Of course, in that situation, they wouldn’t have been fearing for their lives. Or for humanity at large, wondering what the future held for society.
There was plenty to do, and they all more or less wordlessly agreed that the best thing to do was keep busy.
Aly kept watch for the first part of their second night there, then Jessica relieved her.
The second day was more of the same. Cleaning the house. Organizing the supplies. Eating a little. Chatting, but not much.
The house had city water, which wasn’t working. There was only the little that was left in the pipes.
Since the lake wasn’t far away, they’d never be short on water. Jim mentioned that they could disinfect it with a few drops of bleach. But of course that wasn’t ideal, since bleach itself is toxic if you drink enough of it.
So they boiled the water. The lake water was likely clean enough on its own that they could have drunk it as it was, but they didn’t want to risk it.
Fortunately, the house’s stove still worked. It was gas, but there wasn’t a city gas line, so it was set up the old fashioned way, with a large tank of gas outside the house, with a line running into the kitchen.
The second day bled into the third, and the days started to run together.
It was more monotony than anything else. There was no sign from the outside world. Once or twice, a car drove by. They could hear the tires on the gravel road down the driveway, and they waited in tense silence until the vehicle had passed. But nothing happened.
And it seemed like nothing ever would.
Aly wished there’d be something. Some sign. Something to tell them what was happening.
Maybe they were doing this all for nothing. Maybe Rochester and Pittsford were fine. Maybe the power was out, but things hadn’t collapsed into chaos like Jim had predicted. Maybe they’d feel like fools in a couple weeks when they left the house and everything was more or less the way it had been. Only Aly would have lost her job. And Jim would have suffered losses with his computer shop.
Aly continued to try not to think about her mother. The photo album that Jim had brought along didn’t help much with that goal. But it did offer her some comfort and she found herself flipping through the album at odd moments through the day before getting back to work.
Unfortunately for everyone, there wasn’t enough work to last the entire week.
By the end of seven days, the house looked completely different. As if it had never been cleaner.
Every surface was dusted and polished. Every single bottle and piece of trash had been taken outside to the shed in the same trash bags that they’d brought their gear in. Some of the glass bottles were saved, since they might be useful in the future.
All their gear was neatly organized according to use and frequency of need.
Everything was in its proper place.
Now it seemed there was nothing to do but wait.
There was still no sign of the Carpenters.
It wasn’t until the eighth day that something happened.
That morning, Aly was up early. She hadn’t been able to sleep well the night before, finding herself tossing and turning through nightmares. So she’d dragged herself out of bed a couple hours earlier than normal, just when the sun was starting to poke out over the trees.
Jim was already up as well, making coffee in the kitchen, even though it wasn’t his watch shift.
“Nothing?” she said.
He shook his head.
Things were still a little tense between them. They’d agreed to a sort of truce. No more arguing. No more fighting. But they hadn’t resolved whatever it was there issues were.
They’d had to spend plenty of time together, and not just in the cleanup. Jim had insisted that she and Rob learn how to fire and handle a firearm.
Since they spent as little time outside the house as possible, most of the firearm training took place right there in the living room.
Jim had showed her how to empty and load his revolver. Then he’d taught her a couple different grips, helping her find the one that she preferred. He’d taught her how to hold it with both hands, with her hands well away from the cylinder and the hammer.
She’d learned that when the gun fired, pieces of lead and other matter could discharge sideways, burning her hand.
And the hammer, well, it was good to keep out of the way of that.
Jim had taught her and Rob that they needed to first work on simply holding the gun still as they pulled the trigger as fast as they could.
It’d taken her a couple days to get that down.
Since they didn’t want to waste the ammo they had, or draw attention to themselves, they limited their actual outdoor practice to a couple shots here and there.
“Want some coffee?”
“Yeah, two scoops,” said Aly.
Jim shook his head. “Rations. Remember?”
Aly groaned, but said nothing.
Suddenly, the front door flung open.
It was Rob, who’d been outside patrolling the property.
“You’ve got to see this,” he said.
They followed him outside unquestioningly.
From where they stood in the driveway, they could see something off in the distance. It hung over the trees, far away. At first, to Aly’s sleepy eyes, it looked like a huge dark cloud.
But it wasn’t a cloud.
It was smoke.
A huge pillar of smoke, rising high into the sky.
It was intensely black. Dense and thick.
“What is it?” said Aly.
“It’s the start,” said Jim. “They’re burning buildings now.”
It was the answer they’d been waiting for. It was the sign from the outside world.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the one they’d been looking for.
Behind them, a noise startled them.
It was the unmistakable sound of rubber tires crunching on the gravel.
Aly turned to see a beat up old pickup truck speeding towards them down the driveway.
Aly froze. Her eyes got wide. She felt paralyzed by fear.
The pickup was getting closer.
Only mere feet away.
She could see the driver’s face clearly through the battered windshield.
Jim’s strong hands grabbed her and pulled her out of the way.
He pulled her hard, and she fell down, her face hitting the gravel. Somehow, in the process, Jim fell too. She must have tripped him accidentally or something.
Someone screamed out.
Was it Rob?
Had he been hit by the truck?
20
Rob
The pickup shuddered to a rough stop just an inch from him. He’d jumped back, but not quite far enough. He was lucky not to have gotten hit.
Three men vaulted over the side of the pickup bed. Their boots hit the gravel hard. They moved fast.
Both doors of the pickup were thrown open. Two people stepped out.
“Stay right there,” shouted Jim, from the ground, where he’d fallen. He had his revolver out, pointed at the man who’d stepped out of the driver’s side. “Hands in the air.”
“Boys?” said the pickup driver. He nodded back at the three men who’d jumped out of the bed. Rob noticed now that they were all young. The youngest was probably eighteen, and the oldest couldn’t have been older than twenty four. Each held a rifle, which they now raised. “If I were you,” said the driver, his voice cracking as he spoke. “I’d put that gun down. You’ve got to recognize when you’re outgunned.”
Slowly, Rob put his hands into the air over his head.
The driver was a tall, lanky man wearing loose clothing. A woman, who must have been his wife, walked slowly around the front of the pickup. She was equally tall and thin, with long tangled hair.
The younger men had pimples on their faces and long, greasy hair. They wore ill-fitting clothing.
“What do you what, Carpenter?” said Jim.
“T
urns out we’re running out of food. And as you can see,” he gestured over to the billowing smoke off in the distance. “It’s going to be tough to get it from anywhere else.”
“It’s not like the supermarkets are open,” said his wife, her pale thin lips twisting up at the corners in an approximation of a smile.
“So what we’re going to have to do, we decided, is requisition some food from our friendly neighbors.”
“Why should we give you anything?” said Aly, her voice full of anger.
“Well, if it comes to it, we’re going to take it.”
Rob’s mind was racing. He knew that if they lost their food, they might as well be dead.
Without moving much, he looked each of the Carpenters up and down, trying to find weak points.
The young ones had rifles. That was obvious.
The patriarch of the family, Mr. Carpenter, had a long knife worn on his belt. But he didn’t have a gun in hand or visible anywhere on his person.
The wife and mother didn’t seem to be armed.
But either of them might have had guns hidden.
Rob had his in a makeshift holster attached to his belt. Aly and Jessica had helped him fashion it out of some pieces of rubber they’d found. It was held together with plenty of duct tape.
Maybe he could reach his gun.
He’d learned from Jim and Jessica how to fire it properly.
But he’d still only actually fired it three times.
It wasn’t like he was an expert shot. Far from, actually.
He didn’t actually know if he’d be able to hit anyone.
And three rifles pointed at him made it a huge risk.
Where was Jessica? Was she sleeping through all this?
“So what’s it going to be?” said Mr. Carpenter. “What do you have for us? I hope you’ve got some nice juicy steaks in a cooler in there. I’ve been having a strong hankering for some good red meat.”
“You’re not going to get anything from us,” said Jim, speaking in a loud, commanding voice.
“Jim!” hissed Aly. Both of them were still on the ground. “They have guns!”
Jim ignored her.
“What my wife isn’t taking into account is that we’ve got three men inside. All armed. So you’d be fools to make a move on us. You’ll never get back into that truck alive.”
Mr. Carpenter laughed. A big, disgusting laugh. But his eyes showed his suspicion that what Jim said was true. His eyes cast across the windows of the little lake house, looking for some sign that there were three armed men hiding inside.
“I don’t believe that for one second,” said Mr. Carpenter. “If you’ve got three armed men in there, why haven’t they blown us to bits already?”
“Because some of us have a little dignity,” said Jim.
“Boys,” said Mr. Carpenter. “Go in and see what’s there. Make sure to bring me some meat.”
As the boys trudged in a single file line towards the front door, Mr. Carpenter reached into his waistband and pulled out a massive handgun. He pointed it directly at Jim’s head.
“It’d be wise not to do anything stupid,” said Mr. Carpenter. “I don’t want to have to kill you. But if I do, it’s not like the cops are going to come looking for me. It’s every family for themselves now.”
“You might as well be killing us,” said Aly.
“That’s on you,” said Mr. Carpenter.
His wife approached him and put her arm around him, pulling herself close to him. She kissed him sloppily on the cheek, muttering something under her breath that sounded a lot like “I love you, baby.”
From inside the house, a gunshot rang out.
Rob was ready. His eyes were on Mr. Carpenter. He saw the man’s eyes go wide in surprise.
Rob didn’t reach for his gun. He didn’t trust himself not to make a mistake with it.
Instead, he launched his huge body forward. He didn’t bother swinging his fists.
He collided with Carpenter hard.
Carpenter let out a grunt.
The two of them fell to the ground.
Hard.
Rob was on top of Carpenter, his body pinning him down. Rob swung his fist, bringing it high in the air in an arc. His knuckles crashed into Carpenter’s face.
Right on the nose.
Carpenter was reaching for something. His knife or his gun.
With his left hand, Rob pinned Carpenter’s arm at the wrist, pushing it hard down into the gravel.
With his right fist, Rob swung again, smashing his hand hard into the right side of Carpenter’s face.
Carpenter’s face was bleeding. Mostly from the nose. There was blood on Rob’s knuckles.
Rob was filled with anger. He wanted to pummel Carpenter into nothing. He wanted to keep hitting him.
The world around him seemed to have shrunk. There was a thundering roar in his ears, and for a second it seemed like he might forget about the rest of the world altogether.
But there were other things to consider. Guns were involved. Someone had been shot.
He snapped out of it. Out of the rage.
Rob grabbed his handgun, the one that had been taken from the men last week, and shoved the barrel into Carpenter’s face.
There was no need to say anything. The message was clear. If Carpenter made a move, he’d be shot.
Rob looked up.
Aly was holding a gun to the back Mrs. Carpenter’s head. Mrs. Carpenter had her hands on her head.
Jim was on the move, heading rapidly towards the front door.
Another gunshot rang out from inside the house.
21
Jim
Ruger in hand, Jim ran through the open door.
The gunshot from seconds ago still rang in his ears.
But now there was just silence.
The interior of the house was dark. His eyes would take a moment to adjust.
He gripped his revolver tightly. His finger was on the trigger. The hammer was cocked.
They had it under control outside. Both of the Carpenter parents couldn’t make a move without getting holes in their heads.
Now it was time to deal with the offspring.
Jim’s worry was that being young men, they’d be more likely to act impulsively.
Jim pressed himself flat against the faux wood paneling in the small hallway that led to the living room.
He could hear breathing coming from somewhere. Ragged and intense.
He tried to control his own breathing, keeping it from being too audible. His heart was pounding and he was already sweating bullets.
He wanted to take stock of the situation. It wouldn’t be good to rush into it.
But he couldn’t wait too long.
He listened as hard as he could.
But he just heard breathing.
Finally, someone spoke. It was a male voice. Early twenties. Maybe the middle brother.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’ve got to rush her.”
“You think so?”
“Come on, what are we waiting for?”
“Rifles aren’t good for inside. That’s what Dad said, remember?”
“It doesn’t matter. They still shoot, right?”
“And there are three of us.”
There were three separate voices. None of them sounded injured.
So who had fired the shots?
He’d thought it’d been Jessica, judging from the sound of the gunshots.
Maybe she’d missed.
There was also the possibility that Jim had misjudged the quality of the sound of the gunshots. Maybe Jessica had been shot at. Maybe she’d been hit. Maybe she’d holed herself up in the bedroom, where she was slowly bleeding out.
Jim needed to do something.
Jim inched closer to the edge that lead into the other room. He moved as quietly as he could.
“The next one won’t be a warning shot,” came Jessica’s voice, coming clearly from the bedroom.
> “We aren’t messing around with warning shots,” shouted one of the Carpenter brothers.
There was no way to coordinate with Jessica without alerting the brothers to his presence.
He wished Rob was there with him. Or Aly. He should have brought them.
But there wasn’t time to go back and get them quietly.
Jim stepped around the corner, leading with his Ruger.
His heart was pounding. His adrenaline was pumping through him. Time seemed to have slowed down slightly. His vision was a tunnel of concentration, the periphery slightly blackened out.
For a long moment, none of the brothers noticed him.
He had his Ruger pointed at the back of one of their heads. The older brother.
Jim could pull the trigger. Kill him instantly. His body would crumple to the floor. His brothers would turn and open fire.
A memory of the young man Tim flashed through his mind. A brief image. Nothing more. It was Tim’s face, his eyes open wide, as he lay on Aly’s mother’s floor.
But the idea of bloodshed didn’t deter him. He didn’t relish the idea of taking a life. But he’d do what he had to do.
It wasn’t that that made him not pull the trigger.
It was the simple logistics of it.
He had a realistic opinion of his firearms skills, his abilities. He knew what he was doing. He could hit a target reliably. And he was fast. But he wasn’t going to win any competitions for speed. He wasn’t nearly as good or as fast as plenty of men and women he’d seen at the range.
He was just a guy. A realistic one, at that.
Maybe he could get off a second shot.
Maybe.
And after that, he’d get his own bullet. Probably to the stomach, given the level the brothers were holding their hunting rifles at.
It wouldn’t be hard to aim a rifle at this range. All the brothers would have to do is spin and pull the trigger. They wouldn’t even really have to aim at all. Just point and shoot.
It was time to act.
“Before you shoot,” said Jim, in a loud voice.
Two of the brothers spun around. The other remained facing the room Jessica was in.
Final Chaos_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Page 12
