Getting Out

6

Max had made possibly the worst decision of his life.

He’d told himself he wouldn’t get involved. He’d known right from the beginning that there would be situations like this, but he’d promised himself that he needed to look out for himself.

He didn’t even know Mandy and he didn’t even know if it was her in the apartment.

The door had broken off its hinges completely. It was a cheap one, with a cheap frame, and even worse were the screws, which must have been so short they barely went into the wood.

Max waited, standing just out of sight in the lobby.

He took a deep breath, like he’d practiced at the range. He felt surprisingly calm. His hands weren’t shaking, and his mind was clear and practical. He knew there was a host of unknowns waiting for him in that apartment. And he knew that his time to get out of town was severely limited, and this was only taking up more of it.

The adrenaline was coursing through him, making him feel energized and cold. He felt like he could take everyone on at once in that moment. But he had enough sense to know that that wasn’t true. It he simply ran into the room, he might be shot down.

But he had to enter at some point.

He stuck his Glock around the corner. His finger was inside the trigger guard. What a weird feeling, to be away from the gun range with his finger in the trigger guard. Normally, he followed strict gun safety.

He poked his head around slowly.

He took in the scene instantly. Mandy was on the couch, a gun in her mouth. Two armed men were there. One athletic, one not. Not that that would even matter.

To Max’s surprise, the fat one with the gun in Mandy’s mouth chuckled as Max peered into the room, leaving as much of his body as possible hidden behind the doorframe.

The other man pointed his gun right at Max. It was a pistol, one of those cheap numbers made who knows where. It might jam at any moment, not that Max could count on that for his own safety.

Mandy’s eyes turned towards him, a pleading look in them. But there was hope too.

“You know the deal,” mumbled the fat one loudly. “Come in and we shoot her. Not that it makes much difference to us.”

“Or join us for the fun,” said the other one.

They spoke strangely, as if they were on drugs.

How disgusting. They were only a couple hours out from the EMP, and already these sickos were breaking into homes to rape vulnerable women. The majority of Max’s colleagues were probably still at work. Society was likely divided—the people who didn’t know what was going on and were simply waiting for the power to come back on, and the people who had been lurking in the shadows just waiting for an opportunity like this to cut loose and do what they’d always wanted to do, which was cause chaos and have their fun.

And then there were the people like Max. He knew he didn’t fit into either of the other categories. But he wasn’t sure what category he was in. He’d thought of himself as a prepper, or at least a practical person with some measures in place in case shit hit the fan. Now he wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t planned on coming across two armed men so early.

The fat man had mumbled like he was on drugs. Max didn’t think he was drunk. But he couldn’t identify what drug he might be on. Maybe one of those new synthetic designer drugs shipped from China, the ones with devastating and strange effects on the mind and body.

“Drop the guns,” said Max, loudly and clearly.

But as he said it, he knew they wouldn’t do it. There was no reasoning with these animals.

The fat man moved first. Everything seemed to slow down, but in reality it all happened very quickly.

Max shot first, before the fat man could even squeeze the trigger.

Max hit him in the forehead. He crumpled instantly.

The man with the gun in Mandy’s mouth froze. He didn’t seem to know what to do. He watched with a horrified expression as his friend fell.

“One more… move,” he mumbled loudly. His eyes looked crazy, his pupils wide. “One more move… I’ll shoot her. I will…”

Max aimed carefully at the man. He knew he could take him out first. He squeezed the trigger, the bullet hitting the man in the chest. He crumpled, his weight falling onto Mandy.

She let out a long scream, muffled by the gun still in her mouth.

Max rushed over. He seized the dead man around the waist and pulled with all his might. The guy was huge, and it took all of Max’s effort to pull the body off her.

“Is anyone else here?” said Max.

Mandy was sobbing, tears rolling down her face rapidly.

She shook her head, but didn’t seem to be able to speak.

“It’s OK,” said Max, automatically offering words of consolation. But they sounded hollow even to him. In fact, he knew that everything was decidedly not OK. This was just the beginning.

“What’s going on?” she said, sobbing.

Max didn’t know what to do. He’d never been good at comforting crying women. Fortunately for him, there wasn’t time for that anyway.

But he had to think fast. Was he going to leave her here? He had to get on with his own plan. He’d made this little pit stop and saved her life. Wasn’t that enough?

Max knew that it was every man and woman for themselves at this point. He had drilled it into his head a thousand times, but he’d already made a grave mistake. A little too far along this path and there would be no turning back. He’d be taking care of whole families.

Max checked his watch. Twenty minutes had gone by. It might already be too late. People surely would be realizing by now that it wasn’t just the power. They’d start panicking. Who knew what would happen next.

If there was one thing Max had learned in his hours of internet research, it was that no one really knew what was going to happen when the shit hit the fan.

It had hit, and it was about to splatter everywhere.

“What’s going on?” she said again. “What’s happening? Who were those men?”

Max took a good look at her. He hadn’t really gotten one earlier, with all the commotion.

The bodies were still on the floor, but strangely they didn’t affect Max in the slightest. He’d had his little episode of brief panic in the darkened stairwell after work, but he seemed to have gotten over it quickly enough. His mind was set on his mission, on achieving the objectives that he knew (or hoped) would be crucial to his survival.

She was an attractive woman in her twenties. She was thin, but had the kind of womanly figure that Max liked—a full figure, with hips, a good ass, a large chest. She had long dark hair that hung down her shoulders. A woman of the old style, nothing odd about her. No tattoos, no extravagant makeup. She looked fit and healthy.

Max sat down on the couch next to her.

“Listen,” he said. “There’s a lot going on.” He didn’t bother trying to make his voice soothing. There wasn’t time for that now, and he knew it. “Things have changed, and they might never go back to how they were before.”

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“It’s not just the power,” said Max. “Everything’s going to be gone. People are going to be… well, you saw how they acted.”

She didn’t seem to be catching his drift. “They’re animals,” she said, carefully avoiding looking at the corpses. “I can’t believe it… I just can’t… Shouldn’t we call the police or something?”

“The phones won’t work,” said Max. “Nothing works. And it might never work again. Listen, this is important. This could be the start of the breakdown of our modern society. One event like this… I think it must have been an EMP. If it was a coronal event or some kind of weapon… I have no way of knowing…”

“We’ve got to call the police!” she said, almost hysterical.

“Do you have food? Water? Do you have a firearm?” Max’s mind was jumping right to the practical. If he was going to leave her here, he wanted to know that she at least had a chance of surviving. She seemed like a nice girl. She didn’t deserve this. But then again, not many did. No one deserved to see their society come crumbling down around their feet while they starved to death and fought tooth and nail for the last morsel of food.

“What?” she said. “What are you talking about? You just shot two men… I mean, I know it was justified, but… aren’t you worried?”

“Worried?” said Max, momentarily confused. “Look, you’ve got to understand what’s happening, for your own safety. Unfortunately, there isn’t much time. There was some kind of EMP…”

“EMP?”

Max sighed.

But at least she’d stopped crying. And at least she was somewhat listening to him now. She seemed more ‘with it.’

Finally, Max had the bright idea of taking her into the kitchen, away from the bodies. They seemed to be bothering her much more than they bothered him, which wasn’t much at all.

Not that he’d ever seen a real dead body before. It wasn’t that unusual for someone to go their whole adult life without ever seeing a dead person. That was what modern society did, it took the normal things of life and sheltered everyone from them. Death was for morticians to deal with, for EMTs, for doctors, not for regular people. Everyone was sheltered, and that was going to come bite them in the ass.

“Look,” said Max. “What you need to know is that the power’s out, on all devices, and it’s not going to come back in. You can tell something’s different, right?”

She nodded.

Now she was listening. And she seemed to think Max knew what he was talking about, because she was listening very carefully.

“So what do we do?” she said.

Max didn’t say anything for a moment.

He wasn’t really thinking. He said it automatically. And as soon as he said it, he instantly regretted it.

“Come with me,” he said. “I have an old farmhouse… inherited. I’m getting out of here. People are going to become animals. You already saw it.”

Why was he trying to convince her to come with him? Was he crazy? She’d slow him down. He couldn’t bring everyone he met alone the way with him to safety. And he hadn’t even left his apartment building yet.

“Come with you?” she said, mulling the words over as she said them. There was that pensive look in her eyes.

“Yeah,” said Max. “I’m getting out of here. I mean, think about it. The shipping systems are gone. There isn’t going to be food. You saw those animals in there.” He gestured into the room with the two bodies.

She shuddered at the thought.

Damnit, thought Max to himself. Here he was, being too soft. Really, what good would she do him in the woods, out on the road? She couldn’t even stomach the sight of some bodies.

“There was a truck…” she said slowly.

“A truck?” said Max, confused.

Meanwhile, all he could think about was getting out of there and getting on the road.

But for some reason he stayed. He didn’t know why, and maybe he never would.

Maybe there was something about her. But this wasn’t a damn love story and Max knew it.

“Yeah,” she said. “Some kind of military truck. I saw it with Mrs. Kerns, you know the neighbor… It was huge, with this big gun on the back… it circled slowly around the parking lot. It was really eerie. And the weird thing… It didn’t have any US markings on it.”

“No markings on it?” said Max, worried. “Are you sure?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

Max pondered this for a moment.

“I saw a truck like that coming in,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure I saw US markings on it. I thought it was the army… I figured they’d been dispatched. What I think will happen is that the police and army will put up roadblocks pretty soon. They’ll start clamping down, imposing a curfew. But meanwhile, communications will never come for them. Supplies will never come. They’ll be confused just like the general population… It’ll devolve quickly after that. There’s only so long you can keep the chaos at bay, even for the military…”

“Shit,” muttered Mandy. “Shit, shit, shit….”

“What?” said Max.

“There are two guys dead in my living room… And you’re telling me the world is ending… I really should have gone to work today.”

She was freaking out.

Max looked at his watch. “Look,” he said. “I shouldn’t even be telling you to come with me. Here’s the deal. I’ve got to leave now. Are you coming with me or not?”

Mandy didn’t say anything for a moment. She seemed to be studying his face. Max had gotten this look before. He’d noticed that cops and people like that had a way of studying your face to tell whether or not you were full of shit. Mandy had that way of looking at him.

Maybe there was more to her than met the eye. She could be useful after all.

“OK,” she said.

“OK?”

“I’ll come.”

Max nodded. “OK,” he said. “Let’s get to work. What supplies do you have?”

“Supplies?”

“Food, candles, flashlights, knives, guns…”

She laughed nervously. “I’ve never even touched a gun,” she said.

Max groaned internally, but he pushed through it. This wasn’t the time for ideology. It was the time for being practical.

“OK,” he said. “Get everything else that might be useful. Nothing electronic. Do a quick sweep of the apartment. Five minutes, OK? You’ve got five minutes. I’ll hit the kitchen and grab all the food. You know where the other things are. Remember: you’re looking for flashlights…”

“I got it,” said Mandy.

Max was surprised to see her move quickly and rapidly. She went right into the bedroom, and he watched her for a moment through the doorway. She moved efficiently through the drawers.

Max looked around the kitchen. It was a mess. But there was food.

He did the refrigerator first, then the freezer. They could eat the perishable goods first, and then move on to the canned things.

He found a huge bag of stale rice under the sink, as well as a huge pot roast in the freezer. It had freezer burn on it, but that didn’t matter. Mandy actually had quite a few cans of beef soup, and Max made a couple trips down to his Jeep to stock up.

Outside in the parking lot, the light from the day was already getting low. This little incident with Mandy had taken more time than he’d realized. Of course, the lights were off everywhere, in every building. Max wondered briefly about home generators, and whether or not they would work. But it didn’t matter.

Even though the sun was still partially in the sky, the town looked darker than Max had ever seen it. There was no light pollution. He’d have to get used to this.

“OK,” said Mandy, appearing by his side with a couple duffel bags. “I think I got some good stuff.”

Max nodded at her.

“Let’s go,” he said, stuffing the bags into the back seat. The Jeep was almost full at this point.

“Wait,” said Mandy. “There’s Mrs. Kerns… What’s she going to do?”

“She’ll be fine,” muttered Max. He knew that she wouldn’t be fine, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

He looked at Mrs. Kerns. He’d seen her before, and spoken to her briefly. It wasn’t her age that made him make the decision—for one thing, there simply wasn’t room in the Jeep. And the main thing was that she wasn’t in good health. She simply wouldn’t make it.

“Get in the car,” said Max. “Just wave at her.”

Mrs. Kerns stood unsteadily in front of the building, mouthing something at Mandy.

Max ignored her, put the Jeep into reverse, and backed up quickly.

Soon, they were out on the dark road. There were a few cars here and there, cars that seemed to move aimlessly, as if their drivers didn’t know where to go or what they were doing.

“I feel so bad leaving her back there,” said Mandy. “I hope she’ll be OK.”

Max didn’t say anything.

“So,” said Mandy. “How long do you think until this all boils over?”

“Boils over?”

“You know, calms down.”

“It’s not going to calm down,” said Max. “This is it…”

“What do you mean ‘this is it?’”

“I mean,” said Max. “Exactly what I said. There’s no turning back now.”

“What?” said Mandy, sounding shocked and worried.

“Look,” said Max. “People have studied this. Society isn’t as robust as we’d like to think. All it takes is one event. Something just like this.”

“I mean you said it would devolve… or whatever word you used. But I thought you meant things would get crazy for a couple weeks.”

Max laughed. It was the first time he’d laughed in a while. He shook his head.

“It’s not like that,” he said. “I mean, study civilizations… past civilizations. Everything looks fine, and then something happens. The event doesn’t matter. It’s how people react that matters.”

“You’re crazy,” said Mandy.

Max didn’t say anything.

“Did I get in the car with some crazy guy?” she said. She sounded more like she was thinking out loud than speaking to Max.

“Look,” said Max. “I don’t care what you think of me. I know what I’m doing, and that’s getting to this farmhouse. I want to be as far away from large groups of people as I can. There’re the real danger. You don’t want to be around them. Either come with me, or get out right now. I don’t want to take you halfway there. It’ll be too late, and I’m not turning around.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment.

“I know you’re not crazy,” she said quietly. “I saw it in your face.”

That sounded like some hippie bullshit to Max, but he’d seen the way she’d studied him. There was something to it. She could read people, and she was intuitive. That might be valuable when paired with Max’s more practical skills. Although, now that he started thinking about it, he might not be so useful after all. When was the last time he’d started a fire in the woods, or hunted game? He remembered going hunting once as a kid, and he didn’t shoot anything. He’d just wandered around the woods for a day with his dad. His dad got drunk and Max had had to take the rifle away from him.

“So you’re coming?”

“Yeah,” said Mandy. “I guess I don’t want to believe it… I mean, I know you’re not crazy, but I’m not so sure you’re right about everything collapsing… I mean, that just seems so…”

“Believe what you want,” said Max. “Anyway,” he added more quietly, “I hope you’re right. I really do.”

Max didn’t want to take the highways. He didn’t know what the police would be doing on them. He hadn’t seen any more roadblocks like the one earlier. Who knew what was happening to the police force that had no radios and no way of communicating with themselves? Would they even be able to stay organized for a short time?

“Wow!” said Mandy loudly. “Look! That’s crazy.”

Max looked to where she was pointing. The night was upon them now. The sun was fully down. The night was dark, the darkest night either of them had ever seen.

They were passing by a grocery store.

Flashlights were illuminating the area. Dozens, if not hundreds, of flashlights. Not just a couple. They were shining all around haphazardly, chaotically.

“What’s going on?” said Mandy. “There must be dozens of people there.”

“Looting,” said Max, as he surveyed the scene quickly before putting his eyes back on the road.

“Looting? Are you serious?”

The window was down, and they could hear shouting.

“You want to see?” said Max, slowing to a stop. He was about a hundred yards down the road from the store. He kept the engine idling.

He knew they had to keep moving, but he also knew it would be useful to see how people were reacting.

How would people react when the shit hit the fan? That was the big question that had been debated endlessly on internet forums.

Max knew enough to know he didn’t have it all figured out. But he figured that different people would react differently. That is, until, the mob mentally drew them all together.

If people were already mobbing on the first night, that wasn’t a good sign. Things might be devolving into chaos faster than Max had suspected. He’d figured on at least a night of good driving to get father out, away from the more densely populated areas.

“Can you see them?” said Mandy, peering into the rearview mirror. “They’re acting crazy.”

“Yeah,” said Max. “It’s happening faster than I thought.”

“Maybe you’re right about all this,” said Mandy. “They’re all yelling at once.”

“Look,” said Max. “A fight’s breaking out.”

One man was punching another. Mostly everyone was ignoring it. They were too intent on getting into the store.

“This is…”

“Crazy?” said Max.

The man getting punched went down to the ground. The big man who’d been punching him was on top of him, beating him relentlessly.

“Should we help him?” said Mandy. “No one’s doing anything. He could really hurt him.”

Max just shook his head and said nothing.

There was the sound of crashing glass.

The mob had broken the windows of the store. They were rushing inside.

“Didn’t take long,” muttered Max. “And they probably don’t even realize what’s happening.”

“Do you think the police will come?” said Mandy.

“How would they even know? Maybe if someone’s on a patrol, but who knows what’s going on with the cops right now.”

They could hear screaming from inside the store. The light from the flashlights was coming out in random, chaotic spurts.

The night had never seemed so dark.

Max sat there watching the outside of the building perhaps longer than he should have.

The man doing the punching had finally gotten up and rushed into the store.

“Hey,” said Mandy. “There’s someone running out of the store.”

Max looked again.

An overweight man was springing out of the store. It was hard to see him in the darkness with the random occasional illumination from the flashlights.

“Looks like he’s wearing a store uniform or something…” said Mandy.

“Maybe he’s the employee,” muttered Max.

A couple people jumped back through the glass and started chasing the overweight man.

“He’s coming right towards us,” said Mandy, alarmed.

Sure enough, she was right. The fat man was barreling towards them. He was followed by about five men, who were screaming something at him.

Suddenly, their words became clear.

“He’s got the money!”

“Get him!”

“What do they want money for?” muttered Max.

“What are we going to do?” said Mandy.

“Do?” said Max. “We’re leaving. That’s why we’re leaving. We can’t help everyone. That’s the breaks.”

Mandy didn’t say anything. Maybe she knew he was right. Or maybe she thought he was a heartless bastard. Not that it mattered much either way. The important thing now was survival, and Max knew it.

Max pushed in the clutch, put the car into first, and was about to pull away when he looked in the rearview mirror one last time.

The man was close to them, so close that Max suddenly saw his face clearly in the brake lights of the Jeep.

“Chad?” said Max.

“Chad?” said Mandy, confused.

Max didn’t pull away, and the fat man was soon at the driver’s window.

“You’ve got to help me!” he said, panting. He was completely out of breath and already covered in sweat. He couldn’t have been more out of shape.

“Chad?” said Max, stunned.

He would recognize that face anywhere. He’d gone to school with Chad, and they’d been close, until they’d drifted apart. The last he’d heard, Chad was somewhere down in Miami.

“Max?” said Chad, a stunned look coming onto his face.

Shit, there was no way he could leave Chad behind. He could only imagine what that mob of animals would do to him. Chad was practically family. Sure, estranged family, but still…