by James Hunt
She stood up and walked over.
“This is Jordan, he’s going to help us get out of town,” Paul said. Jordan extended his hand to Julie and she shook it. “I thought we were going to the house?” she asked.
“Yes, I know,” Paul said.
He looked to Jordan as to consult with him.
“We have a car, a Tahoe. We could take both vehicles.”
“There’s no time, I’m headed to the south exit of town before they block that off as well,” Jordan said.
“Dad?” Julie said with annoyance.
Paul stood between Jordan and Julie, feeling rushed to appease both of them. He placed his hand on her shoulder and tried his best to sound sincere.
“This is the only way, I’m sorry. We have to listen to Jordan. He knows what’s going on.”
“So what is going on?” she asked. “I don’t understand why we have to leave town.”
“Just trust me, please. We have to get out as soon as possible. The town isn’t safe.”
“Where are we going to go?” she asked.
“As far away as we can get,” Paul said.
“Are you guys ready or what?” Jordan called from the inside of the Humvee.
“I want my mom,” Julie said with tears running down her tired face.
“It’s going to be okay,” Paul said squeezing her shoulder.”
“You say that, but it’s never true.”
“We’re going to find your mom, I know it,” Paul said. “But we have to go now.”
Paul’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He almost had forgotten what receiving a text message felt like. He retrieved the phone and, at first glance, it appeared to be another alert message. Instead he was greeted by Samantha.
“Oh my God,” Paul said holding his phone as if it were the Holy Grail.
“What is it?” Julie asked.
“It’s a text from your mother,” Paul said.
Julie grabbed the phone from Paul without hesitation.
“Hey,” Paul said. Julie ignored him and opened the message.
Been trying to reach you guys for hours. I’m so scared. Please God, I hope you’re okay. Attacks everywhere. Call me back. I love you both.
Paul pulled the phone from Julie’s clutches and read the message. He instantly dialed her number, but again, the call failed to go through. He rose from the ground and took Julie’s hand.
“You see? I told you that she’s okay. We’re going to find her.”
“How?” Julie asked.
“We have to get to Colorado.”
The story continues in “The Decay: Episode Two: Searching for Humanity in a Post-Apocalyptic World.”
The aftermath of nuclear war has spread across the country, and there are no clear answers to the impending chaos in the wake of such unimaginable and devastating events. Paul, a computer technician, from a small town in Pennsylvania, continues his quest to escape the fallout of a nearby strike with his stepdaughter, Julie in tow. Together they're on a mission to find Paul's wife and Julie's mother, Samantha, before it's too late.
During their travels over state lines, they discover a quaint rural community, safely tucked away and sealed off from the dangers of the outside world. The town, led by a former county sheriff, offers hope and normalcy for visitors lost in a sea of confusion. Trouble soon comes in the form of a doomsday cult, and their fanatical leader, who reside nearby, awaiting a reckoning of apocalyptic proportions. The mysterious group soon wants the town for their own purposes, and is willing to take it by force. This second installment of the dystopian series “The Decay” will keep you on the edge of your seat, where nothing is safe and humanity has reached its breaking point.
The Decay: Episode Two
Searching for
Humanity in a Post-Apocalyptic World
Chapter One
An Empty Neighborhood
Their sneakers hit the cracked pavement of an empty two-lane residential road. Their pace quickened with the thought of seeing someone, anyone, up ahead. Aaron and Steve were neighbors, and childhood friends, now almost teenagers. Aaron, thirteen, was one year older than Steve, though they were both born in August. Aaron’s birthday was also a week before Steve’s.
“Looks like your mom and dad just couldn’t catch up with mine,” Aaron would tell Steve in jest.
This time, however, there was no room for jokes. They were alone in a deserted neighborhood, trying to figure out where their parents were, or anyone, for that matter. Few houses had cars in the driveways, even fewer looked occupied. The streetlights weren’t on and darkness blanketed the sky. Their neighborhood felt haunted, like a ghost town in a dream.
Naturally, Aaron had suspicions that their parents, or perhaps the entire neighborhood, were excluding them from something. Both Aaron and Steve’s parents were good friends with each other, and would often go out on the town, leaving the two boys to play. This was usually the case on a Friday, and as much as Steve and Aaron enjoyed playing video games or eating pizza on a Friday night, they would soon become bored and wander the neighborhood streets. This urge intensified after the power went out and they could no longer watch television. Their cell phones weren’t working either. After a walk around town, they believed everything might go back to normal. It was generally a quiet neighborhood, but not ever this quiet.
“Where the hell is everyone?” Aaron asked.
“Beats me,” Steve said, while messing with his smartphone.
“Dude, just give it up, reception is out,” Aaron said.
“I don’t care, I’m gonna keep trying,” Steve said back.
They could hear the faint sound of emergency sirens in the distance. No one in town had figured out exactly where the sound was coming from or what they were meant for, but the boys had assumed that their origins lay in the town’s power plants, or an army base somewhere. It felt like they were the only ones who could hear it--like it was meant for them--and with no one else around, it seemed possible.
“It’s probably aliens,” Aaron suggested. “Aliens came down, took everyone with them and left us here to rot.”
“Maybe we should just go back to the house,” Steve said.
Aaron whipped around in a flash.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “This is a dream come true. There’s no one around. We can do whatever we want.”
“There has to be someone around. There’s no way aliens got everyone,” Steve said.
With Steve’s doubt, Aaron felt even more determined to make his point. “Let’s find out,” he said.
He pivoted toward the house on their right, with its shut blinds, closed garage door, and empty oil-stained driveway. He walked right up to the front door and pressed the doorbell, but it didn’t sound. Aaron knocked as Steve stood a few feet behind. No one answered. There were no footsteps, no dog barking--nothing. Aaron held his ear against the door, but couldn’t hear a thing. He built his nerves, raised his hand to the doorknob, and twisted the handle.
“What are you doing?” Steve asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Aaron said, looking down at the knob.
He tried to turn it, but it was locked. He backed away from the door.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said.
Steve followed as they walked to the next house.
“So are we just going to check every house on the block?” Steve asked.
“Why not?” Aaron asked back. “It’s the only way we can be sure.”
They went from house to house along the road, each one similar in design, twenty to thirty years old, Victorian in nature. Aaron rapt on each door, and each time they received no answer. Both Aaron and Steve found it hard to believe that everyone could just vanish in such a manner, but it gradually seemed to be the case. An emergency siren was wailing from afar. They thought the siren might have had something to do with the desertion of the neighborhood.
“Do you think it’s safe to be out here?” Steve asked while zipping up his jacket following a cool
chill in the air.
“I don’t know,” Aaron said.
They began to feel concerned as the situation grew less humorous, and more real. They approached one of the last houses on the block. It was a one-story brick home with a large wooden front patio and a swing on the patio that was chained to the ceiling. Various potted plants aligned the side of the porch against the house. It looked to the boys like the sort of house an elderly person would live in, but Aaron knew better. He was pretty sure a girl from their school lived here.
“Isn’t this Julie’s house?” he asked Steve.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Steve said.
Aaron banged on the door and then waited. He tried the doorbell, but no sound came.
“How many times are you going to do that? There’s no power, remember?” Steve said.
Aaron became irritated, partly because he knew Steve was right. “I keep forgetting, okay? Get off my back about it,” he said.
Steve tried to peek through the windows, but all curtains were closed and blinds drawn. Aaron walked away from the door and halted immediately once they reached the driveway. In front of him was a white, four-door Chevy Tahoe. It was covered in leaves and sticks from the oak tree above, looking as if it hadn’t been driven in a while.
“We should probably get back to the house now. It’s getting dark,” Steve said.
“We’ll go back in one minute, let me check something first.” Aaron placed his hands on the driver’s side door handle and pulled. He felt a click and the door opened.
“Wow,” Aaron said, clearly excited.
Steve looked at him curiously. Aaron climbed into the car.
“What are you doing?” Steve asked.
Aaron didn’t respond as he rummaged through the car. He went through the middle console and then the glove box. Steve stood awkwardly outside, as if keeping watch. Aaron took notice and egged him on further. “Dude, get in,” he said.
Steve looked around again then walked over to the other side of the car. He opened the door and asked, “What is it?”
“Take a seat,” Aaron said with a satisfied smile plastered across his face. He clutched something in his hand, but Steve couldn’t tell what it was. Steve reluctantly sat in the passenger seat as if waiting for some revelation on Aaron’s part.
“You will never guess what I just found,” Aaron said.
“A million dollars?” Steve replied.
“No man, look,” Aaron said waving a single key in the air. “Looks like we found the spare.”
“Holy crap,” Steve said. “Are you serious?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Aaron examined the key more carefully then stuck it into the ignition switch. It fit perfectly. He turned the switch and the car started. Aaron hit the dashboard in excitement. Steve sat nearby in disbelief. Their sheer luck in finding an unlocked car with a key inside was baffling. Aaron chalked it up to fate.
“It’s like we were meant to find this car.”
Steve wasn’t convinced.
“Do you even know how to drive?” he asked. Aaron leaned close to Steve.
“Someone left the car here for us. How else can you explain this?”
“Do you know how to drive?” Steve asked again.
“How hard could it be?” Aaron shot back.
He pressed down on the gas pedal with his foot. The Tahoe’s engine revved as a result. Aaron quickly took his foot off the pedal then pressed down on the brake pedal. It seemed pretty simple, naturally awkward. He had driven a go-kart before, last summer, and felt like the car couldn’t have been much different. The luck of finding a car with the key in it would have been any child’s dream. But it actually was a simple act of carelessness.
Samantha, the car’s owner, knew of the spare, but didn’t give it much thought. It was technically referred to as the “valet key” by the owner’s manual. When she parked the car after a long day’s work, she was on the phone, highly distracted by conversation. She didn’t lock the car as she normally would have, and when she went away on business she had left the car ready for the taking. The chances of someone stealing her car, at the time, seemed slim to none, in their generally quiet and safe neighborhood.
Aaron continued to fumble with the brakes and gas pedal. The gearshift was located on the steering wheel, with the different gears listed on the front dashboard. Aaron looked it over trying to make sense of the letters: P R N OD D 2 1. The arrow was currently in the P position. Aaron gripped the lever, placed his foot on the brake and moved it to the R position. He hesitated to take his foot off the brake.
“Are you actually going to try to drive this thing?” Steve asked.
“We have to do something. We can find out where everyone went,” Aaron replied.
“Yeah, but—”
“But what?” Aaron shouted.
“Nothing,” Steve said. “Just don’t kill us.”
He pressed Aaron no further.
Aaron played with the shifting lever some more, placing it in neutral then drive. He miscalculated, turned his head back, and pressed down on the gas pedal. As a result, the car jerked forward and flew straight toward the house. Aaron tried to move his foot, but hit the gas pedal harder. Steve screamed. Aaron had little time to react before the car barreled toward the front patio, flew on the deck, and crashed through the front door. Both airbags instantly deployed and smacked Aaron and Steve in their faces. Aaron moved his foot off the gas pedal and the car came to a halt. Smoke billowed from the engine. They lifted their heads up in a daze. Steve looked around in disbelief of their interior surroundings.
“Holy shit,” Aaron said, rubbing his face.
He had cuts on his forehead from the force of the airbag. He jerked the lever back into park and shut off the engine.
“We gotta get out of here,” he said.
They opened the car doors and climbed out of the wrecked vehicle. After looking around in wonderment, they fled the house as if nothing had happened. Steve knew that he could tell Aaron, “I told you so,” but he didn’t see the point. He could see the regret on Aaron’s face. They scurried down the front yard.
“Let’s go back to my house,” Aaron said.
Steve didn’t respond, but walked close by.
“I don’t know what happened,” Aaron said defensively.
“It’s okay,” Steve said. “No one saw anything.”
“You’re right,” Aaron said. “We just need to get back home fast.”
They were shaken, but managed to scale the block back to Aaron’s house in no time. Aaron searched his pockets for the keys and jiggled them out of his pocket. He opened the door and they ran inside.
The crash scene remained undiscovered for about an hour before a wandering group of individuals approached the house curiously. Four men, dazed in their own regard, followed the smoke inside. Tire marks from the driveway led directly into the house, and the scene left the men baffled. Like Aaron and Steve, they had been wandering the neighborhood. They were drifters, looking for work, but stranded after the bus never picked them up from their day of painting the town sign, a large billboard that said: “Welcome to Beech Creek.” They were curious to find no one in the car or in the house. One of the tired and weary men got into the car and started it. The front-end was heavily damaged, but it still worked. For the men, the house on Maker’s Street was open for business.
Chapter Two
Home Sweet Home
Jordan was against the idea from the start. He had insisted that they get out of town, but Paul had a point. To evacuate the town with no supplies of any kind was foolish. Paul assured Jordan that they had food and water at his house, which they could pack into the Humvee. Jordan had filled the back of the vehicle with MRE boxes, but they could have used even more. MREs--or Meals, Ready-to-Eat--were generally good for about three years. Jordan found a pallet of them in the maintenance hangar and they had at least two years until they expired. He knew they couldn’t very well live off them, as they’
re not considered by the military as a sustaining food source for over twenty-one days, by his knowledge. In the back of the Humvee sat Julie, Paul’s stepdaughter. She was exhausted from their journey through the woods while trying to find a way home after their car ran out of gas.
They had discovered the Army Reserve base in the midst of their travels and found it evacuated by all personnel, with the exception of Jordan, a retired Sergeant First Class, now military analyst. Paul wanted most to get Julie some different clothes. She had been wearing her soccer uniform since morning and they had been through hell. In the last ten minutes, Paul and Julie had scarfed down an entire MRE meal each. The aftermath of the binge eating had made them tired. The sun had nearly sunk below the horizon, leaving them at the mercy of the coming night.
The Humvee vibrated and shook as it reached its top speed on the deserted town road. They couldn’t hear much over the blaring engine, so there was little talking. Occasionally Paul would yell out to Jordan where they needed to turn. They were minutes away from his house. Though they were traveling under the pretense of working together, Paul felt like they could go their separate ways after the fact. He would give Jordan some supplies for the trouble then they could take Samantha’s car and evacuate the town if necessary. It was unlikely that they would have any power, with the electronic grid seemingly out throughout the entire town, but finding home would be enough comfort for the day.
Paul was exhausted, anxious, and in need of a good shower. He wrestled with their options and wondered whether they should leave Jordan and work together, or stay at the house for the night and get some rest. Jordan told them there was nuclear fallout in the air. He insisted on this from when they first met him to their time on the road. It was strange to think that even with a nuclear attack looming over them, Paul could focus on little more than Samantha. He feared he may never see her again, but held onto hope like a fragile string.
If only he could talk to her and find out what was going on. His cell phone was long dead, just like the empty neighborhood before them.