State of Panic: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Jack Hunt

  Instead, they had taken me over to a different town and had me beat a kid within an inch of his life. I didn’t even know who he was. His face still haunted me. Had he survived the beating? For months after, I had expected the police to show up at the door and arrest me. I had even considered handing myself in and admitting to it. The irony was, the kid wasn’t black, he wasn’t Jewish, he wasn’t anything that might have been taken as racial. He’d pissed off some guy in our group by posting a video online of a crime. It seems the skinhead in the video had taken a firework and attached it to a cat’s tail and lit it. I wasn’t there for the actual thing but I saw the video. It was horrible. That was the beginning of when I knew I had fallen in with the wrong crowd but by then I was entrenched. At first I tried to justify it in my mind as a few bad apples in the group. I never imagined it would escalate to what I was seeing now.

  I looked in the direction of where the others were pointing their flashlights. Occasionally the sound of screams filled the air. A few of them laughed. They fucking laughed at someone else’s demise. I regretted ever meeting Tommy.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the rally. It’s being held down on Main Street.”

  As we walked along the residential streets others joined us. There had to have been at least thirty other skinheads. All of them armed, some covered in blood. I saw a couple of handguns stashed inside the front of waistbands. As we rounded a corner, a short distance away police officers were handcuffing two skinheads. The moment the others saw it they broke into a run like a bunch of soccer hooligans. The look on the faces of the officers was pure fear. They knew what was coming. I knew it was now or never. I broke away from the group into an overgrown trail that ran down the side of a block of houses. That was the thing about Mount Pleasant. The entire town had been built inside a large forest. On either side of the valley were mountains that overshadowed us. Steep slopes were covered in a vast ocean of green. Pine trees for as far as the eye could see. There were only two ways in and out of the town; one on the east and another on the west side. With the town bordering I-90 it would have been very easy for them to block off the major roads so no one could escape by vehicle.

  Right now all I could think about was getting away. I heard my name called but I didn’t respond or look back. I had to hope that the police had caused a big enough distraction that no one would follow. In the darkness I tripped and landed hard against the ground. A shot of pain went through my knee as I pushed myself back up on my feet and kept running. I climbed over four fences and saw several dead bodies on my way to City Hall. City Hall was located on the far east side of the town right beside the local police and fire department. A large red brick and mortar building, with multiple offices inside, it was a hub of activity by day.

  I had made it around one of the corners when I crashed into someone on a bicycle. I didn’t see who they were until I was on the ground groaning in agony. The wheel had hit me right between the nuts.

  “Look where you’re going.”

  I looked up and that’s when both of us locked eyes. It was Billy Manning. Tangled up in his bike chain, he looked as nervous as hell.

  “Billy?”

  “Sam?”

  I groaned and staggered to my feet, trying to help him up. It took a minute or two to get his pant leg untangled from the chain. It was covered in oil. Once we brushed ourselves off, I pulled the bike into a thicket of trees so that we’d be out of sight.

  “You know what the hell’s going on? I just saw somebody get stabbed to death two doors down from me. I was on my way down to Mick’s bar to see if my old man was there.”

  “You don’t want to go that way. I’m heading to City Hall.”

  “To meet Murphy? Are you out of your mind, we just spent a month with that fool. I’m not —”

  I grabbed a hold of him. “Do you want to end up dead?”

  He chuckled prying my grip from his shirt. “What? You and whose army?”

  I gestured with my head down the street to a pack of skinheads who were making their way up.

  “Okay, what did you have in mind?” And just like that he changed his tune. We dashed into the forest. We were at least ten blocks from City Hall and there was no way in hell we were going to be able to make it there by sticking to the roads. The skinheads were all over the place.

  “You want to tell me what is going on?” Billy demanded to know.

  “Just shut the hell up and keep moving.”

  “I swear I knew it would come to this. Every one is fucking mad in this town. Oh shit, do you think this is some kind of disease that makes everyone shave their heads?”

  I rolled my eyes at his stupidity as he continued droning on.

  “I tell you it’s just typical. We get sent away to that shithole for a month and all hell breaks loose back in our town. And yet I bet they still think we are the ones with issues.”

  As I did my best to ignore his verbal diarrhea, we pushed on through the thick undergrowth towards a light in the distance.

  Billy grabbed my jacket and thumbed into the forest.

  “Why don’t we just get out of here?”

  “And go where? Go if you want to, I’m heading to City Hall. Brett and Jodi are there. Besides, Murphy might know what to do.”

  We stayed close to the town, just inside the tree line. It took us the better part of twenty minutes to make it to the rear of City Hall. When it was in sight, we crouched at the edge of the forest casting our eyes up and down the street to make sure that it was clear before we made a move. When we burst out of the bushes, we didn’t stop running until we reached the back door. It was locked of course, so we began banging. I glanced around thinking that at any minute now the noise was going to attract them. Fear ran through me at the thought of a cluster of skinheads showing up.

  “Let’s try around front,” Billy said hopping down off the five steps that led up to the back door. Just as he made it a few feet away, the door cracked open. It was Murphy. I’d never felt so relieved to see him as I did in that moment.

  “Guys.”

  We bolted inside and he slammed the door behind us.

  “You guys okay?” He pointed to my head and I just waved him off. Murphy led us into a spacious office area where everyone was. Corey and Luke were already there. There were about sixteen other people filling up the corridor as well as a few rooms. Most were folks I recognized from around town. Mainly adults in their forties and fifties. Certainly not the kind of people that would have been ready to deal with this. Hell, none of us were prepared for this.

  “Where are Jodi and Brett?”

  “Were they supposed to be here?”

  My brow knit together. “I told them to go here.”

  “Perhaps they stopped somewhere. I’m surprised you are even here, Frost. I thought you would be outside with all your crazy buddies,” Luke sneered at me as he paced back and forth. He had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. I didn’t reply.

  Right then Ally Murphy came in from the corridor. Her mother Sara was close behind her, and some other guy who I figured was her new boyfriend.

  Ally glanced at me and looked up and down.

  “Is there enough diesel for the generator?” Murphy asked.

  His daughter replied. “There are a few cans down there but not a lot. Maybe a couple of days’ worth if we are lucky.” She looked at me again. Murphy caught me looking. “Ally, this is…”

  “I know. I’ve seen him around school.”

  I quickly shifted the attention away from myself.

  “What about your family, Corey?” I asked then noticing he had blood on his hands.

  “My mother and sister are out back.” He held up his bloodied knuckles. “I had to take out two guys on the way. They just started attacking us. I don’t even know why.”

  “I do.”

  Their eyes fell upon me. I quickly brought them up to speed on what had happened so far. What I had been told and what it seemed was going on around the coun
try.

  Murphy immediately went into defense mode. “I need to get to my house. Grab some weapons.”

  “Weapons? You planning on starting a war?” Sara asked.

  “Look around you, Sara. It’s already begun. This isn’t going to get any better. You heard yourself. They are already taking out the police.”

  I thought back to the two police officers. I didn’t even want to think about what had happened to them.

  “Has anyone checked the station next door for weapons?” I asked.

  Murphy replied. “Already done. It’s locked up tight because of the riot. We’d need to find one of the officers.”

  “No, no. I say we get the hell out of town now while we can,” Luke said.

  Edgar Wheeler who owned a gas station on the outskirts of town spoke up. He was chewing a piece of tobacco in the side of his mouth and spitting black gunk into a small can beside him.

  “There’s no leaving except by foot. They have already blocked off the main road on the east side. Even then, I highly doubt you are going to last long out there.” He looked at me. “If you say they are doing this in some of the other towns, we are screwed either way.”

  “So we ride it out,” an elderly lady in her mid sixties spoke up. I had seen her around town but I didn’t know her. “We can hide here.”

  “They’ll find you,” I muttered. “This is just the beginning.”

  “Where are they doing?” Corey asked.

  “There’s a rally being held down on Main Street. But I don’t think they are planning on staying there. I think they are just gathering everyone together and then the real anarchy will start.”

  “Hell, it’s already begun,” someone else muttered.

  Some older women walked into the room. The moment their eyes locked on me I could see the fear. “What’s he doing here? He’s one of them.”

  Four guys who worked for the local lumberyard must have overheard them as they came rushing into the room pointing towards the back door. “Get him out.”

  “Now just hold up,” Murphy said putting his arm between them and me.

  “What are you doing? He’ll bring ’em this way.”

  One guy tried to go for me and Murphy pushed him back. “Back off.”

  The air was thick. Everyone’s eyes were on me.

  “He’s not one of them,” Murphy said before looking at me. I had to wonder if that was truly what he believed. I didn’t reply as it didn’t matter what I said; the others wouldn’t have believed me.

  “You’re telling us he’s not one of them? Look at him.”

  The green bomber jacket and black Doc Martens weren’t exactly helping. Had I known before I left the house, I would have chosen something else. It was just force of habit.

  “Why is he even in here?”

  “Because he’s my son.”

  I turned around to see Brett. “You made it.”

  They came into the room breathing hard. Alongside him were Jodi, the Robertsons and their daughters. Directly behind them was an injured police officer. He stumbled into the room with a wound in his side. Several other men tried to support him. Sara who was a nurse immediately went to work on trying to help. One of the women disappeared and returned with some towels.

  “I thought you hadn’t made it,” I said to Brett.

  “We nearly didn’t. If it wasn’t for him,” he motioned to the officer, “we all would have been killed. Of that I’m sure.” The officer looked up from the table. Sara tore open his uniform. There were two knife wounds in the lower part of his stomach. He was bleeding out fast.

  “Go to the front desk. There should be a first-aid kit in the third drawer down,” she muttered. The officer’s gold badge on his chest had the name Ridgewood etched into it. I knew I recognized him. He was one of the main officers who had pulled me in on misdemeanor charges. He was in his late twenties. Built extremely well, he almost looked like he was stitched into his uniform.

  A few minutes passed and one of the women returned with a first-aid kit. She glanced at me again and kept her distance. Sara went to work on dressing the abdominal wound.

  “Not even the shortwave radio is working.”

  “I have Dan’s CB and two sets of two-way ham radios at my place,” Murphy said. “I need to get to it and make contact with him.”

  “And what? Is he going to bring the cavalry? For all we know he’s already dead.”

  Murphy must have found that humorous. The guy had lived his entire life in the military. This must have seemed like a walk in the park to him. When all of us were falling apart at the seams in the wilderness he looked as if he was in his element.

  “Wouldn’t that have been affected by the EMP?”

  “No, Dan was big on keeping those protected. It’s stored in a small Faraday cage.”

  Murphy was assisting Sara. I noticed the guy who came in with Sara looked at Murphy. There was some definite animosity there.

  “Should I even bother asking what that is?” Brett asked.

  Murphy didn’t reply immediately.

  “It’s a means of protection from electrostatic and electromagnetic interference.”

  “What the hell, was Dan expecting this to happen?”

  He glanced over at everyone who was watching him and for a brief second smirked. “You obviously don’t know Dan very well. The guy expects everything to happen. Now don’t stand there gawking. Barricade the doors with anything you can find.”

  “And then what?” one of the older women asked.

  “I kind of have my hands tied right now,” he said, covered in blood from helping Sara.

  “What about the windows?”

  “What about them?”

  “They are setting fire to business buildings.”

  City Hall was made of brick but it wouldn’t have stopped them throwing Molotov cocktails through the glass windows. We would die from smoke inhalation. The moment we stepped outside they would hack us to death.

  Murphy with a dead serious face just pointed to the doors. “Go and do as I’ve asked.”

  Everyone start grabbing chairs, tables, anything they could find and dragging them into the hallway. We began stacking them up in front of the main doors which were just glass and steel. It wouldn’t take them long to put two and two together and see that all that shit was there to protect those inside. City Hall was attached to the police station. One of the older women mentioned making a hole in the wall through to the station so that we could expand it and create an escape route. But that idea vanished when the officer said that there was a two-foot thick brick wall between the two buildings.

  Once the doors were barricaded, some of the oldies started looking for anything that could be used as a weapon. In City Hall there was nothing except office furniture. Some of them broke off pieces of wood from chair legs and wrapped up shards of glass in towels.

  The guys from the lumberyard paced back and forth.

  “I don’t like this. I say we move now, while they are still gathering. We could get out of town through the forest.”

  “What do you say?” They posed the question to Murphy who was still helping the wounded officer.

  “No, we need to stick together,” Brett said.

  “We will. But leaving on foot.”

  Sara spoke up. “This man is too injured. He can’t and I’m not leaving him.”

  “That’s not our problem,” one of the men spat back. “I’m not losing my life over one man.”

  Murphy spun around.

  “You want to leave. Go now. No one is stopping you. But we are staying to help.”

  A few of their wives began to cry as they told them to get moving. Fear had taken hold as the harsh reality bore down on us all. People would divide as the fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. Edgar was right, even if we could hike out, we wouldn’t survive long. We had zero food, no protection from the elements and currently no weapons. The harsh mountainous terrain would have kicked our asses long before we had managed to get to safet
y.

  In many ways leaving would have been like an extreme version of Camp Zero.

  “No, he’s right, Murphy. A few of us are going to have to venture out. It won’t be long before they make their way down here. If there are over two hundred of them, those doors are not going to hold,” Bill Robertson said, still sporting a terrible bloodied gash on his face. “I have kids to think about. C’mon, Rachel. Hey! Hold up,” he shouted to the lumber guys who were in the processing of removing what we had stacked on twenty minutes earlier.

  “Where do you live, Murphy?” Edgar asked.

  “On the west side.”

  “Shit.”

  The thought of trying to make it across town with groups of skinheads searching for survivors only added to the anxiety we felt.

  “I have a home on the edge of town.”

  “Let me guess, you are one of those prepper types with everything stored up?” Corey asked.

  “Actually no, that’s Dan. I have weapons. Beyond that I have stocked up on a few things mainly because Dan badgered me but no, I wish I did.”

  “What about the fallout? Radiation and shit like that? Shouldn’t we be down in some bunker or something?” Luke asked. “I’ve heard that if you don’t die from the blast, you can die from radiation?”

  Murphy didn’t reply. I don’t think it was because he didn’t know. I think there was little he could do. There was little any of us could do.

  “You don’t think they would set one off in this town, do you?” Billy asked.