Ryan Westfield - Surviving Chaos

There wasn’t any time to curse James for his foolish bravery.

Max’s finger was squeezing the trigger, his handgun letting loose. He knew he wouldn’t hit the man with the rifle. But hopefully he’d startle him into acting just dumb enough for James to finish him off. All James needed was some luck, just a moment of hesitation on their enemies’ part.

Hopefully.

The rifle went off. Another loud crack.

Dirt near Max flew into the air. Some of the dirt rained against his leg.

Max heard something behind him.

He turned to look.

A massive man was there. In his hands was a huge ax.

And it was swinging right towards Max, in a huge arc.

Max rolled over just in time. The ax struck the ground and stayed there. It’d been driven there with so much force that the blade dug deep into the ground.

Another crack from the rifle.

Max couldn’t help but think the worst: James had been shot.

Dread filled him.

But he didn’t let that stop him from acting.

Max pulled the trigger, aiming his own gun right at the man’s giant chest.

One shot. Then another.

The bullets struck. But the man didn’t fall. Not yet. He stood there, looking dazed.

Max pulled the trigger again, but he was out of ammo. An empty click, and nothing more.

But the big man would die. Just not immediately.

As Max turned towards the tent, the huge man started to slump forward towards the ground.

Max didn’t know what had happened, whether James was alive or not. But he ran, as fast as he could. If James had been shot, Max would likely be shot too.

But on the off chance that James was alive, he’d need Max’s help. Even if he didn’t have a gun.

Max’s leg seared with pain as he covered the distance. He couldn’t see what had happened. The man with the rifle was nowhere to be seen. Neither was James.

Then he saw it.

James was standing there. Alive. Rifle in hand. His face was dead serious. A man with a bit of a stomach lay there on the ground, dead.

“Gun,” said Max, gesturing to the rifle. “I’m out of ammo.”

James handed it over.

Together, they entered the tent.

Mandy lay there, unconscious. Rope bound her hands, legs, and thighs. An old sock was stuffed into her mouth, and tied there with a dirty bandana.

Max put his fingers to her jugular.

“There’s a pulse,” he said, scanning her for injuries. “She looks OK.”

“Hey, man, what’s with all the noise? You start shooting at squirrels again or something?”

It was an unfamiliar, slightly hoarse voice. Apparently he hadn’t noticed his dead partner on the ground outside the tent.

Max and James exchanged a look.

The tent flap moved.

A tall, lanky man appeared. He was generally unkempt, even by post-EMP standards.

“Hey, man,” he said. “What the hell?”

Max and James raised their guns.

The tall man had one at his hip, but he didn’t reach for it. Instead, he raised his hands slowly above his head.

“How many people live here?” said Max. “How many of you are there?”

“Uh, three.”

“You sound unsure.”

“Uh, I had to count myself.”

The man’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot.

“Looks like we’re good, James,” said Max. “Now we just have to figure out what to do with him.”

“I know what to do with him,” said James. There was anger in his eyes. “This is what you get when you kidnap one of us.”

James fired.

The shot reverberated through dead silence. The lanky man fell to the ground.

“You feeling OK, Mandy?” said Georgia.

“Yeah,” said Mandy. “The headache’s finally going away.”

“They must have knocked you on the head pretty hard.”

“Eh, it wasn’t that bad. Didn’t leave much of a mark, according to Max.”

“Well, Max has a strange definition of injury. If it doesn’t kill you, it wasn’t that bad.”

Mandy laughed, and took another bite of her venison.

It’d been less than a full day since Max and James had rescued her from the pot farmers. When they’d hiked back to Georgia and Sadie, they’d found them with two newcomers, Jake and Rose, former travelers who’d been tormented by the same people who’d kidnapped Mandy.

“Yeah,” Rose had said. “Nothing they did really made much sense. I’m not surprised they decided to kidnap you and enslave you on the spur of the moment, even though they could have done the same to us.”

“They were too stoned,” Jake had added, “to really think clearly.”

“Didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous, though,” said Mandy.

“Nope, definitely not.”

At first, Max had taken Georgia aside to discuss the newcomers, and whether or not they could be trusted. Mandy, on the other hand, had a good feeling about them from the moment she met them. They weren’t exactly survivalist types, but they were warm and friendly. She could see they didn’t have a mean bone in their bodies.

Apparently whatever Georgia had told Max was good enough for him, and everyone set about eating the deer that James had shot earlier.

They’d all slept well that night. As well as they could on the cold ground. But the fire had kept them relatively warm.

Everyone except Max, of course, who’d insisted on taking first shift.

The tentative plan for tomorrow was to start gathering useful gear at the pot farm and head back to Rose and Jake’s van to see what kind of structures they could build for the coming winter.

No one had explicitly stated it, but it seemed to be understood among everyone that the two groups would join together. At least for the winter. Or at least until something went south. Mandy hoped it didn’t. She liked being around another woman close to her own age.

The sun had fallen, and they were sitting around the campfire again. Just like the night before.

Max was sitting slightly away from everyone. Away from the fire, it was much colder. He was hunched over a radio, which was issuing nothing but hissing static.

“You really like that radio, huh?” said Jake, walking over to him to hand him another piece of venison.

Mandy watched as Max accepted the venison without looking up.

“I just can’t believe it works,” said Max.

“I don’t even know why we have it with us,” said Rose. “It was the one impractical thing I let Jake bring when we set out to tour the US.”

“Impractical?” said Jake. “Come on, it’s the only type of communication device that’s likely to work now.”

“But you never found anyone, did you?” Rose turned to Mandy. “He spent almost every night with that thing before the farmers stole it from him.”

“Did you find anything?” said Mandy.

“Never,” said Jake. “But Max thinks he’s going to. Right, Max?”

Max didn’t answer. He just adjusted the knobs silently, peering at the radio as if it could tell him something.

“I don’t get why it still works,” said Mandy.

“I guess the van worked as a Faraday cage,” said Jake. “Pretty wild, right?”

Mandy nodded.

Suddenly, through the radio’s static, came a voice.

Everyone froze in place, in complete surprise.

“Anyone there?” said the voice, crackling a little as it piped through the radio.

“Who’s there?” said Max.

Everyone else remained dead silent, turning all their attention to Max and the radio.

“Name’s John,” came the voice.

“John?” said Max, a strange expression on his face.

“And who am I speaking with?”

“Max.”

“Max? You sound familiar, Max.”

“So do you.”

“You couldn’t be…”