Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Emily rubbed her head. “My God.”
“The air started smelling like smoke from fires burning in different parts of the city. Someone said they’d seen a plane practically fall from the sky and that the wreckage landed in the Mississippi. Apparently, the whole area around the Gateway Arch was burning and people were jumping in the water to get away from the spreading flames.” He looked up and met my eyes. “As the city grew dark, we could see all the fires, still burning. But there were no sirens, not a single one.”
Emily, Charlie, and I all exchanged looks, obviously in silent agreement that there was no need to bring up our own plane crash. But our experience certainly added merit to what Isaac was telling us. My head spun. How many aircraft were in the air at any given time? And how many of those had “practically fallen from the sky” like ours had? The number of lives lost both on the aircraft and on the ground as a result was too staggering to even imagine.
“My neighbor had a few of us over to his place to use the meat in their freezer, so it didn’t go bad. We each brought something to share. The water stopped running soon after the six of us gathered though and the mood, it just…got real somber. We knew this was nothing like other blackouts and it was only the first day. Cars littering the streets, blocking roads, no way for emergency vehicles to get through if those were even still running at all. But like I said, we couldn’t hear any…even far away. It was eerie as fuck. Then this dude, he said he’d heard from someone else that the MetroLink had come off the rails and people were injured and dying inside the wreckage in one of the tunnels. Everywhere, all over the city, people were stuck and no one was coming for them.” He gave another small shiver, which I thought was more from whatever he was picturing in his head than from the cold. “Anyway, the next day, people started taking what they needed from the stores. Then others started taking what they wanted. By the third day stores were empty. Fuckin’ empty. The neighbors weren’t sharing anymore by then. Restaurants started being looted too. And still no sirens, no National Guard, nothing. People panicked and that panic spread faster than the fires. Everything…it all crumbled fucking fast, man.”
“Who shot you?” I asked.
“I don’t even know. I had some canned food, but I didn’t have enough water to stay put.” He lapsed into silence for a moment. “I never knew how quickly things could break down. I figured if people were looting restaurants for whatever food they had, pretty soon they’d be busting down any and every door. I saw others packed up and walking out and knew I had to too. Things were only going to get worse. It was already starting to stink. Garbage piled up in the street, the toilets weren’t flushing. And that damn smoke that was only getting thicker. I packed up what I could carry, and I started walking. Met a few people who only knew they were getting out, and then formed a small group. We got robbed before we’d even left the city. I tried to run and got fired on. The guy next to me got shot in the head.”
“Jesus,” Charlie muttered.
“Luckily, I’d stuffed some beef jerky and protein bars in my pants pockets,” he said, pointing down to his filthy cargo pants. “I’ve lived on those for the past few days.”
My head was swimming. This was the worst possible scenario I could have pictured. I’d been worried at the gas station near Springfield, Illinois, and now I was downright scared by what was happening in St. Louis, Missouri.
Society was collapsing.
And if it was happening in those places, it was happening in other towns and cities too.
“Do you want me to look at that wound?” I asked. “I have a first aid kit and some essentials. I’m no doctor, but I can at least clean it up for you.” I needed to do something with my hands, and I might as well be helpful. The guy had just talked for fifteen minutes when he probably barely had the energy to do so.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
He grimaced as he slowly removed the flannel shirt he was wearing.
I walked the short distance to the barn, ducked through the opening, and retrieved the first aid kit from my backpack and then once outside, picked up the crate I’d been sitting on, and moved it next to Isaac.
It only took me five minutes to clean the wound and apply antibiotic ointment. As I did so, I thought back to doing the same thing to Emily’s wound in that clearing in the forest the night of our plane crash. We’d been lost and cold and shaken to our cores by what we’d experienced, but we’d had no idea what was happening to other people not that far away. In fact, despite the circumstances, I’d momentarily gotten lost in the satiny feel of Emily’s skin under my fingers and the way goose bumps had risen when I’d touched her.