“Know that we’ve got your parents at gunpoint outside.”
The brothers glanced at each other.
They didn’t open fire.
That was good.
For now.
“You hurt, Jessica?” shouted Jim.
“I’m OK,” shouted Jessica back.
“There are two ways out of this,” said Jim. “We can all open fire. The way I see it, no matter how it goes, most of us are going down. And then friends outside will have no choice but to come rushing in here to help. And to do that they’re going to have to shoot your parents dead. To incapacitate them. Is that what you want?”
“What’s the other option?” said the oldest and tallest brother.
“The other option,” said Jim. “Is that I let you walk out of this house alive. And you and your family leave the property and don’t come back.”
“What kind of assurances can you give us?”
“None,” said Jim. “Just like you can’t give me any. Words don’t mean much. Not these days.”
One of the brothers mumbled something to the other. The one who was facing Jessica’s direction kept looking back nervously.
“Jessica!” shouted Jim. “I need you out here.”
There was a noise as if Jessica was moving a piece of furniture. Then the door opened and she stepped out slowly, leading with her Glock.
Her hair was a mess. After all, she’d just woken up.
But there was fire and determination in her face and her eyes. She looked like she could have taken on all three of the brothers herself. Or at least die trying.
“What’s it going to be?” said Jim. “You’ve got two seconds to decide.”
“We’ll go.”
Jim nodded. He kept his Ruger pointed at them, and Jessica did the same.
The brothers walked single file out the front door that they’d come through. Jim followed them closely, with Jessica behind them.
Aly and Rob stood there tall, guns in hand, with the Carpenter parents completely under control.
Mr. Carpenter wore an expression on his face that was a confusing mixture of fear and shame. Mrs. Carpenter looked strangely haughty, as if she was a rich woman who’d been forced into less then luxurious accommodations.
“Keep your gun trained on them,” said Jim to Jessica.
But there wasn’t any need to tell her that. She had some innate sense of what she was doing. He said it more for the Carpenters.
“What’s the deal, Jim?” said Rob, who had blood on his hands and his shirt sleeves. “Take their rifles? Kill them?”
“No,” said Jim. “We’re not executing them. And we’re not taking their rifles. Keep the handguns, though.”
“Why not?” said Aly. “You’re going to leave them with guns, Jim?”
“Consider it a gesture of good faith,” said Jim. “We’re going to continue being neighbors. With rifles, you’ll be able to hunt for food. Between game and the fish in the lake, you’ll do fine.”
“Jim!” shouted Aly. “You can’t just let them go with their guns. They’ll come back and murder us.”
Jim hesitated for a moment.
Maybe she was right.
But he couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t kill an entire family like this. If it had been in a gunfight, that would have been different.
But it was no longer the heat of battle. There’d hardly even really been a battle.
Now it would be simply murder in cold blood.
But was he putting the life of his wife and his friends at risk?
Yes.
“I don’t trust them, Jim,” said Rob.
“Me neither,” said Jessica.
Jim’s thoughts were flickering, changing rapidly.
It was a hard decision.
Maybe they should confiscate the rifles.
It was just foolish to let them keep them. Especially after what had just happened.
How had he been about to do that? His mind must have been weak from the week of little food. And from the stress. He wasn’t thinking clearly. There’d been too many nights where he’d taken an extra watch, letting someone else get some sleep.
The brothers were standing there dumbly, their rifles held in limp arms at their sides. They didn’t look like a threat.
But they were.
Then again, it wasn’t really about taking their guns or not.
If the Carpenters wanted guns, they could get them.
If the Carpenters wanted to attack the lake house again, they’d do it, guns or not.
It was really a decision about whether or not to execute the Carpenters.
And Jim wasn’t going to do that.
“Let them keep the rifles,” said Jim. Now he turned towards the patriarch. Towards Mr. Carpenter. “I want you to remember this,” he said.
Mr. Carpenter nodded meekly, looking down at the gravel driveway, not meeting Jim’s eyes.
“Now get the hell out of here,” said Jim.
The Carpenter family loaded into their truck, the brothers hopping into the bed, and Jim and the rest of them watched the truck back up slowly down the driveway.
“I hope I did the right thing,” said Jim.
“I can’t believe you let them leave with their guns,” said Aly.
“It was either kill them or let them go,” said Jim.
“I think they’re trouble,” said Jessica.
“Maybe,” said Jim. “But we’re going to have no shortage of trouble. Soon enough, survivors from the city will be making their way out here, and one neighboring family is going to be least of our concern.”
The pickup reached the road and turned. Mr. Carpenter was visible through the windshield, his hands on the wheel.
The pickup paused there, the engine idling.
“What are they doing? Why aren’t they leaving?”
Mr. Carpenter leaned his head out the rolled-down window. But he turned backwards, towards his sons, rather than towards Jim and the others.
Jim didn’t hear what he said to the brothers.
But the next thing he knew, one of the sons was raising his rifle.
“Get down!” shouted Jim.
Jim seized Aly’s arm and pulled her towards him, trying to pull her out her out the line of fire.
But it was too late.
Time seemed to be moving slowly.
The shot rang out. The rifle cracked.
Holding onto Aly, Jim felt the impact himself as the bullet hit her.
Someone shouted.
The tires of the pickup spun, kicking up clouds of dirt.
The pickup moved forward with a jolt, the rear wheels slaloming.
With a roar, the pickup had sped off and was gone.
“Aly!” shouted Jim, peering down into her face.
He lowered her gently onto the ground.
It was his fault.
All his fault.
He hadn’t taken the guns.
He’d never forgive himself if she died.
He’d never forgive himself even if she lived. And she certainly wouldn’t forgive him.
But those thoughts of guilt weren’t going to help him now. He had to push them to the back of his mind.
“Aly, stay with me,” he said. “Hang in there.”
Rob and Jessica had already rushed over.
“We’ve got to get her into the house,” said Rob.
“I need to find the wound.”
Aly’s eyes were slowly closing, and she wasn’t speaking. She was just breathing slowly and heavily, as if she was in great pain.
There was blood on the ground, seeping out from underneath Aly.
“Jessica, get me something inside to stop the bleeding. Quick!”
22
Jessica
Jessica was still reeling from the near-death experience minutes ago. She’d almost been in a shootout with the three brothers who’d come into the house.
But there wasn’t any time to deal with the experience.
Jim, remarkably, was keeping it together. He wasn’t having a breakdown or becoming useless, the way most romantic partners probably would in a similar situation.
They’d all been trained, as a society, to call 911 in emergencies. They’d been trained to look to the authorities for help. All you had to do was contact the right person, and then the situation was out of your hands.
Sure, there were those few who knew something of CPR, of first-responder situations. But that wasn’t the norm.
Now there was no 911. No telephone. No one to call.
Jessica didn’t know the first thing about first aid.
The only thing she knew, merely by instinct, was to stop the bleeding.
Jessica had grabbed as many of their medical supplies she could and brought them back out to the driveway.
“Keep a good lookout, Rob,” said Jim. “Head down to the end of the driveway. See if they’re coming back. Take the rifle.”
Rob was off, his heavy tread crunching on the gravel.
“You find the wound?” said Jessica, kneeling down next to Jim, and unpacking some of the supplies she thought might help stop the bleeding.
She’d never done anything more to a wound than apply a bandage. The closest experience she had was patching up puncture bicycle tubes. And she knew that wasn’t really even in the same ballpark.
“Yeah. Right here.”
He lifted Aly’s shirt and showed her what looked like a small wound in her abdomen.
“It looks small.”
“It wasn’t a large bullet, but these smaller wounds can be just as deadly.”
“Did the bullet exit?”
“Yeah. It’s there on the ground. That’s good.”
“That’s good?”
“Yeah,” said Jim. “The worst injuries come from when the bullet stays inside the body, rattling around in there and causing damage to the internal organs. She’s bleeding a lot. I want to get this done out here before moving her.”
Jim was working rapidly, unrolling a large roll of bandage material and grabbing a bottle of alcohol.
“What can I do?”
“Hold her down.”
Aly wasn’t moving. Her eyes were completely closed.
But she was still breathing.
Rob stood watch, Jessica held onto Aly, and Jim worked rapidly, getting a rudimentary bandage onto the wound.
When he was done, the three of them carried Aly gently into the house and laid her down on the large bed in the master bedroom.
Jim sat next to her on the bed, and used his hand to apply pressure.
“Don’t blame yourself, Jim,” said Jessica, standing nearby in the small, cramped room.
“I’m the one who made the decision,” said Jim. “And now Aly has to live with the consequences.”
The minutes passed slowly, and they gradually became hours.
Jim didn’t leave her side. But he couldn’t keep up the pressure himself, so with Jessica’s help, he devised a way to wrap one of the long cloth strips completely around her, tightly enough that pressure would stay constant on both the wounds.
Aly opened her eyes once or twice, but only for brief moments in which she looked confused. She closed them again rapidly.
Her breathing remained faint and ragged.
“What do we do now?” said Jessica.
“Sew up the wound,” said Jim. “But you’re going to have to do it. My hands are shaking too much. I can’t believe I did this to her.”
“I’ve never done anything like that, though,” said Jessica.
“What did you do for work?”
“Bike mechanic.”
“That’s perfect. You’ve already got the delicate touch.”
“It’s not the same.”
Rob was outside, keeping guard.
Neither Jim nor Jessica spoke a word, and the house was deadly silent, except for Aly’s breathing.
Jim had all the supplies, a delicate yet strong thread for stitching the wound, antiseptic ointment to apply, and even gloves to work with.
“We’ve got to do everything we can do avoid an infection,” said Jim, disappearing from the room for a moment and repairing with a bottle of Aly’s uncle’s vodka. “This’ll work better than water.”
Looking back on it later, Jessica didn’t know how she did it. She worked diligently, with Jim, whose hands shook almost violently, handing her the supplies.
They sterilized everything and worked carefully to keep the surrounding environment as clean as they possibly could.
Aly opened her eyes the first time the needle pierced her flesh, and she screamed out.
Jim found a wooden spoon in the kitchen for her to bite down on, and gave her a couple drinks of the vodka for the pain. He offered her one of the bottles of her mother’s prescription opiates, but she shook her head wordlessly, and he nodded in agreement. It was her decision, after all.
Jessica sewed Aly’s wound up as if she was working on sewing up a torn pillow that had stuffing coming out of it. She tried to keep the stitches close together, since she figured the thread she was using wasn’t going to be as strong what was used in typical hospital sutures. They had no other options, so she had to just do the best she could.
It seemed to take forever. Aly’s groans of pain, through her spoon clenching teeth, didn’t make it seem any shorter. Jessica was painfully aware of how much pain she was causing her.
But it had to be done.
When it was all over, Jessica nodded at Jim, and they both retreated into the living room to discuss in hushed voices the prognosis.
“You think she’s going to be OK?” said Jim.
Jessica nodded. “She lost a lot of blood. But the bleeding seems to have stopped for the most part.”
Jim put his hands to his face and covered his eyes, letting out a painful groan. “It’s my fault,” he said.
Since they’d met a week ago, he’d always seemed like a strong willed person, like a guy who knew what had to be done and didn’t hesitate to do it.
But in her pre-EMP life, Jessica had seen other strong men fall prey to self doubt and guilt. She knew that something like that could rip him apart and leave him doubting everything he did.
And this new post-EMP world wasn’t a place for people like that.
So she didn’t offer words of comfort. She didn’t put her hand on his back and tell him that everything was going to be OK.
“Jim,” she said, in a strong, clear voice, not carrying if Aly heard her from the next room. “You’ve got to pull yourself together. What happened happened. I don’t care if it was your fault or not. But if you start going down this rabbit hole, you’re never going to come out. And we need you. If you get absorbed in this, you’re not going to be effective here. And that means you’ll be putting the life of me, your wife, and your friend all in danger.”
Jim stared at her with an unreadable expression.
“You’re the one who convinced me this was a serious situation,” said Jessica. “And if you hadn’t hit me with your car and then taken me in, who knows what would have happened to me. So you don’t owe me anything, the way I see it. But you do owe your friend and your wife something…”
Finally, Jim spoke, cutting her off mid-sentence. Which was good because she was running out of the right words to say.
“Got it,” he said, leaving his words simple. “You’re right. I’ll go check on Aly, and then we’ll meet in the living room to discuss a new strategy.”
And that was that.
With Aly’s groans of pain coming sporadically from the bedroom, Rob, Jessica, and Jim sat in the living room while Jim laid out the new watch shift.
It was a rough schedule. Two people on duty at all times. Fully armed. Not just firearms, but knives as well. One of the two would have the rifle as well.
The new schedule meant less rest for all of them. Four hour shifts of sleep, rot
ating around the clock.
But it was necessary.
Who knew what the Carpenters were planning. But for now, at least, it seemed not a question of when they would return, but when.
After all, the way Jim and the rest of them saw it, Jim had given the Carpenters a chance for an honorable truce. And they’d turned around and shot his wife. A cowardly move. And one that signaled their ongoing intentions as clear as day.
There wasn’t any time to waste.
Rob and Jessica insisted that Jim take the first rest shift. He eventually agreed, but instead of sleeping he spent the entire time with waiting by his wife’s side.
With the rifle, Rob patrolled the outskirts of the lake house, while Jessica stayed close by, keeping a watchful eye and cautious ear out for the Carpenter’s return.
Four hours later, it was Jessica’s turn to rest. But there wasn’t any rest to be had, since there were chores to be done. She had to feed Aly, for one thing, not to mention make sure they were consuming their food at the right rate. They had a little ration chart that Jim had drawn up, and it needed to be diligently kept up to date, or else they might burn through more of their food then they realized.
They were hoping to start fishing soon enough, to stretch out their supplies of packaged food, especially now that they’d already finished the perishables. But with the Carpenters as a very near and very real threat, spending hours at the lake dangling a fishing line didn’t seem like a good idea.
But life had to go on, despite the heightened security. Water had to be fetched and boiled, with the hopes that the gas tank wouldn’t run out on them any time soon.
The shifts of rest and watches began to blur together, and before Jessica knew it, a few days had gone by.
She was more exhausted than ever. Running on little sleep and few calories.
It was three days after the Carpenters had shot Aly that Jim came up to Jessica with a worried look on his face.
She was standing outside the house, her eyes scanning the surrounding trees, looking for anything suspicious. For any movement.
When Jessica glanced at Jim’s face, she saw his sunken and blurred, bloodshot eyes. But that was normal. She knew she looked the same. But there was something else in his face. His mouth was twitching at the corners.
Final Chaos_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Page 13