Ryan Westfield - Getting Out

“OK,” he said. “Get everything else that might be useful. Nothing electronic. Do a quick sweep of the apartment. Five minutes, OK? You’ve got five minutes. I’ll hit the kitchen and grab all the food. You know where the other things are. Remember: you’re looking for flashlights…”

“I got it,” said Mandy.

Max was surprised to see her move quickly and rapidly. She went right into the bedroom, and he watched her for a moment through the doorway. She moved efficiently through the drawers.

Max looked around the kitchen. It was a mess. But there was food.

He did the refrigerator first, then the freezer. They could eat the perishable goods first, and then move on to the canned things.

He found a huge bag of stale rice under the sink, as well as a huge pot roast in the freezer. It had freezer burn on it, but that didn’t matter. Mandy actually had quite a few cans of beef soup, and Max made a couple trips down to his Jeep to stock up.

Outside in the parking lot, the light from the day was already getting low. This little incident with Mandy had taken more time than he’d realized. Of course, the lights were off everywhere, in every building. Max wondered briefly about home generators, and whether or not they would work. But it didn’t matter.

Even though the sun was still partially in the sky, the town looked darker than Max had ever seen it. There was no light pollution. He’d have to get used to this.

“OK,” said Mandy, appearing by his side with a couple duffel bags. “I think I got some good stuff.”

Max nodded at her.

“Let’s go,” he said, stuffing the bags into the back seat. The Jeep was almost full at this point.

“Wait,” said Mandy. “There’s Mrs. Kerns… What’s she going to do?”

“She’ll be fine,” muttered Max. He knew that she wouldn’t be fine, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

He looked at Mrs. Kerns. He’d seen her before, and spoken to her briefly. It wasn’t her age that made him make the decision—for one thing, there simply wasn’t room in the Jeep. And the main thing was that she wasn’t in good health. She simply wouldn’t make it.

“Get in the car,” said Max. “Just wave at her.”

Mrs. Kerns stood unsteadily in front of the building, mouthing something at Mandy.

Max ignored her, put the Jeep into reverse, and backed up quickly.

Soon, they were out on the dark road. There were a few cars here and there, cars that seemed to move aimlessly, as if their drivers didn’t know where to go or what they were doing.

“I feel so bad leaving her back there,” said Mandy. “I hope she’ll be OK.”

Max didn’t say anything.

“So,” said Mandy. “How long do you think until this all boils over?”

“Boils over?”

“You know, calms down.”

“It’s not going to calm down,” said Max. “This is it…”

“What do you mean ‘this is it?’”

“I mean,” said Max. “Exactly what I said. There’s no turning back now.”

“What?” said Mandy, sounding shocked and worried.

“Look,” said Max. “People have studied this. Society isn’t as robust as we’d like to think. All it takes is one event. Something just like this.”

“I mean you said it would devolve… or whatever word you used. But I thought you meant things would get crazy for a couple weeks.”

Max laughed. It was the first time he’d laughed in a while. He shook his head.

“It’s not like that,” he said. “I mean, study civilizations… past civilizations. Everything looks fine, and then something happens. The event doesn’t matter. It’s how people react that matters.”

“You’re crazy,” said Mandy.

Max didn’t say anything.

“Did I get in the car with some crazy guy?” she said. She sounded more like she was thinking out loud than speaking to Max.

“Look,” said Max. “I don’t care what you think of me. I know what I’m doing, and that’s getting to this farmhouse. I want to be as far away from large groups of people as I can. There’re the real danger. You don’t want to be around them. Either come with me, or get out right now. I don’t want to take you halfway there. It’ll be too late, and I’m not turning around.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment.

“I know you’re not crazy,” she said quietly. “I saw it in your face.”

That sounded like some hippie bullshit to Max, but he’d seen the way she’d studied him. There was something to it. She could read people, and she was intuitive. That might be valuable when paired with Max’s more practical skills. Although, now that he started thinking about it, he might not be so useful after all. When was the last time he’d started a fire in the woods, or hunted game? He remembered going hunting once as a kid, and he didn’t shoot anything. He’d just wandered around the woods for a day with his dad. His dad got drunk and Max had had to take the rifle away from him.

“So you’re coming?”

“Yeah,” said Mandy. “I guess I don’t want to believe it… I mean, I know you’re not crazy, but I’m not so sure you’re right about everything collapsing… I mean, that just seems so…”

“Believe what you want,” said Max. “Anyway,” he added more quietly, “I hope you’re right. I really do.”

Max didn’t want to take the highways. He didn’t know what the police would be doing on them. He hadn’t seen any more roadblocks like the one earlier. Who knew what was happening to the police force that had no radios and no way of communicating with themselves? Would they even be able to stay organized for a short time?

“Wow!” said Mandy loudly. “Look! That’s crazy.”

Max looked to where she was pointing. The night was upon them now. The sun was fully down. The night was dark, the darkest night either of them had ever seen.

They were passing by a grocery store.

Flashlights were illuminating the area. Dozens, if not hundreds, of flashlights. Not just a couple. They were shining all around haphazardly, chaotically.

“What’s going on?” said Mandy. “There must be dozens of people there.”

“Looting,” said Max, as he surveyed the scene quickly before putting his eyes back on the road.

“Looting? Are you serious?”

The window was down, and they could hear shouting.

“You want to see?” said Max, slowing to a stop. He was about a hundred yards down the road from the store. He kept the engine idling.

He knew they had to keep moving, but he also knew it would be useful to see how people were reacting.

How would people react when the shit hit the fan? That was the big question that had been debated endlessly on internet forums.

Max knew enough to know he didn’t have it all figured out. But he figured that different people would react differently. That is, until, the mob mentally drew them all together.

If people were already mobbing on the first night, that wasn’t a good sign. Things might be devolving into chaos faster than Max had suspected. He’d figured on at least a night of good driving to get father out, away from the more densely populated areas.

“Can you see them?” said Mandy, peering into the rearview mirror. “They’re acting crazy.”

“Yeah,” said Max. “It’s happening faster than I thought.”

“Maybe you’re right about all this,” said Mandy. “They’re all yelling at once.”

“Look,” said Max. “A fight’s breaking out.”

One man was punching another. Mostly everyone was ignoring it. They were too intent on getting into the store.

“This is…”

“Crazy?” said Max.

The man getting punched went down to the ground. The big man who’d been punching him was on top of him, beating him relentlessly.