Final Chaos_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Read online

  But when Jim came back ten minutes later, with only the beam of his flashlight visible, she found her calmness evaporating. Her heart started to pound again.

  She’d give it one last attempt. One last attempt to convince him that what he was doing was wrong.

  “Jim,” she said, over the clatter of steel keys, her voice taking on a pleading tone. “Just listen to me, Jim. You’re going to get in a lot of trouble. If you unlock that door, you’re going to get arrested. And you’re going to lose the computer shop. You know how much that shop means to you.”

  “The shop doesn’t mean anything anymore,” said Jim.

  It was the first time he’d spoken since returning with the keys.

  In the darkness, Aly could hear him trying keys in the lock of her cell door.

  The flashlight beam danced back and forth. It seemed as if he might have been holding it in his mouth, as his hands were occupied.

  Aly’s jaw dropped and her mouth hung open.

  He didn’t care about the shop?

  How many arguments had they had about the importance of the shop?

  And now he didn’t care about it?

  Something was wrong.

  Maybe there was something to what he was saying.

  After all, she couldn’t see him just completely going crazy, completely losing it and having a complete break from reality.

  Aly heard the heavy bolt of her jail cell door sliding.

  She heard the hinges as the door swung open.

  A strong hand grabbed hers.

  The crazy man in the next cell screamed again. This time he had no words. Just a blood curling high-pitched scream that echoed throughout the darkness.

  She felt panicked.

  She didn’t know whether to resist.

  Or go with her husband.

  Could she trust him?

  “Come on, Aly,” he said. His voice sounded deep and strange in the darkness. “It’s going to be OK. But we need to get out of here.”

  After only a few moments, she gave in.

  She let herself be led through the darkened station towards the back door.

  The three of them walked silently, following the flashlight beam as if it was a guide.

  Rob’s breathing was heavy and loud.

  She couldn’t believe she was escaping jail.

  She’d be in so much trouble.

  She knew she’d regret this when this was all over.

  But she couldn’t help thinking that Jim might be on to something.

  And she couldn’t stand another moment in that darkness with that nut screaming like that.

  The back door was already partially open.

  “We had to smash it real good,” muttered Rob as he hit the door and it swung open.

  The sunlight, even though it was cloudy and overcast, nearly blinded her.

  Aly put her hand up to shield her eyes.

  “The trunk’s open,” said Rob.

  “Shit,” muttered Jim. “She’s escaped.”

  “What’s happening?” said Aly. “Who escaped? What are you talking about?”

  Finally, she was able to lower her arm. She squinted as she looked out at the parking lot full of squad cars. The familiar Subaru wagon sat there, with the rear door open.

  Jim took her by the arm and led her towards the car. He was reaching for something in his waistband.

  “Hands in the air,” screamed someone. “Or I’ll shoot.” A young female voice, full of panic.

  10

  Jessica

  Jessica had woken up in the back of a strange car. A station wagon, to be exact.

  She was wearing her bicycle helmet, and her entire body hurt, like she’d been run over by a truck.

  Her head throbbed, and there was blood on her torn pants.

  It hurt to shift her body.

  At first, she didn’t think she’d be able to move. She lay on her back, with her legs folded up awkwardly underneath her thighs, twisted together like a pretzel.

  She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain.

  How had she gotten here?

  What had happened?

  But nothing came to her.

  It was a strange sensation.

  The last thing she remembered was getting ready to go to work at the bike shop.

  Had that been today? Or yesterday? Or even longer than that?

  She started mentally asking herself questions, like who the president was, what country she lived in, and what her name was.

  She knew the answers. They came readily.

  She knew who she was.

  She was Jessica. She worked as a bike mechanic. She knew all about bikes. She lived in Rochester above a pizza shop.

  But still she didn’t know what had happened to her.

  She felt herself starting to panic. It was a horrible sensation, not to know what had happened.

  Mentally, she took a step back and tried to piece together what she knew.

  Given her injuries, she must have been in some sort of accident. It seemed likely that whatever memory problems she was experiencing were a result of the accident.

  But why wasn’t she at the hospital? Or lying on the road somewhere?

  Her mind went back to the one memory that was clearer than any others she’d ever had. It was that night in the dark alley when she’d been attacked. That night was the reason that she’d bought the gun that she now had.

  The gun.

  She opened her eyes suddenly and felt for the gun in her pocket. It was still there, small and compact, but with a good weight to it.

  She drew it, holster and all, from her pocket.

  With her left hand shaking, she grasped the holster and with her right, she drew the small Glock from the holster.

  It felt good to have it in her hand.

  That memory of that one night haunted her.

  She wasn’t going to let it happen again.

  Her anxious mind went racing through the possibilities.

  Maybe someone had attacked her, knocked her out, and thrown her here in a car.

  Or maybe not.

  She shouldn’t let herself rush to conclusions.

  Suddenly, she remembered that she normally wore a watch. She glanced at her wrist, but her wrist watch was completely blank. It was just a cheap digital watch she’d bought from a big box store a year or so ago. Maybe the battery was dead.

  From her other pocket, she took out her cell phone. The screen was cracked. And it didn’t turn on, no matter how long she held the button.

  Her head felt foggy and the panic wasn’t helping.

  She needed to get out of here.

  Slowly, she tried to sit up. Her whole body reacted with searing pain. It was so intense and strong that she couldn’t even tell where it was coming from. Maybe her back. But maybe somewhere else.

  Jessica forced her way through the pain, sitting up as rapidly as she could.

  The ceiling of the car was low, and her helmeted head smacked into the upholstered roof, adding another wave of pain to her headache.

  Somehow, she managed to open the door from the inside. She got out, stood up straight, and immediately felt like she was going to collapse onto the pavement.

  Her vision was blurry and she felt overwhelmed with dizziness. But with each second that she stood there, the feeling began to pass.

  The driver’s side door was unlocked. Jessica threw it open and felt for the keys in the ignition. But they weren’t there.

  She was about to fight through the pain and get herself into the driver’s seat in order to hunt around for the keys when she heard voices behind her.

  Ignoring the pain, she dashed forward. She threw herself into some tall hedges that lined the parking lot.

  The voices were coming towards the car.

  They must be the people who’d kidnapped her.

  She wasn’t going to run away.

  She wasn’t going to flee.

  This wasn’t going to be like the last time, when the be
st she’d been able to do once it was all over was to rush away and never tell anyone.

  No. She was done being a victim.

  They’d pay for this.

  She was vaguely aware that she wasn’t thinking clearly. She vaguely remembered that she was suffering from amnesia. And that this could be affecting her decision making.

  But she brushed those thoughts away as she stepped forward from the bushes and brandished her Glock.

  Her finger slipped into the trigger guard and rested against the trigger.

  “Hands in the air,” she yelled. “Or I’ll shoot.”

  Three figures swam slowly into focus in her blurry field of vision.

  None of them moved.

  “Hands above your heads,” she yelled again.

  Six hands rose into the air slowly.

  “Don’t do anything rash,” came a deep male voice.

  The present events weren’t coming through to her clearly. She was dizzier than she’d realized.

  She felt like she was going to pass out again.

  “We’re not trying to hurt you. Just put the gun down and we can help you. We were just trying to get you to a hospital.”

  “Who is she?”

  “We’ll have to explain later.”

  “Jim hit her with the car. She was going fast in the middle of the road.”

  A fragment of a memory threatened to surface. Something about trying to get home. The cars were stopped in the middle of the road.

  But why would they be?

  It must have been a dream. Or a false memory.

  Vaguely, as she stared at the three people, she became aware that they weren’t a threat. They didn’t have malice in their eyes like the ones who’d attacked her so long ago.

  “Let me help you,” came a woman’s voice. She sounded kind and caring.

  “Aly, don’t. She’s got a gun.”

  “It’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be fine, isn’t it, dear?”

  A woman was approaching her through the fog of her vision.

  It didn’t seem like the woman would hurt her.

  “Now let’s put that gun down, OK, dear?”

  Jessica didn’t know what to do. She was caught up in the fear and the haziness and the confusion.

  If only she could remember what was going on, maybe it would all make sense.

  11

  Jim

  Aly was helping the young woman back into the Subaru. She’d taken the gun from her and talked to her in a soothing voice, telling her that everything was going to be OK in the end, that they were going to get her help.

  The young woman still glared at Jim and Rob with suspicious, narrowed eyes. But she seemed more open to Aly.

  “Glad to see she’s OK,” said Rob.

  “I don’t think she’s out of the weeds yet.”

  “She woke up. That’s a good sign.”

  “She seems confused. I hope she didn’t suffer brain damage.”

  “She was wearing a helmet.”

  Jim nodded.

  “So what are we going to do? Take her to the hospital?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jim.

  This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped it would go.

  The whole situation was a mess.

  Now that he had Aly, the entire weight of the situation fell heavily on him. He’d been focusing so much on just getting to her, that he’d been mentally ignoring the countless serious risks they now faced.

  He cursed himself for not having a better plan. Before the EMP, he’d taken some private pride in believing that he understood the havoc an EMP could bring. He’d believed that he, unlike the others, was prepared.

  Sure, he had his little bag of odds and ends in the Subaru. But that was about it.

  Now that he was faced with the situation head on, he realized he really had nothing. No plan. No place to go.

  And worst of all, everyone he cared about didn’t have the slightest idea what an EMP was.

  Both his wife and Rob were completely uneducated. He’d have to explain it all to them.

  And that would take time. Precious time.

  Jim glanced at his watch.

  The clock was ticking. The longer the city went without power or communication, the greater the panic would become.

  Tensions would rise.

  A riot was inevitable. It was just a question of how long they had.

  Jim threw open the rear door and grabbed the woman’s bicycle. He thought about tossing it aside, to make room for everyone in the car, but then he thought better of it.

  Who knew when or if they’d be able to refill the gas tank. A bicycle might be useful later on.

  There was some rope in the back, underneath the upholstered floorboards, where the spare tire sat. Jim grabbed it and began lashing the road bike to the roof. Fortunately, there were bars that continued a sort of roof rack. Good for tying extra gear without having to run rope through the windows, making the doors inoperable.

  Jim’s mind was stuck on what he should have done. How he should have prepared.

  Sure, he’d known there were things with his plan he could have improved on. And he’d known that at the time. He’d known he’d need a place to head, more gear, more of a plan. But it had always felt like there was all the time in the world to get those pieces in place.

  The biggest thing he’d neglected was simple education. If only he’d bothered to spend twenty minutes explaining the nature of an EMP and the aftermath to his wife, to Rob, even to his mother in law, this whole process would have been a lot smoother.

  Jim got in the Subaru and cranked the engine, driving slowly out of the police station parking lot.

  It was a strange sight, seeing it full of police cruisers, with no police in sight.

  Jim’s mind set to working. He ignored the chatter in the car, the frantic voices of his wife and friend and the stranger.

  He needed a plan.

  All he needed to do was stay calm and stay logical.

  The situation was a mess, completely the opposite of how he would have liked it to have gone.

  He’d wasted precious time trying to find his wife, with the police station, and with the amnesiac girl.

  Worst of all, his mother-in-law and the supplies were all the way across town.

  And no one but Jim seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.

  And he still had to figure out where they were going to go.

  Well, one step at a time.

  His plan for now was to pick up his mother in law and the supplies. He’d search through the house to find whatever else he could.

  He would have liked to go back to his house to scrounge up whatever else he could. There was food in the fridge and some cans here and there. Not much, but it was something. And he might have had a couple extra flashlights, and some spare rounds.

  But he didn’t like the idea of heading back into Rochester which was more densely populated than Pittsford.

  No, it was better to get out of there.

  Out of Pittsford. Out of the greater Rochester area.

  And then they’d figure out where to go.

  And how to live as society crumbled.

  There was a chance that society would hold together, that they’d be able to rebuild before chaos took over.

  But Jim wasn’t counting on it.

  “How’s she doing back there?” said Jim, glancing into the rearview mirror at the woman he’d hit with his car.

  “I think she needs to get to a hospital,” said Aly.

  Jim shook his head. “There’s no time for that now,” he said.

  “What the hell’s gotten into you, Jim? You’re not going to take a sick woman to the hospital?”

  “If she has brain damage, there’s not much they’re going to be able to do for her. If she’s lost some memories, only time will bring them back. She’s alive and breathing. She’ll be safer with us.”

  “So where are you taking me? And just to be clear, I’m going to tell the
police exactly what happened when they finally catch up with us. If you’re not going to turn yourself in, the least you could do is take her to the hospital. It might look good when you go before a judge.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Jim.

  “He thinks the world’s ending,” said Rob.

  “Someone please tell me what’s going on,” said the amnesiac woman in a loud voice, almost a shout.

  “OK,” shouted Jim. “Everyone calm down and be quiet. I’m going to explain everything. Just listen and look around.”

  He’d been loud enough that everyone shut up.

  He was driving down Connecticut Avenue, which was a four lane road. Two lanes on either side.

  There were plenty of cars stopped in the middle of the road. The drivers, for the most part, remained in their cars. Some of them had opened their doors.

  Jim weaved the Subaru between the stopped cars.

  In his rearview mirror, he saw one other moving car, which was staying about a hundred feet behind him. It was a pickup truck, one of those small old Nissans that had small diameter wheels and rode fairly low to the ground.

  “OK, everyone,” said Jim, speaking in a commanding voice that dared them not to listen to him carefully. “Look around you carefully. You see those stopped cars? They’re not doing that for fun. Their cars don’t work anymore.”

  Jim continued speaking, giving them a pretty basic rundown of what an EMP was and what it affected.

  Of course, Jim wasn’t completely sure of exactly what electronics an EMP actually would affect. He’d read various reports and various opinions online, and everyone seemed to believe something a little bit different.

  What he was sure of was that the power grid wasn’t just temporarily down. It was damaged and it would take considerable work to get it running again.

  “Now just imagine this going on all across the country,” said Jim. “Imagine the majority of the cars and trucks simply sitting there. Where’s the food going to come from? And the water? Now I’m sure you’ve all seen how people around here react when there’s a bad blizzard coming in. And we’re all pretty used to the snow, but still you’ll see huge lines in the supermarkets, and the bottled water going completely missing off the shelves in a matter of hours. You’ll see fights here and there breaking out, just from rising tensions. Now that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”