Ryan Westfield - Final Chaos

She waited, counting the seconds.

It sounded like she’d hit whoever it’d been out there.

But there was no way to know if they were dead or not. They’d fallen out of view, hidden by the evergreens. It’d be best to find them, finish them off. As of now, they were still a potential threat.

But there were four more Carpenters out there. She couldn’t waste any time. Best to get them all as far out of commission as possible.

Jessica weighed her options.

Stay in the house. Go out the door. Or go out the window.

Self-preservation told her to stay.

Her duty told her to get out there. Help Rob.

If Rob fell, she knew she and Aly wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d be outnumbered.

Jessica knew that overestimating her own ability could easily see her dead.

She needed to be cautious. But more importantly, she needed Rob alive.

There were five Carpenters. Down to four now, probably. That meant someone was probably out there. They’d heard the gunshots. They’d expect her to be coming for the door.

Now they’d be in position.

Jessica made a split second decision to go for the window on the other side of the house.

She threw the door closed, threw the deadbolt, and pushed a chair up against it, tilting it so that it rested underneath the doorknob. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

She opened and got herself out of it, but not without checking the surroundings. She saw no one and heard nothing.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, she reached up and closed the window. It wasn’t locked, but it was better than nothing to have it closed.

She broke into a run heading straight for the trees.

The house was the target. But if she stayed close to the house, she’d be out in the open while the Carpenters picked her off from the trees.

The only thing to do was to get into the trees herself, and then pick off the Carpenters as they tried to approach the house.

Easier said than done, though.

She was running as hard as she could. The rifle stock was slapping against her back painfully.

She was tired and exhausted and sleep deprived, but adrenaline was coursing through her. Her body was doing everything it could to give her the strength she needed to survive another minute, another hour, maybe even another day.

She was almost to the trees.

Her sneaker caught on something.

A root.

She tripped and fell forward.

Her left hand dampened the fall. But not enough.

Her face hit a rock. Hard. Pain flared through her. She tasted blood. It was flowing freely from her face.

She got up quickly, ignoring everything, and made it behind a drooping evergreen bough.

Good. She was out of view.

She heard the noise too late.

She saw him too late.

It was one of the Carpenters. One of the sons. She recognized his mean face, plastered with that mean look. The look that said he was going to do whatever he had to do, kill whoever he had to kill, in order to feed his family.

That look would be on faces across the nation now. That look would be the last look that countless saw before they died.

He was already raising his rifle.

She reacted without thinking, pivoting slightly and unloading three quick rounds from her Glock without taking aim, shooting almost from the hip.

Two of the bullets missed.

The third struck Carpenter. Or grazed him. She didn’t know.

It wasn’t a good shot.

The bullet had hit his forearm. Blood was coming out.

He yelped in pain, a high-pitched sound that didn’t seem fitting for the situation.

He got off a shot with his rifle.

It missed. But not by much. She felt a whoosh as it passed her.

Jessica was raising her Glock for a good clean final shot.

But he wasn’t going down without a fight.

He screamed something unintelligible as he rushed her, sprinting forward at her with everything he had.

He got to her before she could get off another shot.

It was all happening so fast.

This wasn’t like at the firing range.

Nothing in her training had prepared her for this.

His tall body, much bigger than hers, crashed into her, knocking the Glock off track.

Her finger pulled the trigger. The Glock kicked. But the bullet went off into the air.

Her back hit the ground hard, knocking the breath from her lungs.

There was blood on her face and blood on his arm, all of it mixing together in the struggle.

His mean face was inches from hers.

They struggled together for position.

But he was bigger. And stronger.

His fist slammed into the side of her face.

Now her shoulder.

She couldn’t overpower him.

Now he was going for the Glock.

Her hand still held it, but the muzzle was pointed harmlessly off to the side.

Both his hands grabbed the gun, and he pulled hard.

She held onto it, but her wrist twisted and she yelled in pain.

She didn’t have many options.

Any second now he’d wrench the Glock free from her hands.

She had to think of something.

She had to outsmart him. Outmaneuver him.

Jim fell into the corpse. Pain flared through his back.

The corpse broke his fall.

His hand was still around his Ruger, clutching it tightly.

Blood from the corpse was all over him.

There was a grunt behind him. Sounded like a man.

Jim shifted his weight as hard as he could, spinning himself around.

The ground was wet and slippery with blood.

Finally, he saw the face of his attacker.

The man was coming at him with a piece of some kind of tubing. Probably metal, by the way it had felt.

The light was dim. The flashlight had been dropped to the floor, illuminating some useless corner.

Jim pulled the trigger. The gun kicked.

The bullet struck the man in the stomach. He grunted in pain, but didn’t scream.

And he didn’t drop to the ground.

But it gave Jim the time he needed. He rose up, his boots slick on the bloody floor. But he got to his feet. Unsteady from the pain. His vision shaky and slightly blurred.

Jim didn’t have endless rounds for the Ruger.

The man would bleed out like that. He’d die a horrendous death.

The man staggered forward, towards Jim, who took a step to the side. The man swung the pipe again, but it missed wildly. His eyes were wide and he looked startled, fearful, and intensely angry. His eyes seemed to bore into Jim with nothing but hatred.

The man didn’t seem human.

He seemed like an animal. Ready to take someone else down with him, knowing that he was going to die and not caring anymore what the fight was for or what it was about.

Jim stepped to the side again, easily avoiding the next swing of the pipe.

Jim had to put him out of his misery. Otherwise it meant hours of agony. Intense agony.

But he didn’t want to waste another round.

The right thing to do wasn’t easy anymore. Now that society had fallen, the right thing to do meant something different than it had.

Jim reached into his pocket for his knife, took it out and flicked it open in a single, swift motion.

Jim knew he owed this man nothing. If Jim let him, the man would kill him without hesitation.

But there was something human left in the man. Not long ago, he’d been a member of society on some level. He’d been someone with a name, a social security number, probably a credit card or two.

Jim knew that he himself wasn’t that far away from falling into it all himself, letting the animal survival instinct takeover. A few weeks without food and he’d be just as deranged.

Jim needed to hang onto his humanity.

In whatever way he knew how.

And in this case, it meant slitting this man’s throat to put him out of his misery, to give him, if not a painless death, at least a swift one.