by Ryan Casey
AFTER THE DARKNESS
A Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller
RYAN CASEY
CONTENTS
Bonus Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
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CHAPTER ONE
Thomas Suzuki knew something was wrong the second he heard the alarm ring.
He wasn’t an expert on helicopters and how they worked. That wasn’t his job, at the end of the day. His job was far, far simpler than that. He’d never needed to know anything about technicalities. He knew it was a stereotypically blokey thing to show an interest in how things worked, but Thomas had never really been interested.
All he needed to know was simple: right now, these alarms were ringing loudly in his ears, and the helicopter was shaking like mad, and that was wrong. Very frigging wrong. Didn’t have to be an expert to know that much.
He could see the pilot frantically flicking switches. See him trying to do all kinds of things, things Thomas didn’t understand. He sat there in the back of this helicopter and looked around at the three others dressed in military gear, just like him. Saw the wide-eyed looks on their faces as they tried to stay calm, tried to keep their cool, tried to maintain their composure. Outside, he could see the darkness. The total, jet-black darkness of a powerless nation from above. A truly terrifying sight. Especially since he couldn’t see the ground.
He knew there were risks with this journey. He’d been told as much already. But there were always contingency plans. There was a backup, they were told. Everything was going to be fine. Everything was going to be okay. The chances of anything going wrong were slim to none.
But here they were. Thomas gripping onto the safety belts for dear life. Holding them so tight like that would make any kind of difference. It reminded him of when he was a kid, trapped on that rollercoaster at Blackpool. The sounds of other kids’ screams ringing in his ears. The metallic smell of blood in the air. And the crushing weight of the metal, pressing down on his chest, getting tighter and tighter like a goddamned anaconda was wrapped around him. He just wanted to get out. Just wanted so, so desperately to get out.
But there was no getting out.
There was no escape.
There was only waiting for the inevitable.
He looked out of the window. Out into the endless darkness below, as the alarms rang out loud, as the pilot started to shout, as everyone started to shout. As one of the men opposite him, Christian, stood up, shuffled to the door of the helicopter, tried to open it, which caused a whole new scuffle in itself. As the clammy air on the helicopter started to smell of shit and piss. The very epiphany of fear.
And all Thomas could do was sit here.
Sit here and clutch tight hold of those safety belts, and wait.
It was strange. A strange experience, sitting amidst all this chaos, knowing what was coming. Knowing the inevitable was coming. And feeling this strange sense of… calm. This strange sense of peace, right at his centre. He couldn’t explain it. But he’d spent a lot of time in life thinking about what he’d do if he knew he was dying. How he’d react; how he’d respond to it all. Just thinking about it filled him with dread. Probably since he was a kid. The fear he’d felt on that roller coaster, stuck in there. Watching children die all around him.
The fear that it was coming for him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
The fear that kept him up at night, ever since.
But right now, sitting here, watching people struggle around him, hearing the pilot lose his shit, his head spinning and body banging from side to side as the helicopter hurtled through the air… Thomas Suzuki felt a strange sense of peace. A place separate from the fear. Separate from the pain. A place before thought. A place that exists in everyone, the one constant there all through life. The thing that binds us from childhood to adulthood, even despite how much we all change along the way. Awareness.
That’s where Thomas was right now.
Resting in awareness.
Resting as awareness.
Everything was just happening within him.
And he felt totally calm.
Totally at peace.
He felt something, then. A tear. A tear rolling down his face. He thought of the hope he was here to deliver to the people. He thought of what his people could offer all the survivors in this nation. He thought of the future ahead. A bright future. Literally. That’s what this was supposed to be about. Delivering hope. Delivering a new chapter. A new beginning.
That’s what he’d been promised. And that’s what he wanted to promise so many others.
But falling through the air, it wasn’t sadness for himself he felt.
It was sadness for everyone else.
For those who were going to be denied an opportunity.
For those who were never even going to find out about him, about his people…
But no.
That wasn’t the case.
He was just a cog in a bigger machine.
He was just a piece of the puzzle.
This whole experiment didn’t end with him.
He just wished he could be there to see the smiles on their faces.
He saw one of his friends fly up, hit the roof of the helicopter.
He saw the pilot collapse and vomit.
He saw it all, and in the chaos, Thomas did the only thing he could.
He took a deep breath.
And he closed his eyes.
He listened to the whirring of the engine.
The ringing of the alarm.
He felt the helicopter spinning, spinning, spinning, as unconsciousness approached.
He thought about his friends and family back home. His wife, Kirsty. His son, Brett.
He thought of them all, and he felt himself smiling as tears poured down his cheeks.
“I’ll see you again,” he whispered. “I’ll see you again.”
He saw them both right there, in his mind’s eye.
Then, he felt himself jolt forward.
He heard an immense bang.
And
bright light filled his eyes.
CHAPTER TWO
Aoife saw the smoke rising in the distance and felt a combination of hope and fear.
It was the middle of summer, and it was boiling. Never one to complain about the heat of summer in the past. Used to dream of working abroad in some exotic, tropical paradise. Or retiring and moving over to Costa Rica or someplace like that. The warmth of the sun on her skin at all times. The sweet taste of a cocktail in hand. Nobody beside her. Just her, a book, the sand between her toes, the sound of the sea whooshing in and out, in and out.
But right now?
Give her a cold fucking shower any day.
She saw the town up ahead. It looked quiet. Relatively peaceful. But then, didn’t everywhere? That was the trick of this world. Everywhere looked quiet. Everywhere looked safe. Uninhabited.
But get a little closer and you could end up stumbling upon a cannibalistic cult. Or a bunch of misogynistic, woman-hating bastards.
Might sound like an exaggeration. But Aoife had seen enough wrong’uns in this world to know.
She heard Rex panting by her side. Looked down at him. She wished he’d go for a dip. He was literally the biggest wuss of a Rottweiler she’d ever come across. She’d never forget the first time she took him to the sea, back when she’d gone over to Morecambe just after winter, in search of a group that never ended up being there at all. The way she’d walked up to the sea with him. Thrown a stick out into the water. Watched him bolt towards it, only to stop, right at the brink.
Looked out at it, wagging his little docked tail. Waiting for the waves to bring it back to shore.
“Seriously, Rex,” Aoife said. “You’d feel a whole lot better if you took a dip somewhere.”
He looked up at her. Panting. Wagging his back end.
“Dumbass,” Aoife said. “Never have a clue what I’m saying, do you?”
He kept wagging that tail. Kept looking at her. Like she might throw him a treat or something. Or a stick. He’d really taken to fetching sticks lately. Aoife wished he’d grow fond of a bloody useful skill, that was for sure.
She shook her head, ruffled his fur. “I’m just being grumpy. Love having you around really.”
Then she turned back around to that town.
She looked down at the smoke. She’d smelled it before she saw it. You never missed the smell of burning. And when she’d seen it rising in the distance, a combination of emotions struck her. First, fear. Because smoke was always a dangerous sign. Burning was never usually a good thing. Could be an accidental fire. But just as easily could be an intentional fire.
Either way, fire was never usually a good thing.
But on the other hand… it was a sign of life. And wasn’t that all Aoife had been looking for, for the last six months?
She sighed. Truth be told, she didn’t know what she’d been looking for. Part of her wanted to find people—a safe community, where she could settle down and leave this whole lifestyle behind. Another part of her kind of liked being on her own. Liked the whole self-sufficiency of it.
But then she thought of Max. Thought of everything she’d taught him about connecting with people. And everything he’d taught her in turn.
She intended to honour every damned thing he’d taught her.
It was just taking… a little longer than she’d anticipated, let’s say.
She thought of Max, and she felt this emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Still to this day, six months on, she felt the pain. She felt the grief from what’d happened. She missed him every fucking day. Just the thought of his face or the memory of his voice was enough to make her throat clam up.
And there were all the reminders of him, too. Sounded weird, but when you lose someone, suddenly you realise just how much you wired your whole life around that person. The memories you shared. The roads you walked. The conversations you had.
Everything.
And the thing Aoife was realising now, more than ever before?
The pain never really gets any better.
It’s always there.
You just kind of learn to grow around it. To rewire your entire way of seeing the world, untangling knots you didn’t even realise you were tying in the first place. Knots it seemed happy to tie at the time.
But now, as she looked down at the smoke, she knew there was only one thing she could do, really. No matter what her decision was at the end of it, and no matter what the ultimate outcome was, there was only one choice.
She had to go down to that smoke, and she had to investigate it.
If there was even the slightest chance someone was here… then she had to take it.
She walked down the slope towards the town. Held her bow and an arrow tightly in hand. She’d really taken to the bow the last few months. Much more reusable. Far quieter and more sustainable than any kind of gun. And when you were adept at using it, just as effective.
“Keep it quiet, Rex. Don’t go dragging those heavy paws along like you usually do.”
She walked into the town. Closer to the smoke. She could smell it getting stronger. And she could taste it too. A weird tang in the air. A sourness, which she didn’t want to think too much about. Didn’t want to think the worst-case scenario about, that was for sure.
She had to find the source of the smoke herself.
She walked further down the street. It was the same as any other street. The windows of the buildings all around her were boarded up or smashed. Weeds and grass grew up from cracks in the unmaintained road and started coating the abandoned cars, too. Nature was taking over again. Or rather… it was a reminder that nature always had been in control. There was never a moment where it wasn’t in control.
Humanity just thought it had control, for a while, until this ultimate reminder that it was never in control at all.
She walked further down the street when something caught her eye. Movement. Something flying across, ahead of her.
Turned around.
Saw a crow wandering around. Real big bugger, it was. Probably go a long way on a plate.
She crouched a little. Pulled back the string of her bow.
Held her breath.
Then the crow cawed and flew off before she could do a thing.
She lowered her bow. Clever little bugger. “Smart arse. Let’s keep moving, Rex.”
She walked further down this empty street, over the cracks in the road, over the broken glass, over the discarded rubbish from long ago.
And the closer she got to the smoke, the more her nerves kicked in. The more her dread grew.
The more she started to think there was a sense of inevitability about all this.
No. Don’t think that way. Don’t be so defeatist. There has to be a chance here. There has to be.
She reached the turn in the road. Saw the smoke rising high above the buildings.
Swallowed a lump in her throat.
“Here goes nothing.”
She stepped around the corner and saw the source of the burning right away.
In the middle of the road, there was a small pile of bodies.
They were recognisable instantly. Blackened flesh. Charred fingers.
Skeletal.
Aoife looked down the street towards that pile of bodies. And she felt the flashbacks fill her mind.
Of Max.
And of Grace’s people.
Burning.
All of them burning.
She saw them, felt her heart racing, felt the butterflies in her stomach turning into knives…
And then she turned away.
She couldn’t be here.
She couldn’t stay here.
There was nothing for her here. Not anymore.
She didn’t know what’d happened here. She didn’t know who had been here or who had done this.
But she knew one thing for certain.
The people who’d done this weren’t the kind of people worth searching for.
The kind of community worth seeking ou
t.
She lowered her head.
“Come on, Rex. Let’s… let’s get out of here.”
Then, the pair of them walked.
CHAPTER THREE
Aoife lay there in the darkness and stared up at the stars.
It was pitch black. She had no idea what time it was. Nobody had any exact way of knowing, not anymore. She wondered what’d happen if the world ever did get back on track. Surely nobody would’ve been keeping track of the exact time. So who would decide what time it was anymore? Sure, they could make a rough estimate based on the time of day. But the exact second? Who’d decide that? And didn’t that just prove the fragility of time, really? How it didn’t really exist in the way we think it exists?
She sighed. She liked thinking about this shit, but truth be told, it was all useless anyway. Because the world was never going to get back to “normal”. It was never going to get back to the way it once was.
Even if everything was re-established like it once was—electricity, governments, social media, transportation—people were still going to be completely different. People were going to be completely, irreversibly changed by the events of the last eighteen months.
Everyone was collectively scarred by what’d happened. That went without saying.
But there was another factor, too.
People had tasted power. They’d seen what it was like to run things their own way. And they weren’t going to give up that power quite so easily.
