Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



Liu Hong Tao made it to the site that I had picked out with 16 minutes to spare. I was actually quite impressed with him. I knew that if left on my own, there was no way that I would be able to get here in that time.

Stepping out of my RV, I saw the rest of the convoy speeding to a stop around us. I watched all the men getting out of the vehicles and lining up in straight lines in front of me as if this was a military drill. Wang Chao and Liu Wei walked up to stand on either side of me and Liu Hong Tao stepped into his position in line.

"If anyone has anything electronic on them that they want to save… watches, cell phones, anything, go put them in your RVs. You have 5 minutes," I said looking at my cell phone. The men broke ranks to do what I had asked and returned to their lines within 3.

Ahhh….it was so nice dealing with professionals.

16:55pm- T -5 minutes and counting.

Grabbing Hades, I managed to stuff him into the kitty carrier that I had for him, much to his disgust, and went back to where everyone was waiting. With a wave of my arm, I brought all the RVs, SUVs, ATVs, and any other alphabet vehicle that we had with us into my space. Making sure that it didn't land on my fields or into the pastures, I was happy when I saw the space had developed a parking lot of sorts where everything had gone.

"Now, to be clear, I don't know if it goes off at exactly 5 pm or not… but the EMP will be coming. It will not affect anything organic, only things that rely on electronics of some kind or another to work. This means that we should not even be able to feel when the EMP goes off. However, this one is also powerful enough to wipe out the internet, so let's not take any chances, shall we?" I said as I looked at the men. They stood there, staring at me… giving me their undivided attention. It was a pretty fun feeling to tell you the truth.

"But that means, in addition to cars no longer responding to commands, traffic lights will no longer be directing the traffic and bullet trains that will no longer be able to maintain their speeds… we also have to be careful of airplanes falling from the sky. Yeah, fun times, I know." I took a deep breath and figured out what we were going to do next.

"We will be traveling parallel to the roads, still continuing southeast. We are a big group and are bound to attract attention. Based on how you look, many are going to assume that you are County K soldiers there to rescue them. You are not. I will repeat this so you fully understand. You are not here to play God or hero… you are here to follow orders and fight zombies. I don't care if the most attractive woman you have ever seen falls at your feet and begs you to take her. You do, and I will either leave you or kill you," I said, trying to remember what people had mentioned about the first day of the apocalypse.

"Do you understand?" I asked, looking at the men in the eyes. When they yelled back that they did, I handed Hades to Liu Wei (hey, he's the one that got us all into this mess… he can carry the cat) and started to walk down the small path that I had marked out in my mind as the best route through the forest around us.

Mind you, when I did this in my past life I did not have 125 people following after me. At least they were somewhat quiet.

I didn't know how far we had gone, or how much time lapsed, but it seemed that we had just gotten started when we hear the first crash, and then the second, and then a giant explosion. The screams started shortly thereafter. The end of the world had arrived… and I was willing to bet it happened on time too.

As the world was plunged into chaos, I could see the nervous twitches and the looks of the men behind me. I knew that they would want to see what was going on with their own eyes, to gain some type of understanding that what they had been hearing for the past year had actually happened.

A small part of me wanted to have an "I told you so" moment so I led them back to the highway. We didn't even make it to the offramp before the chaos hit us.

The intersections were congested with piles of cars that had collided with each other when the lights stopped working and their cars just died. We weaved in and out of the people pounding on the windows, begging for our help.

I saw one of the men reaching for a car door to help and mother and child out, "If you open that door, you will be left here. No supplies, no nothing," I said, my voice leveled and my tone flat.

It's not that I didn't care about the carnage in front of me… once upon a time, I was just like that soldier wanting to help out to the best of my ability. And when those people that I saved thought they could have an easier life by leaching off of me, I was never able to get rid of them.

The soldier paused and looked at Wang Chao as if expecting to get a different response. The Prince of City A simply raised his eyebrow and look down at the soldier, not bothering to say a single word.

At least he was on my side, "But, Sir," said the soldier, clearly confused. And I got that, he trained to be able to save people, that was who he was deep inside, a savior. But he just didn't understand.

Ignoring him, I continued to weave in and out of the cars and around the people that were shouting for us to call the police or the ambulances… like they would be able to come and save them when no one else could. It would take a few days for them to realize that no one was coming and that if they wanted to be saved, they needed to save themselves.

Beginning my ascent up the offramp, I could feel Wang Chao and Liu Wei quickly trying to make their way beside me. "This is why you wanted us off the roads," started Liu Wei, looking around at the cars and the people, "I'm sorry I didn't understand."

"No," I said as we breached the top of the offramp and a clear view of what was left of the highway could be seen. "This is why I wanted us off the roads," I continued as I swept my arm around in order to have their attention drawn to the mess that was before us.

If they thought that that small intersection behind us was an example of shit hitting the fan, then I had no idea what they would think when they saw this view.

The highway itself was an 8-lane highway, filled bumper to bumper with cars, trucks, and 18-wheelers when we were driving down it minutes ago. Now, it was a wasteland. Cars were piled up on top of each other from rear-end collisions that seemed to go on for miles. 18-wheelers were tipped over, crushing the cars that were beside them or jackknifed across lanes of traffic, their cargo spilled all over the road.

"Now just picture all of this with our convoy... our only vehicles... just as impacted as the rest of them," I said, looking at Liu Wei, willing him to understand what I was trying to say.

Some cars had caught on fire while others had the tops of them ripped off by only God knows what. The biggest thing was seeing where the highway collapsed as it went over the road underneath from the Airbus A390 that fell from the sky like a bird with a broken wing.

Passengers were scrambling to get out of it… their clothes in tatters and blood flowing from their bodies. Some of them helped others out of it as one engine after another caught fire, while others just ran as they saw the amount of jet fuel on the road.

I raised my eyes at the sight and turned to look that the people behind me. "Any questions?" I asked, "We might want to leave before the plane explodes causing everything else around here to burn."