Free Grid Down: A Strike against America – An EMP Survival Story- Book One by Roger Hayden Page A

racket of prescription drugs throughout the town. Supplies, food and water were one thing, but nothing was more important than drug treatment and the artificial comfort it provided.
    He explained as much to his men following their prison break. “First we get as many weapons as we can. We raid the hunting stores. Then we go house by house and gather up guns, ammo, knives, baseball bats—anything that can be used as a weapon.”
    His men listened, ready to launch their full-fledged assault on the town following the blackout.
    “Then we hit up the pharmacies. This is crucial. Control a person’s medicine, and you control the person.”
    Having acquired a hefty arsenal, they first held up the local Walgreens, confiscating every bottle on the shelves. Then came the raid at CVC: over thirty armed men—storming the aisles and clearing out the store. The police department was already overwhelmed and too over-stretched to intervene. Next came their most ambitious spree yet: Nyack Hospital.
    Resistance from staff and security quickly led to a violent standoff and evacuation of the hospital. Arthur’s plan had worked. They had accumulated one hundred thousand doses of opiates and other prescription drugs to last for months, if not years.
    Their haul consisted of oxycodone, Suboxone, Demerol, codeine, morphine, amphetamines, fentanyl, Xanax, Adderall, and Ritalin. They had everything to ensure that the residents were dependent, broken, and subservient.
    “Why are we doing this?” Larry, his right-hand man, asked one day.
    “Because we can,” Arthur said, rocking back in his chair on the front porch. Teresa stepped out with a pitcher in hand. It was late afternoon, but there was still much work to be done. 
    “You boys want some sweet tea?”
    Arthur tilted his head back and looked up through his sunglasses, scratching his chest.
    “That’d be lovely, though Larry and I have to get into town soon.”
    Teresa smiled and set the pitcher on a small table next to Arthur. “I’ll go get two cups. Don’t want you running off all dehydrated.”
    She went back inside. The screen door’s hydraulic hinge hissed with air as it closed, and Arthur looked at Larry with a smile. “Ain’t she great?”
    “Sure is,” Larry said. “You ready to do this?”
    “Yep. It’s time,” Arthur said, rising.
    Teresa came out with two glasses and wished the men well. They each gulped down two glasses of tea, set their glasses down, and stood up, straightening their shoulders, as they prepared for their journey to the town square, where the weekly rationing was to take place. And so it began…
    The town square was roped off into sections that led residents toward a pavilion distribution center. More than fifty people waited through the queuing, like customers at a bank. Their currency, however, wasn’t money, it was medicine. Desperate men and women filled the ranks—their faces stricken with anxiety. Some were already in the stages of withdrawal.
    Arthur’s men rationed the drugs carefully: five to six pills weekly and about two hundred milligrams of morphine per week to those who needed it. Though not all were addicts. There were some with need of aspirin and antibiotics. These items were rationed as well, though no one knew the plan for when everything ran out.
    The wall project added to the uneasiness. The residents all lived like prisoners, but many were too broken, too desperate, and too doped-up to do anything about it. Saturdays were for normal ration distribution; Sundays, however, were what most people looked forward to.
    “Anderson!” Nathan, one of the freemen, shouted from behind a table.
    He was one of the few men entrusted with allocating the proper dosage of prescription drugs. Behind him were boxes with enough drugs and medicine to stock three working hospitals. The last remaining physician, Dr. Gary Layish, was a heart surgeon from the recently defunct Nyack Hospital.
    He stood by, monitoring the distribution. He and