Her odds weren’t good. She knew that.
It seemed like the man was gaining on her. He was fast for a junkie. Maybe his muscles were as numb as his mind, incapable of feeling pain. Maybe it was just the idea of vengeance that motivated him, pushing him on and on.
The driveway was long and tree-lined.
Jessica chose the busted-up pavement, rather than weaving through the trees. It was surer footing, even though it meant she’d be an easier target. She didn’t think he was close enough yet to get a good shot at her.
Once she hit the street, she knew she’d really be at risk. She’d be out in the open, whereas the driveway did curve a little.
Suddenly, she heard the noise of an engine whining. It sounded familiar. And loud, intensely high-pitched, as if something was going wrong.
The vehicle represented a new threat.
But she couldn’t turn around.
She couldn’t stop.
So she kept running.
She was about halfway down the driveway. Rounding a curve, she could see the road up ahead.
A car appeared, taking her by surprise by turning, bumping into the driveway.
It was speeding right towards her. Its engine was whining.
Light glinted off the windshield. She couldn’t see who drove it.
There was hardly any time to act. The car was really bolting down the driveway at a terrific speed.
Not wanting to stop running, she veered off to the right. She hoped that she could use one of the trees as a barrier. If the driver wanted to run her over, it’d be more difficult with a tree in between them.
Before she could even get to the side of the driveway, the car had almost reached her.
Jessica suddenly recognized it. It was Jim’s Subaru.
The Subaru wagon slammed to a sudden stop. The driver door swung open.
Jessica felt her heart swelling, hope appearing for the first time. Jim had come to rescue her. Jim, always capable and cool-headed. He was the guy who always seemed to know what to do, no matter what the situation.
But Jim didn’t step out.
Rob did.
Jessica’s heart dropped.
But at least he had a gun.
“Get in!” he screamed at her, waving his hand violently.
Jessica was over at the passenger door in a flash.
She grabbed the handle and pulled. But the door didn’t open.
“It’s locked!” she screamed.
The man who pursued her had disappeared from view. But she knew that he was out there. She knew in her bones that he wasn’t going to give up easily.
Jim would have had the door already unlocked.
“Shit,” muttered Rob, throwing himself back into the driver’s seat, and fumbling with the controls on the door.
After a few frantic tries, where she and Rob couldn’t coordinate, the door opened and Jessica threw herself into the passenger’s seat.
“Get us the hell out of here,” she shouted. There wasn’t time to ask how he’d found her, why he was here, or what his plan was.
Not that his plans would have mattered. The only thing that was clear was that they needed to leave. Quickly.
Rob was fumbling with the gearshift, jamming his feet against the pedals.
He stalled the Subaru once, the gears and engine making a rough sound as the car jumped and stopped abruptly.
Then he stalled it again.
“He’s coming!” said Jessica, pointing through the windshield.
Sure enough, he was coming.
On his motorcycle.
Apparently, he wasn’t affected by the drugs. At least not enough to prevent him from riding his bike.
Somehow, the man held a shotgun, the barrel against his chest, facing the sky.
He was speeding right towards them.
Rob tried again. This time, it worked, and the Subaru rocketed backwards down the driveway, the engine whining.
20
Aly
Aly was in a lot of pain. She was feeling stronger, but the pain was getting worse. It was strange. Like some sort of paradox.
She was also getting hungry. She was just lying there in bed, with her stomach rumbling. Sure, she’d been hungry basically since the EMP. But this was a new type of hunger. A serious hunger.
Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe it was a sign that she was starting to heal. After all, the body needed energy in order to rebuild itself. That’s what her mother had always said.
She’d tried to avoid thinking about her mother. Dead in her house. Just lying there. No chance of burying her. It was horrible. Tremendously horrible.
Aly shuddered.
She needed to think about something else.
The only other thing she could think about was food.
“Jordan!” she called out. “You think you could bring me something to eat?”
It wasn’t a good situation. Just her and Jordan alone in the house. And she wasn’t in much of a position to defend herself if something should have happened.
But so far things had been quiet.
Sure, she was worried about the others. Especially her husband. But that was the world they lived in now. There were no calm, peaceful commutes to work, or trips to the pharmacy, where you knew your loved ones were statistically extremely likely to return home safe and sound.
It was a new world.
And Aly figured she’d better get used to it.
There was no answer from Jordan.
In fact, she hadn’t heard from him in quite a while. Hours, at the very least.
She tried once more, yelling his name as loudly as she could.
She waited, hoping to hear his footsteps, his uneasy gait as he came ambling towards her room.
But there was nothing.
Aly looked around the room.
There was nothing more to eat.
She decided to get up and get something herself. She could do it. To hell with everyone telling her that she needed to stay in bed. She’d always been stubborn, but that was only because she knew what was best for her.
Plus, what if something had happened to Jordan? He was old, after all. And in terrible health by all accounts. Or at least he should have been, after the way he’d treated his body over the years.
She didn’t want to be alone there in the house without realizing it.
Someone might come.
It took considerable effort, but Aly managed to get herself out of bed.
She used a light straight-backed chair that was nearby as a sort of makeshift cane, pushing it in front of herself on the floor as she walked, leaning down and putting a lot of her weight on it.
By the time she got into the hallway, she was already breathing heavily from exertion.
She didn’t know how much farther she could go. Could she make it all the way through the house?
She called out his name one last time, yelling as loud as she could.
No answer.
She kept going, pushing the chair, letting it scratch up the floors. Not that it mattered anymore what the floors looked like. And she wondered whether it ever had, in the sense that maybe they’d all been concentrating on the wrong things before the EMP. How much easier would their lives be right now if they had done a little bit of preparing before the actual event? What if they’d put aside a little fund, a little extra money, using it once a month to buy supplies, building up a stockpile? What if they’d come up with plans, designated meeting places, and everything of the sort?
There wasn’t much point in thinking about it now. Except in terms of things that they could implement in the future. Without communication devices like cell phones, carefully laid-out plans and rendezvous spots should have been a basic requirement.
Aly wound her way through the entire house. Eventually, she found Jordan slumped against the wall in a corner, behind an armchair.
It was as if he’d been hiding from her.
He was unconscious, his eyes closed, drool coming out of his mouth.
&nb
sp; One of his arms was stretched out, and in his hand, he loosely held a bottle of something. Hard liquor, most likely. Or maybe moonshine, for all Aly knew. Maybe even absinthe. Or rubbing alcohol. She wouldn’t put anything past Jordan.
Despite her weakness, Aly managed to give Jordan a weak kick in the stomach.
But there was no rousing him. He was out for good.
Fine. Whatever. She’d get herself something to eat.
Hopefully, nothing would happen. Hopefully, no one would show up looking for a fight, looking to steal, looking to murder whoever they could simply out of anger and frustration at the way the world had finally turned out.
Aly was making her way to the kitchen, still using the chair for support, when she passed by a candle that Jordan must have lit for some extra light.
Despite the candle, it was hard to see. The blinds had all been drawn as a security feature. It wasn’t a good idea to let someone see inside the house, to see who was there, to see what kinds of supplies were there.
Aly’s chair knocked into something. She was weak and it was hard to get it to go exactly where she wanted it.
To her horror, she watched as the table that she’d bumped into wobbled. It was a long coffee table in front of the couch, and the lit candle rested on top of it.
The candle wobbled.
Aly reached out.
But she wasn’t fast enough.
Before she could get to it, the candle had fallen over. It fell off the table, right onto the ancient small woven rug. The rug had been filthy, and Aly remembered that Rob had taken it outside to give it a good beating, getting what had seemed like pounds and pounds of dust out of it.
Aly gasped as the rug caught fire. The flames rose much higher and faster than she would have expected. The rug must have been incredibly dry, and very flammable.
Aly was in no shape to deal with the fire. She could barely walk. What was she supposed to do?
But she tried anyway, casting aside the chair that she’d used to support herself, and trying to grab at the rug. She hoped that she could take it outside, or beat it against the floor to extinguish the flames.
But the flames were high now, and they licked her hands as she tried to grab onto the rug. She instinctively pulled her hand back, gasping in pain from the burn.
“Jordan!” she screamed.
Could he really be that out of it? So far gone that he didn’t hear anything? That he didn’t somehow sense the danger?
Fire was one of those primordial things. It meant health and security. And it meant danger. Extreme danger. Aly felt her body reacting to it now, screaming at her to get out of there, away from the flames. It was something that was hardwired into her. Her body felt like a spring, getting ready to sprint right out of there, despite her physical condition.
She screamed Jordan’s name again. But there was no answer.
The flames had spread to the couch, which was rapidly erupting into something resembling a fireball.
And that’s when Aly really knew it. The house was going up in flames. It was already a lost cause. There was nothing she could do about it.
“Jordan!”
No answer.
She had to get out of there.
And she had to get Jordan out of there too.
He may have been a sleazeball and a drunk, but he was still her uncle. Her blood. She’d already lost her mother. Losing Jordan, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, would be too much.
The flames seemed like they were all around her. Smoke filled the air.
It seemed almost unbelievable, how fast it had all happened.
Visibility was reduced. Her body was hot, and the air felt like it would scorch her.
Her body was still incredibly weak.
But adrenaline coursed through her.
She could do this.
She could save Jordan. Grab him, shake him awake. Or drag him out of the house if she had to.
With determination etched into her face, Aly stepped forward, making her way between the high flames, towards the corner where Jordan lay slumped.
21
Jessica
“He’s gaining on us!”
“I’m pushing it as hard as I can.”
The Subaru engine was whining like it’d never whined before. Jessica was sure it’d simply shut down at any moment, overloaded however engines got overloaded.
Jessica didn’t really know, though. She knew about bikes, not cars. Bikes were something she could understand, with the simple and easy-to-see connection between the source of power (the legs) and the rear wheel. The drivetrain was something she could touch and feel. A car? That was a whole different story. She understood, in theory at least, that it wasn’t totally different.
Jessica had her head spun completely around, her neck craning, as she watched the motorcycle following them.
Up ahead, the road was ending at an intersection.
The trees were ripping by them. They might have been going a hundred miles an hour. Maybe over. Definitely over ninety. And it wasn’t the sort of road you should drive that fast on.
Rob barely slowed down, taking the turn so fast that Jessica feared that they’d lose control completely and crash headlong into a tree.
But somehow Rob kept it together, jerking the wheel hard to get them back on track. Two wheels bumped over uneven earth on the side of the road, but soon all four wheels were back on the pavement.
The motorcycle was still pursuing them.
It was like a country road. It wasn’t exactly curvy, but it definitely wasn’t a straight shot from one end to the other. There were enough slight curves to keep Rob occupied at the wheel.
“Why’d you go that way?” shouted Jessica, above the sound of the engine.
The windows were down, and the air was blowing her hair around crazily.
“What?”
“Why’d you go this way?”
“Back to the lake house,” she heard him shout.
“You’re leading them back to the lake house?”
Rob flashed her a look. She could see it in his eyes. He was scared. And he didn’t know what he was doing.
Suddenly, the noise from the engine cut off.
The car started to slow down immediately. It wasn’t getting any power. It was just coasting along. Jessica may have not known a lot about cars, but she knew that.
Rob shot her a terrified look as he fumbled with the keys, the pedals, and the shifter.
No matter how hard or frantically he tried, he couldn’t get the engine started again.
“Shit,” was all he could say, over and over again.
Through the rear window, Jessica could see the motorcycle rapidly gaining on them.
There was just the slightest decline to the road. If they’d been headed uphill, they might be stopped already.
They must have been going at least a hundred miles an hour. They had a while before the Subaru completely stopped due to lack of momentum.
Rob was still having to turn the wheel, to keep them on the road. There was absolutely no power, and the power steering must have been dead. But their velocity still allowed him to turn the wheel easily enough.
“He’s gaining on us,” said Jessica. “Give me your gun.”
“Of course he’s gaining on us! We’ve got no power. We’re toast. What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to not lose our shit, that’s what we’re going to do. Now give me your gun.”
“What? You’re going to shoot him out the window? Like we’re in some movie?”
“Yes,” said Jessica. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Now for the last time, hand it over.”
With just one hand on the wheel, Rob handed over his gun.
Jessica checked it, felt the weight of it in her hands. It felt good to be armed again.
The Subaru was, little by little, decelerating. It wasn’t much, but it was perceptible.
Jessica didn’t know how long the road went on like this. It wasn�
�t like they’d have to stop if they came to a stop sign. But surely the slight downhill would end at some point, turning into a slight uphill.
Not that it mattered.
The biker had already closed the distance. He was maybe ten feet behind them.
And he was repositioning his shotgun.
It looked like he was trying to get the gun into position so that he could fire it at them while still riding the motorcycle.
“What’s he doing?” Rob’s voice was anxious. A little high-pitched.
“Trying to shoot us. Maybe blow out a tire.”
“Right now?” Fear in his voice, ducking his head down a little.
“He’s not going to be able to make it. This isn’t the movies. There’s no way he can ride that thing one-handed.”
Jessica was getting into position, trying to get to where she could get as far out the window as she needed to be.
But it was harder than it looked, and it seemed that to get the angle on the shot she’d need, she’d have to be really hanging out of the Subaru. And that didn’t seem possible, unless she wanted to fall.
Again, this wasn’t the movies.
“Aren’t you going to shoot him?”
“I can’t get the angle.”
“Why not?”
“Just shut up and drive.”
This wasn’t the time to have to explain everything to Rob.
Jessica was again spun around in her seat, watching the guy on the bike.
He was close.
Very close.
Still fumbling with the shotgun.
What an amateur.
Suddenly, Jessica had an idea. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it before. Or Rob, for that matter.
“OK, Rob. You’ve got to listen to me.”
“What?” Rob’s voice made it sound like he was losing control. And that’s not what would help them right now. But there was no time to get him calmed down. He just needed to be able to follow her instructions.
“Just do what I say. No arguing. OK, on the count of three, you’re going to hit the brakes. And hit them hard. Really slam on them.”
“The brakes? The car’s off. They’re not going to work.”
“They’ll work, trust me. You’ve got to hit them really hard. Use both feet. Really jam them down. I’ll pull the emergency brake while you’re doing that.”
Final Panic: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (Surviving Book 2) Page 11
