Inhuman [Book 1] Page 4

  How could they do that? Whoever fired that shot could have easily hit Jim by mistake.

  Just then the bullhorn cut on again. “Leave NOW or we will continue to fire!”

  Jim stayed curled up with his head stuffed under the dash as he yelled, “Listen to the man! Get the fuck outta here!”

  I took his advice, got back into position, turned the car around and floored it until the trucks disappeared in the rearview mirror. I was so distraught that, eventually, Jim had to tell me to slow down. Then he crawled back up into his seat, repeating, “I can’t believe that just happened” three times.

  For a second I thought he was losing it. For a second I thought I was as well.

  They actually fucking shot at us.

  He slammed his fists down on his thighs and stated, “This is bad, Chris – fucking bad! Martial Law – you know what this means, right?”

  I have an idea. Not really though. “Not exactly. I just know it means the military can police the public, right?”

  Jim slowly turned, staring as if my head was on fire. “Oh for fucks sake, you really don’t know? It means that the government is no longer in power and our civil rights have been suspended. As in we have to do whatever the military says, and they can kill us without consequence!”

  I sighed and half-rolled my eyes, feeling like he was overreacting. “Yeah, but isn’t it only a temporary thing put in place during emergencies?”

  “Uh, no. Not natural disasters anyway. Unless maybe people are killing each other in the streets and fighting the police or something crazy like that.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s happening in the more populated areas” I speculated.

  “Something big is happening. I’m telling you. They don’t just do that for no reason.”

  Even though I was still trying to explain everything away, in the back of my mind, I was almost certain that he was right. “What’s really fucking with me is the fact that they won’t tell us anything.” I shook my head. “They know we have no way to get any information.”

  “Exactly.”

  The rest of the way back, neither one of us spoke more than a few words. I didn’t know about Jim, but I was (unsuccessfully) trying to rationalize what had just happened to us, and what it meant…

  After pulling into the driveway and turning off the car, Jim just sat still continued to look straight ahead. He may have seemed calm, but the muscles in his jaw told me that he was losing his shit on the inside. “I’m gonna go home and just think for a while” he said, closer to a whisper.

  More than anything else, I was dreading having to tell Jessica about what had happened. It was inarguably the most frightening thing I’d ever experienced. “Yeah.”

  He opened the door, got out and slowly headed back to his house. I could hear him mumbling to himself as he dragged his feet through the grass.

  Jessica came to meet me as I stepped out, and noticed the sunlight reflecting off the broken glass all over the inside of the car. When she walked around to the passenger side to take a closer look, her eyes bulged at the sight of the broken window. “What happened?”

  Shit, I wanted to get inside before she saw it – leave that part out until I have more time to think.

  She put two and two together. “Did you get shot at?”

  The rest of the details are enough to scare the shit out of anyone.

  I didn’t respond – I was actually thinking about lying to her.

  She stormed back over to the other side of the car and got right in my face. “Chris?”

  I transferred my gaze to the cracked and oil stained driveway, taking a lengthy pause before softly answering, “Yes.”

  She began hitting my chest and pushing me back – her eyes were starting to water. “Why the hell would you do something to make them shoot at you? You promised you’d be careful! What the hell?” She’d gotten so loud I expected some of the neighbors to come out.

  I didn’t want to yell, but I needed her to really hear what I had to say so she would calm down. “We didn’t do anything!”

  She stopped and looked up at me with her mouth hanging slightly open. It wasn’t often that I raised my voice around her, and the few times that I had it wasn’t directed at her. “So they just shot at you for no reason?”

  “I swear to you, we didn’t do anything.”

  After a sharp sigh, I proceeded to give her every detail of the story. Somehow, I even remembered every word the soldier said over the bullhorn before they shot as us. As I told her, I could see her emotions swirling – confusion, anger, fear and then back to confusion again. It was exactly the way I was feeling. Jim probably was too.

  What other way is there to feel?

  We still have absolutely no idea what’s going on and it doesn’t seem like anyone’s going to tell us either.

  All we know is that there’s no way to get to a store of any kind…

  I began leading her back inside, putting my arm around her as we followed the pathway to the front door. “Whatever’s happening, they won’t keep us from getting food for long.” The sun was just beginning to go down. Another pitch black night was ahead of us.

  Once we made it through the front door, Sophia ran up and hugged my leg. Even though I was scared out of my mind I couldn’t help but laugh and smile as I leaned down to embrace her. “Here let me give you a real hug little one.”

  On the inside, I had switched gears and started thinking about things like food, water, batteries, flash lights, candles – anything that could help us. And the first step was going to be figuring out exactly what we had.

  After I let her go, I whispered to Jessica, “Take her in the other room for a while and distract her. I’m going to figure out exactly what we have to eat and gather all the candles and flashlights – stuff like that. And I don’t want her to know anything’s wrong.”

  Jessica quietly nodded and ran her hand up my back, tightly gripping the spot where my neck met my shoulder.

  Sophia innocently looked up at me and her tiny brow slightly crinkled with concern. “Daddy, what’s-amatter?”

  “Don’t you worry, little one. I just had a rough day.”

  Jessica playfully scooped her up and I kissed her forehead. As I watched them walk away my heart rate instantly spiked – my mind had decided to conjure the reality of what it would be like if we actually ran out of food and water.

  …

  I took the last two boxes of cereal out of the pantry and looked down at my father’s watch. It was 8:17pm. We already had two unopened gallon jugs of water and I was able to find seven more in our recycling bins. I found three flashlights, two packs of batteries and calculated that we had enough food to eat somewhat well for six days. If we rationed a little – eight.

  The only thing I had left to do was go up in the attic and locate my father’s guns. He’d left me two after he passed away. A 9mm handgun and an antique rifle my grandfather sent home from World War II and left to him.

  Just thinking about it caused me to recall something particularly funny that my grandfather once said about the rifle, “You could shoot the dick off a hummingbird with this thing.” And even after everything that had happened and all the years that had passed, it still made me quietly laugh to myself…

  When I reached up and pulled on the string to bring down the stairs leading up to the attic, it made a horrible squeal and came crashing down. I was literally forced to jump out the way.

  After voicing my frustration, I walked back over and examined it – one of the springs that gave it tension was broken and hanging off to the side.

  I slowly made my way up the small unsteady steps, wondering if I’d regret the decision to retrieve them. I could end up being arrested after all this is over, or even get myself shot by someone else.

  But then I asked myself – What if I need them to protect Sophia or Jessica? – and any uncertainty vanished.

  Everyone is already acting so erratically and they aren’t even running out of food and water yet
. Not to mention I was actually shot at today.

  Guess it’s not really something I need to think about…

  I had to take a minute to try and remember what boxes they were in. The last day I held either one of them was shortly after my father died and I was packing them away. When we moved they were just mixed in with everything else, and without him around my interest in hunting or shooting just kind of faded away.

  Sometimes I wanted to, but I worried it would remind me of how much I missed him. The years hadn’t made losing either of my parents any easier.

  After a while, I gave up trying to remember where I put them and just started looking through random boxes. There were dozens, though only a few of them were large enough to hold a rifle, so I knew it wouldn’t take long.

  The second large box I opened presented the metal case my father bought for the rifle. Although, it took about ten tries for me to finally find the little black box that had, “Walther PPQ - 9mm” marked on the front.

  Immediately after I took it out and held it in my hand, it felt perfectly familiar. The weight, the grip, the cold metal slide – the trigger. It was almost like I’d just used it a few days ago. Memories of my father came rushing back, and I actually thought I smelled the gunpowder from when we would go to the range just outside the city….

  As I made my way back down, I saw Jessica standing at the bottom of the steps. She was staring at the Walther. She never liked guns.

  When I took my final step down the ladder and faced her, we just stared. Neither of us spoke. For a moment, I thought she was going to be upset, but that wasn’t the case – she knew the type of person that I was. She knew I’d never hurt anyone unless I truly felt that I had to.

  Day 8

  We hadn’t seen or heard any signs of anything. Our little corner of the county had been nothing but quiet – my guess was because everyone was scared of one another. Eric, the man with the radio, wouldn’t even take the chain off his front door when we last went to ask if he’d picked up a signal.

  It was getting to the point where some people would definitely begin running out of food – if they weren’t out already. Much like Eric, I was officially scared of being robbed.

  At night, I could only see the dim flicker of candle light coming from some of the windows. The new moon had just started so it was especially dark, which made it so I had trouble seeing as far as my own mailbox. Yet another aspect that made me very nervous.

  And having so much time to sit around and think about what could possibly be happening only brought about even more paranoia…

  When Jessica and I woke up, we spread out all the food and split it into enough for six more days. The portions weren’t exactly substantial, but we didn’t have a choice. While watching her examine everything we had it was easy to see that she was fighting to mask her panicked state, though even if I was blind the shaking in her voice would have given it away.

  I wanted to say something to try and make her feel better, but there wasn’t anything to say. She had every right to be worried – very worried. Which was precisely why the night before, Jim and I had agreed to go hunting first thing in the morning.

  Yesterday, we siphoned the gas out of the Mustang and transferred it into the Accord. We had to start doing everything we could to prepare for the worst. We even drove out again to see if the trucks were still blocking the road and, to be safe, Jim brought binoculars. We only got close enough to see them in the distance before turning around – we truly were stuck with no word of any assistance to come.

  Upon making it back our street, we found it blocked by a group of about twenty people who had banded together with the plan of trying to get past the soldiers and look for food. Jim and I desperately tried to stop them. We explained that the soldiers shot at us with almost no warning, even though all we did was open a car door.

  Unfortunately, our warnings fell on deaf ears, as they were so emotional and frantic that their anger quickly became focused on us for trying to stop them. They still hadn’t come back…

  Everyone else was staying indoors and most likely (definitely) becoming increasingly paranoid, just like I was. The only time I’d see anyone but Jim was if they were standing in a window and peering outside. I saw the man across the street every so often, holding a rifle as he paced around his house, though I hadn’t seen his wife in days.

  I should probably tell Jessica to stay away from the windows.

  It felt logical to assume that it really had been long enough to where almost everyone was starting to run out of food and water. A newly developing concern was that a lot of people in the area barely had anything to begin with. I knew for a fact that many lived solely on government aid, which meant their kitchens weren’t packed like mine own.

  And when someone’s starving or watching their loved ones suffer, it’s only realistic to think that they’d be capable of anything. I had no doubt that I would be if it came down to it... If anyone tried to hurt Jessica or Sophia...

  Jim and I planned on heading out early. We knew there wouldn’t be much around, so we’d already decided that if our effort was wasted that we’d have to drive out toward the mountains and go into the forest. I was simply hesitant because I was so afraid to leave them alone for more than a few hours – that was already too long. Not to mention, it would really eat up the little gas we had left.

  …

  I was coming down out of the attic with my rifle when Jessica appeared in the hallway. She hesitantly moved closer to me, keeping an eye on the gun as she softly asked, “Is there anything you want me to do while you’re gone?”

  All I really want you to do is watch Sophia. “Yeah. No matter what, don’t open the door for anyone. Just pretend you’re not home.”

  Should I leave her the Walther?

  “You don’t have to worry about that.” She grimaced. “Just please don’t make me eat a rabbit or a squirrel.”

  I have to…

  I leaned down and kissed her. “I don’t want to either, but we might not have a choice.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just hard to picture eating a little bunny.” She gasped. “Don’t let Sophia find out.”

  I smiled, regardless of the fact that she would know it’s forced. “Don’t worry. I’ll clean everything at Jim’s before I come home. Now, I’ve got to go, he’s probably already waiting.”

  As I turned away, she pulled me back and embraced me as tightly as she could. “Be careful, please.” I slowly nodded and then took out the Walther. My reasoning was no mystery to her. “You know I’ve never shot a gun before.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Understandably, with everything floating around on the news, and the simple fact that she’d never even held a gun, the idea was intimidating. “But-”

  “If someone tries to get in the house you won’t necessarily have to shoot them in order to stop it. A few rounds through the door could easily be enough. Just letting someone know you have a gun means a lot.”

  As I’d hoped, my little speech softened her nerves, so I proceeded to show her how it operates. Once finished, I said with all honesty, “Seriously, Jessica, you’re not gonna have to use it. Think of it like… a fire extinguisher.”

  “I know.”

  “We won’t even be gone all that long.”

  “I know.”

  I double checked the safety and showed her how to turn it off again. “I am going to have to ask that you keep it on you. Don’t put it in a drawer or anything like that.”

  She agreed, though clearly wasn’t thrilled with my final request. “Be careful.”

  She’ll be fine…

  When I walked outside Jim was leaning up against the car. “You’re late, dick!” he humorously remarked. “I’ve been out here for like a half hour.”

  “Sorry, man, I had to dig around in the attic for my rifle.”

  He took one look at it and started laughing. “Holy shit, that thing’s older than my mother. What is it?”

  Jim only
had one gun, but if you only had one it was a damn good one to have – M40, Marine issue Sniper Rifle… It made my K98 look like it belonged in a museum.

  “It’s called a K98. My grandfather sent it home during World War II – took it off a dead Nazi. And, just so you know, that gun you have is based on this. Wanna know why?”

  He sarcastically answered, “No” as he rolled his eyes. “But that is pretty fuckin’ cool.”

  I decided to tell him anyway. “Because no one’s ever been able to come up with a more accurate and dependable rifle design. Only real advantage you have is that scope. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised is yours is more delicate and prone to malfunctioning. If you’re interested that is.”

  He mockingly waved me off. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.” Then we headed toward a wooded area behind the rows of houses.

  While approaching the trees, I decided it was time to discuss something gravely serious that had been on my mind, so I changed my tone. “I don’t think we should go hunting together again after this.”

  His whole body jerked with surprise. “What? Why not?”

  I guess since he doesn’t have a family our mindsets are totally different.

  “I don’t want to leave Jessica and Sophia alone anymore. It’s getting to the point where whoever hasn’t run out of food yet is going to be out soon.” We locked eyes.

  “Yeah I understand” he said through a short sigh. “I know man, I’m starting to get worried too. If things don’t change, eventually people are going to start trying to steal from each other. Our whole neighborhood could turn into a god damn warzone. Others could show up for the same reason from the surrounding areas too.”

  “Exactly, and we both know most people around here have guns.” I slowed my pace. “That’s why I have to ask you for a huge favor.”

  Before I could get it out he patted me on the back and said, “Yeah, of course I’ll watch them while you’re out. What did you think I’d actually say no?” Then he laughed.

  “Well it’s a lot to ask. You’re trying to get by too.” I jokingly shot him a disapproving glance. “What, you don’t think I know your fridge was mainly full of beer when this started?”