Ryan Westfield - Final Panic

“Shit,” muttered someone.

“Did I hit you?”

Rob felt his hand inching towards his gun.

Starting off by hitting the homeowner wasn’t exactly good. It wasn’t the first impression that Rob had hoped to make.

“Are you OK? Did I get you bad?”

He still couldn’t see who he’d accidentally hit.

“I’m fine, damnit. Get inside. I don’t like to keep the door open.”

It seemed strange, after so much trouble, to suddenly be allowed access to the home. Especially considering that they didn’t even ask him who he was, or whether or not he was armed.

There wasn’t much light near the door, and Rob stepped across the threshold, his eyes not yet adjusted to the new levels of light.

“Does it hurt?” said Rob.

“I’ve had worse. Don’t build yourself up too much, you’re not that strong. Hell, I could knock you down with a single punch if I had to. I doubt you could say the same.”

It was a man’s voice in the darkness. An old voice. But how old, Rob didn’t know.

Rob didn’t know what to make of the words. Were they meant as threats? As jokes? All bets were off in this new world. Anything could happen.

“Take a seat. Don’t wear out your shoes. You’re probably going to need them at some point. Now what’s this all about? Wait, just know that we’re not going to feed you. You’re on your own with that, young man.”

Rob was more and more starting to feel like he was speaking to a man who had to be at least in his eighties.

The man was talking almost nonstop, not giving Rob a chance to speak.

“Well, what are you waiting for? There’s a couch right behind you. Don’t tell me you’re going to try to rob us. Because if that’s the case, you’d better just walk out the door now. Lonnie’s got a 12-gauge trained on you from the other room. Isn’t that right, Lonnie?”

A woman’s voice answered from the other room. “That’s about right, Danny.”

Rob didn’t want to seem like a threat, so he backed up, still not able to see anything, until the backs of his legs bumped into the cushioned couch.

He fell back onto it and was surprised to find that it was an unusually comfortable couch. His body instantly felt more relaxed. The furnishings of the lake house had, of course, been the last thing on his mind. But suddenly he realized that they were far from the best available.

“Now there’s a candle around here somewhere. I can’t see anything. Lonnie, where’d you put those candles?”

“They’re where you left them.”

“You had them last.”

“I saw you with them earlier today.”

“That was yesterday. Don’t start losing your mind on me, Danny.”

There was a bunch of noise, papers being moved about, drawers being opened. Finally, the noise of a match being struck and then the glow of a candle that illuminated the old man’s face.

Rob had been right. Well, probably. Danny looked like he was in his late eighties. And in pretty good shape. His shoulders were square, and he stood tall. He looked like the sort of man who had spent at least a few decades doing some serious manual labor.

Rob watched as Danny settled himself into a rocking chair, holding the candle in front of him, which flickered in the drafty house.

Rob could see a little over the surrounding room, and more as his eyes adjusted. It reminded him of his grandparents’ house, and other older relatives. There were framed photographs, cute little saucers and plates everywhere, and a piano that looked like it was used regularly.

“So what’s this all about?” said Danny.

“Well,” said Rob, starting to speak.

“Wouldn’t you like some tea?” interrupted Lonnie, from the other room.

It seemed strange to be offered tea by a woman who was supposed to be pointing a shotgun at him. But Rob was getting used to strange things and strange circumstances.

“Come on, kid, have a cup of tea.”

“Uh, all right, sure, I guess,” muttered Rob.

“I’ll get the water boiling,” came Lonnie’s voice.

Rob heard her leaving the room, presumably to enter the kitchen. He didn’t hear her putting down a shotgun. He figured that it’d be pretty difficult to start making tea with a shotgun in hand, so he figured that there really was no shotgun. Not that he was going to say anything. If they didn’t have a gun, that was fine with him. It was smart, actually, to pretend to have one.

But it did give Rob an idea.

“You want me to hand over my gun?” said Rob. “That way you know for sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

Danny nodded stiffly at him. “That’d be fine,” he said. There was something in his voice that made Rob think that Danny had wished that he’d come up with that idea himself. But obviously Danny and Lonnie were just regular people, people who in their past life hadn’t had to deal with threats of violence or the threat of home intruders. They were making do the best they could now.

They seemed like nice, ordinary people. Rob hoped they’d be able to hold out. But he didn’t think it was realistic. After all, the hordes would be coming, looking for the lowest-hanging fruit.

Rob was acutely aware that he was in a hurry. In a way, he felt like when he’d visited some elderly relatives before the EMP. He’d always been a hurry to head off to the bar, or to meet up with some friends, feeling like he was trapped there in the stuffy rooms that were decorated in styles that dated back decades.

But he also knew that he needed to gain more of Danny and Lonnie’s trust before they’d tell him what he needed to know.

He tried to bottle the anxiety deep down, stuffing it away somewhere, knowing that he needed to be patient.

“So, you’ve been doing OK since the EMP?” Rob ventured to say.

“We’re fine here,” said Danny. “We’ve got everything we need. But now don’t you get any ideas.” He took Rob’s gun, which he offered to him with the safety on, handle first, and placed it on a small table near him, muzzle pointing at the wall.

“Like I said before,” said Rob. “I’m just looking for my friend. You see, we’re over by the lake.”

“The lake? Which one? There are lakes all over the place.”

“Uh…” said Rob, completely blanking on the name of the lake. He felt like he was back at one of those horrible job interviews where he couldn’t answer the easy questions about former employers and his checkered history of parole violations and DUIs.

Fortunately, Danny just went on talking, not waiting for an answer. “We used to vacation by a lake up in Michigan every year. It got to be too much, you know how it is, I’d imagine. Getting all the gear ready, making sure the car’s in good working order. Not to mention getting the time off work. I used to work in the mill around here. Not that you’d know much about it. You never hear a word about it these days. Closed down a few years back. Worked my way up to foreman…”

“There you go, going on and on, dear,” interrupted Lonnie, appearing in the room for the first time. She might have been several years younger than Danny. There was something about her face and hairstyle that reminded Rob of a great aunt of his that had died a few years back.

She held a tray with three teacups on saucers neatly arranged on it. She served one to Rob who took the teacup carefully with both hands.

Tentatively, he took a sip.

“Wow,” he said. “That’s delicious. I can’t remember when the last time I had tea was…”

“It’s imported,” said Lonnie, settling down on a nearby armchair and taking a sip of her own tea. “I got sick of the stuff in the supermarket.”

“This is a lot better, that’s for sure,” grunted Danny.

Rob didn’t mention the shotgun that Lonnie was supposed to be keeping trained on him.