Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3]

by Westfield, Ryan

  Aly knew that none of them wanted to leave Jim there. She also knew that she had to be the one to give the order to leave. Jim was her husband, so that meant she was the only one really with the authority to say that they should leave him behind.

  “Go!” hissed Aly.

  Jessica had seen the biker’s eyes move as well. She’d seen the words being spoken. Jessica didn’t need to be told twice. She already had the engine started, the RV in gear.

  Jessica swung the wheel. The RV sped backwards, wheeling around.

  Now it was just a question of whether the bikers would follow them.

  Aly didn’t think they would. They were after something in the pharmacy, and they’d only be interested in others if they stood in their way, or had something to offer. Some random RV didn’t pose much of a threat as it drove away, and it likely didn’t offer much in the way of pharmaceutical products.

  “What about Jim?” said Rob, as Jessica slammed on the brakes, spinning the wheel back around, trying to get the RV pointed in the right direction.

  “We’re not going to do him any good if we’re dead,” said Aly.

  She could barely get the words out. Her heart was pounding. Her anxiety had never been this bad.

  Jim was resourceful. He was strong. And he had a strong mind.

  But he’d be in a situation that not many could get out of.

  Maybe there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d live. Or maybe the odds were even worse.

  There wasn’t any point in trying to calculate them.

  “We’re no match for those bikers,” said Jessica, her own voice tense and terse. “We’ll drive down, and then head back once the bikers are gone.”

  To say Aly had an unsettled feeling in her stomach was putting it much too mildly. Driving away from her husband felt like she was just leaving him to die. But there was no point in staying to try to fight off the bikers.

  3

  Jim

  Jim’s eyes were slowly adjusting somewhat to the darkness. As they did, he moved blindly through the store, making sure to pause frequently, listening for any noises that would hopefully alert him to the presence of anyone else there.

  But he heard nothing. Just silence.

  So he had gone about doing what he’d set out to do, which was gathering supplies.

  In the darkness, he felt around on the floor, slowly identifying things just by feeling their size, shape, and weight. Products were scattered everywhere. There was apparently no order to anything at all.

  Obviously the pharmacy had been ransacked and looted. Probably a mob had rushed it in the first days after the EMP.

  But, as Jim discovered, they hadn’t done a good job in their looting. He’d heard about as much. Frantic people don’t make good decisions. Even during disaster survival situations, the mobs often go for items that simply won’t help them survive. Televisions and computers being the worst examples.

  Jim could see a little more now.

  The shelves were all overturned, as if a mass of people had simply collided with them all, knocking them all over.

  It would take a long time to properly sort through this all. Too long. It was better to get back on the road before someone else showed up. Jim figured that a pharmacy would be a hot spot for people like themselves, people looking for food, for medicine. For anything that would help them survive.

  Jim didn’t hear the sounds of the motorcycles until he had half-filled a plastic bag with beef jerky that he was pulling from underneath a knocked-over shelf. To do so, he had to actually use all his strength to pull the heavy shelf up just an inch or so, so that he could slide the beef jerky out from underneath it.

  Jim pulled his hand out and let the shelf fall back down.

  In the darkness, he listened to the sound of the motorcycle engines.

  It was that unmistakable throaty, choppy guttural sound. A sound that bikers actually strove to achieve in their bikes. They liked them to sound rough and intense like that, rather than like suave, well-tuned racing machines. It went with the whole personality. Rough and tough. Ready for a fight.

  The sounds were getting closer.

  Jim didn’t know how many there were. But there were a lot.

  Jim’s heart was pounding. His feet and hands were cold and clammy.

  His body was already on edge.

  He knew danger when he heard it.

  His body knew danger.

  It was a primordial feeling. Something from the cavemen times that hadn’t yet been lost, but had been carried from generation to generation as humanity grew and changed, still never losing the very fundamentals of life and death dangers.

  It was getting ready. It was either a fight. Or fleeing.

  Fleeing was better. Less risk. Maybe not as heroic. But who cared about heroics when it was a real life-or-death situation? This wasn’t some movie. This was his life.

  Jim only needed a couple things to be in place for him to be able to flee. He needed an exit. He could probably find one.

  He needed the bikers, who he knew in his bones were about to enter the pharmacy, to all come in from the same entrance. He needed them to not post up guards on the other exits.

  He needed Aly, Jessica, and Rob to leave in the RV. If they stayed there, it’d only cause problems. Like a fight.

  Jim listened as carefully as he could, hoping to hear the sound of the RV engine starting up among the sounds of the motorcycle engines.

  But he heard nothing.

  Except for the engines cutting off. One by one.

  Jim tried to count them all. It was hard. He was just counting minuscule space between the sound. Slight changes in tone, nothing more. Mere seconds between the changes.

  His guess was ten or twenty bikes.

  A lot.

  Way too many to fight himself.

  If he was lucky, he might take a couple of them out. Not many, though. And not enough. He’d be dead soon enough. He doubted he’d last more than a full minute.

  A minute was a long time during a gunfight.

  Jim didn’t have long before they came in.

  His hand was wrapping around the handle of his gun.

  Normally, the weight felt reassuring.

  But now it didn’t.

  Jim took it as a sign that he needed to flee.

  His eyes were already scanning his surroundings, searching desperately for an exit.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of those older buildings with large windows, through which the sun streamed. Windows that he could escape through.

  No. It was one of those new buildings. Basically nothing more than a large box. Like a shipping container plopped down on a foundation. No windows. Not even up towards the ceiling. Or there would have been more light.

  The thought flashed through Jim: in a fight, the one advantage he’d have would be that his eyes would be adjusted. More adjusted, at least.

  But he needed to avoid a fight at all costs.

  He needed another exit.

  He’d come in through the back.

  He heard that same back door open. He heard the first heavy footstep. He heard the grunt and the sharp intake of breath.

  They were here.

  Not far away.

  He had thirty seconds. Maybe. If he was lucky.

  Jim dashed to the automatic front doors that stood in the front corner of the pharmacy. The glass had been covered up with thick pieces of cardboard.

  Obviously, the electrical motors that opened the doors weren’t running.

  Jim threw himself against the doors. He aimed for the middle, where the doors met with rubber bumpers. He didn’t have time for finesse. He hoped that the force of his body would open the doors at least a little.

  No luck.

  His shoulder slammed hard into the metal of the door.

  Pain flared through him.

  And the doors didn’t budge.

  There wasn’t much time left.

  Jim brought his free hand around, ignoring the pain in his shoul
der, and tried to jam it between the doors. Maybe he could pry them open.

  But no luck. The doors weren’t moving.

  Jim had mere seconds left before they came in. Before the bikers saw him. He was out in the open in front of the door. A prime target. With nothing to hide behind.

  He wasn’t going to be able to get out.

  So he had to either hide or find a spot that gave him some type of advantage for a fight.

  His eyes scanned the store. He only had time for one scan.

  There were just the knocked-over shelves. And products, some of them busted open, scattered on the floor. The store was nothing but a large box. And he was inside of it. There weren’t any nooks and crannies.

  Maybe he could hide behind one of the knocked-over shelves. But it wouldn’t cover much of him, even if he lay flat on his belly. And it wouldn’t give him any cover in a firefight.

  Then he saw it. A little light glinting off the mirrors that he hadn’t noticed before.

  The mirrors ran along just one of the walls. From one end of the wall to the other. They were up where the second floor would have been, if the ceiling hadn’t been that high.

  They were probably two-way mirrors. Used for surveillance before the installation of security cameras.

  Jim didn’t know for sure how it worked, but he imagined that there was a hallway or room up there behind those two-way mirrors, where an employee would have been tasked with spying down on all the shoppers.

  It’d be a perfect place to fight them off. Well, not perfect. But better than being out in the open.

  Now all he had to do was get up there.

  Jim’s eyes were moving. Still moving. As fast as he could move them. Thinking as fast as he could. His thoughts scattered. Trying to keep them together. Trying to keep it all together. His mind was racing. Felt as if it were about to go off the rails.

  Jim saw the man before he heard his footsteps.

  In the dim light, the first of the bikers had appeared. He had long, shaggy hair, and an intense beard that stretched down his chest. He stumbled as he walked into the room, his foot apparently getting caught up in some of the junk scattered on the floor. He wasn’t being careful, despite not seeing well.

  Jim noticed that the biker still wore sunglasses, despite his eyes not even being adapted yet.

  Jim didn’t even bother thinking “what an idiot,” to himself. Instead, he got his feet firmly planted, lined up the shot, and pulled the trigger.

  The shot rang out, echoing out throughout the box-style building. Sounding much louder than it would have outside.

  There went Jim’s hearing.

  The round struck the biker in the chest. Jim saw the blood come out. It was a good shot.

  But he didn’t wait to see the man fall.

  There were more bikers coming. How many, he didn’t know. It was only one down. There might be twenty more to come.

  Not that there was any time to worry about the odds. Not now. It was just survival.

  Jim saw the next man appearing right when he finally spotted the door to the upstairs area.

  The door was behind the cash register. It was made to appear inconspicuous among the shelves where the nicotine cessation products were stored. If Jim hadn’t been actively looking for it, he never would have seen it.

  The second biker likely couldn’t see well either. But he had an advantage over the first biker. He didn’t wear sunglasses. And he’d heard the first biker get shot. He knew that there was a threat there.

  Jim waited until the second biker’s arm appeared around the corner from the hallway. His finger, already pulling back on the trigger, squeezed. Twice. In rapid succession.

  Jim didn’t wait to see if he’d hit him.

  There was no cry of pain. Not that Jim would have been able to hear it with his ears ringing.

  With his gun in one hand, Jim dashed towards the counter. He didn’t bother to try to do anything fancy, like zigzag. He knew it was pointless. He just needed to get to that door as fast as he possibly could. Every single second that elapsed from here on out simply meant that more bikers would appear. More threats with each passing second. Less of a chance of surviving with each passing second.

  Jim would either get shot or he wouldn’t. There wasn’t any point in thinking about it.

  He simply ran.

  His vision was a tunnel.

  He reached the counter.

  He jammed his left arm down, his palm against the counter. Throwing his weight one way, he managed to vault over the counter in a single shot. Maybe the most athletic feat he’d ever pulled off. He’d certainly never done anything like that before. Chalk it up to the power of adrenaline.

  Two shots rang out. Jim was barely aware of them. He barely heard them over the intense ringing in his ears.

  He’d reached the door that hopefully led to the upstairs surveillance area.

  The door handle wasn’t a knob. It was a flat lever.

  He didn’t even bother trying to grab it. His left hand just smashed down on it.

  Without waiting to see if the door was open, Jim threw his entire weight against the door.

  It’d either open or it wouldn’t.

  He was likely a split second from taking a bullet. He needed to save each fraction of a second that he could.

  4

  Jessica

  Jessica’s hands were on the wheel. They were headed down the street in the RV going about fifty miles per hour.

  Jessica kept looking in the rearview mirror. She was expecting that at least a couple of the bikers would follow them.

  But they didn’t.

  There was no one in the rearview mirror.

  Jessica didn’t dare, though, to breathe a sigh of relief. They’d done what they’d all said they’d never do: leave Jim alone in the pharmacy.

  There was no way to contact him. No way to get in touch. No text messages or voice mails.

  If Jim survived, they’d have to find him. And something like that could easily go wrong.

  “What’s that?” came Rob’s voice, breaking up her thoughts.

  Jessica turned to look.

  “What?” she said. “I don’t see anything.”

  “See all that smoke? Hang on. Wait until we’re past that building. It’s blocking your view.”

  Jessica’s eyes flitted back to the road for half a minute.

  “OK,” said Rob. “Look now. To your right.”

  Aly made a strange noise. Kind of guttural. Maybe some kind of primal fear response.

  Jessica felt it too. She was already on edge. Already nervous. Already full of fear.

  But now she felt her guts twisting up inside her. She didn’t know why. It was just an instinctual response.

  “It’s just smoke,” she tried to tell herself, saying the words out loud as if they made sense as part of a conversation.

  And it was just smoke.

  But it was a huge pillar of gray smoke rising up to the cloudy gray sky.

  “It’s got to be a long ways off.”

  “How far?”

  “No idea.”

  “I wonder what it is.”

  “It’s cities burning,” said Rob. “Isn’t that an expression from somewhere?”

  “From a song, maybe.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Not that the songs exist anymore.”

  The huge pillar of smoke was hard to ignore. Impossible to ignore. Jessica felt like her eyes were transfixed on it. It seemed like a symbol of what the world had turned into. And of what was to come.

  But she made sure to tear her eyes away from it. She couldn’t afford to keep them off the road for long.

  There was no one else on the road. Just some vehicles stopped here and there. Some of them with their doors open. Some with the hoods popped, as if someone had tried to diagnose an engine problem after the EMP.

  They were passing a cross street, and Jessica was trying to come up with a plan for when they should turn back aroun
d to try to find Jim. It seemed like a futile plan, and she felt her guts tightening up even more in fear and desperation.

  Suddenly, something slammed into the side of the RV.

  It was a tremendous impact.

  Metal on metal. A horrifically loud screeching sound.

  The RV was thrown to the side.

  Jessica, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, was thrown forcibly against Rob in the passenger’s seat.

  Her head collided with his skull. She seemed to hear the skull-clinking sound inside her head. Tremendously loud.

  Her legs were tangled up in something. Maybe the seat. Or the gear shift. She couldn’t tell.

  There was pain in her back and her shoulder. And her head.

  It was all too confusing. It had happened too fast. Her senses were mixed up. A blending of chaos and nonsense.

  Was she dying?

  Maybe.

  Time seemed to have slowed down.

  A scene from her childhood came up out of nowhere, seeming to overtake reality. She’d heard of this. Her life was flashing before her eyes. One memory at a time. It was happening.

  It was a scene from when she was just a tiny little kid. She didn’t know how old. Maybe three or four. Right when her memories were beginning. She hadn’t thought of this in years. Maybe a decade or more. Her mom had taken her to the park, where there was a calm little lake, nice and blue, with a couple big swans that somehow terrified her.

  “Jessica!”

  Someone was shaking her. It took her out of the memory.

  She wasn’t going to die after all. At least not just yet.

  “Come on, Jessica. You still with us?”

  Only seconds had passed. But it had felt like much, much longer.

  Jessica vaguely nodded her head. Her neck was stiff and full of pain.

  She began to take stock of her surroundings again. It was that survival instinct kicking back in. Everyone had the instinct. But some had it stronger than others. Jessica knew she had a lot of it since she could never really seem to shake it. It was always there, always pushing her to do the most that she could, to take in the most information that she could.