Ready Set Rush: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (Ready Set Chaos Book 2) by Harley Tate

Author:Harley Tate [Tate, Harley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21ST 5:45 P.M. EST

Carlos Medina gripped the edge of the customer service counter, staring up at the fading light overhead. The store’s generator, a wheezing relic that had barely held things together since Wednesday, sputtered a dying breath. Every uneven thrum sent a pulse of dread through his chest.

It wouldn’t last much longer.

He shifted his gaze to the aisles—long, narrow corridors now crammed with desperate bodies. Word had spread fast. His store still had food, still had water, still had something. At dawn, they’d arrived in orderly lines, waiting, hoping. Now, the shelves were stripped to bones and the air inside reeked of sweat and fear.

The generator gave another ragged cough, the lights dimming before surging weakly back. He took a breath and stepped out from behind the counter. “Listen up!” His voice cut through the restless conversations. “We’ve done what we can, but the generator’s dying. We can’t keep the food cold, so I’m opening the store to the community. Take what you need but do it calmly. No fighting.”

For a moment, silence. Then, murmurs of relief. A few nods. A chorus of thank you’s rippled through the crowd, and the knot in his stomach loosened. Maybe this would hold. Maybe people would⁠—

A crash.

He turned. A metal shelf rocked violently near the back, sending cans clattering across the linoleum tile. People surged toward the sound. The line dissolved in seconds. A woman grabbed a case of water, and a man yanked it from her hands. Another shoved a teenage boy hard enough to send him sprawling.

Carlos’s throat went dry. It’s slipping.

He motioned to Marla and Dev, the only two employees who’d shown up that morning. “Start handing out what’s left. Keep it moving.” They nodded, but Dev’s hands trembled as he grabbed a crate of eggs already sweating in their cartons.

Another scuffle broke out near the dairy case: two men shouting over the last gallon of milk. Across the store, someone knocked over an end cap, sending boxes of cereal cascading to the floor.

Carlos moved toward the worst of it, hands up. “We have enough if everyone stays fair⁠—”

An elbow slammed into his ribs. He staggered, pain flaring deep in his side. More shouts. A scream.

His head jerked toward the registers just as a fist connected with a young girl’s face. She crumpled, dropping a basket of cans that skittered across the tile. Before she could even react, a man swooped in, scooping them up and sprinting toward the exit.

Carlos’s breath turned shallow. No. This isn’t what I⁠—

“Carlos!” Marla grabbed his arm, eyes wild. “We need to lock the doors, or they’ll keep coming. We’ll be overrun.”

He tried to push toward the entrance, but the crowd was a living thing now, a writhing, grasping mass. Too late. People poured in, surging past him like flood water through a broken dam.

A man in a dirty, torn parka, out of place in a South Georgia winter, brandished a crowbar, swinging it at anyone who neared his cart. An older woman shoved past Carlos, muttering prayers under her breath.

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