Kelley

Speedway and Harrison, Tucson, AZ – 0916

Kelley was terrified and in pain. Not that she wasn’t terrified when nuclear missiles started blowing up, or planes started crashing into the ground. She looked up at the thick pillars of smoke rising in the distance to the east, confirming that nothing had changed since the nukes went off only a couple hours prior. Then she winced as the motion shifted her shoulder, aggravating the bullet wound received when someone came into their store and shot her and her co-workers.

She survived, sadly, Janice and Mr. Daniels were dead before they hit the ground next to her. She only avoided their fate due to hanging back behind the much larger Mr. Daniels. She didn’t see what happened afterwards as the round that punched through her shoulder spun her barely hundred-pound frame around and knocked it to the ground. Where she stayed face down, covering her ears as best she could while the man she was currently following returned a horrendous amount of fire back at the men who had killed her friends.

All around them were abandoned vehicles as the rarely used Tucson sidewalks seemed suddenly alive with activity. They moved at a brisk pace, never stopping to check on someone in distress. At one point they passed a distraught woman with three crying children of varying ages standing helplessly over a man who lay face down in his own blood. A victim of some random violence that they didn’t even take time to speculate about. The woman saw the large man with the gun, then eyed the wound in Kelley’s shoulder. Her eyes widened in fear as she momentarily snapped out of her despair, pulled her kids closer to scurry off in whichever direction was opposite to where the big scary man with the gun was headed.

When people would approach, a single glare from her escort was usually enough to make most back off. If that didn’t do the trick, then he would attempt to politely wave them away, sometimes stopping as they would approach and shift his rifle to his shoulder. He didn’t raise the barrel and only changed his stance. Everyone so far understood that message clearly enough to not press him further.

“Speed is key right now. We don’t want to stay out longer than needed. People are going to start losing their collective shit.” He spoke softly, loud enough for her to here. She silently nodded in response.

“How’s your shoulder?”

She didn’t hear him until she’d brushed into him as he stopped short of the next street corner. When she looked up, he was staring down at her with concerned eyes. She looked over at the bloody bandage wrapped around her shoulder. It hurt like hell, though less than when she’d first been shot and thought she was going to die. She shuddered at the recent memory of how John walked up to the man that the other guy, Antonio, had hit with a lucky shotgun blast. He had been slowly bleeding out in front of the building. When John walked up to him, he attempted to speak, John just pulled a knife from his belt and slit the man’s throat without a word. She remembers a coldness on his face which was a stark contrast to what she saw now.

“I- I’m fine.” She lied.

“Hurts like hell, doesn’t it? You want to take a break or keep going. I know I said we need to hustle, but I don’t want to push you too hard. We still have a few miles to hike, and it’s getting hotter.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She considered giving into the nagging voice in the back of her head and sitting down. Truthfully, she doubted she’d stand up again if she stopped. “No, keep going.”

He nodded appreciatively to her then scanned the road in front of them. She followed his gaze when he stopped scanning and noticed that there was some kind of commotion where the Circle K sat on the corner of Houghton and Speedway. The road where they needed to turn to head back to her own house.

“What is it?”

“Looters. I think. Stay on my left as we pass.” He checked his rifle as they pushed on, placing himself strategically between her and whatever was happening up ahead.

As they got closer, she saw at least a dozen people yelling at a man that was probably the same age and size as John. Though this man was clearly not in the same shape as her burly escort. She recognized him as the new manager of the corner store. He was currently standing in front of the entrance to the building with a heavy wooden club in his hand, pointing it at another man who was yelling in his face so hard that the manager was trying to avoid getting an impromptu shower of spittle.

“We’re closed! You all can fuck right off!”

She felt John pushing her up against an abandoned F-350 just as her mind registered a man in the back of the angry crowd reaching into his waistband and pulling out a black pistol.

“Against the tire! Now!” He hissed while she moved to comply.

John crouched low and pushed up to the back of the truck, rifle tucked into his shoulder as he peered around the edge. Curiosity won over her own fear as she pushed up against the tire. She leaned her head under the lifted truck to get a poor look at the Circle K, watching in grim fascination as the manager was starting to get pushed back by the mob. Just when she thought he would get trampled out of the way, he swung back and bashed the spitting man over the head with his club.

The spitting man stumbled, sagged, then finally began to collapse into unconsciousness, all while the manager was winding up to strike his next target. He raised his club high in the air once again, though he never swung as the next sound to echo across the road was that of the pistol man firing his weapon into the managers face. She saw his head snap back before quickly turning away from the grizzly, chaotic scene.

“FUCK!”

“You shot him!”

“What the fuck is happening!?”

“Son of a bitch!”

They waited by the truck for what seemed like hours, though it was probably only a few seconds, then John motioned for her to follow him. She slid up behind him, eyeing the spot where the managers dead body was laying in such a manner as to prop the door open for the handful of people that stuck around to loot the store. The man he clubbed was nowhere to be seen and at least half the crowd dispersed when it had become violent. She assumed the rest were determined to get what they could, no matter the cost.

“Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” She asked John in a weak voice as they turned down Houghton to continue the walk to her house.

He didn’t answer for such a long time that she suspected that she hadn’t spoken loud enough to be heard. They had made it almost a quarter mile down the road and were about to cross the bridge over one of the local washes when he finally did answer her question.

“I think, no, I know. It will get much worse. You’re pretty tough, though you’re going to need to get even tougher if you plan to survive our new reality.”

She looked up at him warily, suddenly seeing a kindness she hadn’t expected to see. She looked down the road, her eyes settling on a pretty woman with long brown hair walking in the same direction as they were. She was limply carrying a pair of trendy high heel shoes as she dejectedly stumbled forward, clearly irritated by the current state of fairs. The woman was completely oblivious to the dirty man with stringy hair and rags for clothes crawling up from beneath the wash behind her. Before Kelley could call out to the woman to warn her, the man wrapped an arm around her neck, snaked another up under her arm in the way she’d seen done on TV.

“Oh, shit.” John muttered as he watched the woman get dragged away.

“You saw that too? Should we do something? Help her?” She half asked, half pleaded. She was scared, in tons of pain, but most importantly she was already tired of seeing people hurt each other.