Ryan Westfield - Surviving Chaos

“Mom,” hissed Sadie frantically. “What do we do?”

“Stay calm, Sadie.”

The woman and the man started walking over. There wasn’t much ground to cover. They’d sort of come out of nowhere. The trees had hidden their approach.

“You folks OK?” said the man. He was athletic-looking, and was wearing trendy clothes that were now muddy and torn.

“We’re fine,” said Georgia.

Her pulse was racing. The presence of newcomers meant danger.

But, if she was being honest with herself, the impression they gave was of completely trustworthy people. An honest couple. Normal people. Nothing about them screamed danger.

“Mind if we sit down?” said the man. “I’m Jake, by the way.”

“And I’m Rose.”

Georgia nodded. “Just keep a decent distance. Yeah, right there is fine. And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Jake laughed. “We’re not trying to hurt you,” he said. “In fact, we were hoping you could help us.”

“Help you?”

“Yeah,” said Rose. “We’re… well, it’s a long story.”

Georgia realized that they hadn’t noticed that she was so injured she could barely stand up on her own. That she was so weak she wasn’t going to be of any help to anyone.

“How do you know you can trust us?” said Georgia. “Coming here, presumably unarmed, you’re taking a big risk.”

Rose smiled warmly. “You look trustworthy.”

“That’s not much to go on,” said Georgia. “Trust me, I know. And don’t worry, I’m not trusting you two either yet.”

“I guess you shouldn’t,” said Jake. “We’re desperate, basically. If you’re looking to take what we have, well, we don’t have anything.”

“If you’re desperate, then I can’t trust you,” said Georgia.

“I know you’re a good person,” said Rose. “I can see it in your aura.”

“My aura?”

“She’s kind of a hippy,” said Jake, rolling his eyes a little.

Georgia laughed in spite of herself.

“He never believes me,” said Rose. “But I always turn out to be right.”

“I think you’re just picking up other signals,” said Jake.

“What’s an aura?” said Sadie.

“Some silly new age stuff,” muttered Georgia. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, it all started out great,” said Rose. “We were traveling the country in our van…”

“We’re digital nomads,” said Jake, once again adding explanation to what Rose said. “Well, we were, obviously.”

“What’s that?” said Sadie. “A digital nomad?”

Sadie had already let her guard down. But Georgia hadn’t. She still had the gun trained on them underneath the blanket. They didn’t seem to notice, or suspect anything at all. Apparently Rose’s “aura” detector wasn’t able to pick up on handguns.

“We traveled anywhere we wanted to,” said Rose. “And we worked online…”

They continued talking, telling their story. Georgia listened, and Sadie asked most of the questions. Georgia made sure not to get immersed in the story. She didn’t want to miss a potential attack, if one was going to happen. After all, it could all be a ruse. If it was, though, it was a very, very good one.

Rose and Jake were a couple. They weren’t married, but they talked like they were, interrupting each other, and occasionally bickering over small things. They were remarkably upbeat considering what they’d been through.

In some ways, they hadn’t had it as bad as the others during the initial stages of the post-EMP world.

“Yeah,” Jake was saying. “We were already here on the hunting grounds when the EMP hit. We actually didn’t realize it at first. We thought something had just gone wrong with the van’s battery.”

“Wait,” said Georgia. “You said the hunting grounds. You mean the state hunting grounds?”

“Yeah,” said Jake.

“That’s where we are now?”

“Yeah,” said Jake.

They must have made a mistake with the maps. Somehow, they’d come farther than they’d thought.

Not that it mattered much.

“So anyway,” said Jake. “These guys started coming around. That’s when we heard about the EMP.”

“They were nice enough at first,” said Rose.

“But then they turned nasty.”

“They’re these pot farmers,” said Rose. “They had guns, and they came and took everything we had.”

“Everything,” muttered Jake.

Georgia looked at them carefully again. They had seemed healthy, for the most part, when she’d first seen them. But now she saw them in a different light. They looked malnourished.

Jake even had a bad bruise on his cheek, and Rose had a black eye.

“We finally got ahold of some food the other day,” said Jake. “We found some acorns, and we were making these weird pancakes out of them. But they came by again, and demanded them.”

“Jake refused,” said Rose. “And they hit me.”

Jake looked at the ground, growing red in the face. “I tried to defend her, but they just beat the shit out of me.”

“It was horrible,” said Rose.

“So anyway,” said Jake. “Basically, they’re tormenting us. They’ve taken everything from us. And we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Why don’t you just drive off?” said Sadie. “You said you have a van.”

“They stole our gas,” said Rose.

Suddenly, it hit Georgia. An idea. How had it taken her this long to realize it?

Sadie must have realized it at the same time, because she glanced over at Georgia.

“Is there anyone else here?” said Georgia. “In the area, I mean?”

“Not that we know of,” said Rose. “We haven’t seen anyone else. You’re the first ones we’ve seen who weren’t the pot farmers.”

“How many of them are there?” said Georgia.

“Three. Two main guys. One’s kind of the idiot lackey. And there’s this other guy. He’s huge but he doesn’t seem to talk. They communicate with him in sign language.”

“Mom,” said Sadie. “Do you think that’s what happened to Mandy?”

“Who’s Mandy?” said Rose.

“One of our friends,” said Georgia. “She disappeared today.” She didn’t mention Max and James. She still didn’t trust Rose and Jake fully. But they were gaining her trust quickly, and she was letting her guard down.

Jake and Rose exchanged a nervous glance.

“Do you know anything about that?” said Georgia, eyeing them.

“No,” said Rose. “Our van is a good ways away from their farm.”

“You say farm, but isn’t it too cold now to grow anything?”

“They have some special strain, I think,” said Rose.

Georgia nodded. “They beat you two up. But do you know why they’d kidnap someone? What would their motive be?”

“Who knows,” said Jake. “They’re pretty delusional. They keep talking about how they’ll be rich once the power comes back on…”

“They’ve talked about taking me and forcing me to work on their farm,” said Rose. “Free labor, you know.”

“Why didn’t they then?”

“I think they thought we’d find food if they left us on our own,” said Jake. “Not that we’ve had much luck with that. Just bits and pieces here and there. Nothing substantial.”

“In reality,” said Rose, “I think they just like having someone to come torment.”

“But they could do that easily enough if they made us their slaves,” said Jake. He paused for a moment, as if thinking deeply. “Nothing they do really makes a whole lot of sense, though. So I wouldn’t read too much into it. But about your friend… the answer is yes. I think that if something happened to her, it was likely these guys.”

Georgia nodded.

It was a lot to take in. But it sounded like Jake was right. It was probably the pot farmers that had gotten to Mandy.