Tucson, AZ - August 8th, 2023 0747 hours
Danica
Danica wasn’t certain about the man leading them out of the apartment complex, he just always looked angry when she saw him around. Now knowing that he was seemingly armed to the teeth left her in an awkward position. She wasn’t a fan of guns, even less so of nukes going off all around her. Now she was reconsidering her position as thoughts of radioactive mutants swarming out of the nearby wash swarmed her lizard brain. Flights of fantasy aside, she knew she needed supplies for her girlfriend, her girlfriend’s toddler, and herself. Which is why she gathered up some of the neighbors she was on speaking terms with and convinced them to offer their services in gathering even more resources from the nearby CVS after she found out it was the man’s plan.
“Holy shit, let’s move.” John called out from the front of the group just as she stumbled through the gate and got her first look at the chaos that was quickly unfolding outside their complex. He waved everyone forward with Antonio at his side.
At first, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. She could hear people all around yelling at each other in the street, which was covered in various bits of nature and debris. The cars and trucks that hadn’t been involved in accidents as their electronics went out were slowly being abandoned as their owners realized they wouldn’t ever start again. Alternatively, the more sound minded individuals were moving towards the vehicles that weren’t as fortunate to avoid being involved in accidents and checking on their operators, providing assistance, as it were. She saw several people leaning out of broken windows in the apartment across the road, gaping at something she couldn’t see from her vantage point.
Small groups of people could be seen periodically milling about aimlessly, watching the sky for more threats, or worriedly staring at the looming mushroom cloud behind her own position. Several of the groups were armed like hers and eyed John and Antonio warily before moving on to their own tasks, which seemed to be mostly looking around aimlessly. Others were watching a fire that had started when one of the overloading transformers was knocked off its pole to fall in a small nearby field.
She looked down the road to her left, noting that several of the telephone poles had been knocked over into the road, sometimes to smash an unlucky car. She could tell from her vantage that at least one of those included an unlucky driver who was screaming for help. No one came for the woman. The pedestrian bridge further down that serviced the middle school there was hanging precariously with a crack running through the middle support pylon.
Looking towards the CVS she observed a massive pileup centered on an overturned box truck. It appeared as though everyone was approaching the intersection at the same time when the EMP shut off their electronics and half the drivers had no idea how to control a car without all of its power assists. Around the box truck was a recent model Mercedes with its hood crumpled back sitting just past the front of the truck. A large Ford truck was parked sideways behind the Mercedes with its bumper touching the ground. Several other cars were involved in fender benders in all directions of the main accident when their brakes suddenly became extremely unresponsive.
Several people were standing on the side of the box truck, attempting to pull the driver out, while most of the drivers just stood around futilely thumbing their phones in an attempt to raise emergency services or sitting on the curb, crying with their heads in their hands.
“Look, I know some of you will want to stop and help these people. Don’t. Stay on task. We have to secure ourselves before we can help anyone else.”
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Antonio nodded to John, “We going straight across? It doesn’t look like it even opened up yet this morning.”
“Let’s get there and find out, looks like the doors are already smashed out.”
They had already walked half the distance to the shop, weaving their way around the haphazardly stopped cars. Danica was listening to their two would-be protectors talking when John went silent and stared across the road towards the other apartment complex. She followed his gaze and saw a pair of men standing on the corner between the two nearest buildings watching their group intently. She wasn’t certain, but she had a feeling that they meant trouble and only the size of their group kept them from acting directly.
“You think they gonna’ cause us problems on the way out?” She asked John.
“Absolutely. I should have brought another trigger puller.”
“They look like the kinda dudes you didn’t see but for a few months at a time in my old hood.” Antonio added, “They’ll probably try to jump us.”
“You guys really think so?” Danica asked, a touch of worry breaking in her voice.
John looked back as Antonio navigated around a stalled truck in front of them, “Yeah, they gotta’ have a good idea what we’re up to and are kicking themselves for not thinking of it first. Let’s get focused, we’re coming up on that bad accident.”
Most of the cars they had passed thus far weren’t particularly damaged, though most of the drivers had seemingly already abandoned them or were with the group trying to help the guy stuck in the box truck. A man standing on the side of the truck looked down at them and hesitated before asking if they had anything that could help unjam the door. John just waved and said sorry as he ushered the group around the jam up.
“C’mon man! You’re just going to leave him trapped!?” The man implored John, then cast his glance across the rest of their group.
Everyone including Danica herself tried to avoid the man’s gaze, feeling quite a bit of shame in the process. For a moment she thought the pressure would cause someone in her group to cave. Before that could happen a young man she recruited for this venture named Dannny muttered from the back of the group just loud enough to distract everyone from the truck man’s plea.
“What the fuck?”
Everyone turned to look at what he was staring at. On the side of the road that curved down into the wash several people had begun crawling up from below the storm drain. They were unwashed with sunburnt skin that was peeling around open sores visible from even fifty feet away. After a few moments at least a dozen stood staring at everyone gathered around the box truck, some muttering to themselves then giggling at some unheard joke.
At the center was an old too skinny woman wearing a dirty tank top and jean shorts. She looked straight at them while raising a boney hand to point at the looming mushroom cloud in the distance, cackling through rotted brown teeth and bloody pink gums.
“It comes! It comes for you all! Soon. Soon the meek will inherit the EARTH!”
When she finished her proclamation, the homeless bums around her began chanting in a slow creepy rhythmic fashion, “It comes… It comes… It comes…”
Danica shivered, rooted in place as something primal crawled up the base of her spine and threatened to break loose all the terror she had been keeping in check over the last hour since the apocalypse seemingly began. She could vaguely tell that several of the people around her were about to lose it as well. Part of her wanted to curl up into a ball and cry right there, another was screaming at her to run. Run as far as she could, never stop.
“Back on task people, ignore the fucking zombies.” John’s command brought her back to reality and gave her mind something to latch onto other than the creepy chanting of the homeless woman’s mad ravings. A couple of people chuckled uneasily at the zombie reference, then they were all moving past the front of the truck.
She took one last glance back through the window and saw a bloody man hanging from his seatbelt. She could clearly see where his head had hit the window but it failed to shatter completely. As she walked off she called to the man on top of the truck, “Hey, dumbass, grab a tire iron and bust out the window the rest of the way. But I think that dude is dead.”
The man looked at her with confusion that morphed into exasperation, then began climbing down off the truck. The “zombies” never stopped their chant as John led them to the entrance of the CVS.