Staying Alive

2

Max’s leg was still hurting him, but he was doing better. Mandy kept telling him not to expect too much. After all, it had only been two weeks. “You’re doing better than most people who’ve been shot,” she’d said. “You got really lucky.”

The bullet hadn’t hit the bone. It’d been a good bullet wound, as far as bullet wounds went.

To everyone’s surprise, including Max’s, he was starting to hobble around the house with the aid of a makeshift cane. If the bullet wound had been anything more than minor, walking simply wouldn’t have been possible for many more weeks, in the best circumstances. Still, it was incredible. He’d been lucky.

Max had been taking antibiotics to ward off a possible infection, and Georgia and Mandy had even helped him pack sugar into the wound. Sugar was an old trick used by field doctors when supplies ran short, and it worked well enough, sometimes even better than anything else.

“How you doing?” said Mandy, knocking on the already open bedroom door.

Max motioned for her to come in.

“What are you doing?” said Mandy. “You need to be in bed, resting.”

“Exercises,” said Max.

His face was sweaty with exertion. It took all his concentration to push beyond the pain. He was attempting body weight squats, an exercise that had never been harder for him.

“You need to be resting that leg,” said Mandy. “If you want it to heal properly.”

“This isn’t the time for laying around in bed,” said Max. “I need to be up and active as soon as possible.”

“I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” said Mandy. “Except for that body, we haven’t seen anyone. You keep saying that people are coming, but no one ever does.”

“Trust me,” said Max, finishing his squat and nearly collapsing into a nearby chair. “They’re coming. And the longer we wait without seeing anyone, the more intense the chaos in the cities must have been. Only the strongest…”

“Will get out alive… yeah, yeah,” said Mandy. “You’ve said it a million times.”

Tensions had been growing between Max and Mandy over the last two weeks. What had initially seemed like a budding romance had quickly imploded under the intense tensions inherent in the situation.

“What did you want to see me about?” said Max.

“It’s the well,” said Mandy. “There’s no more water.”

“What do you mean there’s no more water?”

“I mean exactly what I said. It’s simply not coming out.”

Max didn’t say anything. He’d been fearing this. Over the last week, the water had been looking murkier and murkier. And a day earlier, the water had been so off-color that they’d decided it would be best to purify it before drinking it.

“What are we going to do?” said Mandy. “The kids are worried.”

Max nodded. “They should be worried,” he said. “And to answer your question, I don’t know yet.”

“How can you say they should be worried? They’re just kids. We need to protect them.”

“There’s no protecting them from what’s happening,” said Max. “At least not in the sense of shielding them from the reality around them.”

Mandy didn’t say anything. She simply frowned more than usual.

“I’m going to go check on the well,” said Max.

He got up, somewhat painfully, from the chair. He hobbled past Mandy, who stared him down with her arms crossed in front of her.

Max weaved his way through the hallways of the old farmhouse. Even in the day, the hallways were dark. The wallpaper was peeling in places, and some of the floorboards were loose.

The stairs were tricky, but Max managed them.

As long as he kept using his leg, thought Max, he’d be recovered in no time. He didn’t like to think about what would have happened if it had been a more serious injury. Max was sure that he himself needed to be active. He felt responsible for the others—without Max, they would be lost.

Max had set up a watch schedule. Max, Mandy, Georgia, Chad, James, and Sadie all took turns. Mandy had protested about including James and Sadie in the watch schedule, but everyone else was on board. Georgia was protective of her kids, but she recognized, unlike Mandy, that the better they were at taking care of themselves, the longer they’d survive.

James and Sadie were resting in the living room, their eyes barely open. Each lay on a separate couch, tired from their early morning watch shifts.

Max walked past them without greeting them. Better to let them rest.

Outside, the sun was shining brightly. A gentle breeze blew through the leaves of the trees. The grass was a brilliant green, and the forest beyond the farmhouse’s lot looked inviting and peaceful.

But Max knew better than to be fooled by appearances.

Mandy seemed to think that everything was fine now that they were at the farmhouse. She’d thought all they had to do was figure out the drinking water situation, start growing their own food, maybe find a few animals, and everything would be fine.

Max knew better.

He knew people would be coming. The most vicious of the vicious. Those were the only ones who would be making their way in this direction. Sure, there’d be others, people like Max and Mandy. There were sure to be decent people who had survived.

The trouble would be figuring out who was who.

So far, there’d been no contact.

Georgia had come across one dead body in the woods. A man in his early fifties, gaunt with the muscle wasting that came with starvation. On first glance, he’d apparently died of pure exhaustion. But on closer inspection, Georgia had noticed that he was full of what looked like stab wounds. He’d simply bled out. Georgia had brought James and Chad back to the body, and they’d buried the man in a shallow grave.

“How’s it going up there?” said Max, looking up towards the roof.

Chad sat on the roof. They’d decided on the second day, when Max was still in bed, that the roof gave the best vantage point. Mandy and James had rigged up a piece of twine that ran down from the roof to a bell inside the house. That way, whoever was on watch on the roof could pull on the twine and give a warning to anyone inside.

Chad was still huge, but he was already looking leaner. He got the same amount of food as everyone else. To his credit, he was toughening up considerably, now that he was sober. He rarely ever complained about the food or the portion sizes.

Chad gave Max the thumbs up sign. It wasn’t like they could have an easy conversation from up on the high roof to down where Max was.

Max stood there, enjoying the sun, while trying to think about what they were going to do for water. Soon, he’d go inspect the well, but he didn’t expect to find much there. If the well was drying up, he didn’t know what they’d be able to do about it. Their best bet was to get water from a nearby creek, and then purify it if they could.

But the whole plan meant a lot of work, and it meant exposing themselves more to a potential attack. The creek was a good twenty minute walk. It meant potentially giving away their position to someone who happened to be walking by.

The sound of a bell reached Max through his veil of deep thoughts.

At first, Max thought maybe he was hearing things.

No, it was definitely the bell, the sound faint and muffled, coming from inside the farmhouse.

Max looked up to see Chad turned around, facing the other direction. He faced towards the road, which was a good distance from the farmhouse. A long dirt driveway wound its way from the road to the farmhouse. While Max had been recovering in bed, the rest of them had done their best to disguise the driveway’s entrance. They hoped that someone coming down the road wouldn’t notice it, but merely drive right on by.

“What’s going on?” said James. He still had sleep in his eyes as he came down the porch steps. Sadie followed him. “Is everyone all right?”

Max looked up at Chad, who turned to face him.

“Car,” mouthed Chad, as clearly as he could.

“Looks like Chad’s spotted a car,” said Max.

“What do we do?” said James. There was worry in his voice.

“Where are your guns?” said Max, looking James and Sadie up and down. He spoke to them harshly. But there was a reason for his tone. They were supposed to carry their rifles with them everywhere, no matter what. Max had told them a thousand times that they were lucky their mother had had such a large quantity of guns. And those guns would likely save their lives one day. This wasn’t the time for sloppiness.

“We were just coming out to see…” said Sadie, trying to make an excuse.

“We’ll get them,” said James, cutting off his sister.

Sadie’s expression turned to embarrassment and shame. They both knew how important following the rules was.

“It’s coming down the driveway,” said Chad, turning over his shoulder to speak to Max.

So much for their efforts to conceal the driveway.

Max could hear the car now. He could hear its engine whining softly. It sounded like a regular civilian car. It didn’t have that heavy rumbling of a large truck. That was a good sign, but it didn’t mean they were safe.

Anyone could be driving that car.

This was the moment Max had been waiting for and dreading. The worst part about it was that he wasn’t yet in fighting form. He was still hobbled, injured, and partially broken.

But that didn’t mean he was going to give up.

He knew he could still put up a hell of a fight.

Max reached for his Glock in its belt holster. The weight of the gun felt reassuring as he removed it from its holster. He kept his finger outside the trigger guard. Just because society had collapsed didn’t mean he wasn’t going to follow basic gun safety. The last thing they needed was another gunshot victim.

“What do we do?” said Chad, making an effort to speak loudly enough that Max could hear him.

“Stay there,” said Max.

Chad had his rifle with him, but he wasn’t a great shot. He’d only fired a gun a few times in his life before. Despite Georgia’s patient training, he still wasn’t very good. And it wasn’t like they could waste a lot of ammunition on practice shots.

Max started to hobble his way around the house.

Suddenly, James and Sadie were at his side again, this time with rifles in hand.

“What’s going on?” said James.

“It’s coming down the driveway,” said Max.

All three of them could clearly hear the engine, clearly hear the tires on the partially-graveled driveway. But they couldn’t yet see the car. The house was blocking the view.

“My mom’s not back yet from her hunt?” said Sadie.

“I wish she was,” said Max. “She’s the best shot out of all of us.”

It was true.

“What are we going to do?” said James, his voice full of worry.

Max was worried too. He felt the adrenaline pumping through him. He felt his skin growing cold and his heart rate increasing. But he had to keep it together. And he couldn’t afford to let James and Sadie know that he was scared.

Being scared was only natural. He was only human, after all.

Max knew it was what you did with the fear that mattered. It was how you responded to it.

If he gave a hint to James or Sadie of his own fear, they’d just become more terrified. Max knew he needed them to be as effective as possible. It was likely that he wouldn’t be able to do what he needed to do on his own.

And he couldn’t rely on Chad up on the roof. If Georgia had been up there, acting essentially as a sharpshooter, he would have been a lot less worried.

They were halfway around the house. James and Sadie followed Max, who had to move somewhat slowly with his cane. Frankly, it was almost miraculous that he could walk at all, let alone go as fast as he was.

“What’s that?” said Sadie, suddenly sounding even more worried than before.

“Shh,” said James. “We have to listen.”

“No, seriously,” said Sadie. “Look over there.”

From where they were, around the side of the house, they could see three figures emerging from the woods. If you could call where the car was approaching on the driveway the front yard, then the figures were coming from the backyard.

“Shit,” muttered Max, staring at the figures.

They were far away, but he could see them clearly enough to note that they were armed. They had rifles. Possibly assault rifles.

Suddenly, Max remembered something. Someone was missing.

“Where’s Mandy?” said Max.

“Mandy?” said James.

“Yeah, you didn’t see her inside when you went to get your guns?”

“No,” said Sadie. “I thought she was outside somewhere.”

“Shit,” muttered Max.

The sound of the car on the driveway was louder. It was getting very close.

They had two sets of unknown visitors. And Mandy was missing.