Into the Dark: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller

by Ryan Casey

  “Not fair!”

  “Totally fair. It’s your kill, isn’t it?”

  “But—but it’s fat.”

  “It’s not fat. Don’t speak about a deer’s weight in its presence. How rude.”

  Kelsie laughed a little. And Mike was just relieved. Relieved to see her like this. To see her happy.

  “Come on then,” he said, reaching for the deer. “I’ll get this one. Just this once, though. You’re on your own in future.”

  Mike carried the deer back to camp. Kelsie by his side. And he noticed something. His sadness was gone. Just like that. His lust for revenge… well, it wasn’t gone completely, but it felt like it had been put on hold.

  And that was good enough.

  For now, it was good enough.

  When he got back to camp, an excited Kelsie eager to tell everyone about her first kill, he noticed something right away.

  Alison was standing by Ian’s van.

  Concern on her face.

  “Everything okay?” Mike asked.

  “It’s Ian,” Alison said. “He’s—he’s gone.”

  Chapter Eight

  Alison raced into the woods, Gina and Arya by her side, with only one destination in mind.

  The sky was starting to grow grey and the air clammy. It was as if someone up there knew what was occurring. As if they knew that something was amiss. Especially considering it’d been wall to wall sunshine for the past few weeks.

  But it didn't matter. Not really. Nothing mattered.

  Just finding Ian.

  She felt bad. Bad, mostly because of what she’d seen. In the early hours, she’d heard a sound. Heard rustling. She’d got up and checked, only to see Ian walking off into the woods.

  She thought it was strange right away. But to be honest, she’d heard about Ian’s early morning walks. She’d heard that he liked to take off in the early hours sometimes, go off into the woods. Sometimes he came back with food. Others, with nothing.

  But he kept what he did to himself, really.

  And Alison respected that. She respected it because she knew what he’d been through. She knew what he’d lost.

  And at least he didn’t seem as driven by blind revenge as Mike did. At least he seemed like his head was screwed on in that respect.

  But now she was beginning to worry. Because he’d been gone a while. He always returned when it was still pretty early morning. Always.

  He wasn’t home.

  And even worse.

  There was some rope missing from the very back of Alison’s van.

  “Just wait up, Alison,” Gina said. “Please.”

  Alison slowed down, but it irritated her, in all truth. Time could well be of the essence. And she felt guilty. Guilty for allowing Ian to just walk off into the woods. She felt like she owed him something. Especially if something bad went down.

  The thought of it made her shudder.

  “We’ve no time to wait around,” Alison said. “Ian could be in danger. He could be—”

  “You’re right. He could be in danger. But if we rush into some kind of trap, then we’ll be in danger too. You know we’re not alone out here. I know it feels like it, but you know it just as well as I do. We can’t be complacent. We have to be careful.”

  Alison went to argue, but in the end, she just nodded. She had to admit that Gina had a point.

  And besides. She was just relieved that it was her and Gina out here, and not Mike.

  Because Mike would naturally be suspecting some Calvin involvement, as far-fetched as that may be.

  Even if his little trip into the woods with Kelsie seemed to have done him the world of good this morning.

  She slowed down. Took a few deep breaths. Looked around. She tried to think about all the potential places Ian might’ve gone to. He didn’t have any particular interests out here. He didn’t make it clear what he was doing out here. But he couldn’t have gone too far. Surely not.

  But then… who knew?

  Anything was possible.

  “I’m sure he’s just running late,” Gina said. “I mean, you’ve seen him disappear for a while before. Right?”

  Alison wasn’t sure. She just looked around. She couldn’t deny feeling uncertain about all of this. After all, they were out here. The group had been split. She’d seen the perils that the group splitting up could cause before.

  And the rope…

  The rope…

  “We just need to stick close,” Alison said. “We can’t let anything get between us. We can’t let…”

  She stopped.

  She stopped because she’d seen something right in the distance.

  Arya stopped, too. Right on cue.

  “Wait,” she said.

  She walked. Walked ahead. Gina hadn’t seen it, but Arya rushed ahead, went to sniff at it.

  When they got there, Alison saw what it was.

  She saw very clearly.

  “A tent,” Gina said, thinking aloud.

  She was right. It was a tent. Only it had been flattened. Someone had taken it down.

  But the fact they’d left it here… that was strange. It was concerning.

  “Could just be someone passing through,” Gina said.

  Alison looked around. Felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising. She felt like she was being watched from every direction. Like there were eyes peering through the trees at her.

  She knew this world had secrets. She knew there were things she didn’t understand about it. That nobody understood about it.

  And she knew, maybe, in time, she’d learn a little more.

  But for now, she just wanted to get out of here.

  She just wanted to leave.

  She went to turn around when she saw something.

  Movement.

  Up ahead.

  “I mean, we can—”

  She put her fingers to her lips, quietening Gina. Because Gina clearly hadn’t seen the movement yet. She hadn’t spotted it like Alison.

  Gina frowned.

  And then she heard it.

  The gasping.

  Like someone struggling.

  All of the skin on Alison’s body went goosy, even if it was warm and humid. Adrenaline surged through her body. Her heart raced. Her chest tightened.

  She got a sense.

  A sense that Ian was here.

  That he was close.

  And that he was in trouble.

  She lowered down. Grabbed her knife. She moved slowly through the grass, past the trees, getting closer and closer. Part of her wondered if she was making the wrong decision. Part of her wondered whether it would be better and more sensible to just turn back. To bide her time. To lay low, hide, and wait.

  But she was progressing, now.

  She was moving.

  Gina by her side.

  Arya by her side.

  Arya. That was strange. The way she was even laying low. Ears back. Like she feared something. And that worried Alison. Arya was a tough nut. A big softy, but a tough nut. Curious, too.

  What was holding her back?

  Gina reached Alison’s side. The three of them stood there. The gasping close. The muffled voice close.

  And Alison didn’t want to look, as she stood there, knife in hand.

  She didn’t want to face whatever was ahead. Because she got the strange sense that it would change things. That it would change everything, all over again.

  She held her breath.

  Tightened her grip around the knife.

  And then she stepped out.

  When she saw who was there, she could barely move a muscle.

  Chapter Nine

  When Alison and Gina hadn’t returned after two hours, Mike began to panic.

  It was afternoon. The clouds were thickening even more. It was completely impromptu, out of nowhere. It’d been so nice these last few weeks, it just didn’t seem right for it to have so quickly got so grey.

  And yet Mike sensed that worse was on the horizon. He sense
d that this was just a taster of what was to come.

  And not just from the weather, either.

  He looked around at his camp. Looked at Kelsie, who was sitting there on her own, drawing away on some old paper they’d found. It was just him and her. Ian had disappeared. Alison, Gina, and Arya had gone looking for him.

  He felt alone.

  And that loneliness wasn’t good because it sparked things. It sparked emotions. Memories. Memories of Holly. Memories of what’d happened to her. Memories of what he’d lost.

  And that loneliness just made him want to get out there and get that long-awaited revenge, one way or another, no matter what it took.

  He stood up. Walked across the grass, over towards the trees.

  “Mike?” Kelsie said.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “But—”

  “There’s no time to mess around. Our people. They’re out there. We can’t leave them. They’ve been gone ages. They could be in trouble.”

  “But what about camp?”

  “What about camp?”

  “There—there needs to be someone here. To look after it. There always needs to be someone here. You told me that. Remember?”

  Mike walked over to Kelsie and sighed. His heart raced. Adrenaline intensified. “Kelsie, I’m sorry. Really, I am. But I can’t leave you here on your own. Ian’s out there. Alison, Gina, Arya, they’re all out there. And I hate to say it, but I’m worried about them. I’m worried that they might’ve got caught up in something. That they might need our help.”

  Kelsie looked at the ground. Then she looked back over at the camp, disappointment in her eyes. “But I thought we were going to have the deer I caught.”

  Mike felt a wave of sympathy for Kelsie. She’d spent so long just trying to be included, trying to be accepted, trying to make herself useful… and right when she’d had her greatest victory of all, other events had overshadowed it.

  He leaned in. Hugged Kelsie. “We’ll have that deer. Don’t you worry about that. But right now, we’ve got people to find.”

  He took Kelsie’s hand, and together, they headed into the woods.

  He made sure he grabbed the hunting rifle, too. He wasn’t messing around. Not when his people were missing. Not when lives were at stake.

  Heading into the woods felt different when you were looking for someone. There were routes he’d walked many times. Paths he’d formed, which he knew exactly where they led.

  But when someone was lost, when you were searching for somebody, these woods felt vast. They felt sprawling.

  And they felt so, so easy to get lost in.

  “Where do you think they got to?”

  Kelsie’s voice made the hairs on Mike’s arms stand on end. Mostly because he wasn’t certain. He wasn’t certain where they’d gone to. He wasn’t certain where they’d headed. He wished he’d asked them where they were going.

  But in the end, he could only be logical. He could only use his common sense.

  “Along the hunting trail,” Mike said. “It’s all I can think of.”

  They walked through the trees. The woods felt like it was growing darker, mostly because the clouds above were thickening even more. It felt like a barrage of rain was building up. Like the sky was just waiting to burst.

  And it felt ominous. It felt like it was working against them. It felt like it captured the very situation they were in.

  They walked for minutes, and those minutes stretched to an hour, and then they stopped.

  Kelsie had her hands on her knees, out of breath. Mike felt his feet blistering, his thighs chafing. He’d walked much further distances than this since the EMP struck. But it was the urgency of this situation that got to him. The immediacy of their predicament.

  He thought about turning back. He thought about giving up.

  But he shook his head. Told that voice to shut the hell up because he wasn’t giving up on the people he loved.

  He went to turn around when he saw Kelsie looking at something.

  Her eyes were narrowed. Like she was focusing. Focusing on something in the trees.

  “Kelsie?” Mike said.

  She didn’t respond.

  So Mike turned around.

  He turned to where Kelsie was looking.

  “What…”

  He didn’t see it at first. Couldn’t make it out.

  But when he saw it… he really saw it.

  There was somebody behind the trees.

  Somebody watching them.

  He felt his mouth turning dry. Squinted to get a better look at this person.

  One thing was for sure.

  It wasn’t Ian, Gina, or Alison.

  It wasn’t anybody he knew.

  He took a step towards them, heart racing, knowing full well the kind of danger he was putting himself in by even thinking about walking towards them.

  But he had to see who they were.

  He had to investigate.

  He stopped, then. Stopped and turned. Because Kelsie. He couldn’t let her out of his sight. The same thing happened with Holly back in the woods, and that’s when the downward spiral began.

  He took her hand.

  When he turned back around, the figure was running off into the trees.

  Mike couldn’t hesitate. He couldn’t hold back. He couldn’t wait.

  He ran after this figure.

  He had to follow them.

  He had to know who they were.

  He chased them through the trees, Kelsie by his side. But they were getting further away. They were disappearing into the distance. They were remarkably fast.

  And all the while, the sky above was getting greyer, darker…

  “Wait!” Mike called. And it was desperate. A desperate last gasp to try and get this person to stay. To try and stop them from getting too far away.

  When he lost sight of them, he didn’t want to give up.

  But then he realised they were gone.

  He realised they were—

  “Mike?”

  The voice made Mike jump out of his skin.

  It made him turn around immediately.

  But when he looked at the tree beside him… what he found wasn’t totally what he expected.

  Alison was here.

  Gina was here.

  Arya was here.

  And…

  He stumbled back. His vision narrowed. The world around him disappeared into a blur.

  Because Ian was on the ground.

  Unconscious.

  But something else.

  Something that startled him more than anything.

  The person holding Ian.

  The man holding Ian.

  He was skinnier.

  He was more beardy.

  And his hair was longer and greasier than it had ever been before.

  But there was no mistaking him.

  There was no denying exactly who this was.

  “Hi, Mike,” Calvin said, slight smirk to his gaunt face. “Fancy seeing you out here.”

  Chapter Ten

  When Mike saw Calvin, he thought he was dreaming.

  A sole ray of sunlight peered through the clouds, illuminating Calvin. He looked different. Skinnier. More dishevelled. Cuts and sores all over his face and bare, bony arms.

  But it was those eyes.

  Those unmistakable eyes.

  It was him.

  He wasn’t imagining things.

  It was actually him.

  “Mike,” Alison said.

  Mike heard her, but her voice didn’t cut through the mist. The words didn’t break through. He just steadied his focus even more on Calvin. The moment he’d anticipated. The moment he’d imagined. The moment he’d seen in his mind time and time again.

  He felt his fists tensing.

  He felt his heart racing into overdrive.

  He felt it pounding, and he knew he wasn’t going to have any control over what he did next.

  Ian lying there. Unconscious.

 
Lying in Calvin’s arms.

  He couldn’t stop himself.

  He surged towards Calvin.

  Hunting rifle in hand.

  “Mike!” Alison said.

  She stood in his way. Blocked his way. And he couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t get his head around it. It didn’t add up. It didn’t make sense. Why would she be standing in his way? Why would she be trying to stop him getting to Calvin?

  After everything he’d done—after all the loss he’d caused—why was he still even breathing?

  “Move out of my way,” Mike said.

  “Mike,” Alison said, putting a hand on his chest. “You need to listen. I know it’s hard, but before you do anything, you need to listen.”

  He looked into Alison’s eyes. He saw the desperation in them. He saw the urgency in them. And he felt betrayed. He couldn’t help it. Not only because Alison had lied about killing him to try and get Mike on side.

  But also because Calvin was everything he’d been trying to get to.

  Calvin was everything he’d been working towards.

  All this time, all this waiting… and he was here.

  So Mike did something he didn’t like.

  He did something he wasn’t expecting to do.

  He pushed Alison out of the way.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  He walked over towards Calvin, and he pressed the hunting rifle to his forehead.

  Calvin smiled, revealing a load of yellowing, tartar-stained teeth. He looked up at Mike like he was enjoying all of this. Like he was getting a weird kick from this.

  And then there was Ian.

  He had markings around his neck. Deep markings. Like he’d been strangled.

  “I’ve waited so long for this,” Mike said, hands shaking, memory of how his daughter died replaying around his mind again and again.

  “And I’ve kind of been hoping this moment wouldn’t happen.”

  “Well, you’re out of luck,” Mike said, pushing the gun closer to his forehead. “You’re out of luck. The only luck you’ve got is that I haven’t killed you already.”

  Calvin smiled again. He looked like he was unfazed by what Mike was saying. Like it hadn’t got to him in the way Mike was hoping it would.

  He felt a hand on his arm again, then. Looked to the side, saw Alison standing there. Gina just beside her. “Mike,” she said. “I know it’s hard, but you’re going to have to hear him out. You’re going to have to listen.”