Into the Light: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller (Into the Dark Book 10)

by Ryan Casey

  “You’ve got about five seconds to lower that rifle before we blow you into oblivion. What’s it gonna be?”

  “Jack?” Kelsie said.

  He took a deep breath.

  “Lower your rifle.”

  “Kelsie, I—”

  “Lower it,” she said. “Now.”

  Jack waited a few seconds. Looked back at these people once again.

  And then he sighed, and he lowered his rifle.

  “Good,” the man said, leading the group. “That’s good. Now you’re going to turn around and walk away.”

  Kelsie was thrown by just how direct the request was. No, not request. That was the wrong word. It was an order.

  “We can’t do that,” Manuel said.

  The man frowned. Lifted his rifle again. “Want to repeat that?”

  “We can’t go the other way because…”

  He stopped. And Kelsie felt the tension over admitting the truth. She didn’t want to invite a bunch of gun-wielding thugs along with them to the extraction point. She didn’t want to jeopardise her own safe transport out of this place, after all.

  But on the other hand, she could feel her survival in the balance. She could feel baby Holly’s survival in the balance. She knew she had to act.

  She had to be decisive.

  Right now.

  “We’re going to an extraction point,” Kelsie said.

  “Kelsie,” Tate said.

  “We’re going to the Empress Ballroom because there’s somebody there. Some people there. People who can take us away from this place. People who can help us.”

  “Bullshit,” the man said. “Heard it all before.”

  “You can take that attitude,” Kelsie said. “But the fact is there’s not much time left.”

  The lead man frowned. So did the rest of his people. “Not much time left? Time until what?”

  “Until it’s too late,” Kelsie said.

  A look of concern on the man’s face, then. Like he didn’t want to believe Kelsie but found himself doing all the same. “Can you tell me what you’re talking about right this second? The guns are still on you for a reason.”

  Kelsie turned to Tate, who looked back at her, defeated, like he didn’t know what to do, what to say.

  And then she looked back at this man, right into his eyes.

  “I have a baby. We’ve got one gun between us. One weapon. And we’ve no reason to lie to you. We’ve—we’ve no reason to be bullshitting. You have to believe me.”

  “When you’re travelling with one of those murderers?”

  “He’s not one of them.”

  “He’s wearing the—”

  “Yeah,” Kelsie said. “It’s a long story. He killed one of them. Stole their gear. Stole a weapon. And I was as sceptical as you were at first, believe me. But I’ve seen enough from this man to have faith in him. I’ve… I’ve seen enough to believe him. So you have to believe us, too. There’s something coming for all of us. Something far bigger than any one man or group. And it’s coming fast.”

  The man’s bottom lip was wobbling. Like he was considering what she was saying. Sensing sensitivity to her words. Vulnerability. “There’s really something coming?”

  Kelsie nodded. “Something that’s going to end all of us. And if we don’t… if we don’t get to that extraction point in the next day, we’re finished. We might be finished anyway. But that’s our final chance. It’s our last hope.”

  The man looked away, then. Looked at his two companions. Said something to them—whispered something.

  Then he looked back around at Kelsie, and he nodded.

  He started to walk towards her. Rifle still in hand.

  Then he held out a hand. “Name’s Trev,” he said.

  She looked into his eyes, sensed his story, and sensed his past.

  And then she took his hand. Shook it.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Trev.”

  He took a deep breath and half-smiled. “Don’t worry about our rifles,” he said. “Not a bullet between us. And even if we did, they wouldn’t work.”

  Kelsie frowned. Then she saw the way the rifles were covered up at the top. And the realisation hit her. Those guns. They were replicas. Nothing but replicas. Damned good replicas, but replicas all the same.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Not a bad survival method, I have to admit.”

  He nodded. “But yours is even better. Now how about you tell us about this extraction point we’re heading towards?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Gina staggered through the woods in the general direction of Blackpool, trying to hold herself together and hoping her body wasn’t going to give up on her any time soon.

  It was warm. Intensively so. She’d been travelling right through the night. She was covered in sweat, and her body wracked with pain. Her wrists ached after hanging from above. Her fingers were searing with agony. And the stab wound in her chest—although the group who’d held her captive had stitched it up intending to prolong their own amusement—was burning. She knew it was infected. She knew it was only going to get worse from here on. The fever would kick in. And then it would just be a case of crossing her fingers and hoping for the best. Because an infection in this world was always a gamble. It was one of those things Gina had already watched so many people fall victim to.

  She didn’t want to be another one. Because it was such a pointless death. Such a waste.

  There were so many better ways to go. Infection felt like a cop out.

  She held her hands together as tightly as she could, but it wasn’t stopping the flow of blood. She was surprised just how much blood she’d leaked. Probably a surprise she was even still here at all.

  But she kept on going.

  While she was alive and was conscious… it was all she could do.

  The trees around her were thick and suffocating. Even though she knew she was heading in the right direction, it felt like she’d been here a million times already.

  It was probably just a trick of the mind. A trick of the light.

  A trick of the fact that she was barely holding on to consciousness.

  The fact that if she sat down and rested her head right now, she might just pass out and never wake up again.

  If that’s how ill she was. She couldn’t really tell. She wasn’t the best judge of her own predicament. Not anymore.

  She kept on going. And as she moved through the trees, a part of her wondered whether giving up might be the best option after all. She’d lost everything. Everyone. So what was there left to live for?

  But then she remembered why she was doing this. She was doing this because she’d been through so much. She was doing this because she thought of the man she’d been forced to find dead and the little girl who she’d always tried to do right by, and she knew what they’d want.

  They wouldn’t want her to fall.

  They wouldn’t want her to give up.

  Giving up went against everything she’d taught them. Everything she’d tried to instil in them.

  So she had to keep on moving.

  She had to keep on going.

  She walked further and further into these mass of trees, and she thought of her reaction to the loss, then. The way she’d got lost in her own consciousness. A loss she still hadn’t totally worked her way out of yet.

  She thought about what might happen in the new world out there if she lost her mind again. If her sanity drifted and slipped again.

  She wasn’t sure she’d get away with it.

  She wasn’t sure she deserved to get away from it.

  She was just scared of losing control of herself again.

  She went to take another step when she realised something.

  The ground beneath her. No more leaves. No more soil.

  Concrete.

  She looked up. She’d had her focus so much on the ground below her for the last stretch that she’d barely even taken a moment to lift her head and look up.

  When she did, she fe
lt a surge of excitement rush through her body.

  There was a road in front of her.

  Abandoned cars from years ago, nothing more than rusty skeletons now.

  Signposts too, corroding away, losing the battle to nature.

  But there was something on that signpost that Gina saw.

  Something she saw very clearly.

  Something that filled her with excitement. With optimism.

  Blackpool. 6 miles.

  She took a deep breath, and she smiled.

  Six miles wasn’t far. It wasn’t far at all.

  And as much as she didn’t know the exact destination… she was close. She had time. Plenty of time.

  She was struggling. She was wounded. She knew her time was running out.

  But she was on the right track.

  She’d heard about Blackpool, and she knew that was where she needed to go.

  Something was there. She had to find out what.

  She took another deep breath, pushed past the pain, pushed past the nausea, and then she cleared her throat.

  Then she took a step along the road.

  It was time to push on.

  Time to make her final push.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Twenty-Eight Hours to Go…

  It was another two hours walking before Kelsie and her group arrived in Blackpool.

  The day was beautiful. Unbroken blue skies and intensively bright sun. They’d had to take a longer route into Blackpool because the roads were blocked and unsafe, and they’d not wanted to risk anything at this stage.

  Kelsie was getting to know this new group of people. Trev was the leader, and alongside him were Trish and Gordon.

  It turned out they’d been on the road for some time after their community was invaded. Fortunately for them, they hadn’t had the displeasure of running into the Outsiders yet. Which was just as well considering the guns they were carrying were replicas. A good enough deterrent for most people. But the Outsiders wouldn’t hesitate to gun them down if they felt like they had the power to overwhelm them.

  Kelsie was growing to like Trev, she had to admit. As much as her emotions were still muddled and any kind of possibility of happiness was far away, he had a good sense of humour. He was just a normal guy trying to get by in this world.

  And as uncertain as the others were about him… it was Kelsie who should be the most sceptical, baby in her arms.

  But she found herself liking him.

  “If you don’t mind me saying,” Trev said, “you lot look like you could all do with some sleep.”

  Kelsie nodded. “You’re not wrong. But if I dozed off now, I worry I wouldn’t wake up for another three days. And if that happens… well. I won’t be waking up at all.”

  Trev sighed. “This talk about some kind of… well, cleansing. You’re really serious about it even though logistically it seems impossible. Aren’t you?”

  Kelsie thought about what Trev was saying for a moment, and she wondered whether he had a point. Logistically, what were the odds of something big enough to wipe this place out occurring? Was it for real?

  Or could it all just be a lie to get Tate to the extraction point as quickly as possible?

  All this travelling, and she hadn’t for a moment considered that the truth might be staring her in the face all this time—but not in the way she was expecting, and certainly not in the way she was hoping.

  “I can only believe what’s in front of me,” Kelsie said. “And… and I have all these signs telling me that something is going to happen. Something big. Something that’s going to put all of us in danger. I know motives play a part in everything, but I have to believe what’s in front of me. And what’s in front of me is a chance to save my baby. A chance to get her out of here. To somewhere… better.”

  Trev nodded. Clearly not totally convinced. “I just hope you’re not left disappointed when we do get there.”

  Manuel chipped in. “I hope for all our sakes we find what we want there.”

  They walked through the streets of Blackpool. It’d been a while since Kelsie had been here. The buildings were covered with foliage, growing up the sides of them. Cracked glass. Rusty cars. That weird smell of a place that was long ago occupied—a smell she couldn’t describe; that had to be experienced to be known.

  But the thing that struck Kelsie most, as the waves crashed against the decaying concrete of the promenade. As the pier lay broken and worn in the distance. As the roller coasters rusted above, just another part of the landscape now lost to nature.

  The thing that struck Kelsie most was the silence of this place.

  The silence that made her wonder…

  Wonder about whether this place could possibly be the source of a major extraction point after all.

  She listened to the seagulls as they darted into the sea. Saw the high waves crashing up against the shore. Plucking fish out of the water. And she looked down the promenade, down into the distance. And she imagined the worst case scenario. The extraction group, they’d already gone. Already disappeared. They’d missed their moment to get out.

  But then there was only one way they could find out.

  And that was getting to the Empress Ballroom.

  They kept on moving, further down this road. Kelsie was exhausted, and she knew they had time—a whole other day and a bit, for that matter. But she still wanted to get there. She still wanted to reach this point and find out what was happening—at least find out what the truth of this place was.

  She was about to keep walking when she felt the hand on her back.

  She looked around. It was Tate.

  He looked at her. Smiled. “We’ve almost made it,” he said. “We’re… we’re almost there.”

  She took a deep breath, sickness stretching through her body.

  Then she forced a smile back at him. Because it was all she could do at a moment like this.

  She nodded. “We are. And we have so much to thank you for.”

  He smiled back at her, then. And then she looked at Manuel. She looked at Jack. She looked at Trev, his people, and at Arya Jr.

  Then she looked at baby Holly, and she smiled as she looked back up at her.

  “We’re almost there, baby,” she said. “We’ve almost made it. Hear what Tate said? We’ve almost made it.”

  She thought she saw a smile on baby Holly’s face.

  Then she held her close and looked at the road ahead.

  That’s when she saw it.

  A flash of light.

  A pepper of gunfire.

  A series of shouts.

  Right up ahead.

  Right up at the Empress Ballroom.

  “What’s…” Trev started.

  The gunfire turned to something else.

  An explosion.

  Right ahead.

  Only one possible place it could’ve come from.

  The Empress Ballroom.

  Something was happening.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Seven Hours to Go…

  Kelsie listened to the chaos unfolding up ahead at the Empress Ballroom.

  The morning was surging on. The weather was warm, clammy. After all the walking they’d done to get here and all the stress they’d been through, Kelsie was covered in sweat. She was tired. Exhausted. Wasn’t sure how much further she could walk.

  But something told her she wasn’t going to be walking anywhere at all.

  Something told her she wasn’t going to have anywhere to walk to.

  Not if her worst fears were coming true.

  She looked around. Saw Tate, Manuel, Jack. She saw Trev and his two friends, too. And all of them had that same look on their faces. All of them had that same sense of uncertainty.

  Because all of them were hearing the same things.

  The gunfire.

  The mini-explosions.

  And the shouts.

  Kelsie felt sickness right in the pit of her stomach. The sickness of inevitability. Because i
t was just typical, wasn’t it? Just typical that the cruellest sequence of events was playing out. Just typical that it looked like this place was an extraction point after all.

  And just typical that it looked like their hope was being snatched from them, just as they’d started to truly believe.

  Kelsie found herself walking in the direction of the Empress Ballroom. Even if she was holding baby Holly in her arms. Even though Arya Jr was walking by her side. Even though the chaos was still unfolding.

  She kept on walking towards it.

  Because she wanted to see.

  She had to know, for certain.

  She felt a hand grab her arm. Turned around and saw Jack standing there of all people. A look of loss on his face. A look of acceptance.

  “It’s—it’s too late,” Jack said.

  Kelsie shook her head. She saw Tate cover his face with his hands. She saw the confusion breaking out with Trev’s group. She saw Manuel shouting at them, telling them to calm down.

  But more than anything, she saw her baby lying in her arms. Her beautiful baby, her whole life ahead of her.

  And then she looked up and saw the smoke rising from the Empress Ballroom, and she felt the reality of this situation hitting at full force.

  “We’ve… we’ve done all we can,” Jack said. “Come as far as we could’ve come. We’ve beaten the odds to even be here.”

  “So what next?” Trev said. But there was an uncertainty to his voice. Quivering, in a way.

  Jack looked at Kelsie with a glance of regret, and then he looked over at Trev and took a deep breath. “There’s not a lot we can do next.”

  Trev rubbed his hand through his thinning hair. Kelsie swore she saw some of that hair fall out upon contact. “But there has to be something. There has to be something we can try. Right?”

  Kelsie looked around. She looked at Tate, first. The look of shock on his face. Of loss. The sheer lack of answers he had.

  And then she looked ahead in the direction of the Empress Ballroom. The gunfire still cracking. The explosions still rattling. She stood there and felt her heartbeat and felt the gentle heartbeat of Baby Kelsie, and she felt like the moment had stalled. Like the moment had ground to a halt. Like there was only now. No past. No future. Just now.