It was good, thought Max, that they’d met Georgia. Without her, they wouldn’t be armed as they were now.
He hoped they wouldn’t encounter someone else out here, but the possibility was always there. He knew that he needed to expect the unexpected.
The trees looked gorgeous with the sun streaming down through the branches. It had been a long time since Max had been to this remote part of Pennsylvania, but he already liked it. It wasn’t a bad place to set up a nice life, not bad at all.
The going was somewhat tough, because they weren’t on any sort of path. They’d decided to cut right through the forest, rather than take the road. There were a few reasons for this. For one, Mandy had assured everyone that she knew how to get there through woods. There was supposedly a hiking path that they could take. They only had a mile or two to go until they reached it, and they could take that part of the way as they continued north. Cutting through the woods would shave many hours off their trip. They figured that they had about two days of hiking to get to the farmhouse, and maybe a day to get to the hunting cabin.
The main reason that Max liked walking through the woods instead of taking the road was that they had much less of a chance of running into anyone.
If people were starting to leave the cities and suburbs, they would come out here, and they would surely be in cars—the people who made it here already, that is. In the future, there would come the hordes of slowly walking masses, moving like zombies in low budget movies, looking for anything to eat, and willing to do anything to get what they needed.
Max’s mind turned to his future life, and what it would be like.
He had some vague plans, but when he tried to think concretely about what he would do, he drew some huge blanks that worried him.
His whole purpose now was to get there, to get to the farmhouse. But once there, how would life settle out? What would the day-to-day routine look like?
He supposed that he would live there with Mandy and Chad.
He looked ahead and caught sight of Mandy’s rear end, as she walked in her jeans. She was an attractive woman, and Max realized for the first time that he was attracted to her as a woman. It wasn’t just her body that drew him to her, but the growing awareness he had of her personality. She’d started the journey in the worst possible way. She’d been completely unaware, and perhaps even unwilling to accept what had happened. But now she seemed to embrace the situation and she was willing to do whatever necessary to survive. Max appreciated that kind of attitude.
She would make a good partner at the farmhouse. He had a feeling that she would accept him. He’d seen the glances she’d given him here and there. They weren’t quite glances of longing, or romantic interest, because the situation was so intense that it simply didn’t allow for things like that. But there was something there in her gaze, something like respect and understanding.
Maybe they could create a family there on the farm. Maybe Max could unearth some ancient farm equipment and get the farm producing food again. It would be a massive undertaking, with a host of complicated obstacles. The main one, thought Max, was that there were no farm animals there. But maybe in the coming months and years, it would somehow be possible to get them. After all, animals had a way of surviving even when humans couldn’t.
28
Jeremy
When Jeremy woke up, the pain was even worse, if that was possible, than the moment that he’d been shot.
He immediately thought: there’s no way I’m going to survive this. He figured there was simply no way he could go on with the pain, and medical treatment, well, he didn’t think that was going to happen.
But maybe… maybe it would. After all, just because the power was out, it wasn’t as if the doctors had disappeared, right?
The soldiers had been harsh with him, sure. They had dragged him off. But they had, after all, treated him somewhat. They had stopped the bleeding, and he was alive, whereas if they’d left him there he would be dead.
Maybe they’d just been following orders. Maybe they’d been under orders to get food at whatever cost. The military needed to be fed just like the citizens. And if peace, law, and order were going to continue to reign supreme, then feeding the military and police could be considered of the utmost importance.
Jeremy was vaguely aware of his surroundings. He knew he was somewhere with a lot of other people. His vision was blurry as he looked around, and something had happened to his glasses. He saw just a blurry mass of people. It might have been the same day, or maybe the next. He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t know how to tell.
But without his vision being as good as it should have been, he still knew there were many, many people. He could hear them, their cries of pain and their moans of hunger. He could smell them, the pungent human smell of many, many unwashed bodies.
Jeremy sat up despite the pain. He pulled up his khaki pant leg that was stained with dried blood. He looked at his wound. As he’d suspected, the soldiers had put some kind of field-treatment military medical supply on it. It looked like a white patch, a large bandage, that stuck to his skin with some kind of glue. It was completely soaked through with a rich red blood, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
Jeremy didn’t dare try to stand up. He knew that he would never be able to. His leg hurt too much. Simply too much. He had to grit his teeth just to stand as he sat there in a crouched position.
“Hey,” said Jeremy. It seemed to take all of his strength to speak. His stomach rumbled horribly at him. His leg ached. His whole body ached.
The woman next to him, who he could see fairly well, ignored him.
“Excuse me,” said Jeremy. He reached out and tugged at her sleeve.
“Get away from me!” she cried at him, pulling her arm violently away from him.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Jeremy. “But can you tell me where we are? What’s going on?”
“What’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on. And it’s not good.”
She paused and didn’t say anything.
“Tell me,” said Jeremy desperately. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold this “conversation” that he was having. His mouth and throat were parched, and each word seemed to only cause him more pain. “Tell me what’s happening. Where are we? I don’t seem to have my glasses.”
“Your glasses?” laughed the woman. “You’re not going to get them back. You’re not going to get anything back.”
She was a woman in her early forties, only a few years older than Jeremy himself. But she looked much older. Maybe it was that the makeup she’d been wearing had smeared and run. It looked as if she had been crying intensely. And where there was no makeup, her skin looked like that of a much older woman.
The sight of her face close up scared Jeremy. Maybe he was starting to hallucinate, he thought. Maybe he was seeing things. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe this was all just a dream.
Wouldn’t that have been a relief? If this horrible situation, with all these moaning people around him—if it was all just the fantasy of a man gone insane, a man whose brain could no longer support the rigors of modern culture.
Someone was approaching with heavy footsteps.
It was a soldier.
“Identify yourself,” he said, stopping right in front of Jeremy.
When Jeremy didn’t immediately answer, the man pointed his gun right at Jeremy’s chest.
Jeremy almost didn’t answer. If he could just get shot now, that would be a relief. If he could just end it now… That was all he wanted, for this nightmare to end. He no longer cared how it ended. He just wanted it to be over. He would have liked it to end, and to be back at the comfortable air conditioned office. But death… that didn’t sound too bad right now. It was an end, after all. At least it was that.
“Your name!” screamed the soldier, leaning down a little to scream directly into Jeremy’s face. Jeremy saw the face and it looked horrible. It was a normal face, but it was marred by fear and a thousand ugly emotions
all competing for space. The soldier shoved the muzzle of his gun into Jeremy’s chest. It hurt terribly, and Jeremy fell down onto his back.
“Jeremy Gibbons,” said Jeremy, speaking with pain.
“Empty your pockets,” said the soldier.
Jeremy didn’t act immediately. He was a little dazed, very confused, and didn’t seem to understand the directions well.
“The woman at his side started cackling. “He wants your money,” she said. “But he knows it won’t do him any good. Not now. Not ever…”
“Shut up,” shouted the soldier at her, pointing his gun at her instead of Jeremy.
“You know you can’t do anything with that money,” said the woman, speaking unnecessarily loudly. Her words seemed to echo inside of Jeremy’s head, hurting his brain, his eardrums, his whole body. Her voice had a shrill tone to it that seemed to reverberate against Jeremy’s bones.
“Shut up,” yelled the soldier. His voice was a mixture of anger and fear.
Without another word, his finger gripped the trigger, and he unleashed a hail of bullets that splattered against the woman’s chest.
Blood spurted out, and Jeremy watched in horror as the woman fell down on the ground, lifeless. Her chest was ripped open by a dozen bullets.
Jeremy was frozen. The soldier pointed his gun directly at Jeremy. Jeremy knew what he wanted, but he couldn’t seem to make his arms move. He was paralyzed with fear. No matter how much he wanted to give the soldier his wallet, give him everything in his pockets, his arms simply wouldn’t obey his brain. And, honestly, part of him wanted to die. Part of him wanted to die right then and there. It would be easier.
But before the soldier could shoot him, heavy footsteps were coming. Jeremy could feel the vibrations on the earth. For the first time, his tired brain registered that he was lying on damp earth. He was on some kind of football field. Maybe he was at the high school football stadium? Had he and all these other people been brought here to form some kind of detention center?
The man approached from the side, flanked by six soldiers, three on each side.
He was a huge man, towering above everyone else, with a wide face and close-cropped hair. He looked like a soldier, but he wore civilian clothes. He was armed with only a handgun worn openly on a holster. His muscles bulged in his tight t-shirt. He must have been some kind of military commander.
The soldier froze as he saw the men approach.
“Johnson!” called the big man with the wide face. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Nothing,” replied Johnson the soldier.
“He was robbing another one of them,” shouted one of the commander’s sidekicks.
“I wasn’t,” said Johnson, but his voice betrayed him, showing his fear and his guilt.
“Spoils go to the commander, Johnson,” said the commander. “You know that, don’t you? I suppose you’re going to say that you were going to bring them to me, weren’t you?”
Jeremy thought that this couldn’t possibly be true. It had only been a couple days, right? Or else he’d been passed out for longer than he’d thought. After all, he had no way of knowing what day it was. Or even week… although he supposed that there was no way he could have survived over a week without food or water.
But had society really already come to this, to some horrible nightmarish version of a free for all, where the mighty ruled? It simply couldn’t be true.
Before Johnson could answer, the commander shouted.
The soldiers who flanked him moved out and grabbed Johnson savagely. One of them took his gun, and another hit Johnson in the stomach with a vicious uppercut. Johnson doubled over in pain as two men dragged him off.
Jeremy lay frozen in fear, hoping no one would notice him.
But that turned out to be too much to wish for.
The commander himself grabbed Jeremy and dragged him. He was strong and Jeremy didn’t weigh that much. He was dragged easily by his shirt collar through the field that had become mud.
What Jeremy saw horrified him. The field was completely full of men, women, and children, in various states of disrepair and distress. Jeremy couldn’t see far, but the field was packed full of people, and as he was dragged along, he got a blurry yet close up view of many of them.
What would happen to these people? There didn’t seem to be any water or food. Would they simply all starve or die of thirst?
After being dragged across the width of the field, Jeremy was thrown roughly to the ground. This area was muddier than the rest.
Jeremy was right next to a pile of bodies lying face down in the mud. They were stacked one on top of another. Blood seeped out of some of them. The smell was horrible, and Jeremy’s body tried to vomit instinctively. But he couldn’t do it. Only some yellow bile came up, leaving a horrible taste in his mouth, and dribbling down his chin onto his shirt.
Jeremy was next to the soldier who’d tried to rob him. Both were lying in the mud. The soldier made no move to get up. Jeremy was too fatigued to even try, and in too much pain. He knew the end was near, and he wasn’t going to fight it. He didn’t have the will to live, the burning desire required to make things work.
There was nothing to say. There was nothing read to them. There was no explanation of why they were being executed. But it was clear what was happening, what was going to happen. It was as clear as the day.
Jeremy vaguely knew that the day would continue without him, that the world would still exist without him. But he didn’t care. He didn’t have the energy for complicated thought. He just wanted an end. It was a selfish end, but then again, he’d lived a thoroughly selfish life. A lazy life, the life of a coward, hiding behind his machines and his money and his good credit.
The soldiers were in front of them. They raised their guns and Jeremy saw in slow motion as they pulled their triggers.
A hail of bullets exploded out of them. The body of the soldier named Johnson danced in the mud as the bullets riddled him with violent holes.
Jeremy was next, and he made no protest. He simply waited for his turn.
29
Georgia
The path was tough, and the minutes seemed to stretch into hours. Georgia was worried about her children carrying so much gear with them, such heavy packs. But they held up quite well, and their spirits seemed to be good.
The sun made it all possible. If the storm had continued, or if the sky had been filled with clouds, it would have been much more difficult to marshal the morale necessary for the long trek.
“Only a little while longer until we hit the trail,” said Mandy, who had the maps out in front of her, along with the compass.
Georgia didn’t say anything. Mandy had been saying the same thing for what felt like all day.
Georgia really hoped Mandy knew what she was doing. For all Georgia knew, they could be headed in the opposite direction of where they were supposed to be heading. She hoped against hope that that wasn’t the case.
Max had been bringing up the rear, and he sped up a little to join Georgia, who dropped a little behind Mandy, because there wasn’t always enough room to walk three by three through the woods.
Behind them, her children were silent, their footsteps as light as they could be with their heavy packs. But Chad was making an enormous amount of noise, his sneakers crashing down onto the forest floor heavily. Each step sounded like a herd of elephants. He wheezed and he huffed and puffed with exertion. But there was something new about his attitude. Even Georgia, who didn’t know him well at all, could sense the change. He was silent as he struggled. He kept on, and he didn’t curse and he didn’t complain. He simply kept going. He simply did what needed to be done.
“How are you holding up?” said Max.
Georgia had known for a while that she liked Max. Not in a romantic way, obviously, but just as a person. He seemed to have something about him… some quality. He had what it took to survive. It was something almost indescribable. Georgia had an idea that she hersel
f possessed pieces of these qualities. Max seemed to have the whole package. In another time, he could have been a leader of something great.
“Good,” said Georgia.
“And your kids?” said Max.
“They’re doing as well as can be expected,” said Georgia.
“You know we can hear you, right?” said Sadie.
Georgia ignored her.
“What do you think about this hiking trail?” said Max, in a voice quiet enough that Mandy was unlikely to hear it.
Georgia lowered her own voice. “I don’t know,” she said. “She’s been saying all day that we’re close. I’m starting to have my doubts.”
“Me too,” said Max. “It’s not that it’s necessary, but if we don’t come across it, it could mean that we’re not where we think we are.”
“And obviously that could pose problems,” said Georgia.
“No kidding,” said Max. “I’m going to talk to Mandy about it.”
Max picked up his pace to join Mandy up in front.
Georgia walked closer to them so that she could overhear what they were saying. She didn’t think they would mind, and, plus, she had more important things on her mind than being polite. Survival trumped social niceties.
“No,” Mandy was saying. “I’m sure it’s up here. Trust me, Max, I know where I’m going. It’s just a little farther.”
“Is it possible we’re not where you think we are?” said Max. He said it in a calm tone. He wasn’t being accusatory. He just legitimately needed to know what the situation was.
“No,” said Mandy. “The only possibilities are that we’re a little farther south that I’d thought. Or the trail might have grown over. It is an old map.”
Georgia was keeping her eyes peeled for any trail makers. So far, she hadn’t seen anything that looked remotely familiar to her, even though she’d been to this area before.
“Hey,” said Georgia, suddenly spotting something. “Look! A trail marker.”
Getting Out: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The EMP Book 1) Page 19