Maybe it was a bit of a pipedream. After the things they’d seen and done, their lives would never be ‘normal’ again. But it would be a step in the right direction.
“Let’s wait and speak to Jake about it,” Aby said eventually. “I don’t think he’ll be keen on the idea, but we can take a vote. Personally, I think it would be good for us. God knows I could use a proper sleep.”
Megan offered her a guilty smile. “I feel bad. I feel like I’m the only one of the three of us who has had any rest. Why don’t you sleep now? I can keep an eye on things.”
“It’s okay...I don’t think I could sleep knowing Jake is out there somewhere,” Aby said truthfully. She didn’t bother to mention that she still didn’t trust Megan enough to think she could keep an eye on things. As much as Megan was a sweet woman, she wasn’t particularly street-wise. Aby felt like she’d somehow get them killed.
But she also knew that trouble often came unexpectedly. It felt like they should be safe, somehow. It was a beautiful spring day and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was like the setting for a romance movie, not a horror. And yet somehow, it made Aby even more terrified that something would happen to bring a dark cloud over them, metaphorically if not realistically.
And then she heard the voices.
Her heart seized as she heard a rustle in the trees and footsteps approaching. She glanced at Megan and realized she’d heard it too. Aby swallowed nervously, reaching for her gun and opening the door to the car quietly.
“Hey, you see that, man? I think there’s a car there…”
Aby and Megan snuck around the side of the car and stood side by side, their firearms aimed into the woods. They couldn’t see the owners of the voices, but Aby’s senses felt sharp. She was alert and ready for anything. Even though her heart was pounding so hard that she felt light-headed with anxiety, she knew she could survive anything. She had proved that back at the cabin. She would prove it again.
Two figures came out of the trees and Aby raised her gun, aiming it perfectly. She kept her face stony and cold.
“Stay where you are,” she said, even as the two men in front of her raised their rifles.
"Whoa there," one of them said, looking genuinely shocked to have found other people. "Let's not let things get crazy here...there's no reason that the four of us need to shoot each other to pieces. Let’s all just lower our guns."
“Nice try,” Aby said, hoping they couldn’t see that her hand was shaking. “I know how that goes...we lower our guns and you keep yours directly aimed at our hearts. I don’t want to die today. So I think I’ll keep my gun exactly where it is, thanks.”
“We don’t want any trouble,” the man said, glancing between the two women. “You ladies seem like good folk...we don’t want to hurt anyone. We’re just looking around.”
“Interested in our car, huh?” Aby snapped. “We heard you. So don’t try and convince us you don’t have ulterior motives.”
“Look, the car took us by surprise. It’s pretty quiet around here...we don’t want to take it from you, we swear. We just want to know what you’re doing here.”
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Megan whispered to Aby. “They seem genuine.”
Aby didn’t like the idea of trusting one of Megan’s baseless assumptions, but she had to admit that she agreed. The men were different to the thugs they’d come across so far. They didn’t seem particularly strong, and the rifles didn’t look quite so at home in their arms. She chewed her lip. She wanted to believe that people could still be good, but she also didn’t want to do anything dumb. Her hand twitched a little.
“How about this...you start talking and we’ll see how much we can really trust one another. What are you doing here? What do you want?”
The other man shuffled forward a little, his gun lowered. Aby trained her gun on him nervously.
“We’re from Dent...if you don’t know of it, it’s only a few miles from here. It’s nothing exciting...we’re just a small community of people getting by. We don’t have much over there...we don’t have it good like out in the city. You’re city folk, right? You’re out here to find some shelter because it’s quieter?”
Aby remained silent. She wanted information from them, but she didn’t want to give much away about herself...even if they already seemed to have her sussed out.
“Keep talking.”
One of the men sighed. “I’m not sure what else you want to know...we live simple lives here. Most of us are just about scraping by...but we were ready when the EMP hit.”
“Ready? How so?” Megan asked curiously.
“We’re kind of used to living life a different way. We’re not rich people...we don’t always have electricity. We use what we can afford, but we’ve always been more likely to find other means than overuse resources we can’t afford. But we all help each other out. We all know one another...many of us are related. And we’re tight knit.”
“Sounds kind of like a cult,” Aby said harshly. The men glanced at one another, frowning a little.
"No, it’s nothing like that. We’re just regular folk...even if we are a little more prepared than usual. I guess you could say we’re used to finding the road less taken.” The man paused and offered a warm smile. “You should come check it out...we could use women who know their way around a firearm. Most city women aren't like that."
Aby caught the way that Megan perked up from the corner of her eye. She pursed her lips. “No, we can't go. We have to wait here..."
“Why is that?”
“None of your business,” Aby snapped, feeling nerves rising within her. She had an awful urge just to pull the trigger and be done with it. Now she understood how Jake felt under pressure. She decided she’d apologize for giving him a hard time if she ever saw him again…
"Waiting for someone, eh?” one of the men commented, obviously not fooled by her tough act. “Well, I wouldn't wait here...you’re kind of exposed."
"Well, it doesn't seem like a place with much traffic," Megan said, sounding nervous.
"You'd be surprised. We're a small town, but we get a lot of people passing by on their way to the city. They'll be swarming through here soon enough when they realize that it’s safer in rural areas.”
"We'll take out chances," Aby insisted firmly. Dent had seemed like a good idea earlier, but now that she’d met the men, she wasn’t so sure. They seemed nice on the surface, but they didn’t know them at all. They could be killers or rapists or anything. She wouldn’t have trusted them before the EMP, so why should she trust them now?
“Well, it’s up to you,” one of the men said with a shrug. “You can make your own minds up. I tell you what...we’ll come back later. We’ve been patrolling the area for a while, keeping an eye out for folks we can trust. If you’re still here, maybe you can come back with us.”
Megan nodded to the men with a nervous smile. Aby didn’t bother saying anything, but she really wished she could trust them. She just wanted them to be good men so she could get her little trio to safety. It would be so good to finally relax.
The men walked off into the trees, seemingly unbothered that Aby was still pointing a gun at their backs. Megan sighed audibly, her shoulders sagging.
“Phew. That was stressful.” She paused. “What do you think, Aby? Can we trust them?”
Aby sighed, rubbing at her head. It was beginning to ache with tiredness and anxiety. “I don’t know. Jake would’ve probably shot them down if he was here...but we’re not Jake. I want to believe that they’re good...but how are we supposed to know?”
Megan nodded. “It’s hard. We don’t know their intentions, after all. But maybe they could solve every single one of our problems. Is that not worth taking the risk?”
Aby wasn’t sure. At least out on the road they were in control of their own destiny. It wouldn’t be like that if they joined someone else’s community. There would be rules to follow and they might not get any say in how they wanted to do things. She wasn�
��t sure if she could handle that, and she knew Jake certainly wouldn’t like that idea.
“Let’s think about it. We still have to wait for Jake.”
The women leant against the car and continued to wait. An hour dragged by slowly and Aby’s headache worsened. The visit from the men had made her feel like they might be caught out at any moment, perhaps by someone with worse intentions than them. She shuddered, wishing that the whole thing could just be over.
When she heard the sound of a car on the road, she froze. She got her gun at the ready again. But as the car pulled up nearby and Jake got out, fear in his eyes as he stumbled toward them, Aby felt both relief and fear take over her body simultaneously.
“Jake! Are you okay?”
"We have to go!" he cried out breathlessly. Megan and Aby exchanged a fearful look.
"What? What's going on?"
"No time to explain. Grab some shit from the van and get in. Prioritize what we need. Come on! If we don’t go soon, we’ll end up dead."
Five
Jake
Jake still hadn’t managed to calm the beating of his heart since he’d made it back to Aby and Megan. He was still shaken up by the things he’d seen while he was gone. He’d half expected some kind of confrontation. He’d half known that something was likely to go wrong. But what he’d experienced was something he never could’ve predicted.
“How the hell did you get the car? And why can’t we siphon the gas and swap it over? The minivan is bigger,” Aby asked him breathlessly even as she was shifting supplies over to the new car. Jake shook his head.
“There’s no time to do that. We have to get out of here. I’ll explain on the road.”
“But we’re safe, right?” Megan asked as she glanced around her. Jake paused for a moment.
“No, Megan...I don’t think we are.”
He still remembered the panic in his heart when he exited the house, holding the car keys he’d found, and ran into a whole mob of people emerging from the other side of the woods from where he’d been. He had run to the car, terrified of what they might be capable of. A woman had screamed at him, telling him to get out of the car and hand it over, but he started it up and managed to get it on the road.
Some of them had chased down his car and tried to batter at it with baseball bats and their bare fists. Several people took shots at his car, cracking the back windscreen. One crazy man had even dived on the bonnet, desperate to get at him, but as Jake drove off, he’d rolled off and hit the ground with a sickening smack that make Jake want to throw up.
Jake didn’t want to think about the amount of people he’d hurt in his getaway. He’d definitely run over someone’s foot too. But if he hadn’t done it, he never would’ve got out of there alive. That he was certain of.
As they piled the final supplies into the car, Megan squashed herself into the backseat and it was time to leave. Jake felt nauseous with anxiety as he started the car up once again and began to drive.
“Now what the hell was that about?” Aby asked, confusion and terror in her eyes. Jake wondered what she had been through too in his absence, but there would be time to catch up later. Right now, he had to tell them what had happened.
He recounted his experience to them as quickly as possible and they listened attentively. When he finished, he felt drained of life, like someone has sucked all of his energy out of him. Aby leaned back in her seat, shell-shocked.
“Where do you think they all came from? The city?”
“They must’ve done. I guess maybe they had the same idea as us, to head to more rural areas. But everyone is doing it...well, I guess these kinds of places won’t be so rural anymore. And it wasn’t just that. It's like they were rabid. It’s only been a few days and they’re all going crazy!”
“I can’t believe how quickly things have gone south…” Aby exclaimed. Jake nodded.
“People in Pittsburg must’ve had the right idea," he said. "Because a lot of people are starting to click on that something’s not right. They’re realizing that it’s not just going to go back to normal in a few days time. The power isn’t coming back and they don’t want to be stranded out in the city, I guess. A lot of people are using their common sense and getting the hell out... the only problem is that they've come to the same place we are.”
“It’s good that you got out of that town before it got bad, Jake. We were beginning to worry,” Megan said. “What are we going to do now?”
Jake shook his head. “I have no idea. We’ve only got a quarter tank of gas to work with. I guess we should just try to get as far away from here as possible. We can stop later and find some gas...hopefully without having to walk to get to it this time. Then we can look for somewhere to settle down, eventually. The cops are never going to find us now, especially since we’ve swapped cars.” Jake chewed his lip. “Maybe we need to find some middle ground...out of the city, but away from the countryside. Places people won’t be likely to go.”
Aby and Megan murmured in agreement, still taking all of the information he’d told them in. He gripped the steering wheel harder to stop the shaking in his hands. He didn’t want to come undone again.
“What happened while I was gone? Anything at all?”
Aby glanced at Megan in the backseat silently, as though they were deciding how much to disclose to him. Jake frowned.
“Hey, tell me...what went on?”
Aby sighed wearily. She looked terrible. Her hair was unkempt, her eyes were ringed with dark circles and her eyes looked almost like they’d been drained of life. Like him, she’d barely slept. They were almost running on empty, just like their minivan.
“We met these men...they’re from the nearest town to here, Dent,” Aby began to explain. “They asked us if we wanted to join them at their community...they seemed to think we’d be useful there. But they were strange...they were different.”
“Different how?”
“They seemed like good people, but they seemed sort of sheltered. Maybe that’s not the word...they’re a bit disconnected from the rest of the world,” Megan said. She peered out of the window. “Hey, that’s them.”
Jake glanced out to see the two men walking brazenly along the side of the road. They weren’t even trying to hide. It was clear they were comfortable on their home turf. Megan rolled down the window like a child and waved to them and they waved back jovially. It was surreal, as though they had no idea of the state of the world.
“I don’t know if we can trust them,” Aby muttered. “It would be great if we could...but we know next to nothing about them. They said they were ‘prepared’ for everything going on, but they were a little vague about how.”
“Hmm,” Jake said. He was with Aby on this one. He didn’t think they could trust total strangers. He’d already met one bunch of crazy people, and that was more than enough for one day.
But as he continued down the road, his heart seized. Blocking the road were a bunch of pickup trucks. There was a buzz of noise, like they were entering a crowded bar in the city. Except they weren’t. They were driving toward a bunch of people arguing in the middle of the road for some reason.
And they were all armed to the teeth.
“Oh God...I think those are the same people from before,” Jake muttered. “We need to get away. They’re trouble, for sure.”
“Turn around, Jake!” Megan squealed anxiously, her face full of concern.
“Alright, alright…but where to from there? Should we turn at the crossroads?”
“Just get us out, Jake. There’s no way they haven’t noticed us coming...they could easily follow us. Just drive.”
Jake clumsily managed to turn in the middle of the road and begin heading back in the direction they’d come. Megan craned her neck to look out of the cracked back window.
“Jake...some of them are getting ready to follow us.”
Jake cursed loudly. They just couldn’t catch a damn break. He drove as fast as he could, hoping they’d outrun them before the
y even got the chance to catch up.
But then he made his next mistake. The tyre of his car went off the road and bumped the entire car, shocking his system with a gasp. The tyre rutted itself deep in the mud off the road and refused to move again. Jake growled in frustration.
“Everyone out of the car. Now.”
They all clambered out. Jake wondered if they’d have to give up the car and just run. The mud patch was in a ditch so the car was rutted in at an angle. Fortunately, Aby was already rooting in the back seat for something.
“We’ve got a floor mat. We can push it under the wheel and get us out. Jake, you stay at the wheel.”
He felt a rush of love for his resourceful fiance, but there was no time to act on it. Megan and Aby began to work at the wheel while he kept glancing over his shoulder. His hand was firmly on the wheel, but his other was on the Glock. He wasn’t going to hesitate to use it if he needed to this time. These people were bad news, he could tell. As they were approached at speed by the pickup truck, the passengers howled and hooted at them, leaning out of their windows and off the back of the truck with guns in hand.
Jake panicked and began to try to reverse, but the tyre was still stuck.
“Try again!” Aby cried over the roaring of the engine. He did, but it wasn’t working.
He heard someone whoop and then a shot fired in the air. It wasn’t aimed at Jake, but he jumped nervously. These people seemed lawless and that scared him. They weren’t afraid to break the unspoken rules of society.
They’d kill him without blinking an eye, he realized.
The End of the World Series | Book 2 | Survive The Onslaught Page 3