by Kip Nelson
“What do we do?” Greg asked, his voice trembling with fear.
Tillman relaxed a little.
“We help them,” he said.
Chapter Twelve
Tillman walked the few steps to the car and leaned down.
“Are you okay?” he shouted.
The woman in the driver's seat was beating the window furiously. She pressed the button that would slide the windows down, but evidently that didn't work. She looked confused and scared. Tillman peered past her and saw a man in the passenger seat with a bowed head. There was a baby in the back seat. Tillman already had seen a little girl crying in the arms of her dead parents. He didn't want to repeat that with a baby, or see a baby die. His heart had not yet hardened enough for him to withstand such an emotional onslaught.
“Tillman, I thought you said we don't have time to stop?” Greg said.
“Do you think we really can leave these people?” Tillman shouted without bothering to look back at Greg. He tried to open the car door, but something had jammed. Probably the central locking system.
“What do we do?” Penelope asked.
“I'm not sure. The easy thing would be to bash the windows in, but I'd be afraid of the glass shattering all over them,” he said, then he turned to the woman. “Do you have a high-heeled shoe?”
He spoke loudly and clearly. The woman took a moment to process the words, and then nodded. She bent down and wrestled with her footwear before she brought back a slender beige shoe. She held it like a hammer.
“Smash the windshield,” Tillman said.
The woman looked at him, confused and unsure. Tillman knew what was going through her mind. This was an expensive car. Willfully damaging it was antithetical, but then she looked at her family. Between them and the car there was no choice. She adjusted her position to get as much room as she could, then began to hammer at the windshield with the shoe, driving the point of the heel against it. Her hair flayed out and her anguished screams broke through the barriers of the car. Tillman waited patiently until the shoe had penetrated the windshield and made a hole. Splintered cracks ran away from the hole. The woman continued smashing, releasing her anger and fear into her brutal strikes. More pocked holes appeared in the windshield. Tillman ran to the front of the car and held up his hands, shouting at her to stop.
She was in such a frenzy that it took some time for her to realize that Tillman was talking to her. She stopped and looked at the shoe, stunned that she had been so filled with rage. Tillman climbed on the front of the car. Now that there were holes in the windshield his words made it through to her more clearly.
“You've weakened the windshield now. You should be able just to push it through,” he said. He got on his knees and put his full weight onto the windshield, pulling against the holes the woman had made even though the glass dug into his fingers. He could feel it buckle, but the force wasn't enough yet.
“You need to push through,” he said, “Focus on the corners.” The woman nodded again and started to bash at the windshield. Greg and Penelope looked on, unsure what to do. Then, suddenly, the man beside her jerked into consciousness, and looked stunned. He took one look at Tillman and cursed, then went to open the door, but it was jammed.
All of a sudden, he looked to his wife.
“Sylvie, what the hell is going on?” he asked, then looked in the back at the baby. The woman just kept bashing at the windshield.
“We need to get out of here!” she yelled.
The couple must have had a good relationship because the man didn't ask any more questions. He merely did what Tillman had done to get out of his own car. He leaned back and raised his feet, then kicked at the windshield. It had taken quite a battering already, so it wasn't the sturdiest of defenses, and soon began coming loose. With the three of them working together, they soon were able to get the windshield away. Tillman pulled at the edges and hauled it off. It made a dry, cracking sound as it was torn away from the car. Tillman threw it to the side. He reached in and held out his hand to the woman, but she looked back at her child.
“I've got him, you get out of here,” her partner said.
Tillman took her hand and helped her out of the car. She climbed over the hood and then stood on the freeway, trembling after the ordeal. The man reached in the back and unclasped the baby from his car seat. Tillman remained on the car, then took the baby. The little boy wriggled and writhed in his arms, then began crying. Tillman carefully slid off the car and handled the baby to his mother.
“Oh, Tommy, it's okay. You're safe now. Mommy has got you,” she said. She held the baby close to her and paced back and forth, Tillman thought perhaps for her own benefit as well as the baby's.
He turned back to the car only to see that the man had made his own way out. He held out his hand to Tillman and shook it.
“I'm Harry,” he said.
“Tillman,” Tillman replied, and then other introductions were made.
“What's going on here?” Harry asked. Tillman explained all about the EMP and gestured down the freeway. Harry let out a low whistle when he saw the line of idle cars. “When's it going to be sorted out?”
“I'm not sure that it will be,” Tillman said. Once again, he was dismayed at the average person’s lack of knowledge or comprehension of the situation. How were people going to cope when they didn't know what was going on? Harry walked over to Sylvie with a troubled look on his face.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Harry asked.
“I'm not sure,” Tillman replied honestly. “We're all trying to figure that out. The best thing I can say is to try finding shelter somewhere. Try keeping your family safe. I don't know what people are planning, but I would hope that some are setting up a shelter somewhere.”
“Is that where you're going?” Sylvie asked.
“No, it's not,” Greg said.
Harry looked at him for the first time, narrowed his eyes, and then returned his gaze toward Tillman. “Why not? You guys seem to have a good handle on what's going on. Why don't you set up a shelter yourself? I'm sure a lot of people are going to be in the same position as us,” he said.
“I have to get to my family,” Tillman replied.
“I guess I can understand that,” Harry said. He took a step over to Sylvie and Tommy, placing a hand on the baby's head.
“God, I thought that raising a child was going to be hard enough in the old world, but now...” he trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought.
Tillman glanced at Greg and Penelope. Silence had descended upon them. Both of them knew the hardships that Harry and Sylvie would face in trying to keep their baby alive. It wasn't just a matter of providing food and warmth, but also of keeping the baby safe from infections, and keeping it quiet if they needed to hide from predators.
Tillman never had found room in his life to have children of his own and, in this moment, he was extremely grateful for that. Tillman reached into his bag and gave them a bottle of water and a little food he had collected.
“It's not much, but take this,” he said. Sylvie and Harry were grateful.
“I still don't know what happened there. Why were the doors locked?” she asked.
“Did you have them locked when you were driving?” Tillman asked.
“She always does. She's a little paranoid this one, always afraid that while she's waiting in traffic someone is going to run up, open the door, and attack us,” Harry said.
“That would be why then. When the EMP hit everything stayed the same. There's no way to unlock that car now. You'll have to leave it behind. Is there anywhere you can go that's not in the city?” Tillman said.
“Why? What's the problem with going into the city?” Sylvie asked.
“More people, more problems,” Harry replied, a knowing look in his eyes. Tillman inclined his head. “Sylvie's mom doesn't live too far from here. We'll go there first, then see what we can do.”
“Good luck,” Tillman said. Harry and Sylvie expressed the same se
ntiment to them. Tommy gurgled, and they moved away.
As soon as they were out of earshot Greg rounded on Tillman.
“Why did you give them some of our food?” he asked.
“Because it was the right thing to do,” Tillman said. Penelope scoffed as well, unable to believe that Greg would ask such a question.
They walked off in the opposite direction from the small family.
The heavens above were one of the most obvious signs that things had collapsed. Tillman was sure that they were not the only ones looking up at the stars.
“I always knew they were so beautiful,” Penelope said, “but I've never seen them like this before.”
“All the light pollution blocked it out. This must be what our ancestors saw,” Greg said. They all walked on with their heads lifted toward the heavens, gazing at the wonder of the stars and the wide silver moon.
“It's not going to happen, is it?” Greg said after some time.
“What?” Penelope asked.
“All our hopes and dreams of going to the stars. Colonizing Mars. It's not going to happen. We're going to be stuck on this rock, aren't we?” he said.
“Looks like it,” Penelope replied.
“We get to explore ourselves,” Tillman said. “And there's still plenty of life left to explore. Seeing the stars in this new way is just the beginning. We're going to have to learn everything over again.”
“I don't much like the thought of that. Sounds too much like going back to school, and I hated school,” Greg said.
“You and me both,” Penelope said.
“Think of it as leveling up. Right now, we're just basic characters, but soon we'll have more skills, equipment, experience, and we'll be able to take on more things,” Tillman said.
“Or we'll get killed by a Level 30 monster,” Greg replied dryly.
Tillman was getting increasingly annoyed with Greg's attitude, but he didn't want another argument.
They walked for another hour or so, following the freeway. They encountered a few more people who were trying to get their cars to work. So far none of them had been dangerous, they all just were shocked about what had had happened. The people here were not a big crowd and seemed too preoccupied with their own survival to bother the three of them. But as the freeway curved around it started to run parallel with railroad tracks. And as they walked they saw a train that was stuck on the tracks.
“My God,” Penelope said as she saw the hulking train that had ground to a halt. It was just as incredible as seeing the planes brought to their knees. These great pieces of technology should have been unbreakable and invincible, but they had been rendered powerless. And they had been carrying hundreds of people.
They stopped for a moment, looking at the train that had come off the tracks. Its nose lay broken, its carriages were twisted and left in a long line. Tillman doubted as many people died in these accidents as from the planes falling from the sky, but there were no doubt casualties.
People swarmed along the sides of the train like ants. Some of them laid by the tracks, tending to their injuries. Others walked along the railroad tracks towards the city. People had splintered off into different groups. Tillman found them ingenious. Following the tracks was a good idea. Without a map it was certainly one of the most reliable ways to ensure they were going in a consistent direction.
“Should we go help them too?” Penelope asked.
“They have enough help. I don't think we'd be able to make much of a difference,” Tillman replied.
They moved on.
As they walked farther from the city they saw other types of vehicles, such as tractors and semi-trucks, that had been abandoned. It seemed as though these people had been quick to learn that it was no use staying with their vehicles. Tillman unlocked one of the semis and jumped in, only to find that it was filled with furniture.
“We should try looking in as many as we can in case they have food,” he said.
Greg agreed, and declared that his stomach was rumbling. Tillman bit his tongue. Greg's appetite was going to be in for a shock when it realized it couldn't snack like it had before.
They looked back at the city and saw only darkness. The faint lights that glowed in an orange haze were the fires from the planes that had crashed, and perhaps one or two that people had lit. If anyone had any candles the light would have been too dim to see from their current vantage point.
“I've never seen the city like this. I've never seen anything like this,” Penelope said as she looked back at the city.
They reached a bridge that overlooked a river. Tillman noted that the passengers on the train were fortunate that the train had moved beyond the bridge when the EMP hit, for then they would have fallen into the river and drowned in the cold, watery depths.
“This is the way the world is now,” Tillman said.
He turned his back on the city and looked over the river. It was wide, its surface was as smooth as glass, and as dark as the night. Over the bridge lay a different area, a forest, away from the city. Behind him lay the past, a broken city, abandoned by God, left to fall into ruin. He thought about the people he had met in these brief hours and wondered how many of them still would be alive after a few days.
Tillman wiped a tear away from his eye.
“Tillman,” Greg said in a low whisper,” I think we're being followed.”
Chapter Thirteen
Tillman inhaled deeply, then slowly turned his head to look behind him. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Thankfully the moon and stars were bright enough to bathe the world in silver light and make it so they weren't in complete darkness.
On the edge of his peripheral vision Tillman saw three figures.
“What do we do?” Greg asked in a hushed whisper.
Tillman tossed around the possibilities in his mind. If this was a game he may well have pulled out his gun, turned, and started shooting. But the consequences of retaliation were much higher in real life than they were in a game. He had to be smart.
“Just act normally. We don't know that they're following us. They might just be on the same path, heading out of the city,” Tillman said.
“I don't know. Look. They've stopped just like we've stopped,” Greg said.
“He's right,” Penelope said in a frightened whisper. “Why would they do that?”
“Maybe they're just as scared of us as we are of them,” Tillman said, trying to reassure them so they didn't get consumed by their fear.
“Let's just keep walking and see what happens. At least we know about them now, and we can keep an eye on them. Good work, Greg,” Tillman said, and walked over the bridge.
There were fewer cars out here on the road out of town, mostly because at the time of the EMP most people wouldn't have been on the road. There were always some, though, but people seemed to have abandoned their vehicles and sought safety elsewhere. Tillman wondered what would happen to them, and what would happen to all the people he never would encounter. Some would be dead already. He still was struggling to comprehend the magnitude of it all, and there would be no news broadcast to tell the world what had happened or enlighten them regarding the scope of it.
The water stretched out on either side of the bridge, its slick dark surface looking surprisingly inviting. Unlike the world Tillman inhabited it was calm and still, peaceful. All of a sudden, he was struck by a thought that the people in these cars may well have thrown themselves from the bridge, plunging into the cold depths. From this height the impact against the water would hurt, and the temperature of the water would be enough to kill them. He could have looked harder at the water to see if there were any survivors treading water, but there weren't any. In a way he was glad that dead bodies didn't immediately float, for he had seen enough death to last him a lifetime.
Besides, he had to be concerned with the living. Those beside him, and those following him.
“Thanks, Tillman. I am trying,” Greg said, “I just wish that I had the vision and powers o
f Solar.”
“I'd rather be Abyss in this situation,” Penelope said.
“Are you kidding? You wouldn't want to light up the world? If I was Solar I could just reach up to the sky and let a burst of energy fly from my hand that would brighten the world. I also wouldn't have to worry about being cold, or about starting fires,” Greg said.
“But with the powers of Abyss I could hide in the shadows and be invisible. I could go anywhere I wanted. I could stay in the city and scavenge the area without worrying about being threatened. I could observe people and decide if they're safe to be around or not,” Penelope said.
“No way, Solar is always the better choice,” Greg said confidently.
“What do you think, Tillman?” Penelope asked, turning to Tillman to settle the debate.
Tillman thought about the vast array of characters that had been in the Guardians of the Multiverse game. There were so many to choose from. It hadn't been a particular innovative game, but it had been a big hit in the gaming community because of the choices it offered. Often it was more fun debating the strengths of the characters than actually playing the game.
“I think in all honesty I'd go for Petal. That's if we're discounting the obvious super power of Olympus,” Tillman said.
“Of course,” Greg snorted. “It's just cheating being him. But why on Earth would you choose to be Petal? She's the worst character in the game!”
“Yes, she is,” Tillman said. Petal's power was to manipulate the growth of plants. She was one of the later additions to the game, and a sign that the creators were running out of ideas.
“So, what are you thinking?” Greg asked.
“I have to agree. I tried playing with her once and she was just awful,” Penelope added.
“This isn't just a game. Think about how useful she could be in the future. I could grow food even in winter, and I could control the speed. I could have enough to provide for as many people as possible. I could make a house out of ivy. I basically could create a forest. The only problem with Petal was in the execution. The creators had a good idea, but they didn't know how to implement it properly. There were so many ways they could have gone, but she's far from useless, at this in the real world.”