Rob was in a state of some type of shock. He’d never seen the insides of a human head before.
And it wasn’t a pretty sight.
Instead of getting up or wiping his hand, Rob just stayed there, as if he was frozen.
His head seemed to turn by itself. His eyes followed the path he’d taken down the driveway, towards the lake house.
He could see the door, and it swung open.
He didn’t immediately recognize the man who stepped outside.
It wasn’t Jim or Aly or Jessica.
Who was it?
His brain seemed to be moving slowly.
Was it Aly’s uncle? What was his name? Jordan? The drunk.
No, it wasn’t him.
The man wore a policeman’s uniform.
Then it hit him.
It was the new guy.
Andy? Was that his name?
Yeah, it was Andy.
Rob’s semi-frozen mind registered on the fact that Andy shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing.
Andy, the stranger, had a huge amount of stuff with him. Stuff that he hadn’t had when he’d arrived at the lake house not that long ago.
He was loaded down.
He wore a huge backpack that looked like it was stuffed to the gills.
He carried a full trash bag in one hand.
“Hey!” shouted Rob.
Andy turned, saw Rob, and hurried off towards the lake.
“Hey! Get back here!”
Rob stood up, his hand and gun still covered in gunk.
It sure seemed like Andy was stealing a lot of their gear.
Shit.
They really needed to work on the security.
They couldn’t be taking strangers in like this.
Rob started running towards the lake, determined to chase down the thief.
Behind him, the body of another stranger lay on the gravel. Blood leaked slowly out of the head.
8
Andy
Andy hadn’t been there long. But he’d been there long enough to realize that it wasn’t the place he’d been looking for.
The lake house was about the furthest thing from a secure bunker that you could find.
Sure, there was gear and some food.
But that was about it.
The people seemed like clowns.
First of all, they’d taken him on. And he didn’t have good intentions.
But he thought that’d been a simple honest mistake.
Andy had eaten his fill and then hung back and watched how things worked there at the lake house.
The woman was in bed and she seemed too weak to work.
She wouldn’t be of any use to Andy.
And one of them was obviously a drunk. Or had serious problems.
The others?
They were rushing off somewhere.
No one seemed to have a good grasp on how to survive. Or how to do what was necessary.
Andy had watched out the window as the big guy had chased after a stranger. He’d been clumsy. He’d barely known what he was doing.
Andy suspected that it was only a matter of time before the lake house ran up against more serious threats. Gangs and roving groups of starving, desperate people.
It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the lake house wasn’t the shelter he’d been looking for.
So the most logical thing to do?
Well, he had to look out for himself first and foremost.
So he’d grabbed as much food and gear as he could and he’d hightailed it out of there.
He got out the door without the drunk noticing much of anything. He was staring at the wall, apparently lost deep in thought.
The sick woman in the bed yelled out something at him.
But he just ignored her.
Andy was heading towards the lake when the big guy noticed him and started chasing him.
But when Andy turned around to look, the big guy had tripped and fallen face-down onto the ground.
Andy just laughed.
He was weighed down with the gear. But he had a head start. He knew they wouldn’t catch him.
He headed straight towards the lake, and then when he was out of view, hidden among the trees, he took an abrupt turn to the right.
He didn’t have much of a plan, except that he had to get far away from them.
Andy was sweating in the warmer weather.
It was tough carrying all this weight with him. But he knew it would pay off soon enough. He had enough food with him to last weeks. If not more.
Sure, the people at the lake house might starve. But that wasn’t his problem.
It was every man for himself now.
And only the smartest would win.
The cop’s clothes were uncomfortable. He didn’t have any underwear on. Not that he remembered why.
The pants were chafing his thighs terribly.
But fortunately, luck was on his side. It had been ever since he’d decided to take control of his own destiny and kill that cop.
Up ahead, through the woods, there was another house. And a dock that jutted into the lake.
There were two boats that had been dragged up onto the shore. A two-person canoe and a rowboat.
The canoe, being thinner, would probably be faster.
There was a paddle laying inside the canoe.
Andy dropped the stolen gear into the canoe before pushing it into the water.
He kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to see someone coming for him. But there was no one yet.
When he got the canoe mostly into the water, he had another thought. If they did end up coming after him, it’d be hard to do it without a boat of their own.
Unfortunately, the rowboat was made of metal. Andy didn’t think he’d be able to put a hole through the metal, no matter how hard he tried.
So he decided to do the next best thing. He’d take the rowboat with him.
With some dirty, frayed rope that was lying near the rowboat, Andy got the two boats tied together.
Then he got them both in the water.
He was drenched in sweat by the time he was paddling the canoe away from the shore. The rowboat was in tow, floating behind him like a persistent ghost.
The paddling was hard work. He only got sweatier.
But he knew how to paddle.
He’d learned it when he’d gone on vacation as a kid. His father had taught him how to dip the paddle in the water and tilt it just the right way. His father had taught him how to paddle efficiently, how to steer.
And he’d taught him a moral code. The same moral code that his own father had taught him.
Andy was throwing that all out the window now. And he knew that. He was aware of it.
And he was OK with that.
He justified it to himself, saying that the situation was different now. The normal moral code had been the system of rules for one way of living. Now people were living differently. It only made sense that the rules had to change too.
Andy had big plans for himself. This gear was just the first step. He’d find that group, that place where he could be secure. He’d ingratiate himself there. He’d set something up. It’d take time, but he knew he could do it.
He’d have a family of his own one day. While the rest of the world burned, while everyone else starved, he’d be there with his family. They’d be well fed. They’d have protection.
Sure, there were details that still needed to be worked out. But he was a smart guy. He could do it. He knew he could.
And when his future son started to grow up, Andy wouldn’t teach him the moral code that he’d learned himself. No, he’d teach him the new code. Which was to look out for yourself above all else. Do whatever it takes.
Andy was getting ahead of himself. He was getting lost in his own thoughts.
He moved his focus back to paddling.
He had the food now. He had the gear.
If he let himself wander off into his thoughts, he mig
ht end up getting caught. No point in getting cocky.
So he kept paddling.
Harder and harder.
He was drenched in sweat and exhausted.
But it felt good.
The physical work felt good. The burning in his muscles felt good.
He was doing something with his life. He was making good choices.
There was purpose to his life now.
Maybe the EMP had been good for him. He already knew that killing that cop had been good for him.
More than a few times, Andy glanced behind him, checking to see if anyone was following him.
But there wasn’t so much as a sign of anyone.
The lake looked pristine. The clouds were breaking overhead and the light was glinting in just the right way off the ripples.
The lake was gentle. A gentle force. A beautiful piece of nature that seemed like it was put there just for him.
Andy was the only one on the lake.
For that moment, it seemed as if Andy was the only one on the planet.
As he continued to paddle, staring up at the brilliant sky, his mouth wide open, his eyes wide, Andy started to feel a sense of euphoria that he hadn’t felt since he was a child, rushing through a park on a summer night.
He felt it in his chest, a sense of profound happiness.
And he began laughing. Not a cackle, but a laugh of pure joy and exhilaration, a laugh that seemed to echo across the calm waters of the lake.
He knew he’d make it.
9
Jim
Jim knew something was wrong the moment he stepped around the corner of the house and saw the driveway.
There was a body lying on the gravel.
The front door to the house was wide open.
He feared the worst.
His heart started to pound.
His hands and feet felt ice-cold.
“What is it?” said Jessica.
Jim didn’t answer.
He couldn’t answer.
His mind was flooded with fear.
This was the moment that he’d feared above all else. The moment that he hadn’t even admitted to himself that he feared.
If he went in there and Aly was dead on the floor, her skull smashed in, or her body riddled with bullet holes, what would he do?
He was a strong man in a lot of ways, but if that happened, he’d collapse and be incapable of anything at all.
If the attacker was still there, he doubted he’d even be able to fight. Sure, in the movies the man always became filled with rage and sought his vengeance with fervor and delight.
But this was real life.
And real life didn’t work like the movies.
“Jim?”
Jessica had her hand on his shoulder.
Strangely, it was reassuring.
“You OK?” she said.
Jim shook it off.
He got himself under control.
He gave her a stiff nod.
He had his Ruger in his hand, and he motioned for Jessica to follow him through the door.
Jim moved swiftly.
He was through the doorway.
“Whoa!”
It was Jordan, holding his hands in the air.
Jim’s Ruger was inches away from Jordan’s face.
“Where’s Aly?” he said.
“In the bedroom. Put that thing away before you shoot one of us.”
Jim was in the bedroom in a flash.
Aly was there, on the bed. She looked fine.
“You OK?” said Jim.
“Yeah,” she said.
“What happened? Is everyone OK?”
“That new guy ran off with our stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“I don’t know. You told me not to get out of bed. And I don’t think I can move…”
“You’re sure you’re OK?” said Jim.
She nodded vigorously.
Jessica appeared in the doorway. “He took off with a lot of our food… our medical supplies…”
“Shit,” muttered Jim.
He glanced at Jordan, who was just standing there dumbly with a sheepish look on his face. There was no point in saying anything to him.
The damage had been done.
And Jordan wasn’t going to be able to undo any of it.
But maybe Jim could.
“You stay here,” said Jim to Jessica. “I barely know what’s going on. We need someone guarding the house.”
And with that, Jim dashed off, heading outside again.
He was determined to get their food and gear back. His immediate fears, of his wife being dead, were gone. But new fears took their place.
Sure, they could fish. They could hunt. They could get food from elsewhere. But there were a lot of people to feed. And they were already struggling on their low-calorie diets.
Jim didn’t think they could go much lower in calories while retaining efficiency.
Jim glanced down the driveway at the dead man.
Who was he?
“Rob?” called out Jim, as loud as he could.
He heard a muffled yell from down by the lake.
That was all he needed.
He dashed off as quickly as he could, running with long strides, avoiding the protruding roots and rocks.
Jim ran through the trees until he could see the water.
And there was Rob.
Down by the water, Rob sat with his knees bent and his head sunk low. He looked utterly defeated, like a broken-down machine that had long been cast aside.
“What happened?” said Jim, his tone snappy.
If Rob had given up, that was that. There wasn’t anything to do about it. Except to keep going and get the stuff back.
“He took off. I thought I could catch him. I’ve failed, Jim. I failed you. I’m sorry.”
“Enough of that,” snapped Jim. “Where’d he go?”
For the first time, Jim saw that Rob was covered in blood. His handgun was still in his hand. Rob’s arm hung limply down, the gun resting partially on the ground.
“The lake.”
“The lake?”
“He took a boat out.”
“A boat?”
“A canoe,” said Rob, not lifting his head up to look Jim in the eye.
“Where’d he get a canoe?”
“Dunno. Next door maybe. I saw him out on the water.”
“Is he still there?”
“Out of view.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Other side, I guess.”
Rob scanned his eyes across the lake. There was no sign of the man or their gear. There was no boat in sight.
There wasn’t time to ask Rob what had happened with the dead man in the driveway. Obviously, Rob had killed him.
He’d have to find out later.
“Get back to the house,” said Jim. “Pull yourself together. The others need you. I’m going after him.”
“You’re going after him? How? There aren’t any more boats. I checked.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just get back to the house.”
Jim didn’t wait to see if Rob would get up and head back. There wasn’t time.
Instead, Jim started running again. Running through the trees. Running with his long stride.
He was full of adrenaline. He felt full of energy, although he knew consciously that it wouldn’t last forever.
His body was doing everything it could to keep him going.
He reached the next house in practically no time.
Sure enough, there were no boats.
Jim stood on the shore, panting, his chest heaving. He was out of breath. He was covered in sweat. His revolver was in his hand.
The sun was shining. The clouds had parted.
The lake had never looked more beautiful. And peaceful.
But Jim’s mind was anything but peaceful. It was a turmoil of thoughts, panic, worry, and expectation.
He needed that gear.
He’d
do anything to get it.
As far as he was concerned, that gear was the line between life and death. Not just for him. But for Aly. And others too.
He had to think of them.
He could see the shore off in the distance. It was just a small little line across the lake, with trees rising above it, looking like miniature versions of themselves.
It was a long way off.
But he could get there.
He was a strong swimmer.
Or he had been.
He’d been on the swim team in high school. He’d almost made state his senior year, only missing the qualifying time by a couple of seconds in one of the last meets of the season.
Freestyle had been his specialty.
He could do it.
He kicked off his boots, secured his Ruger in his holster, making sure it was secured tightly.
Next, he stripped off his shirt. It would only weigh him down and increase the drag.
As he moved into the water, a memory surfaced from somewhere far back in his mind.
Many summers ago, when he’d been in fifth grade, or maybe sixth, his parents had sent him to a camp down in Pennsylvania for a couple weeks. They’d always been cautious with their money, and it wasn’t like them to spend on something “frivolous” like summer camp for a kid.
But for some reason, they’d sent him there and paid the bill. Later, his mother had confessed that his father had thought he’d needed to toughen up a lot, and that a work friend of his father’s had once suggested the camp.
And the camp had proved to be tough. It wasn’t something that Jim thought about much, but he supposed that it had given him some of the attitudes he still held to this day.
==
During the first week of camp, he’d learned that one of the camp’s “requirements” was to swim across the lake. All alone.
So that’s what he’d done.
He’d never known the consequences for not swimming across the lake.
But he’d feared them.
And he’d feared drowning.
In reality, looking back on it, there’d been a counselor there in a rowboat nearby, ready to haul exhausted or drowning kids back into the safety of the air-filled world.
He’d done it then. He could do it now.
He could make it.
Of course, this lake was a lot bigger than the little camp lake in Pennsylvania.
Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 21
