“Help!” screamed someone, a female voice, shrill and terrified.
The sound was clearly coming from his neighbor’s apartment across the lobby. Mandy and Ted had moved in about a year ago, but Max hadn’t seen much of them. He liked to keep to himself, anyway. Ted had moved out last week, during a huge screaming battle between the two of them. It wasn’t Max’s business, so he’d just turned up the volume on his music player as he did his exercises.
Max paused, his arms full of two paper bags of the last of the kitchen goods.
She screamed again. It was one of the most haunting sounds Max had ever heard in his life.
Adrenalin started coursing through him.
His gaze was fixed on Mandy’s closed door. Who knew what kind of horrors were going on behind it.
This was it. This was the start.
Was Max going to do the practical thing and leave, ignoring her cries for help? Was he going to save himself or attempt to help a woman he barely knew? Was he going to risk his life getting involved in a situation he knew nothing about?
Max indistinctly knew there’d be more situations like this. He’d have to make this decision time and time again on his journey. Which leg was he going to start off on?
His breathing was ragged and his heart was pounding as he stared at her door, the paper bags still clutched in his arms.
4
Mandy
Mandy had been sitting on her sofa, contemplating her headache and the strange military truck that had disappeared, when two men had kicked down her back door.
They must have climbed up the fire escape.
Mandy had screamed as loud as she could.
But they rushed over to her and the big one pointed a pistol right into her mouth, jamming the cold steel muzzle of the gun into her.
“Say another word and you’re dead,” he mumbled at her. He sounded drunk or high. He was big, built like a bodybuilder.
Her thoughts were racing, but they weren’t clear. Everything seemed to be happening too fast. Her body felt cold, freezing cold with the fear of death.
The other man was overweight, with a huge belly and something like an overly exaggerated bad posture. He had a pistol in his hand too.
Neither wore masks.
Mandy couldn’t help it. She screamed once more.
“Screw you,” growled the man with the pistol, hitting her hard in the head with his other hand, formed into a fist.
The blow hurt, but didn’t knock her out. Her vision went blurry, but she managed to fix her eyes right on him. She had a strange thought circling her head—she wanted to memorize his face. Whatever he was going to do to her, she wanted to know who he was, and she wanted him to know that she knew.
She couldn’t believe the audacity of these men, coming in without masks. She’d be able to identify them to the police later for sure. Unless they killed her. Maybe that was what they planned to do. Maybe the gun wasn’t a meaningless threat. Maybe they were going to rape her and kill her.
Mandy’s heart was beating like it was about to explode out of her chest.
“Ready for some fun?” muttered the bodybuilding type guy to his friend.
The friend walked closer and leered at Mandy. His face was a blur to Mandy, but she saw that he had a fat face and a small nose. She couldn’t make out the rest of it. The man with the gun in her mouth had sharp features and a long nose, and short, military-style hair.
“You go first, man,” growled the bodybuilder. “I want to watch.”
“You’re a sick man,” said the other.
Mandy made a noise, which was hard to do with the gun in her mouth.
“Don’t worry, honey, we’ll take care of you. And don’t worry about the cops, they’re busy…”
The other chuckled. “Everything’s turned off. And who knows when it’s going to be back on. We’re going to have some fun while we can.”
The fat one started undoing his belt. To do so, he put his gun down on the coffee table.
“Trust me, you’re going to like it. We’ve been watching your stuck up ass every day when you come home from work…”
They’d been watching her? They knew where she lived? This wasn’t just a random attack?
And they were doing all this just because the power was out? None of this made any sense to Mandy. If they had been watching her, that must mean that they were local. Surely they would know that Mandy would turn them over to the cops at the first opportunity.
She tried to calm herself down. She didn’t want to be raped, but she didn’t want to die more.
Suddenly, there was a noise at the door, as if someone was kicking it.
“Shit,” said one of the men.
“Don’t worry about it. Just some noisy neighbor.”
“Don’t you make a damn sound,” said the one with the gun in her mouth. “Don’t worry, this’ll be more fun if you’re alive. But it’s not strictly necessary.”
Who were these sick monsters?
Another sound at the door. Then another.
Was someone coming to rescue her?
She didn’t know who it could possibly be. Surely it wouldn’t be Mrs. Kerns, trying to kick down her door, having placed her cane carefully against the wall in the hallway.
The door burst open. She saw the flash of a foot wearing a boot. But no one stepped through the door.
The man who had unbuckled his belt and undone his fly reached slowly for his gun on the coffee table.
5
Georgia
Georgia was a thin woman in her late forties, raising two kids on her own without a man in the house. But she wouldn’t let anyone give her that “I’m a struggling single mother” line of crap. She didn’t take shit, but she could sure dish it out when she needed to.
Her husband had left her ten years ago, and she was glad to be rid of him. She’d been the one who’d had to fix everything around the house. She’d been the one to mow the lawn and give the mechanic hell when he was ripping them off.
She didn’t fit into the suburban culture where she lived. It didn’t drive her crazy, since she could get away on hunting trips when she needed to. She was here because the school system was the best in the state. Her kids needed a good education.
She could hold her own in a drinking contest or on the shooting range. Out hunting deer, she was almost scary—the way she always worked with precision and dedication, no matter what. One moment, she’d be telling her hunting buddies the raunchiest joke imaginable, sipping from a tall boy, and the next, she’d spotted the deer, and then suddenly she was all business. The jokes would fall to the side, and she’d get the animal in her crosshairs, controlling her breath as she pulled the trigger.
Georgia knew something wasn’t right. She drove a beat up pickup around town, and the police radio scanner had gone dead. People asked her why she carted that scanner around with her, and she’d never give a straight answer. Maybe she’d been expecting something for a while. Maybe she’d had an inkling that things hadn’t been right for some time. Everything just seemed so fragile—the whole system. Maybe she herself didn’t exactly have the answer.
The important thing was that she had it, and now it was dead.
The regular radio didn’t work either.
The traffic lights weren’t working. There weren’t any cops around. She drove slowly along the four lane road, peering into the businesses she passed. There weren’t any lights on inside either.
Georgia worked a collection of odd jobs. It suited her. She’d never liked to be in one place too long. She didn’t like the feeling of being stationary. One of her jobs was delivering food to the rich folks around these parts. She would never fit into an office setting, and the delivery business suited her in other ways too. She also did some shifts as a bartender, when the mood struck her.
She had the hotbag in the backseat, and she was already five minutes late for the delivery. She was supposed to go right to the residential house and hand over the plate of pasta, or wh
atever it was, and head back to the store.
But Georgia wasn’t going to do that.
She knew how to trust her instincts.
Even though no one else she could see was acting freaked out, she knew to trust herself. She knew, for instance, before picking it up, that her cell phone wouldn’t work.
She made a quick and very illegal U-turn in the middle of the road. A couple cars honked at her.
She downshifted and jammed her foot on the accelerator. If something was going on, her first priority was protecting her kids. Right now they were in school, where surely the teachers were feeding them some bullshit line about everything being fine.
Georgia drove her pickup right up to the front of the school. Both her kids were in high school and thankfully both were in the same building, so she wouldn’t have to go to two separate schools.
The doors were unlocked. Probably the computerized mechanism that controlled them had simply gone dead. Georgia didn’t pay the security notices any mind and simply walked into the building.
“May I help you?” called out the secretary.
“No,” replied Georgia, swinging her head around to address the secretary in the briefest way possible. Her long blonde ponytail swung with her.
People often gave her admiring comments about how much energy she had. The implication was that she was too old to be doing everything that she did. She had never paid her age any mind. She simply gave it no thought. That was the way she’d dealt with a lot of her life. Her motto was that it was often easier to simply go on living than to spend too much time worrying about something you couldn’t control. She knew she couldn’t control the years creeping up on her, so she didn’t worry about it.
She walked at a brisk pace to where James had his math class. Fortunately, she knew her kids’ schedules by heart. The reason was a little unfortunate. They were known for trying to cut class as much as possible. Sometimes they didn’t even go to school, and Georgia would find them hiding in their rooms by the time class had already started. Sometimes she didn’t find them until she stopped at home on her lunch break. She’d just grab them by their collars and drag them into her truck, and then drop them off at the appropriate classroom. The principal had asked to speak to her about it, but she hadn’t paid that any mind. She wasn’t big on meetings, to say the least. She wasn’t big on rules either, and she certainly hadn’t been the most diligent student in her day. Instead of going to class, she’d be out back smoking cigarettes with the bad kids. But despite her lack of regrets, she knew that there were some footsteps of hers that her kids did not need to follow in.
“James!” she called, opening the door.
Twenty teenagers stared back at her. The room was darkened. The blinds were open, to let in some of the natural light.
“Excuse me,” said the teacher. “What are you doing here? Do you have a pass?” He was a man in his early twenties, who clearly thought he was king of the world, not to mention his classroom.
James put his head down. He looked the epitome of embarrassment.
“James, come on. There’s been an emergency.”
James got up slowly from his desk. All of the other students stared back and forth between Georgia and James.
“Do you have a pass?” said the teacher.
Georgia just ignored him.
She grabbed James’s hand.
“Mom!” whispered James, in the hallway. “What are you doing? You can’t just come barging into my classroom like that.”
“Is your sister in English right now?” For some reason, Georgia was second guessing herself on her daughter’s schedule.
“Yeah,” said James. “Mom, what the hell are you doing?”
“Just come with me. You don’t like school, right? You’re always trying to skip it. Now your mother’s taking you out of school. What do you think of that?”
James shrugged, but his mood seemed to change. “She’s down here,” said James, pointing down a dark hallway.
Georgia did the same thing in Sadie’s classroom, opening the door, ignoring the teacher, and demanding that Sadie follow her.
Under the sunny sky, they all piled into the front seat of the beat up pickup.
“Smells good,” said James, eyeing the hot bag in the small back seats.
“Would someone please tell me what in the world is going on? Why did you take us out of school, Mom?”
“Something’s happening,” said Georgia. “We’re going to…”
She paused, realizing that she didn’t know what to do next.
Around her, there were no outward signs that anything was wrong. In fact, while it had been off and on again cloudy all day, the sun was now shining brightly. The trees and grass had never looked more beautiful. No one was running around like chickens with their heads cut off. No one was rioting.
But she knew. Georgia knew.
She made a snap decision.
“We’re going on a little trip,” she said.
“What?” said Sadie.
“Yeah,” said James. “What the hell, Mom?”
“Watch your language, James,” said Georgia. “Something’s not right… We’re going to take a little trip up to your grandfather’s old hunting cabin.”
“What?” said Sadie, her voice rising in extreme disbelief.
“Something’s happening,” said Georgia. “Didn’t you notice that nothing’s working? None of the machines.”
“We get it,” said James. “You don’t like machines, Mom. You never have. That doesn’t mean the world’s ending…” He instinctively pulled out his smartphone. Like so many teenagers, he seemed to live on it.
His sister Sadie did the same thing.
Of course, both phones were completely dead.
“I don’t get it,” whined Sadie. “It had a full charge.”
Georgia wasn’t going to waste time convincing them one way or the other. In fact, she wasn’t sure of much these days.
She only knew to trust her instincts, and that was what she was going to do now.
“You two should be happy,” said Georgia. “You won’t have to go to school. We can lay low up there for a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” said Sadie. “I can’t miss two weeks of school…”
“You almost never go,” said James, interrupting her.
“Yeah,” said Georgia. “I thought you’d love a chance to miss school.”
“It’s John,” said James, teasing his sister. “She’s got a new boyfriend.”
“I do not,” said Sadie.
Georgia let them argue amongst themselves. Her mind, at the moment, was on other things altogether. Her plan was to get home and grab the camping gear and her rifles, as well as some food. Then they’d hit the roads as soon as they could. She had a very bad feeling. It was like a tightness in her chest. And she wasn’t the type to get anxious.
Georgia kept her thoughts to herself, as she didn’t want to worry her kids too much… not yet, anyway. If something bad had really happened, would Georgia really be able to keep her family alive? She could hunt. She could fish. She knew some edible plants. But would that be enough? Georgia had spent enough time in the woods to know that there was more to surviving than just eating.
6
Max
Max had made possibly the worst decision of his life.
He’d told himself he wouldn’t get involved. He’d known right from the beginning that there would be situations like this, but he’d promised himself that he needed to look out for himself.
He didn’t even know Mandy and he didn’t even know if it was her in the apartment.
The door had broken off its hinges completely. It was a cheap one, with a cheap frame, and even worse were the screws, which must have been so short they barely went into the wood.
Max waited, standing just out of sight in the lobby.
He took a deep breath, like he’d practiced at the range. He felt surprisingly calm. His hands weren’t shaking, and his mind was clear and practic
al. He knew there was a host of unknowns waiting for him in that apartment. And he knew that his time to get out of town was severely limited, and this was only taking up more of it.
The adrenaline was coursing through him, making him feel energized and cold. He felt like he could take everyone on at once in that moment. But he had enough sense to know that that wasn’t true. If he simply ran into the room, he might be shot down.
But he had to enter at some point.
He stuck his Glock around the corner. His finger was inside the trigger guard. What a weird feeling, to be away from the gun range with his finger in the trigger guard. Normally, he followed strict gun safety.
He poked his head around slowly.
He took in the scene instantly. Mandy was on the couch, a gun in her mouth. Two armed men were there. One athletic, one not. Not that that would even matter.
To Max’s surprise, the fat one with the gun in Mandy’s mouth chuckled as Max peered into the room, leaving as much of his body as possible hidden behind the doorframe.
The other man pointed his gun right at Max. It was a pistol, one of those cheap numbers made who knows where. It might jam at any moment, not that Max could count on that for his own safety.
Mandy’s eyes turned towards him, a pleading look in them. But there was hope too.
“You know the deal,” mumbled the fat one loudly. “Come in and we shoot her. Not that it makes much difference to us.”
“Or join us for the fun,” said the other one.
They spoke strangely, as if they were on drugs.
How disgusting. They were only a couple hours out from the EMP, and already these sickos were breaking into homes to rape vulnerable women. The majority of Max’s colleagues were probably still at work. Society was likely divided—the people who didn’t know what was going on and were simply waiting for the power to come back on, and the people who had been lurking in the shadows just waiting for an opportunity like this to cut loose and do what they’d always wanted to do, which was cause chaos and have their fun.
Getting Out: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The EMP Book 1) Page 3
