State of Panic: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Jack Hunt

  By the time evening rolled around, Luke could tell that if he didn’t do it, the others were going to turn on him. They had already begun to cuss him out and one of them had tossed a water canister at him. They told him he was selfish. As another four hours passed, Luke began looking my way. I could imagine the wheels of his mind churning over. He knew it meant swallowing his pride.

  “God, I’m hungry,” Billy said. “Come on, Luke, I swear if you don’t pick him up I am going to…”

  “Going to what?” Luke rose to his feet and loomed over Billy trying to intimidate him. “If I do it, I do it for myself. Not because you, Dan or any one of these assholes tell me. I do it because I want new supplies. You hear me?”

  Dan smiled and nodded his head. With that Luke came over and bent at the hip.

  “Well come on, Frost, get on. I don’t have all day.”

  I was tempted to kick him up the ass but instead I hopped on. The funny part was my ankle had started to feel better half a day before that. I didn’t tell Dan, as I wanted to see what Luke was going to say about me. I think all of us were keen to know what words he would summon.

  Everyone picked up gear and we hauled ass out of there.

  To add insult to injury I decided to hum the tune “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” in his ear for the first five minutes. Billy overheard and started singing the lyrics which only pissed off Luke that much more.

  “Come on now. You can put him down as soon as you can come up with three positive things to say about him.”

  “This is fucking stupid,” Luke replied.

  “Hold up a second,” Dan said walking over and picking up a rock and placing it in Luke’s pocket. Any time he cussed he had to carry another one. He carried me for ten minutes before he started huffing and puffing.

  “Okay. Sam, you…”

  He searched for the words. But the guy couldn’t find anything good to say about me. It was hilarious. The others didn’t mind because at least we were moving. Maybe not at the speed they wanted but it was better than the way we had spent the past day and a half.

  “What was that?” Dan cupped a hand to his ear.

  “Look, I can’t think of any,” he dumped me on the ground, “and I’m not carrying him anymore. You can do whatever you like but I’m done.” He slumped down in a heap. “I will carry his backpack but not him.”

  Dan crouched down beside him. “Pick him up.”

  “No. You can’t make me.”

  “Pick him up.”

  I stepped in and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Dan, it’s okay, just leave it.”

  “No. Pick him up,” he said to Luke in a louder tone. I glanced over to Murphy who was chewing on a piece of beef jerky. He didn’t seem at all bothered by this. Was this some kind of mind game they were playing? We could never tell what they were up to. Since we had arrived at the camp, they had constantly been placing us in situations that made us question their mental state.

  “Fuck you, Dan,” Luke replied.

  “Okay, fair enough, have it your own way. Everyone else here will take turns carrying Sam.”

  “What?”

  Protests were blurted out among the others. Everyone gave Luke the look of death.

  “Come on, Luke, you do it.”

  Luke didn’t say anything; he picked up his bag and strolled on. One by one the others took turns even though I had told Dan I was ready to walk. He wouldn’t let me walk. Ten minutes passed, then an hour and Luke dumped his bag down.

  “Okay. Okay. I will carry him.”

  This time when he picked me up, within a matter of minutes he said three things about me that he admired. He admired the fact that I hadn’t run away even though I had been bounced from foster home to foster home. According to him, it meant I was resilient. He admired the fact that I had tried to help him when Dan was going off on him even though he had been a jerk to me. He said it meant I had empathy. Finally he said he admired the fact that I hadn’t said one bad thing about him being an emo. Did he mean any of it? Fuck no. Did the experience change him? No. But it got him thinking about the group, about his actions and in some ways I think that was all Dan was trying to do. Make him think about his actions and anyone else but himself.

  “Earth to Frost. Come in, Frost. Why do you keep spacing out?”

  Luke glared at me. He clicked his fingers in front of my face.

  I peered out. I could still see at least four more skinheads in the trees with AK45s. One of them tried to light a Molotov cocktail and toss it but someone on the ground floor shot him and the thing dropped and set the guy on fire. He was rolling around on the floor while his buddies tried to put him out.

  Corey shuffled down the corridor and joined us in the room.

  “Dude, what are you doing? Go back to your position.”

  “You got a cigarette?”

  “You don’t even smoke,” I said.

  “This is nerve-wracking. Have you?”

  Luke snorted, reached into his pocket and fished one out for him. He lit it and Corey began having a coughing fit. Both of us started laughing. The second that Luke saw me laughing he scowled again. It was as if he didn’t want me to think that he was anything more than some downer guy who covered his face in black shit, grew his hair long and hated skinheads. He certainly didn’t want to be seen laughing with one.

  “I’m going to check on Murphy,” Luke said shuffling away. He glanced back at me momentarily and then disappeared down the stairs.

  “What’s his deal?” I asked Corey.

  “His old man got the shit beaten out of him down at the local bar by a bunch of skinheads.”

  “But I thought he didn’t like his old man?”

  “He doesn’t but you know how things are. A person says one thing, they think another. That’s why he doesn’t like you.”

  “That’s quite a broad brushstroke.”

  “We all do it. Look how many people hate on folks like me.”

  “So you have a little more weight on you. That’s nothing compared to being seen as a white supremacist.”

  “I guess so.” Corey looked out the window and fired a couple of rounds at the tree line.

  I hurried over and looked out. “Did you see any?”

  “No, but it just lets those fuckers know who’s boss.”

  I laughed.

  “Anyway. So are you one?”

  “One what?”

  “A white supremacist?”

  “No. That’s like saying every Muslim is a terrorist.”

  “That’s a bit extreme,” Corey replied taking another look outside.

  “I’m just saying that just because I ran with them it doesn’t mean I believed every word that came out of their mouth. Like that guy, back at the old people’s residence, the one that you caught with Kiera.”

  “Oh yeah, that fucker.”

  I stared at him.

  “Why did you hesitate back there?” Corey asked.

  “He was a friend of mine.”

  “Nice friend to have. Do you usually hang out with rapists?”

  “No. I didn’t think he would do that.”

  Corey took another puff of his cigarette and coughed again.

  “You should probably give up before you get started.”

  “I agree.” He tossed it out the window and then coughed again. He looked at me. “So what was he like?”

  “Maybe he was just recruiting me but I never got that vibe with him. He always said that he didn’t agree with everything they taught. Hell, he was the one that told me it was all hot air. The days of skinheads were long over, according to him.”

  “He believed that?”

  “Who knows? Like I said, he wasn’t like the others. I don’t know what got into him. Maybe he was told to go do it.”

  Corey screwed up his face. “Who the hell would tell another person to go rape someone? And who would even do it? Bullshit. He did it because she was tied up and there was no one around to stop him. Filthy bastard, if you hadn�
��t been there I would have killed him.”

  “Hey. I don’t condone. You asked why I hesitated.”

  We returned to looking out the window. Luke came back up the stairs. “Sam. Murphy wants to talk to you.”

  I nodded, staying low to the ground as I shuffled towards the door. When I made it downstairs, Shaw was near the front door keeping an eye out while Murphy was near the back with Ally and Sara. Kiera was with Billy and Brett. Every few seconds there would be another series of shots and we would find ourselves prone on the ground or seeking cover behind anything that wasn’t paper-thin.

  “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Yeah, look, we are going try and get back to City Hall. My truck is there. I’ve radioed to Dan to update him on our situation. We have got to get out of here. If we can’t get out, Dan will come in with the others.”

  “The others?”

  “He returned the other guys from camp to their hometown but most of the families were already gone. He dropped off some, but the other five are with him. They have weapons that he had in his truck. If needed they can be here within the hour.”

  “I think we are going to need it as it looks like they called for backup.”

  I motioned with my head towards the door. At the foot of the gate was a large group of skinheads. Three times the size of the one that was originally there.

  SKINHEAD

  “Holy shit,” Billy said. “Murphy. Murphy.” He turned around and Billy had ducked down behind the window near the front of the house. He was motioning with his thumb. Staying low to the ground both of us moved over there. Brett took up position where Murphy was alongside Shaw. Out front, in the street, standing on top of cars and filling any space available were skinheads. Even more were around back. Some of them were carrying guns. Others, Molotov cocktails, baseball bats and chains.

  “How much ammo you got?” Murphy said to Billy, not taking his eyes off the crowd that was slowly building in number.

  “Five magazines.”

  “They are going to set this place on fire, aren’t they?” Billy said.

  “You think?” I replied. I didn’t know for sure but that’s what I might have done. Smoke us out. Even if we didn’t come out we would die from smoke inhalation.

  “Fuck!” Murphy slammed his fist into the drywall. “Barricade the doors with the furniture.

  I shouted up to Luke and Corey to come and help us. They rushed down and we moved what furniture we could to the front and back doors. The back doors were harder to get at as the bodies of Wayne and the two women were blocking up the entryway. We dragged them back and closed the door. I knew it wasn’t going to hold. Meanwhile Murphy was on the radio calling for Dan.

  “Dan, that help. We are going to need it.”

  I could hear him filling Dan in on the situation. Kiera took the gun from Wayne’s hand. No one said a word. Everyone was going to help if we were to live through this. Brett and Luke shoved a cabinet in front of the main window. It probably wouldn’t hold them off if they rushed the house but it would prevent Molotov cocktails from getting in. Well, that was the hope. My bets were on us dying a horrible death. I rushed upstairs and got in position at a window. Murphy thought our best bet was to take the vantage point above them.

  “Maybe we can use these?” Corey had found a box of Snapple bottles under the stairs. Some of the bottles had already been drunk. He then returned from the alcohol cabinet with various bottles of alcohol.

  “It will do. Billy, give him a hand.”

  From outside we heard someone’s voice over a speaker. I popped open the window to hear what they were saying.

  “We’ll make this real easy for you.”

  They wanted to avoid further bloodshed. They wanted Jodi and Brett, along with Luke. Of course they used racial slurs to get their point across.

  “Do that, and we’ll give you free passage out of here.”

  Billy cracked up laughing. “This guy must think we are idiots but, I’m all for giving up Luke.”

  “Fuck off,” Luke said.

  “They are just toying with us.”

  Murphy shouted out. “No deal.”

  “Come on now. I am not going to extend this offer for long. You decide. We kill three of you or we kill all of you.”

  “I don’t get it. I thought white supremacists wouldn’t attack white people?”

  “The Jews were white, numb nuts,” Luke replied.

  “Race is the furthest thing from their minds. We’ve killed too many of them.”

  Murphy never replied. From the window I could see Bryan Catz talking to the man they called Eli. He muttered something into his ear and the guy nodded. He brought the megaphone back up to his mouth.

  “It’s come to my attention, you have a skinhead in the house. Sam Frost, do you hear me?”

  None of us said anything.

  “Come on now. We know you are in there.”

  “What do you want?” I yelled out the window. He grinned and looked up towards the front of the house.

  “Are you really going to spit in the face of those who helped you?”

  “Helped? You guys tried to kill us.”

  “A little death here, a little death there. I’m surprised you are in there and not out here. Now, I know you have had some issues. I know you didn’t choose to be placed with your foster parents.” He made some racial remark. “So I am going to offer you a deal. I will pardon what you have done under the umbrella of a misunderstanding. You send on out those I’ve asked for and no harm will come to you.”

  By this point Brett was in the same room as me. I stared at him and he dropped his chin.

  “And if I do that? You will let the others go?”

  Brett frowned. “Sam.”

  I didn’t look at him.

  “You have my word,” Eli shouted back. I looked back at Brett.

  “I need time to think about it,” I yelled.

  “Time isn’t something you have a lot of,” he replied.

  “What about if I just come out? Will you let all the others go?”

  I heard him laugh. “Oh now you can’t be serious. Now you are pushing your luck. No deal. So what is your answer?”

  “Pretty simple really,” I looked at Brett and brought up my AR-15 just below the window. “Fuck you.”

  With that I opened fire sending the whole group rushing for cover and returning fire. At the same time, from the other room Billy, Murphy and the others began opening fire. Glass shattered around us as they unleashed a torrent of gunfire. Corey and Luke rushed downstairs when they heard someone trying to break in through one of the windows. I dashed down behind them in time to see them standing over the body of a skinhead.

  “Here, help me carry these up.” Corey gave me three of six bottles that he had turned into homemade Molotov cocktails. I raced upstairs and dispersed them out to the group. Within a minute they were lit and tossed out of the windows, creating a wall of fire. It wouldn’t hold them off but it might make it harder to get close. Not every window downstairs could be covered by furniture. The front and back doors were closed, and the front window was blocked but the rear kitchen and living room windows had no glass in the frames.

  When I rushed down to get more Molotov cocktails, Billy was holding two and tossing them out the window. As he went to throw a third, a bullet hit him in the shoulder and he collapsed to the floor writhing in agony. I wrapped an arm around him and literally dragged him out of the living room and upstairs. Murphy went down to help Corey and Luke while Sara, the two girls, Shaw and Brett went back and forth exchanging fire with anyone who got close to the house.

  “Use your rounds sparingly.”

  When I brought up Billy he was yelling in agony. I remembered Murphy when he was hit and this didn’t even come close. Sara immediately began working on him in the bathroom while I took her place by the window. It was working to some degree. By firing at them they couldn’t get close enough to get the Molotov cocktails to hit the house. The closest t
hey could get was about five feet from the perimeter and that was only helping us as it just created a circle of fire that others couldn’t cross

  The whole thing felt like something out of Black Hawk Down. We were stuck with no way out and our ammo was going down by the second. There had to have been at least a hundred and twenty. They knew we would eventually run out of ammo so they would rush around in the trees trying to get us to fire at them and waste ammo.

  “This can all be over, Sam. Last chance,” Eli hollered over the megaphone.

  I stared at him. Eli looked exactly like the others but a lot older. He had to have been in his early fifties. He had a tattoo of a dragon that went from his head to his neck and down beneath his green bomber jacket. A bull’s-eye covered one of his eyes and a swastika was on his chest.

  “How long do you think it will take until Dan and the others get here?” Luke asked Murphy.

  “Less than an hour.”

  “I hope they get here soon.”

  TIMBER

  I’m not sure at what point I stopped counting the dead. Bodies lay sprawled out on the ground, their faces captured the last thought that passed through their mind. Was it worth it? This was a war that no one was winning. The walls, homes and streets were painted with the blood of people of all ages. For what?

  They would have said that our government was to blame. And they would have been right, to some degree. If fear wasn’t so prevalent in our world, anti-missile systems wouldn’t have been required.

  The fact was this was a snowball effect of hatred, racism and division among humanity itself. America was no better than Germany or any country in the world but its constant need to place itself above the shoulders of others had caused all manner of people to react. But it wasn’t even America, as it was humanity itself killing humanity.

  As bullets penetrated the walls and faces of agony twisted before me, I wanted to push the noise out. I wanted it to end.

  Like any war, there were moments of intense shooting, rushing around and yelling as each side tried to take ground, and kill another. If it hadn’t been for the brick walls of the house, we would have surely all been dead hours ago.