“What do we do?” said Chad, making an effort to speak loudly enough that Max could hear him.
“Stay there,” said Max.
Chad had his rifle with him, but he wasn’t a great shot. He’d only fired a gun a few times in his life before. Despite Georgia’s patient training, he still wasn’t very good. And it wasn’t like they could waste a lot of ammunition on practice shots.
Max started to hobble his way around the house.
Suddenly, James and Sadie were at his side again, this time with rifles in hand.
“What’s going on?” said James.
“It’s coming down the driveway,” said Max.
All three of them could clearly hear the engine, clearly hear the tires on the partially-graveled driveway. But they couldn’t yet see the car. The house was blocking the view.
“My mom’s not back yet from her hunt?” said Sadie.
“I wish she was,” said Max. “She’s the best shot out of all of us.”
It was true.
“What are we going to do?” said James, his voice full of worry.
Max was worried too. He felt the adrenaline pumping through him. He felt his skin growing cold and his heart rate increasing. But he had to keep it together. And he couldn’t afford to let James and Sadie know that he was scared.
Being scared was only natural. He was only human, after all.
Max knew it was what you did with the fear that mattered. It was how you responded to it.
If he gave a hint to James or Sadie of his own fear, they’d just become more terrified. Max knew he needed them to be as effective as possible. It was likely that he wouldn’t be able to do what he needed to do on his own.
And he couldn’t rely on Chad up on the roof. If Georgia had been up there, acting essentially as a sharpshooter, he would have been a lot less worried.
They were halfway around the house. James and Sadie followed Max, who had to move somewhat slowly with his cane. Frankly, it was almost miraculous that he could walk at all, let alone go as fast as he was.
“What’s that?” said Sadie, suddenly sounding even more worried than before.
“Shh,” said James. “We have to listen.”
“No, seriously,” said Sadie. “Look over there.”
From where they were, around the side of the house, they could see three figures emerging from the woods. If you could call where the car was approaching on the driveway the front yard, then the figures were coming from the backyard.
“Shit,” muttered Max, staring at the figures.
They were far away, but he could see them clearly enough to note that they were armed. They had rifles. Possibly assault rifles.
Suddenly, Max remembered something. Someone was missing.
“Where’s Mandy?” said Max.
“Mandy?” said James.
“Yeah, you didn’t see her inside when you went to get your guns?”
“No,” said Sadie. “I thought she was outside somewhere.”
“Shit,” muttered Max.
The sound of the car on the driveway was louder. It was getting very close.
They had two sets of unknown visitors. And Mandy was missing.
3
Mandy
Maybe Mandy was taking the whole thing harder than she should. After all, this was a crazy situation they were all in. They were lucky to be alive. Maybe expecting that something would have happened between her and Max was simply unrealistic. In fact, she knew it was unrealistic. Remaining “colleagues” or whatever they were was obviously the best choice. She knew that, but she was still feeling down about it.
When Max had gone to check on the well, Mandy had left through the door on the other side of the house. All six of the group had argued often over which door was the front and which was the back. They had arrived to the farmhouse initially from the side that faced the woods. Since that was their first impression, that side of the house had become “the front” for about half of them. But others argued that the side that faced the road was the front.
Mandy didn’t really care either way.
She had her rifle with her as she walked through the long grass and the weeds. She walked alongside the driveway that led towards the road. It was a winding path.
The sun was out, shining brightly. The grass swayed in the wind. But it didn’t look beautiful to Mandy.
So much had changed. Her mind was having trouble adapting to her new situation. It was having trouble adapting to this new world.
To say that everything had changed would be an understatement.
As she walked, she thought of the people she knew. She thought of her parents, her brother, her aunts and uncles. She thought of the other waitresses at work, and even of her difficult boss. She thought of random classmates from high school and even middle school. What had happened to them all?
According to Max, almost everyone was dead or was in the process of dying.
Without any sort of communication, there was no way to know. There wasn’t internet, TV, or phones. And it wasn’t like the postal system was functioning.
Maybe some day in the future, Mandy would find her family alive, safely holed up somewhere.
But she tried not to get her hopes up. She knew better than that.
She’d learned a lot in the last two weeks. She’d learned what it was like to be hungry, to go without. She’d learned to deal with the desperation she felt like a heavy pit in her stomach.
Mandy was far from the house. She turned back to look at it. It looked peaceful there, surrounded by nature, by fields that led into the forest.
Chad lay on the roof. If it hadn’t been for his rifle, he would have perhaps looked like he was lounging, rather than defending the house’s inhabitants from apocalyptic hordes.
Suddenly, Mandy heard a noise.
She was so surprised that she froze in place.
It was unmistakably the sound of a car traveling down the road.
So there were others. People were still alive, and some of them had functioning cars and even gas to burn on drives.
Maybe they were people like Georgia and the farmhouse group. Or maybe they were the savage killers Max was always warning them all about.
With any luck, the car would pass right by the driveway. With any luck, disguising the entrance would work.
But just in case, Mandy moved quickly over to a large tree. The trunk was huge, and she hid herself behind it. If the car did come down the driveway, she’d be out of sight.
Mandy sat with her knees towards her chest, her rifle pointed towards the sky, its butt resting in the ground.
She breathed deeply as she waited for the car to pass by the driveway.
But it didn’t.
She was halfway between the road and the farmhouse. From where she was, she could hear someone getting out of the car and moving the branches aside. She heard the gate opening, squeaking on its rusty hinges.
The car started driving down the driveway. Every sound, from its engines to its tires, sent another chill down Mandy’s spine. Her hands were shaking with fear.
The solid bulk of the rifle felt somewhat reassuring in her hands, and she gripped it tighter. Her right hand moved down to a plastic knife sheath attached to her belt with some twine. It was a Mora utility knife, cheap and practical. It was decidedly unpretentious with its plastic handle and non-threatening blade shape, but the steel, Mandy had been told, was good quality carbon steel. Whatever that meant. Mandy just knew that putting her hand around the handle gave her some comfort. Whatever that was worth.
4
Georgia
The men had passed Georgia without seeing her. Georgia had waited a couple minutes, making sure there weren’t more following, and to give herself a wide enough berth.
She’d followed the three men through the forest. They were headed right towards the farmhouse, even changing their path, seemingly accidentally, to cut a more direct route.
Georgia crouched in the underbrush, not far f
rom where the forest met the field. The men stood right at the boundary, speaking loudly.
“Looks like we’re in luck,” said one of them, speaking loudly.
“You think someone’s in there?”
“Can you even see? There’s someone up there on the roof.”
“Up on the roof? Oh yeah, I see him. What’s he doing up there?”
“You’re even dumber today for some reason.”
“Lay off me, man.”
“I don’t want to have to give you another beating. Do you want that?”
“No.”
So there was contention among the “ranks” of these three men. Georgia filed that information away for later. It might be useful. And maybe sooner than she’d hoped for. Practically all she could think about was that she wished these men had never come along, never found the farmhouse.
Max had told her about his plans for rudimentary defense systems. He’d described a trench, maybe a fence. But everything was still in the planning stages, and the projects weren’t even off the ground yet. It was almost impossible to think about spending days exhausting themselves digging a trench when there was hardly enough food to eat.
But that was the way surviving worked. You had to think clearly about your energy levels, even when you were exhausted. Calories meant something different now than before the EMP. Now, you didn’t want to waste them on anything that wasn’t crucial.
“OK, so I’ll have to spell it out for you, I guess,” the man was saying. “There are people in that house, and that man on the roof is up there to defend it. Or to keep watch. Or both. And what’s worth defending is worth stealing, am I right?”
“Damn right.”
“Hell yeah,” said the other.
“All right, we’ll move out soon.”
These guys spoke in a way that made it seem as if they imagined that they were some military unit. But Georgia knew that they weren’t. They simply didn’t use the right slang or the right expressions.
Georgia weighed her options.
Now she knew for certain that these men were intent on robbing the farmhouse. And Georgia had no reason to believe that they wouldn’t use all the force at their disposal. They had assault rifles, and could easily outgun the farmhouse inhabitants.
Sure, it was three against six. But Georgia had a realistic understanding of her companions, and her children’s, abilities with a gun. Mandy, Chad, and Sadie had hardly ever handled a gun before. James was quite a bit better, but that alone wouldn’t be enough. Max knew what he was doing with his Glock, but he was injured, and Georgia didn’t know if she could count on him now if things got tough.
Georgia had one of the men’s heads trained in the sights of her rifle. She could squeeze the trigger and kill him in an instant. But she doubted she’d be able to get off two more shots, especially if the other two men charged her.
No, that wasn’t the way to go. Georgia needed to stay alive if she wanted to protect James and Sadie, not to mention the rest.
Georgia crawled forward a little more, inching across the ground on her belly like some animal. From her new vantage point, she moved her rifle so that she could see Chad on the roof of the farmhouse through her scope.
If Chad had only been a good shot, maybe between the two of them they’d be able to take out the three men before any damage was done.
But Chad was by far the worst shot of them all. Even Sadie was better, and improving rapidly each target practice.
The best thing to do, Georgia decided, was to wait for the men to approach the farmhouse. Chad was sure to notice them, ring the bell, and alert the others. Then, Georgia could take at least one of the men out. That would give everyone else more of a chance.
She just hoped the plan worked.
“Come on, man,” one of the men was saying. “Let’s just go already.”
Georgia was thinking the same thing. She was used to waiting in silence, motionless. After all, she’d hunted for years. But this was different. When she’d hunted for deer, no human lives were at stake. Especially not those of her only children. She could feel her anxiety building, a physical sensation in her body. Her chest felt tight, and her stomach was in knots.
“Yeah,” said another. “Let’s just do it already. I’m tired of waiting. What are you looking for anyway through those binoculars?”
“I’m trying to figure out how many people we’re up against.”
“What’s the difference? We did fine on the last raids.”
“We did fine on the last raids because I scouted everything out perfectly beforehand.”
Two of the men sounded almost impossibly dumb to Georgia. Dumb, cruel people could be dangerous. But the leader sounded intelligent and cruel, which in her opinion was a much more dangerous combination.
“Well,” said the leader. “I don’t see anyone else. Maybe you two are right. Let’s make a move on it.”
“Finally.”
“Get ‘er going, that’s what.”
Georgia breathed a sigh of relief. Her plan was going to be difficult and dangerous, but at least she could finally get on with it.
All she needed was for Chad to spot them, which shouldn’t be hard for him to do, considering how the men had stomped through the forest so loudly. Even if their leader was intelligent, they weren’t the subtle types.
Georgia had been watching the men, but now she checked Chad again in her scope.
To her horror, Chad had turned around. He was facing the wrong way. She kept watching him for a few impossibly long seconds, hoping he’d turn around. But he didn’t.
Shit.
If Chad didn’t see them coming, and everyone else was inside, it would be a blood bath. The men could simply enter the house, and pepper everyone with bullets before they’d even reached their guns. And rifles certainly weren’t the best weapons for a situation like that. Even worse, the men might be able to shoot through the exterior walls before entering.
Georgia didn’t know what to do. And that was an understatement.
5
John
John had been holed up in his Center City apartment for the last two weeks. Currently, he was crouched in a corner, back up against the wall, arms around his knees.
The apartment had been luxurious and inviting when the electricity was running. Now, it felt like a prison cell designed by the demented.
His thoughts were drifting. He was somewhere between being awake and being asleep.
He thought of his family. He wondered what’d happened to his brother, Max.
John and Max hadn’t been close for the last decade. They’d simply drifted apart. Their family hadn’t really been a “talking” family, so John figured that he and Max simply had trouble opening up and communicating with each other.
Max, as far as John knew, had been living out in the suburbs still. He’d been offered higher-paying jobs in the city, but he’d refused them all. At the time, John simply couldn’t fathom why Max would want to stay out in the boring suburbs with his boring job.
Now, Max’s decision made more sense.
Not that John knew Max had gotten out safely. In fact, there was absolutely no way to know. There were no phones, no internet, no means of communication whatsoever.
Max had always been talking about his plans for “when the shit hit the fan.” Well, that was about ten years ago. John, and everyone else, had always scoffed at Max’s prediction of a violent end to modern society. And as far as John had seen, Max hadn’t actually taken any steps to do anything about what he’d feared. Maybe, though, sometime in the last decade, Max had gotten more into it. Who knew. John now wished he’d talked to Max more. He wished he’d done a lot of things differently, and spent his time with different people. John had wasted so many hours of his life hobnobbing in the fancy Center City bars with the other investor types, always hoping for a hot tip or a new business contact.
The entire apartment was dark, except for thin rays of light that broke through the expensive blinds and
curtains he’d purchased last year.
He’d heard screams almost every day. He’d heard moaning and crying coming from the other apartments. He’d heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot in the hallway.
Once, someone had banged loudly on his door. He hadn’t answered it, of course, and eventually the person had gone away. But John had spent that entire half hour in complete panic, his fist gripping a large kitchen knife.
John had run out of food four days ago. Up until then, he’d been eating uncooked and partially rotten food from his freezer. A year ago, he’d purchased half of a cow through one of those organic farm share type programs. He’d never gotten around to eating anything but the finest steaks, so what had remained after the EMP were mostly organ meats that had once seemed completely unappetizing. Not that they had suddenly become delicacies, but John had sucked down a half-rotten raw kidney greedily. That was what hunger did to you.
Since the EMP, John had been drinking water out of his tub. He was now approaching the bottom of the tub, and it was difficult to gather the water into the coffee mug he used as a ladle. He didn’t know if he could drink the tap water or not.
John wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t left his apartment since the EMP. He’d known something was up, and as he’d walked home from work that day, he’d recognized the signs of an EMP.
Initially, John hadn’t considered leaving the city. After all, he’d been sure that the government would leap into action. He’d been sure that the power would be back on in a few days. But the days had ticked by, and now two weeks had passed without a single flicker of the lights. John had to admit now that he’d been wrong, and now he no longer held even a shred of hope that things would return to normal.
Staying Alive: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The EMP Book 2) Page 2
