But they were just that—theories.
The only way to really know was to live it.
And unfortunately, that was the situation they were all in now.
The EMP would have fried the power grid. And it wasn’t going to come back on. Not without some serious technical repairs.
The repairs alone would be a massive undertaking.
The question really was whether or not society would start to crumble and fall apart before all the systems could be prepared.
Jim had seen people panicking in the supermarket when a blizzard was coming in. And that was in Rochester, where blizzards were about as common as any other type of weather.
So he wasn’t holding out a lot of hope that people would stay calm and hold it together.
No, definitely not. After a while, when the power hadn’t come back on for a few days, they’d panic.
And all hell would break loose.
And the panic wouldn’t even be the worst of it.
Images of violence and horror flashed through his mind. He pushed the thoughts away. He needed to stay focused on what was practical.
And what was practical was to get the hell out of there. With his wife, and her mother, if possible. And Rob, too, he supposed.
Jim’s own parents had moved to Florida a few years back. They’d had enough of the winters.
“You’re driving pretty fast,” said Rob, who didn’t drive himself. He was one of those people who didn’t have the right personality for driving. And, plus, he had that long string of DUIs.
Jim said nothing.
“Why are all those cars stopped?”
There were cars up and down Park Avenue. And none of them were moving.
Jim maneuvered around them, downshifting when he had to, but he kept his speed up.
“Jim, slow down!”
“We’ve got to get there,” said Jim. “Everything’s going to fall apart.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Don’t you see the cop?”
“The cop?”
Jim glanced off to his right, where there was a cop standing on the side of the road. He was waving his hands in a motion that clearly only had one meaning: stop.
The cop wasn’t dressed like a traffic cop. And there was no patrol car near him.
Jim made the decision quickly.
He wasn’t going to stop.
He respected the police. But there was no time now for getting pulled over.
“What are you doing?” said Rob.
“What I need to,” said Jim.
He pressed down on the accelerator and the Subaru’s engine whined.
Up ahead, there was an enormous SUV sitting dead right in the middle of the lane.
Jim maneuvered around it.
Meanwhile, Rob was tugging frantically on his arm, babbling in a high-pitched voice. He was trying to get Jim to pull over. “I can’t get another arrest,” he was saying. “I’ve got too many under my belt.”
Jim shook Rob off his arm and he turned towards him.
If he had to punch his friend, he would.
“Look out!”
Jim had only had his eyes off the road for a few seconds. But when he turned back to look, a bicycle had appeared right into front of the Subaru.
Jim slammed on the brakes.
But it was too late.
He hit the bike and the rider went flying.
“Shit!” Rob screamed. “You killed him!”
Jim said nothing.
For a moment, he just stared out the window at the fallen bicyclist. Long hair streamed out from under the helmet. It was clearly a woman.
And she wasn’t moving.
Not at all.
Jim glanced in his rearview mirror.
The policeman, who he’d passed only moments ago, was running full speed down the road towards them.
Shit.
It was all going wrong.
Maybe he hadn’t had the best plan for a disaster event like this. Maybe he didn’t have a clear idea of where to go.
But at least he’d known he had to get out of the city fast. And he had some gear.
He was far ahead of most of the people here. If things got bad enough, they’d run out of food. Most of them would die.
It wasn’t supposed to be like that for him.
Sure, he could simply drive away. It didn’t seem like the cop had a working vehicle, and it wasn’t like he’d be able to catch Jim.
But Jim wasn’t that kind of guy.
He’d hit her. There weren’t any excuses. He had to deal with it now. It was his responsibility.
Sure, he’d convinced himself that if this moment ever came, he’d do whatever he could for himself and his wife.
Now that the moment had come, though, he realized that there was no way he could leave this woman lying on the ground, not moving.
If she was still alive, she needed medical attention.
There’d be doctors at the hospital, even if the power was off. They could do something.
Couldn’t the cop help her, though? It was a last ditch thought as he tried to justify the behavior that he already knew wasn’t acceptable.
No, the cop wouldn’t help. How would he get her to the hospital without a vehicle?
Likely the ambulances weren’t working either. Only a few cars here and there, and who knew which ones.
Jim cut the engine, pocketed the keys, and opened the door.
“What are you doing, the cop’s coming! I can’t get another one, man!” said Rob, frantically. His face was frozen in panic and he looked like a deer frozen in the headlights seated in the passenger seat.
Jim ran to the woman.
“Hey!” he said, leaning down into her face. “Can you hear me?”
She was unresponsive.
Jim put his middle and index fingers against her neck, trying to find a pulse.
For a tense moment, he felt nothing.
Then he found it.
Her pulse was there. She was still alive.
“Hey!” shouted someone. A deep, male voice.
Jim turned his head.
It was the cop. He was still running, but he’d slowed down. He was panting with exertion.
“Come on,” muttered Jim, taking the young woman by the shoulders and shaking her gently, hoping that she’d wake up.
“Step away from her,” shouted the cop, finally catching up to him.
Jim froze.
“Step away.”
Jim didn’t move.
He didn’t know how the cop was going to react. It was likely that he didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, that he would try to arrest Jim for speeding, for ignoring a traffic stop, and for hitting a pedestrian.
Jim couldn’t be in jail while society crumbled. Especially not while Aly was out there. She didn’t know anything about EMPs. She wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do. She’d stay locked inside her mother’s house and they’d both slowly starve to death.
“I’m just trying to help her.”
“Hands on your head.”
Jim raised his hands slowly above his head. He thought about the Ruger revolver in its holster. He didn’t know what to do.
Suddenly, there was shouting not far away from them.
About twenty feet away, there were two cars stopped in the road. One was behind the other.
Two men, presumably the drivers, had gotten out and were standing face to face, only inches apart from one another. One was skinny and short, and the other was massive and hulking. He looked like he might be a bodybuilder.
“Get away from my car!”
“You’re blocking me! Why won’t you just move out of the way?”
“Listen, buddy, you’ve got two seconds to get out of my face.”
“Oh yeah, or what?”
The skinny guy took a step back, turned around. He opened up the trunk of his sedan and took out a metal baseball bat.
This is how it starts, thought Jim to himself. He glanc
ed at the cop, who didn’t seem to know what to do.
“Don’t move a muscle,” said the cop, who rushed off in the direction of the men.
The big bodybuilder guy didn’t stand a chance. He barely managed to react before the metal baseball bat swung in a wide arc and smashed into his face.
Blood ran freely from his nose, and his right eye remained closed. He howled in pain. But he didn’t go down.
Not yet.
He swung his fist in an arc towards the skinny guy.
But the skinny guy was too fast. He stepped easily out of the way. Meanwhile, he pulled his baseball bat back, gearing up for another swing. “I told you to get out my face,” he shouted.
“Rob,” hissed Jim. “Get over here. I need your help.”
No answer.
“Rob!” he hissed again.
Rob was probably petrified about the cop’s presence.
But he’d need to get over that.
Jim was on his hands and knees, trying to lift the young woman by himself. Her bike lay nearby.
Jim wasn’t looking, but he heard the metal baseball bat make contact again. He heard the sickening sound of bones breaking. He heard the sound of the cop’s orders to drop the weapon. He heard the curses. Then he heard the static zapping sound of the cop’s taser, and the skinny man’s scream of pain as he fell to the ground.
Hopefully this would all distract the cop long enough so that he could get away.
“Rob!” he hissed again, just as he lifted the limp woman’s body up.
She was heavy, but he was strong enough.
As he was walking her towards the Subaru, Rob finally appeared.
“Get the bike,” said Jim.
Rob looked scared. He glanced nervously in the cop’s direction.
The cop had the skinny guy on the ground, his face pressed into the pavement. The cop had the guy’s arms behind him, and was trying to get handcuffs on him. But the skinny guy was struggling wildly, like a fish flopping around on a dock.
“Get the bike,” said Jim again.
Whatever happened to the woman, a bike could be useful later on.
Jim’s Subaru was old enough that it didn’t have an electronic keychain fob, not that it would have worked, anyway.
At the back of his wagon, he managed to free one of his hands enough to open the latch and swing the fifth door up and open.
He lay the woman down carefully. She still wasn’t moving, but he could see her breathing now, her chest rising and falling. There were scrapes all along her arms, and her jeans were torn along the side. Blood leaked out of her leg, slowly staining her jeans.
Rob was rushing along with the bicycle, nearly tripping over himself.
“Put it in the backseat,” said Jim, opening the door for Rob.
With the bike in the car and the woman in the back, Jim and Rob got back in the Subaru.
Jim fished the keys out of his pocket, stuck them in the ignition, depressed the clutch, and hoped that the car would once again start.
He knew that logically there was no reason why it shouldn’t, but seeing all the other non-functioning cars gave him pause.
He turned the key. The engine roared to life.
“Hey!” shouted the cop, turning around.
He’d finally gotten the handcuffs on the skinny man.
Now there was a crowd of bystanders that had gathered around the cop and the fight.
Jim threw the stick into reverse, hit the accelerator hard, and the wagon’s engine started whining as he drove rapidly backwards down Park Avenue.
There wasn’t anything the cop could do. Not that Jim relished the situation. He’d always respected the police and what they did.
But they weren’t going to help him now.
Not without communication.
He was on his own.
They all were.
“What the hell’s going on?” said Rob.
Jim ignored him. Rob would have to catch up as they went.
The next question was, where were the headed next?
To Aly’s mother’s house, or to the hospital?
Jim needed to choose between the safety of his own wife, and the life of a stranger, whose injuries he was directly responsible for.
5
Judy
Judy was peering out the windows of her living room, looking into the normally calm street.
Something was going on. There were three or four cars that had simply stopped in the middle of the road. A couple people that Judy didn’t recognize were milling around aimlessly.
One woman had the hood of her car open and was peering into it, a wrench in one hand.
None of them were neighbors, and that worried Judy further.
She stepped back from the window and let the curtains fall once again over the windows.
The living room was dark.
It had been an hour or so since the power went out.
Strangely, nothing worked at all. Her cell phone included.
Judy was, by nature, an anxious woman. She always had been.
And the situation at hand wasn’t helping her anxiety at all.
It would have been OK, maybe, if Aly had been there. But her daughter hadn’t been home since last night.
Judy was sure that Aly must have just been staying with her husband, and had forgotten to call.
But, even so, a phone call would have been nice. And Judy didn’t like not knowing for certain that her daughter was OK.
Judy stood there in the darkened living room, on the plush carpet, for a few moments, lost in thought. She wished that things had been better for her daughter. That husband of hers wasn’t good for her. And unfortunately Judy was the only one who could see it clearly. She understood the type of man that Jim was.
He was the type of man who always appeared to be doing the right thing. But it always seemed to happen that he did so at great consequence to Aly. For instance, he’d hung onto that stupid little computer shop for far too long. He needed to get it together and get a real job, really support Aly.
And he was always off on some errand, helping out that deadbeat friend of his, whatever his name was. Bailing him out of jail, picking him up from work, even buying clothes for job interviews that he’d certainly never go to.
Jim helped that friend of his so much that Aly was often left at home. Sure, she could take care of herself, but she needed to spend time with her husband. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Jim hadn’t sunk so much of his time and energy into that computer shop.
There was a loud knock on the door.
“Judy!” called out a familiar voice.
Judy sighed and went to open the front door. She did so quickly, worried that whatever was happening out there in the street might somehow bleed over into her own home. “Quick,” she said, in a hushed voice.
A tall, thin young man scuttled around her and crossed across the threshold into Judy’s house.
It was Tim, a twenty-something who lived in the basement of his aunt’s house next door. He was a good kid, but he didn’t exactly have a stable job. His aunt tolerated his presence due to some long forgotten familial arrangement.
“Do you know what’s going on out there, Tim?” said Judy, shutting the door quickly.
Tim shook his head. “People are starting to get mad, though.”
“Who?”
“The people in the street. Their cars just stopped there.” Tim swept his long hair back from his face, tucking it behind his ear. “Is Aly here?”
Judy shook her head.
She knew well why Tim asking. It wasn’t hard to tell by the way that he looked at her daughter that he had a crush on her. Of course, he’d have been even worse than Jim for her daughter.
“She’s with Jim.”
“Her husband?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s weird,” said Tim. “I saw her last night.”
“You saw her last night?”
“Yeah, and they were putting her in the b
ack of a squad car.”
“What?”
“It looked like they were arresting her.”
“You must have the wrong person. Have you been smoking that stuff again?”
Judy took a whiff of the air, as if to test to see if she could smell anything on him that would cause him to entertain such a wild idea. Her daughter, after all, would never get arrested.
“I’m positive. I just wanted to come by and make sure she got out OK.”
“Well, she would have called if there was anything the matter,” said Judy.
Tim nodded. “Anyway,” he said. “While I’m here, do you think I could borrow some tools from the basement?”
“Well…”
Except for this brief period with her daughter staying with her, Judy had lived alone ever since her husband had died ten years ago. She’d decided to keep the house, even though it was too big for just her.
All of her husband’s things were still there. She’d never been able to part with them, no matter how often her daughter offered to help.
Now she was well aware that Tim often took advantage of her generosity. He’d taken many of her husband’s tools already, and he’d only returned some of them. What he did with them, she didn’t know.
But she found it difficult to say “no” to him. After all, if she upset him, he’d probably stop coming around. And sometimes Tim was the only person she spoke to few days on end.
Life for the elderly in Pittsford could be lonely at times.
Tim was looking at her expectantly.
“Well, OK,” said Judy. “But don’t take too many things this time, OK? And make sure to bring them back.”
“Sure thing, Judy,” said Tim, already headed towards the basement.
There’d been times where other things in the house had gone missing. Some money from her purse had disappeared after one of Tim’s visits, along with some medication. But she’d never had the courage to bring it up.
Judy moved back to the window, shifted the curtains carefully, and peered back out.
It was the same scene as before.
“If only the sun would come out,” she muttered to herself.
The grayness of the sky seemed to hang over Pittsford like a thick blanket. And Judy had always believed that the weather affected people’s moods more than they were aware. On a grey day like today, people were more on edge.
Final Chaos_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Page 3
