by Ryan Casey
And then she’d kill them, and she’d get the hell away from them.
But then she remembered something else. Or rather, someone else.
The memory sent shivers up her arms and up the back of her neck.
Emma.
Emma had acted strange when Holly had found her. That should’ve been the alarm bell she needed. She wasn’t stupid. She's was foolish to be naive. She should’ve known not to let her guard drop. She hadn’t got this far because of sympathetic behaviour. She’d got this far because she hadn’t been scared to do the nasty things that other people seemed so terrified of.
Had she gone soft? Was that what’d happened? She’d lost her edge while trapped in the walls of the Safe Zone?
It was possible. After all, the old Holly wouldn’t have ended up in this mess. The old Holly wouldn’t have given anyone a chance to capture her like this.
She thought back to Alison. Thought to the way she’d rested in that pile of bodies and watched her disappear. And she felt mixed emotions. Firstly, a sense of disappointment that Alison hadn’t gone chasing right after her.
But also, a sense of weird optimism, too.
Because Alison had a chance to track her.
She had a chance to follow her.
She had a chance to help her.
She started trying to move the gag from around her lips when she stopped.
Someone behind stopped her. Held her still.
Then the next thing she knew, they pushed her down, and she fell.
She felt the flashbacks striking. The flashbacks to the time the rope had wrapped around her neck. The flashbacks to the time she’d fallen towards the ground just hours earlier.
And as she fell, she felt like she was jumping from the bus window again.
Then she slammed against the bottom of whatever this was.
She screamed out. Screamed, the pain in her leg intense now. Whatever damage had been done had surely just got a whole lot worse.
She tried to turn around. Tried to feel her way around this place.
It was metal. Cold. Some kind of container.
She struggled to her back, gasping, sweating. And then she managed to drag her hands up, just enough to pull her gag away, to pull the mask over her face away.
She struggled with it. Then she managed to drag at it.
And the next thing she knew, she saw light.
She blinked a few times. Her eyes were grubby and filled with tears.
She was right about being in some kind of container.
It was a skip. One of the kinds you used to get at tips in the times before.
Only this skip was high. Really high.
There was no way she was getting out of this anytime soon.
She looked at the edges of the skip, and she saw six people standing around it. Looking down at her like she was a caged zoo animal.
“What do you want?” she shouted. “What do you want from me?”
One of them looked at the other. And he said something. Something that she heard loud and clear this time.
The man with the silver Rolex.
“Make sure her leg’s seen to. We don’t want anything happening to her.”
And then he turned around, and he walked away.
“Wait! Wai…”
Holly stopped screaming out.
She stopped crying out.
Because that’s when she realised something.
Something about this skip.
There was a girl opposite her.
More girls around her.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
All of them a similar age to her. Some of them a little older, but none of them a lot older, or a lot younger.
All of them looking at her with those wide, gaunt eyes.
“What is this place?” Holly asked. “What—where am I?”
One of the girls walked over to Holly. She put a skinny, flimsy hand on her shoulder and smiled at her with rotting teeth. She must’ve been in her late twenties.
“I’m Marie,” she said. “These are my friends.”
Holly looked at Marie, tension building up. Then she looked around at Marie’s friends. “Who—who are you people?”
“Older women can’t have children anymore,” Marie said. “But we’re the younger ones. We’re the lucky ones. We’re the start of the new world. Welcome to your new reality.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Calvin sat back in his little static caravan as the day turned to night, and he felt a twinge of regret over what he’d had to do.
Over what he was going to do.
Over everything he’d been involved in, and would be involved in.
But Rome wasn’t built in a day. And the Romans, they certainly couldn’t pretend they’d never done a thing that they didn’t feel bad about. They certainly weren’t squeaky clean.
It was all about the advancement of society.
It was all about the progression of humanity.
Sometimes progression required some… well. Unsavoury actions.
The rain peppered down on the roof of his caravan. He closed his eyes, took deep breaths. Sometimes, when he lay here in the rain, he could picture himself back at home, back before things went to hell. He could picture himself sitting in his shed after working on his latest writing project. He could picture himself falling asleep in complete comfort, under the stars, and feeling nothing but pure peace about where he was, about his situation.
He could tune in to that feeling if he really, really concentrated.
But reality always came creeping back.
And when it did, reality tasted… salty. Bitter.
Because it just reminded him of what he was doing. Of what he’d done. And of all the things he was going to do.
He’d heard about the raid on the homeless community housing spot a few miles away. It was a place they’d been scouting for quite some time. It was thriving. Well-guarded. And there were plenty of opportunities to add people to his arsenal, so to speak.
The Novichok. That had come in handy. He’d found a batch of it in a military outpost where the foreign troops had once been—before they’d been taken out. He’d been sure to gather as much of it as he could. Not as much of it as he would’ve liked, but enough to cause serious damage. Enough to cause a crisis.
And the risk he’d taken sending young Emma into that place. He knew it would result in casualties. He knew he would lose… well. Capable women. Women who fit the bill he was building towards.
But it was a risk he was willing to take.
And that risk had paid off.
Because he’d added more to his community.
His visions of the new world were sparking into fruition.
He thought about Emma. Of how she was when she’d first been brought to him. How she had an inner strength, an inner resilience.
He felt regret over what he’d crafted her into in just two short months. But someone like that… she was an asset. Especially when Calvin knew the people staying at the community they’d attacked would know her. That they’d trust her.
She was a weapon to cause maximum damage.
And that’s exactly what Emma had done.
In the distance somewhere outside, he heard crying. He’d have to get used to crying he supposed, especially when the children were born. It was a shame they had to grow up in relative poverty. But it was going to get better for them. Things were going to progress, going to change. Things were going to improve.
And the mothers. He couldn’t trust them to be co-operative, not yet. He was working towards something, sure. Working towards creating a home. Working towards creating a sanctuary. Working towards making them feel comfortable—indefinitely comfortable.
He was working towards all these things, and he was going to get there. He was going to succeed. He was going to achieve.
He wanted this to be consensual.
Because the end of the world required him to take advantage of this opportunity; of this moment.
He could remember the exact moment he’d learned that women over the age of thirty couldn’t conceive anymore. It was accidental. He was living in a military bunker for a while. An old base that a small number of troops were holding down. It had some working comms devices, things like that.
And he’d heard it. He wasn’t supposed to hear it, but he’d overheard it. The conversation between the troops. The conversation that changed everything.
The troops. They were arguing. Arguing about something they’d heard. Something they’d learned.
Calvin knew he could’ve just turned around. He knew he could’ve just walked away. He knew he could’ve just switched himself off from the reality of this world and turned away from it.
But he hadn’t. He’d stayed. He’d listened. He’d listened to what they were debating. He’d listened to what they were arguing about.
And what he’d learned right there had changed him.
Forever.
The information was sketchy, but it was enough. Women over thirty. They couldn’t conceive anymore. The EMPs, they’d only been the beginning. They were just the starts of a multi-pronged attack. An attack that progressed into newer, experimental forms of assault.
Details were scant. Information was sparse. But one fact stood out. One fact wormed its way into Calvin’s mind.
People over the age of thirty couldn’t conceive.
Whoever had attacked Britain had made sure of that.
And he could only wonder if this might not just be confined to Britain after all.
Which meant that if this country didn’t get its act together—if the world didn’t gets act together—in time, humanity was going to die out.
Whether it was at the hands of the EMP or not, this was the final punch.
A final, sickening punch that was going to change everything. Forever.
He thought about how his group had risen from these ashes. He thought about how they’d found this place. How they’d united. How they’d banded together with the common knowledge of what was happening, and a common agreement about how to move forward.
It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t easy.
But it was all they had.
It was a plan.
And it was working.
It was going to work.
He stood up, then. Walked over to the side of his caravan. Looked out of the window. If he stopped listening, he could convince himself everything was so calm. Everything was so peaceful.
But that was just kidding himself.
It wasn’t calm.
It wasn’t peaceful.
Those women, they were going through hell.
But what else?
What else could he do?
He knew the opposing argument. People would naturally find one another and would naturally conceive. But what if they didn’t? What if natural selection had been conquered this time? What if people’s urges to mate were dulled by the knowledge that bringing a child into this world was just too hard, too cruel?
He looked at the skip. Thought about the girl. The girl they’d dragged here. The girl he’d saved from the pile of bodies. He didn’t expect her to be grateful. She wouldn’t understand. Maybe none of them would understand, completely.
But perhaps one day things could be different. Perhaps one day, maybe when they were lying on their death beds, they’d be able to look back with sincerity and truly see the reason he’d done what he’d done; why he was doing what he was doing.
He thought about her leg. The break she’d taken. At least he had good people here. At least he had people who could help her. At least he had people who could make her feel comfortable and make her feel welcome.
He thought back to the fall of the military base. The day the military had decided they didn’t have the stomach for people. That was just another thing that Calvin had adapted to. Another thing he’d turned towards. Because people were great resources. And people over thirty?
They were useless now.
They were useless unless they were helping with something genuine.
Unless they were providing nutrition.
In time, maybe they’d find something genuine. Maybe they’d find them another purpose.
Because their purpose went beyond just reproduction, of course.
He thought about Emma. Thought about how he’d raised her. Thought about the things he’d taught her.
He thought about these things, and he felt an unwavering regret.
Then he took a deep breath. Swallowed a lump in his throat.
He’d done what he’d done with meaning. With purpose.
It was a shame to have to sacrifice someone so innocent. It was a shame that so many had to fall in the crossfire.
But he’d been thinking long-term.
He’d done what he’d done for the future.
He walked away from the window. Sat back down. Whisky in hand.
He’d make his new guest’s leg okay.
He’d make her feel comfortable.
And then when the time was right, he’d make her a real part of the new world.
A contributor.
A mother.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mike listened to what Alison was telling him—what Alison had overheard—and he still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that she was still alive.
And not only that.
“I saw her,” Alison said. “I saw Holly.”
Mike shook his head. His entire body shook. “But—”
“She was hiding from them. Hiding in that—that pile of bodies. Her leg… it was in a bad way. She’d taken a nasty fall. But she was alive. She was… she was okay.”
Mike brushed his fingers through his hair. He blinked a few times. He still couldn’t believe what he was hearing; still couldn’t believe this wasn’t some mad dream.
“She was okay?” he said. It was the only thing he could think of saying. Because he felt like he’d had a carrot of hope dangled in front of his face. He couldn’t have it snatched away. Not after all he’d been through. Not after everything.
“Well,” Alison said, rubbing her shaking hands together, looking at the ground. “The group. They—they took her.”
“They took her?”
“I watched them for a while. I couldn’t make a move. I wanted to, but it was too much. It was too risky. But… but I figured if I could at least see where she was going. At least if I could find something out.”
Mike stood still. Teeth clenched. “And?”
Alison looked at Mike. Then at Ian, and Gina, and Arya. “You don’t have to worry about her falling the same way as the others fell, Mike.”
“But what does that mean?”
Alison swallowed a visible lump in her throat. Scanned the group again. “And Kelsie. I… I think she’s going to be okay.”
Suddenly, Mike felt a bolt of protectiveness through his system. “Kelsie,” he said.
“Honestly, Mike. I think… I think they’re going to be okay.”
Mike narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t understand how Alison could reach such a conclusion based on the things he’d seen. “You think?”
“They said something about conception,” she said.
Mike frowned. He didn’t understand. It was like Alison was saying all these things without actually saying anything comprehensible. “What do you mean ‘something about conception’?”
“I mean I heard them saying that she was good enough. They termed it differently, but… Mike, from what they said, I—I think something might’ve happened. To us. To the women.”
Mike’s head spun. He was starting to understand what Alison was saying now. But it didn’t make things any more comfortable. It didn’t make it an easier pill to swallow.
Because he got what Alison was implying.
He got what she was suggesting.
And what she was suggesting made everything even darker; made ever
ything even more urgent.
He remembered the bodies.
The ones in the pile.
But then something else.
The women.
The younger women.
It seemed like they were rounding them up.
It seemed like they were gathering them.
“You’re saying they’re going to use my daughter, aren’t you?” Mike said. “You’re—you’re saying they kept her alive for a reason. Aren’t you?”
Alison’s face turned. She shook her head. “She’s strong, Mike—”
“I don’t give a shit what we say. Talking’s not gonna get us anywhere. Not now.”
He stepped forward. Looked back at the rest of the group.
“As long as she’s out there. As long as they’re both out there… there’s a chance. A chance to get to them. A chance to save them.”
“So now it’s the people you care about, things change, do they?”
Mike’s stomach sank when he heard Ian’s words. He could see the look on his face. He could see the pain in his eyes. And he knew it must hurt. He knew it must be devastating. Losing Sofia in such a cruel way… it wasn’t going to be easy to take.
And in a sense… Mike felt like their connection had dropped. Learning the people he cared about were still alive after all, that left Ian in a lonely place. A sad place.
He walked up to Ian, who lowered his head as he approached. He put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry for what happened to Tommy,” Mike said. “And I’m sorry about what happened to Sofia. What I did… stopping you. Stopping you rushing over to her. I did it for you.”
“Don’t,” Ian said. “Please.”
Mike didn’t oblige. “But… but I want you to know I’m here for you. We’re all here for you. Whatever you need, we’ve got you.”
Ian looked up at Mike. Tears in his eyes. “I want my family back.”
Mike did something, then. Something spontaneous. Something he hadn’t been expecting.
He grabbed Ian and hugged him.
