Final Chaos

17

“Aly, it’s OK,” said Jim. “It’s OK.” He was holding onto her, trying to be gentle. He spoke in a gentle voice. “Everything’s OK.”

Of course, everything wasn’t OK. Society was likely breaking down around them. Or it was about to.

But, for the moment, things were OK for their little group.

“We’re at the lake house,” said Rob.

“We made it?” said Aly. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah,” said Jim. “We thought it was the best thing for you, considering what you’ve been through.”

It looked like Aly was fighting back tears, but she didn’t start to cry.

And Jim was glad. Because there was a lot to do.

“But how did we make it?”

“We got lucky,” said Jim. “There wasn’t much happening on the back roads. A few stationary cars. A few people, like us, heading out of town, with their cars loaded down. A few, but not many. Most people don’t seem to realize what’s happening.”

They’d gotten to the lake house, but that didn’t mean they were completely safe yet. There was work to be done. Supplies to be unpacked. Preparations to be made. They needed to work on securing the lake house against any potential attacks.

It would be their fortress, partially removed from the world. But not quite removed enough.

There’d be struggles in their future, and instead of just waiting until the threats found them, they’d do all they could in the meantime to prepare.

“You OK, Aly?” said Jim.

Her eyes were wide, but she looked right at him and she nodded.

“Good. Now you wouldn’t know where your uncle keeps a spare key, would you?”

“Did you already knock?”

“Yeah. He’s not here.”

Aly breathed a sigh of relief.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Jim. “I was remembering that time he got drunk and…”

Aly waved a hand at him. “No need to continue the story,” she said.

“But that’s how they all start. You don’t know which story I was going to tell.”

“Exactly,” said Aly. “They all start the same, and they all end the same, too. He screwed something up. Badly. I hope he’s OK wherever he is, but I’m glad he’s not here. There’s a key hidden in a tree.”

“A tree?”

“Yeah, I’ll go get it. You remember Jordan. He’s anything but conventional.”

“You need me to come with you?”

Aly shook her head. “I’ll be right back.”

Jim nodded, grabbed a plastic trash bag full of gear, and started hauling it towards the front door.

Aly’s Uncle Jordan’s house was nothing fancy. It was a single story home. Small, just two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a living room.

It had once been a quaint vacation home, but its appearance and function had changed dramatically ever since Jordan had moved in. He’d winterized it, since he lived in it year round in the freezing lake-effect winters of the north.

But aside from installing plenty of insulation, new windows, and everything else, Jordan hadn’t done a lick of work on the house in years.

In fact, he’d let the house really start to decay. When Jim and Aly had last visited, the roof had leaked in three separate places. It would have been a simple fix to replace a couple shingles. Jim had actually offered to do it, but for one reason or another, Jordan had refused, using his drunken logic to justify his nonsensical position. There wasn’t any use arguing with him. He’d just keep going and going, exhausting you with words without meaning.

The house needed new siding and plenty of other repairs.

None of that really mattered now.

Jim was happy they had somewhere to stay. Somewhere that was hopefully far away from the madness that surely would engulf Rochester and the surrounding metropolitan areas.

Pine trees surrounded the house in all directions. That was good. They’d provide some cover and camouflage during the winter months.

A narrow path through the trees led to the lake, which was only about fifty feet away.

On the other side of the gravel driveway, there was a large shed. Its roof had partially collapsed, and Jim didn’t know what was inside. Maybe an alcohol still, for all he knew.

“Got it,” said Aly, rushing back to the Subaru in the driveway, holding the key triumphantly.

Jim took it from her. “I’d better go in first,” he said. “Just in case.”

Most of the gear, in trash bags, had been deposited by the squalid front door with chipped and peeling paint.

Jessica, Rob, and Aly stood behind Jim as he put the key into the lock.

He opened the door slowly, Ruger in hand, just in case.

Jim nodded his head at them, indicating to follow him. Jessica had her gun out, and Rob held the handgun that they’d taken from the men in the truck, although Jim was sure that Rob didn’t have the slightest idea how to use it.

He supposed it was better than nothing. Possibly. Either that, or a liability.

The interior of the house was dark, and there was a stale smell that hung in the air.

But there was no one inside.

Together, they checked all the rooms, including the mud room, which Jim had forgotten about.

“This place is filthy,” said Rob.

“It’ll work,” said Jim. “We’ll have plenty of time to clean it up.”

Rob was right. There were empty bottles of alcohol everywhere, mostly big bottles of vodka, which Jordan must have switched to sometime in the last few years.

There were also cans of beer, and plenty of empty wrappers of fast food.

“It’s a good thing we brought the food we did,” said Jessica, opening up some of the cabinets. “There’s hardly anything in here.”

“Looks like he was eating most of his meals out,” said Jim, thinking of the fast food wrappers. “Come on. Let’s bring everything inside.”

Jessica and Rob disappeared out the front door, and Aly hung back for a moment with Jim, tugging on his arm in a sweet, intimate kind of way. She hadn’t done anything like that in a long time, and Jim suddenly felt the pain again of the separation.

“What happens if my uncle comes back?” she said. “Don’t you think he will?”

“You don’t think he’ll want us here?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say with him.”

“Well,” said Jim. “If everything collapses, he wouldn’t survive here on his own. We’re bringing the food. He’ll just have to consider it a trade. Services and food for shelter. It is his house, after all, and we can’t kick him out if he shows up. But something tells me he won’t.”

“You think something will happen to him?” She spoke in a soft, worried voice.

Jim just looked at her and didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.

Aly said something else, but Jim wasn’t listening. Her words ran over him like water. He was lost in thought for a moment.

“Listen,” said Jim. “I’m sorry about your mom. But there’s going to be plenty of time to process it. We need to get to work now. And we need all hands on deck. You think you’re going to be able to help?”

“Yeah,” said Aly, simply, adding nothing more.

“I know we’ve had our issues over the last few weeks,” said Jim. “But this is way more important than any of that. So we’re going to have to get along. We can’t let our arguments put our lives in danger. Agreed?”

Aly nodded.

The front door swung open and Rob appeared, carrying the duffel bag and one of the loaded down trash bags.

“Coming through,” he said. “A lot of food here. Open up the freezer, would you, Jim?”

“Not sure it’s going to do much good,” said Jim, looking down to see that the refrigerator had been unplugged. “Looks like Uncle Jordan was planning on being away for a while. I bet he emptied it all.”

Sure enough, the fridge and freezer were empty.

“We’ll just plug it back in,” said Rob. “What’s the problem? And hurry up, this shit is heavy.”

It only took a moment before Rob realized just how dumb what he’d said was.

“Oh yeah,” he muttered, his face flushing still visible in the low light. “Well then, what are we going to do with all this food?”

“Keep it here for now,” said Jim. “It’s a little cooler than outside. We’ll think of something. We’ll probably have to start eating the perishables first, saving everything else for later.”

“What about the lake?” said Aly.

“The lake?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cold. Couldn’t we use the temperature somehow to keep the food cool?”

“I don’t know,” said Jim. “You mean submerging the food in water somehow?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“I don’t know,” said Jim. “We’d have to have a waterproof container.”

“Like a trash bag?”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know. Let’s think about it. It seems risky to me. We’re going to be pretty low on food as it is. I don’t know if we can risk it. What we’ll do is spread it all out and count everything up and make an estimate on how long it would take us to eat what. The frozen stuff will last a little longer than what was in the fridge.”

Jim headed back out to the Subaru. With everyone else, he made a couple more runs into the house, dropping gear in the little clear space there was on the living room floor. “We’re going to have to clear away these bottles if we want to get organized,” he said, to no one in particular.

But it didn’t matter. He was already the de facto leader.

He knew the most, in some ways.

But he didn’t know everything.

He didn’t know what would happen. He didn’t know what the future held.

In the best case scenario, society wouldn’t erupt into complete and violent chaos.

But he wasn’t holding out a lot of hope.

He knew that the power grid and communication networks weren’t going to come back online anytime soon. It would take a Herculean effort to do so. And plenty of time.

And that was time that society didn’t have.

When the Subaru was fully unloaded, they all stood for a moment in the living room, looking at the intense mess.

“All right,” said Jim. “Aly and Rob, you two clear away those bottles. Jessica, you start sorting out the gear.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” said Rob, pushing some bottles off of an armchair and settling down into it. The bottles clattered to the floor, one of them shattering. Rob put his feet up on a nearby stool, sending another bottle rolling to the floor. “I thought we were all set once we got here.”

Jessica sighed.

That was good.

At least she understood.

“Get this in your heads right now, all of you. The worst is yet to come.”

“Come on,” said Rob. “You’re just being dramatic.”

“Dramatic? Didn’t you see us fighting for our lives?”

“Yeah,” said Rob. “I did, and that was terrifying. But we lived through it. And now we’re out of the city, just where you said we had to get. Now we’re safe and we just wait it out.”

“Get this through your head right now,” said Jim. “The entire population of the Rochester area isn’t just going to suddenly keel over and die. They’re going to fight each other for food, water, and medical supplies. That’s assuming the systems don’t come back on, and I don’t think they will…”

“And then they’re going to leave the city,” said Aly, cutting Jim off and finishing his thought for him.

“Exactly,” said Jim, glad that his wife was getting it. “It’s not like all the cars don’t work. And, plus, people can walk and ride bikes. Even horses, like the cop we saw. We’re a little far back from the road and lake, but we’re not invisible. We’re going to have visitors, violent ones. It’s just a matter of how long it takes them to get here, and how many of them there are.”

“So what do we do?” said Rob, fear coming into his voice. Despite his huge frame, he could be like a little kid inside sometimes. “We’re screwed then, right? We’ve already got to worry about having to eat, and now we’ve got to worry about attacks or something?”

“We prepare,” said Jim. “It’s that simple. Now get to work.”

“And what are you going to do?” said Aly.

“I’m going for a walk,” said Jim.

“A walk?” said Rob, almost spitting out his words. “What about all this preparing? You really think this is a good time to take a little stroll?”

“I’m not just going for a walk,” said Jim. “I’m going to scout out the surroundings. We’d be foolish to bunker down in here without knowing what’s immediately around us. Aly, do you remember who any of the neighbors are? Or if they’re vacation homes or full-timers?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I think most of the houses are part-timers. Or they’re rented out. The only full-timers other than my uncle are the Carpenters.”

“The Carpenters?”

“It’s their last name. Two or three kids, I think. They’re kind of a weird family. Tight knit and secretive. I don’t really remember them well. But I think they got in a fight with my uncle once.”

Jim nodded, and turned to head towards the door.

“Jim,” said Aly.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

Jim nodded.

“If I’m not back,” he said. “Don’t come looking for me. And Jessica, as of now you’re the only one who knows how to shoot. So you’re in charge of safety while I’m gone.”

She gave him a nod.

“You two will have to learn soon enough,” he added, before heading out the door, patting his Ruger in its holster just to make sure it was there. He hoped he wouldn’t need it.