“We found a lot of stuff that others must have missed,” said Jessica.
“Good work,” said Rob.
“And what were you doing?” said Jessica, that sarcastic bite readily apparent in her tone. “Just relaxing?”
Rob ignored her question. He knew that for this brief sojourn in a position of authority, all he had to do to have his leadership accepted was to act the part. He didn’t need to explain anything or to justify himself or his actions. He just needed to be respectable, and the others would catch on soon enough.
“The three of you eat up,” said Rob. “And make sure to drink enough fluids. We’re all severely dehydrated, to the point where we don’t even know how much we need to drink.”
“We couldn’t find any water,” said Jessica, holding up one of the sports drinks.
Rob didn’t recognize the brand name, but he peered at the label, and saw that it was full of sugar, or corn syrup, with plenty of added vitamins.
Maybe not the healthiest thing to be drinking in the long run, or before the EMP. But now? Now it was perfect. Their bodies must have been completely depleted of stored sugar, or glycogen, and sugar was the perfect fuel for replenishment depleted glycogen stores. Just like after running a marathon, a person needed to load up on things like pasta, and even cakes and candy.
“You need the sugar anyway,” said Rob. “And it’s not like there isn’t water in here. It’s over 99 percent water, with some sugar and vitamins added. It’ll rehydrate you just fine.”
Rob watched as Aly and Jessica started to slowly feed Jim. They sat down next to him, cross-legged, on either side of him. They gave him sips of the beverages and broke off small bits of the food to feed him. Thankfully, they were so ravenous that they were eating and drinking themselves all the while.
The food they’d gotten seemed to be mostly snack foods. Candy and chips and a couple chocolate bars. That sort of thing. But there were a couple cans of sardines and tuna thrown in there. Maybe a packet of beef jerky too. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something.
Rob knew that their first priority was simply calories. After they had enough calories, they could afford to be a little pickier. And in that case, they’d want to prioritize protein over everything else. Protein was what would help their bodies rebuild themselves. Help them recover. Help them rest.
Rob was glad to see that the three were eating and drinking. He’d start his watch soon. He’d stay on the outside of the pharmacy, circling it, for as long as it took for his friends to rest up.
Rob was glad to do it. Glad to put himself in danger. Glad to exhaust himself. All for the sake of his friends. After all, without them, what would he be? He’d certainly be dead.
And it wasn’t even just that.
It wasn’t like he was that scared of dying.
But what he was scared of now, at least, was becoming once again the type of person that he’d been before the EMP. Before he’d had a change of character. Maybe you could even call it a change of heart.
Back then, he’d been weak-willed. A pushover. He’d been the guy who thought he was getting away with something, but in the end was only hurting himself.
Now he was someone else. He was strong-willed. He was the guy that people could rely on.
As he thought, Rob’s eyes were scanning the pharmacy. There was a door off on one wall that caught his eye. There was blood on it.
Rob walked over to the door, pushed it open.
He walked through the doorway, and found himself in the concrete stairwell that led up to the observation area.
It was dark in there. Not pitch-black, but close. His eyes would take at least a few moments to adjust.
There was the smell of death. Death and blood. It was unmistakable. Once his eyes adjusted, he knew what he could expect to see.
He stood there in the darkness, his fingers and toes starting to become cold as adrenaline started to pump through him. There wasn’t any real danger, but his body thought there was. It was just the idea of death, of a fight, that it was reacting to.
Soon enough, his eyes were adjusted enough that he could make out what was around him.
It was the area Jim had fought in. It had to be. Rob suddenly realized that he hadn’t yet wondered about the lack of bodies in the pharmacy.
Well, now he saw them.
They were everywhere. Corpses of the bikers. They were laid out on the landing, and along the steps.
It looked like someone had dragged a couple more bodies and pushed them in a cavernous area underneath the stairs.
Rob took a sharp intake of breath.
The sight of the bodies was striking. They’d all met their death in various ways. Blunt trauma, cuts, and bullet wounds. Sometimes, it was hard to tell what had killed them.
As his eyes continued to adjust, Rob put his hand on the cold metal and started to climb the stairs. Sometimes he could get his feet on the bare concrete and sometimes he had to actually step on the bodies.
He could see now that the concrete was covered in blood. A lot of blood.
Rob made it to the first landing and stood there, his jaw dropping at the sight of the carnage.
Jim had really put up some fight. Rob couldn’t believe that his buddy was still alive, and that he hadn’t sustained some injury that would eventually kill him. As far as Rob could tell, Jim was more or less in fine shape. Once he rested, he’d be good to keep going.
Rob’s gaze shifted up the second stairwell, towards an open door.
A shiver ran through Rob’s body.
This seemed like an evil place. That was his gut feeling, anyway. It didn’t seem like the site of some gallant victory, some great battle won. That’s how things seemed in the history books. But to those who’d been there? No. It seemed different. To those present for the carnage, to the atrocities. There was nothing spectacular about it. Killing was what it was. Death. Ceasing to exist.
Death and killing weren’t necessarily evil. Or good. Death was simply the ruler of the land. It was the application of power, and power now ruled.
Rob’s mind understood that death and killing were necessary. But his gut didn’t. His body kept shivering. And he decided then and there that he shouldn’t continue up the steps. He didn’t need to totally understand what Jim had gone through. He’d seen enough.
Rob turned around and walked back down the stairs and out the door, into the brighter main area of the pharmacy.
If Rob lived long enough, he was sure that he’d one day find himself in a situation like Jim had. He hoped that it didn’t happen to him, but he was at least smart enough to know that hoping meant nothing, and it was simply a matter of probabilities and likelihoods.
22
Jim
Jim was just waking up.
He was finally feeling rested. And more or less full. Or at least not hungry.
Knowing that Rob was on watch had allowed him to sleep. That, and finally losing that edginess from hunger. And what helped most of all was having his wife once again by his side.
He’d had strange dreams. It was almost as if his mind hadn’t had deep sleep in so long that, finally presented with the opportunity to dream, it had gone completely wild. The images still hung in his mind’s eye. Images of the strangest things, giant spiders with long, incredibly thin legs and mouths full of fangs. And there’d been more realistic images, flashes of the men he’d killed yesterday. Those bikers, and the expressions on their faces as he’d killed them.
Jim shook his head like a wet dog, shaking away the images and waking himself up a little.
Jim looked around.
There wasn’t much light. It was once again very dark inside the pharmacy.
Aly was curled up against him, sleeping.
Jessica was walking towards him. Maybe he’d heard her and it had woken him up.
“How long was I asleep?” said Jim.
“About eighteen hours.”
“Eighteen hours?” Jim could hardly believe it.
&nbs
p; She nodded. “I just got up myself a couple hours ago.”
“And Rob?”
“He’s outside. He’s kept watch the whole time we were asleep. He hasn’t slept at all. It was part of his plan.”
“His plan?”
“He didn’t think we were in good enough shape to move on out of here, and I think he’s right.”
Jim nodded. It sounded like a good plan. “Is he in good enough shape to move on out of here, though?”
“He says he is.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think he can make it. A night of walking.”
“Walking at night? Is that what you two talked about?”
“Yeah. Just now. Lowers the risk of detection. If we head down south on the roads, we’re likely to run into someone. If we just move at night, well...”
She didn’t need to finish her sentence. It was all self-evident. Obvious.
“It’ll take longer,” said Jim. “But given what we’ve encountered so far, I don’t think we’re going to make it through much more fighting. We need go for the stealth route as much as possible.”
“That’s what we were thinking.”
Jim looked at his watch. The globs of luminescent material were glowing ever so slightly. He wouldn’t have been able to read the time without them.
It was eight o’clock. Evening, judging by the low light.
“Looks like I woke up just in time. We’ll just have to gather up supplies. Everything we can get.”
“Already did it,” said Jessica. “Rob did a lot of the work. He’d come in here for little stretches of time to work on it, before heading back outside. And I helped a little.”
“Sounds like Rob’s been working himself to the bone.”
Jessica chuckled slightly. It was then that Jim noticed her eye. It was swollen, a little bloody. Didn’t seem to want to open up all the way, as if she was squinting.
“What happened to your eye?”
“Long story. How’d you manage to survive here, with all those bikers?”
“Long story.”
Jim had a feeling they’d leave it just at that. There wasn’t much point in talking about it all, unless they could share tips that might help them survive similar encounters in the future.
“I’ll wake up, Aly,” said Jim. “Tell Rob we’ll be ready to leave in twenty minutes.”
She gave him a stiff nod and turned on her heel, heading back outside.
Jim hoped that Rob could make it tonight on the hike. But he wasn’t too worried. He’d known Rob long enough to know that, despite whatever problems he’d had, he was tough deep down. As tough as any of them, and apparently only getting tougher.
Jim sat there in the semidarkness that was only getting darker, enjoying the sensation of his wife leaning up against him. She was snoring ever so slightly, as she always had.
Jim chuckled to himself as he thought of how Aly didn’t even know she snored. He’d never told her, and on the rare occasions when she’d spent the night at a girlfriend’s house, she’d vigorously deny any suggestion that she might have snored during the night. She’d often come home after times like that and angrily explain to Jim how so-and-so had said she’d snored, and Jim had somehow always managed to keep a straight face during all these mini tirades.
It was a good memory, or pastiche of memories. Times before the EMP. When his worries had seemed potent and serious, but now, in retrospect, seemed like mere child’s play. So his business hadn’t been doing that well. So what?
He’d kill to get back to those times. And so would many others.
But they wouldn’t come back.
This was it now. Whether they liked it or not.
In mere moments, Jim knew that he’d have to gently nudge Aly awake, and then they’d have to snap to it, getting to work gathering up the last-minute supplies, checking to make sure they had what they needed, not to mention discussing and planning the route that they’d take south.
He knew that there were hours and hours of hard walking ahead. They’d be loaded down with supplies. They’d be walking through the darkness. They’d have to be on high alert for anything nearby.
It’d be tough going. Not just tonight, but every night from here on out.
This was a brief moment of peace and tranquility. He wouldn’t have many of them.
After so much sleep, his mind, for the first time in a long while, felt clear. For so many days now, it had felt like he was living almost in a fog, with his thoughts and memories jumbled together. He hadn’t been thinking straight for most of the time, but he hadn’t even realized it.
With a clear head, he thought of the future. If they made it down to a peaceful area in the woods, away from everyone else, what would their lives look like?
Probably very much like their lives looked like now. Jim longed for safety and tranquility, for a regular and peaceful life. But it didn’t matter what he longed for or convinced himself of.
In this post-EMP world, there were no happy endings. Life would continue with or without Jim, and it would continue to be backbreakingly difficult, no matter what.
What mattered wasn’t so much whether they got to a place or a point where they felt a brief moment of respite from the violence. Those moments were just illusory, and Jim knew that. What mattered more was their collective and individual attitudes, and their ability to simply persevere no matter how tough it all got.
Jim was confident he had it. And that the others did too.
Maybe they’d make it after all.
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About Ryan Westfield
Ryan Westfield is an author of post-apocalyptic survival thrillers. He’s always had an interest in “being prepared,” and spends time wondering what that really means. When he’s not writing and reading, he enjoys being outdoors.
Contact Ryan at [email protected]
Also by Ryan Westfield
Getting Out (The EMP, book 1)
Staying Alive (The EMP, book 2)
Pushing On (The EMP, book 3)
Surviving Chaos (The EMP, book 4)
Fighting Rough (The EMP, book 5)
Defending Camp (The EMP, book 6)
Getting Home (The EMP, book 7)
Finding Shelter (The EMP, book 8)
Escape the Virus (Last Pandemic, book 1)
Escape the City (Last Pandemic, book 2)
Escape the Chaos (Last Pandemic, book 3)
Fight the Darkness (Constant Danger, book 1)
(Sequels Coming Soon)
Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 47
