EMP Catastrophe | Book 1 | Erupting Trouble Hamilton, Grace (read book .txt) 📖

at the phone screen. The tiny blip of hope he nurtured inside of him died. While he didn’t have signal, luckily his phone still displayed the time. With a sigh, he opened up his alarm app and began to set reminders. This would drain the last of his battery and the phone would likely die soon after the final alarm as dawn rolled around, but it was worth it now. He couldn’t tell the time by the passing moon, and if he slipped into sleep, he didn’t want to miss a dosage time.

Alarm set, he finally managed to look up and around. The afternoon had slid into evening. Matthew felt like no time had passed at all, but by the ache in his body and the mental fatigue, he knew he’d been focused for far longer than he thought. He thought about trying to sleep, but his mind buzzed, as if somehow still dealing with the panic of seeing his father motionless. He couldn’t seem to calm down.

He checked David’s pulse. The fever hadn’t abated. David’s cheeks were flushed a bright pink. His father’s lips were chapped and parted, and his eyes rolled restlessly underneath his eyelids. Matthew let out a sigh and he rubbed his forehead to try to ease the tension. He probably wouldn’t be able to get any sleep at this point. His worry over David’s condition felt like a steady whine in the back of his mind. Every time David made a movement or uttered a sound, Matthew was checking his wound, feeling for a pulse, pouring more water over the bandana in an attempt to cool his father down as much as possible. At least no new bloodstains had seeped through the new bandages. Matthew took that as a good sign. He decided to settle in for a long night.

He drank some Gatorade and chuckled at himself. The gas store owners had one thing right. He’d stocked up on the blue flavor. Next, he munched on some carrots, grateful for the variety in taste and texture, while double-checking the map. They were close to Galena. Not too much longer, a day or two at most, and they’d be back to the River Rock Hotel. He couldn’t believe that the two of them had made it this far already.

Matthew’s desire to be home felt like a physical ache, and he let himself daydream of what it would be like to finally round that last bend up the mountain road and see the hotel framed by the trees and jagged peaks of the mountain range. He’d be able to sleep in his own bed again. He’d hug his wife and children so tight they’d beg him to let them go. This endless stress would finally come to an end. He could go back to worrying about the hotel marketing strategies instead of whether his father was going to breathe his last. David would be able to take his prescription, and he would be cared for in the safety of the hotel, surrounded by family.

As the moon rose, the temperature dropped, and Matthew’s phone alarm buzzed. On repeat, he crunched up more of the fever reducer and fed it slowly to David. He observed David obsessively to ensure that his father didn’t choke and that the medicine went down smoothly. David never opened his eyes. The night seemed never-ending, and Matthew’s world narrowed down to him dozing off to then suddenly jerking awake in a full-blown panic, convinced he’d missed the latest dosage or that David had passed away. After he managed to calm down, he fed his father more medicine, checked on his fever, and double-checked the bandage. Rinse and repeat.

When the sun finally crested up and over the horizon, Matthew swayed with exhaustion. His phone had died. Yet his focused ministrations were successful: at some point around five in the morning, David had eased into a deep sleep if his snores were anything to go by. The fever hadn’t broken but David wasn’t boiling to the touch anymore, and color had begun to return to his face.

Matthew re-dressed the wound, and felt heartened to see the red inflammation had gone down, even though the puffy skin around the gash still felt hot to the touch. He cleaned it, applied the antibacterial ointment, and nearly dropped the gauze when he heard, “How’s it looking?”

“Dad,” Matthew breathed. Relief crashed through him. “Thank god you’re awake.”

“I feel awful,” David admitted. David blinked heavily at him, as if focusing was a difficult task.

Matthew couldn’t help but beam at him. “You were so sick. It’s a relief to see your eyes open.”

“How long was I out?”

“Half a day and all night. I managed to find more medical supplies at the gas station. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t.”

“I’m glad the gas station was open. Do we have anything to eat?”

Matthew felt the wattage of his smile dim, but David didn’t need to know what Matthew had done. He should continue to think of his son as the bleeding heart, the man with rose-tinted glasses and gold in his veins, that would do anything to help anyone. Matthew didn’t want David to know that he’d broken into a gas station and left the shelves bare like they’d seen at the clinic. “Yeah,” he managed to say and then brought out the hummus and pretzel package. “How’s this look? I have carrots and almonds too.” He held up all the healthy food he’d taken and smiled when David made a sound of approval.

“Anything is better than a power bar at this point,” David said.

As Matthew peeled back the plastic seal on the hummus, his father asked, “How were you able to buy all this?”

“Used all the cash in my boot,” Matthew said, hoping David wouldn’t ask anything else. “I’m a pauper now.”

David’s laugh came out as a wheeze. “We still have some in mine. I’ll let you borrow some.” He winked and began to munch on the pretzels.

David’s