“I an’ I feelin’ mo’ bettah when de wind fill de sails, Doc, an’ put dis Bobbylon astern in de wake.”
“That too, Scully. That too.” Artie put his arm around his daughter and squeezed her close to him. “I’ve got what I came here to find, so that sounds good to me.”
My favorite adventure stories have always been those that cast ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances and predicaments their previous lives could not possibly prepare them for. Although I sometimes enjoy reading works of fiction that involve larger than life characters with highly specialized training and superior fitness, skills and abilities, you won't find any fearless heroes of that kind in The Pulse.
After experiencing first hand the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and living in the impact zone where the power grid was destroyed and stayed down for weeks, I often wondered what it would be like if that situation was much more widespread and long-lasting. If a solar flare or EMP attack took out electrical power and shut down most forms of communication and transportation in North America, the aftermath would be far worse than that of any hurricane and there would be no sudden influx of crews from neighboring states to work around the clock to rebuild the grid. Grocery stores would soon be stripped bare and no delivery trucks would be running to replenish their stocks. People would become desperate in short order, especially in large urban areas where the limited supplies available would be quickly consumed. Far lesser events have shown that such desperation quickly strips away the thin veneer of civilization that keeps complex societies in order. Violence would become rampant, and law enforcement agencies would be overwhelmed and unable to protect the citizens of their jurisdictions. Those who would survive such chaos would have to act on their own and act quickly to seek safe refuge.
In The Pulse I chose to focus not on the technical aspects of the solar event or the subsequent rebuilding and reorganizing of civilization in the aftermath, but rather on the immediate concerns of two groups of characters. Casey Drager and her roommate, Jessica, are college students at Tulane University, in New Orleans. Casey’s friend, Grant, an older graduate student who was living in the city after the devastation of Katrina, knows from experience that they have to get out and get out fast. Casey’s father, who is especially close to his only daughter after the loss of her mother in a car accident years before, is away on a short sailing vacation in the Caribbean with his brother when the pulse strikes. Among islands a thousand miles from the U.S. mainland and suddenly cut off from all communication with his daughter, Artie is desperate to find out if she is okay. Like any father in such a predicament, Artie Drager will do everything in his power to find his daughter, but with no transportation back to North America faster than his brother’s sailboat, he has no way of knowing if she will still be there when he finally reaches New Orleans. Obstacles and dangers await both parties as they deal with their situations as best they can; and everyone involved has to quickly adapt to the new reality of a world without the safety net of technology and organized society.
ALSO BY SCOTT B. WILLIAMS
Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a Catastrophic Disaster Before It’s Too Late $14.95 Warning sirens are blaring. You have 15 minutes to evacuate. What will you do? Being prepared makes the difference between survival and disaster. Guiding you step by step, Bug Out shows you how to be ready at a second’s notice.
Bug Out Vehicles and Shelters: Build and Outfit Your Life-Saving Escape $15.95 A cataclysmic disaster strikes. Do you have a vehicle you can count on to evacuate your family safely? Bug Out Vehicles and Shelters zeroes in on the key considerations and essential equipment for planning all your bug-out needs.
Getting Out Alive: 13 Deadly Scenarios and How Others Survived $14.95 Every year, ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary life-or-death situations. Delving into 13 harrowing scenarios, Getting Out Alive combines riveting narratives with expert advice and real-life accounts of savvy survivors.
To order these books call 800-377-2542 or 510-601-8301, fax 510-601-8307, e-mail ulysses@ulyssespress.com, or write to Ulysses Press, P.O. Box 3440, Berkeley, CA 94703. All retail orders are shipped free of charge. California residents must include sales tax. Allow two to three weeks for delivery.
SCOTT B. WILLIAMS has been exploring wild places and seeking adventure on both land and sea for most of his life. At the age of twenty-five, he embarked on an open-ended solo sea kayaking journey from his home in Mississippi to the islands of the Caribbean. His nonfiction book On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean is a narrative of that life-changing journey. His pursuit of adventure travel led him to further develop his wilderness survival skills that began with hunting and fishing while growing up in rural Mississippi. After his Caribbean kayak trip, he spent years testing his skills in a variety of environments throughout North America, using both modern and primitive methods, and traveling both on foot and by canoe and kayak. His enthusiasm for travel by water fueled an interest in a variety of boats and led him to learn the craft of wooden boatbuilding. In addition to building boats, paddling small craft, and offshore sailing, he enjoys backpacking, bicycling, martial arts training, dual-sport motorcycling, and photography.
He maintains several blogs related to these pursuits and occasionally writes for magazines including Sea Kayaker and SAIL. His most popular blog is Bug Out Survival (www.bugoutsurvival.com), which expands on his books Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a Catastrophic Disaster Before It’s Too Late and Bug Out Vehicles and Shelters. More information about Scott can be found on his main website, www.scottbwilliams.com. He lives in Prentiss, Mississippi.
Text copyright © Scott B. Williams 2012. Design © Ulysses Press 2012 and its licensors. All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by
ULYSSES PRESS
P.O. Box 3440
Berkeley, CA 94703
