Ryan Westfield - Getting Out

“Well,” said the man. “We were running low on food over there, and I thought I’d come over to see if you had anything extra lying around…”

The man said he was a neighbor, but the more Jeremy thought about it, the more he was sure he had never seen the man in his life.

“Sorry,” said Jeremy. “But I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

“I work nights,” said the man. “Always at work, basically. If I’m not, I’m asleep. Tough life, but it is what it is.”

Jeremy nodded.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I literally don’t have a scrap of food in the house.”

“Ah,” said the man. “We’re really hungry, though. Do you mind if I have a look? Maybe there’s something you missed.”

“Uh,” said Jeremy. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing. I would have eaten it myself.”

“But just a look?” said the man.

There was a strange look to his eyes. Either Jeremy was just noticing it, or the man’s expression was changing, revealing his true character.

Jeremy was creeped out. He felt it in his stomach, a deep pit, a feeling of dread that simply wouldn’t go away.

“I think I’m going to take a look anyway,” said the man.

Jeremy didn’t know if he should stop him. It wasn’t like there was anything to find.

But he needed to stand up for himself. He knew that clearly. If he let this guy walk all over him now, who knew what would come next.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t like that very much,” said Jeremy, trying to couch his denial of the request in the most polite language he knew how to use.

The man started laughing. It was an eerie, horrible laugh.

He lifted the large raincoat he was wearing to reveal a pistol strapped in a holster to his belt. He took the pistol out slowly and carefully and held it in his hand, fondling it. He didn’t point it at Jeremy, but the intention was clear.

“How about I do it anyway?” said the man.

“Uh,” said Jeremy, his voice and body shaking from fear. “Sure, go ahead… Look, I don’t want any problems. Take whatever you what.”

The man disappeared into the kitchen, telling Jeremy to stay right where he was and not to move.

Jeremy didn’t know what to do. Should he flee, run out the front door? But where to?

If only his favorite chain restaurant was open. It had always been his safe haven, his point of retreat during the lunch hour of a tough day at the office, when nothing seemed to go his way.

Jeremy had driven by there before the roadblock, and it was closed, without any lights on. There was no way it would be open now, even with the most dedicated employees imaginable. Without power, there wasn’t anything. Nothing to eat. Nowhere to go.

Jeremy could hear the man rummaging around in his kitchen, knocking things over. He heard him tossing the pots and pans across the room, the ones that Jeremy had bought with his credit card but had never used.

The man returned within a couple minutes.

“No food,” he muttered, looking at Jeremy with hunger in his eyes.

“I’m sure the power will come back on,” said Jeremy. “This is just a little hiccup, you know?”

But he didn’t even convince himself.

The man shook his head.

“It’s over,” he said.

The words echoed in Jeremy’s memory. He’d heard someone else say those words. Recently. Now he remembered. It was Max. Max had said something like that at work.

Jeremy wondered what Max was doing now. Where had he rushed off to that day? How had he known that things would get so ugly so fast?

The man pulled the gun again from his holster and this time he pointed it at Jeremy.

“I know you’re hiding something… something good…”

Jeremy raised his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.

“I know you don’t think I’m really your neighbor,” said the man, his gun hand shaking slightly. “But it’s true, and I’ve got a family to feed. They’re hungry, and it’s only going to get worse. It’s every man for himself from now on. I’ve worked double and even triple shifts for years. I’ve held down two jobs at once. But you… I’ve watched you come and go, even when you haven’t seen me. It’s when I’m lying awake in the day, when I can’t sleep because of the light coming in and I can’t even afford to buy black out curtains. It doesn’t happen often, because usually I’m dead tired and I fall asleep… But sometimes the light and the anxiety gets to me. And I peek through my blinds and I see you… I see you in your fancy new car…”

Jeremy thought of his car. It wasn’t much good to him now, since the gas tank was empty. Even if the road blockade wasn’t there, he wouldn’t get far if gas stations didn’t work. He’d stopped at one on the way home from work that day, and he’d found that there wasn’t anything he could do to activate the pump. No matter which credit card he’d tried, the power was out and there was nothing to do about it.

“I see you in that car, your perfect house, while mine’s in shambles… I know you’ve got money. You must have food somewhere, or water. It’s just a little bit of hunger now, just a little nibble, but it’s going to grow. The hunger’s going to grow in the bellies of my children and there’s nothing that’s going to stop it… I don’t want to do this, but I’m prepared to kill you if it means giving food to my kids.”

“Please,” said Jeremy. “There’s no need to kill me… I’ll give you whatever you want…”

“Food,” said the man. “Water. Guns. Medical supplies.”

Jeremy had none of these.

He didn’t know what to say. If he said “no,” the man would think he was lying, and possibly shoot him in the arm or something to cause him enough pain to make him speak.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Jeremy.

“Do you have it or not?” said the man.

“I don’t,” said Jeremy.

The gun was pointed at him and he was experiencing the most anxiety and terror of his entire life. He’d never felt this bad, as if a hollow hole of dread was opening in his stomach, trying to swallow the rest of his body.

“Shit,” said the man, putting the gun down on the coffee table. He put his head in his hands and started emitting strange sounds.

Soon, Jeremy realized that the man was sobbing.

That was a dramatic turn of events, thought Jeremy to himself.

“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.