John O'Brien - Chaos

I grab the flashlight and spin around toward the front entrance, going to my knee and bringing my gun to bear. My light stabs out toward the entrance. I am just in time to see a strobe-like light flash and another gunshot sounds rolls through the interior. I don’t see Robert or Michelle as the wall to the jewelry store blocks my view of the front doors. I see both of their lights are flashing over the clothes section where Robert was covering. “What is it?” I call out.

“I saw something moving over by the clothes racks,” Robert calls back. “I think there were a couple of them.”

“I’m coming out,” I say and walk to the entrance, panning my light once around my area and then focusing it over to where theirs are flashing.

My light catches something lying on the ground under and next to a section of clothes racks. I can’t really make out what it is but it does resemble a shoulder or something similar.

“Anyone there?” I call out circling around to the right to get a clearer look.

No answer. I continue to circle around. “Did you hit anything?” I ask panning my light to check out the area to my side and behind me.

I look over to Robert and Michelle who are holding the front doors open with their bodies with their lights and guns pointed into the area I am circling toward.

“I think so but I’m not sure,” Robert answers.

“Michelle, cover the area behind me to your right,” I say and see her switch her positions. Her light momentarily flashes over me as it transitions behind me.

I approach whatever is lying on the ground. It is definitely a shoulder with pale skin but not the pale gray skin of the things I saw yesterday. The body is wearing some kind of light halter top. I also see what appears to be another body on the ground next to the first one. The head must be at an awkward angle as I can’t see it or any hair. And, if they were hit, where’s the blood? A sudden flash of understanding goes off in my head; the light bulb comes on shining brightly. I chuckle and then my flashlight wavers as this turns into a full blown laugh.

“What?” Robert asks confusedly. “What?”

“And the score after a round one is Robert — 2, Mannequins — 0,” I call back noticing they were actually pretty nice shots from that distance with a .45. It looks like he hit the mannequin closest to me in the neck, turning it into dust and launching the head somewhere off into the darkness. I don’t venture closer to the other one to find out where he hit.

“”You’re kidding!” He calls over. “But I saw it move.”

“Trick of the darkness.”

I start back toward them and catch a trickle of movement out of the corner of my eye. I drop to my knee once again, focusing my light toward where I caught the flash of movement. My light focuses on the end of a row of shelves and such where underwear and socks hang on display.

“What the hell!?” I whisper trying to focus my eyes sharper.

Yes, I talk to myself quite a bit. I swear I am looking at part of a hand poking out slightly from the end of the shelf about twenty five feet away. I am at an almost right angle to the shelf unit so I can’t see down the aisle much. Really not at all. It looks like the pale fingers of a hand poking out in an almost sprinters start position. Fingertips on the ground; fingers rigid and palm raised. A thought crosses that perhaps Robert’s second round hit the arm and the hand flew over there. Possible perhaps. But what moved then?

I start to rise from my knee to a crouching position when I see the hand move back slightly into the aisle. Not much, just an inch or two. Okay, I’m outta here , I think rising the rest of the way and back toward the front doors.

“There’s something back there,” I mention as arriving at the doors. “I think you maybe did see something. Nice job.”

“What is it?” Michelle asks as we step out into the shadow of the building and let the front doors swing shut.

“I don’t know and I’m not all that keen on finding out.”

“Time check?” I ask as we step towards Nicole and Bri. “Oh, wait. I don’t need to ask that anymore,” I say reaching into my pocket and pull out my new watch.

I see the hands move as it automatically synchs up. As long as the satellites stay in place, we will have auto time. I don’t how long we’ll have the use of satellites but I don’t think it will be for much longer. Satellite orbits decay fairly quickly if they don’t get their boosts to help them stay in orbit. Even if those boosts are set automatically, they will eventually run out of fuel, fall back towards Earth, and burn up in the atmosphere. I set the watch for Greenwich Time on the digital display and the analog time for Pacific. The watch hands wind to 07:27. Time to head north.

We head out of the parking lot and catch the Interstate northbound. We have about a thirty minute drive north to McChord providing the roads stay clear and all goes well. The sun continues its climb across the cloudless summer sky. A sky devoid of any human activity. As motionless as the roads below. I have only witnessed such a sky devoid of any contrails once before and that was on a fateful September day years ago. It is amazing just how much sensory input we notice yet on a more subconscious level. A certain piece here and another there; forming a picture of our reality at any given moment. We know what should be there and our mind automatically forms it. We know birds should be flying around but we don’t really see them. But take a piece out and we notice. Our subconscious notifies our conscious that it needs to be aware of something. And then there is the part that filters out things so bizarre that it just automatically drops them. We have to train our minds to bring those filtered aspects back in.

A couple of miles into our northbound journey, I notice cars lining up in the right hand lane. At first there were no cars and then suddenly, a traffic jam of cars all in the right lane. I slow and pull over into the right middle lane with the Interstate being four lanes wide at this point. I look into the rearview and see Robert mimicking my lane change. We proceed a little further and soon the middle right lane begins filling with abandoned cars. There are some with their doors open but not in one of them do I actually see anyone. I move over to the far left lane. We are separated from the southbound lanes by a concrete divider and there is only the random car off the road or on the shoulder in those lanes. This is a puzzling but we continue north, hoping the road does not become completely blocked.

The abandoned cars now begin to fill the lane next to us as we drive further north. It appears like they were trying to edge into the far right lanes, like you find at rush hour when a lane becomes blocked ahead and vehicles have to merge into one less lane. I slow way down. Again, I don’t see anyone; alive or otherwise. I imagine if the Christian rapture were to ever happen, then this is what it would look like. No, I take that back. There are far too many people gone.

We proceed along this strange procession until, up ahead, I see the traffic jam has continued up the ramp of the next exit. Cars are completely blocking all lanes of the ramp and I see the jam continuing across the overpass. Again, the light bulb brings clarity to the fog of the unknown. This is the exit to the hospital. Okay, note to self: the hospital areas and roads leading to it will most likely be blocked. I imagine all the roads leading to the hospital are blocked like this. The on ramp to the southbound lanes remains clear. Funny how we tend to be such cattle at times . Why didn’t they think to just use the other lanes? Well, that is a Monday quarterback-type of question. I might have done the same thing .