Brace for Impact Read online

  Brace for Impact

  Nuclear Survival: Southern Grit Book One

  Harley Tate

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

  Brace for Impact

  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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgments

  About Harley Tate

  Brace for Impact

  Nuclear Survival: Southern Grit Book One

  What if an EMP was only the first strike?

  With a credible threat to the United States and a plane stuck on the tarmac, Grant Walton is thirty seconds from full-blown panic mode. He’s the only one in the airport who knows the truth. When the power goes out, he can’t waste another second. It’s the beginning of the end and every man for himself.

  A nuclear attack will rip the country apart.

  Leah Walton is wrapping up a twelve-hour shift as a nurse in the heart of the city. When the power goes out, the hospital operates on crisis mode. She can’t stop to to breathe, let alone check her messages. When she finally listens to her husband’s frantic calls, she’s faced with an impossible choice: leave or die trying.

  Could you drop everything to save yourself?

  Grant and Leah race the clock to find each other before the United States is plunged into chaos. When the bombs fall, their worst fears come true. Can Grant make it home in time to find his wife? Will Leah escape the brunt of the blast?

  The EMP is only the beginning.

  Brace for Impact is book one in Nuclear Survival: Southern Grit, a post-apocalyptic thriller series following ordinary people struggling to survive after a nuclear attack on the Unites States plunges the nation into chaos.

  Subscribe to Harley’s newsletter and receive First Strike, the prequel to the Nuclear Survival saga, absolutely free.

  www.harleytate.com/subscribe

  Chapter One

  GRANT

  Charlotte International Airport

  Charlotte, North Carolina

  Friday, 4:30 p.m., EST

  Grant leaned over and caught the flight attendant’s eye as she walked up the aisle. “Excuse me, is there a status update?”

  Her face glazed over in an empty smile. “I’m afraid not.”

  “How about phones? I need to make a call.”

  Her cheeks rounded. “I’m sorry, but as long as we are on the tarmac and away from a gate, we cannot allow the use of electronic devices.” Her face melted into a mask of calm as she walked away.

  Grant forced an exhale. When he paid to change his flight to the first departure available, he assumed the airline meant it. Now he sat on the asphalt outside the airport, ticking time off his watch and still no closer to home. He balled his hand into a fist and punched the tray table in front of him.

  The woman in the seat exclaimed as he pulled his hand away. A knuckle-shaped dent remained.

  Grant threw up an apology. “Sorry. Slipped.”

  “You all right, buddy?” The man sitting in the only other occupied seat in his row eyed Grant with a mix of concern and irritation.

  “Fine.” He flexed his hand and focused on the ache from the punch. Maybe he would make it off the plane without causing a scene.

  The woman in front of him stood up. Maybe not.

  She waved her arm and hollered toward the flight attendant. “Excuse me! Excuse me! I need some help.”

  Grant shifted in his seat. He refused to be taken off the plane for a punch that hurt no one. He’d had kids kick the back of his seat for hours and they were never forced off the plane.

  Someone else behind Grant spoke up. “We’ve been waiting for hours. You can’t keep us prisoner!”

  Another voice from farther back called out. “Yeah! Let us use our phones or let us off the plane!”

  If I’d rented a car, I’d be halfway home by now. Instead, he was stuck in Charlotte, staring out the airplane window at a stand of pine trees, unable to call his wife or anyone else.

  He’d started his day like any other business trip: a cup of coffee, a glance at the news, and a stroll through the aisle of the ballroom-turned-conference. WelSoft paid him to scope out hacker tournaments all over the country and ensure their software passed with flying colors. If none of the hackers managed to bypass WelSoft’s multiple layers of security and break into the backend of their consumer retail products, Grant had a good day.

  Ordinarily, today would qualify, but instead of finding a fatal flaw in a WelSoft product, a pair of college kids stumbled on a threat to the entire United States: a coordinated attack involving nuclear weapons and the top twenty-five major cities, including Atlanta, Grant’s hometown.

  At first he thought they were crazy, but after watching them run away one after the other like scared kids in a horror movie, he couldn’t ignore the possibility. After telling his boss to shove it, Grant headed straight for the airport.

  All he kept thinking was what if he knew and did nothing? What if he let his wife die in the worst attack on American soil since the Civil War while he sat in a hotel in Charlotte, a few hundred miles away?

  Grant glanced at the woman still standing up in front of him. Hell with it. He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up. Sitting and waiting wasn’t an option anymore. He had to get out of there. He had to get home to his wife.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting off this plane.”

  “They’ll arrest you.”

  Grant glanced down at the man beside him. Portly, with a belly hanging over his jeans and a golf shirt with the logo of The Masters above his heart. Grant scrubbed his face. “I’m only on this flight because of a family emergency. I have to get home.”

  “You won’t do it by making a scene. They’ll haul you into one of those little rooms in the airport and you won’t get out for hours.” The guy lowered his voice. “And that’s only after the strip search.”

  “How do you know?”

  He swallowed. “I complained to the agent running the x-ray machine. I thought she should pay more attention to the bags than her TSA boyfriend.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Tell me about it. I couldn’t walk straight for a week.”

  Grant snorted out a laugh and a dose of pent-up tension fled his body. He needed to leave, but barging into the aisle might not be the best approach.

  As he ran a hand through his hair, the loudspeaker crackled.

  “Thank you for your patience, l
adies and gentlemen. It appears our plane is experiencing a mechanical difficulty that cannot be repaired. In a moment, we will be towed back to the gate where you will deplane. Another aircraft is waiting for you and we will depart as soon as we can migrate you over.”

  The plane burst into a cacophony of angry chatter and shouts. Grant eased back down into his chair.

  “Guess today is your lucky day.”

  Luck didn’t begin to describe it. He held his phone in his hand, waiting. The plane lurched forward and he watched out the window. The second the gate touched the exterior, he turned on his phone and placed a call.

  His wife’s voicemail picked up again. Grant hit end and pinched the back of his neck. Not being able to talk to Leah was clouding his judgment. All he could see was her face. All he could hear were her screams when a bomb went off.

  He checked his watch—4:45 p.m. She would be ending her shift at five. Fifteen more minutes, then she would head for her locker, find her phone, and call. He just needed to hold on until then.

  The door to the plane opened and everyone inside the cabin stood up. Grant waited his turn behind businessmen and college kids and families on vacation. A sea of haggard faces and headaches. Bad tempers and aching backs.

  As he exited the plane, he caught the flight attendant’s eye. “Do you know when the next plane is leaving?”

  “As soon as everyone is boarded and seated, we will get in line for takeoff. Hopefully an hour.”

  Grant thanked her and strode toward the terminal. He couldn’t wait an hour, sitting on his hands doing nothing. He would lose the little sanity he had left.

  While a pair of airline employees waved everyone over to a new line across the terminal, Grant turned the other way. The sign for ground transportation pointed straight ahead and Grant followed it.

  Forget planes. He would rent a car.

  Following the signs, Grant hustled through the airport, filtering out the chatter from fliers as he passed. He bobbed and weaved through throngs of people waiting to board flight after flight. The airport was at capacity, with thousands of people leaving Charlotte and heading all over the country.

  He wondered if they would make it home before hell broke loose. Will I?

  Ground transportation occupied the lower level and Grant quickened his step toward the escalator. He waited for a man with an oversized suitcase to finagle it on board before following a few paces behind. The escalator creaked and groaned as it descended and Grant checked the time. Five o’clock.

  As he reached again for his phone, the entire escalator shuddered. The lights above his head shut off. The woman behind him stumbled forward as the stairs stopped moving. He caught her by the shoulders.

  “I’m sorry!”

  “Are you okay?”

  She backpedaled and pushed a wave of curls off her forehead. “I think so. That’s what I get for texting while riding, isn’t it?”

  Grant nodded and turned back around. People were righting themselves and climbing down off the escalator in front of him. Their heads swiveled as they spoke to their neighbors.

  The man with the huge suitcase struggled down each stair. Grant bit his tongue. No good would come of causing a scene.

  While everyone filed off the escalator ahead, the man and the suitcase ambled down one stair at a time. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Grant followed at a snail’s pace, chewing on his cheek to keep his temper in check.

  At last, they reached the bottom and Grant raced around the struggling man. He came to a stop in the middle of baggage claim. The airport was dark. Not a single light, emergency or otherwise, lit up the space. The baggage carousels sat still and motionless. No sound of air-conditioning or mechanical processes.

  There were only voices echoing off the silent, unlit walls. People flocked to the only source of light—the giant, floor-to-ceiling windows to the outside. A handful gathered at the automatic doors, trying in vain to pry them open. A baby wailed in the distance.

  Grant pulled out his phone and dialed his wife again. Fast busy signal.

  He shot off a text and waited for the little blue line to finish its trek across the screen. A red exclamation point showed up instead. Undeliverable.

  Grant shoved the phone in his pocket. Was this it? Did it already happen? Am I too late to save her?

  A million questions rapid-fired in his brain and Grant spun around in a circle, his small carry-on suitcase still in his hand. Sweat beaded on the top of his brow and he came to a stop in front of the still-shut automatic doors.

  He didn’t know what happened outside the airport, if this was the end or only the beginning, but there was only one way to find out.

  Chapter Two

  LEAH

  Georgia Memorial Hospital

  Downtown Atlanta

  Friday, 4:30 p.m.

  Leah wiped the back of her hand across her forehead and smeared her sweat and makeup. It had been a hell of a day. As soon as she got home, she would throw on her pajamas, open a bottle of wine, and put her feet up.

  If only starter homes way outside the city came with masseuses on call. She palmed her hips and took a breath. Only thirty minutes left. I can do this.

  “Am I going to be all right?”

  Leah smiled down at the elderly woman lying on the bed beside her. “You’re going to be fine, ma’am. Your vitals are reading normal and your blood sugar is dropping.”

  “I’m still light-headed.”

  Leah nodded. “It’s the insulin. We had to give you a pretty big dose. Next time you go out for lunch, you need to remember to take your medicine.”

  “I don’t know how I missed it this time. I always put it in my purse.”

  “Maybe you should carry some extra, just in case.”

  The woman nodded and closed her eyes as Leah’s pager buzzed. She excused herself from the patient and rushed to room eight.

  A doctor stood beside a bed, needle in one hand, the other wrapped tight around the wrist of a pediatric patient. The little girl couldn’t have been older than ten, with dark brown hair and a nasty case of the freak-outs.

  The doctor’s voice hovered below a shout. “I said hold her down!” Leah gave a start. If Doctor Phillips was yelling, then it was serious. The man never raised his voice.

  “She’s not cooperating!” Rebecca, the nurse attempting to control the child, held one leg and struggled to grasp the other. The child kept aiming her foot at Rebecca’s face.

  Leah rushed up to help, grabbing the free leg and holding it down while the child whipped back and forth on the bed. “What’s going on?”

  Rebecca explained. “She came in complaining of shortness of breath. We gave her a breathing treatment and it didn’t do any good.”

  The patient launched herself up from the middle of the bed in a near-perfect imitation of the child in The Exorcist and Leah lost her grip on the ankle. Before she could get it back, she suffered a solid kick to her shoulder. Leah groaned and grabbed the patient’s thigh. “Then what?”

  “Then I brought out the needle.” The doctor leaned over and jabbed the needle into the meaty area an inch above Leah’s hand. The kid howled, but as soon as the doctor stepped away, she stopped kicking.

  Leah let go and exhaled. The patient sucked in a breath, struggling to get any air. Her little chest heaved again and again.

  “Will she be all right?”

  “If she stops throwing a fit and lets the steroid do its job, hopefully. But if she keeps riling herself up, all bets are off. Her lungs are seizing and refusing to let in enough oxygen.”

  Leah nodded. She’d seen patients like this before. When some people couldn’t breathe, they panicked, which closed their airways and compromised their breathing. It was a vicious cycle that could end in traumatic injury or death.

  As she watched the little girl struggle, Leah rubbed her shoulder. It would bruise something fierce.

  Rebecca reached out a soothing hand to the child and stroked her hair. “Work on slow, steady breaths. In and out.
One, two, three, four…” The girl sucked in a rattling breath and exhaled. Rebecca smiled. “There we go.”

  Leah exhaled in relief and stepped back. Exhaustion wobbled her knees and she reached for the doorframe, barely managing to stay upright.

  “You need a break, Walton?” Dr. Phillips smiled at her as he monitored the child’s breathing on the computer screen beside the bed.

  “My shift’s almost over. It’s been a long day.”

  “Tell me about it. I’ve been here since yesterday.”

  Leah didn’t envy residents. Thirty-six-hour shifts with only cat naps for sleep didn’t seem fair. How could someone be expected to give the best care when they were running on fumes? She knew at the end of a grueling twelve hours, she didn’t give a hundred percent. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Dr. Philips.

  She waved goodbye to Rebecca and stepped into the hall.

  “Busy shift, huh?” Brandy smiled as she stopped beside Leah. Three years her senior at the hospital, Brandy earned her choice of shifts, but she still opted for three twelve-hour stints a week.

  Leah nodded. “It’s been crazy. First that car crash on Maple, then the house fire. And all the regulars.” She wiped her forehead again.

  “Flu season’s a beast and it’s not even peaked yet.”

  “I heard Augusta’s run out of beds.”

  “No.” Brandy looked at her with wide eyes. “Are they turning people away?”