He squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked harder than he’d been expecting. The sound was defending, reverberating in the small area underneath the car. His ears rang in pain.
A scream.
One of the men collapsed to the ground.
Dan had hit him in the shin.
It was strange seeing him fall from the limited viewpoint that Dan had.
The scream of pain didn’t end. It continued, on and on.
Dan wasted no time.
The other pair of legs were dancing around. The other man was probably trying to find where the shooter was.
Dan squeezed the trigger.
The gun kicked.
He missed.
“Get him!” the fallen man was yelling.
Dan pulled the trigger again.
He missed again.
He pulled the trigger yet another time.
But nothing happened.
Was it jammed?
He didn’t know. He didn’t know enough about guns.
The only thing he knew was that it wasn’t going to work. He needed another weapon.
As fast as he could, he scuttled sideways. He needed to get out from underneath the car.
The man whose shin he’d shot was lying on the ground screaming in pain. He faced away from Dan. He was the one with the gun.
That meant that the man Dan hadn’t gotten was the one with the baseball bat.
That was good. Dan figured he had a better shot against a baseball bat than a gun.
Dan’s armed scraped painfully against the pavement. He was moving too fast. His forearm, exposed, was bleeding.
Before he could get out from under the car, the man he’d shot suddenly flipped himself around. Now he was staring face to face with Dan. They were both on the same level.
“He’s there! Under the car.”
Dan saw the gun pointing towards him.
But there wasn’t anything he could do other than keep going.
A shot rang out.
It missed, piercing some part of the car.
Dan was suddenly out from underneath the vehicle.
He scrambled to his feet, still holding the gun that might have been jammed.
He was out of view of the man with the gun. But his feet weren’t.
If Dan wasn’t careful, he might get his own shin shot.
“Dan!”
Rob had appeared at the doorway to the house. Olivia was slung over his shoulder and he held onto her with one arm. The pack was strapped to his back. In his free arm, he held a handgun.
A shot rang out.
The screaming man fell silent. Hopefully he was dead, and Dan wouldn’t have to worry about his shins.
It was all happening so fast.
A flurry of movement.
The baseball bat was speeding towards his head. He hadn’t even seen the man who wielded it appear.
It was a good swing. Fast and intense and powerful.
Dan brought up both his hands as fast as he could, trying to shield himself.
But it wasn’t enough. The bat knocked through the flimsy shield of his comparatively weak hands and smashed right into his face.
Pain flared through him. Blood was pouring from somewhere. He tasted it in his mouth.
Dan brought up his hands again. It was purely instinctual.
He was on the ground, and the baseball bat was coming down hard again towards him.
A series of gunshots rang out. Dan didn’t know how many.
The man let out a strange, muted noise. Something between a moan of pain and a scream.
He fell right on top of Dan.
Dan lay there, trying to breathe, the pain in his face overwhelming him. Blood from the corpse mixed with his own. The weight of the man was crushing him.
“You still with us, kid?” came Rob’s deep voice.
The next thing knew, the dead body was pulled off him, and Rob was standing there, offering him a strong hand.
Dan took it, and Rob pulled him to his feet.
“You don’t look too bad,” he said, winking at him. “You’ll be all right. Come on, get in the car. There isn’t much time. We’ve probably attracted every scrounger and idiot in the area.”
Using his sleeve, Dan wiped the blood from his face as best he could. But it kept coming. His face was painful and sore to the touch. He stumbled around the front or back of the car, he wasn’t sure which. He made it through one of the open doors and collapsed onto one of the seats.
“Olivia?” said Dan, his voice sounding funny. Maybe his lips were swollen.
“She’s fine. Right, Olivia?”
“Never been better,” came Olivia’s voice.
“You did good, kid. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Dan wiped away more blood. Now he could see again. Rob was in the front seat and Dan and Olivia were in the back.
Rob twisted the key in the ignition.
The car started and Dan felt it start to speed away.
“What took you so long?” Dan managed to say.
“You know how these things go,” said Rob. “Packing for a trip always takes longer than you’d think.”
“It was my fault,” said Olivia. “I’m sorry, Dan.”
Dan wondered what she’d meant, but she didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask.
He was alive. That was what was important. No matter how bad his injuries were, they’d heal with time.
They drove in silence. Rob seemed to know the streets well, and he seemed comfortable taking the various turns.
The streets were narrow and the houses remained close together.
Dan looked out through the windows. He was sure that his eye was black, and he could feel the swelling already starting. But he could still see well enough.
There was no one out there. To be seen, at least. Those who were out there were in hiding.
In this area, at least, the battles were raging mostly behind closed doors. Those who remained were still fighting for their lives, but they were doing it mostly in private.
Dan remembered back to when he’d been holed up in his grandfather’s house, anxiously waiting for someone to break in, for something to happen.
Those who’d remained in their homes would be in the same position now. Only worse. Food was only getting scarcer. And people were only getting more desperate.
How would it end? What would be the final outcome to those who hadn’t fled?
No one was coming to help. That much was certain at this point.
And no new communities seemed to be developing. At least not here. Not yet.
Instead, it was just a further breakdown of society. More tears in the social fabric.
Violent tears.
“How you two doing?” said Rob, from the front.
“Not bad,” said Dan.
“Olivia?”
“I’m glad to get out of there, but do you really think we can get all the way to this campground?”
“Let’s hope so,” said Rob. “If this car will make it, then I think we have a good chance.”
“What if we run into someone?”
“We’ll just have to take it off the cuff, as they say.”
The three of them fell silent, and the drive continued. The houses grew further and further apart, and soon they were out on the open road.
Rob took them down back roads, rather than the highway. He seemed to know them well.
Night fell, and they drove on. Rob didn’t use the headlights unless it was absolutely necessary. It was better not to call too much attention to themselves.
Olivia fell asleep at some point, and her slight snores echoed through the noisy car. Rob pushed the car onward, driving as fast as he could without the lights.
Dan stayed awake the whole way. The pain, for one thing, didn’t let him go to sleep.
And his mind was active. If the camp was still there, if Max was still alive, what would his new life be like?
Maybe it’d be a new life, full of peace, f
ree of worry. At least as free of worry as a post-EMP life could be.
22
Max
“I can’t believe we’re almost back,” said Mandy. “I just can’t believe we’re here.”
Max nodded.
He agreed. It was strange to find themselves back on the hunting grounds. He almost couldn’t believe that they’d made it.
If it hadn’t been for Mandy’s unusually good sense of direction and memory for landmarks, Max didn’t think they would have gotten there. It wasn’t that he had a bad memory for those things, just that Mandy’s was superb.
“You think they missed us?” said Mandy.
“I just hope they’re still alive,” said Max.
“This was a lot easier driving out of than walking into,” said Mandy as they set off down the access road that they’d driven the pickup down not so long ago.
“I’m just happy we’re still walking.”
“Always the optimist.”
Max found himself smiling. A brief smile, but a smile nevertheless.
“Did I just see you smile?” said Mandy. “You got my joke?”
“Maybe I’m happy to be back.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say you were happy.”
“There hasn’t been much to be happy about.”
“Except for being able to walk. And not lying injured or dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“Sometimes I wonder how we even did it.”
“That makes two of us.”
It was a couple more hours of walking back to the camp.
“Well,” said Mandy, pausing. The van and the tent were in view. “Here we are.”
“Come on,” said Max, leading the way.
“I was waiting for you to say that we need to get to work,” said Mandy.
Max gave a tired laugh. “I think we both need a rest. We’ll start work tomorrow.”
It was early in the morning. Everyone would most likely be asleep, except for whoever was on guard duty.
But he didn’t see anyone. Maybe they were hiding. Maybe they’d found a new spot to watch from.
“Stop!” shouted someone, frantically. “Don’t take another step!”
Max and Mandy froze.
“James?” called out Mandy. “Is that you? It’s us.”
Sure enough, it was James. He emerged from behind a tree on the other side of camp. He carried a rifle, and looked thinner than when they’d left.
Mandy started to walk forward.
“Stop!” called out James again. “I’m serious!”
Mandy froze.
“I thought you’d be happy to see us!”
“There’s a trap,” called out James, walking towards them.
Max was already looking around. His eyes settled on the ground, where it looked like dead leaves had been rearranged to cover up something.
“A ditch?” said Max.
“Yeah,” said James.
“Good work,” said Max.
“Well, it’s not that deep. It’s harder to dig than we thought.”
“I thought you were bringing someone back with you,” said James.
“It didn’t work out,” said Max.
The reunion didn’t quite have the same tone that reunions did before the EMP, like when families would meet each other at the airport arrival gates.
Things remained subdued even as everyone woke up and came sleepily out of the van and the tent.
They were happy to see Max and Mandy, of course, but Max soon learned just how rough a time they’d had of it while they were gone.
There’d been a huge band of chaotic people, acting as a mob, that had attacked them not long ago. And then another smaller one just a couple days ago.
For some reason, the second mob had been scared off. But they were still out there, somewhere nearby in the woods.
Georgia was doing better, but she’d recently pushed herself too hard. She looked OK now to Max, but he could still see that something was hurting her. He recognized the look in her face when the injury was acting up. He knew it well, since his leg still bothered him.
They’d gone hungry. And only yesterday they’d made the dangerous trip past the gathering mob to the deer that Georgia had seen shot just a couple days ago. They’d managed to drag it back to camp.
“You wouldn’t still have some of that deer lying around, would you, by any chance?” said Mandy, trying to make a joke out of it.
“Sure,” said John. “You two must be starving.”
Half an hour later, they were all sitting around the smoldering campfire eating venison and drinking coffee with sugar.
Max and Mandy handed out a couple of the bags of chips that they still had left. They’d already drank all the soda, but some of the flavors weren’t to their likings, despite their hunger.
But John and James, it turned out, loved jalapeño flavored chips, no matter how spicy they were.
“So tell me more about this mob,” said Max. “You’ve already been attacked? Tell me exactly what happened.”
“We survived,” said Georgia.
“But it’s not the end,” said Cynthia. “Don’t worry, they’re still out there.”
“How many?”
“A couple dozen. More than before.”
“But they’re not moving,” said Mandy. “Maybe they’re just going to stay in one place. Why do you think they’ll attack?”
“Because they’re probing,” said John. “Small groups of a couple of them are coming our way. We do what we can, but some of them inevitably escape. And presumably they report back.”
“I thought you said they were acting more like animals than people?” said Mandy.
“In a sense, yes.”
“You’re talking about this mob as if it’s an entirely different organism.”
“Humanity at its worst,” muttered Max.
“Hey, Max, can I talk to you for a second?” said John, standing up and nodding over to an area away from the campfire.
Max nodded and joined his brother.
When they were out of earshot from the campfire, Max said, “what’s up?”
“I’m worried,” said John. “You came back at the best time for us, but the worst time for you and Mandy.”
“It sounds like you don’t think we’re going to make it through this.”
“I don’t want to worry everyone else. It’s just going to bring morale down and decrease their ability to fight.”
“They’re adults,” said Max. “They can take the news. I don’t think it’s a good idea to mislead anyone.”
“They’re not all adults,” said John. “Two of them are kids.”
Max shrugged. “They fight like adults. They have to survive just like everyone else.”
“It’s still different.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“So I’m thinking that…”
“You think we should run, right?” said Max, eyeing his brother’s shifting eyes. Their eyes were what made them look the most similar. Max hadn’t seen himself in a mirror in months, but he saw a part of himself in his brother’s eyes.
John nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I know it’s bad out there, but… I just don’t see how we’re going to get through this. Sooner or later we’re going to have dozens of armed people invading again. And we’re tired. We’re not as well-fed or rested as we should be.”
“We have the venison.”
“But they could starve us out essentially. With the mob so close, it’s going to be harder and harder to go out hunting. What if it takes weeks for them to attack? We’ll just get weaker and weaker.”
Max said nothing. He was deep in thought.
“Georgia’s stronger than before, but she’s not her old self. And no offense, but you and Mandy aren’t looking so great yourselves.”
“We’re fine,” said Max.
“So what do you think? You were out there. Down south. You think we should move on?”
“In what?�
�� said Max. “The van?”
John nodded.
“We can’t do it,” said Max. “Even if we got the van running, our odds are going to be worse out there. Things haven’t settled down. I don’t know if they’re getting worse or staying the same. It doesn’t really matter. But we need to be out of whatever’s going on.”
“I thought everyone was dying off. The population numbers are going down.”
Max nodded. “Yeah, but there’s evidence of something else going on… people getting more organized.”
“Like the militia, or what?”
“Something like that,” said Max. He told John about a couple of the encounters he and Mandy had while out on the road. He told him about the people who’d been drugged up in the highway rest stop. He told him about the cowboy who hadn’t seemed scared whatsoever.
“I don’t see how that means anything,” said John. “Those are just minor encounters. It’s not like an army or anything.”
“You’re not looking at it the right way. Those people being kept there,” said Max. “It points to a group with a high level of organization. It points to a group that has the basics already covered, to the point where they can expend the energy and manpower going off to do whatever the hell it was they were doing.”
“What in the world are you two chatting about?” called out Cynthia.
They both turned to look. Cynthia was striding over to them.
“You’re probably sharing secret venison recipes, I bet.”
John gave a little laugh.
Max remained stone-faced.
“My brother thinks we should get the hell out of here,” said Max.
Cynthia’s face fell.
“I thought you said we could make it,” she said, glaring at John. “What? You keep your real thoughts to yourself and your brother? You don’t want to tell the rest of us?”
“He thinks he’s protecting you.”
“Protecting us from what? How many times have our lives already been on the line?”
“I was just trying to…” said John.
But Cynthia didn’t let him continue. “I can’t believe it,” she said, cutting him off.
“Don’t take it the wrong way.”
“I’ll take it anyway I want to.”
A gunshot rang out.
The three of them jumped into action.
Getting Home_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Page 13