Unprepared Page 11

  “Let’s go… and no matter what happens, remember that I love you.”

  Kelly took a breath.

  “I love you too. I love you so much.”

  The two silhouettes walked toward the treeline at the back of the house, measuring each step carefully and feeling for trees. They’d made a conscious effort to stick to a set path each time they walked into the wooded area behind their home, studying and counting the trees and contour of the low hill upon which the trees sat, memorizing their approximate locations while making sure no twigs or branches lay in their path.

  Every footstep was loud in the calm of the morning air, despite their slow, methodical movements, and it took them almost ten minutes to travel a few hundred yards to the clearing on the other side. So far so good, but now they were about to enter uncharted territory, walking on roads in front of houses and crossing a freeway, on the other side of which was a commercial area full of probably looted business and, perhaps, armed and desperate citizens.

  Aided by their soft-soled sneakers, they walked silently in the center of a residential street, being two dark humanesque shapes on full alert. The lack of streetlights helped them remain undiscovered as they passed empty homes, once full of laughter, families and stories. Where were the owners, Kelly wondered. Were some still inside? Had they fled? Were their bodies sitting inside rotting, like that of their neighbor Jerry?

  Kelly was in the lead, having memorized their old city map the night before. David, with the gun in his right hand, followed.

  Kelly raised her hand and flipped it forward a few times, indicating they were heading in the right direction. Over the bored days and nights at home, they had created a series of hand signals to use in situations where they couldn’t talk. Perfect for if one of them heard a noise outside and needed the other to hold the gun.

  The highway overpass formed a black concrete bar across the dark morning sky, coming slowly closer, step by step. They needed to pass under it and down the main road toward the mall complex. David noticed that there was a surprising amount of rubbish on the roads; something that used to annoy him. Littering was a sign of a person with no care for the planet or their own self respect. He never understood it. Now, however, he understood if people dropped cans and smashed bottles on the road. I mean, who are we keeping it clean for, he thought. They walked under the overpass, with Kelly indicating that they needed to move to the side of the road and be careful as they were clearly exposed.

  It was still dark, but there was more light available now; enough to make out the expressions on each other’s faces. This made them more visible, but it also helped them see debris and rubbish on the roads and sidewalks as they tried desperately to go undetected. They weren’t fighters, heroes or renegades, throwing caution to the wind for movie-like action scenes. They were survivors, opting to take the path of least resistance at all times, or not to take the path at all.

  The business on the right had its front window smashed with glass fragments lying on the ground in front. The sudden cracking sound of Kelly’s shoe standing on a flat shard of glass was enough to send a blasts of ice-cold adrenaline through their chests. David and Kelly both froze absolutely still, knowing that anyone in the immediate vicinity would have heard that noise if they were listening for it. The deafening sound of silence soon replaced the sudden noise, with nothingness filling the early morning air once again, long enough for Kelly to make a decision. Rather than rolling the dice on another forward step, Kelly signaled to David to back up. The two took long, careful steps backward, until they were clear of the appliance shop front. Kelly gave the “go around” signal, and they gave the appliance store a wide berth, even though it meant walking onto the road. David fought the natural urge to explain the pointlessness of looting an appliance store after an EMP attack.

  The sun was somewhere over the Atlantic, heading closer by the hour, evident by the clouds above which started to gain determinable shapes. This meant that Kelly and David were becoming visible and they were now only halfway to their destination. They walked silently down alleyways wherever possible, with Kelly using this increasing amount of light to take photographs of the destruction. David didn’t complain, but he wasn’t thrilled with her stopping them both for the tenth time to photograph hastily erected and hastily abandoned roadblocks made of bricks and car tires.

  They soon found themselves walking through a small parking lot behind an office building with its ground floor windows busted out, obviously looted. Coming up against a tall chain-link fence, it was determined that the only way to continue in their chosen direction was to walk down the driveway and continue on the main road until they could walk discreetly behind more businesses. Scanning the surroundings, she gave the “Go” signal with her hand and they approached the main road, dotted with empty cars, their doors open and their windows smashed. Kelly adjusted the aperture setting on her Nikon camera to suit the low light before focusing it to the vehicle in the foreground.

  Click.

  She took a photo, wondering how it would look once developed. The road ahead looked clear, save for another roadblock up ahead. She couldn’t really tell in the low light, but there might even have been movement behind it.

  Standing at a corner, the cold, brick wall of an office block against them, David watched their surroundings, his back to Kelly as he scanned the office windows above them and the driveway behind them. Kelly tapped his shoulder, causing David to turn to her quickly.

  “Hazard,” was the hand signal she gave David, followed by her shrugging her shoulders in uncertainty and pointing to the roadblock about a hundred yards up ahead. Kelly stepped aside and David moved forward a few inches, poking his head around the corner of the office block and looking down the road. It was lighter now, but still too dark to see clearly. They stood there, staring in the same direction like meerkats in a nature documentary. Kelly turned to David and shrugged, to which David answered with a shrug of his own. Using skills only seen in Who’s Line is it Anyway, Kelly used her hands to indicate that they needed to go down that very road, past the hazard. He showed the pistol to Kelly and indicated that he would go in front, to which she nodded.

  They had been standing at that corner, against the wall, for about three minutes before David finally gave the “Let’s go” signal. They stepped out.

  Neither of them made a sound as they paced carefully towards to the roadblock, sticking close to the buildings on their right, pulling into every driveway and hugging the corners for a moment to ensure the case was indeed clear. The moments when they found themselves on the roads were when they were at their most vulnerable, and they knew it, even though the city appeared deserted in the early morning light. The roadblock ahead was about three feet in height and spanned half of the width of the street, comprising mostly bricks, tires and debris. She might have simply been imagining the movement she thought she saw earlier. After all, in low light your eyes can play tricks on you. Therefore, if they’d estimated it correctly, they would arrive at Trevon’s house at about 6 AM; avoiding the brightness of daytime.

  The roadblock was about 50 yards ahead of them now as they carefully turned into another driveway separating two looted businesses. They needed to get past that roadblock and stay on this street in order to avoid walking around the mall, which, with its high windowless sides and expansive outdoor parking lot, would offer no protection from unsavory individuals. These streets were their best bet; their path of least resistance.

  David was now in front, his head poking around the corner of the business, scanning the road, with Kelly behind him. He gave the all-clear and they continued slinking in the direction of the roadblock, his Glock aimed forward.

  There was a difference of about a third of a second between the flash of light emanating from above the roadblock and the sound of a gunshot which blasted loudly across the morning air, corresponding with a chunk of the brick wall to the right of David’s arm exploding in a cloud of dust. A gunfight erupted, with David instinc
tively firing his gun back at the roadblock several times. Kelly pulled him by his backpack, dragging him around the corner from whence they’d came while he unloaded five more shots in the direction of the orange muzzle flash. David almost tripped over backwards during the three seconds it took from the first gunshot, to them running down the driveway for safety. It was unlikely he'd hit the person who fired at them, the antagonist almost certainly hiding behind the roadblock as soon as David returned fire, but at least it bought them those three vital seconds to escape. The two jogged as quickly and quietly as possible across the parking lot and through an alleyway to a smaller road running parallel to theirs. Up ahead of them was the front entrance to the mall, its glass doors smashed. It would be suicidal to go in there, but maybe the shooter at the roadblock was coming for them? Maybe the shooter wasn’t alone? It was guaranteed that anyone within a mile had heard the gunfire. They certainly couldn’t go back in that direction and running down the side of the enormous mall offered nowhere to hide. They had no other choice. Panting, and with his hand shaking, David frantically pointed at the mall entrance and Kelly gave a rapid nod of her head, both of them terrified. They ran.

  The first strange thing David noticed about the mall entrance was that someone had swept the broken glass from the doors to one side. Surely it wasn’t mall management, he wondered. He wasn’t sure if it made him feeler safer or more at risk, but regardless, it allowed them to enter the pitch black interior of the shopping mall undetected. The second thing he noticed about the shopping mall as they felt their way inside was the smell of urine and feces. Did this mean there were people inside it? David believed with certainty that there were. The third and most troubling thing they noticed about the mall is that it was completely dark. They couldn’t see anything more than a few feet in front of them. They knew the layout of the mall by heart, of course, spending many a Sunday afternoon here, but this was no longer the mall they once knew. From what they could see in the dark, the sporting goods store on the right had been ransacked. Aware that they couldn’t go forwards into the pitch black, and that they couldn’t give themselves away by turning on their flashlight, David took Kelly’s hand and led her past a large empty box and and what looked like a basketball on the ground, heading into the sporting goods store, if only to hide out until they felt the threat had gone or until more light had begun to shine through the mall’s partial glass ceiling. David tripped over something and fell onto an empty display, the shelf scraping coldly into his left arm. Kelly crouched down next to him. He touched his arm and felt its stickiness, before bringing his invisible fingers up to his mouth, the metallic taste of blood now on his tongue.

  Both scared, they sat on the floor of the store, silently. They wished they could see what mess lay before them. Unfortunately their wish was about to be granted, a voice somewhere nearby speaking clearly.

  “Move and you’re dead, d’you understand?”

  Neither David nor Kelly answered, holding their breath, frozen with fear. A light as bright at the sun blasted their eyes. It was a flashlight, held by someone in the store, maybe twenty feet away.

  “My gun is aimed at you. You move and you’re dead. Tell me you understand.”

  Kelly answered first.

  “We understand. Don’t shoot.”

  The flashlight occupied their vision, the device’s holder stood as frozen as they were. He spoke again.

  “You’re gonna let go of that gun in your hand and you’re gonna chuck it over here, understood?”

  There was no way out of this. They were at the mercy of whoever held that flashlight, and presumably, a gun. David placed it down on the ground and with a flick of his forearm, scuttled it across the floor. It went somewhere in the direction of their new captor.

  “You got any other weapons?” he asked.

  “No,” David replied.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re going across town to trade.”

  This information, whether the truth or a lie, seemed to relax the unknown and as yet unseen man.

  “You trade?” he asked.

  “When we have to,” David replied.

  The flashlight jiggled around, moving closer. It moved towards the ground, a few feet in front of them. The sound of moving fabric indicated that the man had reached down and picked up their pistol.

  “Tell you what,” the man continued. I’m going to turn this off to save the batteries, and we’re gonna talk.”

  “OK,” said David, not having much choice in the matter.

  The flashlight switched off.

  “What’ve you got in that backpack?” the voice in the darkness asked.

  David wondered how much information he should reveal, but if the voice did indeed have a gun, there was no point in lying by omission.

  “Stuff to trade. A bag of rice-”

  “Don’t need rice. Or any food,” the voice interrupted. “I cleared out the supermarket already.”

  David continued.

  “Coffee?”

  “Got coffee.”

  “Cigarettes?”

  The voice didn’t immediately respond, which was a small sign of optimism.

  “Smokes are worth more to me than food right now, but I still have plenty. Gimme something more.”

  “That’s all we’ve got,” David said, his brief flirt with optimism extinguishing as quickly as it had appeared. “We’ve got a box of ammo. 9mm.”

  “Got any meth? Or booze?” asked the voice.

  “We’ve got booze. At home,” David lied.

  The three of them sat in silence, their eyes adjusting to the gradual increase of natural light appearing in the mall’s concourse.

  “I’ll tell you what. Give me the cigarettes and this gun, and I’ll let you leave. You come back with booze and I’ll give you your gun back, and maybe we can trade some more.”

  “But…” David stammered. “We don’t have another gun... and it’s suicide outside.”

  “Not my problem. You came in here to my store, uninvited. You’re fucking lucky I don’t end you both here and now. There’s nothing stopping me. There’s no police. No law. I am the law,” the voice responded, sounding like the villain in a shitty action movie.

  “I’ve killed people already, that’s how I’m still alive.”

  “So… you’ll let us go?” David asked.

  “Yep. I’ll let you go. But I’m keeping this gun as insurance. You bring me a bottle of booze; whiskey, rum, brandy, whatever, and you get your gun back. Oh, and the cigarettes. Give me those, too. Be fucking grateful.”

  “OK... Th... thank you,” David said, realizing how pathetic it sounded.

  He’d just lost their only form of protection as well as any bartering power they had.

  “Thank you again. We'll come back to trade tomorrow, but for now, can you get us through the mall? To the other side?”

  The silence which followed in the grainy morning light seemed like a positive sign. The voice, which was beginning to form a face in the darkness, gave them an answer.

  “Alright. Fine. You’ll be safe with me. There’s another guy at the other end of the mall. He’s not as nice as me. He shoots first and asks questions later, but stick with me and you’ll be alright. Let’s see that backpack.”

  The flashlight turned on again as David slid the backpack off his shoulders. He pushed it over towards the face, who reached down and turned it upside down, spilling its contents onto the floor. Kelly, who had been silent during these last few minutes, had her hand firmly on the pepper spray in her jacket pocket. She estimated how long it would take to spray it in the man's direction, and whether that would allow her enough time to tackle him, allowing David to get their gun back and shoot the man dead. She’d killed before, and in this situation, sitting on the floor of a looted sporting goods store at gunpoint, she was more than willing to end the guy's life.

  David disrupted her angry fantasy with forced pleasantries.

  “I’m David, by the way
. And this is Kelly.”

  The mystery face, his eyes becoming somewhat visible, studied the two people sitting on the dirty floor in front of them.

  “You’re bleeding, David,” came the reply. “I don’t want you bleeding in my store.”

  The man, holding all their possessions and their means of self defense, pepper spray aside, instructed them to get up.

  “David. Raise your arms up.”

  David complied. The man moved closer and frisked him, running his hands over his fleecy jacket and down each leg. Kelly, assuming she was next, discreetly took the pepper spray out of her pocket and pushed it down the front of her pants, the tiny aerosol sitting behind the button fly in her jeans, before raising her hands preemptively. The man frisked her too, taking longer than was necessary to touch and squeeze her breasts.

  “Alright. I’m gonna take you to the other side of the mall and you’re going to go and get me a bottle of booze. Then you get your shit back. Actually, I want two bottles. You understand?”

  This was getting ridiculous, David thought. They didn’t have any booze at home; they’d drunk it, and this power-hungry moron wanted more.

  “Yes sir,” David said.

  The three of them moved towards the exit of the sporting goods store, stepping over boxes. The man put David and Kelly’s pistol somewhere out the back of the store and ushered them out. He turned around and reached up, pulling down the storefront security grille to the ground and locking it with a key. It made both David and Kelly wonder what else he had in there of value.

  Looking through the mall’s entry doors, it was visibly lighter outside and for the first time they noticed two human bodies in the parking lot, a few yards away, lying face-up in the morning light. The mystery voice from the darkness was now a person in front of them. He noticed them staring at the corpses outside.