Collapse Read online

  “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?!” the muscled guy shouted, his voice now even louder than it was before. Dread bubbled in Ashley’s stomach as she and Joel drew closer to the commotion.

  The policeman said something in return to the guy, and though he said it is calmly as possible, his face had turned beet red. He was not a small guy himself, and not someone Ashley would’ve mouthed off to, but the guy apparently wasn’t happy with the policeman’s answer.

  Another policeman appeared behind the guy and tapped him on the shoulder, and the guy whirled and punched the second police officer right in the face, sending him to the ground. The first officer drew his gun and screams echoed across the bridge as people realized what was happening.

  Ashley watched in horror as the policeman screamed something intelligible at the man, and the man rushed him, his words drowned out by the sound of gunshots, several of them. Instinctively, Ashley hit the floor, pulling Joel down with her. Though she couldn’t see, she heard several more shots that must’ve come from the police officer.

  “We have to move,” Ashley said to Joel.

  “You’re insane, I’m not moving in this, what if we get shot?” Joel shouted.

  If we stay here, we’re much more likely to get hit. We have to move, and we have to move now,” Ashley said. “Stay down, keep your head low, but move as fast as possible.” Without waiting for him to challenge her, Ashley pulled Joel by his good hand forward, keeping low.

  Screams and gunshots echoed all around them as the crowd scrambled in both directions. More than once she was almost knocked over, but she kept pushing, shoving and elbowing her way through the thick sea of people and abandoned cars all around her.

  She moved from abandoned car to abandoned car for cover, Joel’s hand gripped in hers, and never looked back. When they’d crested the highest point of the bridge, and they had the cover of a hill behind them, Ashley stood and broke into a run. She needed to put as much distance between them and the shooters as possible before the crowd reached them. Ashley had no intention of being trampled.

  Without ever stopping to take a breath, her body running on pure adrenaline, she ran the entirety of the bridge until she reached the other side. People were all around, screaming and clambering over abandoned cars and discarded possessions that lined the road. Joel heaved, practically begging her with his eyes to let him stop for a breath, but they couldn’t stop now.

  They had to keep their lead, had to stay ahead of the crowd and get away from the majority of them. A dense patch of trees off the freeway to her right caught her eye, and without thinking, she again pulled Joel forward, into the safety of the woods. Branches pulled at her hair, snagged in her clothes, and tore at her skin, but she kept running. The Knicks and cuts were a small price to pay for the cover the trees provided, both from sight and from gunshots.

  After what seemed like an eternity, they came to a clearing, surrounded by dirt and giant silos of some sort. Joel fell to his knees, heaving. Ashley knelt beside him, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and listened intently for anything that might suggest they needed to move again.

  Screams and voices traveled from people still on the bridge carried to Ashley's ears, but they were far enough away that she and Joel could rest, at least for a few moments.

  But they wouldn’t be able to stay there; they'd have to keep moving.

  It’d only been a day and already people had descended into chaos. Maybe Joel was right; maybe things were going to be much worse than she’d thought. She’d wanted to believe people could hold themselves together, that they could uphold some basic human decency while they all lived through this horrible event, but maybe that was naive.

  Not even the police were safe. The memory of the policeman falling, blood spraying from his chest as bullets ripped through him, flashed in her mind and she started to cry.

  That man, whoever he was, might’ve had a wife and kids at home, scared and alone, waiting for him to return from his civic service. They would never see him again, or if they did, they wouldn’t recognize him.

  She realized then that Joel was right, that they had to get back to the city as fast as possible, and that she had to get to her father before someone else did.

  “Can you walk?” Ashley asked. Joel was still sucking down air, gripping his injured arm. He’d slung off the backpack to the ground beside him.

  “Just let me breathe a little bit longer,” Joel said through his heaving.

  “We don’t have much time. We can’t stay here, people are going to get the same idea, and I don’t want anyone to find us like this,” Ashley said, looking over her shoulder.

  “We have to stay off the beaten path from now on out. No more bridges, no more people,” she said, looking right into Joel’s eyes. She should never have let him talk her into walking the bridge in the first place. He nodded as she dragged him to his feet.

  They had to keep moving.

  11

  Nate sat glued to his chair, watching.

  All morning, their street had been full of their neighbors, heading God only knew where, and with each one that passed by the giant window at the front of their house, Nate’s anxiety grew.

  Now that the sun had almost set, its rays casting the street in fiery shades of orange and red, and the flow of people had slowed to a trickle, Nate's anxiousness had turned into a constant vibration in his core.

  What if Cass had been right? What if it was too late to get out now?

  Staying in the house, as rational as it seemed at first, now felt like a trap. If everyone else in the neighborhood had left, there wouldn't be anyone or anything to stop looters from coming into abandoned houses—including theirs.

  “What are we going to do?” Cass asked from behind, startling him.

  “I don’t know,” Nate answered, drumming his fingers on the windowsill. Without his father there, he felt responsible for all of them. The safest thing to do would be to stay put and wait to hear something, anything, from the authorities, but as the neighborhood thinned and darkness set before his eyes, Nate wasn’t sure how safe it was. They’d survived a full day without issue, but Nate could only guess what the night would bring when the light wasn’t there to keep them safe.

  “We need to figure it out and fast. We have supplies here, thanks to Dad and his paranoia, but they won’t last forever. We need to make a decision. Are we staying here and waiting for him, or are we leaving?”

  “We have to stay. We can’t leave,” Shelby shouted from the kitchen table, speaking for the first time in hours. Nate had almost forgotten how her voice sounded. When they’d woken up that morning to no power and a constant commotion of neighbors fleeing, Shelby had folded in on herself.

  “Why not? Why can’t we just go somewhere safer? I don’t understand,” Cass said.

  “Because there isn’t anywhere safer, Cassidy!” Shelby snapped, glaring at Cass as she rounded the corner into the living room.

  “Are you kidding? There's any number of safer places to go. For Christ’s sakes, the entire neighborhood left, and it’s almost dark. Why are we waiting here like sitting ducks for something bad to happen? We should take some of the stuff from downstairs, as much of it as we can, and get the hell outta here,” Cass said.

  “And where are we going to go? Have you thought this through?” Nate asked.

  “Come on, Nate. You’ve seen movies like this; you know how it’s going to play out. The people who stay in the city don’t fare well; they get the worst of it. We should be doing the same thing as everyone else. We should take our shit and hightail it out to the countryside somewhere. That’s what Dad would do,” Cass said.

  “And what about Dad? What if we take off like you’re saying we should, and he comes home to find none of us here?” Nate asked.

  “Exactly. Thank you, Nate,” Shelby said, placing her hands on his shoulders and massaging them, but it was too rough. She wasn’t trying to comfort him; she was trying to relieve her tension, burn off the exc
ess of energy she and Nate were both prone to storing.

  “What if he never comes home?” Cass asked. Nate opened his mouth to fire back, but he had no answer. What if Joel never came back? What if he was stuck in Alaska or some other remote part of the country and couldn’t get home? They would be sitting around waiting for nothing, sitting ducks like Cass said.

  “Don’t ever say that again,” Shelby said, digging her fingernails into Nate’s shoulders. “Do you hear me?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer before she stormed upstairs.

  “Nice job,” Nate said.

  “Well, someone’s gotta take some fucking initiative around here,” Cass said.

  “Thank God we have you to be the leader of the house in Dad’s absence. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like without you,” Nate snapped and stood to leave Cass alone.

  “Fuck you!” Cass called after him.

  Nate had just placed a foot on the first step of the staircase when a shout from outside froze him in his tracks. Every hair on the back his neck stood up straight.

  “What was that?” he asked, turning to find Cass standing wide-eyed.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Nate crouched down and crept to the window. Directly across the street, a man Nate didn’t recognize stood on the neighbor’s porch, looking over both his shoulders, his face covered by a ski mask.

  He shouted again, and another masked man snuck around the corner of the house before creeping up onto the porch. He was shorter than the first guy and seemed to be much more nervous, always looking over his shoulder. They talked for a few moments, the shorter man unable to stop looking around, and when they determined they were alone, the first man kicked the door wide open. Cass gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Are they looters?” Nate whispered.

  “Holy shit, they are,” Cass said and went to the front door on their left, her hand on the doorknob, but Nate grabbed her by the wrist to stop her.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he hissed.

  “That’s Austin’s house,” Cass said.

  “So what? Those dudes probably have guns or knives or something,” Nate said, though he didn’t want to think about that. Cass hesitated, staring across the street through the triangular panes of glass in the front door.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Nate said. Sighing, Cass crouched back down in front of the window beside him to watch. Both men had disappeared inside the house while they argued and Nate held his breath as he waited for them to come back out.

  When the first guy did, his hands were full of random stuff. Canned vegetables, bags of chips, anything he could grab. The second, shorter guy stepped out of the house right behind him, his hands wrapped around a large cardboard box. Nate could only guess what they’d stuffed inside.

  The roar of an engine from down the street made Nate jump, as well as the two looters. The guy carrying the box pointed down the road, and almost instantly the two of them started running in the opposite direction, away from the growing light coming from down the street.

  It wasn’t fast enough.

  A sand-colored military Humvee appeared, zooming across the window, its turret manned. The door was spray painted bright red with a crude picture of a horned devil. Instinctively, Nate covered his head and fell to the floor as the turret unleashed a spray of bullets at the looters and Cass screamed as she fell beside him.

  Shouting echoed from outside, filling Nate’s head, and more than anything he just wanted it to be over. Whoever the people were, whoever was driving that vehicle, he hoped he never came across them. They must’ve stolen the vehicle from somewhere, but Nate couldn’t say from where, because the person inside the turret was unmistakably not military.

  If he wasn’t military, then who the hell was he? And why were they shooting up looters in the neighborhood?

  “What the hell’s going on?!” Shelby screamed, charging down the stairs.

  “Get down! Get away from the window!” Nate hissed at her, motioning for her to hit the floor. She did, and army crawled her way over to he and Cass, tears glistening in her eyes.

  “What’s happening?” she whispered.

  “There are looters across the street, and somebody just opened fire on them,” Nate said. His mind raced. They were sitting ducks, waiting to be found by more looters or the militia guys who had stolen the Humvee.

  “Oh my God. What are we going to do?” Shelby asked, now crying in earnest.

  “We need to get downstairs, and we need to do it now,” Nate said. He had no idea if the people would clear out once the confrontation was over, but he didn’t want to risk any of them being seen in the window by these people. If they were already shooting at each other, he could only guess at what else they might do—and he didn’t want to find out.

  As much as he wanted to run, as much as he wished he’d listened to Cass and left with the rest of the neighborhood, Nate knew there was no chance for that now. They were trapped, at least for the time being, but that didn’t mean that they had to be unprepared.

  With his hands shaking, his heart hammering in his chest, Nate crept to his hands and knees and crawled across the floor, careful not to make any noise or disturb anything else in the house. He motioned to Cass and Shelby to follow him, through the kitchen, around the corner, and to the stairs leading down into the dark of the basement.

  If the looters or the militia guys broke into the house, it wouldn’t be the best place for them to hide, but it would at least give them some cover and the element of surprise if they needed to fire back—but they needed a gun for that.

  When he reached the stairs, he went down them as slowly and quietly as possible, holding a finger to his lips to tell Cass and Shelby to do the same. Though Shelby continued to cry, she managed to stay quiet about it until they got to the basement. It was so dark Nate couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

  Carefully, he guided them both through the cellar toward the very back corner, dodging the rows of shelving and boxes of less important things they hadn’t yet unpacked. The canned vegetables and assorted pickled things floating in jars sparkled in the sliver of light that seeped through the only window built into the concrete foundation.

  If they got trapped in the house, the supplies in the basement would be their only source of food until they could get out. When Nate had helped his dad unpack and shelve all the cans and jars, he’d thought Joel was losing it, but now he understood.

  Without his dad there, it was up to Nate to keep his family safe, no matter what.

  He took both their hands in his and guided them along the basement wall, where they sat and huddled together on the floor. The noise from outside had stopped, but that didn’t give Nate comfort.

  Instead, it filled him with dread. All he could think about, all he could see in his mind, was masked men kicking the front door open like they’d done across the street and coming in to take whatever they felt like taking—even human lives.

  Nate knew how to shoot. His dad had insisted he learn, despite Nate’s disinterest, but knowing how to shoot didn’t do jack shit for him without a gun. Nate needed to get one fast, but he couldn’t search in the pitch darkness without making any noise. It would have to wait until he knew the coast was clear and that any noise in the basement wouldn’t draw unwanted attention from outside.

  But then Shelby prodded him. He turned to her, her eyes glistening in the light from the basement window, and it wasn’t the only thing glistening. She held out a gun to him, one he had no idea she even had, and reluctantly he took it from her.

  Nate opened the chamber. Relying on touch in the darkness, Nate dragged his finger down the clip and let out a sigh when he realized the gun was fully loaded.

  He hoped it would be enough.

  12

  Joel couldn’t go another step.

  They’d been wandering through the trees for what seemed like hours, and the sun had already started to set around them, making the visibility worse. Joel didn’t know
where they’d been walking—it was impossible to tell with all the trees—but it wasn't the right way.

  Still, Ashley swore she had a good sense of direction and Joel had to trust her. She hadn’t said much since the shooting on the bridge, not that he could blame her for that, and despite himself, he was worried about her.

  If she couldn’t handle a shootout like the one they’d seen, Joel wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle what was yet to come. Watching the police officer get gunned down had convinced Joel there was no going back. The unraveling had already started, and once the rope was frayed, it couldn’t be put back together. Joel had prepared for that, but it was clear Ashley hadn’t.

  “Are you okay?” Joel asked after he’d stopped, leaning against a tree to catch his breath.

  “What do you think?” Ashley said, refusing to turn around to look at him. Her voice wavered, and Joel knew she was crying. Had she been crying the entire time? He would never have known because she never stopped, never turned around.

  “Look, I know it was awful, but it’s only going to get worse,” Joel said.

  “How can you say that?” Ashley asked, whirling on him.

  “Because it’s the truth and there’s no hiding from it,” Joel said. “What did you think was going to happen? Did you think the world would come together in some big Kumbaya moment to support each other?” Joel asked.

  “Screw you,” Ashley said.

  “Seriously, Ashley, what did you think was going to happen? People are survivors at their cores, they’ve always been, especially in situations like this. If you thought people would band together and help each other, you were wrong.”

  “Yeah, I see that now,” she said.

  “Good. There’s no other way to see it. The only thing we can do is keep pushing forward,” Joel said, though it was easier to say than to do. The shooting had rattled him too, but he couldn’t let Ashley see that. Joel knew things would get ugly fast, but even he never anticipated how quickly they would fall apart after the EMP.