Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3]

by Westfield, Ryan

Rod wasn’t scared of dying. Not in the least bit. He’d already had plenty of near misses in his pre-EMP days. There’d been countless dangers in his life, from drug overdoses to accidents on his bike, to fist fights that had gotten too ugly too quick. He wasn’t a stranger to danger or physical harm. In fact, he’d learned to just sort of tune it all out, dialing down the mental noise of danger and death.

  It wasn’t that he had a personal philosophy or years of experience that had turned into wisdom, or anything like that. It was really just that after countless encounters, he’d realized he simply “didn’t give a shit,” as he’d explained to his buddies, whether or not he died.

  All he cared about was making the best of his time while he still had it. Having his fun, to put it another way.

  The minutes were passing in complete silence. Rod wondered what had happened with Bill and the other woman. Rod had run some ways from the house, but not too far not to hear a loud scream, or a gunshot.

  Maybe Bill was just waiting outside the basement? But why would he do that? He was anxious to head in. Had he turned into a coward all of a sudden? Was he standing there outside, quaking in his boots over the thought of attacking some woman who was cowering in a basement? No, that didn’t sound like Bill.

  Well, there wasn’t any point in worrying about it. It was every man for himself, unless it behooved them to gang up together. That wasn’t the gang’s motto, but it was Rod’s newfound motto.

  Slowly, an idea began to take form in Rod’s head. A sort of strategy. A way of approaching the problem. It was the result of his mind speeding along, chugging through thought after thought in the silent darkness. The idea came from thinking about Bill quaking in his boots, about to shit his pants due to fright. The thought was so funny that Rod actually almost laughed out loud, right there in the darkness. It would have potentially given away his position, so he suppressed the laugh, keeping his half-rotten teeth clenched tightly together.

  The idea was this: fear.

  Rod didn’t have to wait there doing nothing, and he didn’t have to give up his position either by standing up and shooting wildly into the darkness.

  All he had to do was use fear to his advantage. All he had to do was scare that woman there in the woods. Scare her even more than she must have been already. Scare her past the point of making an irrational decision.

  All he had to do was provoke her into some action. Then his own plan would unfold naturally after that.

  Rod needed to think more clearly. His head was starting to feel a little cloudy. He’d had a brilliant idea and now he needed to just maintain that train of thought. His cloudiness was coming from the hint of fatigue he was starting to feel in his body.

  He dug into the front right pocket of his jeans, looking for the little vial that he knew was there. He took it out, got it in front of him. Unscrewed the little lid.

  He could still feel the speed pumping through his veins.

  What he needed was something else. Something a little extra. A little spice to compliment the speed.

  This was coke. The good stuff, too. Not that shit that had been trampled on a dozen times in the supply chain, until it was little more than talcum powder mixed with Lidocaine.

  No, this was the real deal.

  Placing his gun on the ground for a moment, Rod formed what was known as a “boxcar” with his index finger and thumb. Next, he dumped a good quantity of the cocaine onto his thumb’s fingernail, where it was held in place by the way his index finger wrapped around it. He put his nail to his nose and inhaled sharply.

  It burned instantly, all the way up through his sinuses, as, paradoxically, his nostril started to feel numb around the opening.

  He felt his heart rate increasing. He felt that classic rush of energy that seemed to come from deep within him. It complemented the speed nicely.

  His thoughts were really starting to churn along now.

  Wait, why had he been worried about making noise and giving his position away?

  Noise was what he needed.

  Noises in the dark were scary. And he wanted to terrify. Strange noises. And voices.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” he suddenly shouted out, deciding to act on his plan right then and there. “Don’t you want to come out and play? Why are you hiding there in the darkness?”

  No answer.

  Not a sound.

  The vial was back in his pocket, the little lid screwed on tightly. His gun was back in his hand.

  There was a stick near his other hand. A short one. Dead wood. Kind of thick. Not too dried out. He seized it, felt its heft. It had some good weight to it.

  He aimed well, lifting up his arm just right, his elbow tucked back, using a lot of wrist.

  The stubby, thick stick whizzed through the air, collided with a tree off towards the woman, and made a good thick sound. That should rattle her a little bit. He wasn’t sure exactly how. The plan didn’t have to be exact. Not for his racing brain.

  He felt good.

  Good enough for some more taunts.

  “That’s me coming to get you! You can’t see me out here, but I can see you. I’ve got some night vision goggles and shit are they sweet. Don’t worry. You don’t have to come for me. I’ll come to you. Just give me a minute or two... don’t worry. I’ll be there soon.”

  The good feeling was in his chest. In his head. His sinuses were a little numb now. His heart was thumping crazily in his chest, like a wild racehorse. It only got like that when the stuff was good, and when the combo was just right.

  He felt good. But he knew he could feel better.

  He dug the little vial out of his pocket again. Held it up towards the light that wasn’t coming from the moon anymore, not with the cloud cover that had rolled in again.

  He put the gun back down on the ground, got the little lid unscrewed. His fingers were a little fumbly, a little shaky, but he pushed past it. Got a big bump onto his thumbnail and hit it.

  It felt good. The rush.

  He went for another.

  Then another.

  Soon, his heart was really thudding along. Like the best racehorse ever to stomp down the tracks.

  “Hey,” he cried out. “I’m coming for you.”

  He wasn’t going to wait any longer.

  What had he been thinking, waiting so long?

  With the coke in his veins, with his sinuses burning, there was no way he could be stopped.

  He felt invincible. Powerful. Incredibly strong. Incredibly fast.

  His gun was in his hand as he launched himself up from the ground in what felt like a single motion.

  Soon, he was dashing through the darkness, his arms pumping at his sides, his boots thudding through the night. He was going to find her.

  She was going to be his.

  17

  Maddy

  Maddy didn’t understand why her new friend had left. It made her feel too many emotions at the same time. She felt indignant. Indignant that Jessica didn’t understand Maddy or Maddy’s help.

  She felt angry too. Angry for the very same reasons.

  And she felt scared. Scared at being once again all alone.

  She’d felt so confident on her own.

  Now, after just a few brief moments with a friend at her side, she was already used to not being alone. It annoyed her, this sudden uptick in fear.

  She didn’t like feeling scared. She liked feeling confident and in control. She even liked feeling arrogant, not that she would have ever admitted that to anyone else.

  Whatever. It didn’t matter that she felt scared. After all, she was strong. Mentally strong. Smarter than just about anyone else. She could decide if she was scared or not. She could control it. She had controlled so much in her life; why shouldn’t she be able to control her own emotions?

  It’d be easy. She’d just think different thoughts. Nice thoughts. Thoughts of sunny days on the beach from her childhood. Seashells and sand. The sound of the lapping waves. Maybe a kid shouting in excitement some
where off in the distance.

  Was it working? She wanted it to work. She wanted it to work so badly.

  But it didn’t.

  She still felt the pinching sensation in her chest, as if her lungs might stop working at any moment.

  She still felt her guts tightening, as if they were more a knot than anything else.

  Her eyes darted around the basement. The flashlight wasn’t making anything better. It didn’t seem to banish the darkness so much as create intense, sharp, angular lines. Everything looked too intense, too real.

  She was in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself. Somehow, the fear seemed to have made her cold. She could acutely feel how cold her feet were, as if they’d been dipped in ice water. Her nose, too, felt freezing, as if were stuck in a big block of ice.

  There’d been no noise since Jessica had run away.

  So the bikers had known where they were?

  Did that mean that they’d both gone chasing Jessica? She didn’t know. She was sure there’d been two of them. Or pretty sure. Her memory didn’t seem to be working quite right. It was the fear, twisting things around.

  If there’d been two, maybe they’d both gone running after Jessica. Yes, that was probably it. After all, two sets of running footsteps would sound like just one.

  It was too bad for Jessica. She was probably dead now, after all. Killed by those monstrous bikers.

  But it was her own fault. She’d been too arrogant. Too petty. Too headstrong. Too independent. She should have listened to Maddy. After all, Maddy was educated. Maddy knew what she was doing.

  A heavy footstep outside shattered the silence. Unmistakable. Creaking and heavy. Sounded like a leather boot. Amazing what you could hear in complete silence.

  Then nothing.

  Nothing but silence.

  A gunshot far away broke the silence.

  Then a scream. A horrible, blood-curdling scream that came from a good distance away. It must have been incredibly loud to travel so far through the night.

  The scream made her heart pump even faster.

  There was only one person who could have screamed. Jessica.

  The footstep nearby came again, cold dead leaves on the ground crunching under a heavy boot.

  What had happened to Jessica?

  Would her own fate follow Jessica’s?

  Whatever had happened to Jessica, it wasn’t good. Anything that produced a scream like that wasn’t good.

  Her heart was thumping intensely.

  The world was once again silent.

  She needed to do something. She needed to act.

  She was smart after all. She had a good brain. She just needed to use it. Then she could get herself out of this situation.

  She’d done well so far since the EMP. She’d survived. There was no reason why she shouldn’t keep surviving. She just had to not give in to fear.

  She still had her flashlight on, casting its light into the basement.

  She knew that the light wasn’t going to help her. If anything, it’d just act as a beacon, drawing attention to her. It was more like she was shining a spotlight on herself, alerting predators that she was here, ready to be attacked.

  From the outside of the basement, the light would have been obviously visible. The little windows would have been lit up with the pale white light. Without any other light for possibly miles around, it was really like a beacon, a lighthouse.

  Sure, the light wouldn’t have traveled far, which is how she’d justified the flashlight’s use to Jessica. And it was true. From more than a house away, it wouldn’t have been seen.

  But that footstep wasn’t more than a house away. She’d heard it close by. Mere feet away. Someone was out there. About to pounce.

  And the flashlight was only going to make it easier for whoever it was. When they inevitably came into the basement, she’d have the room completely lit up for them. She wouldn’t be hidden in the darkness. They wouldn’t have to search.

  She needed to turn it off.

  Her finger was right on the flashlight’s power switch. She knew what she had to do.

  Another footstep. Loud.

  But she couldn’t get her finger to actually hit the switch. She was paralyzed with fear.

  She was smart. Brilliant, even. Academically successful. She would have gone far in life.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  If it hadn’t been for the EMP, who knew how far she would have gotten in life.

  Nothing was her fault.

  She’d done everything right.

  She’d made all the right decisions.

  She couldn’t blame herself.

  The metal bulkhead door began to creak. Someone was opening it.

  She was frozen. She couldn’t move. She had a knife. She knew how to fight, with or without it. She was “academically” proficient in hand-to-hand combat. She knew all the moves by the book. She’d won tournaments and she’d given demonstrations in front of her class.

  But in the real world?

  Nothing worked 100 percent.

  She was frozen. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. The flashlight was still on.

  There were a hundred things she could have done in that moment to at least increase her chances of survival, but instead she did nothing.

  She just thought about how it was all so unfair. She thought about how great she’d been, and how great people had told her she’d been, and about how they’d all been right all along.

  She also stared more or less straight ahead, right at the corner of the basement where the water boiler was situated. There were cobwebs everywhere, which were eerily illuminated by the flashlight’s wide-angled diffuse beam. She didn’t see any spiders, and for some reason her mind seemed to decide that not seeing the spiders was somehow relevant and important, even though she knew it wasn’t.

  Footsteps on the concrete stairs leading down the basement. Very heavy ones.

  The metal doors slammed closed, their rattling echoing throughout the basement.

  She was still just staring straight ahead at the boiler. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at her attacker. Not even to turn her head the slightest bit. It was as if she was completely unprepared for reality. It was as if she’d been so overly confident in herself and her abilities, after being told so thousands of times by awards and report cards and her parents and friends, that she’d never really put herself to the test in the real world. Sure, she’d gotten out of some tough spots already, but surviving was about statistics, about staying alive no matter what happened, not about catching a few lucky breaks.

  Although she couldn’t make herself turn off the flashlight or move her head, to make any movement to prepare for an attack, her mind was still active, and in the periphery of her vision, she saw him approaching.

  He was disgusting. That was the only word that came to her head. Before the EMP, if she’d seen him on the street, she would have crossed to the other side. If he’d entered a restaurant, she would have asked the management to call the police.

  His hair looked like it had been attacked randomly with scissors. It wasn’t anything resembling a haircut, but it wasn’t simply overgrown either. It was all tangled together.

  His lips were thin and pale, and looked somehow absolutely disgusting in the pale cold white light of the flashlight. His nose was angular and seemed even more so with the intense shadows that cut across his face. He looked like a villain in some old black-and-white movie.

  His sideburns were long and thick and full, formed from hairs that seemed as thick as coiled wires.

  His skin was a pale, disgusting white, with a hint of jaundiced yellow.

  His lips curled back in some kind of smile, revealing a mouth full of missing and chipped teeth, all crooked and arranged in a ramshackle, chaotic way.

  In the darkness, and with the fear, his mouth seemed somehow otherworldly, even though this was very much reality. It seemed like the mouth of a monster from her earliest nightmares, rather than a
human mouth.

  He looked completely grotesque, and her body recoiled reflexively, finally breaking her free from her frozen state.

  Her body wanted to fight or flee.

  She didn’t think about it. She just reacted.

  She decided to flee.

  She darted towards the door. But that meant she had to run right past him.

  He moved swiftly to block her path, dipping his shoulder down like he was a football player and colliding with her.

  The sharp point formed by his shoulder dug into her painfully and she was knocked backwards.

  She fell backwards in the air towards the hard concrete basement floor.

  She hit the floor hard. The air was knocked from her lungs. She gasped for breath.

  The flashlight fell from her hand, clattering onto the floor, its beam of light now illuminating only an arbitrary and small section of the wall.

  The rest of the basement fell once again into complete darkness.

  Suddenly, she received a hard kick in the stomach. She doubled over in pain, crying out.

  She couldn’t flee. And she was unfrozen. Still full of fear. But ready to act on it. Her education and culture had fallen away from her, and she was once again a human animal, ready to do anything to survive.

  She couldn’t see him, but she could smell him. Her nostrils were full of the stench. A horrible stench, like something organic that had rotted long ago, but mixed with the stench of burning plastic.

  She heard him sniffing hard in the darkness, as if he were inhaling something.

  She knew more or less where he’d be. To her right side. She could get him.

  It was a technique she’d practiced too many times to count in class. The idea was that when you were down, you could position your arms in such a way against the floor, allowing you to swing your legs around. Doing this allowed you to knock your opponent off-balance, and, hopefully, as they collapsed to the floor, you could stage your next attack.

  She got her arms in position, pressing hard against the floor.

  Then she swung her legs around.

  She did it just the way she was supposed to. Just the way she’d been taught, and just the way she’d done hundreds of time in class.