Final Panic

20

Aly was in a lot of pain. She was feeling stronger, but the pain was getting worse. It was strange. Like some sort of paradox.

She was also getting hungry. She was just lying there in bed, with her stomach rumbling. Sure, she’d been hungry basically since the EMP. But this was a new type of hunger. A serious hunger.

Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe it was a sign that she was starting to heal. After all, the body needed energy in order to rebuild itself. That’s what her mother had always said.

She’d tried to avoid thinking about her mother. Dead in her house. Just lying there. No chance of burying her. It was horrible. Tremendously horrible.

Aly shuddered.

She needed to think about something else.

The only other thing she could think about was food.

“Jordan!” she called out. “You think you could bring me something to eat?”

It wasn’t a good situation. Just her and Jordan alone in the house. And she wasn’t in much of a position to defend herself if something should have happened.

But so far things had been quiet.

Sure, she was worried about the others. Especially her husband. But that was the world they lived in now. There were no calm, peaceful commutes to work, or trips to the pharmacy, where you knew your loved ones were statistically extremely likely to return home safe and sound.

It was a new world.

And Aly figured she’d better get used to it.

There was no answer from Jordan.

In fact, she hadn’t heard from him in quite a while. Hours, at the very least.

She tried once more, yelling his name as loudly as she could.

She waited, hoping to hear his footsteps, his uneasy gait as he came ambling towards her room.

But there was nothing.

Aly looked around the room.

There was nothing more to eat.

She decided to get up and get something herself. She could do it. To hell with everyone telling her that she needed to stay in bed. She’d always been stubborn, but that was only because she knew what was best for her.

Plus, what if something had happened to Jordan? He was old, after all. And in terrible health by all accounts. Or at least he should have been, after the way he’d treated his body over the years.

She didn’t want to be alone there in the house without realizing it.

Someone might come.

It took considerable effort, but Aly managed to get herself out of bed.

She used a light straight-backed chair that was nearby as a sort of makeshift cane, pushing it in front of herself on the floor as she walked, leaning down and putting a lot of her weight on it.

By the time she got into the hallway, she was already breathing heavily from exertion.

She didn’t know how much farther she could go. Could she make it all the way through the house?

She called out his name one last time, yelling as loud as she could.

No answer.

She kept going, pushing the chair, letting it scratch up the floors. Not that it mattered anymore what the floors looked like. And she wondered whether it ever had, in the sense that maybe they’d all been concentrating on the wrong things before the EMP. How much easier would their lives be right now if they had done a little bit of preparing before the actual event? What if they’d put aside a little fund, a little extra money, using it once a month to buy supplies, building up a stockpile? What if they’d come up with plans, designated meeting places, and everything of the sort?

There wasn’t much point in thinking about it now. Except in terms of things that they could implement in the future. Without communication devices like cell phones, carefully laid-out plans and rendezvous spots should have been a basic requirement.

Aly wound her way through the entire house. Eventually, she found Jordan slumped against the wall in a corner, behind an armchair.

It was as if he’d been hiding from her.

He was unconscious, his eyes closed, drool coming out of his mouth.

One of his arms was stretched out, and in his hand, he loosely held a bottle of something. Hard liquor, most likely. Or maybe moonshine, for all Aly knew. Maybe even absinthe. Or rubbing alcohol. She wouldn’t put anything past Jordan.

Despite her weakness, Aly managed to give Jordan a weak kick in the stomach.

But there was no rousing him. He was out for good.

Fine. Whatever. She’d get herself something to eat.

Hopefully, nothing would happen. Hopefully, no one would show up looking for a fight, looking to steal, looking to murder whoever they could simply out of anger and frustration at the way the world had finally turned out.

Aly was making her way to the kitchen, still using the chair for support, when she passed by a candle that Jordan must have lit for some extra light.

Despite the candle, it was hard to see. The blinds had all been drawn as a security feature. It wasn’t a good idea to let someone see inside the house, to see who was there, to see what kinds of supplies were there.

Aly’s chair knocked into something. She was weak and it was hard to get it to go exactly where she wanted it.

To her horror, she watched as the table that she’d bumped into wobbled. It was a long coffee table in front of the couch, and the lit candle rested on top of it.

The candle wobbled.

Aly reached out.

But she wasn’t fast enough.

Before she could get to it, the candle had fallen over. It fell off the table, right onto the ancient small woven rug. The rug had been filthy, and Aly remembered that Rob had taken it outside to give it a good beating, getting what had seemed like pounds and pounds of dust out of it.

Aly gasped as the rug caught fire. The flames rose much higher and faster than she would have expected. The rug must have been incredibly dry, and very flammable.

Aly was in no shape to deal with the fire. She could barely walk. What was she supposed to do?

But she tried anyway, casting aside the chair that she’d used to support herself, and trying to grab at the rug. She hoped that she could take it outside, or beat it against the floor to extinguish the flames.

But the flames were high now, and they licked her hands as she tried to grab onto the rug. She instinctively pulled her hand back, gasping in pain from the burn.

“Jordan!” she screamed.

Could he really be that out of it? So far gone that he didn’t hear anything? That he didn’t somehow sense the danger?

Fire was one of those primordial things. It meant health and security. And it meant danger. Extreme danger. Aly felt her body reacting to it now, screaming at her to get out of there, away from the flames. It was something that was hardwired into her. Her body felt like a spring, getting ready to sprint right out of there, despite her physical condition.

She screamed Jordan’s name again. But there was no answer.

The flames had spread to the couch, which was rapidly erupting into something resembling a fireball.

And that’s when Aly really knew it. The house was going up in flames. It was already a lost cause. There was nothing she could do about it.

“Jordan!”

No answer.

She had to get out of there.

And she had to get Jordan out of there too.

He may have been a sleazeball and a drunk, but he was still her uncle. Her blood. She’d already lost her mother. Losing Jordan, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, would be too much.

The flames seemed like they were all around her. Smoke filled the air.

It seemed almost unbelievable, how fast it had all happened.

Visibility was reduced. Her body was hot, and the air felt like it would scorch her.

Her body was still incredibly weak.

But adrenaline coursed through her.

She could do this.

She could save Jordan. Grab him, shake him awake. Or drag him out of the house if she had to.

With determination etched into her face, Aly stepped forward, making her way between the high flames, towards the corner where Jordan lay slumped.