First Activation: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by D. A. Wearmouth

  Jack and I exited the vehicle, took the rope from the trunk, held Jerry down, and bound him tightly. He screamed protests through his gag, but we ignored him as we placed him in reverse foetal position on the back seat.

  I thought this was a good time to give Lea her Beretta back. Jack raised his eyebrows but said nothing, as we all climbed back into the vehicle and continued down the road.

  The Range Rover pulled into the forecourt a couple of minutes later, and stopped by a pump, I had no idea why Jack did this, probably out of habit as they wouldn’t work without electricity.

  Jack and Lea disappeared into the night heading towards the store.

  I patted Jerry a couple of times on the shoulder, made sure he was securely tied up, then stepped out of the vehicle and scanned the immediate vicinity for anything of use. Finding nothing, I decided to relieve myself against the side of the Range Rover.

  Jack and Lea emerged from the store opening and jogged over with four large bags.

  “What have you managed to get?” I asked.

  “Everything we need, including these,” Jack said.

  He opened his bag and I saw a long plastic tube, cigarettes, nachos, and cans of Red Bull.

  A light shone on my face. I pulled my rifle into the alert position and swung it round in an arc, but couldn’t see anything.

  “What the hell was that?” Lea whispered.

  We all crouched down and I peered into the gloom.

  “Get behind the Rover,” Jack said.

  Jack pointed to the right hand side of the store.

  “I think it came from around there.”

  “Hello? Who are you?” I shouted. “We don’t mean any harm.”

  There was no response.

  “Were you trying to signal us?” Lea called out.

  After a few seconds, a male voice called back, “Drop your weapons and we’ll come out. We don’t know if we can trust you, and we are unarmed.”

  “How do we know if we can trust you?” Jack replied.

  “We only want to talk,” the voice answered.

  “How many of you are there?” I asked.

  “There’s two of us.”

  We all looked at each other.

  “Come out,” I called. “You’re safe. We just want to meet other survivors.”

  Slowly, from behind the store, two figures appeared. As they inched towards us, I could see it was a man and woman, both in their mid-twenties. They walked to within ten yards.

  “This is as far as we’re coming. What the fucks going on?”

  “Do you want the long version or the short version?” Jack replied.

  “What? The short version. We’re desperate here; you’re the first people we’ve come across.”

  “From what we’ve seen, everywhere has been in total chaos. People have been turning on each other and most are dead, but you might be okay now. We’ve seen a few more survivors in the last few days, so you’re not on your own.”

  “What happened to you?” I shouted across the forecourt.

  “We came across each other in the state park. After talking, we realised we’d both lost a few days. As we walked along Red Rock Road, we started to see dead bodies and other crazy shit. We’ve just being trying to find someone who knows what’s been going down. The army or whatever.”

  “So what are you going to do now?” Lea asked.

  “Where are you going?” the man replied suspiciously.

  “Michigan,” Jack answered. “But we heard on a radio transmitter that there might be some survivors in New York.”

  I immediately grasped that Jack was telling these people a lie for their own good. It would be unfair if we took them along with us, we had a confrontation coming very soon with Anthony.

  “Did you get any details? What has the government done?” The woman said.

  “Forget about the government, they’re probably gone. We know there’s a group holed up in Aldi on the Long Island Expressway. Head towards Manhattan, you’ll find it,” I said.

  “That’s miles away, can we come along with you?”

  The man pulled her back by the shoulder.

  “Let’s just get back to New York,” he said.

  “Guys, forget about the army, government, or any of that shit. We have to make our own way from here. You’re best off with those guys in New York,” Lea said.

  “Whatever, maybe we’ll see you around,” the man replied. “But for now, we’re going to keep our heads down and see what happens.”

  With that, both of them turned around and walked back into the gloom behind the store.

  Jack started walking back to the Range Rover, “Come on, let’s get out of here. Chances are, there’s going to be a few more like them, we can’t help everybody.”

  Lea seemed saddened by the meeting.

  “We should have helped them,” she said.

  “How? I’m glad they didn’t want to come along with us, it would have taken some explaining,” Jack said.

  “The social rules have changed now,” I said. “They probably just want to find a safe place and keep their risks to a minimum. It’s not exactly easy for us, and we have a better understanding of what is really going on.”

  I heard a thud behind us and turned; Jerry had wriggled out of the car and landed on his face, on the forecourt.

  We rushed over and pulled him back into the vehicle.

  The gag was drenched in blood, so I untied it. Jerry seemed unaffected by his fall.

  “I’d have fucked her,” he said.

  “Who? What are you talking about?” I replied.

  “That whore you just met.”

  Jack leaned into the back of the vehicle and slapped him.

  “You don’t realise what you’re missing. Ron told us how much pussy would be out there after the first activation. You need to…”

  “Shut the fuck up. The gag is going back on if you say another word,” I said.

  We all climbed back into the Range Rover and Jack pulled away.

  After picking our way along the highway for another half an hour, I noticed some headlights in the distance behind us. I pointed it out to Lea and Jack, and continued to watch out of the back window. The car continued to follow us for another hour. It shouldn’t have been unusual to see another driver on the road, even in these circumstances, but none of us were quite ready to trust in coincidence.

  “Let’s stop and see who they are,” Jack said. “We don’t want to be followed all the way to Hermitage, if that’s what the other car is doing.”

  “Let me do the talking this time, you’re too soft, you’re going to get us all killed,” Jerry said.

  We all ignored him.

  Jack pulled onto the side of the road. We jumped out of the Range Rover quickly and waited behind it with our weapons ready. I cut Jerry’s legs free to make it easier to move him and kept hold of the back of his collar. The headlights slowly approached until a car pulled alongside us.

  The electric window descended on the passenger side of the vehicle.

  “Thanks for waiting for us,” a man said.

  “Pardon?” I replied.

  “Thanks for waiting for us. We’ve decided to come with you.”

  Though we couldn’t see inside the car, I recognised the voice as being the man’s from the station.

  “What do you mean come with us?” Jack asked.

  “We had a chat after you left. You seem capable and are armed. We think we’ll be safer with you for now.”

  We didn’t actually want anyone coming along with us to Hermitage. Although extra numbers could be handy, we’d have to reveal why we were going there.

  “You can’t come with us, but we’ll meet you here next Sunday,” I replied, hoping to appease them with my suggestion.

  “Why not?” the man asked.

  “We think that there might be some danger up there. We are going to sort it out. After that, we can come back to meet you,” Jack replied.

  “We can help you. Do you ha
ve a spare gun?”

  “Sorry,” I lied, “we don’t have any spare. We wouldn’t want to expose you to any unnecessary danger, so we’ll meet you afterwards.”

  “Who do you think you are, John Rambo?” the man said sarcastically.

  It was nearing two o’clock on Wednesday morning. I think tiredness must have got the better of Jack because he answered, “Fuck you.”

  The man sprang out of the car, walked up to Jack, and stood inches from him.

  “Say that to my face, you pussy,” he said.

  “They’re holding me hostage. The one that you called a pussy is a rapist; I’ve seen him do it to three women. This one is as well,” Jerry shouted, as he looked up at me.

  I realised he was trying to work the situation to his advantage. I kicked the back of his leg and he dropped to one knee.

  “Did you see that? That’s how they’ve been treating me, look at the blood around my mouth.”

  “Shut up, Jerry,” I shouted.

  “Hey, what the hell?” The man said, looking around Jack towards me.

  “Ignore him,” Lea shouted, “do you think I’d be travelling with them if they were rapists?”

  The situation was escalating. Two survivors, most likely tired and stressed, were probably now in an even bigger state of confusion.

  “There’s no need for this. Let’s all just calm down and talk it through,” I pleaded as I tightly squeezed the back of Jerry’s neck.

  “Come on, Mark. It’s not worth it,” the woman shouted from inside the car. “Let’s just leave them and go and find a place to stay for the night.”

  He didn’t respond to her, instead he focused back on Jack.

  “Are you going to say it to my face?”

  I couldn’t believe what was happening, rather than being confused or wanting to ask questions, he just seemed angry that Jack had sworn at him.

  He poked his finger into Jack’s chest, “Pussy.”

  I knew what Jack’s response would be and tensed up.

  Jack leaned back and then thrust a violent head-butt straight into the man’s face. He staggered backwards, holding his eye.

  He paused for a second before launching himself at Jack, shouting, “You mother fucker.”

  They collided and hit the ground together, then started wrestling. I let go of Jerry, ran over and grabbed the man’s shoulder to pull him away. He swung his elbow around, and it caught me flush between my eyes. The momentum knocked me back a couple of yards, and for a moment, I was seeing stars.

  “He’s running,” Lea shouted, and I heard a couple of shots.

  A surge of anger shot through my body. I wrapped my fingers into the shape of a fist, and then jumped on top of the man and punched him in the back of his head as hard as I could. He tried to roll out of the way, but only succeeded in pulling Jack around with him. Jack now sat on top of his chest, and rained heavy blows into the man’s face.

  “Stop it, leave him now. He’s had enough,” I shouted.

  I had been thrown away from the fight when he rolled.

  I turned quickly and looked for Jerry, he was gone.

  “He ran away as soon as you let him go, over there between the trees,” Lea said, pointing to the opposite side of the highway.

  “Did you hit him?” I said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Shit.”

  I shouted in frustration as I looked back towards the scene of the fight.

  The man had stopped struggling underneath Jack.

  “I’m letting you go now. If you try that again, I’ll hammer your face. Do you understand?” Jack spat.

  He nodded, Jack released his grip and the man hobbled back to his car holding the left hand side of his face. He got back into the passenger seat with a grunt.

  As the car pulled away, he shouted out of the window, “Thanks for nothing, you fucking douchebags. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  Jack looked at me, shaking his head.

  “What an idiot. Shall we go after Jerry?”

  “I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. We’ll just have to get to Hermitage before he does and hope he wasn’t lying.”

  I called Jerry’s name twice, unsurprisingly, there was no response.

  “Shame I didn’t get him, but I’m glad he’s gone. I know where Ron lives anyway.”

  “Yes, we know, Lea,” Jack replied, dusting himself down.

  “Come on, let’s go. I’ll drive, I reckon we can make Hermitage by first light. We don’t want that creature getting a head-start on us,” I said.

  I looked at Lea who was climbing into the passenger seat.

  She shook her head, “You guys can really be dicks sometimes.”

  We waited until Mark’s vehicle vanished in the distance, and then set-off again.

  “We’re not stopping for anybody now until we get to Hermitage,” Jack said. There was no disagreement.

  During the night, we were forced into swapping vehicles twice as our attempts to syphon fuel was unsuccessful. I reasoned that modern cars had a valve to stop siphoning and we didn’t want to waste any more time out in the open. The cars we chose were parked at the side of the road, and clean of bodies. We rolled along towards Hermitage in a Chevrolet without Sat Nav, but it was a straight road all the way. Inside the Chevy, I found a rolled up road atlas and calculated that it was about a mile on foot cross country from the highway to Anthony’s house.

  The first signs of dawn appeared in the sky as we approached our designated point, and I slowed to a crawl along the tree line. To our right was a break in the trees to accommodate overhead wires, and the house was somewhere beyond, out of sight. The highway around us was quiet.

  “Let’s get some fuel into us before heading over,” I said, the others nodded agreement and we slid out of the car.

  Jack grabbed three cans of baked beans and spoons from the back of the Chevy. The ring pull made the cans easy to open, and as I chewed the first mouthfuls, I thought of Bernie and his apartment. I imagined getting some revenge for his death and all the others we had seen by destroying Genesis Alliance. From what we had seen of them so far, I was confident, but was also now concerned that we might be caught up in another activation. My mind switched from Hermitage to Monroe, and I walked round to the front of the Chevy to speak to Lea. She was staring off towards the opening in the trees, apparently lost in thought.

  “Do you have any idea what we might face if we go to Ron’s?”

  “No, not really, are we going there next?”

  Jack had followed me. “It depends what we find here. This guy might have all the answers. If there’s a way of stopping it all and getting away now, then fine, but I think we are on a collision course.”

  “Do you want to go back?” I asked Lea.

  “I want to see Martina again. But if it means getting you guys in trouble…”

  “Don’t worry about that. Do you remember seeing any people around Ron that could be dangerous?”

  “It’s hard to say, maybe one or two, but none of them really stood out that way.”

  “I reckon there will be a few armed guards,” Jack said. “Ron isn’t going to leave himself exposed is he?”

  “Are you going to try and kill Ron?” Lea said, with a wide-eyed expression.

  I wanted to avoid having a hypothetical discussion over the future of Ron. Firstly, we didn’t know if we were going to Monroe, secondly, I thought it might start Lea thinking about what the consequences of such an action would be for her.

  “Forget about that for now. We can’t afford to get into a long firefight here. It’s reasonably safe to assume that Anthony will be armed if he’s at home, if he has plenty of ammo, then we might not take him from a distance. He could call for back-up, so we need to be quick once we get there,” I said.

  “How shall we take the house? A pincer movement? He might be expecting something if Ron’s told him about Orange County,” Jack said.

  “Let’s have a look at the place first. If th
ere are trees to one side, then we can feint at the front, and take him out with a flanking manoeuvre.”

  “You’re going to have to explain that to me in English,” Lea said.

  “You and I will approach the front of the house; we’ll keep a reasonably safe distance and act like we’re survivors, just having a look around. Hopefully, we can flush out whoever is in there. Once we get attention, Jack can move in from the side.”

  “He might recognise me, I’ll go with Jack.”

  “Good point, you take my rifle. I’ll go to the front of the property with your Beretta.”

  “On show? That might set off alarm bells, what if he just shoots you?”

  “No, he won’t shoot first, as he doesn’t know who I am or if there’s anyone else around. If I make him think I’m alone, it will make me his main focus. That’s when we execute the move. I’ll make the Beretta ready and carry it in one of the bags you took from the garage; it will look like I’m just carrying supplies.”

  “Then what?” Lea said.

  “Then we take whoever is there, dead or alive. It depends on the situation,” Jack replied.

  As I finished my can of beans and threw it down onto the side of the highway, I felt a speck of rain hit my cheek and looked up at the light grey sky above us. It didn’t look particularly threatening, but the distant sky was much darker. I pointed towards it.

  “I don’t want to carry out this assault in the rain, let’s get going.”

  “Should we go now? It’s still pretty early,” Lea said.

  “Even better, if we catch Anthony in bed, I’ll bring some rope. Just remember, Jerry told us about this place, be ready for a nasty surprise,” Jack replied.

  I took Lea’s Beretta; slipped off the mag, and thumbed out four rounds, I was sure it would be enough with the cover of two fully loaded rifles. I reloaded the magazine, cocked the Beretta, and then placed it in a plastic bag amongst three packets of nachos. Jack gave Lea a quick lesson on how to use the AR-15, and then they slung the weapons, ready to move.

  “We’ll follow the wires until we can see Hogback Road, from there, we can creep up through the trees and have a look. Ready?”