Plate: Dead World Apocalypse

By: T.A. Walters

Narrated by: Ashleigh Binder

The power is gone, and life begins to diminish day by day. All around you is desperation. All hope is gone. Gone too were the services we all relied on: the police, fire fighters, ambulances, and hospitals. There were no paychecks and no incentive to go on other than spending most waking hours providing for families and loved ones.

What chances have you to survive?

Tomorrow did not bring the usual day-to-day, but instead brought desperation, the dying, and the dead. An EMP took down the power grids worldwide, leaving behind burned-out homes from the electrical lines that literally raced through walls like the fuses of fireworks. Those people who survived the initial onslaught took what literally they had left and fled away to the places of polarization between good and evil. Those were the places where hastily constructed shacks were built and populated by folks who were honest and peace-loving, and who looked out for one another. They were people like you and me, who lived day to day on a schedule of wake up, go to work, eat dinner, go to bed, and then repeat over and over. Now each day was filled with fishing and hunting, bartering for anything of value, and passing gossip about so-and-so coming down sick or dying.

No others wanted to live this way. Others took to the rural lands and forests to settle in small encampments where they could try and live off the land. There were the few who had been doing this for years and would continue to survive. Such the story of one man who came down out of the Blue Ridge Mountains in search of the woman he once knew. He had many unanswered questions about her and whether she was his wife or an enigmatic image in a dream. Much more was the mystery of who he was and the struggle for him to remember his name and how he came to live in a mountain cabin homestead with a dog and a horse named Bobby.

While fishing the day the EMP reset civilization, Tom Thornton, a.k.a. Plate, was struck down unconscious by the electrical jolt to his brain. As a young, decorated war hero, Tom had been severely injured and a metal plate surgically implanted in his skull. A rare form of amnesia wiped his memory clean and when he awoke, he was at a loss to who he was.

Every day for over a month thereafter was a day of discovery for Tom. He learned he had a service dog named Topo who also served with him in the Special Ops branch of the military, and that they had both been medically discharged and officially retired. In his cabin, he discovered many clues about his past. One of those clues was that he lived with a woman who was now missing. Or did she leave?

The day came when he learned her name was Maggie.

Tom felt in his heart that she was alive somewhere in town and was tending to her mother and should have returned by now.

A recon mission was drawn up in Tom's mind to find her and bring her home. He saddled up Bobby and headed down the mountain to town. Nothing or nobody would get in his way.

©2020 Thomas Walters (P)2021 Thomas Walters

Twists and Turns,

What an amazing ending, never saw that coming. very goog writing. I really loved it. Thank you.