“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said the man. “I have to feed my kids. And everything’s just so screwed up. It’s all screwed. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I can’t let them starve.”
“I’m sure things are going to start happening again,” said Jeremy. “I’m sure this isn’t the end. I mean, that would be completely crazy, right? That’s what happens in the movies and stuff. But this is real life, and the people in power wouldn’t let that sort of thing happen to us. They wouldn’t let us just fall off a cliff like that.”
There was a loud sound outside, the sound of heavy trucks rolling slowly down the street. Jeremy could hear the tires heavy on the pavement and the engines rumbling over the sound of the storm.
“Sounds like someone’s outside,” said Jeremy.
He moved over to the window to see what was going on. He peered through the blinds.
What he saw next scared him even more than having a gun pointed at him.
The military trucks, the same type as the ones from the road blockade, had stopped right in front of his house. They’d parked in the middle of the street, their engines still running.
Two soldiers, both with machine guns, or whatever they were (Jeremy didn’t know anything about firearms) were approaching his house, walking slowly and purposefully.
There was a knock on the door.
Jeremy knew better than to ignore the knock.
“Hello?” he said, opening the door. He was too terrified to say anything else. He wanted to ask, though, about the state of affairs that they were in. His mind was full of anxious questions.
He was torn between two positions. On one hand, he looked to the soldiers as the upholders of peace and justice. He believed that they would be the ones who protected himself and the other good citizens from chaos. He believed that they’d be the ones responsible for eventually restoring order. But he also feared them. He knew that they were men just like himself, and that… well, things might go south quickly if he disobeyed them.
“Food,” said one of the soldiers.
“Food?” said Jeremy, trying to stall as best he could.
“We need food. We’re requiring food from the neighborhood.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jeremy. “But I just don’t have any. I really wish I did. And if I did, you’d be the first ones I’d give it to.”
Both soldiers glared at him.
Then one pointed his gun right at Jeremy’s chest.
“Step aside. We’re going to check the house.”
Jeremy moved to the side.
The soldiers brushed past him as if he was completely insignificant and meaningless.
“Drop the weapon!” they shouted upon entering the living room.
Jeremy followed the soldiers into the living room, moving out of the alcove, but he kept himself as close to the door as possible.
The soldiers were pointing their guns at Jeremy’s neighbor, the man he’d never met before.
The neighbor had a crazed look on his face. Jeremy had already seen him go from grinning, to terrifying, to crying. Now he seemed to have entered a new phase of emotions, nothing but insanity showing on his face. But it wasn’t insanity. It was desperation, nothing but a normal reaction to an extreme situation.
The neighbor already had his gun in his hand and was pointing it at the soldiers.
The soldiers didn’t bother giving another order, waiting to see if he would obey. They were in the mindset of shooting first and not bothering to ask questions later. They held their guns in a practiced manner, not budging from their spots. Their gazes were steely. They wore body armor. Their camouflage fatigues bristled with gear, extra ammo, water bottles, even grenades.
They opened fire at the same time, spraying bullets at the neighbor.
The neighbor got off one single shot. Jeremy wasn’t sure, in the end, when he thought about it later, who’d fired first. No matter how he reconstructed it in his head, it didn’t seem to make sense.
But the soldiers must have fired first. They must have. But then how did his neighbor get off that single shot?
The neighbor missed. The soldiers were unharmed.
Jeremy felt a flash of searing pain in his leg.
The bullet from his neighbor had lodged itself there.
Jeremy screamed and tried to grab his leg, and toppled over onto the ground.
The soldiers looked at him momentarily, and then stepped over him to walk through the living room into the kitchen.
Jeremy lay on the floor in complete agony. His vision had gone somewhat blurry. He couldn’t think straight.
He was only vaguely aware of when the soldier came back into the room, empty handed of course, since there wasn’t a scrap of food in the house.
They stood over him and looked at him, grumbling.
One of them took something out of his pocket and applied it to Jeremy’s leg. It was probably one of those quick clot systems that stopped bleeding.
Jeremy tried to speak, but nothing but tears and moaning came out. He couldn’t get a single word out, let alone string together a sentence.
The soldiers grabbed him. One took an arm each, and they dragged him outside into the rain. Jeremy was instantly soaked. The crashing of thunder surrounded him.
They dragged him into one of the vehicles, and there, he lost consciousness.
27
The next day when they woke at sunrise, the storm had blown over, leaving the woods pristine and perfect looking. The sun was shining brightly and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Max went over in his mind what had happened the night before. They’d eaten their first good meal in a long time. Max’s stomach was still feeling full from all the steak he’d consumed the night before. He’d even had a beer, one that Georgia had given him.
Despite the way meeting Georgia and her family had started, tensions were almost non-existent now.
Max liked Georgia and her kids. She wasn’t a malicious person. He could tell that right from the beginning. She was like him, just doing what she thought she had to do.
The others were still sleeping, in their wet clothes that were starting to dry.
Max seemed to be the only one awake.
He got up, a little stiff from sleeping out in the open on the forest floor.
He looked down at them. Georgia, Mandy, James, and Sadie were all curled up into little balls.
Chad… where was Chad?
Max started circling the little camp, moving in larger and larger circles until he found him.
Chad was wide awake, looking like he hadn’t slept the entire night.
“How you holding up, Chad?” said Max. He hoped that Chad was going to be coherent, at the least. He was seriously starting to lose his patience with his old friend.
“Hey,” said Chad. He sounded lucid, yet really down. He didn’t sound like the exuberant party boy he’d been earlier.
“How you feeling?”
“Not bad,” said Chad. “The withdrawal is starting to calm down a lot. I couldn’t sleep all last night, but I’m… I don’t know. I’m feeling better.”
Max nodded.
“I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t loaded,” said Chad. “It’s been… I don’t know… ages and ages. I should have quit that shit years ago. Maybe this is a wake up call for me, I don’t know.”
“I think it’s a wakeup call for humanity,” said Max. “Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
“Come with me to check out the cars. It’ll give you something to do.”
They walked the short distance to the road where the cars still were.
“They’re smashed up pretty good,” said Chad.
Max nodded. “There’s no way they’re going to run.”
Max still had the keys to the Jeep in his pocket, where they would serve merely as a reminder of the life he once had.