt must hunt the kidnappers down and save Walter before they finish the job.

  The end of the world brings out the best and worst in all of us.

  It’s a race against the clock for both Tracy and Colt. Can they find a vaccine and Walter’s location before the Sloane family is torn apart? Or will Tracy end up losing the two people she cares about most?

  The EMP is only the beginning.

  Hope Stumbles is book eight in the After the EMP series, a post-apocalyptic thriller series following ordinary people trying to survive after a geomagnetic storm destroys the nation’s power grid.

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  Six Months Without Power

  DAY 190

  Prologue

  MADISON

  Clifton Compound

  Near Truckee, CA

  11:00 a.m.

  “We need another wheelbarrow!” Madison wiped at a bead of sweat before it ran into her eye. They had been harvesting the last of the fall crops since the first glow of sun broke over the tree line. Corn and beans and potatoes. Late-planted carrots and the last of the tomatoes and peppers.

  Peyton double-timed it up the row, pushing an empty wheelbarrow over the packed dirt. Sweat soaked his T-shirt like a football player finishing up practice. “We’re going to be canning for days. There’s more food than supermarkets used to have out here.”

  Madison nodded. The acre they’d cleared in late spring had yielded a bigger bounty than any of them anticipated. They would have more fruits and vegetables and grains than they needed for the winter. She smiled as Peyton leaned in to help, rooting through the leaves for any stray peppers.

  If a solar storm hadn’t brought an electromagnetic pulse and threw the entire country back into the stone age, they would be doing the same thing right now at UC Davis. Fall meant harvest time on a farm or in an agricultural department of a college. She elbowed Peyton in the side.

  “It’s like old times, isn’t it?”

  She’d expected his usual grin and a funny comeback line. Instead, he stilled and his eyes lost their light. “Yes and no.”

  Madison’s face fell. She didn’t mean to dredge up painful memories on a gorgeous fall day. They should be laughing and carrying on before running inside for fresh lemonade and some of her mom’s biscuits.

  She risked a question that gnawed at her in somber moments. “Do you ever wonder about your dad?”

  Peyton glanced at her with a furrowed brow. “Sometimes. But what can I do? He’s either dead or living it up in some bunker in Los Angeles.”

  She reached out and squeezed his arm. Not knowing whether your only family was alive or dead had to be hard. But Peyton’s father hadn’t been a model parent. Every once in a while, Peyton still talked about the day everything changed. His father had cut off his tuition funding. He wouldn’t graduate from UC Davis unless he changed his major.

  Madison dropped her hand. If only his father had known agrarian skills would mean the difference between life and death less than a year later.

  Peyton blew out a puff of air and leaned back on his heels. “Who knows, maybe the entertainment industry is thriving down there. Music execs always reminded me of cockroaches anyway.”

  Madison laughed and her spirits lifted.

  “What’s so funny?” Brianna appeared, looking every bit the farmer with a pair of dirt-smeared overalls and a bandana holding back her hair.

  “Cockroaches.”

  Her eyes went wide as she stared at the dirt. “Where? You know I hate those things.”

  “Los Angeles, mostly.”

  Brianna’s eyebrows shot up, but Peyton waved her off.

  “How are the piglets?”

  “Almost ready to be on their own.” Brianna grinned. “Betsy’s a trooper. I can’t imagine having eight babies crawling all over me.”

  “I still can’t believe you named all the pigs. Don’t you cringe when your dad slaughters one?”

  “Not really. They have a good life here.”

  Peyton rubbed his belly. “And bacon tastes good.”

  Madison elbowed him harder than before. “No tasty pork products unless you help me with the rest of the harvest.” She turned back to the pepper plant in front of her and couldn’t help but smile. They might be in the middle of nowhere and living like pioneers, but they were family.

  As long as they stayed together, they could weather anything.

  Nine Months Without Power

  DAY 280

  Chapter One

  TRACY

  Clifton Compound

  Near Truckee, CA

  10:00 a.m.

  Fat, wet snowflakes landed on Tracy’s lashes, melting into puddles beneath her eyes. Every few paces, she brushed them away and paused to catch her breath, struggling against the weight of snowdrifts and wind.

  Two hundred and eighty days ago, the country plunged into darkness. No power. No internet. No cell phones.

  The entire United States went from nonstop worldwide contact to an island nation cut off from everything outside. Through luck and determination, Tracy’s husband Walter found her in the ensuing chaos. But safety lingered out of reach for
weeks. The promise of a sanctuary cabin in the woods was more dream than reality, but thanks to Brianna, they made it.

  Ten people, a scrap of a dog, and a feisty cat all crammed into the tiny compound in the wilderness of Northern California. Brianna’s family had taken them in and saved their lives. Now they all worked from sunup to sundown ensuring they earned their keep.

  It had been rough going at first. Warm weather brought interlopers and strangers hell-bent on ruining everything they’d worked for. But thanks to quick thinking and an arsenal of weapons, the Sloanes and their makeshift extended family survived.

  As the stifling heat gave way to falling leaves and colder temperatures, the months passed with back-breaking regularity. Endless crops to water and harvest, supplies to inventory, chickens and pigs to tend. They fell into a routine of communal labor and the satisfaction of working the land. But Tracy underestimated the brutal, snow-filled winter.

  With a grunt of effort, she resumed her trek through the forest. The snow sucked at her ankles and clung to her boots with every forced step. Hunting in December with a foot and a half of snow on the ground wasn’t for the faint of heart.

  Snot crusted and froze in Tracy’s nostrils and she wiggled her nose to increase airflow. Even as late as October, she’d thought a place with food and weapons and comfortable beds would solve all their problems.

  “The winter won’t be so bad,” she had told herself. “We have everything we need.”

  A clump of snow fell off a pine bough and plopped onto her shoulder. How naïve.

  Apart from a vacation one Christmas holiday, Tracy had never spent more than an afternoon in the snow. Her memories of that trip were filled with steaming hot chocolate and snowball fights and rosy cheeks rounded with laughter.

  Now a solid month into a snow-filled winter and the memories mocked her. Thanks to the cold, most of their prime hunting targets were hibernating, hunkered down, or out of the area. But snowshoe hares still hopped along their routine trails and foxes followed close behind.

  With Walter’s help, Tracy and Madison set snare traps in a mile perimeter around the compound and checked them every day. Most days all they ended up with were soggy clothes and windburned cheeks, but every so often, they were rewarded. A plump rabbit meant fresh meat for dinner and fur they could use for coats, gloves, hats, and a million other things.

  The first trap came into view and Tracy picked up the pace, loping toward it with a clumsy, high-knee waddle. Although working twelve hours a day honed her muscles, it burned a million calories. Tracy’s stomach rumbled as she pushed faster.

  Screw guns and ammunition; food was the most precious commodity in this new world. She stopped a few feet from the trap and filled her lungs with frigid air. It was empty like all the others. With an exhale, Tracy checked the snare and the bait before moving on.

  While Tracy worked the western side of the perimeter, her now-twenty-year-old daughter, Madison, worked the east. In the past nine months, her daughter had grown from a smart, but inexperienced, college student to a capable and strong young woman.

  Tracy wished it had been in different circumstances, but she was proud of Madison and all she had accomplished. From clearing land and planting a massive garden, to harvesting and canning and learning how to hunt, Tracy’s daughter had proven that a positive attitude meant everything.

  Using her teeth, Tracy pulled off a glove and wiped at her eyes. Burning tears coated her lashes. Next time they went into the city for a scavenging run, she needed goggles or oversized sunglasses. Something to keep the wind and glare out of her eyes.

  After a moment, she moved on, checking the next three traps and coming up empty. Scratch rabbit stew from the menu tonight. She hurried on to the final snare when a shout stopped her midstride.

  “Help! Mom! Help!”

  Madison. Tracy ran toward the sound of her daughter’s anguished voice. She cupped her bulky gloves around her mouth and screamed. “Madison! Where are you?”

  She couldn’t hear a response above the pounding of her own heart. Tracy stopped, heaving for breath as sweat beaded and slipped down her spine beneath the weight of her winter parka. “Madison!”

  A million scenarios ran through her mind.

  A hidden log beneath the snow could twist an ankle or break a leg. A hungry mountain lion or bobcat could leap from a tree and try to turn her daughter into dinner. A hunter who strayed into their area could have shot her by accident.

  Someone could be holding her hostage.

  Tracy shivered and plowed on in the direction she’d heard the scream. Her side burned with lactic acid and her vision clouded with sweat and tears, but Tracy didn’t stop.

  I’ll find you, honey. Wherever you are.

  Tracy cupped her hands and cried out again. “Madison!”

  At last, her daughter responded. “Over here!”

  Yes! Tracy ran in the direction of her daughter’s voice. Ignoring the pain in her side and the sweat soaking her shirt, she headed toward the last of Madison’s traps. There! A shape in the snow.

  Dark gray coat, flag of brown hair blowing in the wind, all ringed by a circle of bright red snow.

  “Madison! Are you okay?” Tracy stopped five feet from her daughter.

  The snow surrounding Madison ranged in tint from carnation to scarlet, all stained with blood. Madison sat in a depression, backside buried a foot deep, clutching her leg. She looked up at her mother, face as pale as the unblemished ground further afield. “I’m bleeding pretty bad.”

  Tracy scrabbled forward, landing hard on her knees a foot away. A series of gashes opened up Madison’s pants. Blood coated her fingers where she gripped her leg, steaming in the winter air.

  “What happened?”

  Madison forced a swallow. “A fox was in the snare. I thought it was dead, but it wasn’t.” She winced. “I bent down to release the snare and it attacked. I shielded my face, but it got my leg bad.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot it?”

  “I—I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. All the other traps were empty. I didn’t think I’d find anything and when I did, it looked dead. I just assumed—” Madison’s explanation cut off as Tracy reached for her leg.

  “Let me see.”

  Madison moved her hand and a fresh gurgle of blood bubbled through the cut in her pants. Damn it. Tracy couldn’t make out anything with the fabric in the way, but the amount of blood alarmed her. If it was a bite…

  “Did it look sick? Crazy? Was it foaming at the mouth?”

  Madison heaved out a breath. “I don’t think so, but it all happened so fast.”

  Tracy rolled her lips over her teeth. There were all sorts of rational explanations for a fox to attack. An injury, being cornered in the trap, just plain fear. But another reason flashed in neon in Tracy’s mind: rabies. If the fox were infected, Madison needed a vaccine. Right now.

  She dropped the small pack she carried and fished out the mini first aid kit and a bandana. “I’m sorry. This will hurt.”

  Madison leaned back and braced herself with her palm as Tracy applied the gauze. It would all have to come off inside, but at least the bleeding would slow while they hobbled back to the cabins. “Where’s the fox?”

  “I loosened the snare enough for it to wriggle free before it attacked. I guess it ran off.”

  A million worries flew through Tracy’s mind, but she only voiced one for now. “The blood will attract other predators. Bobcats or mountain lions. An injured fox could lead them right to us. We’ll have to be careful.”

  Madison reached out and grabbed Tracy’s hand. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Me too. Let’s hope we have enough supplies to fix you up.”

  “Dad’s on a run. He’ll find what we don’t have.”

  Tracy didn’t respond. Their supplies were meager at best. No vaccines, no antibiotics. Did they even have a suture kit? The winter had brought more than expected accidents and injuries. She shook her head and focused on Madison. Staying
out in the snow wasn’t helping anything.

  With a deep breath, she hoisted her daughter to her feet. Looping one arm around Madison’s back, Tracy used her free hand to hold tight to Madison’s other arm. Together, they started the slow and agonizing trek back to camp.

  With every step, Tracy’s worry grew. If the fox had rabies or some other disease, Madison might never recover. If not, alcohol and bandages might do the job, but if her daughter kept losing blood, she would be incapacitated for a good long while.

  Madison winced and Tracy slowed. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I just need a moment.”

  “We can’t stop, honey. We have to get you home.”

  “I know.” Madison sucked in a breath, nodded, and they took off again.

  They might have a small working farm and the privacy of a forest all around, but their situation was far from secure. No hospitals. No western medicine. No doctors.

  Something as simple as a rusty nail or a sick animal could do them in. Trauma kits and first aid supplies could only do so much. Tracy hugged her daughter tighter and picked up the pace. Hopefully Walter was having better luck in the city. If not, they were in a world of hurt.

  Chapter Two