Getting Home_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller

by Ryan Westfield

  Max reached for his Glock in its holster. He had it out in a flash. His rifle was back by the campfire.

  “Everyone into position,” shouted Georgia.

  “Anyone hit?” shouted Cynthia.

  John and Cynthia threw themselves behind nearby trees to give themselves places to shoot from, places where they’d have more shelter.

  Those around the campfire were scattering. Max’s eyes found Mandy. She was rushing off.

  Max didn’t jump for cover. Instead, he threw himself to the ground.

  His eyes were scanning, looking for where the shot had come from.

  It didn’t seem like anyone had been hit.

  23

  Georgia

  Georgia finally had the man in her scope. She pulled the trigger.

  The gun kicked.

  A clean shot right to the heart.

  Was that it?

  Or were there more coming?

  Max, Glock in hand, was dashing off into the woods, in the direction that the man had come from.

  “Max!” John called out. “What are you doing?”

  But Max didn’t say anything. He didn’t even turn around and look. He just dashed off, his gait a little lopsided from his injured leg.

  It was a good thing he’d been shown where the ditch was.

  Georgia was glad they’d gotten it finished. It now encircled the camp completely, and it was filled with sticks they’d carved into vicious points.

  But would the ditch be enough?

  Georgia didn’t think so. It was shallow. And how many would fall in there before the rest realized what was up? It depended upon how “aware” the individual mob members were.

  Georgia didn’t think it’d be that effective.

  But it’d be something.

  “Everyone stay in position,” called out Georgia.

  She glanced back at Sadie and James, who were safely behind her, having taken cover behind some trees. They’d discussed what to do in this scenario.

  Everyone was where they were supposed to be.

  Except for Max.

  Georgia hoped he knew what he was doing.

  Normally he was cautious. Normally he did the right thing, acting and thinking strategically.

  It wasn’t like him to run off like that. Unless there was a good reason. A very good reason.

  Georgia knew that the big attack was coming. But she didn’t know when.

  In her gut, it seemed like it couldn’t be now. Not yet. Another week maybe, and the mob would be more restless, hungrier, more desperate.

  Max was completely out of view.

  But apparently not out of earshot.

  Three popping sounds erupted. Sounded like Max’s Glock.

  Footsteps on the ground.

  It was Max, running back. He leaped easily over the camouflaged ditch, ran straight to Georgia, and threw himself down next to her.

  There was sweat on his face and his eyes were wide.

  Georgia looked into his eyes, expecting to get reassurance. So often he was calm when the rest of them weren’t.

  But what she saw shocked her and made her heart start thumping.

  His eyes were wild with fear. He looked frantic, like he was barely keeping it together.

  “What is it?”

  “They’re coming.”

  Georgia waited.

  They’d known that was a possibility. They’d known it would happen eventually.

  There must have been something more.

  “There’s more of them than we thought,” said Max.

  “How many?”

  “Maybe fifty.”

  “Fifty!”

  Georgia felt her heart sink. She felt her gut tensing and tightening, as if it was bound together by iron.

  Fifty! There was no way they could survive that.

  “We can’t beat fifty of them,” said Georgia. “There’s no way.” She was talking fast and anxiously. And that was rare for her. “We’ve got to get out of here. Get the hell out of here.”

  “I think it’s too late for that.”

  Georgia aimed her rifle towards the other side of the camp, using her scope to see far off into the distance.

  There were people. Various states of dress and undress. Torn and tattered clothing. Some wore no clothing at all. Just what they were used to, just what the mob looked like.

  Some of them were rail-thin. Some were more muscular. Most had long tangled hair.

  Some were covered in blisters and cuts that oozed. Some were covered in scrapes. Some were covered in bandages.

  Some carried weapons. Many of them guns.

  There were at least a dozen coming from down the road that Max and Mandy had only recently arrived on, the road that they’d left days ago on in the pickup.

  “Maybe we can fight our way out that way,” said Georgia. “Maybe we can…”

  Max shook his head. “We’ve got to stay and stand our ground,” he said. “There’s no telling how many more there are in that direction. I don’t like the situation either, but…”

  Georgia said nothing for a couple seconds.

  “I know you’re right, but I don’t want to admit it. You’ve got a weird ability of always being right about these things.”

  “Everyone!” shouted Max. “We’ve got fifty or more people coming.”

  “Fifty!” cried out Cynthia.

  “Grab as many guns as you can. Rifles, handguns. Whatever. Get your knives. As much ammunition as you can carry. Now’s the chance to get them. There isn’t going to be another one.”

  “Mom?” cried out Sadie. “What’s going to happen?”

  Everyone was shouting out from their hiding places. It was a strange way to have a conversation.

  “I don’t know, Sadie,” said Georgia. “Just do what Max says.”

  No one was moving. The news of fifty people had sent them into panic. Fear. Shock.

  Max stood up.

  “Come on, everyone,” he shouted. “Get those weapons! Now! We’re not going to have another chance.”

  Max was a flurry of action himself. He was at the van, grabbing the guns and distributing them.

  Georgia got up, went over to Sadie, took her by the hand and led her to Max and the van.

  “Two rifles, Sadie,” said Georgia. “At the very least.”

  “Mom, I’m scared.”

  ‘”There’s no time for that now, Sadie,” said Georgia.

  She was scared herself.

  And it pained her to be telling her daughter to take more than one rifle. Sure, they’d been in bad situations before. But this was different.

  This might very well be the end. She might see her daughter and son shot. She might get shot herself, or get bludgeoned to death with some blunt instrument right in front of her children.

  It was too much. It was all too much.

  But she had to press on. She had to fight.

  Because there were no other options.

  “How the hell could there possibly be fifty of them?” said Cynthia, her voice cutting through the clatter of guns and gear.

  “Maybe it’s the last of a group fleeing the cities,” said John. “Who knows.”

  He was checking his handgun, two rifles slung already over his shoulder. His pockets were weighed down with ammunition. He’d taken another knife from somewhere.

  “I just can’t believe it,” said Cynthia.

  “We’ve got to believe it,” said Max. “Because it’s the only reality that we have.”

  “Maybe this’ll be it,” said Mandy. “Maybe this will be the final fight.”

  “You mean we’re going to die?” said Cynthia. “Is that what you mean by final fight?”

  “No. I mean that maybe if we can just get through this, once things finally calm down…”

  “That’s what we’re always hoping for and it never happens.”

  “Enough chatting,” said Max, his voice cutting through, sounding harsh. But he was right. There was too much to do.

&nbs
p; “You three,” said Georgia. “We’re taking the north side.” She’d pointed to John and Cynthia. She couldn’t bear the thought of having her children at her side. If they were out of sight, she knew she could fight better without worrying about them. In a way, it was almost worse not having her eyes on them. But she couldn’t deal with the distraction.

  “We can’t hold off fifty with just us.”

  “We’ll see how it goes,” said Max. “It’s not like we have a lot of room to work with anyway. We’re going to have to play this one by ear. There’s no outsmarting a mob. No outmaneuvering them. Just fighting.”

  24

  Dan

  “You sure this is the way?” said Rob as the car trundled down an unpaved road through a thickly wooded area.

  “Nope,” said Dan. “I’m not.”

  “But this is your best guess, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  They’d driven for a day straight, somehow avoiding any trouble on the road. The old car had threatened to give up the ghost more than once, but somehow it had kept going. Rob had had to drive slower after a while, because the engine had started making loud noises at any speed above sixty. Some kind of strange whirring noise, as if a belt was about to fly completely off.

  They’d found a plastic gas can in the trunk, which they’d used to partially refill the tank.

  They drove for another half hour without seeing anything.

  “The sign said it was the hunting grounds, or whatever it’s called,” said Olivia. “This must be the place.”

  “Let’s just hope there’s someone still here,” said Rob. “And that they’re friendly. You trust this guy? What was his name, again?”

  “Max,” said Dan. “Yeah, I mean as much as you can trust someone you’ve met over the radio.”

  “I don’t see what the point would be of luring someone so far down to a camp in the middle of the woods,” said Olivia. “I mean, what would be the point?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Rob. “But we’re ready for whatever happens.” He patted his handgun’s holster. “I’d just rather that it didn’t go down like that.”

  “I mean before the EMP, sure, I’d be suspicious of going to meet some guy in the woods that you met on the radio,” said Olivia. “But now…”

  “Basically, if you were a serial killer or something now, there’d be plenty of targets all over,” said Rob. “No need to lure anyone. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I guess so. But that’s not very positive.”

  “Who said anything about being positive?”

  “Look!” said Dan, pointing out the window. He was sitting in the front seat now.

  Up ahead, there were a couple people in the middle of the dirt road. Their clothes were tattered and one of them was so thin that Dan couldn’t believe she was still standing on her own two feet.

  They staggered more than they walked, shuffling forward aimlessly.

  “Now’s the time to make a joke about zombie movies,” said Rob.

  Neither Olivia or Dan responded.

  “Really? Nothing? That’s the best I’ve got tonight. Tough crowd.”

  “Since when did you start treating this all like a standup comedy routine?”

  “It happens sometimes when I get really tired. I didn’t see either of you offering to drive.”

  “What are we going to do?” said Dan.

  “You think there’s any chance that’s your friend Max? Because if it is, I don’t think he’s going to be much help to us.”

  “No,” said Dan. “There’s no way.”

  But inside, he wasn’t sure. Max had sounded so intelligent and competent over the radio. For the first time, a new possibility hit him. The possibility that Max and his friends were alive, that Dan had found them, but that they themselves were in terrible shape, just barely hanging on, and about to starve to death.

  “Well,” said Rob. “I’ve got one idea. These people don’t look like much of a threat. But get ready for a fight, even so.”

  Dan already had his handgun in hand.

  Rob honked the horn. It was an ancient horn, but it still worked.

  The people in the road turned back vaguely to look.

  Rob kept driving. He was driving slowly at this point, mostly because of the bumps in the road.

  The strangers in the road finally parted, standing to the side, and staring blankly at the car as it drove past.

  “Let’s hope there aren’t a lot of people like that around,” said Rob. “They can be a big problem.”

  “They don’t seem like much of a threat,” said Olivia.

  “You wouldn’t think so, yeah. But I’ve seen them go nuts. It doesn’t take much. Sometimes a gunshot. Sometimes something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “A glimpse of food. A glimpse of a better life.”

  “What do you mean by they go nuts?”

  “There’s no better way to say it. They go insane. They’ve already lost everything that makes them human. Or maybe they’re just becoming more human than ever. Most animalistic. There’s no way to know. Anyway, this isn’t the time for a philosophical discussion like that…”

  They continued driving slowly down the road.

  “Do you hear that?” said Olivia.

  “Yeah, sounds like gunshots,” said Dan.

  “I don’t hear them,” said Rob. A moment later he said, “Oh, yeah.”

  They were getting more frequent. And they were getting louder the farther along the road they went.

  “What should we do?” said Olivia, sounding nervous. “Do you think we should turn around?”

  “I think it’s too late for that,” said Rob, glancing into the rearview mirror. “Take a look behind us.”

  There were dozens of people on the road behind them. Dan turned around fully to get a better look. He couldn’t see their eyes very clearly, but he could see the expressions on their faces. And they showed him nothing but rage and anger. Nothing but violence.

  “Can’t you just drive through them?” said Olivia, sounding more frantic with each word she spoke.

  “No,” said Rob, shaking his head. “We’ll never get through all of them.”

  “What are we going to do, then?” Olivia’s voice had gotten high with worry.

  Dan’s heart was pounding and his hands felt shaky as he watched the mob behind them. Slowly, they were advancing, closing the gap between themselves and the slow-moving car.

  “We’ve got to keep going forward.”

  “What if there are more of them?”

  “Let’s hope there’s someone at this camp that can help us.”

  25

  Max

  Max had a man in his sights. He didn’t hesitate. There wasn’t any time.

  He pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked.

  The man fell.

  A good clean shot. Right to the heart.

  But they were still coming. Seemingly from all sides.

  “There are too many of them,” shouted John.

  “Shut up and keep shooting,” shouted Cynthia right back at him.

  Time seemed to have slowed down. Every second seemed to stretch into an eternity.

  The landscape seemed to have changed along with the distortion in time. The colors of the trees and the ground, of the tent and the van, they all seemed more vibrant than ever.

  Max knew it was just the adrenaline. The thrill of the fight, in a sense.

  His body was doing everything it could to keep him alive.

  The sounds of the guns seemed continuous. It had dulled to a roar that seemed just like part of the background, as if it had always been there.

  John had abandoned his rifle for one of the guns he and Cynthia had brought along. Some kind of AK-47 knockoff. Even cheaper and cruder than the original, but it seemed to do the job.

  John’s face was contorted in intensity and rage. His mouth had formed into a snarl.

  John looked completely different than he had as
a kid. Or even as an adult, before the EMP. He’d been clean-cut. He’d had good clothes.

  Now, his beard was getting long and his hair was unruly. There was dirt and grime on his face. He’d grown gaunter. Leaner. And more muscular.

  He looked like a different man altogether.

  Cynthia was sorting through the guns and ammunition, handing out weapons to everyone in the group.

  The initial split of the group, with some of them going in one direction, and others in another, had lasted all of ten minutes. They’d quickly had to fall back into a small group, huddled around the van.

  Not many of the mob members seemed to have guns. But that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.

  Max’s group was mowing them down now, shooting them at a distance.

  But with each passing minute, the mob, which was coming from all sides, was getting closer. Individuals were starting to break through the invisible line that separated them from the group.

  A wild-looking man was rushing at them. He was sprinting right towards Max.

  He was ten feet away.

  Now five.

  Max could see his face and eyes clearly. He could see the rage and the contempt, and the savageness that had broken through to the surface, that had taken him over completely.

  A gunshot rang out. One that Max heard clearly, distinct from the others.

  A spot of blood appeared on the wild man’s forehead. He seemed to remain upright for far too long before collapsing, almost right at Max’s feet.

  “They’re getting closer!” someone shouted.

  A group of two or three people had broken through the line of carnage.

  They leaped over the bodies of their fallen comrades, if you could call them that. They sprinted towards Max’s group.

  Max tossed his rifle aside and Cynthia handed him something else. He barely looked at it.

  It was a semi-automatic. He opened fire, pulling the trigger in rapid succession. He hit one of them, a woman with long hair that streamed behind her. But the shot didn’t take her down. She kept running, her face a mixture of pain and anger.

  “Behind you!” shouted Georgia.

  Max spun around.

  A dozen or so had broken through.