With the rifle, Rob patrolled the outskirts of the lake house, while Jessica stayed close by, keeping a watchful eye and cautious ear out for the Carpenter’s return.
Four hours later, it was Jessica’s turn to rest. But there wasn’t any rest to be had, since there were chores to be done. She had to feed Aly, for one thing, not to mention make sure they were consuming their food at the right rate. They had a little ration chart that Jim had drawn up, and it needed to be diligently kept up to date, or else they might burn through more of their food then they realized.
They were hoping to start fishing soon enough, to stretch out their supplies of packaged food, especially now that they’d already finished the perishables. But with the Carpenters as a very near and very real threat, spending hours at the lake dangling a fishing line didn’t seem like a good idea.
But life had to go on, despite the heightened security. Water had to be fetched and boiled, with the hopes that the gas tank wouldn’t run out on them any time soon.
The shifts of rest and watches began to blur together, and before Jessica knew it, a few days had gone by.
She was more exhausted than ever. Running on little sleep and few calories.
It was three days after the Carpenters had shot Aly that Jim came up to Jessica with a worried look on his face.
She was standing outside the house, her eyes scanning the surrounding trees, looking for anything suspicious. For any movement.
When Jessica glanced at Jim’s face, she saw his sunken and blurred, bloodshot eyes. But that was normal. She knew she looked the same. But there was something else in his face. His mouth was twitching at the corners.
“She’s worse,” said Jim. His voice was low and level. But crystal clear. There was no mistaking his meaning. “The wound isn’t healing.”
That wasn’t news. Jessica had seen it herself over the last few days. It hadn’t healed as it was supposed to.
But what Jim said next was news. “It’s infected,” he said.
“Infected? Are you sure?”
Jim nodded. “It’s red and inflamed. Parts of it are purple and swollen.”
Jessica thought for a moment before responding. “What are we going to do?”
“We don’t have any antibiotics,” said Jim.
Jessica nodded. It was one of the most useful medicines missing from their otherwise very complete stockpile.
“Couldn’t we give her something else? Some of the corticosteroid creams?”
“Those will just make the infection worse,” said Jim. “They’re not used for treating something like that.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I thought we could wait it out,” said Jim. “I noticed it yesterday, but it’s worse today. The only thing to do is to get some antibiotics.”
“But how?”
“I’m going into town,” said Jim.
“It’s too dangerous,” said Jessica. “We have no idea what’s going on out there.”
That wasn’t entirely true. While there’d been no news from the outside world, they had seen more plumes of smoke rising over the trees.
Whatever was going on in the outside world, it wasn’t good.
“I’ve got to do it,” said Jim. “She’s not going to survive without antibiotics.”
Jessica knew Jim well enough at this point to know that he meant what he said. And there wasn’t any changing his mind.
“I’m going with you, then,” said Jessica. “Who knows what you’re going to find out there. You’ll need backup.”
Jim shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that. Plus, I need you here. You and Rob need to protect Aly. The Carpenters are coming back. It’s just a question of when.”
“Probably when they get more desperate from starvation.”
“Exactly,” said Jim. “And desperation will make them all the more ruthless. Rob’s not going to be able to defend the place by himself.”
“When are you leaving?”
“In an hour. I’m already packed.”
“You’re taking the Subaru?”
“It’s going to be faster. But I need your help with something before I leave.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know if I have enough gas to get there and back. Especially if something happens and there’s a delay. So I need you to get that bike of yours ready for me to ride. I’ll bring it with me and ride it back with the antibiotics if something happens. Aly can’t wait long and I’ll need to get back as fast as I can.”
“Sure,” said Jessica. “You keep watch while I work. It shouldn’t take me long.”
Jessica went inside to grab some tools. The door to Aly’s bedroom was open, and Aly lay there on the bed. She didn’t look good at all. Her face had lost all its color, and she breathing slowly and shallowly.
“You doing OK, Aly?” said Jessica.
Aly didn’t answer. She just shook her head ever so slightly, and stared at Jessica with barely opened eyes full of pain.
Jim was right. If Aly didn’t get the antibiotics she needed, she wouldn’t make it. And even if she did get the medicine, there was still a chance she’d die.
Jessica tried to put all that out of her mind. And she set to work. It was the only sensible course of action, after all. The thing to do was just to keep going. To push on through it all.
Jessica didn’t have all her bike tools with her, but she did have a small multi-tool designed specifically for bike maintenance. It had the hex wrenches on it, as well as a couple other odds and ends.
She’d done enough roadside maintenance in her time to know how to improvise when the right tools weren’t available.
The bike wasn’t in terrible shape, but it wasn’t rideable right now.
One of the tubes was punctured. That was an easy enough fix, and it only took her a couple minutes. After all, she was a pro.
The chain had been knocked off the gears. This was normally an easy fix, but some of the links had been bent beyond repair. There was no way to get the chain back onto the gears.
The only solution, in the absence of a replacement chain, was to remove some of the links. Shortening the chain meant that Jim wouldn’t be able to change gears. He’d essentially have a single speed bike. Using sewing pins and a lot of swearing, Jessica got the links removed and got the chain reattached around the middle gears.
The bike’s frame was cracked near the bottom bracket. Normally that meant it wasn’t safe to ride. But there wasn’t any way to fix it. Jim would have to hope that the crack didn’t get worse.
Jessica raised the seat since Jim was taller than her, and took the bike outside to him.
“How long you think it’ll take you?”
“Dewittville is only two hours away by car. But who knows what the roads are like. And if I have to bike back, it’ll be even longer.”
From the end of the driveway, Rob came walking quickly. He’d been patrolling the wider area.
“We’ll take good care of her, Jim,” said Rob. “Just try to stay safe yourself.”
Jim nodded. His had an expression of grim determination on it as he lowered himself into the Subaru.
No more words were spoken as Jim cranked the engine and backed slowly down the gravel driveway.
“You think he’ll make it?” said Rob, as they watched the Subaru disappear behind the trees.
“Yeah,” said Jessica. “He’s got to. Now let’s talk about what we’re going to do if the Carpenters return while Jim’s gone.”
23
Jim
Aly’s pus-filled infected wounds were weighing heavily on Jim’s mind.
But he had to push them to the back of his head. There were plenty more immediate things that he needed to worry about.
The Carpenter’s house was up ahead. If he didn’t make it past there, Aly wouldn’t get her antibiotics. And she’d die. There were no two ways about it. And Jim didn’t believe in sugar coating anything, even to himself.
Jim grabbed the s
hifter, depressed the clutch, and got the Subaru into neutral. He didn’t want to kill the engine, but if he could coast by the Carpenter’s house, there was less of a chance they’d hear him.
If they saw him, they might try to shoot him as he passed. Or, worse, they might try to attack the lake house now, knowing that he was away.
The blinds in the squalid little house were drawn and there was no one out. No sign of anyone, really, except for the beat up pickup in the driveway.
When Jim was well past the Carpenter’s house, the Subaru was slowing down, and he put it back in second and slowly accelerated, keeping the engine noise to a minimum.
His plan was to take the back roads north to Dewittville, which was a small town of only a few thousand. He had maps with him, as well as a small backpack with enough food to sustain him for a few days.
But he didn’t expect to be eating much.
The plan was to get to the pharmacy, grab the antibiotics and head back. As quickly as possible. And with as little human interaction as possible.
People were going to be getting desperate. Every new interaction would have a possibility for violence. For confrontation. For injury. And death.
The biggest problem that he foresaw was that the pharmacy would likely be already raided. And antibiotics were going to be a prime target for everyone.
Sure, many people would go for the opiates. For the anti-anxiety meds. But the ones who understood the true risks at play in a situation like this would go for the antibiotics. They’d stockpile them.
And that meant that if Jim had to get to them, he’d be up against people who knew what they were doing, who were most likely armed.
He didn’t know how it would play out.
But the one thing he did already know was that he’d stop at nothing to keep his wife from dying from an infected gunshot wound. Especially one that was his fault.
Jim kept a close eye on the gas gauge as he drove. It was getting down into the danger zone, and he expected the emergency gas light to come on at any moment.
But he knew that he had about three gallons left once that warning light came on. And that was a lot of miles, so long as he drove carefully. The important thing for gas economy was to not drive faster than 55 MPH, and accelerate and brake slowly.
When possible, on the long sloping down hills, Jim put the Subaru into neutral and killed the engine.
There weren’t any other cars on the road.
He’d expected to see a few. Maybe some stopped. Maybe some moving.
But there were none.
Rather than being reassuring, it was eerie, giving him a sense of dread that sunk deep into his bones. He couldn’t shake it no matter how hard he tried.
Occasionally, when the trees allowed for it, Jim could glimpse thick plumes of black some on the horizon. He didn’t know where they came from. But he knew what they meant.
Chaos.
Jim wondered what would happen to the lake house if the Carpenters attacked while he was gone.
Would Jessica and Rob be able to handle it on their own?
They’d be, after all, severely outnumbered.
There wasn’t anything he could do about it. Not now while he was away. He’d done his best training Rob in firearms. In accuracy. Reloading. Everything he knew.
Hopefully it’d be enough.
Jim glanced at his map. He was getting close to Dewittville. He was expecting to come up to an intersection at any moment. He’d take a right, and it’d be a five minute drive into the center of town.
The road took a long, sloping curve around to the right.
The intersection was up ahead. Finally visible.
But there was more.
A large windowless van was parked laterally across the street, about a hundred feet before the road broke into the turn offs.
Jim slowed down, keeping his eyes peeled, looking for any sign of human activity.
The van was from the 1980s, one of the large ones used by plumbers and other workmen. Probably one of the one ton versions.
If Jim drove partially off the road, there’d be just enough room to squeeze around the van.
But maybe that was what someone out there was hoping for. After all, there must have been a reason the van was parked like that.
Someone could easily be hiding in the woods or the interior of the van, waiting to spring out and shoot at Jim’s tires.
Or worse, shoot him through the window.
Jim’s mind was working rapidly.
The way he saw it, he didn’t have any other options.
He had to go for it.
And if he was going to do it, he was going to do it fast. This wasn’t the time for caution. The faster he got through there, the safer he’d be. Sure, he’d risk an accident, but that the least of his worries right now.
Still no sign from the van. Or from the woods.
Jim downshifted quickly.
He floored the accelerator.
The Subaru leapt forward.
Jim drove straight towards the van, swerving only at the very last moment.
The right tires hit the bumpy ground. The Subaru rocked forcibly across the bumps and ruts.
The van on the left side moved by in a rapid blur.
Jim was going too fast.
There was a tree in his path straight ahead. If he continued, he’d wrap the right side of the engine around the tree.
Jim jerked the wheel to the left as hard as he could. The Subaru turned sharply.
There was a flash of movement off to the left.
Jim didn’t have time to look. He was struggling to get the Subaru back on the road.
He didn’t dare take his foot off the accelerator, in case whoever was there got their way.
A loud bang rang out.
The window behind Jim let out a loud crack.
The Subaru swerved onto the road. Yanking the wheel, Jim got it into a straight line.
In the rearview mirror, a woman stood in the middle of the road, directly behind him. She had long, tangled hair that hung past her shoulders. A rifle was in her hands, pointed directly at the Subaru.
Jim ducked down just in time.
Another loud bang and another crack. The bullet had struck the rear windshield.
Jim popped his head back up just in time to take the turn to the right.
A few tense seconds later, he was around the corner and speeding down a calm, empty road.
The van and the woman were behind him, and he was unharmed.
There wasn’t time to examine damage to the Subaru. Besides, a few semi-shattered windows didn’t matter.
His heart was pounding and there was sweat on his forehead.
He didn’t have to know who that woman was to know what she meant.
She meant that the societal situation had progressed to chaos. She was a rogue, robbing people on the road. Highway robbery was, in a very real sense, an ancient tradition that happened in places where the rule of the law had fallen to the wayside, where the natural ruthless nature of the human had room to freely raise its head and spew forth the violence and chaos that were required to take what it wanted, what it needed for its survival.
Jim was approaching the town.
Up ahead, there was a gas station to the right. And a supermarket to the left.
Farther down, there was a large hardware store.
The parking lots were all full. Probably from the shoppers that’d been there when the EMP had struck.
Jim slowed down as he approached a traffic light. The intersection here connected his road with a large, four lane road that ran through the center of the small town.
There were cars everywhere on the road, many of them when their doors and trunks open. They’d been abandoned, just left there.
There wasn’t another person in sight.
But Jim knew that didn’t mean much. Especially after his last encounter.
He’d barely survived. And that made him nervous. He didn’t like the idea of traps. Tr
aps were situations where he didn’t stand a chance, where the odds were already stacked against him.
But that was reality.
And reality wasn’t fair.
There wasn’t such a thing as a fair fight.
Jim took the turn, heading onto the main road, heading down to the right where the largest cluster of shops seemed to be.
He had to weave through the stopped cars, sometimes driving slowly as he squeezed through tight spaces. Fortunately, the Subaru was a narrow vehicle.
It hadn’t even been two weeks since the EMP.
The way Jim saw it, it would take much longer for the majority of the population to die off.
If there was no violence, which was highly unlikely, people could survive for three weeks without any food at all. And there were bound to be scraps of food here and there to eat. So the real timeframe of starvation die off in this situation was much longer.
Jim doubted the city water here would be running, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t less than ideal water to drink. There’d be water in toilets, in the pipes, in water heaters, in ponds, and plenty of other places. People might get sick, but they’d be alive, for the most part.
The violence had likely already started, but who knew how far it had gone. Countless factors could determine what the violence would play out like, and it would probably be different for every town, city, and geographical area.
So Jim was heading into a town where people were closing in on the point of starvation. They were likely sick and starving and willing to do just about anything to get themselves and their families out of that situation.
They were desperate and dangerous.
Jim felt his Ruger with his hand, just to make sure it was there. It was reassuring. But only to a certain extent.
Jim saw no one as he weaved through the stopped cars. He drove past various shops and a few small houses that had been turned into apartment buildings.
Everywhere he looked, the shades were drawn and the doors were closed. Everywhere he looked, of course, there was no power.
Jim’s eyes scanned the shops for anything that looked like a pharmacy. Grocery stores often had pharmacies inside. But Jim figured grocery stores would be raided even before pharmacies.
Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 14