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“Shouldn’t we get out of here?” whispered Mandy.

There wasn’t time.

Before they could even think about getting completely out of the room, one of the cargo doors opened up, making a metal-on-metal grinding noise as it did.

“Can you see anything?” whispered Mandy.

Max shook his head, and put his finger to his lips, signaling that they needed to be quiet.

Max set the plastic bag of food down on the ground, careful not to let it make any noise at all. He held his Glock, finger on the trigger.

He was ready.

He glanced at Mandy. She was breathing heavily, but she had determination in her eyes.

Whatever was about to happen, they’d be ready. They’d fight their way out if they had to. Whatever it took.

11

DAN

Dan and Rob had practically carried the woman across the driveway into the next house. There, Rob had picked the lock of the back door with a lock pick kit that he kept in a slender case in his front pocket. “Always handy to have,” he’d muttered, slinging the kit back into his pocket, the door opening easily.

After checking the house to make sure there was no one there, Dan and Rob had gotten the woman situated in the living room. They’d set her down on the couch, trying to make her as comfortable as possible. She promptly went to sleep.

“She needs the rest,” said Rob. “Getting a bullet removed is a lot for the body to go through, even though it was about as good as a gunshot can be, with the bullet lodged in there, that is.”

“Couldn’t be as bad as actually getting shot,” said Dan.

“Good point,” said Rob, settling down into a rocking chair.

The living room appeared to be completely undisturbed. There was no sign of anything having happened there. No furniture was overturned, and nothing appeared to be missing.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for the thick coating of dust, and the absence of artificial lighting, there was nothing to distinguish this living room from what it must have been like before the EMP had happened.

“Is she going to be OK?” said Dan.

Rob shrugged. “Who knows. I’m no doctor, but I think so.”

Dan frowned with worry. He didn’t know the woman, but she’d saved his life. He felt indebted to her.

Rob seemed to sense that Dan was worried, and he added, “Don’t worry, kid. She’s going to be fine. I’ve seen worse wounds plenty of times. And we should be fine here for a little while. Trust me, these scroungers go for the easiest house, even if that means the most danger. If there’s an open door, that’ll be like a magnet for them. And they haven’t hit this area really hard yet, judging by how this house is totally undisturbed.”

Dan didn’t quite believe Rob. After all, a man had just broken into the house next door. Surely they didn’t really have that much time here.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Dan was feeling a deep well of emotion shifting in him. He didn’t know quite what it was.

He was trying not to let the tears form in his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d cried. Maybe back when he was a little kid and he’d been told that his parents weren’t coming to see him. Actually, he didn’t remember the specifics of it at all. That was how long ago it was. It was just a memory.

He hadn’t cried when his grandmother had died. Or his grandfather.

But all that emotion was still there. And now, everything seemed so hopeless.

It was easy, when things were happening, when there was something to do, to keep all that emotion at bay, to keep it buried deep somewhere.

But here he was in a living room as if the EMP had never happened. In this brief moment of rest, everything came flooding back.

“We’ve got to come up with a plan,” said Dan, speaking more to distract himself than out of real necessity.

“You’re right,” said Rob. “But I’ve been thinking that way since the EMP, and every time I come up with a plan, something comes along and knocks me on my ass.”

Dan had been noticing that the way Rob had been speaking had been changing. At first, he’d sounded like some posh gentleman. Now, he was speaking more like the people Dan had grown up with and worked with at the hardware store.

“What’d you do before the EMP?” said Dan. He asked out of curiosity in an attempt to further distract himself, and also with a sense of practicality. If Rob had some special skills from a previous profession, maybe he could help them somehow.

“Oh,” said Rob, casually. “I did a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

Rob leaned back further in the rocking chair. “I was a valet parker for a few years after high school. That was OK until I got bored with it. So I passed a couple tests, got a scholarship, and went to school. Next thing I knew, I was a lawyer at a high-power firm.”

“So you must be really smart, then?”

Rob laughed. “I don’t know how smart I was. I wasn’t taking to the law life that well. I was bored, so I quit. One day, I just walked out of the office. I remember walking down the street, taking off my tie and tossing it into the gutter. One of the firm partners called me and asked where the hell I was. You see, I had clients I was supposed to be meeting with.”

“But you just walked off?”

Rob laughed again. “That’s right, just walked the hell out of there. I told them I was quitting. They told me I had another five years before I’d get any kind of pension at all. I told them they could keep it. I walked right down the street to the bar, went on a bender for a week.”

“A bender?”

“I wasn’t a drunk, but that week I drank more than I probably have in my whole life.”

Dan didn’t know what to say. He’d never even touched alcohol. “How’d you get out of that?”

“Next thing I knew, the buzz wore off and I was working as a garbage man in the city. So I said what the hell and I worked there for another five years.”

“Then what happened?”

“The EMP happened, that’s what. I liked working sanitation. It was a hell of a lot better than being a lawyer, as far as I was concerned. Out in the fresh air. Well, it wasn’t always so fresh, but you get used to the smell after a while. I got to enjoy the sunshine, the rain, just about everything. Beats working in an office.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever be stuck in an office again,” said Dan.

Rob laughed. “I thought you didn’t have a sense of humor, kid,” he said. “But you’re surprising me at every turn. Come on, let’s see what this house has to offer. Maybe we can scrounge up some food.”

Rob checked the pulse of the woman before they left the room, saying that she looked like she was doing fine and that the wound hadn’t started bleeding again.

Not much light entered the rest of the house, since all the blinds were drawn, and Rob said it’d be best to keep them that way. But gradually their eyes got accustomed to the lower levels of light.

Most of the house looked like it had been completely untouched. There were only a couple isolated spots where some evidence of commotion could be seen. One of the upstairs bedrooms had clothes spread out all over the floor.

“Looks like they were in a hurry to leave their house,” said Rob, gently kicking at the clothing with his boot.

Many of the dresser drawers were opened. One of the had even been removed completely from the dresser and it now lay on the floor.

“What do you think happened to the people who lived here?” said Dan. “Where’d they all go?”

“Everyone was worried that someone was invading,” said Rob. “That was the word on the street around here when the EMP first hit. If their car happened to still work, then they left in that. If it didn’t, they got a ride with whoever’d take them. Or they left by foot. People were desperate.”