by Ryan Casey
Of course, I’d have to save some for Holly, and even for Lionel. We all needed our energy.
Sharing was caring, and all that.
I was going to take our fair share, regardless of who these people were.
“Don’t hurt them,” Holly whispered. “Please.”
I felt my stomach sink. She was so naive but so morally sweet. She’d spent as much time as me in this new world, and still she was struggling to face up to the reality of the things we had to do in this world now.
We had to do what we had to do in order to survive.
And then we had to do what we had to do in order to thrive.
I couldn’t bring myself to turn and look at Holly when I spoke. I couldn’t bear to lie to her or for her to see that look in my eyes once again, like the last time I’d killed.
I didn’t want her to see me as a monster. I wanted her to see me as someone who could keep her safe. Someone she could trust to look after her.
But I was fast realising there wasn’t all that much difference between the two.
I couldn’t be one thing without being the other.
I held my breath and started to creep down the hill towards that tent. I couldn’t hear any voices, but I couldn’t mess around anymore. Last time I’d been in this situation, it turned out there were people after all, and those people hadn’t been in the most welcoming of moods.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake of falling into a trap again like last time. I wasn’t going to hesitate. If it meant killing… I’d kill.
I moved further down the hill. The tent was right in front of me now. I felt exposed, even if I was only a few metres away from where I’d been just earlier. I looked over my shoulder, back up the hill. Holly and Lionel were still there, thank God.
I took a deep breath and went to move on.
I froze.
There was someone in the tent.
I could hear voices. Just light voices. And I swore I could see a silhouette, too.
I was going to have to be fast if I wanted to take that half-empty can of beans. Those scraps of squirrel.
But then another, darker thought came up in my mind…
Maybe if they came out, I would have to do something about them.
I’d have to kill them.
Then this camp could be ours.
I turned again. Looked up at Holly and Lionel, just checking they were okay.
They were still there. Nobody was around them.
So I tightened my grip on my axe, tighter than ever before, and I moved swiftly towards the can of beans and the scrap of meat.
When I got there though, I heard something.
Something that made all the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Two things, in fact.
First, the topic of discussion these two voices were talking about.
“If the army really is extracting people, Carlisle’s still a trek, Becca. But we can do it.”
“One hundred miles north, Steve. Do you know how long it’ll take us to walk one hundred miles?”
The army. Extracting people.
How did they know this?
Where had they got their information?
Could it be trusted?
It was the second thing I heard, though, that made me freeze more than anything.
It was a cry.
I didn’t know what to think of it at first. It’d been so long since I’d last heard a cry like that.
Because this wasn’t just any ordinary cry.
This was the cry of a child.
A young child.
A baby.
I stood there listening to the cry. I heard the woman trying to quieten the kid. “Ssh, Harry. You be quiet. You’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay.”
And as I stood in front of the tent, just inches away from the food scraps, I felt guilt fill me.
Could I do this?
Could I really steal from a family—from a baby?
I looked at the axe in my hand.
I looked up at the tent. At those silhouettes behind it.
And then I looked back at Holly and Lionel and I sighed.
I heard the cry of the baby and I lowered the axe.
Then I walked away from the tent, away from the chance of food, away from the chance of water.
But I knew, in my mind, that we had somewhere to head towards now—whether it turned out to be true or not.
“Come on, team,” I muttered, when I reached the top of the hill again.
“Where are we going? What about the food?”
I couldn’t give Holly a straight answer so in the end I just half-smiled, my stomach churning with hunger. “We’re going on a little adventure.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Becca held on to Harry and thanked God she at least had one glimmer of light in this dark world.
It was dark, and a cold wind was blowing in through the front of the tent. She listened to the howling of the wind and, like every night, she thought she heard voices in that breeze. It always made her fearful, especially when Steve was out on a scavenging mission or checking the traps or gathering firewood, jobs that always took until late at night.
She used to beg him to stay in the tent for longer. She used to pray that he’d get back sooner, and stop leaving her and Harry all alone. Harry was only three months old. It was a miracle he’d made it this far in this world.
But he was her ray of light. Her beautiful ray of light.
And together, they were going to get each other through the hard times in this new reality.
She leaned back, Harry by her side. She cuddled up close to him. She was shivering, and he was too. That was just normality now. Sometimes, Becca wondered if she was cruel, raising Harry into a world like this. All he’d remember was a childhood of hardship; a world of struggle. Was it harsh that she sometimes wondered if maybe Harry would be better off not growing up in this world at all than growing up in a world like this?
No. It was wrong. She shouldn’t think that way.
It was her duty to look after her beautiful son. It was her responsibility to protect him, no matter what.
That’s what she’d do.
That’s what she’d—
She heard footsteps outside the tent.
She froze. There was something strange about the footsteps, something unplaceable. She knew what Steve’s footsteps sounded like. She’d got used to them, she’d heard them that many times.
And yet something deep within told Becca that these weren’t Steve’s footsteps.
They were someone else’s footsteps.
And they were right outside the tent.
Right away, Becca’s defences rose up. She covered Harry under the blanket. She was still for a while, just listening to the howling wind, trying to hear those footsteps in it again.
But there were all kinds of sounds now. Jumbled and mixed together. She thought she heard people. She thought she heard monsters. She thought she heard—
Another few footsteps.
This time, small footsteps. Running.
Someone was outside the tent.
Becca realised then, sickness taking a hold, that she was going to have to make a choice. Either she could stay in here with Harry, like Steve always told her to do when she was worried about trouble. Or she could go outside and see what she was up against.
The rational part of her body told her to stay put. That Steve would be back soon and that everything would be okay.
But the other part of her…
She wanted to go outside.
She wanted to see who was outside the tent.
She wanted to know what she was up against.
She moved close to Harry and looked him in his little blue eyes. “I’ll be back soon,” she said, kissing his head. “Mummy’ll be back soon. I promise.”
Then she managed to pull herself away from him and stepped up, towards the opening of the tent.
She moved towards it slowly, hammer now in hand. Her whole b
ody was so shaky that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to use it. But she had to be. She had to be willing to fight. It was the only way Harry was going to be safe. There were no guarantees Steve was going to come back. There was always a risk that maybe, just maybe, something would happen to him when he was out on one of his missions.
She hoped it wasn’t today. She hoped it wasn’t ever.
But she was going to have to start taking some responsibility.
She put her hand on the opening of the tent and slowly moved it aside.
Outside, all she saw was darkness, faintly illuminated by the light of the moon and stars. She saw her breath frosting in front of her as she scanned the immediate area.
There was nobody there.
Nobody but the tall trees, like giants standing over her.
She stayed still for a while. Totally still. If there was somebody nearby, she didn’t know where they were. She felt that urge pulling her back into the tent, back to Harry, back to where Steve would want her to be.
And then she saw the movement.
There was somebody at the top of the hill. No doubt about that.
But there was something strange about this movement.
It wasn’t a man, like she’d expected.
It wasn’t even a woman.
It was a child.
Becca felt stuck between two opposing forces. One of them made her want to just leave this situation. After all, it was just a kid. They were no threat.
But again… it was a kid. A kid just like Harry would grow up to be.
She had to do something.
She stepped outside the tent and towards the hill where the kid had gone. Small specks of snow fell down onto her bare arms, which were covered in goose pimples. The trees looked menacing as she approached them.
She listened for the footsteps again, kept her eyes wide and focused in case the kid made any kind of move. “Hello?” she said. She’d intended for it to be quiet, but instead it had come out rather loud and desperate.
Nobody responded.
She moved further into the woods. Before she knew it, the trees were all around her. She looked around for that child. She scanned each and every tree, and she saw nothing behind them.
Nothing but the slight movement of the branches that the wind caused.
She heard nothing but the whispers of the breeze.
Becca stood there and felt like she’d failed. After all, that was a kid. And if they were alone, it was her responsibility to take them in and look after them. There must be so many like that child, left without parents, without anyone to look out for them. The thought of it just pained her.
She turned back to the tent and she saw something in front of it.
She couldn’t figure it out at first. She thought it was a kind of small animal. But it was too round for that, unlike anything she’d seen.
She moved reluctantly down the hill towards it. But as she did, she got that bad feeling again. The sort that makes the hairs rise on the back of your neck.
But she moved towards that object anyway.
She stood over it, now. And as she stood there, something dawned on her.
The tent opening.
It was swaying in the breeze.
It was open.
“Harry?” she muttered.
She was about to rush inside the tent when she realised what the object on the ground was and she screamed.
It was Steve’s head.
His eyes were staring up in bloodshot fear.
His mouth was open wide, tongue dangling out inhumanly.
And his nose and ears had been sliced away.
The urgency of the situation built up. She knew she had to do something. She knew she had to check the inside of the tent but she was just frozen.
Frozen because she knew what might be in there.
Frozen because she didn’t want to face up to what she knew might be in there.
Or what might not be.
“Harry?” she said, heart racing, cold shock filling her body. “Harry, it’s okay. I’m here now. I’m here.”
She stepped into the darkness of the tent.
Everything was silent.
No crying.
No anything.
She moved reluctantly over to the blanket she’d put over Harry. She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to find that her whole world was gone.
But she had to.
It was a mother’s duty.
She held her breath.
She pulled back the blanket.
Harry was still there, smiling up at her.
“Oh, Harry,” she said, unable to fight back the tears, unable to defeat the mixed emotions. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m here. I’ve got you now.”
She held onto his warm body and she counted her blessings that at least he was okay, at least she still had someone left.
And then she sensed the presence behind her.
She froze. She could hear something, definitely. Not footsteps. Just… a presence. Breathing. Something taking up the space that silence usually filled.
She gritted her teeth and she prayed. Prayed that she was just imagining things. Prayed that her mind was playing tricks. It was just her and Harry now. She had to get out of here. They both did. They had to get to safety.
She turned around to look at the tent entrance.
She froze.
A child was standing there.
He had a knife in his hand.
And he was walking towards her, his focus firmly on Harry…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Another day passed, another day without food passed.
It was afternoon. We were in the middle of some suburban area. It was quite a way outside the city of Preston, fortunately, but there were more houses and cars here than I’d imagined. Up ahead, there was a motorway bridge, still full of cars which had collided into one another when the EMP had struck. By the side of the road, bins, left out to be collected.
The weirdest thing though had to be the cars in the middle of this road. It wasn’t the busiest road, but every few hundred feet, a car was just stopped completely. It seemed weird, staring down the length of this road and into the distance. Like reality had been paused, even though that’d been the case for a good six months now.
Really, it would’ve been weirder to see the cars moving. But the world had a funny way of playing tricks on your mind like that.
Holly and Lionel were struggling, that much was clear. Holly kept on staggering forward. I could see she was pale, and to be honest, she looked more underweight than ever before. I wasn’t sure if it was just coincidental—maybe I was noticing something that wasn’t really there—but she looked weak.
I looked at the houses around us and I knew what we had to do. We had to go inside. We had to check them for supplies. For any kind of food. Sure, the bulk of the houses would have been raided by now. But there was always going to be one. There had to be.
I checked the first house on the right, a bungalow. The kitchen window had been smashed already. I searched high and wide but there was nothing but fruit, which had gone off long ago. There was a nasty smell in the air too, like rot. Either someone had died in here or someone had left some meat to go nasty. I didn’t like to think of either option.
We tried another house, but this one was in a similar state. Then we tried another, and another. The third place was the saddest, because there was a guinea pig hutch that had gone suspiciously quiet. Holly went over to it, smile on her face, like she’d reverted to her old self in response to the promise of a cute pet.
The guinea pigs were dead. Long dead.
So many other pets would be, too.
As we walked underneath the motorway bridge, I found myself looking up at the sign. Carlisle. 86 miles. That’s the direction that we should be heading in. Not because I had any great faith in the conversation I’d overheard those two people—the one with the baby—discussing. After all, blind faith was probably one of the biggest
killers in this world now. But just because right now, it seemed to be our only chance of hope.
Starvation, dehydration and sleep deprivation had a funny way of catching up with you and making you realise the truth like that.
We went to try another house when I noticed something different about it. The windows weren’t smashed. The whole place looked… intact, even.
I turned the handle, which opened right away.
I walked into the kitchen.
I froze.
The fruit bowl was overflowing with fresh fruit. There were stacks of chocolate bars on the units, and a ton of bottles of water.
I felt excitement filling inside as I started to salivate. I staggered towards it, unsure of where to look first—the fresh bread, the smell of it in the air, or the delicious fried chicken…
“Holly,” I said, excitedly. “It’s—it’s here. We’ve…”
I stopped, then.
I stopped because I blinked.
And when I blinked, all the food and all the water had gone.
I was inside a kitchen. But there was nothing but dust and flies all over the place.
There was no water. Just empty, discarded beer cans.
There was no fruit. Just the remnants of apple cores.
There was no fresh bread smell. Just the smell of decay.
Disappointed, I turned back around to Holly and Lionel. We had to get to Carlisle. We’d find somewhere on the way. And if we didn’t… well, we wouldn’t get there.
But if we got there and there was nothing there for us?
Or worse… if we got there and someone was waiting there for us?
I wasn’t sure which option was worse.
Just that we had to…
My body turned to stone when I looked in Holly and Lionel’s direction.
Holly was lying face flat on the kitchen floor.
Lionel sat by her side. Whining.
Holly’s body was totally still.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I saw Holly lying face flat across the kitchen floor and my whole world fell to pieces.
