Final Panic

25

The last thing Jim remembered was discharging his gun.

He had a vague idea that he was in an RV. And that Aly was with him. And that he’d been tired. Very tired. More tired than he’d ever been.

And that was it.

And now Rob and Jessica were peering down at him, asking him what seemed like a million questions at the same time.

Jim’s head throbbed and his muscles burned. Slowly, the events of yesterday started coming back to him, images that flashed across his mind. Images of the lake. Swimming. Almost drowning. Stashing the gear. Aly.

“Aly?” croaked Jim, his throat painfully dry.

“I’m working on it,” came Jessica’s reply.

“Aly, Aly, wake up, Aly.”

Jim was involuntarily holding his breath, waiting to hear what had happened to his wife. He managed to turn over, with Rob’s hands helping him, so that he faced Aly

There wasn’t blood around her.

It seemed like too much to hope that she’d be alive.

“Morning,” mumbled Aly. Her voice was sleepy. But it was her voice. And she was alive.

Jim stood up abruptly, unsteady on his feet. Rob tried to hold him back, but Jim staggered forward until he’d reached his wife. He tried to hug her from his standing position, but soon he collapsed to the floor, his arms wrapped around her.

“I can’t believe you two are alive,” said Rob. “We thought…”

“So, you saw the house?” said Aly.

“The house?” said Jim. He felt like there was a memory there, but he couldn’t quite get to it.

“It burned down,” said Aly. “Didn’t you see it?”

The memory came in a flash. The flames. The collapsing walls.

“I must have been hit on the head harder than I thought.”

“Join the club,” said Jessica.

Slowly, Jim started to wake up. The throbbing in his head was still there, but someone handed him a glass of water, and it seemed to help.

Soon, all four of them were talking at the same time, each of them telling their story to the others. Jim didn’t end up talking much, and instead of telling every detail of his story, he listened attentively to what had happened to the others. But Jim had always been like that, more or less, knowing that he had more to learn from others. For what information he needed to impart, he tried to keep it as succinct as possible.

Jessica and Rob described the body they’d seen in the house, and Aly recounted her story of what had happened to Jordan, how he’d been passed out drunk, and she’d done everything she could to save him.

No one was particularly upset about losing Jordan, least of all Aly. He hadn’t been good to anyone, and in his last moments, he’d decided to get drunk instead of protecting his niece like he should have been. It was almost a miracle that Aly had managed to get out of there alive.

It was also almost a miracle that nothing had happened to Jim and Aly after they’d passed out from exhaustion. They’d slept through the whole night in the RV with the door unlocked. No one had been watching. Neither of them would have been prepared for any kind of attack.

Jim didn’t waste any time feeling shame or embarrassment. He’d done everything he could. Sometimes things worked out that. He always did everything he could to prevent situations like that, but sometimes things simply didn’t work out the right way.

Somehow, before they knew it, an hour had passed, and they realized that they’d been sitting there talking with two dead bodies in the RV with them.

Jim and Jessica took it upon themselves to perform the grim task, dragging the bodies down the RV steps. They took them a little ways off the road and left them there. Burying them didn’t seem appropriate, considering the circumstances, and it would have taken a lot of manpower, not to mention calories. Calories that they couldn’t spare.

When they returned to the RV, Aly was going through the cupboards and handing things to Rob, all the while instructing him on how to prepare a breakfast.

“Just don’t go crazy,” advised Jim. “This food has got to last us a while.”

“But you managed to save the other stuff, right? The stuff that that fake cop guy, whatever his name was, stole?”

“Yeah,” said Jim, nodding. “But we’re going to have to go get it. After breakfast, I guess.”

“After breakfast?” said Jessica. “Why wait? We’re in an RV, after all. It’s a kitchen on wheels.”

They all laughed as much as their tired bodies would allow, and Jim used the keys he’d taken from the dead man, got into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

“You know how to drive one of these things?” said Jessica.

“Not really.”

It turned out that it wasn’t that difficult. Then again, it wasn’t like there was any traffic.

Driving back around the lake in the RV was a lot easier than having to walk around it or having to swim across it.

As he drove, Rob was pouring out cereal, measuring out sugar, occasionally spilling things when they went over bumps. Aly was resting in a chair, observing and criticizing, and Jessica had taken it upon herself to review the entire RV to see what kind of supplies they had at their disposal.

“Lots of pills here,” she’d call out when she came across another stash of pills.

“Seems like that’s all they have.”

“Well, pretty much. There’s not much in the way of survival gear.”

“Hopefully no one’s stolen our stuff from where Jim stashed it.”

Jim ignored the chatter for the most part, and let his mind wander a little as he drove. He thought about what they would do next. It wasn’t just enough, after all, to have gear and supplies. Nor an RV.

No, they needed more than that. They needed a secure location. They needed to be strategic.

Maybe they could stay at the lake. But one couldn’t say that it had worked for them so far.

And now without a home, what reason did they have to stay at the lake? Sure, there were other empty houses that they could move into. But Jim found that now he had a different perspective on the post-EMP world. When it had happened, all he could think about was getting out of Rochester, getting far away.

Now he realized that there was more to it all than just getting out of the city. It was clear that the power wasn’t going to come back, and that society was just going to further disintegrate from here on out. They were in this for the long haul, and likely it’d be better to get even farther away.

“What’re you thinking about, Jim?” said Jessica, suddenly sliding herself into the passenger seat next to Jim.

“Where we’re headed next.”

“You’re thinking the same way I am, then. We can’t stay here.”

“I guess we could. But I don’t see a good reason to. And if we’re going to try to maximize our potential for survival, we’ve got to find a place where everything works out just right.”

“Stack the deck, you mean.”

“Yeah, if you want to use a card metaphor.”

“So where are we headed then?”

“Not sure yet.”

“How about Canada? Fewer people up there.”

“Too cold.”

“You’re from Rochester, aren’t you?”

“Born and raised.”

“And yet you’re afraid of a little cold?”

“Not afraid,” said Jim. “But the winter’s a different beast when you don’t have central heating. The idea is to find the perfect intersection of all the different variables. It’s not just about finding a place with fewer people. It’s about finding…”

“I get you,” said Jessica. “We need a place that’s easy to live at, yet no one else wants to go there.”

“It sounds impossible when you say it like that.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“We’ll do the best we can.”

“You really think we should leave?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe we should take a vote.”

Jim shook his head. “I’m going to get us out of this,” he said. “We’ll head to Pennsylvania.”

“Pennsylvania?”

Jim had simply opened his mouth and the words had come out, but now that he considered it, Pennsylvania wasn’t a bad option. It’d be a little warmer, and the northwestern part of the state was much less populated than the Eastern Seaboard.

“But why not go farther? Wyoming or something like that? We’ve got an RV. We can go as far as we want.”

“There isn’t much chance that we’ll be able to make it that far. Think about it, we need fuel for the RV. And fuel for us. If we drive across the country, we’ll be out in the open, not knowing where we are. Then we’ll be driven to do stupid things out of desperation, taking risks for gas and food. We’ll be sitting ducks, essentially.”

“Moving ducks, you mean,” said Jessica, apparently trying to make a joke.

“Targets, either way you look at it. Anyway, the shorter we keep our trip, the better off we’ll be.”

“But what about the owners of this RV? Didn’t they drive from across the country or something? They made it this far OK.”

“I don’t know if they were telling the truth. Look what they tried to do to my wife. And anyway, things are just going to get crazier from here on out. During the immediate aftermath of the EMP, a lot of people probably stayed put. Now they’ll be leaving their houses, and they’ll be desperate and hungry, ready to do anything to keep themselves and their families alive.”

“You’re saying they would have had an easier time of it when they were driving out?”

“Exactly. Who knows what things look like now.”

“You’re probably right. So, we go to Pennsylvania and then what? Find some abandoned house there?”

“Why get another house? We’ve already got one right here.”

“The RV?”

Jim nodded.

They were almost all the way around the lake, almost to the spot where Jim had hidden their gear and food.

“Stay in the RV?” said Jessica, sounding incredulous, and maybe a little annoyed. “Are you crazy? This thing is small. Ridiculously small.”

She was right. It might have been called a midsized RV. But really it was just a little larger than a large work van, the kind that plumbers used.

“There’s not enough space for us in here. There are four of us.”

“We’ll have to make it work,” said Jim.

“But why? Why not just find some house somewhere.”

“Hear me out,” said Jim. He felt much better now that he’d slept, and his mind was working rapidly, piecing together the plan as he spoke. “Now what’s the main disadvantage of a house?”

“The disadvantage? I don’t know if there are any. All I can think of are the advantages. Like shelter, warmth, a place to sleep. Walls and doors that help us defend ourselves. Keep the bad guys out. Way more security overall than an RV with tinfoil walls.”

“Well, here’s one huge disadvantage,” said Jim. “A house stays in the same place. All the time. It doesn’t move around.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. But you were just saying that we’re not going to have gas to simply drive the RV from one location to another. And that’s too dangerous and all that.”

“I’m not explaining myself well,” said Jim. “What I’m suggesting is that we hopefully make it down to Pennsylvania, scope out a good spot far out in the woods where no one goes, and then park the RV there. And live in it.”

“OK, I think I’m seeing where you’re going, but…”

“The thing is,” said Jim, cutting her off. He was starting to get excited about the idea. It seemed like it really might work. “With a house, everyone knows it’s there. It’s going to be on various maps, city plans, all sorts of papers that people can find. And people remember. They know where a house was. Sure, you can try to hide it. You can try to obscure the driveway with branches or something, but that really only goes so far.”

“Wait,” said Jessica. “Are you saying that what we do is park an RV out in the woods, and the advantage over a house will be no one knows it’s there, or ever was there?”

“Exactly.”

“You know, that’s really not such a bad idea. We’d be invisible, essentially.”

“As long as we get far enough out. I’d want to avoid places like state parks. Those are on the map.”

“Then what do we want?”

“Maybe some private land that’s not used. Someone who had too much land than they knew what to do with. Let it overgrow. Let it go to seed.”

“Private land? You really think that’s a good idea?”

“Definitely. It’s even less likely now than ever before that the owner would use it.”

“I guess the property deeds don’t really mean much now.”

Jim shook his head. “It’s a shame,” he said. “People worked for what they had, and now? Nothing. They’ve got nothing. The strongest will take what they want.”

“You’re getting off topic a little bit.”

“Breakfast is ready,” called out Rob, sounding a little overexcited, probably because he’d never been much of a cook.

“And I think it might actually be edible,” added Aly. “Thanks to my help.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Aly.”

Breakfast was a plate of fried sandwiches. Rob had combined canned ham and fried eggs, one of Aly’s makeshift recipes. He’d fried the pieces of white bread in so much oil that it was almost like deep frying, with the slices of bread completely submerged in the oil.

“Here you go,” said Rob, handing Jim a sandwich.

Jim reached back and grabbed the incredibly greasy sandwich, getting grease all over his hand.

“That’s delicious,” said Jim, taking his first bite, unable to stop chewing long enough to speak with his mouth closed.

And it really was. He hadn’t eaten anything in so long that the sandwich really could have been anything and he would have found it delicious.

But the sandwich really was good. The huge hit of fat, protein, and carbs was just what he needed. Jim knew that fat had more calories per unit of weight than carbs or protein, so deep frying the bread for the sandwiches really was a good idea. A good way to get some extra calories.

“We’re lucky to have all that coconut oil,” said Jessica.

“I just don’t want to know what they were doing with it in this RV.”

“Gross.”

“Don’t worry. We’re all too hungry for it to matter anyway.

“You’re right.”

A few minutes later, they’d reached the stash of stolen supplies that Jim had left. He stopped the RV, made a mental note of the fuel gauge position, and everyone except Aly set to work hauling all the gear into the RV.

It took them about ten minutes of many trips back and forth. It wasn’t hard work, and it was nice to have his stomach full for the first time in a long, long while. The food made his body feel warm and whole again. He made a mental note to keep eating plenty of coconut oil. It was an easy way they could get calories, and it would keep them warm in the winter. And after the coconut oil ran out? Maybe they’d be able to render deer fat for a similar product. After all, it wasn’t like they’d ever get any more coconut oil again. It was just one of countless food products that were shipped daily from far-off countries to the United States, and as far as Jim knew, that entire shipping system was as dead as disco, which itself now had absolutely no chance of a comeback, given that there was no electricity.

With the gear in the RV, there was considerably less space than before, but there were still places for everyone to sit. Aly, though, needed more rest and lay on the bed, which was permanently installed, compared to those folding types.

Everyone agreed with the plan that Jim and Jessica had come up with, but there was some concern that they wouldn’t actually be able to reach Pennsylvania. After all, even smaller RVs like the one they had were notorious gas guzzlers. Jim estimated that, at best, it might get something like twenty miles per gallon, and that was really pushing it. He could make sure to drive slowly, keeping off the accelerator as much as he could, but the RV was heavy, and his efforts would really only amount to so much.

So if they couldn’t make it to Pennsylvania, they’d settle for somewhere out of the way in the southeastern part of New York state. How far they got depended on the availability of gas, and the condition of the roads.

They really didn’t know what they were getting into. There was no traffic report. No news channel to watch, telling them that such and such a highway was clogged up with cars sitting bumper to bumper.

They’d just have to try it out and go from there. There was only so much planning they could do without any more information. And when the time came to make the decision on where to park the RV, they’d just have to go with their gut instincts.