Cynthia woke up after a few hours and sleepily began digging alongside them, gradually waking up as the sun continued to rise.
There was no sign of Georgia, but no one mentioned it. John got the sense that both Sadie and James were worried about their mom, but that the way they dealt with it was similar to the way that Georgia herself would have dealt with a similar situation, and that was just continuing at the task at hand, rather than wasting energy on something that they couldn’t change. Georgia had taught them well.
All they could really do now was dig. And hope that no new enemies arrived while they were digging.
They all had their guns with them. John hadn’t taken the rifle off his back, or his handgun from its holster, despite how uncomfortable it was to dig with them digging into him when he was down on his hands and his knees.
8
Dan
Dan approached the front door cautiously, working his way through the hallways lined with faded and ancient wallpaper that peeled at the edges.
He held the gun in hands that trembled no matter how much he tried to steady them.
The unnamed woman’s screams ran through the house.
The sounds at the front door continued. Thumping and banging and the crashing of wood.
Dan was as nervous as he’d ever been. But he was keeping it together.
He knew what he had to do.
Point and shoot.
That was it.
It sounded simple. But there were so many potential complications.
What Dan was most worried about was the shooting. He couldn’t take Rob at his word that whoever was breaking in was dangerous. And deserved to die.
Dan was fine with killing to defend himself. He’d done it before. And he’d do it again.
But those had been cases where his own life was clearly in danger.
This wasn’t one of those cases, as far as he could tell.
After all, how could Rob possibly know that some stranger breaking into the house would kill them without hesitation? He simply couldn’t know.
Dan was close now. He was standing in the dimly-lit hallway that ran adjacent to the dining room.
The dining room had one long wooden table, the kind that was made to look ornate but was actually quite cheap in construction. A glitzy chandelier hung overhead. For some reason, there weren’t any chairs.
It didn’t look like the room had gotten much use.
Two windows, covered in dusty ancient blinds, led to the front of the house.
Should he try to look through them?
It depended on how far the intruder had gotten through the door.
One final crash made up Dan’s mind for him.
He heard the footsteps inside. As clear as day.
Whoever it was was inside.
Dan pressed his back flat up against the wall. He’d have better luck lying in wait than going to confront them, whoever they were.
The footsteps paused. No movement for a full minute.
Surely the intruder would hear the woman’s screams. Another one, loud and vicious sounding, rang through the house yet again.
If it had been Dan, breaking into someone’s house out of desperation, he’d have turned on his heel after hearing a scream like that.
But the footsteps continued. Whoever it was seemed intent on entering the house no matter what.
There was no telling how desperate they were.
Dan braced himself.
But it wasn’t enough.
An adult man came crashing into the room, swinging a huge lamp right at Dan. Somehow he’d known where Dan had been. Maybe it’d been his shadow. Or a noise he made. Who knew. It wasn’t like there was time to go back and mentally review the situation.
The lamp struck the gun Dan held and then smashed into his shoulder. Pain flared through him.
He didn’t drop the gun. It was his lifeline. His only hope.
He couldn’t overpower this huge man who towered over him, his eyes gleaming with anger and intensity.
The lamp dropped to the ground with a clatter.
The next thing Dan knew, the man had pinned his wrist against the wall. The handgun, which he gripped tightly, his finger on the trigger, was pointed uselessly at the ceiling.
The man brought up his knee swiftly. It smashed into Dan’s stomach. The air rushed out of his lungs, leaving him gasping.
A punch connected with the side of his head.
But he didn’t drop the gun.
It was all happening so fast.
Dan hadn’t even really reacted.
Where was Rob? Would he come? Surely he’d heard the commotion.
But the woman’s scream pierced the air again. Rob was probably deep in the middle of the ramshackle surgery.
Dan brought his knee up hard and fast. It connected with the man’s groin.
The man let out a grunt of pain, momentarily releasing his grip on Dan’s wrist.
Dan couldn’t overpower him. He didn’t stand a chance against an adult in hand-to-hand combat. But all he had to do was get the gun in the right position.
Dan brought the gun down as fast he could, trying to get it into position.
He saw the man’s eyes following the gun.
The man, still groaning in pain, managed to reach out. His hand, formed into a fist, moved swiftly through the air in a backhanded motion. It collided with the hard metal of the gun.
Dan still gripped the gun.
Dan pulled the trigger.
He felt the gun recoil as his arm was thrust to the side.
The bullet lodged itself in the opposite wall, right in the middle of one of the wallpaper’s many ornate roses.
He’d pulled the trigger a split second too late.
The next thing Dan knew, he’d been knocked to the floor. He hadn’t even seen the blow coming at him.
The man was going for the gun with both hands. Dan was holding onto it with all his might.
It seemed like the end.
Dan punched up with his free hand, his fist closed tightly. It knocked hard into the man’s jaw. But it wasn’t enough. He barely flinched.
There were loud footsteps coming from somewhere.
Was it Rob?
A single shot rang out, echoing in Dan’s ears.
The man on top of him suddenly fell limp. The two hands on Dan’s gun moved no more.
The limp body fell heavily onto Dan. No longer supported at all, all the weight was on him.
Hot blood gushed onto Dan’s face.
Still not releasing the gun, Dan pushed up, trying to get the limp body off of him.
“Just a second,” came Rob’s voice from above.
The next thing Dan knew, Rob was pulling the corpse off of him. He caught a glimpse of Rob’s face finally, and he threw the body to the side, where it landed heavily on the thin wooden floorboards of the dining room.
Rob was standing there. He’d laid his gun on the dining room table. He fished into his pocket, pulled out a dirty white handkerchief, and handed it to Dan. “For the blood,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s about as clean as anything else we’ve got on hand.”
Dan wiped the warm blood from his face as best he could. He could taste it in his mouth, as some had gotten in there. He spit on the floor a couple times, but the taste remained. For some reason, it tasted slightly metallic. Maybe something to do with the dead man’s blood, some nutritional deficiency he was suffering from.
“How is she?” was the first thing that came out of Dan’s mouth.
“She’s fine. I finally got the bullet out. I would have come to help you sooner, but she was bleeding badly and I had to stop it.”
Dan stood up slowly. From where he was, he could feel the air coming in through the busted front door.
“How many of these scrounger people are there?” said Dan. “You think anyone else will come by?”
“With the door broken like that? There’ll definitely be more. We need to get out of here as soon as possible
.”
“I don’t get it,” said Dan. “This guy,” gesturing to the dead body, “heard her screaming, and still came in. He knew there were people in here. He wasn’t even armed.”
“They’re desperate,” said Rob. “Like the rest of us. But some are more desperate than the rest. This door is just going to be an invitation for those who can’t even break down a door. Come on, you’ve got to help me with her.”
“Did you get her name?” said Dan as he followed Rob, who toted his gun at his side, back into the kitchen.
“Her name? No. The pain pills kicked in and she’s pretty loopy. You’re going to have to help me get her out of here.”
In the kitchen, the woman wasn’t looking good. Most of the color had drained from her face. Her eyes were only partially open and her arm was covered in blood. But Rob had managed to bandage the wound in an almost professional-looking way. It looked clean, and the blood was only on the rest of the arm, not to mention the bottom of her shirt.
“She’s going to be fine,” said Rob. “But we’re going to have to carry her out of here.”
Dan didn’t say it, but he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to support her weight for very long, considering his small size. Even with Rob’s help, Dan didn’t know how far he could support her.
“Where are we going to go, though?”
“Anywhere that has an intact door,” said Rob.
“Like next door?”
Rob, moving over to the window, pushed back the old curtains and peered out at the neighbor home, which couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away.
“That’ll have to work,” he said.
Rob was quickly gathering up his things, shoving everything back into his bag. The only things that he took time with were his medical instruments, making sure that he wiped them down completely before replacing them in his little kit. “Never know when you’re going to need these again,” he remarked. “Better to take the time now, even though it doesn’t appear that we have much of it. I don’t think there’s anything in this house worth taking. It’s been hit before. So we’d better just move on out right now.”
Together, Rob and Dan lifted the woman to her feet. She was groggy and could barely stand on her own. She groaned in pain whenever she accidentally put weight on her feet.
The three of them managed somehow to fit sideways in a line through the back door, back out the way that Dan had come in not that long ago.
Would the soldiers be looking for him? The thought crossed his mind as they stepped down the steps and outside once more, leaving the meager shelter of the house. He’d been convinced that they wouldn’t be able to find him. But who knew?
It seemed like everyone was converging on him. It seemed as if he had no time left, as if everything was happening at exactly the worst possible time.
9
Janet
Janet was sprinting through the back yards.
She heard the gunshots before she saw the soldiers.
There were two figures, just outlines in the semi-darkness of the bright moonlight. They’d taken shelter behind the corner of a house up ahead.
She threw herself down onto the hard, cold ground. The gunfire continued, ringing out loudly.
She had no cover. There was nothing nearby that she could get to quickly enough.
Her only option was to return fire as quickly as she could, hoping that they didn’t hit her in the process.
Fortunately, despite being in a militia, most of the members were bad shots. Some of them hadn’t touched a gun before the EMP. Others, like the previously-incarcerated prisoners, had handled guns plenty of times before, but they’d never really developed any kind of proficiency with them.
They were the people who sometimes held handguns sideways, like they did in the movies, and really could barely aim. They’d brandished guns at bank tellers and shop clerks, occasionally shooting them. They weren’t the types of people who went to the target range or practiced gun safety.
Janet squeezed the trigger. The shotgun kicked.
The figures were fully behind the house, taking cover, not knowing when the next blast would come. Good. That was the opportunity she needed.
She was up in a flash, sprinting, her arms pumping at her sides, her feet pounding into the grass. She got herself right up against the siding of the back of the house.
It would give her the benefit of surprise. They’d be looking for her where she’d been, in the middle of the yard.
There was a window about a foot away, leading right into the house.
More gunfire. One of the figures was leaning around the edge of the house.
Janet took careful aim, exhaling as she did, and pulled the trigger.
She felt the kick and her ears rang.
The figure up ahead looked like he’d been hit. Maybe partially. Or maybe not at all. He wasn’t dead, since he’d gotten himself out of view again.
Janet took the butt of the shotgun and smashed it into the window. The glass broke, shattering, fragments falling into the house.
There wasn’t time to worry about getting cut by the glass.
Janet lifted up her leg and stuck it through. A piece of glass cut her pants and dug into her. She ignored it, thrusting her whole body through. She had to squeeze in and position the shotgun just right.
The glass cut her face. Another piece cut her scalp. The blood was hot and poured down her face. But it wasn’t serious.
What was serious was getting shot. Dying. She could deal with a little blood. A little glass.
She fell onto the floor. Hard.
She got up as quickly as she could. She knew they’d discover where she went.
There wasn’t much time. She needed to get out of the house, making use of her small, brief advantage.
Her eyes briefly scanned the kitchen as she reloaded the shotgun.
It had once been a normal, if not quaint, kitchen, the type you’d find in almost any suburban home. The counters and cabinets weren’t of the latest style. They were the ones you would have found in a home magazine a decade ago. But they still worked. Or had worked, served their purpose, before the EMP.
Janet didn’t know what had happened here. But something had. The tables and chairs were overturned. The cupboards and drawers were all thrown open. Empty plastic bags of food littered the floor.
Blood stained one of the walls, and there was a trail of blood leading out of the room, as if a bleeding person, or a recently dead person, had been dragged from the room forcibly.
The room stank of old, rotten food, or stale, dead air.
Maybe Janet herself had come here once, on a raiding party. She didn’t remember. There’d been so many of them.
She was already out of the kitchen and into the hallway. It was dark, almost-pitch black. There weren’t windows in the hallway, and not much light came through the windows anyway.
But she kept going forward, towards the front of the house. She didn’t need to see. She knew where she had to go.
She didn’t have much time. The soldiers would follow her through the broken glass. They’d be inside any moment. Or, if they were smart, they’d cut around to the front of the house.
Should she go back out the back? Should she wait, looking out the window, to see if they tried to come for her through the back? She could shoot them. She’d have the advantage, being inside the house.
No. She needed to press on. Get out of the house as quickly as possible. More soldiers might be coming.
She couldn’t get stuck in this house. She wouldn’t be able to fight her way out.
Suddenly, something slammed into the door. Loudly.
Shit.
Were they here already?
She heard another tremendous thud. Coming to her, in the pitch black hallway, it made her panic. Her heart started to pound.
She was losing her cool. Losing her bearings. The situation was too much for her.
No.
She could do this.
&nb
sp; Another thud at the door. They were slamming something into the door, using something like an improvised battering ram. It seemed like the door was steel, judging from the way it was holding up and the sound.
They must have been different soldiers. There was no way the two that’d been shooting at her could have gotten there that fast. She’d barely been inside the house for a full minute, even though time felt like it had slowed down to the consistency of a thick sludge.
Janet slammed into something. She was moving so fast, and totally unable to see, that she’d crashed into a small wooden table, knocking it over completely. Her foot got tangled somehow in it, caught up in the thin spindly legs, and she fell over.
The shotgun clattered noisily to the wooden floor. Janet’s head smashed into the edge of the knocked-over table.
Just then, the door burst open.
Janet hadn’t realized how close she was to it. There must not have been any windows up there by the front door.
Moonlight crashed through, lighting up the area with that dim yellowish off-white light that seemed to make the whole scene more eerie.
A booted foot passed through the threshold of the doorway.
Janet was reaching for the shotgun. Her hand had been moving blindingly across the floor looking for it.
Her head was turned, looking for the gun. With the influx of moonlight, she saw it. Light glinted off the metal.
Her hand touched the metal, but no reassurance flowed through her. The blind panic, the clumsiness, though, did seem to fade. She was left with nothing but the cold knowledge of what she needed to do.
She raised the shotgun with her left hand, bringing it in front of her torso. Her other hand grabbed it.
A second boot crossed the threshold. The barrel of a shotgun was next.
As soon as the torso appeared, Janet pulled the trigger.
The shotgun kicked painfully into her breast. She hadn’t had the time to get it positioned properly.
The figure was thrown back into the busted partially-opened door that had been knocked off its hinges. It hung there loosely until he slammed into it.
Getting Home_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Page 5