Restoring Order: An EMP Survival Story (EMP Crash Book 7) Read online

  Restoring Order

  EMP Crash Book 7

  Kip Nelson

  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 One

  Maggie was sitting in a small building that used to be a store. She was sitting behind the counter, using it as a makeshift desk while Luis was sitting on the other side. The shelves had been depleted, giving the store a barren look, and Maggie wanted to clean it out as soon as possible so it would look more like a sheriff's office rather than what it was; a depressing reminder of everything they had lost. She had no idea who had owned the store or what it was like before the end of the world, but she was sure whoever owned it never had imagined it would be used for this purpose.

  Behind her were more stacks of empty shelves where cigarettes would have been displayed. How she would have killed for one now. If there was one benefit to the end of the world, it was that she had managed to kick that habit. It never had been a major addiction for her, she never had been a chain smoker, but there were times when she just needed one to deal with the stress. This was one of those times.

  She'd known a woman who had been on at least two packs a day at the start, and she had to deal with the withdrawal effects while they were walking through the forest. Even at the prison, which she didn't like to think about given what had happened there, the prisoners worked their way through the bounty of cigarettes quite quickly. She wondered how many other people had struggled with those things taken away from them. Perhaps in some ways it was good, she thought, for the drug trade was all but extinguished and those who were addicted finally had a chance to escape their demons. However, she knew well enough that it wasn't as easy as that. Some people just had self-destructive personalities and would find another way to teeter on the brink of death.

  Behind Maggie was a security camera, turned off, obviously. A reminder that nobody was watching them now aside from themselves, and God. Maggie knew what people could do when they thought nobody was watching. Even the threat of being seen was enough to deter criminals, and many stores had had cameras installed that didn't work. Of course, that didn't help when there was actually a crime, and there were many times during her career when she felt like she did now, utterly hopeless. Her fingers were tapping on the counter as she held a pen in her hand and a blank piece of paper stared back at her. Her head rested in the other hand, with her fingers entwined with her hair, twirling a few locks around, a nervous habit she never had been able to shake.

  The mood around the settlement was solemn. Word had spread quickly about Peter's death. As they had walked back from the crime scene to their office, Maggie and Luis had had heard whispers circulating about Peter’s murder and had been inundated with questions about what had happened. Public relations never had been her strong suit, so she brushed them off abruptly, leaving the diplomacy to Mack as that was his area of expertise. It did annoy her, though, and made her see how dealing with crime was going to be far different in New Haven than it ever was in the city.

  Never did she have to investigate a crime that involved someone she knew, but this time it was different. The murderer was someone she knew, someone she had trusted, someone she had worked beside. Even though she didn't know who it was exactly, the sense of betrayal was palpable. It left an uneasy feeling in her gut, since there wasn't anyone who was a prime suspect. The sense of dread was only made worse as there was someone who Maggie knew had a strong motive to kill Peter, her own son Tristan.

  As a mother, she never could imagine he would go that far to kill someone in cold blood. As a sheriff, however, it was easy to see how someone like Tristan may have wanted to finish the job he had started back when Peter first got captured. Tristan had been sullen recently, and hadn't quite adjusted to things in the way Maggie would have wanted. But they only just had found each other again, and she didn't know what she would do if it turned out he was guilty. She closed her eyes and had taken a deep breath, trying to push the thought away from her mind as it wasn't going to do her any good.

  “You okay?” Luis asked.

  “Yeah, just still trying to get over all this. I didn't think we'd have to be dealing with something so dreadful. I figured that at some point somebody probably would try stealing something from the stores, or there would be a disagreement that turned into a fight. I never thought we'd have to deal with murder.”

  “Maybe we should have expected it. Living in this world we've all had to access a darker part of ourselves to survive. Maybe it's harder for some people to control that part of themselves now that we're living in a proper settlement. Still, it's not like it's hard to understand. I've been trying to think of suspects but it's a long list,” Luis said, smiling as though he just had made a joke.

  Maggie had to temper her words and hide her glare. She was going to have to get used to Luis' easygoing attitude, but at the moment, she found it annoying.

  “I don't want to be the type of person who tells someone else how they should feel, but I think you should be a little more upset than you are.”

  “Why? I mean, it's not like I wanted him to die or anything, but you saw what he was like. Remember what he did, not only to all those kids, but to the people here as well? He killed Bob, he hit Mindy, and he put Hank in a box for goodness sake!”

  “I know all that,” Maggie said, keeping her tone even, “and it's not the fact that Peter was murdered necessarily, but that anyone was murdered. We're trying to build something new here, and this just shows us how far we've got to go. We're going to have to ask a lot of questions about ourselves as well whenever we find out who did it. There was a reason why murder had the most severe punishment in the old world. We need to make sure people know they can't just get away with doing things like this just because there's a new world.”

  “So, who do you think did it?” Luis asked after a few moments.

  Maggie was relieved it hadn't turned into more of an argument. She and her deputy had a long way to go to forge a partnership, but so far, the signs were encouraging. Luis wasn't who she would have picked if she had had the choice, but he had shown a willingness to learn and to adapt his behavior, which Maggie appreciated. He also didn't treat being a deputy as a game either.

  “Honestly? I have no idea. I'm trying to keep my personal opinions out of it, but it's difficult when we know everyone, and pretty much everyone here has a motive.”

  “Even you and me,” Luis said.

  Maggie's eyes shot up at him, and for a moment wondered whether he was trying to hint at something deeper, but she brushed it off. She couldn't start being paranoid and suspect everyone around her. That way lay madness. She had to keep to the evidence and work from there.

  “My initial suspicions fall onto the new people because they are unknown quantities, and they're made up of a lot of people who had their children stolen from them,” Maggie said, ignoring his comment.

  “But we must be careful not to let our own biases influence us. We're not getting anything done here. Let's go back to the crime scene and see if there's anything we may have missed.”

  They walked through New Haven back to where Peter had been hel
d. There still was a crowd gathered outside. Mindy and a few others were there with some material to wrap up the body and deposit it elsewhere away from wild animals wanting to feast on it. Maggie was glad for this, as she didn't think the sight of a corpse being paraded around New Haven would be good for anyone, especially not the children, some of whom were looking with curiosity at the crowd. Maggie wondered how they would react. Although a lot of them had seen Peter's true nature, he had been their king for a long time, and they would mourn him.

  “I wonder where Mack's gone?” Luis said.

  “Probably somewhere to get a break,” Maggie replied.

  Mack had looked like he was going to explode when Maggie first had arrived at the crime scene, and she didn't blame him. He'd put so much of himself into making New Haven a good place that to see this type of a crime was like being punched in the gut. He'd had to deal with a lot, and Maggie wondered if a man like Mack could take on everything, or if, at some point, he would reach his breaking point. Maggie hoped that wouldn't happen as New Haven needed Mack, and, in a way, she thought he needed New Haven as well.

  Maggie and Luis nodded at Mindy and the others as they stepped in. Mindy made a few comments about how sad it was, and Maggie had to tell her that she and Luis would do everything to find out who did it. Maggie was unable to turn off her suspicion, though, and whenever she looked at anyone, her first thought was, 'Were they the killer?'. It was a hard habit to break and she pulled Luis aside, speaking in a low voice.

  “I need to tell you something, something about the job. Things are going to be different for us than they were. We're going to have to poke around in people's business, and we're going to have to ask people questions they're not going to like. It's going to set us apart from them. We're going to have to keep some distance between us and the rest of New Haven because we need to be objective. I just wanted to tell you to prepare you, because people are going to look at us differently, and they'll probably act differently, too. It's just part of the job.”

  Luis nodded and said he understood. Maggie knew he didn't, it was one of those things you only started to understand once you experienced it. She thought back to when she had been a rookie and all the things that Bob had told her. Those first few months on the job had carved up everything she'd been taught at the academy. She'd discovered the job wasn't anything like she'd thought it was going to be, and Luis would have to come to terms with that as well in his own time.

  Maggie cast her eyes across the crime scene, examining it again carefully, hoping that something would leap out at her, although nothing did. Mindy and the others carried the body out, leaving only the blood stains on the sheets as a reminder that Peter ever had been there.

  “I don't want to be a downer,” Luis said, “but do you think this could be the beginning of a serial killer?”

  Maggie had thrown around the idea in her mind, but dismissed it quickly. It was a possibility, but there was no reason to think it was a serial killer until another murder happened. Sadly, there was no surefire way to prevent that from happening, aside from solving this crime.

  “Right now, there's been one murder and only one. We should focus on figuring out who killed Peter rather than speculating about crimes that haven't happened yet. So far, all we know is that someone sneaked in here to kill Peter. Since he was under guard, it was Peter specifically they were after, so I'm not inclined to think this is a serial killer. Sadly though, given that the weapon was a knife, and pretty much everyone has a knife, or at least access to one, it could be anyone.”

  The crowd outside had dissipated, preferring instead to follow the body that was being carried out. Maggie wondered if the killer had been among them, gazing upon the results of their handiwork.

  Mack was with Anna in their apartment, removed for the moment from New Haven. He needed a break, and still was bristling with anger and frustration. He hated to be this flustered in front of Anna as it still was soon after their reunion. He only wanted to remind them that he still was the man she loved, but Peter's murder had thrown him completely off track. It was as though the world had crumbled under his feet and he didn't know what to think.

  “I just don't know what I'm going to do when I find out who did it and why,” he said.

  “I'm angry right now, but I don't have anything to be angry at. I can't shout at anyone. I can't punish anyone. I can't do anything, and you know there's nothing I hate more than feeling helpless.”

  “You're not entirely helpless, though, are you?” she said, and he looked at her to elaborate on her meaning.

  “You're still in charge here, and part of your job is reassuring people and keeping them safe. They're going to need you to be a leader.”

  “I just hate that there's someone out there laughing at me, laughing at all of us. I really hope Maggie and Luis get the son of a bitch soon.”

  “You think they're capable?”

  “Oh yeah, Maggie's one of the toughest people I know. She won't let them get away. It's just a matter of time, and I hope we don't run out of time.”

  “Is there anything you need from me?”

  “Just to be your beautiful, wonderful self,” Mack said, wrapping his arms around his wife and embracing her, closing his eyes as he nuzzled into the nape of her neck and breathed in her scent, feeling instantly better. Although New Haven had begun to feel like home, nothing ever would replace the sense of belonging that he had when he was in his wife's arms.

  “I think I can just about manage that,” she said, and he could feel her smile.

  “I'll keep my ear to the ground as well. Sometimes people hear things or see things. Something will turn up,” she said.

  Mack was calmed for a moment, although anger still simmered within him. New Haven was supposed to a beacon of hope for everyone, and he didn't want it dimmed by the darkness of murder.

  Chapter Two

  Hank stood on the stage, looking out upon his congregation. The number of people in attendance shifted, but he had a core group of people that were always there, and they were looking to him now for guidance. The news of Peter's murder had shocked the preacher, just as it had everyone else, and he struggled with the idea that someone in New Haven could have been responsible.

  He hadn't been able to speak to Mack yet, although he had seen how Mack was taking the news. He'd also seen Maggie and Luis moving around the settlement, and had every faith that the two of them would be able to solve the crime. However, he was more concerned with the spiritual well-being of his congregation and how the killing would affect them.

  There were already too many evil things in the world, and it was hard enough for people to cling to their faith as it was. Now they were being presented with the devil in their own home, and he could see the fear and uncertainty in their eyes. He had planned another sermon for that service, but he quickly jotted down some notes and then spoke mostly from the heart, his voice low and solemn, reaching into the souls of everybody present.

  “It is a sad day today, as we have known throughout human history that murder is wrong. If we are to grow as a group and a settlement we cannot allow this to stand. Without trust there is nothing here, so I implore anyone who knows anything, even the killer themself, to come forward and confess. Forgiveness can begin when the truth is known, but cloaking it in the shadow of lies only will foster resentment and fear.

  “I have been with Maggie since the beginning of this new world, and I know how tenacious she is. She will not give up until she finds out who killed Peter, and with Luis helping her, I know she will succeed. It is only a matter of time. But the killer can save everyone a lot of trouble by confessing now, and we can move past this horrible crime and focus on the more positive aspects of life.

  “I wanted to talk to you all today about what it means to be human. None of us are perfect. Although we have been made in the Lord's image, we are fallible beings, and we make mistakes. Whoever killed Peter made one of the worst mistakes it is possible to make, but I am sure they have th
eir reasons and it is important that we remember that. This world has taken a toll on us all, and I am sure that many of us have done things for which we are ashamed, things that we never dreamed we were capable of doing. It doesn't make us a monster, and it doesn't mean we are any less deserving of being treated with dignity and respect.

  “I believe that there is time for everyone to be listened to, and whoever killed Peter obviously feels strongly that something else should have been done with him. Killing him was not right, and if anyone has any problems with our choices as leaders of New Haven, I encourage you to come up and talk to us about it. Do not be afraid of ruffling any feathers because Mack, Grace and I all are here to help you.”

  He paused for a moment and flexed his hands, then paced around the stage with them clasped behind his back. He let his words sink in and then spoke in a more conversational tone.

  “I know this has shaken all of us, as it makes us look at each other with suspicion. We cannot allow that to overshadow the good work we've done, and the progress we've made. I do not want us to look at each other and only see a potential murderer. Think about the friendships we've made, the love we have engendered in each other. We are the people of New Haven, and we all are friends. We trust each other, and respect each other, and that is something we cannot let the killer take away.

  “They already have taken a young man's life. Whatever you may think of Peter, he was a young man, and if he had been allowed to live, there was always the chance that he would see the error of his ways and find some peace. That chance, that choice, was taken away from him. I know,” he said, noticing some of the surprised looks on the faces of those around him, “that this may shock you, for he locked me in a box and left me to starve and thirst in the heat. But it is not for me to pass judgment on him. I must find it in myself to forgive him for what he did because letting any frustration or hatred fester only will lead to evil. I like to think that I'm better than that. We all are better than that, if only we can remember that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.