“Are you deaf or just fucking stupid, kid?” the man roared aggressively, pressing the blade of the knife more forcefully against Sandy’s throat, which caused her to scream out in fear again. “This is the last time I’m gonna say it! Put down the fucking gun and back away! I’m gonna count to three, and if you don’t fucking do what I say, this little bitch gets the knife! One … two…”
“Drop the knife, or I’ll blow your brains out.” Ann couldn’t believe she’d just said this, and on top of that, she couldn’t believe she’d said it so calmly. Furthermore, she was having a hard time believing that she was now actually pointing the pistol at the man. It felt almost as if someone else had taken control of her body and mind, and she was merely an observer.
A black balaclava covered the man’s face, but she could see the disbelief in his eyes—disbelief that quickly morphed into rage.
“I’m gonna get her, then I’m gonna gut you, you stupid little bitch,” he growled, “you probably don’t even know how to—”
Ann squeezed the trigger before he’d even finished his sentence. The crack of the shot echoed across the deserted street and the terrorist’s head snapped back in a spray of blood. His body slithered limply to the ground, and the hunting knife dropped from his limp fingers and clattered with a metallic clang onto the street. Sandy shrieked with horror and staggered away from the corpse. Half her face, her shoulder, and back were wet with the man’s blood.
Ann stared at the corpse with disbelief. Making the shot had been easy enough; she always got tight shot groupings at the range but pulling the trigger on a human being instead of a paper target brought with it a rush of intense emotions.
Sandy, weeping loudly, limped over to Ann and threw her arms around her. Ann hugged her back, but her eyes remained locked on the man she’d just killed. She felt as if she’d fallen into a trance and couldn’t pull her gaze away from the corpse. Somewhere inside her brain, though, a calm but firm voice was instructing her to move.
From a few blocks away came the sound of another gunfight erupting—presumably between soldiers and terrorists—and this enabled Ann to snap herself out of the trance. She gently pushed Sandy away from her.
“Pull yourself together, Sandy,” she said. “We can’t stand here in the middle of the street like this, especially since I just … look, we have to go. Now.”
Sandy, sniffling and whimpering, nodded. The two of them set off down the street, with Ann supporting Sandy with one arm and holding the pistol in her free hand. They passed the corpse of the terrorist, and Ann did not look down.
The next street they got to was quiet, but even so, they scoped it out for a good few minutes before setting off down it. In the background, Ann could hear what sounded like an enormous crowd roaring. As they moved down the street, the sound grew louder and louder, and it seemed to be coming from downtown, which was on the other side of the school, just under two miles in a straight line from where they were.
“What’s happening?” Sandy asked. “What’s that sound?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it much,” Ann answered. “It sounds like riots or something. Whatever it is, it’s probably about as bad as anything else we’ve seen today, and we don’t wanna be anywhere near it.”
“I’m glad to be back in my own neighborhood,” Sandy said. They were just a block away from her apartment building now. “I just hope those people don’t come here.”
They headed down a side street, and then ducked through an alley, and finally emerged onto Sandy’s street. There were a few people outside on the sidewalks, as it was mostly apartment blocks here, but they all looked scared and confused rather than hostile. Ann helped Sandy across the street to her building.
“I can’t believe we made it,” Sandy said, and tears started rolling down her cheeks again. She broke down, hugging Ann tight and weeping.
Ann was on the verge of bursting into tears, too, but she managed to maintain her composure. Her journey wasn’t over just yet, and she couldn’t afford to relax now. “Are you sure you don’t wanna come with me and my mom?” she asked. “After your dad’s checked out your ankle and stuff, I mean.”
“I just wanna take a bath, lie down, and sleep for a very long time,” Sandy said. “I don’t wanna leave my house again, not until after all this craziness is over.”
Ann frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know if it’s going to be over,” she said softly. “Not for a very long time and maybe not ever.”
Sandy shrugged; despite everything that had happened, she couldn’t conceive of a future that was utterly different from everything she’d grown up with. She couldn’t accept that the EMP attack had changed everything, perhaps permanently; it was simply too massive a change to wrap her mind around. “I just wanna stay at home with my family.”
“All right,” Ann said, feeling a sudden stab of sadness lancing its sharp steel through her; she realized that this might be the last time she ever saw her friend. “Take care, Sandy. I’ll come to visit you when this is all over,” she said, almost choking on the words.
The girls embraced one last time, and then Ann watched as Sandy limped over to the door. The doorman unlocked the security gate, helped Sandy into the building, and then, staring coldly at Ann, slammed the door shut and locked the building up again. Ann closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, held it in her lungs for as long as she could, and then breathed out, doing her best to focus and stay calm. Then she turned and set off alone in the direction of her school, the pistol a cold and deadly weight in her hand.
12
A big man to Mary’s right careened into her, knocking both her and James to the ground. For a few terrifying moments, all Mary could see was a sea of running legs moving chaotically in all directions. Someone tripped over her and crashed headlong onto the ground, trampled under the panicking feet. Mary floundered on the ground, feeling like a turtle that flipped over onto its back, for the weight of the backpacks she was wearing made getting up difficult. Icy terror flooded through her; if she couldn’t get up in the next second or two, she could easily be crushed to death.
Suddenly, two hands hooked themselves under her armpits, and she felt herself lifted up. With this boost of assistance, she was able to get to her feet, and she turned and saw that it was James who had assisted her. He was panting from the effort, but he had done it—he had saved her life. There was no time to thank him, though, or even to really think about what came next; all they could do at this point was to try to get out of here without being knocked down again.
Foggy drifts of tear gas were already filling the broad street, and the cops and army troops were still firing. Whether it was live rounds they were shooting or rubber bullets, Mary did not want to get hit.
“Come on, this way!” she yelled to James, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward a side street, down which several people were fleeing.
There was no time to think or to try to figure out a route or a plan; the thick banks of tear gas were spreading fast, and panicking people were careening around like pinballs in a machine, overcome by an infectious and primal terror. From behind Mary and James came the sound of even more tear gas canisters being shot into the main street, and from the sound of marching boots, it seemed as if the police and army men were advancing in a formation.
“We have to get off the street!” Mary yelled at James. She was desperate to get to Ann and the school, but her immediate priority was now her survival. To her rear, gunfire broke out, and this only added to her sense of urgency.
A number of small businesses lined the side street, mostly cafés, boutiques, restaurants, bars, and other such places. Most of them were locked up, but through the chaos of running and careening bodies, Mary saw that the door to a convenience store was slightly ajar. Behind her, a division of riot police, who were all armored up in riot gear, turned onto the side street and started firing rubber bullets into the mass of fleeing people, using their batons to club anyone they got close to.
; “Come into the store!” she said, yanking James toward the convenience store. She shoved open the door and stumbled into the store, pulling James in after her so forcefully that he fell sprawling onto the floor.
“No, no, the store is closed, the store is closed!” shouted the clerk behind the counter, a young Asian man who seemed to be an immigrant.
“I’m sorry, we just need to wait in here for a few minutes, then we’ll go,” Mary said to him.
The young man looked like he was in a state of complete panic, and Mary couldn’t blame him. He, like all the rest of these people out there, had no idea what was going on, and could only look on helplessly as scenes of complete chaos unfolded outside.
“No, no, please, you go, please,” he pleaded.
“Just a couple minutes, please, sir,” she said.
Before either of them could say anything else, though, two large men barged into the store, bowling over James, who had only just got back up to his feet.
“Store is closed!” the young man yelled weakly at the newcomers. “Please go, the store is closed!”
“Shut the fuck up!” one of them growled. The other closed the door and pressed his body against it, keeping it shut.
Mary didn’t like the look of either of them; dressed like inner-city thugs, their confident swagger suggested that they had firearms on them. Both of them were looking through the door and watching the riot police advance along the street, clubbing people and shooting them with rubber bullets as they went and firing more tear gas canisters to fill the streets with choking smoke.
While the two men’s eyes were glued to the scenes unfolding in the street, Mary quietly helped James onto his feet and crept away to the rear of the store. The men hadn’t given any overt indication that they were doing anything here except taking shelter from the tear gas and riot police, but she didn’t trust them. Behind the counter, the clerk had given up on trying to get them all out of the store and was also watching what was happening outside.
“Ooh, that fat motherfucker got his head smashed in!” one of the men exclaimed gleefully. They both burst out laughing as if they were watching a wrestling match.
“Damn, these pigs mean business, yo! They ain’t fuckin’ around,” the other said.
“Haha, look at that motherfucker! They beatin’ on his ass like he a fuckin’ pinata!”
They both laughed raucously, but at the rear of the store, Mary and James sat in somber silence. Her distrust of the two goons was growing, and she regretted coming in here, even though she hadn’t had much choice, since it was the only place that had been accessible. She peered around one of the shelves to get a look through the storefront window at what was happening outside. The street was thick with teargas, and it looked as if a dense sea fog had rolled in. From what she could make out through the milky drifts of gas, the riot police were now passing this store and were still firing rubber bullets and beating anyone unlucky enough to be caught in their path.
Soon enough, she hoped, they would be gone, and when the street was clear of both cops and tear gas, they could get out of here and be on their way. With very little wind around, though, she wondered how long it would take for the gas to clear. She didn’t want to have to hang around in here for the next hour or two, wasting precious time. Perhaps, she thought, there might be something in the store that could help her and James to make their way through the fog of tear gas without succumbing to its terrible effects. She had plenty of cash in her purse and felt that she should at least buy something to thank the clerk for the shelter his store had offered them. She decided to wait for the two thugs to be on their way before doing anything like that, though.
After a few tense minutes, the riot police had moved on, and the vast crowd outside had dispersed, and there was nobody on the road except a few injured people, laying on the street and sidewalk, groaning with pain and choking on tear gas.
“Everybody’s gone,” one of the thugs growled.
“Yeah, pigs, too,” the other said.
Mary was hoping that this would mean that they were leaving, but that was not the case. The two men walked over to the clerk, eyeing out the liquor bottles on the shelves behind the counter.
“Please go now,” the young man said nervously. “No sell anything now. The store is closed.”
“Gimme three bottles a’ Johnny Walker Black,” one of the goons muttered. “And some bottles a’ Gray Goose Vodka, yeah, give us that good shit.”
“No, no, the store is closed, no sell anything now,” the clerk protested.
“Your English ain’t too good, little man, is it?” the first thug growled. “I ain’t askin’ you for that shit. I’m tellin’ you to fuckin’ give it to me. And what’s in the cash register. Open that shit up and give us everything in it. And I do mean everything, motherfucker.” He casually pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the clerk’s chest.
“You two, lie face-down on the ground and shut the fuck up!” the other man snarled at Mary and James.
The other man didn’t have a gun in his hand, and if he did have one on him, he hadn’t yet drawn it. Mary, meanwhile, had quietly slipped her hand down into her pocket and curled her fingers around the grip of her pistol. If she acted fast, she would be able to draw it and get it onto the armed robber before he could turn around.
Her movement wasn’t quite subtle enough, though; either that or the second thug spotted the outline of the pistol in her pocket. “The bitch is packing!” the man suddenly yelled, before Mary could draw her weapon.
She tried to whip it out, but she only got the firearm halfway out of her pocket by the time the armed goon had spun around and aimed his pistol at her face. “Take the piece out, nice and slow, bitch,” he snarled, “if you wanna keep that pretty lil’ face looking like that, without no fuckin’ bullet holes in it. Take the piece out real slow, just usin’ your thumb and one finger, and put it on the ground and kick it over to me. And if you try anything, and I do mean fuckin’ anything, I’m gonna blow your fuckin’ brains all over that ice cream fridge behind y’all.”
There were only ten feet of space separating Mary from the robber. She knew that even if he were a lousy shot, he couldn’t miss at this distance, and the cold, hard look in his eyes told her that he’d killed before and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again. With her mouth dry with fear, and a crushing sense of dread and defeat squeezing its invisible force around her chest, she did as the man said, and quietly pulled out her .45, laid it down on the ground and kicked it over to him, leaving herself and James at the mercy of the armed robbers.
13
Everything had happened so fast that Mary hadn’t had time to process it all. She was silently cursing herself, frustrated that these men had managed to disarm her so easily. She should have known that they hadn’t just come in here for shelter and would try to pull something like this, she thought. With the bitter taste of defeat lingering in her mouth, she and James lay on the floor and put their hands behind their heads.
Mary couldn’t believe this was happening and wished she’d drawn her gun the moment these two goons had walked into the store. Regret and frustration, however, would be of little use to her and James. All she could do now was hope and pray that the robbers would just take the liquor and the money and move on, leaving them and the clerk unharmed.
The man bent down and picked up the .45, which he handed to his accomplice. Both men were grinning with smug triumph. The first one turned his attention back to the clerk, who was standing wide-eyed behind the counter with his hands above his head, virtually paralyzed with fear. The other walked over to Mary and James.
“What do y’all have in these bags, huh?” the man asked, looking at their backpacks. “Y’all are carrying a lot of shit, huh? Going on vacation or something? Gimme them bags, hand ‘em over.”
“There’s nothing valuable in them,” Mary said. “Please, just—”
The man stood over her and booted her viciously in the ribs, causing her to grunt with pain and c
url up into a ball, gasping and groaning as waves of agony blasted through her side. “I said gimme the fuckin’ bags, bitch,” the man snarled. He bent down and started pulling the backpack off Mary’s shoulders. She didn’t resist, but because she was lying face-down on the ground, getting the bag off her proved to be a bit of a struggle. While this goon was busy trying to yank the pack off Mary’s shoulders, the other one was leaning over the counter and grabbing wads of money out of the cash register.
Suddenly, a tremendous bang clapped through the store, followed immediately by another, and the second robber pitched forward onto Mary, his dead weight crashing into her like a heavy cupboard falling onto her back.
“What the fuck?” the first robber at the counter yelled out, spinning around with his pistol at the ready, but four more shots rang out, and the man’s body jerked as the bullets slammed into his torso, and he slithered limply to the floor, dead before he even dropped his pistol to the ground.
Mary, yelling with confusion, managed to shove the dead robber’s heavy corpse off her and saw James laying on the ground, his eyes bulging with shock and his jaw hanging open, with a smoking .38 revolver gripped in both hands.
“James,” Mary gasped, “you … you shot them?”
James simply nodded, slowly closing his mouth.
“What? How? How did you even do that? Wh-where did you get that gun?”
“I, uh, it’s my dad’s,” he mumbled. “I um, I took it before I uh, before I left.”
“Oh my God,” she gasped, “and you had it in your bag the whole time? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?!”
“I just uh, I didn’t think, um…” he trailed off, staring in shock at the men he’d just killed.
Mary realized that it wasn’t the right time to bombard him with questions. She helped him up off the ground, gently pried the revolver out of his trembling hands, and then gave him a long, tight hug. “Thank you, James,” she said softly. “You saved our lives. His, too,” she continued, pointing at the clerk, who was looking even more terrified and shocked. “Are you okay, sir?”
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 21 | The Darkest Day Page 8