Final Chaos

28

Jessica was holding her Glock as tightly as she could. The man’s strong hands were trying to wrench it free from her grip.

Her mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to come up with something.

Suddenly, she had it.

She jerked her head sharply, turning it to face the opposite direction.

She let out a fake gasp of surprise. “Rob!” she called out, even though Rob wasn’t anywhere in sight.

It was a classic trick. One that worked in cartoons and movies. And in real life, too.

He turned to look as well, thinking that she’d spotted her friend.

It was all the time Jessica needed.

She leaned her neck forward, opened her mouth wide, and bit down hard on his ear. She tightened her jaws. Hard.

He screamed out in pain.

She tasted hot blood.

His hands let up on the Glock.

Despite her wrist pain, Jessica yanked the Glock hard out of his two hands. Now she had it.

She pushed the Glock’s muzzle right into his torso.

She pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked.

A point blank shot.

He died instantly, his body losing muscle tension, going limp, and now weighing down heavily on her.

She pulled herself out from under him, grabbed his rifle, and dashed off to another tree. She didn’t want to wait around for someone else to shoot her.

She pressed herself against the tree trunk and tried to listen. Her ears were ringing. She heard no other sounds. No gunshots.

She hoped Rob was still alive.

If Rob had killed one of the Carpenters with those gunshots she’d heard, there’d be two Carpenters left. By her count, at least.

If Rob had died from those gunshots she’d heard, there’d be three Carpenters left.

Jessica tried to put herself in the place of the Carpenters. What would she have done if she were them?

Probably try to get in through the front door. Take what they could and leave. Cut their losses.

Then again, the Carpenters had no way of knowing that their family members had died.

Either way, they’d still probably go for the lake house.

And once they found out about the deaths, they’d go for revenge, if their past behavior was any judge.

She had to get back to the front door.

She started running, staying in the trees, taking the long way around the lake house that would take her towards the water. This was the only way she could stay within the cover of the trees.

She was sweating and panting when she got near the front door again, just a few minutes later.

Jessica stayed back, hidden among the boughs of the evergreen trees, waiting for something to happen, for someone to show their face.

Was it possible they were already inside the house?

Probably not, unless they’d gone in through a window. She might have missed the sound of a window breaking during her skirmish.

If they’d gone in through the door, it would have been busted open.

But she could see it there, closed and intact.

A gunshot rang out, breaking the silence.

It had come from the road.

Now at least she knew where the action was.

Another gunshot followed, and Jessica started moving swiftly in that direction. She tried to stay under the cover of the trees as best she could, not straying far from the trunks.

Finally, she saw Rob. He was maybe a hundred yards in front of her, out on the other side of the road. He’d taken shelter behind a tree.

Another hundred yards or so from Rob, off to the left, were the two oldest Carpenters.

It was a standoff. Each side was under cover.

Jessica watched as Mr. Carpenter moved slightly out from behind the trunk, getting off a single useless shot in Rob’s direction. They still hadn’t seen Jessica.

Jessica unslung one of the two rifles from her shoulder, holstered her Glock, and got the sights lined up with Mr. Carpenter.

It’d have to be a clean shot.

But she didn’t think she had the skill to pull off a headshot.

The chest was easier. Less risky.

She had it all lined up.

The safety was off.

She pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out.

Carpenter fell.

His wife screamed, a wail so painful that Jessica thought for a moment that somehow the bullet had hit both of them.

But Mrs. Carpenter was still very much alive.

And it was then that it hit Jessica. She’d just killed not just a husband and father, but two brothers, two sons. She’d almost decimated an entire family.

And it was a family that, before the EMP, while they might not have been the most engaging or polite, they’d been something. They’d been taxpayers, workers, maybe students. They’d been something. A family unit. Humans.

She didn’t let it get to her.

As far as she was concerned, the Carpenters had transformed beyond all that. And it was a choice that they themselves had made.

She felt no remorse. It wouldn’t have made sense.

This was about survival.

A bullet slammed into the tree trunk behind which Jessica was standing.

Mrs. Carpenter wasn’t giving up without a fight.

She was committed to going down with her husband. To die trying to take out someone else with her. Two if she could, probably.

It was senseless.

But it wasn’t meaningless.

Jessica was about to pop out from the other side of the tree trunk to get off another shot when she felt a whoosh of air.

She heard the gunshot a split second later.

Shards of wood exploded out from the tree trunk above her. The bullet had missed her by inches.

More importantly, the bullet had come from the other direction.

It wasn’t just Mrs. Carpenter who was left.

There was another.

Jessica couldn’t hide behind the tree trunk, or she’d be in a perfect position for Mrs. Carpenter to shoot her.

So she started sprinting, heading right towards where the bullet had come from.

She ran in a zigzag pattern. She used the trees as cover.

Another gunshot sounded. Then another.

She was getting closer. She drew her Glock and pointed it forward as she ran.

She had him. She pulled the trigger as she ran. Once, twice. A third time and he was done, lying on his back, not a single spot of blood visible on his clothes.

He was dead.

Another gunshot rang out. The sound of a rifle.

Jessica spun around, hoping against hope to see Rob still standing, and to see Mrs. Carpenter dead behind the tree.