Lionhearts (Denver Burning Book 5) Read online

  Sarah called them to the table, and as they ate lunch they made plans. Walt would keep working on the car, which was important to get running again regardless of how long the power was out. Liam would bike into town to look for Amy and Jess, and bring back news and a few spare parts for the old car. Sarah had plenty of work ahead of her to save what was in the freezer and take care of the animals without the aid of electrical systems.

  When Liam finally returned hours later with the girls—but no car parts—the news wasn’t good.

  “Mom, Dad,” Amy shouted as the three teens rolled up on their bicycles. “Almost all the cars are dead on the roads and power’s out for everyone from here to Bozeman!”

  Everyone in town was unsettled by the extent of the outage, the kids explained. The stores wouldn’t sell Liam anything without their computers working, but the cashier had certainly been willing to trade gossip. It seemed that the little town’s emergency services were overloaded with demands for assistance. Several car accidents had occurred when vehicles suddenly lost power just after ten o’clock that morning. Backup generators everywhere had failed, including the hospital’s, and nobody’s phones or radios were working.

  “And now our tractor won’t even start,” Walt grumbled. “Car radio stopped turning on at all. Whatever this is, it’s not good.”

  He didn’t bother to preach at the others about his premonition the day before, or the extent of his fears about what was going on. Either the power would come back on within a few days… or it wouldn’t.

  In the worst case scenario, they were actually set up better than most people. They could run their ranch without electricity indefinitely. It wouldn’t be easy, but they wouldn’t starve or freeze. He was a lot more worried about the people in the cities, especially his children. Especially Tara.

  His only comfort was that the outage was bound to be regional, and most of his kids were far enough away to be unaffected by the problem. They would be fine, he reassured Sarah. No doubt they were watching the Montana outage on the news and worrying about the situation on the ranch. It would be a matter of time before a message got through.

  But as he went to bed early that night and listened to the stillness of the utter darkness outside, he wondered what kind of interruption could stop cars in their tracks. Could that kind of disaster be reversed? And how could it happen locally, to just one area?

  His dreams were troubled all through the long night.

  Chapter 4: A City Torn Apart

  The smoke was thick, choking, blinding. Tara stumbled down the street away from the orange glow that had overtaken most of downtown Denver.

  She hadn’t seen anyone in several minutes. And that was a good thing, she now realized with a depressing sense of irony. One day earlier, she would have done anything to avoid going that long without human contact, without the reassuring presence of peers, colleagues, fellow citizens. And she would have been clutching her smartphone in one hand, eager for any vibration or sound to make her feel connected. Now she wasn’t even sure if her phone was still on her, and she didn’t slow down to check. She knew it was a useless piece of plastic now. It couldn’t save her, it couldn’t connect her, and it wouldn’t make her feel any better about what was going on.

  It had been the most frightening day of Tara’s life. She had seen people gunned down and left to die in pools of blood. She had seen aircraft fall into the streets and erupt in orange fireballs that lit people and buildings on fire with no hope of extinguishing any time soon. And she had nearly died herself. Worst of all, she had no way to contact her family or find trusted people to lead her to safety.

  Now, she hoped, this day of nightmare was nearing its end. It had to be nine o’clock at night, at least. She couldn’t see the sky very well through all the smoke, but the sun seemed to have gone down hours ago. She was losing track of time, so it could have been more or less, but she was clinging to a ragged sense of reality and insisted that it was something like nine o’clock. The time she usually got home, unless she was out with friends.

  Friends. Where were the people she had socialized with for the last year or two? Where were her roommates? They had no way to communicate. They might all be dead, for all she knew, or perhaps they were all gathered somewhere, waiting out the emergency in safety, comforting each other and making plans. Everyone but her.

  She had been in brief contact with other people during her flight from the downtown office which had made up so much of her life until that morning. One man had sheltered in the back of a utility truck with her as a squad of terrorists walked by, shooting at anything moving. They had walked together for half a mile, but when something exploded in an alley nearby he cut and ran, sprinting away without looking back. After sheltering for a few minutes in a basement stairwell, she had continued on alone.

  Later in the afternoon, after wandering the streets, fleeing with first one crowd and then another, she had found herself cringing desperately behind a steel dumpster with a couple of other frightened citizens. Gunmen were walking down the street openly, and they knew there were people hiding behind the dumpster unable to fight back. They were taunting, sneering in their threats. And in that moment, Tara believed that she was about to be killed. Those men would show no mercy. They would not hold back. They were drunk with blood and destruction; they reveled in it.

  Then, out of nowhere, two police officers appeared, a man and a woman, and began shooting back at the gunmen. Tara and the other civilians didn’t wait around to thank their rescuers. She’d already seen other policemen lying dead in the streets or being beaten back by criminals with superior firepower. She got away as quickly as she could while the firefight went on behind her, and didn’t stop running until she was far from that dangerous street.

  These scenes played over and over in her mind as she walked toward her apartment. It was in a quieter part of town, thank goodness. Upon first moving to the city, she had been annoyed that she couldn’t find an affordable downtown pad with quicker access to the night life. But as she got to know her roommates she began to appreciate the living space. Now she was grateful beyond belief that her home wasn’t amid the fire and terror that had consumed the downtown blocks.

  Something had changed in Tara during the past few hours. After seeing her life revealed in its true light, seeing what was important and what was a waste of time, she had confronted some things in her soul that she knew she’d been fleeing from ever since leaving home. The actions of the police officers, bravely shooting back at the terrorists so she and the others could escape, had impressed her deeply in ways that were just starting to make themselves clear in her mind. She resolved to put away the silly, weak feelings that threatened to cripple her in the face of danger, and instead focus on the inner strength she knew she had.

  She’d had that strength when she was seven and her father had put her on the back of a sheep in the county rodeo and let her bounce around in front of the laughing crowd until she fell off. She hadn’t won any prizes that day, but she went outside the next day and leaped onto the back of one of their goats, gripping its neck with her small arms. She had come inside later bruised, with a bloody nose, but proud to announce to her older brothers and parents that she had ridden the goat all around the pen twice without falling off, so she didn’t think the sheep at the rodeo would pose much of a challenge next year.

  She had exhibited the same strength when she was twelve, and she broke her arm biking down a hill with her brothers. She had only cried briefly, and then walked all the way home while Mike pushed her bike for her. She’d also shown her Leonhardt strength when she left home and went to Denver to pursue her own path, in spite of her parents’ worries and admonitions. Now it was time for her to take responsibility for that choice, and decide her own outcome, whatever people were doing around her.

  Finally she rounded the corner by her cross-streets and saw her apartment building. For the last few minutes she had been fighting an irrational dread that she would find nothing but charr
ed, smoking remains where her refuge had been. Now she was relieved to see that it was still standing, if a little dark and vacant-looking compared to the usual cheery night-time glow of its windows. No one was in sight, and that was just fine with her. It meant no more horrible gunshots, no more screams.

  With a final burst of energy, she hurried up the steps to her front door and fumbled with her keys in the darkness. Suddenly the door opened in front of her, and she screamed as a flashlight shone in her eyes.

  “Tara? Oh my gosh, it’s Tara, you guys! Come in, girl.”

  It was her roommate Gemma. There was a man behind her, and another man sitting on the couch in the living room. Tara stepped inside, placing a hand on her chest to slow her beating heart, and Gemma closed and locked the door behind her.

  “How long have you been here?” Tara asked.

  “I came back in the afternoon. My office is only a few miles away,” Gemma replied. She was a dental hygienist by vocation. “You look terrible. Tara, are you okay? I was so worried about you.”

  Tara shook her head, unable to put all her distress into words at the moment. She stumbled into the kitchen to get a glass of water, but only a feeble stream dripped from the faucet.

  “Here,” Gemma said, following. She offered Tara a cup and pitcher from the table. “Water pressure has been gone since lunchtime. The toilet’s a problem too. But we saved some tap water while we could still get it, and the guys had a pack of bottles too.”

  “Who are they?” Tara asked, gratefully gulping down half the contents of the pitcher.

  “It’s Phil and Erik, the guys from the other side of the building,” Gemma explained. “We haven’t seen anybody else from the building yet, except for the old lady downstairs. We were afraid they were all trapped downtown or somewhere. I’m so glad you made it back.”

  They went back into the living room and Erik got up so Tara could collapse on the couch.

  “Can you tell us anything about what’s going on?” Gemma asked.

  “All we’ve heard is that the fires are out of control and someone is shooting up the city,” Phil added. “But what set off all the fires, and who’s shooting? Nobody around here knows anything for sure except that the power’s out.”

  Tara waited until she had gotten her breath back and collected her wits. Then she filled the others in on what she had seen. Airliners plunging into city blocks, madmen gunning down innocents, police unable to contain the violence. Terrorized populace fleeing for their lives, and failing to escape more often than not.

  “It’s like a full-scale invasion,” Gemma breathed, horrified at the news.

  “No, they were all Americans,” Tara corrected her roommate. “The worst and most violent elements, come out to play. I guess somebody tipped them off that there wouldn’t be much resistance today.”

  “This is so messed up,” Phil said, shaking his curly blonde head in disbelief. “This cannot be happening, not here in America.”

  “Yeah, it can,” his friend said. Erik was dark-haired and athletic. Tara would have found him handsome except for a vague sullen look he usually carried on his face. She and Gemma had invited the two men over soon after moving in, but didn’t like either of them enough to become more than casual acquaintances. Now it seemed they had to either throw their lots in together with these two neighbors, or go it alone during a time of catastrophe.

  “What do you mean?” Phil asked. “We’ve never seen anything like it. Not even 9/11 or the Ferguson riots, nothing on this scale.”

  Erik’s lips curved in a strange sort of puckered smile that was half frown. “Well, it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it? All the abuse of authority, all the hypocrisy. Some crimes go unpunished, some people get thrown behind bars just for dressing wrong. The economy’s down the tubes, the government’s dysfunctional. All it takes is one match, man. Powder keg goes up.”

  The others looked at him with confused, uncertain eyes. He shrugged and fell silent.

  Phil turned to Tara. “We were just talking about what to do tomorrow, before you came in,” he said. “Thinking about making some plans. There isn’t a lot of food or water here, and we don’t know how long until the fire or the shooting spreads out this way. We’re not that far from downtown. And somebody at the thrift shop down the street said there was a lot of looting going on. He was boarding up his windows. Heh, like anybody cares about looting a thrift store. Crazy old guy.”

  Tara swallowed. “But where could we go? My closest family is hundreds of miles from here.”

  Gemma spoke up. “There’s a gated community not far from my dental office. Dr. Royston lives there, and we had our Christmas party at his house. They have security gates, several swimming pools for water, and a neighborhood clubhouse where I bet we could crash.”

  “That kind of money, there’s bound to be plenty of space,” Erik said. “And supplies. Guns, too. And drugs.”

  The others looked at him again. Gemma was slightly aghast.

  “Hey, if any of us get sick or hurt, we’re going to need drugs,” he explained. “Not to mention, there are a lot of addicts that are going to be willing to do anything for a hit. That means they’ll give any asking price to whoever’s got the goods—their bikes, their weapons, their food. Anything. Haven’t you watched the end-of-the-world zombie shows? A lot of people are going to be desperate for booze and drugs in the next few days. I’m just saying the rich neighborhood with all the stuff is the place to be. Not out in the streets with no protection.”

  That was hard to argue with, although sobering. They talked it over for a few more hours, but still hadn’t come up with anything better than making their way to the Crestwood neighborhood the next day and hoping to find a place of safety there.

  No one else approached their building during the evening, but they heard gunshots in the distance and saw several dark shapes moving slowly up the street past them. Gemma asked the two young men if they wanted to sleep in the living room, so the group could stay together for greater mutual protection. Phil and Erik accepted, and although Tara didn’t trust them entirely, she did feel better than she would have with just she and Gemma relying on a locked door for safety.

  That night she prayed for the first time in several months. She prayed that their plan would work out the next day, and that they could be safe. As she fell asleep, exhausted physical and emotionally, she thought briefly of her family, and wondered if they were praying for her too.

  She wondered how long it would be until saw them again. If she ever did.

  Chapter 5: A New Kind of World

  Sarah laid a hand on Walt’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “Honey, I’m worried about Tara.”

  They were on the back porch, watching the stars come out. It was incredible how many stars there were on a clear night. Walt had always thought the ranch was far enough from anywhere to avoid light pollution, but now the sky was at least twice as full as it had been. The Milky Way was a brilliant swathe of white that arced from their roof to the dark trees down by the county road.

  He sighed. “I know. Me too.”

  A few days had gone by with no power, no traffic on the roads, no planes flying overhead, and no phone calls. It was starting to get to them, even though they were more disconnected from the fast-paced world than most, and Walt had to admit that he was getting antsy. There was more than enough work to do just to keep the ranch going without vehicles or power tools, but his mind was the one thing that wouldn’t shut off.

  Liam had made several more trips into town, and Walt and Sarah had accompanied him the last time. Everyone in town was as disconcerted as they were. The place was quiet, and people hung around the streets with nothing to do. Few could do their jobs in a complete power outage, and those that could hadn’t gotten around to redistributing the new all-manual workload. This left a lot of time for people to discuss the situation, but with no news coming in it was just an endless round of speculation.

  Within fifteen minutes of chatter at the
local hardware store, Walt and Sarah had heard several different theories of what had happened and forecasts about how it would all turn out. These ranged from a drunk driver crashing into an important power substation, to solar flares and foreign invasions, and from erased bank accounts to a new Stone Age.

  While they were there, a couple of men came into town on a horse. It was a rancher named Jamison, who Walt knew of but had never spoken with, and his brother from out of town. The brother said he’d been in Helena when the power went down, and had heard news from even farther away. It was enough to make everyone turn pale. He said the power outage was thought to be nation-wide; the entire Western Grid was confirmed down, at least. That included everything from California to South Dakota. And it was unlikely that it would still be down if the Eastern Grid and others weren’t also inoperable.

  He also said that he’d been in a crowd addressed by a police chief who said they didn’t expect power to come back in the foreseeable future—possibly up to a year, and that the fact that almost everyone’s vehicles were also affected meant it was most likely a massive electromagnetic pulse, either from a solar flare or a nuclear attack. He cautioned against panic and vigilantism, but warned everyone to prepare for a hard winter and some measure of social unrest as refugees from the cities made their way out into rural areas looking for food and help.

  Recalling the sickening feeling that had invaded his stomach when he heard this, Walt shook his head and patted Sarah’s hand as they looked up at the stars.

  “I’ve been thinking about all our kids. I’m sure Joel and his wife are fine,” Walt said. “Probably dealing with all kinds of craziness in California, but he knows what he’s doing and he’s got a community of supporters there.”

  Sarah nodded. “And Karen’s family will be okay. Like she told us the other day, they are prepared and have a good community around them as well. Thank heaven, Liam and Amy are here with us. Jess is pretty upset about not being able to contact her parents, and she’s worried this will still be going on when it’s time for her to be getting back to Portland to start her senior year. But at least she’s safe with us.”