Unprepared Page 5

  Normally, on a Friday morning, David would be awakened by the alarm on his phone. He’s a light sleeper, so he used the recording of a babbling stream and birdsong to wake him up. It worked every time. Kelly, on the other hand, could sleep through a nuclear holocaust, so David always tended to get up first. Today, however, their phones provided no other purpose than dust collectors or paperweights. Why they brought them with them from the car was unknown. Habit, perhaps. Regardless, they would be leaving their cell phones in the motel’s trash when they left to start their journey home.

  Birdsong was the only sound in the morning air and it wasn’t loud enough to wake either of them. What did shake David and Kelly from their slumber was the sound of a gunshot somewhere nearby. They both thrust themselves upright in bed. A man was shouting something outside.

  “Get down!” David ordered.

  Kelly slid straight onto the floor, while David grabbed their handgun off the floor next to the bed. He aimed the Glock 19 at a 45 degree angle downwards, arms extended, as he walked quickly to the window. The yelling continued. With his left hand he prized up one slat on the white, plastic venetian blinds and peered outside. A man was crouched on the ground outside the general store, yelling. Wailing. On the ground next to him was a person. It looked like a woman, but from David’s angle it was too hard to see.

  “Someone’s been shot,” he said to Kelly.

  “Are they alive?” she asked.

  There was a pause. The man outside the store was holding the person but their arms were lifeless. He was crying, shouting for help. Blood was visible on his shirt but it didn’t look like it was his.

  “There’s a guy outside by the store. Looks like his friend or something has been shot dead,” David said to Kelly.

  “Shit,” she replied.

  The situation was already falling apart and it had only been seventeen hours since the pulse.

  “Kel. Get yourself ready. We’ve gotta get out of here ASAP.”

  David continued staring out the window, one finger prying open a slit in the blinds. Kelly threw their essentials back into the bag and ran into the bathroom to fill up their water bottle. There was no time for a shower or breakfast this morning. She unscrewed the cap and turned on the tap, with a gurgling sound emanating from the faucet. She turned the tap counterclockwise a few times and the gurgling became stronger. Eventually, splatterings of water came out of the spout and Kelly placed the bottle underneath it as meager pulses of water fell out.

  “Ohhh fuck,” David sighed.

  “What is it?”

  “You won’t believe it. That pregnant woman. The one from the car yesterday. It’s her.”

  “She’s been shot?”

  “Yeah... Oh fuck me. Shit… She’s dead…”

  David stared in disbelief out the window. That woman was alive just minutes ago. Yesterday she was at the side of the road in the car behind them, complaining about not being able to get on Instagram. Now she was dead.

  “Come on, Kel, we’ve gotta go!”

  “I’m trying! There’s no water pressure.”

  It took a full minute to fill the metal water bottle beyond halfway before she took the bottle away and screwed on the cap. The water continued to splatter out in pulses, full of air, turning a gentle brown color. Kelly shut off the faucet and threw the bottle in the backpack.

  The morning sun was beginning to rise above the surrounding hills and a small crowd had gathered outside the general store. A policeman had arrived on foot and the owner, a man in his 60s, sat in handcuffs to the side. Someone had gone to fetch a doctor but it was pointless. The thin, balding guy from the Volkswagen sat cradling his dead wife, their unborn child either dead or dying inside her. She wasn’t the first victim of the disaster and she wouldn’t be the last.

  David placed an arm through each of the straps on the backpack and hoisted it onto his back. He placed the gun in the backpack’s rear elastic pocket, allowing for easy access for Kelly to grab it if need be. With their shoelaces tied, it was with an air of trepidation that they opened the front door and slipped into their first day in hell.

  Paramedics had been summoned by a local resident and they soon arrived on foot, carrying an old military-style stretcher. They looked exhausted, both splattered with dried blood. There was now a crowd of around thirty people surrounding the event. The husband of the dead woman sat motionless, staring at the ground, while the paramedics prepared to take her body to the local hospital, not that it would do any good.

  Kelly sided up next to an onlooker.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I heard that woman tried to steal something from the store and the owner caught her. She tried to run,” said the onlooker.

  “Shot dead for stealing?”

  “Yeah. I heard the owner talking to the police just a few minutes ago. He said he’s been guarding his shop all night. People have been trying to loot it.”

  “Shit. What did she try to steal?”

  Another onlooker who had been listening in turned to Kelly and spoke.

  “Magazines.”

  “Magazines? Like nine millimeter?”

  “No. Entertainment Weekly or some shit.”

  Kelly, with her mouth agape, turned slowly to David. He replicated the exact same slow head turn and they locked eyes, staring at each other for a good two or three seconds. If it wasn’t such a horrific situation, the comedic effect of their synchronized head turns would have been worthy of a Jim Carrey film.

  “Something fucking weird is going on,” the onlooker continued. “Did you hear the plane crash yesterday?”

  Kelly played dumb.

  “Plane crash?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. A passenger plane crashed about five miles from here. My brother went out there on horseback ‘cause all the cars won’t start. It’s a mess. No one survived. It was a big plane too, like a 747 or something. It’s just a pile of smoldering metal.”

  “Seriously? Everyone died?” asked Kelly.

  “It’s like September 11 all over again. It must be a terrorist attack. Some rag-heads must have crashed the plane. They took out the power grid too.”

  “And the phones,” added the other onlooker. “None of our cell phones work”

  The two onlookers began to talk between themselves.

  “It’s gotta be terrorists. I don’t know how they did it, but they turned off our cars, too.”

  “Yeah. Even the police don’t know what’s going on. Those two medics over there have been all night at the plane crash collecting body parts from the site and bringing them back here to the morgue.”

  “Yeah, and the county sheriff’s riding a horse to get around. It’s like we’re back in the 19th century. He said he’s riding to Lynchburg this morning to get answers. He’s spooked. When the sheriff gets spooked, you know something bad’s going on.”

  The two paramedics, both in blood-stained civilian clothes, carried away the woman's body on the military-style stretcher while the husband walked alongside, sobbing. It was a waste of potential. Two lives cut short, one adult, one unborn, because of the stupid actions of the former. All that for a pointless tabloid magazine full of celebrity gossip. It was a terrible thing to think, but David couldn’t help wondering if the world was better off without another shallow, narcissistic mother raising another shallow, narcissistic child.

  The policeman, meanwhile, crouched down near the ground scribbling in his notepad while the handcuffed store owner stared at the faces looking on. The situation was emotionally charged, with the bloodstain on the pavement outside the store serving as a reminder for Kelly and David that the worst was yet to come. They had to get out of there.

  “This way,” Kelly instructed, heading northeast through the town on Forest Road. The streets and sections were strangely busy, full of people interacting with each other who normally would be keeping to themselves. Because of the chaos of the shooting, they were able to walk through the town without having to talk to anyone.
This suited them fine, as during a crisis, everyone is a potential enemy. Besides, today was all about getting home, where they’d be able to hunker down and wait for help, however and whenever it may come.

  “Any society is only three square meals away from revolution,” David said after a long stretch of silence.

  “Who wrote that?” Kelly asked.

  “I thought it was Trotsky... Or Arnold Rimmer.”

  “Jesus, Dave. You know, if I do die on this trip, it won’t be from laughing.”

  “Jawohl, mein Führer. I vill vork on mein jokes.”

  Kelly allowed herself a small chuckle. At least no matter what the world threw at them, through thick and thin, they both had equally terrible senses of humor.

  Empty, immobile cars dotted the road as they approached the edge of Bedford. There was something unsettling about walking past a shiny, late model car which had stopped in the middle the road with no one inside. It was a bit like being in a real life zombie movie. Kelly unfolded the map and the two stopped in the middle of the road, just like the car they'd walked past. David’s sunglasses masked the direction of his gaze, but his eyes were focused intently on two 20-somethings sitting outside a house on the front step. He faced his body slightly off-center and glanced down at the map often, to give the onlookers the impression that he wasn’t watching them. The onlookers, however, were staring intently at David and Kelly.

  “Kel, don’t look up, but I’m getting a bad vibe from those guys in front of that house over there. On your left. About 9 o’clock.”

  Kelly reached into her pocket and put on her sunglasses. This allowed her to raise her head ever so slightly so she could observe their observers.

  “I think they’re just as worried about us,” she said. “Well, I hope, anyway. Let’s get out of here, hey?”

  They continued walking along the main road out of town, past a used car lot which had a salesman walking the lot, wiping the morning dew off the cars. He noticed David and Kelly and stopped in his tracks. As the two moved closer to the car dealer, he took off his baseball cap and rubbed his scalp. They still had a safe distance between this new onlooker, but everyone’s a potential enemy in a disaster. The only question was, did anyone actually realize yet that this was a disaster?

  “How you guys doing this fine morning?” shouted the car salesman.

  “Fine,” David shouted back.

  Neither of them wanted any interaction with strangers, but until they could get out of town, off the road and into the fields, this sort of unwanted chit-chat was inevitable.

  “You guys walking somewhere? I mean, I don’t want to state the obvious, but people walking on the road tells me you’re both potential customers from a car salesman’s perspective,” the dealer said, jokingly.

  Kelly and David both thought the same thing: how could anyone not be aware of the crisis on the horizon?

  “Your uh… Your cars work?” Kelly asked.

  The dealer looked a little confused. These sure were odd customers.

  “Of course they work. Why wouldn’t they?”

  David looked at Kelly. Was the guy joking? Had he not tried to start any of the cars? Cautiously, they changed direction and began walking into the car lot. If they could get a working car they’d be home in half an hour, well before anyone figured out that there’s no more air conditioning or gas or running water or insulin. Well before the mass looting and rioting began. They didn’t have any cash, but they could always pretend to be customers and take the car home. Besides, the car dealer’s going to have bigger problems to deal with once the town wakes up to reality.

  “You've got some good looking machines here. What about this one?” David said, pointing to a 2013 Ford Fusion.

  “Oh, you've got a good eye,” the salesman beamed. “This is a great car. Reliable, good on gas, powerful engine too. It’s got low miles for its age. Perfect car for a family. You guys got kids?”

  “Yeah,” Kelly lied.

  In Bible country, people liked to hear that everyone was happily procreating. Fucking for Jesus, if you will. The idea of two people enjoying sex without the ‘miracle of childbirth’ didn’t sit well with some folks, so with strangers that you’ll never meet again it was often just easier to lie.

  “Yeah, got a boy and a girl,” she continued. “The boy’s five, the girl’s seven. So, about this car. Can you start it for us?”

  “Sure can, honey. Let me go get the key.”

  “Oh, and can you grab the key for this one too? I like the look of it,” she said as the salesman walked to the office.

  David turned to Kelly.

  “These cars can’t possibly work. Do you think he knows about the EMP? Has he protected them somehow?” he asked, wondering if they were wasting their time and getting themselves into an unpredictable situation.

  The salesman came back from the office with two sets of keys, pointing the key fob at the Ford to unlock its doors while pressing the button. He came to a standstill when the blinkers didn’t flash and the doors remained locked. The salesman hoped the customers didn’t notice, pressing it a few more times.

  “I, uh, I seriously doubt any of your cars will work,” said Kelly.

  The salesman briefly looked up at her, bemusement on his face.

  “Ma'am, this one's a Ford. It works fine. The key fob just needs a new battery. Don’t worry, I have a spare in the office.”

  He walked to the driver’s door of the Ford and inserted the key, turning it. The door locking mechanism unlocked the door easily, and he removed the key.

  “There we go.”

  He opened the door and the interior light came on.

  “Hey, look. The light works,” David said to Kelly, finding himself optimistic for the first time in 18 hours.

  “Of course the light works,” said the salesman, as he slid into the car’s cold, black interior and inserted the key into the ignition.

  He turned the key clockwise into the On position, then turned it further to try and start the vehicle's engine.

  “The hell...”

  “What is it?” David asked.

  The salesman turned the key counterclockwise, back to the Off position, then repeated the performance. The mid-sized sedan was unresponsive.

  “Uh, nothing,” the salesman responded. “Um. Gimme a sec.”

  The salesman worked the key in and out, turning it left and right but to no avail. Kelly turned to David and they exchanged glances. They didn’t need to say anything. That glance meant they were on the same page. They both realized they were wasting their time. None of these cars would work. With time slipping by, they just needed to get out of there and hurry home, without upsetting the car dealer.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. We’ll come back another day. We’ll continue our morning stroll,” Kelly said, trying to stop the salesman from freaking out.

  The last thing you want in an unfolding disaster is someone freaking out. Everyone has a gun in these parts and a great deal of those who do, shouldn’t. It just takes one spark to ignite a fire of irrational stupidity. Especially when the local police force is overwhelmed and hours away from losing control.

  “It’s just a dead battery. I’ll jump start it,” the salesman said.

  “Try the other car,” David responded.

  Kelly shot him a dirty look. She just wanted to get the hell out of there. The salesman closed the door of the Ford, embarrassed and somewhat frustrated. These could be his only customers today, for all he knew. He walked around to the passenger door of a beige Nissan parked alongside. The electronic key fob did nothing, so once again the salesman used the physical key to open the door. The interior light came on when the door was opened, but it was a false flag. Car batteries clearly weren’t affected by the silent electromagnetic pulse that struck the local county, or perhaps entire country, yesterday afternoon. The circuit for the interior light on these cars seemed to bypass the car’s computer. A light bulb circuit is simple, after all, comprising just a few feet
of wire and the bulb itself, which is nothing more than a resistor.

  It surprised David that something as meager as the amber glow from a 9 watt light bulb was enough to give him false hope. The salesman, now frustrated, worked the key left and right in the Nissan with no result. The salesman got out of the car and stood up, turning to face David. Kelly was standing near the front of the dead Nissan.

  “What have you guys done to my cars?”

  “What?” they responded in unison.

  “It’s all a bit convenient,” the salesman responded, folding his arms. “You guys walk in, off the street and say something about my cars not working... You fucked with my cars to get a discount, didn't you?”

  “Whoah, whoah, whoah,” David said, raising his palms. “We were just walking past and you invited us here to look at the cars. We are in the market for a car. We’re customers.”

  “Bullshit. You must have done something.”

  Kelly walked around the front of the Nissan, moving closer to the salesman and David. She had a way of calming situations.

  “Stay right there, ma'am,” the salesman ordered, pointing to Kelly.

  The situation was escalating unnecessarily.

  “I'm calling the police,” said the salesman.

  “I promise you, we have nothing to gain by doing anything to your cars,” David said. “All the cars in the town don’t work. They’re all broken and won’t start. All their electronics are fried.”

  Kelly shot him a frowning glance. Telling a car salesman that he now has around fifteen, shiny, irreparable vehicles on his lot was not wise. Unsurprisingly, the salesman’s reaction changed for the worse. He seemed to simultaneously experience a combination of worry and anger, and he wanted to shoot the messengers.

  “What... the fuck are you talking about?” he stuttered.

  “Look. We don’t want any trouble,” Kelly continued. “Something happened to the cars in this town. I’m sure they’re fine. Maybe all their batteries went dead by, uh…”

  “The lunar eclipse,” interjected David.