Ryan Westfield - Final Chaos

Ignoring the pain, she dashed forward. She threw herself into some tall hedges that lined the parking lot.

The voices were coming towards the car.

They must be the people who’d kidnapped her.

She wasn’t going to run away.

She wasn’t going to flee.

This wasn’t going to be like the last time, when the best she’d been able to do once it was all over was to rush away and never tell anyone.

No. She was done being a victim.

They’d pay for this.

She was vaguely aware that she wasn’t thinking clearly. She vaguely remembered that she was suffering from amnesia. And that this could be affecting her decision making.

But she brushed those thoughts away as she stepped forward from the bushes and brandished her Glock.

Her finger slipped into the trigger guard and rested against the trigger.

“Hands in the air,” she yelled. “Or I’ll shoot.”

Three figures swam slowly into focus in her blurry field of vision.

None of them moved.

“Hands above your heads,” she yelled again.

Six hands rose into the air slowly.

“Don’t do anything rash,” came a deep male voice.

The present events weren’t coming through to her clearly. She was dizzier than she’d realized.

She felt like she was going to pass out again.

“We’re not trying to hurt you. Just put the gun down and we can help you. We were just trying to get you to a hospital.”

“Who is she?”

“We’ll have to explain later.”

“Jim hit her with the car. She was going fast in the middle of the road.”

A fragment of a memory threatened to surface. Something about trying to get home. The cars were stopped in the middle of the road.

But why would they be?

It must have been a dream. Or a false memory.

Vaguely, as she stared at the three people, she became aware that they weren’t a threat. They didn’t have malice in their eyes like the ones who’d attacked her so long ago.

“Let me help you,” came a woman’s voice. She sounded kind and caring.

“Aly, don’t. She’s got a gun.”

“It’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be fine, isn’t it, dear?”

A woman was approaching her through the fog of her vision.

It didn’t seem like the woman would hurt her.

“Now let’s put that gun down, OK, dear?”

Jessica didn’t know what to do. She was caught up in the fear and the haziness and the confusion.

If only she could remember what was going on, maybe it would all make sense.

Aly was helping the young woman back into the Subaru. She’d taken the gun from her and talked to her in a soothing voice, telling her that everything was going to be OK in the end, that they were going to get her help.

The young woman still glared at Jim and Rob with suspicious, narrowed eyes. But she seemed more open to Aly.

“Glad to see she’s OK,” said Rob.

“I don’t think she’s out of the weeds yet.”

“She woke up. That’s a good sign.”

“She seems confused. I hope she didn’t suffer brain damage.”

“She was wearing a helmet.”

Jim nodded.

“So what are we going to do? Take her to the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” said Jim.

This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped it would go.

The whole situation was a mess.

Now that he had Aly, the entire weight of the situation fell heavily on him. He’d been focusing so much on just getting to her, that he’d been mentally ignoring the countless serious risks they now faced.

He cursed himself for not having a better plan. Before the EMP, he’d taken some private pride in believing that he understood the havoc an EMP could bring. He’d believed that he, unlike the others, was prepared.

Sure, he had his little bag of odds and ends in the Subaru. But that was about it.

Now that he was faced with the situation head on, he realized he really had nothing. No plan. No place to go.

And worst of all, everyone he cared about didn’t have the slightest idea what an EMP was.

Both his wife and Rob were completely uneducated. He’d have to explain it all to them.

And that would take time. Precious time.

Jim glanced at his watch.

The clock was ticking. The longer the city went without power or communication, the greater the panic would become.

Tensions would rise.

A riot was inevitable. It was just a question of how long they had.

Jim threw open the rear door and grabbed the woman’s bicycle. He thought about tossing it aside, to make room for everyone in the car, but then he thought better of it.

Who knew when or if they’d be able to refill the gas tank. A bicycle might be useful later on.

There was some rope in the back, underneath the upholstered floorboards, where the spare tire sat. Jim grabbed it and began lashing the road bike to the roof. Fortunately, there were bars that continued a sort of roof rack. Good for tying extra gear without having to run rope through the windows, making the doors inoperable.

Jim’s mind was stuck on what he should have done. How he should have prepared.

Sure, he’d known there were things with his plan he could have improved on. And he’d known that at the time. He’d known he’d need a place to head, more gear, more of a plan. But it had always felt like there was all the time in the world to get those pieces in place.

The biggest thing he’d neglected was simple education. If only he’d bothered to spend twenty minutes explaining the nature of an EMP and the aftermath to his wife, to Rob, even to his mother in law, this whole process would have been a lot smoother.

Jim got in the Subaru and cranked the engine, driving slowly out of the police station parking lot.

It was a strange sight, seeing it full of police cruisers, with no police in sight.

Jim’s mind set to working. He ignored the chatter in the car, the frantic voices of his wife and friend and the stranger.

He needed a plan.

All he needed to do was stay calm and stay logical.

The situation was a mess, completely the opposite of how he would have liked it to have gone.

He’d wasted precious time trying to find his wife, with the police station, and with the amnesiac girl.

Worst of all, his mother-in-law and the supplies were all the way across town.

And no one but Jim seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.

And he still had to figure out where they were going to go.

Well, one step at a time.

His plan for now was to pick up his mother in law and the supplies. He’d search through the house to find whatever else he could.

He would have liked to go back to his house to scrounge up whatever else he could. There was food in the fridge and some cans here and there. Not much, but it was something. And he might have had a couple extra flashlights, and some spare rounds.

But he didn’t like the idea of heading back into Rochester which was more densely populated than Pittsford.

No, it was better to get out of there.

Out of Pittsford. Out of the greater Rochester area.

And then they’d figure out where to go.

And how to live as society crumbled.

There was a chance that society would hold together, that they’d be able to rebuild before chaos took over.

But Jim wasn’t counting on it.

“How’s she doing back there?” said Jim, glancing into the rearview mirror at the woman he’d hit with his car.

“I think she needs to get to a hospital,” said Aly.

Jim shook his head. “There’s no time for that now,” he said.

“What the hell’s gotten into you, Jim? You’re not going to take a sick woman to the hospital?”

“If she has brain damage, there’s not much they’re going to be able to do for her. If she’s lost some memories, only time will bring them back. She’s alive and breathing. She’ll be safer with us.”