Ryan Westfield - Final Chaos

Rob was right. There were empty bottles of alcohol everywhere, mostly big bottles of vodka, which Jordan must have switched to sometime in the last few years.

There were also cans of beer, and plenty of empty wrappers of fast food.

“It’s a good thing we brought the food we did,” said Jessica, opening up some of the cabinets. “There’s hardly anything in here.”

“Looks like he was eating most of his meals out,” said Jim, thinking of the fast food wrappers. “Come on. Let’s bring everything inside.”

Jessica and Rob disappeared out the front door, and Aly hung back for a moment with Jim, tugging on his arm in a sweet, intimate kind of way. She hadn’t done anything like that in a long time, and Jim suddenly felt the pain again of the separation.

“What happens if my uncle comes back?” she said. “Don’t you think he will?”

“You don’t think he’ll want us here?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say with him.”

“Well,” said Jim. “If everything collapses, he wouldn’t survive here on his own. We’re bringing the food. He’ll just have to consider it a trade. Services and food for shelter. It is his house, after all, and we can’t kick him out if he shows up. But something tells me he won’t.”

“You think something will happen to him?” She spoke in a soft, worried voice.

Jim just looked at her and didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.

Aly said something else, but Jim wasn’t listening. Her words ran over him like water. He was lost in thought for a moment.

“Listen,” said Jim. “I’m sorry about your mom. But there’s going to be plenty of time to process it. We need to get to work now. And we need all hands on deck. You think you’re going to be able to help?”

“Yeah,” said Aly, simply, adding nothing more.

“I know we’ve had our issues over the last few weeks,” said Jim. “But this is way more important than any of that. So we’re going to have to get along. We can’t let our arguments put our lives in danger. Agreed?”

Aly nodded.

The front door swung open and Rob appeared, carrying the duffel bag and one of the loaded down trash bags.

“Coming through,” he said. “A lot of food here. Open up the freezer, would you, Jim?”

“Not sure it’s going to do much good,” said Jim, looking down to see that the refrigerator had been unplugged. “Looks like Uncle Jordan was planning on being away for a while. I bet he emptied it all.”

Sure enough, the fridge and freezer were empty.

“We’ll just plug it back in,” said Rob. “What’s the problem? And hurry up, this shit is heavy.”

It only took a moment before Rob realized just how dumb what he’d said was.

“Oh yeah,” he muttered, his face flushing still visible in the low light. “Well then, what are we going to do with all this food?”

“Keep it here for now,” said Jim. “It’s a little cooler than outside. We’ll think of something. We’ll probably have to start eating the perishables first, saving everything else for later.”

“What about the lake?” said Aly.

“The lake?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cold. Couldn’t we use the temperature somehow to keep the food cool?”

“I don’t know,” said Jim. “You mean submerging the food in water somehow?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“I don’t know,” said Jim. “We’d have to have a waterproof container.”

“Like a trash bag?”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know. Let’s think about it. It seems risky to me. We’re going to be pretty low on food as it is. I don’t know if we can risk it. What we’ll do is spread it all out and count everything up and make an estimate on how long it would take us to eat what. The frozen stuff will last a little longer than what was in the fridge.”

Jim headed back out to the Subaru. With everyone else, he made a couple more runs into the house, dropping gear in the little clear space there was on the living room floor. “We’re going to have to clear away these bottles if we want to get organized,” he said, to no one in particular.

But it didn’t matter. He was already the de facto leader.

He knew the most, in some ways.

But he didn’t know everything.

He didn’t know what would happen. He didn’t know what the future held.

In the best case scenario, society wouldn’t erupt into complete and violent chaos.

But he wasn’t holding out a lot of hope.

He knew that the power grid and communication networks weren’t going to come back online anytime soon. It would take a Herculean effort to do so. And plenty of time.

And that was time that society didn’t have.

When the Subaru was fully unloaded, they all stood for a moment in the living room, looking at the intense mess.

“All right,” said Jim. “Aly and Rob, you two clear away those bottles. Jessica, you start sorting out the gear.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” said Rob, pushing some bottles off of an armchair and settling down into it. The bottles clattered to the floor, one of them shattering. Rob put his feet up on a nearby stool, sending another bottle rolling to the floor. “I thought we were all set once we got here.”

Jessica sighed.

That was good.

At least she understood.

“Get this in your heads right now, all of you. The worst is yet to come.”

“Come on,” said Rob. “You’re just being dramatic.”

“Dramatic? Didn’t you see us fighting for our lives?”

“Yeah,” said Rob. “I did, and that was terrifying. But we lived through it. And now we’re out of the city, just where you said we had to get. Now we’re safe and we just wait it out.”

“Get this through your head right now,” said Jim. “The entire population of the Rochester area isn’t just going to suddenly keel over and die. They’re going to fight each other for food, water, and medical supplies. That’s assuming the systems don’t come back on, and I don’t think they will…”

“And then they’re going to leave the city,” said Aly, cutting Jim off and finishing his thought for him.

“Exactly,” said Jim, glad that his wife was getting it. “It’s not like all the cars don’t work. And, plus, people can walk and ride bikes. Even horses, like the cop we saw. We’re a little far back from the road and lake, but we’re not invisible. We’re going to have visitors, violent ones. It’s just a matter of how long it takes them to get here, and how many of them there are.”

“So what do we do?” said Rob, fear coming into his voice. Despite his huge frame, he could be like a little kid inside sometimes. “We’re screwed then, right? We’ve already got to worry about having to eat, and now we’ve got to worry about attacks or something?”

“We prepare,” said Jim. “It’s that simple. Now get to work.”

“And what are you going to do?” said Aly.

“I’m going for a walk,” said Jim.

“A walk?” said Rob, almost spitting out his words. “What about all this preparing? You really think this is a good time to take a little stroll?”

“I’m not just going for a walk,” said Jim. “I’m going to scout out the surroundings. We’d be foolish to bunker down in here without knowing what’s immediately around us. Aly, do you remember who any of the neighbors are? Or if they’re vacation homes or full-timers?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I think most of the houses are part-timers. Or they’re rented out. The only full-timers other than my uncle are the Carpenters.”

“The Carpenters?”

“It’s their last name. Two or three kids, I think. They’re kind of a weird family. Tight knit and secretive. I don’t really remember them well. But I think they got in a fight with my uncle once.”