Collapse (Book 1): Perfect Storm

by Riley Flynn

  By the time he joined Timmy, Alex was worried about cash. Finding an ATM at this time would be a lot of trouble. After he’d paid off the guards, there wasn’t much cash left. There wasn’t much food left on the shelves, either, he noticed. It was mostly canned goods. Some rumors have a grain of truth in them.

  Timmy had a basket and was grabbing anything that seemed edible. Chili in a can. Kidney beans. Corn. A few of everything. The basket was getting heavier.

  “Hey, Timmy, you thought about how we’re paying for this?”

  “It’s all right, I got a plan.”

  “Forgive me for asking,” Alex began, “but what exactly is this grand plan?”

  “Okay, so it’s simple. I’m going to get hold of everything and then–and this is the important part—”

  Timmy never finished the sentence. There were shouts from outside. The unmistakable sound of someone being hit, hard. One bang and another against the wooden boards covering the windows. Alex looked up, over the aisles, and across the store to the entrance. The space where the two guards had been standing, just a moment ago, fell dark.

  People rushed into the store. They wore masks, but not the surgical kind. They were bandanas, worn low and tight around the face, which was encircled by the black cotton ring of a hooded sweater. There must have been five of them, rushing the door and bursting into the room. Immediately, they ran to the food section.

  As quickly as they could, the invaders grabbed hold of any and every item. They didn’t need baskets. They’d brought their own sacks. They shoved in cans. Bottles of water. Searching through every shelf, they left nothing behind.

  Alex and Timmy stood, transfixed. As they watched, one of the invaders ran up to them and reached down, rooting through the basket. They grabbed the kidney beans, inspected the can, and shoved it into a bag.

  As Alex watched, the intruder looked up. Beneath the hood, above the bandana, there was a pair of glacial eyes. Artic ice, criminally cold. A woman’s eyes. But young. Barely out of her teens.

  Before either man could say a word, the young girl had sealed up her bag and rushed back toward the exit. She lagged behind her friends, who were already out. Alex ran towards the entrance. Timmy, taking the basket with him, grabbing a few other items along the way, followed.

  Stepping out into the light again, Alex was met by a different scene. Gone was the orderly line. Gone were the two guards. Instead, the public was pressed up against the wooden boards, afraid to move. They were enchanted by the scene in the middle of the street. Terrified. The power of theater.

  The girl had run out of the store and straight into the one remaining guard. The other must have run off. Either home or chasing the invaders. But the guard had moved quicker than she did. He was standing above her, holding a gun to her head, screaming into her ear.

  “We gotta do something,” whispered Alex.

  Timmy was still carrying the basket. He’d carried it right out of the store. He dropped it to the ground and fumbled with the clasp which held the gun in his holster.

  Alex didn’t wait. He’d already dealt with the clip, drawn his gun, and was running toward the middle of the street. Holding out an arm, not expecting the Glock to be so heavy, he began to talk to the man. “Let her go.”

  The guard didn’t move. The words had felt weightless in Alex’s mouth, like cotton candy melting away.

  “I said let her go.”

  Firmer this time. More assured. But the gun was so heavy. Heavy with the threat. The man ripped off his mask, throwing it onto the street.

  “You didn’t see what she just did? Thieves. We should shoot her now.”

  In the films, this was the point where the hero would pull back the hammer. Making his point. Alex flicked his eyes to the Glock for a second. This pistol didn’t have one of those, no hammer to drive home an argument. He settled with prodding the guard in the base of his bald skull with the muzzle.

  The man relented. Threw his own gun to the ground. It didn’t fire, but Alex had been watching it, just in case. The girl ran. She was quick, around the corner in barely a second. The guard swiveled round to face Alex.

  “The hell was that? Who do you think you are? Robin Hood? Christ.”

  The man didn’t wait. He snatched up his firearm from the ground and chased off after the thief. Timmy crept up beside Alex, who was still holding the Glock out in the air.

  “Pretty cool, man. Pretty cool,” he said. “Guess that girl gave you the eyes.”

  Alex lowered his hand and looked at the gun. This wasn’t like back in Virginia. He remembered being taken out back one day. His dad had pointed the family shotgun at the ground. Pulled the trigger. Blown a hole in the earth a foot deep. Never point a gun at something you ain’t willing to kill, he’d said.

  The Glock was tiring Alex’s arm. He checked the chamber. It was empty.

  “Oh yeah,” Timmy continued. “I didn’t think we’d actually have to, like, you know, use them. Bullets are back in the car.”

  “What?” Alex’s voice quavered now, for the first time.

  “Yeah, on the back seat. You want to explain to a cop why you’re carrying a loaded weapon during a curfew? Not worth it, man.”

  It was hot under the sun but Alex felt a chill. All the events of the day, everything that had happened to them over the last twelve hours, it crawled quickly and coldly along his skin. Down his spine. Down his legs and into the ground.

  “Just… Just tell me next time you do something like that.”

  “Sure thing, chief,” said Timmy, encouraging him to walk down the street with some speed.

  “I wasn’t expecting… I didn’t…” Alex was searching for the words.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I froze, too, man. These things happen. Bet she thinks you’re a hero though.”

  “It’s not that… it’s… Hey, why are you pushing so hard?”

  Timmy had Alex by the elbow and they’d reached the end of the block. Turning down a corner, they could hear all sorts of shouts and crashes. Things were happening.

  “I’m sorry you’re not feeling yourself,” Timmy began. “But it’s probably time I told you something.”

  “What’s that? This is a prank? This isn’t even a real gun? That guy was an actor. I knew—”

  “No,” said Timmy, looking around, breaking them both into a run. “I didn’t pay for this food.”

  11

  Once they were around the corner of the block, they stopped running. There were other people, roving through the streets, chasing and shouting. The city was like a pan on a stove, filled with water and fitted with a lid. Now, the lid was rattling and fidgeting, the pressure of the boiling water inside building and building.

  Once they found the SUV, unharmed, Alex and Timmy drove back to Castle Ratz. They drove quicker this time. The cops who had been standing on the street corners had evaporated. Almost every window on the ground floor was boarded up. Every shop was shut. The radio was dead and the car ride was quiet without being calm.

  “We can’t stay here.” Timmy broke the silence. “This city is going places.”

  Alex had been thinking something similar.

  “But you heard last night. Border’s shut down. No crossing state lines soon. It’s like they’re trying to corral people. Plus, we still don’t know what the hell is actually happening.”

  With one hand off the wheel, Timmy reached down and began to desperately flick through the radio stations. Dead air. Dead air. All of it digital. He tried the analog stations and there was only static. Then the long wave, the AM frequencies. The numbers shimmered as fingers flicked through every possible position on the radio spectrum.

  There was something. A sound. A voice. Timmy nearly leapt out of his seat when he heard it. But already he’d searched on ahead.

  “Find it again, find it again.”

  Leaning into the dash, Alex fine-tuned the radio. He found it.

  “—in your homes,” the soothing female voice announced, arriving midsentence
, “and wait for assistance. If you are unable to wait within your home or you wish to seek help, please leave a white cross on your door. We advise that you use chalk or any easily removable—”

  The message went on, providing calm, relaxing advice for how to deal with the situation. But it was devoid of information. Stay at home. Await help. If you require food or medicine, please mark your door. Stay at home. Await help. Repeated again and again. There was no rhyme or reason or explanation. Timmy turned the radio off.

  “We can’t stay in the city, man.”

  “There’s food at your place, the generator. We’re out in the suburbs. Plus, the whole arsenal you’ve been building up. You think we should move?”

  “I’m telling you, we need to be somewhere else.”

  “This is your specialty, Timmy. You prepare for years and now drop it all and run at the first sign of trouble?”

  “I wasn’t ready for this, man.”

  Alex watched his friend shake his head. It was afternoon, stretching into evening. They’d been driving long enough and they were almost at the right street.

  “I’ve been reading about this Eko virus for years, man. It wasn’t meant to be something real. No one ever thought…” His voice trailed off.

  “Listen, Timmy,” Alex said. “We should wait it out, stay here. Eat those meals, this food we have. We’re better prepared than most people. We need to think calmly. We need more information.”

  The SUV arrived in the driveway, pulling up to the garage. The concrete garden and its oil-stains seemed to glow in the early evening light. As the sky turned chimney red, the slicks caught the top end of the colors and turned them all upwards. Little pools of glowing sky light, floating over the concrete ground. They went inside.

  “There’s something I got to tell you, man.”

  Timmy talked as he unpacked the stolen food. The cans were placed into empty cupboards and onto empty shelves. Alex tried the light switch beside the kitchen door. Nothing. It wasn’t dark. There was still enough light outside. He noticed the water swelling beneath the freezer door.

  “Power’s out. That generator of yours working?”

  It was an innocent question, thrown out with careless abandon. But it seemed to kick start something in Timmy. He turned around with a confessional tone.

  “Here’s the thing.” Alex felt like a priest on the other side of a wooden lattice. “I’m not ready for this. This whole…everything.”

  He wasn’t smiling anymore; his red hair was hanging lank and he brushed it behind an ear and continued. “I wasn’t ready, man. At the store? You saw me. Did you? It wasn’t right.”

  “People get scared. They do bad things. They do strange things. It wasn’t—”

  “Not them, Alex. Me.” Timmy slapped his hands on the kitchen counter. “I froze up. Watched you do it all. Everything. What if you weren’t there, only me? What would have happened? That girl would have been killed.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Alex offered. “I wasn’t watching you. No one was.”

  “Exactly. That’s exactly it. You didn’t skip a beat. Didn’t pause. Didn’t stop to evaluate the situation. Didn’t have a hold of a load of tin cans. You just acted. That girl could have died.”

  This was the first time Alex had seen his friend without a smile. The way his lips creased and pursed, Timmy always had an angle. But now, with his hands flat and his head bowed, he had no smart answers.

  “What if you weren’t there, man?”

  “Timmy, my gun didn’t even have bullets. You said yourself. It was a dumb thing—”

  “You didn’t know that, though.” Timmy slapped the surface, hard. “You just did it. Like it was nothing.”

  The whole ride home, this exact thought had been weighing on Alex’s mind. It was squatting in the space that he should have been using for important thoughts. While he knew he should be thinking about the state of the world, all Alex could remember was the sensation of his finger on the trigger. Had he ever been tempted to squeeze? Still remembering that shelled-out hole in the back of the farm, he didn’t know the answer. Never point a gun at something you ain’t willing to kill. Had he been willing? Driving home, staring into the sinking sun, Alex still wasn’t sure.

  “Timmy, you’ve been training for years,” he replied. “I’ve seen you in action down at GUNPLAY. I was there for one night. I was impressed. And all this in your house? Don’t tell me you aren’t prepared for exactly this.”

  “And where’s it got me? A stack of meals in boxes we can barely eat. A load of canned beans I had to steal. A generator I can’t even get to work. I got a seed bank downstairs. You want to bet it’s full of nothing but daisies and weeds?”

  Walking around the kitchen, Timmy tried the light switch again and again. Nothing happened.

  “See? It’s all just playing around. It was easy doing this when I only had to worry about turning up at work the next day. What’s happened to that? It’s been twenty-four hours. We’re under curfew. This is all crazy. It’s all so mad. This shouldn’t be happening. But you haven’t broken a sweat.”

  Alex checked his brow, just in case. It was dry. Timmy was right. But he was wrong, too.

  “I never planned any of this. I just do things.”

  “Do what?”

  “Survive, I guess. I just do what I think I need to do.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Timmy. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  For hours, there had been one consistent image in Alex’s mind. It was another man’s head, seen down the flat top of the Glock. Everything was fixed in place. The weight of the gun, even though Alex hadn’t known there were no bullets inside. The way he’d held himself, balanced on his front foot. The way the world smelled, in that moment, like a normal city turned up to maximum. Everything, every sense, frozen in one perpetual moment.

  There were other memories like this. Sammy, standing alone, on the front porch of her house. The parking lot outside the recruiting office, sitting in the same Chevy that was outside now. The sound of the farmhouse keys as he’d dropped them into Eames’s hands. The feel of the white sheets which lay across all the furniture. There were many memories. But few managed to fix themselves to the inside of Alex’s head, waiting to be called upon when he was least expecting it.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?” Timmy repeated. “What do you mean? This is some Sammy thing, all over again? I thought we’d got you over that.”

  “It’s not that. It’s… I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Timmy waved his hand in front of his face, forcing a breath between unimpressed lips. He took a can of chili con carne and found a pocket knife from somewhere. With both hands, he struggled to get the can open and ready to eat.

  “So it’s not a Sammy thing and–‘cause you won’t tell me–it’s not a Timmy thing. So here we are. World going to hell in a handbasket and we’re not talking.”

  There were the jokes again. At least, Alex hoped it was a joke. He laughed anyway.

  “Listen, man, if you don’t want to talk about things, that’s cool. We can put on the radio again.”

  Still struggling with the can opener, Timmy adopted the calm female voice from the radio.

  “Please stay in your homes and wait for assistance. Please stay in your homes and wait for assistance.”

  The can opened, spilling chili all over the kitchen counter.

  “Success!” Timmy shouted. “At last, something good in the world. Hey, how many people you think are actually going to stay indoors? You think they’ll do what the government says?”

  “Sure, for like two days. Then it’ll all go to hell.”

  “You think?”

  “You’re going to pretend we can’t hear sirens right now? These blackouts won’t be doing any good. It’s not just your wiring. I can see every house out there hasn’t got any electricity.”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess I kind of tuned it out. So, this is real, huh?”

  “Lo
oks like it.”

  “Eko virus, here we come. Hey, about that Sammy thing. Man, I’m sorry I keep bringing it up. I’m still not sure whether you two broke up or she died or—”

  “We broke up,” Alex said, firmly cutting his friend short. “And we don’t talk about it.”

  A long, slow whistle. Timmy stood in the kitchen, the fork end of the pocket knife now open, and began shoveling scoops of chili between his teeth.

  “She really did a number on you, man,” he mumbled with his mouth full.

  “We don’t talk about it. Anyway. I was thinking. We need to get out of here. You were right. The city isn’t safe anymore.”

  “Finally. Finally, someone agrees with me. So… what?”

  “This is going to sound strange.”

  “Hit me.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Come on. Come on, come on, come on.”

  “Virginia.”

  “You’re right. I don’t like it.”

  “You said we had to get out of here.” Alex gesticulated toward the setting sun. “Where better than Virginia? Near the coast, away from the city, loads of natural resources. You got a map?”

  “No, I agree. It’s lovely. To visit. When we’re not under curfew and the country’s not in the midst of an epidemic. Tell me this isn’t about Sammy.”

  The stare Alex gave his friend could have been used to bend steel girders.

  “This is about survival, Timmy. There’s a farm there. Where I grew up. It’ll be empty, practically. In the middle of the fields. You’re worried about infection – there’s no one there. You’re worried about food–we can grow our own. You’re worried about anything else, it’s perfect. You saw what happened today. In the city. That was after one day of people trying to deal with this…whatever this is. That was one day. With no information. What happens when people start to really panic? When they start to get angry? What happens when they march through the streets? Your street. What happens when they start to die?”

  Reaching the bottom of the can, Timmy dropped it into the sink. He opened the faucet. Nothing happened.