Meg nodded. “Let’s keep it under ten. Maybe less to start with. Who knows, though, it may be hard to find like-minded individuals.”
“The thing is,” said James. “How do we know who we can trust?”
Meg shrugged. “Look at us,” she said. “Somehow the three of us got together. We didn’t know each other before this started. We’ll just get a sense of whoever we meet, just like we did with each other.”
Meg, several minutes ago, had sat down around the fire with them. It was nice to feel the warmth from it. It was almost like they were out camping, except for the fact that two of them had been shot, Barb’s face was covered in blood and vicious cuts, and behind them lay the smoldering wreckage of a home.
“We’d better get going,” said Meg.
She had a general sense, an understanding, that as soon as she recognized something was vaguely pleasant, then it was time to keep moving, time to head onto the next task.
After all, surviving wasn’t about feeling okay. It wasn’t about being comfortable. It was just about being alive. That was it. And to stay alive? What did you have to do? You had to keep pushing. On and on. Through the shit. Endlessly. There was little rest. No stopping. After all, get too comfortable and you’d wind up dead.
“Where to?” said James.
“Any ideas, Barb? We talked about those vacation homes.”
“There are some about… let’s see… about an hour’s drive from here, there’s a cluster of them, if I’m remembering correctly.”
“You think they’d be occupied?”
“I don’t think so, no. But then again, you never know. Maybe people will have fled to their vacation houses. And I doubt they’d want to share them with us.”
“Good point. But something’s bound to be unoccupied. And then it’s not like the name on a piece of paper somewhere is going to mean anything. Possession is going to be the law. Not just nine-tenths of it. And the ability to defend.”
Barb nodded. “What about James’s wound? Mine’s okay for now. I’ll have to redo the bandage. But I think the bullet needs to come out sooner rather than later.”
Meg looked at James, waiting for him to make a suggestion. The question was unspoken and obvious. How long could he make it?
“I’m fine,” he said. “I think it’s better that we get out of here before we try to do surgery on me.”
Meg nodded. “We’ll head somewhere,” she said. “Rest for an hour or so. Take naps in shifts. We could all use a little rest. Then we’ll pull that metal out of you.”
“What about pain management?” said Barb.
“I think I have a bottle of vodka left over from my dad…. there should be about a half-bottle.”
“Good enough for me,” said James.
“That’s not very effective as pain control, is it?” said Barb.
“It’ll be enough. Worked in the Civil War, didn’t it?”
It was strange that Barb would be so concerned with pain. After all, her own face was cut up brutally and it must have been extremely painful, especially in the cold. But maybe she was just trying to look out for James. Or maybe she knew that surgery was less likely to end in death when the pain was under control. It had something to do with going into shock or not. It wasn’t just an arbitrary concern for James feeling too much pain. No, it was because she knew what she was talking about. Meg knew that pain itself, in some situations, could be deadly.
“We’ll figure it out,” said Meg. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” grunted James.
“Nothing salvageable from the house?” said Meg. “I’m assuming you already checked.
Barb nodded. “Nothing really,” she said. “It’s a shame. We had a lot of food. There was money in the attacker’s car.”
“Money?”
“Yeah. A lot of it.”
“Too bad it won’t really do us any good.”
“There’s a chance someone might want some of it. But it seems less likely the more days we are out from the event.”
“Well,” said Meg. “We have what I have in the truck. It’ll last for a while, I guess. We’ll have to ration it out carefully. You two will need a little more than me.”
“Why?”
“You’ve both been shot. Your bodies will need energy to rebuild. To repair. That new tissue has to come from somewhere. And it comes from calories.”
“Doesn’t sound fair for you.”
“I’ll manage,” said Meg.
She noticed for the first time in a long while that her stomach was rumbling. It had that hollow, painful feeling to it. Perhaps as a result of her plentiful time camping and hiking in New Mexico, spending more time than most outside the comfortable and modern city life, she hadn’t really gone truly hungry very many times in her life at all.
Well, she’d get used to it soon enough.
“All right,” said Meg. “Let me help you, James.”
“I’m fine,” grunted James, standing to his feet, his torso wobbling back and forth.
He took a single step forward before Meg and Barb could make it to him. And, quite predictably, his leg gave out. He fell face-first into the snow before they could catch him.
He looked up, with Meg standing over him, his face caked with snow. He let out a dry short laugh and reached out and took Meg’s extended hand.
“Thanks,” he muttered, as Meg pulled him to his feet.
And without another word, Barb and Meg moved on either side of him and helped support him as the three of them limped slowly toward Meg’s Toyota Tacoma parked not far away.
Smoke still rose from Barb’s burned down home. The gray smoke rose to the gray sky, climbing through the snow that was now falling heavier than before.
It was a long, cold, hard walk to the Tacoma. Even with Barb’s help, James’s weight was difficult to support. Glancing over at Barb’s face, which she saw now from a closer distance than before, Meg almost gasped. The damage was worse than she’d thought. Barb would always have those scars. They would fade somewhat, but they would never not be the first thing someone noticed about her. But so what? She was alive. That was what was important. But still, Meg couldn’t help thinking how she’d only just met Barb and how, less than a day ago, Barb’s face had been so different. Barb’s face was almost a metaphor for what had happened with the EMP. With extreme speed, everything had changed for the worse. A peaceful society had become, in not much more than an instant, marked with violence. There were marks, like the ones on Barb’s face, which would never disappear.
Snow fell against Meg’s face. The wind was only slight now, but it was strong enough to make the snow come down at an angle.
In some kind of distorted imitation of a childhood memory, Meg opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue and waited until a snowflake fell on it.
One landed. It was small, rather than large, due to the very low temperature.
Bringing her tongue back in, Meg expected, just as she had as a child, that there would be some sort of taste. But there wasn’t. Of course the snow tasted like nothing. It was just water, after all. Frozen, structured water. But water nonetheless.
Did it mean something, this expectation that it would be something more than it was? No, she didn’t think so. Unless there was some parallel that could be drawn between the snowflake and life itself. It seemed as if for a long time, humans had become complacent in their modern world. They’d grown to think that life inside a modern, electrified house really was what life was. But what happened when all that fell away, when the grocery store stopped selling food, when your previously peaceful neighbors turned violently against you? What was left when everything else dissolved was also life. In fact, it was real life, in a sense.
When the modern world destroyed itself, the real world was left. It was a world of savagery, of violence, of constant strife and struggle.
But it was still a world.
It was still a life.
It was the only life Meg had. And she intended t
o do everything she could to hang onto it.
Thank you for reading Defeat the Anarchy.
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About Ryan Westfield
Ryan Westfield is an author of post-apocalyptic survival thrillers. He’s always had an interest in “being prepared,” and spends time wondering what that really means. When he’s not writing and reading, he enjoys being outdoors.
Contact Ryan at [email protected]
Also by Ryan Westfield
Getting Out (The EMP, book 1)
Staying Alive (The EMP, book 2)
Pushing On (The EMP, book 3)
Surviving Chaos (The EMP, book 4)
Fighting Rough (The EMP, book 5)
Defending Camp (The EMP, book 6)
Getting Home (The EMP, book 7)
Finding Shelter (The EMP, book 8)
Escape the Virus (Last Pandemic, book 1)
Escape the City (Last Pandemic, book 2)
Escape the Chaos (Last Pandemic, book 3)
Fight the Darkness (Constant Danger, book 1)
Defeat the Anarchy (Constant Danger, book2)
(Sequels Coming Soon)
Constant Danger (Book 2): Defeat The Anarchy Page 17