“So you’re completely serious about all this?” said Aly. For once, he couldn’t read her tone of voice or tell what she was thinking.
Either she still thought he was having a psychotic break or she was beginning to take him seriously.
“Yeah,” said Jim. “Very serious. We need to get out of here.”
“I think he’s making some good points,” said Rob. “People were going crazy at your mom’s house… They were thinking that…”
“You saw it with your own eyes, Rob,” said Jim, cutting him off. “And you still have doubts?”
“Well,” said Rob. “I’ll admit people were going pretty crazy, but you know I don’t see why you think that everything’s going to fall apart so easily. Like in a snowstorm maybe there’s a little bit of chaos and then people pretty much go home and wait it out.”
“But what happens when the power doesn’t come back on tomorrow, or the next day, and then it’s still off a week out? And people are hungry and thirsty and they’re realizing that they’re literally going to die in a matter of weeks simply from hunger?”
“Huh,” muttered Rob, as if he was stumped.
Jim glanced in his rearview mirror again. The small truck was still following them at the same distance.
Up ahead, there were two cars stopped. They sat next to each other, blocking the way.
Jim downshifted and swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid them.
He was driving about forty, which was a little faster than normal for this road. But he didn’t want to go fast and risk an accident. That’d be the last thing they’d need right now.
“It’s going to be OK, honey,” his wife was saying in the backseat. “Now tell me, you don’t remember anything?”
“I remember some things… I know who I am… and…”
Jim didn’t have time to pay attention.
Up ahead, there was something blocking the entire road. Something huge. But it was still far enough off in the distance that he couldn’t quite make out what it was.
Was it a tractor trailer lying sideways?
No, it seemed bigger than that.
They’d taken a different route to the police station. He’d chosen this way back after realizing it was a more direct route.
“What the hell is that?” muttered Rob, from the passenger seat.
Suddenly, it hit Jim.
He knew what it was.
“It’s a plane,” he said.
“A plane?”
“The EMP would knock out the plane’s electronics,” said Jim.
“So it’d just fall to the ground? It doesn’t look too busted up.”
They were getting closer, and Jim hadn’t yet slowed down.
Jim shook his head. “They’d have, what, twenty minutes gliding in the air. And that’s max.”
They had a good view of the plane now.
“Wow,” said Rob. “It’s a big one.”
Jim said nothing.
From the back of the car, he heard his wife gasp.
“You believe me now?” said Jim.
She said nothing.
“What are you going to do?” said Rob. “Why aren’t you slowing down?”
“We’re going to need to get around it,” said Jim.
“Why not just go another way?”
“There’s no other way,” said Jim.
“Sure there is.”
“It’d take us an extra half an hour with how much we’d have to backtrack. We don’t have time for that.”
In the rearview mirror, the small Nissan truck was still following at a distance. Did they want something? Were they following them for some reason? Or were they just headed in the same direction?
12
Aly
Maybe her husband was onto something. The stopped cars in the middle of the road had been strange enough.
But now there was a downed plane?
“Where are the ambulances and police?” said Aly. “You know, the rescue crews?”
She immediately felt stupid for saying that. If most of the cars weren’t working, how were rescue crews going to get there?
“Maybe the radio has something about it,” said Rob, reaching over to press the radio’s power button.
“Doesn’t work,” muttered Jim, but he let him turn it on anyway.
“No static,” said Rob. “Nothing. It’s dead.”
No radio. Cars weren’t working. The police had rushed out of the station, and apparently on foot.
All signs pointed to Jim being right.
And the only other option she’d had in her mind was that her husband had gone mad.
And going crazy wasn’t like him. He’d never shown any signs of mental illness, after all.
But it couldn’t be true.
It just couldn’t.
The young woman next to her had remained mostly silent, almost as if she was lost in a daze. But she seemed as calm as could be under the circumstances. She made no sudden movements, and showed no sign of threatening them again.
Nevertheless, her presence made Aly nervous. As if she could be more nervous.
The woman had clearly shown some kind of instability. Not long ago, she’d been pointing a gun in their direction.
Anxiety had always been an issue for Aly. Ever since she was a kid, she’d had periods where the anxiety had seemed to take over completely. She’d learned some mental techniques, like focusing on her breathing, that had helped her through things. She hadn’t let it slow her down in life or her career.
But she felt it coming on strong now.
She knew not to fight it.
She knew she had to just ride the anxiety out.
“What are you looking in the mirror for?” said Aly, noticing that her husband kept glancing back.
“There’s a truck behind us,” said Jim.
He said nothing more.
“That’s it? There’s a truck behind us?”
She could hear the slight panic introducing itself into the tone of her voice.
Jim ignored her.
Aly leaned into the middle seat so that she could see out the windshield better.
“Why don’t you slow down a little?”
Jim didn’t answer.
“Now I remember why we were always fighting so much,” muttered Aly. “You have that terrible habit of simply not answering my questions.”
The plane was coming more and more into focus.
It was a huge plane, but Aly didn’t know anything about planes.
There were windows on the sides, so it must have been some kind of commercial passenger plane. There were markings on the side and tail. Some kind of company logo, but she didn’t recognize it.
“It looks like they landed OK,” said Rob, from the front seat.
“They’re facing the wrong way,” said Jim.
“Facing the wrong way?”
“There’s no way they’re OK,” said Jim. “Otherwise they would have landed the same way we’re facing, using the road as a runway.”
Sure enough, after a couple minutes of tense silence, the plane was fully in view.
The road had curved around in such a way that there’d been a clump of trees and buildings obscuring the view of the front of the plane.
Now, they could see it in its entirety.
And the front of the plane was completely gone.
About twenty five percent of the plane’s length was simply missing.
The rear section seemed unscathed, although some large scrapes and scratches were now visible. They ran along the plane on the portion underneath the windows.
The young woman let out a gasp of surprise and craned her head to see more of it.
Aly found herself holding her breath, noting that her heart rate had started to accelerate. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest.
“I can’t…” said Rob, his voice full of surprise, without finishing his thought.
Jim said nothing. He just kept driving straight down the road, right t
owards the plane.
Something was on fire. She could see the smoke billowing out of the charred wreckage of the front of the plane.
The ground was covered in charred rubble.
Trees that had been in the path of the plane had been decimated.
The front of the plane had crashed into a two story brick building, which was now mostly rubble.
A horrible stench hung in the air. It smelled like burning plastic and chemicals.
“Jim! What are you doing?”
They were close now, only a hundred feet away.
The plane was looming up huge in front of them.
“We’re not turning back,” said Jim.
He slowed the Subaru down, jerked the wheel, and made a sudden turn off the road.
The car bounced as they drove over the small curb and as the wheels hit the bumpy ground off to the right side of the plane.
“We’re not going to make it,” said Rob, practically yelling. “Look up ahead.”
The Subaru bumped along tremendously as Jim made a wide arc around the rear of the plane.
“It’s fine,” said Jim.
The fire in the front of the plane seemed to have intensified. Smoke was billowing now in their direction, even though they were on the opposite end.
The absence of any rescue crews whatsoever suddenly really struck Aly.
“Aren’t we going to stop?”
“Stop?”
“And help them. The survivors. They’re going to be in bad shape.”
“We’ve got to concentrate on us,” said Jim. There was a hardened edge to his voice, one that she’d heard before when he’d made up his mind about something and didn’t want to change it. “There’s going to be a lot of people in dire circumstances. We’re not going to be able to help them all. So we’ve got to draw the line.”
“Seems a bit selfish,” said Aly. “Not that you would know anything about that.” She said the last part somewhat sarcastically even without intending it. She’d accused him of selfishness in countless arguments, and she knew that he’d catch her tone, even if the others didn’t.
“I’ve got to concentrate on driving,” said Jim.
Aly saw him glance in the mirror again.
Aly turned around to see that the small truck that’d been behind them had decided to also circle around the plane.
Now the truck was closer, and it was driving faster than they were across the bumpy ground.
But only a minute later, Jim drove the Subaru back over the curb and they were back on the road, which looked fairly clear of vehicles. There were a few dots up ahead that must have been stopped cars.
“You feeling OK, honey?” said Aly, putting her hand around the woman next to her.
She didn’t answer at first, just glared suspiciously at Aly and shook her shoulder free of Aly’s hand.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be alright.”
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep,” said Jim. “But we’re going to do the best we can do get out of here.”
“And what then?” said Aly, realizing that her husband didn’t actually have a plan, aside from getting out of the city.
“We still have to figure that part out,” said Jim, who wouldn’t take his eyes off the rearview mirror.
“Watch the road,” said Aly. “You can’t keep looking behind us.”
“We might have a bigger problem than that,” said Jim.
Aly turned around once again.
Behind them, she could hear the whine of the small truck’s engine.
The truck was accelerating rapidly and now it pulled up alongside them.
There were two men in the car. Big burly muscular types who looked like they’d spend their lives going between the gym and some tough manual labor job. The one in the passenger seat, who was closest to Aly, wore a red and black checked flannel shirt unbuttoned all the way down to reveal a dirt stained white t-shirt. Neither were clean shaven.
“What do they want?” said Rob.
The Nissan kept pace with them as Jim weaved around a stopped car. The Nissan showed no signs of simply passing them.
They wanted something. That was clear.
The man in the passenger seat had the window down now, and he waved his hand in an unmistakable gesture. They wanted Jim to stop driving.
The passenger was shouting something, but Aly couldn’t make out what it was over the wind and the wine of the engines.
She saw Jim’s hand move as he shifted gears and increased their speed.
But the Nissan kept pace with them.
“What are you going to do? They want you to stop!”
“I’m not stopping,” said Jim.
“He’s got a gun!”
The passenger of the truck had produced a gun. Some kind of big handgun, which he held menacingly out into the open air, pointing it towards the sky. Now, he lowered it and pointed it towards Jim.
Jim glanced over, saw the gun, and reached down into his waistband.
Aly didn’t know the first thing about guns except that Jim had one. She wasn’t against them the way some people were. Jim, of course, had urged her over the years to learn something about them, at the very least. But for one reason or another she’d never gotten around to it. They just didn’t interest her that much. Her life had seemed so calm and safe that she couldn’t imagine a situation in which a gun of any sort would have been necessary or even useful.
It had been just one of many things that she and Jim hadn’t seen eye to eye on in their marriage.
A gunshot rang out.
The man in the truck had fired his weapon. She didn’t know if he’d shot at them and missed, or merely fired a warning shot into the air.
From where Aly sat, caddy-corner and to the rear of her husband, she saw him swiftly draw his revolver from his holster.
The window was already down.
Jim pointed the gun at the truck, his eyes off the road for a few brief seconds.
He fired.
The sound echoed through the Subaru, causing an intense ringing in Aly’s ears.
Aly’s anxiety had never been higher. She felt the panic coming on.
She shouted, something meaningless. She didn’t even know what it was.
Glancing over, the two men in the Nissan were still alive. Jim had missed.
There was a car stopped in their lane up ahead.
Jim slowed the Subaru down, his head moving as he tried to find a path for them to continue.
The Nissan took the opportunity. Suddenly it sped up and swerved aggressively, coming right into the path of the Subaru.
Jim jerked the wheel, but there wasn’t enough time or space to get out of the way.
He slammed on the brakes.
The Subaru jerked to a sudden stop.
The Nissan was stopped in front of them, the passenger side closest to the Subaru’s front.
The passenger door of the Nissan was thrown open. The passenger stepped out, looking tall and imposing. He had his gun in hand.
Jim threw the car into reverse, hit the accelerator, and the engine started whining as the Subaru rocketed backwards.
Aly let out an anxious cry halfway between a scream and something else.
The young woman next to her sat, petrified, like a deer in the headlights.
Rob was completely quiet.
Through the windshield, the man in the checkered shirt raised his gun. His hand was straight out, and he pointed the gun directly at the Subaru.
A thought hit Ally like a ton of bricks: the world had changed.
13
Jim
The Subaru engine was whining as they sped backwards.
Jim had the accelerator all the way to the floor. They were going as fast as they could.
The man in front of them fired two shots.
“He’s trying to kill us!” shouted Rob.
As if that was any help.
Jim didn’t know what the man was aiming for. Maybe the tire, o
r maybe Jim himself.
Both shots missed.
A third shot.
The bullet struck the corner of the windshield on Jim’s side, sending a spider web of cracks through it.
Aly cried out after the bullet struck the windshield.
Jim’s mind was racing through the possibilities.
Behind them lay the crashed plane. There was no cross street that would lead them to Aly’s mother’s house. Not for miles and miles.
He could keep going in reverse, turn around, and head a different way.
That was the safest course.
But it would cost them time.
And if they took another route, who could say that they wouldn’t run into another situation like this one?
The men in the Nissan clearly wanted the Subaru. Somehow, like Jim, they recognized the gravity of the situation. And they were acting early, trying to secure another moving vehicle. For whatever reason.
Not that their reasoning mattered much.
They were clearly willing to go beyond the law to achieve their ends. They were willing to kill.
The Nissan sat up ahead. It hadn’t moved. The man in the checkered shirt looked smaller now because of the distance.
There was a good possibility that if Jim turned around, the Nissan would just follow them. Wherever they went.
In an instant, he’d made up his mind.
“All right everyone,” said Jim. “We’re not going to turn around.”
They were far enough away now, out of range of the man’s handgun.
Jim stopped the car and put it into neutral.
“But they’re shooting at us,” said Aly.
“You can’t just drive by, Jim,” said Rob, sounding just as worried as Aly. “They’re going to blast us to bits.”
“Not if we put on an offensive,” said Jim. “Turning around is just as risky. We need to get to Judy’s house and out of here. We’re already losing time.”
Jim glanced down at his watch for a moment. It was already past twelve.
Turning around in his seat, Jim looked at the young woman that he’d hit with his car. “How are you feeling?” he said.
“OK,” she muttered.
“You still don’t remember anything?”
Final Chaos_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Page 7