Ryan Westfield - Final Panic

The day had been a long and gray one. The sun wasn’t yet setting, but the light was already getting low.

Jim had already been through his second and third wind. He didn’t have a fourth one in him.

But he still ran.

He was pushing with everything he had. His stomach was empty. His throat was dry from not drinking anything in ages. His head ached and his vision was blurry around the edges.

He kept his eyes focused on the RV.

And somehow, as he kept running, he was getting closer to the RV. It wasn’t just a little speck at the very edge of what he could see. It was getting bigger. Slowly, yes, but surely.

Had the RV stopped?

He kept running, and after a couple minutes, he was sure that the RV had stopped. He was getting closer with each step. He just had to push.

By the time he got there, he felt like he might collapse right onto the ground.

The RV was just sitting there, parked with two wheels off the road and two wheels on it.

Jim had his gun in his hand. His finger was inside the trigger guard. Right on the trigger. Already putting just the slightest bit of pressure on it. Maybe not the best practice. But these weren’t the safest of circumstances. His life might depend on a split-second reaction.

Jim pushed the door open. It swung wildly and slammed into something.

Someone screamed. A woman’s voice.

Jim leveled the gun, holding it with both hands. His legs were shaking, and so were his arms. But he tried to keep everything steady, spreading his legs shoulder-width apart.

Aly was on the floor in the space that functioned as the kitchen. She was face-down, with ropes binding her.

Jim recognized the other two people. They were the creepy couple he’d encountered earlier. He should have known they’d be trouble. Maybe he had known.

The woman had her hands in the air. She’d been the one who’d screamed.

The man didn’t react at all. He looked like he was on drugs, with his face going all droopy in a weird way. “I thought you’d never come,” he slurred. “Now we can really have some fun. Put that silly gun down and come join us on the bed. We’ll untie this woman when she’s ready. She looks like she’d be plenty of fun. Don’t you think?”

From the ground, Aly let out a muffled scream of “Help me.” Her face was pressed against the floor.

Meanwhile, the woman still had her hands in the air. But she wasn’t standing still. She was inching towards the small microwave and the kitchen sink.

Jim’s mind was jumpy with fatigue. His body was switching between feeling like he might fall asleep and as if he was pumped up on adrenaline. He was shaky and felt like he might simply collapse, no matter what state his mind was in.

He saw her hand moving in a jumpy way, as if it was lit by a strobe light. But he wasn’t going to let his fatigue interfere.

She already had the kitchen knife in her hand.

Jim was acting slowly.

But it wasn’t too late.

Jim trained the gun on her. Pulled the trigger.

She fell to the ground, the knife clattering somewhere on the floor.

Aly cried out, not able to see what was happening.

The man on the bed was somehow no longer on the bed.

Jim must have been really losing it. Losing his mind to extreme exhaustion.

The man was almost at Jim, his face contorted into some insanely intense emotion. He was scrambling, his arms flailing.

Jim was barely keeping it together. He was just getting flashes of what was happening, all of it jumbling together like a bad dream.

But he knew what he had to do.

His muscle memory wasn’t going to let him down. All those hours at the target range had been for something, after all.

The gun was as steady as it was going to get. It was aimed right at the man, who was inches away from Jim.

Jim squeezed the trigger.

The man fell. Right at Jim’s feet.

Jim didn’t know if he was dead. So he gave the body a kick to see if it would respond. It did. The man grunted in pain. Jim pressed the gun into the man’s temple and pulled the trigger.

Now he was dead.

Next, Jim moved to the woman. She was already dead. Blood was pooling up around her.

Jim grabbed the kitchen knife from the floor and cut Aly loose. She smelled like fire, and there was soot all over her. She looked exhausted and in pain.

Jim pulled her to her feet.

“You OK?” he said.

She nodded. “I was expecting you.”

“Sorry if I was late.”

“I’m fine. You came just in time.”

“The others? Were they in the house?”

“Rob and Jessica… they were gone… don’t know where… It was just Jordan. He was passed out. I tried to… I couldn’t…”

Jim put his arm around his wife and held her close to him. They were both unsteady on their feet, but somehow they managed to remain standing.

“What do we do now?” said Aly.

“I don’t know.”

Rob was feeling a little better. He hadn’t really hit his head that hard. Instead, it had just been the shock of the accident that had somehow made his brain go all weird and fuzzy. He was annoyed and upset at himself. He felt like he’d been weak.

Jessica had tried to convince him that it wasn’t the case, but eventually she got annoyed of constantly trying to make him feel better, and they spent the next couple of hours walking together in silence back to the lake house.

The motorcycle had not been salvageable. So they’d just opted to leave it there along with the Subaru.

They’d taken what few items from the Subaru that might prove useful sometime in the future: some flares, a knife that had been in the glove box, two LED flashlights, and a couple of energy bars that Jim had apparently stashed by the spare tire years ago, forgetting about them. They were a few years past the expiration date, not that it mattered in times like these. They might end up tasting a little stale, but it’d still work for calories.

It was night now, the sun having set hours ago. There was a chill to the air. They walked along the roadside, and not a single car passed.

It was a dark night. The clouds were out, and they had to use their flashlights to see. But they didn’t keep them on all the time. Instead, they just flicked them on when they needed. This way, they’d preserve the batteries, and also make themselves less visible for whoever might be out there.

It was strange, passing houses that were completely dark. They should have been used to it by now, but they weren’t. Or at least Rob wasn’t. Jessica wasn’t talking, after all.

Jessica was good with directions, and she led them.

Finally, after what seemed like an entire day of walking, but had really just been several hours, they were getting close to the lake.

It felt good to almost be back. Rob’s legs were aching just from the walk alone. He couldn’t remember a time that he’d walked this much, let alone on so few calories.

Before the EMP, he’d been content to lounge on the couch, throwing back a couple beers, watching whatever happened to be on. He’d really liked watching nature shows, the ones where they show animals savagely devouring each other. Back then, the natural world had been something to marvel at, not something to participate in.

Now Rob and his friends were just like those animals. They were going to eat or be eaten. Not literally, of course. Well, so long as things didn’t get really bad. Not that Rob would ever do that. The idea repulsed him. But he wouldn’t put it past others. People were sick and messed up, no matter who they were or where they came from. Rob had known that for a long time. At every job he’d ever managed to hold onto for a couple weeks, he’d inevitably find that some normal-seeming coworker was, in fact, nothing more than a psychopath in disguise. Or, at the very least, someone with very serious problems.