“New circumstances, new rules,” said Jim.
“Can I put my hands down now?” said the cop.
Jim gave a brief nod.
“I really appreciate it, guys,” said the cop, ambling over. “I thought I was done for. But don’t worry, we’ll get this country back on track. Have you seen any other members of the force around here? Or the military?”
Jim shook his head. “Not around these parts,” he said.
Jim kept talking, but Jordan stopped listening.
There was a rumbling sound off in the distance.
“Sounds like an engine out there somewhere,” said Jordan.
Jim and Andy stopped talking.
It sounded like it might be a large engine.
And it was getting closer.
“You hear that too?” said Jordan.
Jim nodded. He hadn’t put his revolver back in its holster.
“It’s too far off right now to get a good look,” said Jordan. “But I’ll just pop on up to the roof.”
“The roof?”
“Yeah, I go up there all the time. You can see for at least a mile down that way. The way the trees are makes it… I’ll show you.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt, but do you think I could get something to eat soon?” said Andy.
“Stay there,” said Jordan, ignoring Andy.
Around the side of the house, there was an old ladder that lay partially hidden under a pile of dead leaves. Jordan wasn’t a diligent sort of person, and raking leaves had always been the last thing on his mind. He took the ladder, got it up against the house, and started to climb.
From the roof, he could see through the pine trees.
“See anything?” said Jim.
Jordan squinted. He could just make it out.
“It’s an RV,” he said. “A big one. Headed this way.”
“Great,” said Jim. “Just what we need.”
“Wait,” said Jordan. “There’s another one behind it… and another.”
“A caravan of RVs?”
“Looks like it.”
3
Andy wasn’t a cop.
And he’d never been one.
Of course, he wasn’t planning on telling anyone that.
It wasn’t like he was innocent. He hadn’t just happened upon some dead cop and taken the uniform because he’d had to.
No, he’d killed the cop. He was guilty. Very guilty.
It hadn’t been his first option. But he hadn’t had any others.
It had happened just yesterday. Andy’d been cooped up in his little apartment with the lights out, waiting for everything to go back to normal. He’d been waiting for the world to start turning again.
He’d been scared. Petrified and shaken right to his bones.
He’d been desperately hoping it’d all been a dream, that someone would pinch him, he’d wake up, and everything would be normal once again.
But nothing like that had happened. He’d been running low on water, and his food had run out days earlier.
He’d heard the noises outside, the screams and the chanting. He’d heard gunshots, and the occasional roaring of an engine screaming along the road.
The cop had broken into his apartment, probably doing what everyone else had been doing, which was looking for food and water. Or maybe he’d just been doing his job, hunting down a crook, or trying to secure the peace.
Andy had decided he wasn’t going down without a fight. Not only that, but he’d decided that it was time to act. Time to take what he needed. No matter whether it was right or wrong.
He knew he wasn’t going to wake up. He knew it wasn’t a dream. Nothing was going to change unless he changed it.
And so, when the cop had broken in and flashed his badge, Andy had done what he’d had to do. Or what he’d decided was necessary.
He’d rushed the cop, taking him by surprise with a kitchen knife. He’d stabbed hard and fast, right in the cop’s stomach.
It wasn’t until the cop was lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, slowly dying as he bled out, that Andy felt a twinge of guilt.
But he’d rationalized the whole thing to himself, telling himself that the cop was a bad egg, a bad cop through and through. Why wasn’t the cop out there, trying to serve and protect, instead of looking for food for himself?
Andy created a wholly imagined narrative for the cop. Andy could only justify it all to himself if the cop really was bad. And with no way to really know, he’d simply decided.
The human mind was capable, he realized then, of incredible things. Incredible patterns of belief. Incredible conviction in the face of overwhelming evidence. Incredible systems of justification.
Killing the cop had been a turning point for him.
Before that, he’d been frightened, waiting alone in his apartment, waiting to die.
Before the EMP, he’d had a normal job. He’d been an insurance salesman. He hadn’t been anything special, and he hadn’t tried to be. He’d been completely content to go to work in the morning, head to the grocery store after work, and spend the evening relaxing at night by himself in front of the television.
He’d hadn’t thought much about his lifestyle. But looking back on it now, it seemed as if it was all too easy. If he’d forgotten to pick up something at the grocery store, there was a phone app for that, and the food would be delivered to his door only minutes later.
Everything had been taken care of. If there was a problem with the plumbing, it was a simple call to the landlord.
If there was a problem with his body, it was a simple trip to the doctor. And a simple pill from the pharmacy to fix it all.
Andy recognized that the EMP had changed all that. It’d never be like that again.
The old system had vanished in the blink of an eye. Andy was smart enough to understand that.
And the new way of life would be hard. Everyone would have to do everything themselves. There’d be no more deliveries. No more ease. No more getting someone else to take care of one’s problems.
He’d have to take care of himself.
Complete self-sufficiency.
A terrifying prospect.
So, as he’d sat there next to the dying cop, who mumbled something incoherently, Andy made up his mind to survive by whatever means necessary.
But what skills did he have?
Practically none.
Except for his ability to sweet talk people into deals.
He’d been good at his job. He could sell people policies they’d never need in a thousand years. He knew what to say, and how to find the right people. It was like he had an innate radar for picking saps.
So the easiest thing to do would be to trick people. Trick them into getting what he wanted. What he needed. What he desired.
With just a little bit of cleverness, he could approximate his old life, despite the craziness of this new world.
Maybe food wouldn’t be delivered to his doorstep, maybe he wouldn’t be able to get a pill from the doctor for whatever ailed him, but he could certainly create a situation in which things were easier for him, where others could do the real work for him.
That’s when he’d had the idea to steal the cop’s uniform and integrate himself into a community that had everything pretty much already figured out.
Andy had heard about survivalists before the EMP. He’d read the occasional article about some guy building a bunker and he’d just chuckled to himself. He’d seen the occasional piece on the evening news about a community of survivalists preparing for the worst. And again, he’d just chuckled, knowing that day would never come.
But now, those people didn’t seem so crazy after all.
And they were out there, those survivalists. They were sitting pretty now, having done all the work years in advance.
So how could Andy get in on that? How could he take what wasn’t supposed to be his?