J R Biery

Fleeing Chaos J R Biery

FLEEING CHAOS

Amber's world is far from ideal, but it is one she has settled into. Working for the Power and Water Department in LA, she has a shared-room rental only a few blocks away. She even has a best friend who protects her like the big brother she never had. Mornings begin with shared coffee, evenings they spend together at the movies, dining-out, or shopping together. Zach fills her emotional needs. If he weren't gay, he would be the perfect man in her life.

Then the protest riots begin, and no one can feel settled under the intense lockdown mentality in California during the Covid-19 pandemic. Things change for the worst when Zach's camper is invaded, and he is attacked and hospitalized.

Amber drives the converted box truck camper to the hospital, then parks it behind a church, too heart-broken to worry whether she too will be attacked. The nightmare of being unable to even see him because of the Covid-19 restrictions and her demanding spiteful boss, are nothing compared to the trauma later. Unbelievably, after three days, Zach is dead.

When Amber drives out of the city, alone in the camper, she is blindly fleeing chaos. Days later a man opens the broken door to her camper and his pit-bull advances on her. Amber has never been more frightened. Even when she learns the friendly dog is trying to lick, not harm her, and Ryan was Zach's friend who helped to transform the box truck into the camper, she doesn't trust him or his dog. Ryan feels like a wall she has crashed into when she is looking for a door into a new life. Will her new world ever feel safer, or only more terrifying?