Ryan Westfield - Getting Out

“I was going to call the landlord soon,” said Mandy, anticipating Mrs. Kerns’s next question.

“I already did,” said Mrs. Kerns, in a matter of fact way. “Well, I tried to, but the phones are all dead.”

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“I’m not that old, am I?” said Mrs. Kerns. “Of course I do.”

“Let me try my phone. I’ll be back in a second.”

She went into her bedroom to get her phone. She picked it up, and noticed that the screen was dead.

She went back into the living room.

“That’s strange,” she said, sitting back down on the couch. “I remember distinctly that I charged it last night at the, um, bar.”

“Everything’s dead,” said Mrs. Kerns.

“What do you mean everything’s dead?”

“All the machines. All the electronics. None of them work. I’ve been downstairs to see Alison, and none of her things work either. And I even looked out to the other buildings. There isn’t a single light on. But the strangest thing is that if you look out to the other buildings—I can see over to Downing Street from my living room window—none of the lights are on either. And the Nevins are always home, with all the lights always on.”

“Hmm,” said Mandy. “I guess the whole town lost power. I mean, that’s happened before, but usually it’s when there’s a storm…”

Mrs. Kerns shook her head. “There wasn’t a storm.”

“Maybe a transformer or something?” said Mandy. She only vaguely knew what a transformer was, but she knew it had something to do with electricity.

Mrs. Kerns shook her head. “I don’t know. But I’m worried. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Mandy didn’t know what to think, but she was starting to get nervous. “This is really weird,” she said. “Oh, what about the radio?”

Mrs. Kerns shook her head again. “I tried,” she said. “It doesn’t work. Just like all the machines. I guess my father was right. He was always telling us that these gadgets wouldn’t save us.”

“There’s something!” said Mandy. “I heard something outside. Sounds like cars.”

They both stopped speaking.

Mandy moved to the window and pushed the slats of the blinds aside to peer outside to the parking lot. Most of the cars were gone. Most of the residents were at work, after all. Her own car sat there, a beat up old Honda Civic with dents all over it. It must have been at least fifteen years old, but that was what Mandy could afford with her waitressing job.

They could clearly hear the sound of car engines approaching. But Mandy didn’t see anything yet. There was something odd about the sound. They sounded bigger, beefier than normal engines.

“Someone’s coming,” whispered Mandy.

“Shh,” said Mrs. Kerns.

A single truck pulled slowly into the parking lot. It didn’t look like any truck that Mandy would have seen in her normal life. It was a military style truck, something like a beefy pickup. It was painted a solid light green color, without any camouflage. There were two or three men up in the front cab, and a man in the back manning a huge turret gun.

Mandy gasped. She’d never seen anything like this in the United States. It reminded her of the trip she’d taken in high school to Mexico for spring break. There, she’d been shocked to see the police driving around town in pickup trucks with guns mounted on the back. Honestly, though, she’d been too drunk to remember much else from the trip. Not that she was a big drinker. She’d barely had a drink since she’d dropped out of college after her first disastrous semester, except for yesterday night.

Mandy watched for a moment as the truck slowly circled the parking lot. The man in the back of the truck seemed to be scanning the area. For what, Mandy didn’t know.

There weren’t any markings on the truck that she could see.

The men looked like they might be from the United States Army, but she couldn’t get a good look at them.

She had a bad feeling in her stomach, and it wasn’t the beer she drank last night. She kept moving her face away from the window, worried that they would see her.

“What’s going on?” said Mrs. Kerns, starting to get up slowly from the couch.

“Shh,” whispered Mandy, waving her hand for Mrs. Kerns to stay where she was.

Mandy didn’t know who these men were or what they were doing here, but she had a feeling that it wouldn’t be good if they knew she was here… at least not until she knew what they were up to.

Max had finally gotten over his mild panic attack, or whatever you wanted to call it. He cursed himself under his breath for being weak. This wasn’t the time to freak out. This was the time for action, for making logical choices.

The rest of his coworkers were still up in the office. Max didn’t see a single person in the parking lot as he walked to his Jeep 4x4, an old but reliable car. He’d done all the recent repairs on it himself, and he knew he could rely on it in times like this.

The only thing was… would it start after an EMP?

Max was pretty sure it would. He’d spent too many hours online, reading about these sorts of things, and the general consensus seemed to be that the majority of cars would start after an EMP. Some newer cars might have electronics problems, but Max’s Jeep didn’t have any of that new fancy nonsense.

Still, despite how much he trusted the car, he breathed a sigh of relief as the engine roared to life when he turned the key in the ignition.

“There we go,” muttered Max, to the car as much as himself, as he pulled out of the parking lot.

Max was glad he hadn’t taken that job in the city. He shuddered to think what must be going on in Philly. Or what might happen in the coming days. If this was what Max was pretty sure it was, no food would be arriving. And in the city, plenty of people had guns… It would quickly descend into complete chaos as people who’d never experienced true hunger suddenly were cut off from their cheeseburgers and potato chips.

Out on the road, everything looked surprisingly normal.

Just the calm before the storm, thought Max.

There were one or two cars out along with Max. Pretty typical for this time of day, although normally there might be more.

The traffic lights were all out, but Max didn’t see any police doing normal traffic work. No, they’d be busier with other things.

Max flicked the radio on, expecting nothing but static. Instead, the radio didn’t even turn on. It was fried.

It was strange to feel so cut off . Max was something of a lone wolf in general, but in this moment, he felt more isolated than he ever had before. Seeing the dead faces of the office buildings and the stores was strange and eerie. And no one was out. That was the strangest thing. Normally there’d be people walking their dogs, going on jogs. Max didn’t see a single person walking around.

He drove slowly towards his apartment. He knew he didn’t have much time before things really started happening, but he also wanted to drive cautiously. The last thing he needed right now was some problem with the Jeep.

He knew it was only too easy to do something careless, like running over something unexpected in the road, especially when dealing with a stressful situation like this. The last thing he needed was for the Jeep to be out of commission. He had to get to the farmhouse in Lampton, PA, about eight hours away on a normal day. And this was not a normal day. Who know how long it would take for Max to make it there.

Max looked behind him in the rearview mirror. He could hear the sound of a big truck coming up behind him.

It passed him going about sixty miles an hour on what was normally a low-speed road. It was a military cargo truck, probably full of soldiers.