“What the hell was all that?” said Rob.
“An ambush,” said Jessica. “What in the world did you think it was?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t make sense to me.”
“What didn’t make sense?”
“Well, if that was an ambush, why would they set it up like that? Have the guys with guns farther down the road. Why not just put them right at the blockade?”
“He’s got a point,” said Jim.
“Maybe they’re just new at it,” suggested Aly.
There were a couple laughs.
“No,” she said. “I’m serious. Maybe they’re just regular people, doing whatever it is they think they need to do to survive these crazy times.”
“You mean they’re not criminals or anything?” said Rob.
“Exactly. Maybe it’s a family, hardened by circumstances, and this is the first time they’ve tried their hand at piracy.”
“Piracy?”
“Well, the basic idea is you stop the vehicle, whether it’s a boat or a car or van or whatever. Then you kill the occupants and take what they have.”
“Pretty foolproof,” said Jim. “Except that we’re going to fight back.”
“You think it’s going to happen again to us?”
“How could it not?”
They drove for another ten minutes, and Jim felt his heartbeat slowly reducing. His adrenaline must have been slowly lowering as well, because that shaky-excited feeling began to diminish.
They were on a two-lane road. The sky above was the normal gray, but the leaves on the trees were green, helping to offset the grayness. If it had been in the days before the EMP, Jim could see thoroughly enjoying the drive. It wasn’t the type of road that probably got a lot of traffic, and really sometimes there wasn’t much better than being out on the road, listening to some good tunes.
Of course, now, the radio didn’t even turn on. And if it had, there’d be nothing but static or dead air.
As he drove, Jim made sure to check the rearview mirror periodically. But he saw no one.
Jessica moved into the back, and she and Aly and Rob began discussing the routes that they could take. Occasionally, they would ask for Jim’s opinion and hand him a map to study, which was difficult to do while driving, let alone driving and keeping a lookout for anything that seemed odd, dangerous, or out of place. So there was only so much he could add to the conversation.
“Why don’t we just go down 219?”
“Because it’s a big highway.”
“It’s not a four-lane highway, is it?”
“I think it is.”
“When was the last time you were on it?”
“A few years ago.”
“I don’t want to go on any big highways,” said Jim. “All I’d expect to find are dead cars from one end to the next. I doubt we’ll even be able to drive on a road like that. It’ll be packed.”
“But isn’t it worth checking out?” said Aly.
“Maybe,” said Jim. “It depends what the other options are.”
“Well, we’re still working on that.”
Up ahead, the road they were currently on was transforming from a remote country road with nothing but trees on the side to a road that was lined with parking lots and stores.
“Jessica,” said Jim. “I need you up here and on the lookout.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re back to civilization. There’s more of a chance that we’re going to run into trouble up here.”
Jim was keeping his eyes peeled, making sure to keep them scanning the area. It was tiring, even exhausting, having to always be on edge, always on the lookout. But hopefully once they found a place to rest the RV, the constant threats would die down somewhat. Of course, he could only realistically hope for so much.
They were now driving by the first store. It was a pharmacy, a squat little building, with a large parking lot. There were a few cars in the lot, but it wasn’t full by any means.
There was no sign of anyone. Only the squirrels and birds seemed to be out. But Jim knew that, simply speaking statistically, it was unlikely that someone wasn’t lurking in at least one of the buildings or cars they’d drive by. There were many places to hide, and many motivators.
“See anything?” said Jim, carefully and consciously moving his eyes from one end of the parking lot to the other.
“Not yet,” said Jessica.
The big trees and their green leaves were long gone now, having been replaced by parking lots and pavement. It was a world made for automobiles, for industry, for commerce. Which was fine, except that none of that stuff mattered now.
With the sun behind the ever-present gray clouds, the day no longer looked pleasant in the least bit. Instead, it took on that perma-gray depressing quality that Jim had always associated with Rochester, Buffalo, and the area in between.
“You think we should stop and try to get supplies?” said Jessica, just as they were past the exit lane for the pharmacy parking lot.
Jim shook his head. “What would we get? We’ve got more painkillers than we could ever use, hopefully.”
“Food,” said Jessica. “I bet we have about a week’s worth right now. And pharmacies usually carry things like beef jerky, canned tuna, dried noodles, plenty of soda. A lot of good food for travel that keeps a long time. A lot of high-protein stuff, too.”
It was true. They were going to need food.
“It’s a huge risk,” said Jim. “We’re opening ourselves to whatever danger’s lurking in that pharmacy. And there’s no way it hasn’t already been looted.”
“There’s always a back area,” said Jessica. “There’s always more than it seems in a place like that.”
“It’s a risk, though.”
“It’s a risk running out of food. We’re going to have to figure out what we can hunt in our new location. We’re going to have to perfect a system of butchering the animal and storing the meat. Those aren’t easy things to learn, and none of us have a lot of experience in that area.”
“Good points,” said Jim.
But he kept driving.
“Look at it this way,” said Jessica. “Even if we find our ideal spot right away, we’re not going to have food right away. It’s going to take time to figure out how to feed ourselves off the land. Meanwhile, our food will run out.”
“Leaving us more vulnerable,” said Jim, finishing her thought for her.
“Exactly. So what do you say?”
“Let’s do it,” said Jim, making a quick decision.
He was always ready to change his mind. Especially if it meant increasing the survival chances of the group.
Without waiting for anyone to object, Jim swung the wheel and made a U-turn. Surprisingly, the turning radius of the RV wasn’t too bad, and he was able to get it without backing up at all.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” said Aly, as Jim took the turn into the pharmacy parking lot. The RV bumped across a couple potholes, but the suspension was good, and they hardly felt it at all.
“Nothing’s a good idea anymore,” said Jim. “It’s about finding the idea that’s the least bad.”
Jim put the RV in park and cut the engine.
He left the keys in the ignition. He was already thinking ahead to a quick getaway.
Jim felt for his gun and got his other hand on the door handle before speaking.
“I’m the only one going in,” he said. He spoke fast so that no one could interrupt him. He knew that one of them would want to come with him.
As he expected, Jessica, Rob, and Aly all started speaking at the same time. But he simply raised his voice and talked over them.
“It’s either just me, or I’m simply driving off. I don’t want to hear anything about backup. The simple facts are that if there’s a trap in there, it’ll get everyone who goes in. So logically, we only should risk one of us. The more we lose, the more the group loses.”
“But...” came Aly’s voice, risin
g above the rest.
“If I’m not back in ten minutes,” continued Jim. “You’ve got to drive off.” He glanced down at his watch, noting that the minute hand was precisely at the top of the watch. That meant that he didn’t have to bother setting the timing bezel of his diver’s watch. It was already perfectly aligned.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Jessica. “We’re not going to leave without you.”
Jim glanced back at Aly, who looked too upset to even speak. They may have had plenty of arguments and difficulties, but he knew that the thought of losing her husband right here and now in some generic pharmacy was too much.
Jim said nothing more. There was no point. They’d either do as he wished or they wouldn’t. Words could only do so much to convince someone.
Jim opened the door and stepped down out of the RV, drawing his sidearm as he did.
He took long strides across the pharmacy parking lot. He kept his head moving as he did so, looking for any sign of movement, of anything that shouldn’t have been there.
Having crossed the open space quickly, he reached the back door, which was at the end of a small concrete staircase with a thick metal railing.
Jim took the stairs two at a time, gun in hand, finger on the trigger.
The door was red, made of thick steel.
To his surprise, it was unlocked.
It creaked on its hinges as it opened.
Jim paused, listening.
He heard nothing, and without a second thought, he stepped across the threshold into the darkness.
2
Aly
Aly, Rob, and Jessica were crowding the windshield area, watching the spot where Jim had disappeared.
“There’s no way we’re going to leave him, right?” said Jessica.
Aly breathed a sigh of relief. She already knew that she would never leave her husband behind. And she knew that Rob, who’d known Jim the longest, wouldn’t either. Jessica was the only one she hadn’t been sure of. Jessica, after all, was sometimes hard to read. It was as if her exterior was a hardened shell, making her seem almost cold and emotionless.
“Of course not,” scoffed Rob. “He’s off his rocker if he thinks we would.”
Aly said nothing. She imagined that her position was already apparent.
“It might take him ten minutes just to find the beef jerky,” joked Jessica. “Sometimes those stores don’t have the best layouts.”
“And imagine what it’s like after it’s been looted,” said Rob. “Stuff all over the floor.”
Jessica chuckled politely. No one was really in the mood to actually laugh. Not now.
Silence fell over the group, and Aly found that her eyes were flickering over to the small digital clock on the RV’s dashboard.
She didn’t know why the clock still worked, but she wasn’t going to spend too much time on that. Not right now.
Somehow, eight minutes had already passed.
Not that it mattered.
They weren’t going to leave him. They’d all agreed on it.
“You hear that?” said Jessica, who seemed to have the best hearing of all of them.
Aly shook her head. But as she did, she heard it.
It was the unmistakable sound of an engine. Truck or car, she didn’t know.
But she did know that it was getting louder.
Much louder.
The vehicle was getting closer. And the closer it got, the stranger it sounded.
“Is that a motorcycle?” whispered Jessica.
Rob shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s multiple motorcycles.”
As soon as she heard the words, Aly heard it.
The intense rumbling wasn’t the sound of a single engine. It was the cacophony produced by dozens of engines mixing together.
Aly spun her head. And, as if on cue, she saw a dozen motorcycles streaming down the road. They were coming from the direction opposite where the roadblock had been.
They weren’t casual motorcycle riders. They weren’t hobbyists. That was immediately apparent.
They were getting close. Aly could almost see the whites of their eyes.
It was a motorcycle gang. They were dressed in the classic style, with torn up, oil-stained jeans, filthy t-shirts, and leather jackets and vests that looked like they’d survived more than a few crashes and turns taken too sharply.
There was one rider in the front of the pack leading the way. He had a huge red beard that was at least a foot long. His face was darkly tanned. Neither he nor the others that followed him wore helmets. The stub of a cigar was clamped between his teeth. She couldn’t see his teeth clearly, but somehow, she was sure they were gray and discolored. She just had the sense about the man. Everything about him seemed filthy, disgusting, and dishonorable. She didn’t even have the words to describe the feeling in her gut that started to come up.
“Come on, Jim,” she muttered under her breath.
The leader of the pack was moving slowly now. His engine was rumbling and emitting loud bangs.
The leader turned into the parking lot. He was about fifty feet away from the RV, over on the other side of the lot.
Aly gasped.
“This isn’t good,” said Rob.
“They turned in...” said Jessica, her voice low as she stated the obvious.
The rest of the gang followed their leader, turning into the parking lot.
The noise was overwhelming, even with the windows rolled up, even from inside the shelter of the RV.
“Come on, Jim,” muttered Aly again, her eyes shifting between where she’d last seen Jim and the motorcycle gang.
“What do you think they’re doing here?” said Rob.
“Looking for drugs,” said Jessica, matter-of-factly.
“How do you know?”
“A lot of gangs deal drugs to keep themselves financially solvent,” said Jessica. “And consequently, a lot of them get hooked on the stuff themselves. I’m guessing their supply has dried up with the EMP. They’re going to be jonesing hard. That’s all just a guess, though.”
The thought of a motorcycle gang going into serious opiate withdrawal wasn’t a pleasant thought.
Aly may not have known much about motorcycle gangs. But she did know that there were “gangs” and there were “gangs,” as the expression went. There were the gangs that were more like social clubs, the kind where the members all had regular jobs or were retired. Those types of people just happened to like motorcycles and enjoyed the social aspect of sharing their hobby with others.
Then there were the real gangs, where, sure, some had regular jobs, but the gang itself was always the main job, the real job, the primary focus of all their lives. It wasn’t a mere social club, but a family closer than many real families.
Aly knew that the gang of bikers she saw streaming across the parking lot was of the second type. She knew they were dangerous, whether or not they were in desperate search of opiates.
“Come on, Jim,” she muttered again.
“He’ll make it, Aly,” said Rob, but there wasn’t much confidence in his voice.
“Maybe they’ll just drive right through the parking lot,” said Aly, but she heard the falseness in her voice as she said it. She knew there wasn’t any chance of that. She knew that the bikers were here for a reason.
Aly watched as the bikers drove right up to the pharmacy wall, killed their engines, and started to swing their dirty legs over their bikes.
Aly’s heart was pounding. She felt a lump in her throat.
She was terrified for Jim.
Not so much for herself or Rob or Jessica.
So far, the bikers hadn’t seemed to notice them at all. They hadn’t even so much as glanced in their direction. Weird. Definitely weird. But she’d take it. It meant that they didn’t need to flee. It meant that they didn’t need to abandon Jim for dead.
There was no way Jim could fight off all those bikers. There were twelve of them. They had guns. She could see handguns stuck into w
aistbands. She could see knife sheaths strapped to ankles. It was clear these bikers were ready for violence.
Jim stood no chance. No chance of escaping. Not from all those men.
She could see their physiques more clearly now that they were off their bikes. Except for one or two of them, they were all huge men, with wide shoulders and massive backs, as if they’d fed themselves nothing but huge steaks and beer for years. Lot of protein. Lots of heavy weight lifting. And the bodies that developed from that.
And except for the outliers, it almost seemed as if there had been a height requirement. Unless Aly’s ever-intensifying fear was distorting her perceptions, most of the bikers seemed to be over six feet tall.
The bikers stood there, slightly bow-legged, almost like sailors or cowboys from another era.
Fear was flowing through Aly. She was acutely aware of how shaky she felt; how cold she had suddenly become.
A thousand worries and terrors seemed to rush through her mind. She could barely keep track of them all. They were like a tornado that was ripping through her.
The only thought she would later remember was that it seemed as if these bikers had been, in a way, preparing for the EMP for their entire lives. They had already lived and existed outside of the law, outside of the system of society. Sure, they had relied on society. They had been like parasites, taking just enough of the blood of society to do what they wanted. They’d relied on gas stations and the money of others. Not to mention the shipping systems, and countless other things that, until recently, had just been taken for granted for by everyone.
Without realizing it, the EMP was what the bikers had always craved and desired. Here, for them, was a new world, a world that was spinning out of orbit and into chaos. A world for the taking. A world to create an empire in. A world in which they could exert that power when they had been held back before.
The bikers were nodding to themselves. They were taking guns from holsters and waistbands. They were patting their pockets and knife sheaths, checking for their auxiliary weapons. They were casting their eyes around the corners of the pharmacy.
And then Aly saw it. One of them cast his eyes right towards their RV. She saw him open his mouth, saying something. She couldn’t hear what he said. But it didn’t matter. The meaning was clear. He was alerting the others.
Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 33
