Staying Alive: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The EMP Book 2) Read online

  14

  Mandy

  “What happened?” said Mandy, rushing out onto the porch.

  Max’s Glock was in her hand, ready. Her rifle was strapped to her back.

  “It’s OK,” said James.

  “What happened?” said Sadie, emerging from the house behind Mandy, sounding sleepy and worried.

  “Mom shot a deer,” said James.

  Mandy breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I thought there’d been another attack, or something,” she said. “Max even lent me his gun.”

  “It’s fine,” said James. “We saw it heading right across the field. Looks like we’re going to finally get to eat something.”

  As Mandy’s eyes adjusted better to the moonlit night, she saw Georgia walking slowly across the field towards a dark lump on the ground that must have been the deer.

  “I’ll go help her,” said Mandy. “Sadie, could you go tell Max what happened? He’s probably going to be in there clutching a knife, waiting for the attacker.”

  “Sure,” said Sadie sleepily.

  “She needs to eat,” said James, as Sadie disappeared inside, looking weary. “She’s getting weaker.”

  “We all are,” said Mandy. “Where’s Chad?”

  “He’s on the other side of the house,” said James.

  “Good,” said Mandy, nodding.

  Although for some reason she didn’t want to admit it to herself, it seemed as if Chad was really trying to pull his weight. Then again, he’d gotten in them so much trouble that Mandy figured Chad owed them all. And he hadn’t exactly been much good on the roof until the very last minute.

  Mandy started walking out towards Georgia. She kept the Glock out and ready, and she tried her best to keep her attention up. It was hard though, with her stomach begging for food, and her mind starting to wander with fatigue. She’d been awake for too long. They all had.

  How were they going to get any rest when they had to work so hard just to defend the farmhouse? How were they even going to have time to find food and water, let alone eat it and drink it?

  Maybe Max was right.

  Maybe they had to leave.

  Mandy tried to remind herself that she was still better off here than back in her apartment in the suburbs. Who knows what would have happened to her back there, if she’d stayed.

  If Max hadn’t broken down her apartment door, she’d most likely have died at the hands of those two criminals. And if she hadn’t, maybe a worst fate would have awaited her.

  “You finally had the chance to get one, eh?” said Mandy.

  Georgia was already bending down over the deer, inspecting it.

  “Finally we can eat,” said Georgia, looking up at Mandy.

  Even in the darkness, Georgia looked beyond exhausted. They had all been through a lot, but Mandy considered for the first time that maybe Georgia had it the worst of all of them. She was the only one who was really a decent shot at long range, so she held more responsibility for all their safety than anyone else. What’s more, she had to worry about her two kids all the time.

  That couldn’t have been easy. Not in the apocalypse.

  Mandy suddenly had a weird thought—that was the first time she’d called their situation “the apocalypse” to herself. Well, she supposed that it was true. It was the right thing to call it. Society had collapsed, and she doubted whether things would ever be the same. At least not for a long, long time.

  “Here,” said Georgia. “We’d better drag this to the porch. It’s probably not safe to start dressing it here.”

  “Good call,” said Mandy, grabbing one of the legs.

  Together, they dragged the deer carcass back across the field.

  “Nice shot, Mom,” said James, when they got close.

  Georgia seemed too tired to say much. She just nodded.

  While they had the deer, they couldn’t eat just yet. There was still a lot of work to be done.

  Georgia took out a large folding knife from her pocket. The handle caught Mandy’s eye for some reason. It was made of brass and wood. Mandy remembered her grandfather using one when she was a kid, but she didn’t remember what it was called.

  Georgia started to work, occasionally giving Mandy directions on how she could help.

  Seeing the deer being cut open reminded Mandy all too vividly of the woman she’d stabbed. She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind. She felt like vomiting again, but she resisted. In the end, she was able to push through, and still manage to help Georgia. After all, getting the deer ready to eat had literally become a matter of life and death. She couldn’t let her own feelings get in the way of eating.

  “Max thinks we should leave the farmhouse,” said Mandy, watching Georgia working with her knife.

  “Leave the farmhouse?” said James. “Where would we go?”

  “Make sure you’re keeping watch, James,” said Georgia.

  “I am, don’t worry.”

  “He thinks it’s too dangerous here?” said Georgia, looking up at Mandy.

  “Basically, yeah.”

  “He might be right. There were five strangers here in a single day. And we almost didn’t make it.”

  “I know,” said Mandy. “But don’t you think that the numbers will… you know, die off? You know, as people… die off in the cities.”

  “Maybe,” said Georgia. “But even if that happens, we’ve still got to stay alive here for days, if not weeks, while they keep coming. Frankly, I don’t think we’re going to make it that long.”

  “That’s basically what Max was saying.”

  “Then again,” said Georgia, taking a large piece of meat and laying it on the porch floor. “I don’t know where the hell we’d go.”

  Mandy didn’t know what to say. “Should we make a fire?”

  “A fire will attract more people,” said a male voice in the doorway.

  Mandy turned around. It was Max, leaning against the doorway for support.

  “What the hell are you doing out of bed?” said Mandy, growing angry.

  “I wanted to make sure everything was OK,” said Max.

  “I sent Sadie in to tell you.”

  Max shrugged.

  She could see in his face the pain his leg was causing him. Mandy couldn’t believe how tough he was.

  “You’d better at least sit down,” said Georgia.

  Max shuffled over to the swinging bench that hung from the porch roof.

  “I think a fire is our only option,” said Georgia. “The gas isn’t working inside. We don’t have another way to cook it. And we’ve got to eat.”

  “Could we eat it raw?” said Mandy.

  “We could,” said Georgia. “I’ve done it before. But we don’t know what’s in this meat. There could be parasites. I wish the gas stove inside still worked.”

  “We don’t have the medication to treat it,” said Max, from the bench. “Short term, it’d be good. Long term, though, it could be really bad.”

  “I think we should risk a fire,” said Georgia. “We’ll all have more strength if we’ve got some food in our stomachs.”

  She looked over at Max, who merely nodded.

  “You have that fire starter?” said Georgia.

  Max dug into one of his pockets and pulled out a fire steel, attached to a small lanyard.

  There was already a piling of kindling and dead wood that Mandy had gathered a few days ago with Sadie.

  Max pulled something else out of his pocket. “Here,” he said. It was a small plastic tube that had once held film for a camera.

  Georgia took the fire starter and the tube from Max. “Cotton balls?” she said, examining the tube.

  “Soaked in Vaseline,” said Max. “They’ll ignite in almost any condition.”

  “Mandy says you’re thinking we should leave.”

  “Yeah,” said Max. “But we should talk about it after we eat.”

  “Does anyone have any water?” said Sadie, appearing once again on the porch. “I’m so thirsty I can’
t even sleep.”

  Mandy picked up her water bottle from where it rested against the side of the house. “Nope,” she said, opening it up. “We’d better go get some. What do you think, Max?”

  “Normally, it’d be better to wait until morning,” said Max. “Someone could sneak up on you at night. But given the circumstances, maybe you should go. I’d go with you, but…”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said Mandy. “There’s only so many times I can stitch you back up.”

  “Fine,” said Max. “But you’re taking Chad and James. Sadie, Georgia, and I will keep watch. Is that OK with you, Georgia?”

  Georgia nodded. She was busy arranging the wood for the fire.

  Mandy knew it was dangerous, heading out into the woods at night. But they needed water desperately. Her own throat was incredibly parched.

  Mandy headed inside to fetch what was essentially a large plastic bag. She held one of the candles in front of her in order to see. Supposedly, it was better to use up the candles rather than the flashlight batteries. But either way, in a few weeks they wouldn’t have candles or batteries.

  The plastic bag was one of the emergency supplies that Max had brought along. Right now, it just looked like a smallish piece of folded plastic, but once filled with water, it could hold enough water for all six of them for a few days.

  When Mandy got back to the porch, Georgia was already trying to spark the cotton balls. She had her folding knife out, and was striking the spine of the blade against the fire steel, sending sparks showering over the Vaseline-soaked cotton balls.

  The cotton balls caught, and Georgia carefully lit pieces of bark on fire, in order to set the rest of the structure on fire.

  Everyone seemed half-asleep.

  Max looked at her sleepily. Suddenly, though, he seemed to momentarily become more alert.

  “You checked the packs of the attackers, right?” he said.

  Mandy immediately felt like an idiot.

  “I didn’t,” she said. “And I’m sure they had water.”

  “It’s OK,” said Max. “We’re making a lot of mistakes. And we’ve got to be aware of that, and figure out how to stay alive while we inevitably keep making them.”

  “I’ll check the packs,” said Mandy.

  She went back inside the house to retrieve the packs. Georgia or Chad must have put them there in the living room, along with their assault rifles, which were leaning up neatly against the wall.

  Mandy brought it all back outside.

  She handed the guns to Max. “Maybe you’ll know something about these.”

  Max began inspecting them, saying, “These could be useful. Very useful. This one’s cheap, but it’ll do.”

  Mandy dug through the packs, which were full of a hodge-podge of things.

  Fortunately, there was water.

  “Looks like the trip is off,” said Mandy, feeling relief that she didn’t have to head into the dark forest.

  Max nodded.

  Mandy gave Sadie a full bottle first, then took one to Georgia, then Max. And finally she herself took a drink.

  Georgia already had the fire roaring, and she was using her knife to carve spits for the meat.

  Her thirst finally quenched, Mandy went to help Georgia. Mandy worked to cut the meat into pieces that could fit on the spits. She used the same Mora knife she’d used to defend herself earlier. For the most part, she did a good enough job keeping those thoughts at bay.

  Max hobbled over to the fire, and soon enough they were grilling meat. The smell alone was delicious.

  Once the meat was ready, no one could wait long enough for it to cool down properly. They ate the chunks of venison directly off the spits. The meat burned Mandy’s tongue, but she was too hungry to care.

  “I’ll go relieve Chad,” said Mandy, getting up, after she’d scarfed down a few pieces of meat. Her stomach seemed to have shrunk in the last two weeks, and even when extremely hungry, she wasn’t able to eat as much as she’d once been able to.

  “Before you go,” said Max. “Let’s take a quick vote now that we’ve eaten. Who thinks we should leave in the van for greener pastures? The other option is to stay here, while more strangers arrive. Possibly very dangerous strangers. Raise your hand if you want to leave. Everyone gets a vote.” He looked at James and Sadie as he spoke this last part.

  Georgia raised her hand. “I’m with you, Max,” she said. “I don’t think we can last here. At least not until things calm down. Maybe we can head somewhere to hide out for a while before returning here.”

  “That sounds like a possibility,” said Max.

  In the end, they all voted to leave.

  “I’ll tell Chad,” said Mandy. “It’s not like his vote is going to make a difference anyway.”

  “I doubt he’ll want to stay after being stuck on the roof,” said Max.

  Mandy felt better with food in her stomach, but she still felt like she was constantly on the brink of falling completely asleep.

  Chad was patrolling the area in front of the house. She saw his figure moving in the moonlight, his rifle in front of him. He was trudging along, rather than walking. She could tell by his stride that he was dead tired.

  Mandy had to admit that he now seemed to have something in him, something that made him keep going, no matter how bad things got.

  “Chad,” she called out, waving at him. She wanted to make sure she didn’t startle him. If he thought she was a stranger, he might shoot her. Given the events of the day, it’d be understandable if he was a little jumpy and trigger happy.

  “Hey,” said Chad, approaching her.

  His voice sounded incredibly weary.

  “You feeling OK?”

  “Sure,” said Chad, but he didn’t look OK. Even in the darkness, she could see that his eyes appeared sunken with fatigue.

  Mandy explained the plan that Max had come up with.

  “Wow,” said Chad. “So what was this all for? Nothing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Defending this place, trying to keep it for ourselves. What was the point of it all?”

  Suddenly, Mandy understood him. It made her feel empty and depressed. After all, they were headed yet again into the unknown. Would they ever find a place that was secure and safe? In only two short weeks, the farmhouse had come to feel like home for Mandy. Would she ever have that feeling again?

  “Well,” said Mandy. “I don’t think we have much of a choice. Max is right. We probably won’t survive if we stay here. Maybe we can come back. You’d better go get something to eat, Chad.”

  Chad nodded at her, and began trudging to the other side of the house.

  Mandy was left alone in the darkness.

  15

  Georgia

  They had decided to leave as early as they could. Rather than let everyone sleep before leaving, they’d realized it made more sense to leave as soon as possible, and then let themselves sleep in the van. They were all exhausted, and they all needed a lot of sleep. But with three people on watch, they’d have to take turns sleeping. It’d take forever that way, and they wouldn’t be on the road before more strangers were likely to arrive.

  Max was trying to do it all. He was trying to get everything in order. He was trying to figure out which provisions were crucial to take, and which weren’t. After all, the van may have been big enough to fit all of them, but it wasn’t big enough to fit all of them, plus all the gear, even considering the fact that they could attach quite a bit of it to the roof.

  Max was currently rooting through the packs from the attackers, remarking on what would be useful and what wouldn’t.

  It was clear that Max was beyond exhausted. He’d been shot in the leg. He needed to rest.

  “Max,” said Georgia. “You can’t do it all. If you want to be useful to us, you’re going to have to live. And that means resting. Let us handle it. I don’t know what we’d do if you died on us.”

  “I’m fine,” said Max, but even his voi
ce sounded exhausted.

  Georgia knew that she wasn’t going to be able to get Max to actually go to sleep. He wouldn’t do it.

  “Just handle the bags there,” said Georgia. “I’ll get the van ready. OK?”

  Max nodded. He was smart enough to know what he couldn’t do. Although sometimes, like everyone, he needed a reminder here and there of his own limitations.

  Georgia had more strength in her now, her stomach full of the roasted venison. Everyone else was more animated too, although it was still going to be tough to get the van packed up and ready when no one had slept properly in who knew how long.

  Georgia started delegating responsibilities. She told Sadie to head into the kitchen to see what she could scrounge up in terms of food and medical supplies.

  They wouldn’t be able to bring everything they had. The things that they had to leave behind, they would hide in the woods, in order to keep them from the people who would come by.

  What Georgia would have liked to do was set up an area with free water and medical supplies for the people who would surely arrive. After all, not all of them would be killers or dangerous criminals. Many of them would be trying to keep their families alive, the same way that Georgia was.

  But Georgia could barely feed her own family. There wasn’t anything they could spare.

  There simply weren’t enough of them to do everything that needed to be done. It would have been ideal to keep three people on watch while the rest packed. So many strangers had shown up yesterday that it was likely more would arrive soon. But the best Georgia could do was tell everyone to keep their eyes peeled and their guns ready as they went about their tasks.

  Chad was in charge of carrying things to the van. With twine, he tied big things to the roof of the van, which fortunately was equipped with a metal roof rack, making it easy to attach things.

  Georgia had already examined the van. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. It had almost a full tank of gas. The engine started, and it sounded fine when it ran. There was a full sized spare tire in the back, underneath the carpeting.