by Ryan Casey
“I know,” he said. “I know. It’s not going to be easy. I’ve—I’ve lost too. But it does get more manageable. I’m not saying it gets better. I’m not saying it ever gets better. But… but it gets more manageable. In time. I promise. I promise.”
He pulled back. And this time, he saw Ian looking right into his eyes. This time, he saw everyone looking into his eyes.
“Whatever this group’s intentions are—eating human flesh, starting some kind of twisted breeding farm—one thing is for sure. I’m not letting Kelsie become another pawn in their system. I’m not letting my daughter become one of their victims. Because they might try and tell themselves they’re doing it for the greater good. They might try and convince themselves what they’re doing is right. But it’s not right. And it’s not going to keep on happening. Not on my watch.”
He looked around at the group, and he knew it was time.
“I’m going to go after that group. I’m going to stop them. And I’m going to get Kelsie and Holly back, no matter what it takes.”
There was a pause. Hesitation. An awful moment where Mike feared nobody had his back.
Then Alison stepped forward. “I’m with you. Always.”
She took hold of Mike’s hand and tightened her grip around it.
Mike felt better, more confident, already.
He looked at the rest of the group. Looked at Ian. At Gina. At Arya.
“It’s not going to be easy—”
“Holly’s my friend,” Gina said.
She stepped forward. Arya by her side.
“I’ll never leave her behind. Ever.”
There was just Ian now. Just Ian, standing there, glassy eyed, unconvinced.
Ian, who had been so reluctant, so resistant.
“It’s your choice,” Mike said. “But I’d like you by my side. Truly.”
Ian looked over his shoulder.
Then he looked back at Mike.
Then, he stepped forward, and he nodded.
“I guess… I guess I’d fancy my chances with you rather than on the road.”
Mike smiled back at him. Adrenaline coursed through his system. The adrenaline of the chaos. The adrenaline of the loss. And the adrenaline of the situation he knew was before him.
He looked at the Safe Zone. Looked at it, one last time. He wanted to go in there. He wanted to check on more people. He wanted to make sure everyone was okay.
But at the same time… he knew what his path was now.
He knew what his journey was now.
He looked at the Safe Zone one final time.
The place he’d felt safe.
The place he’d grown confident in.
The place he’d called home.
Then he took a deep breath, and he turned around.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s time for a new journey.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A day went by, and Mike still hadn’t found a trace of Holly or Kelsie.
It was late. Darkness had the country fully in its grips. They’d been walking quite some time already, with no luck. Mike felt tired, and he could tell from the way the rest of the group kept on yawning and slowing down that they were ready for a rest, too. Sleep was important. Crucial. Especially if they wanted to stay at full health.
But staying at full health wasn’t Mike’s priority.
Mike’s priority was locating the group who had Holly and Kelsie—and making them pay for taking them away from him.
He looked over his shoulder. Saw Ian was walking alone. He couldn’t help feeling sympathy for him. He’d lost his wife, and there’d barely been any attention towards that fact.
But at the same time, Ian seemed like somebody who dealt with his demons privately, to himself.
Mike would be here for him. They’d all be here for him if that’s what he needed.
They’d do whatever it took to make sure he felt… well, not okay. But the best he could possibly feel in the circumstances.
Whether that was with a shoulder to cry on or a little space to himself.
“Do we actually know where we’re going?” Gina asked. There was a confidence to her now that never used to be there. An assertiveness, something she’d no doubt had to adopt to merely make it this far. “Or are we just going to keep wandering blindly into the night—and maybe even in the wrong direction?”
But Mike wasn’t wandering blindly. He was following something. Something very specific.
He pointed at the ground. “Tire tracks,” he said.
Gina frowned. “What?”
“The bus. The bus they blocked the entrance to the camp with. I don’t know how they got it there. I don’t know how it was up and running. But… but they must’ve driven it here from somewhere. As long as these tyre tracks hold, we have an idea where they’ve come from. And where they’re heading back to.”
Gina tilted her head like she was considering what Mike had said. “They can’t be too far ahead, wherever they are.”
“Which is why we need to keep our guard up,” Alison said. “Keep on our toes. Never know what might be waiting around the next corner.”
They kept on going. Didn’t say much. But Mike could feel the collective fatigue kicking in. It was getting dangerous. He felt like he was drifting even as he was walking, which was far from ideal. Didn’t help that he felt like he was walking in circles.
They’d probably wandered right around the perimeter of the place where the group were from, time after time.
But the worst thing was, he just didn’t know.
His guard was down. Which made him vulnerable.
That was the most dangerous factor.
“Holly said something to me, you know,” Alison said.
Mike looked around. Her voice seemed to come out of nowhere. “Said something?”
Alison looked at the ground. “Something… something that stuck with me.”
“What? What did she say?”
She looked up, then, and swallowed a lump in her throat. “She said she felt like it was her fault. She let Emma inside. She’d failed Emma. Which meant she’d failed everyone.”
Guilt built up inside Mike’s body. Tension welled inside his chest. His sadness intensified. Because he felt bad that his daughter felt responsible for this. If anything, it was his fault. He’d been the one to tell Holly to stay back at the camp. He’d been the one to deny her the opportunity to help out.
He’d been overprotective. And in a viciously ironic way, it had come back to bite him, vigorously.
And there was Kelsie, too. He remembered looking back at her when he got to the top of those steps. He remembered seeing her lying there, flat on her body, eyes wide and desperate.
He remembered the fear on her face when she’d been dragged away.
And it hurt him. It hurt him that she was afraid. It hurt him that she was struggling. It hurt him that she was in pain.
There were other issues. Long term issues like Kelsie’s diabetes.
But that was something they’d have to conquer in the long-run.
That was another hurdle they’d have to try and cross another way.
They went to keep on walking forward when Mike heard something.
He stopped. Looked up. He thought he was hearing things at first. Thought he was imagining things.
But then he saw it.
He saw it, and it confirmed what he’d heard.
And when he saw it, it changed everything.
“Is that a…” Alison started.
She didn’t have to finish.
Nobody had to finish.
Because a helicopter was flying overhead.
Mike felt tension building up inside. It was like déjà vu. There’d been a time in the past when they were searching for Holly that the group had seen a helicopter and it had sparked hopes of an extraction point; of a future of promise.
But it had been a false dawn. Because not long after, the group had been split up. Mike hadn’t seen any of the others for
quite some time. They’d all gone their separate ways.
It was only through chance that they’d found each other again.
Which meant they had to be careful.
They had to exercise caution.
Serious caution.
They watched as it passed overhead, little lights blinking, disappearing into the distance.
“That’s probably the direction we should be heading,” Ian said.
Mike turned around. “Not without Kelsie. Not without Holly.”
“But—”
“You can walk away. I told you that. But there’s no way I’m turning my back on the people I care about. I’d rather survive in this hell with the people I love beside me than thrive in a world of luxury where they aren’t with me. It’s non-negotiable.”
He looked into Ian’s eyes, and he saw his mouth moving. He saw him on the verge of saying something.
And then Ian closed his mouth and sighed.
“Then we keep on going,” he said, somewhat regretfully.
Mike turned. Kept on walking. He was pleased a mutiny had been thwarted. He liked to think the others would have his back. But there was no knowing what the sight of a helicopter like that could do to people.
They’d all come from different backgrounds, after all. Some of them might be more inclined to ditch their new world friends if promise of an old world loomed on the horizon.
But for now, they were together.
For now, they were walking.
“Um, Mike?”
Mike heard Gina’s voice, and he frowned. “What?”
She pointed at the ground. “That trail we were following…”
Mike looked down.
The bus tire trail ended right in front of them.
He frowned. Looked up at the town ahead.
That’s when he heard it.
Footsteps.
Movement.
And the next thing he knew he had a knife to his neck.
“Keep very still and keep very quiet,” a voice whispered. “Or the lot of you are dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mike felt the knife press against his neck and couldn’t help feeling like it was one of those nights again.
The darkness was intense. Mike could barely see a thing around him anymore, especially not now the clouds had covered up the moon and the stars. There was a heavy breeze, specks of rain carried along by it. He could hear the footsteps of a group. He could hear their chatter. But he couldn’t see them.
He could only assume from the fact the rest of his group hadn’t reacted either meant they were in a similar situation to him, too.
Which wasn’t good news.
It wasn’t good news at all.
“Stay still. Very still. It’s for your own good.”
Mike’s mouth was going dry. His breathing was laboured and painful. That knife, it was pressed right to his throat. One wrong move, and he had no doubt that the man who was whispering in his ear would slice his neck open.
That wasn’t something that could happen. He couldn’t allow it. Not now. Not after everything.
“Okay,” Mike said, trying his best to stay calm and composed. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just passing through.”
“Seems like that’s everyone’s argument. Everyone’s ‘just passing through’. Sometimes people pass through with different intentions to other people. So tell us. Be straight with us. You’re walking right through our home. Where are you heading?”
Mike’s heart raced. He didn’t want to screw around here. After all, he had every damned right to be walking through this town, whether this man felt comfortable about it or not.
But at the same time, he knew he had to play it right. He had to play it safe. With the best interests of his entire group in mind.
“A group attacked our home,” Mike said. “A chemical attack. Must’ve been supplies they got from the foreigners. They ruined our home. Forced us out. We don’t know how many survived. But we do know something.”
He chanced something, then. Something he knew was risky. Something he knew was dangerous. But something he had to attempt all the same.
He turned, just a little.
The man holding him wasn’t having any of it.
He tightened the knife against his neck.
Leaned in closer.
“I told you not to move an inch.”
Mike cleared his throat. This guy was going to be harder to deal with than he’d first thought. He had to keep cool. He had to play it right.
He had to just be honest.
“These people,” Mike said. “They… they were all masked. Wearing gas masks. They looked like they were gathering the bodies for… for something. And they told us something. Something about—about the girls. About the women. About—”
“We know how it works,” the man said.
Mike frowned. “You do?”
The man sighed. “Let’s just say my wife and I naively thought bringing a child into this world might just create a little hope. Safe to say we got that one wrong. Hell. She’s not even around anymore anyway. Halved the tragedy, I suppose.”
Mike shook his head. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Alison’s suggestions were true. Women over a certain age really couldn’t conceive anymore. Something had happened. Whether it was electronic or chemical… he didn’t know anymore. This went far beyond his understanding. Far beyond anyone’s understanding.
The man stretched out a hand. He gestured for the rest of his people to lower their weapons.
“The name’s Scott,” he said. “We’ve been surviving here for a while, staying in the shadows. The best way, hmm?”
Mike took Scott’s hand. Introduced himself and the rest of his people.
“My daughter,” he said. “She’s in her late teens. And there’s a girl, too. A young girl we’ve been looking after. She’s… they’ve got her. They took her.”
The man sighed. “I’m sorry for what happened to your family. Truly. But all I’ll say is… if the masked group have them, then there’s no getting them back.”
Mike frowned. “Wait. You know this group?”
“We suffered a similar attack,” the man said. “Chemical, like you say. We were living in a decent little community until they sent a kid in. Naturally, we couldn’t just turn him away. We let him in. Next thing we knew, our people started dropping dead.”
Mike felt the dread of familiarity building up inside. “That sounds familiar.”
“That boy died. It looked like they captured children to brainwash and turn them into their little suicide bombers. The older women—teenagers, early twenties… yeah. They gather those with hopes that they can breed. Everyone older, and the young men, well…”
Mike gulped. “I think we’ve both seen what happens to everyone older.”
“You haven’t seen what they do with the bodies after they’ve killed them, though, have you? The ones they don’t recruit, anyway.”
Mike didn’t want to ask. He could assume already that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
“So now you know where we’ve come from,” Mike said. “Now you know where we’re heading towards. You can let us go. You can let us move on.”
A pause, then. A silence. A silence that Mike was uncertain about. He thought he’d broken ground with these people. He thought he’d reached an understanding.
That silence didn’t strike him with confidence.
“We don’t want any trouble. We’re just walking. Just passing through. Just trying to get to where they are.”
“It’s funny you say that,” the man said. “The masked group. They usually always head through this town, too. We haven’t seen them yet. How long did you say it’d been?”
Mike frowned. He couldn’t understand that. A lot of time had passed since they’d run into the group, surely. Enough time that they hadn’t overtaken them, surely?
“What’re those?”
Alison’s voice broke the silent tens
ion. Mike tried to turn around and managed it this time because the guy’s knife was looser.
And when he looked back, he saw exactly what Alison had been referring to.
He saw exactly what she’d been talking about.
The lights.
The torches.
Heading right in their direction.
“We need to hide,” the man said, grabbing Mike’s back. “We need to get the hell off this road. Now!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When Holly opened her eyes, she still felt the pain crippling her body.
But something was different. Something had changed. She couldn’t figure it out. Not at first. She couldn’t pinpoint when she’d gone to sleep. She couldn’t pinpoint when she’d passed out. She couldn’t remember much of what had happened. She had no idea how much time had passed at all.
She only knew, deep down, that she was in trouble.
She opened her eyes, which were hot and sticky, and then she saw her surroundings.
She was in the pit. The skip. Right at the bottom of that same skip she’d been thrown into earlier. The skip with Marie and the other women.
The sun was shining now. It looked like morning. There was mugginess to the air that teased summer; something that she couldn’t wait for.
If she made it that long. If she survived that far.
But then she looked down at her leg, and she realised something had changed.
There was a bandage on her leg. A thick bandage. Someone must’ve seen to it. Someone must’ve worked at setting the break.
She thought back to the time before she’d fallen asleep. She couldn’t remember anything detailed, only that she’d drifted in and out a few times to jolts of pain, to blasts of agony.
She wasn’t sure whether it was real at the time. But now she knew the truth. It was real. It had been real.
The people here had fixed her leg.
But for what purpose?
For what…
She felt sick, then. Tasted sick, too. Sickness as the memory came back. The memory of what Marie said. Of what Marie told her.
The women. What happened to the older women. How they coudn’t bear children anymore.
Her body started to shake. Her skin began to crawl.
