by Ryan Casey
“What about the future of these people? The future of these individuals? What about them? What about me?”
Calvin’s face changed again. This time, he took a deep breath. And within a few seconds, that doctor-like distance and detachment had returned to his face.
He looked back at Holly after taking a deep breath.
Then he half-smiled.
“Do we have your consent, Holly?”
“What? No. No you frigging don’t—”
“Then that’s fine. We have something different planned for you. The same thing we had planned for Marie. The thing that drove Marie to… well. Have a change of heart, let’s say.”
He put a hand on the back of her wheelchair. Pushed her outside. Pushed her past the skips she’d been to before, then towards another one, right at the back. One that had something covering it when she’d been this way earlier.
When Holly saw it, when she looked down into it, she felt the fear engulf her completely.
“No,” she said.
Calvin put a hand on her back. Patted her. “Are you sure you don’t want to consent?” he asked.
The awful thing?
The worst thing of all?
It was bad enough that Holly was considering consenting after all.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mike didn’t hesitate when Scott shouted the words at him, torchlights from the group outside beaming through the windows.
He turned around and, the rest of his people by his side, he ran.
He sprinted. Sprinted through the building. Sprinted blindly in the darkness. He could hear the footsteps outside getting closer, closing in. And he knew he didn’t have much time. He didn’t know where this was going. He didn’t know where this was leading.
He just knew that he had to get away.
But at the same time… there was something else. An opposing force. A rival force shouting at him to turn around. To stand his ground. To fight. Because this group of people had Kelsie with them. This was an opportunity to get her back. This was a chance to fight.
He stopped. Turned around. Faced the darkness, where the footsteps and then the torchlights were gradually emerging.
“Mike?” Alison said.
Mike stood his ground. Tightened his fists. Swallowed a lump in his throat. “I have to stay.”
Alison grabbed his arm, started to drag him away. “Not like this you don’t. You have to be clever about it. You have to be intelligent about it. You have to…”
Mike put a hand on her shoulder, then. He smiled at her, gently, even though it was pitch black, even though it was so dark.
He smiled at her, and he squeezed her shoulder.
“I know what I’m going to do. I have an idea. I have a plan.”
Alison went to respond. She went to reply.
But then she just sighed and nodded.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Mike. Please.”
Mike watched as she turned around. He watched as she ran off with the rest of their people, with Arya. He watched as her blackened silhouette became totally dark.
He watched, and then he turned to face the people racing up the steps.
He took a deep breath.
Then he stepped over into a darkened corner of the room, and he waited.
He stood by the wall. Held the knife Scott had given him in his hand. He heard them getting closer; saw the torchlights emerging, glistening up this room. Fortunately, he could still hear something else, too. He could still hear his people. He could still hear them running away.
It sounded strange to say it was a good thing he could hear them, but it was true.
Because he was going to use that sound to aid him.
He was going to use it as his diversion.
He saw the first of the group run into the room, and he stayed deadly still.
He didn’t move. And the person didn’t seem to look around, either. He just ran on, ran towards the sound of Mike’s people getting further away.
And then the next person did the same. Then the next. And the next.
And before Mike knew it, there were five of them.
Five of them running through the room.
But there wasn’t a sixth.
That’s what Mike needed.
That’s what he wanted.
He stepped out of the room. Walked, knife in hand, out of it. Walked down the creaky steps. Walked towards the front door of this building, lifted the shutters.
And when he stepped out of the shutters, he saw them.
He was standing there right in the middle of the road. Kelsie was draped over his shoulder.
Mike’s jaw clenched. He felt an instinctive urge to go over there, to help her.
But he was going to have to keep his cool.
Keep his patience.
He walked slowly down the alleyway. His heart raced. Inside, somewhere, he could still hear the footsteps racing through, and he knew it was troublesome. He knew it was problematic. Because his people, they were in danger. They were in danger, and they needed help.
But Kelsie.
Mike was closing in on her.
Mike was getting closer.
He raised his knife when he reached the edge of the alleyway. His heart was racing stronger than ever now. He steadied his walking. Moved even slower. He had to time this right. He had to play this cool.
When he got close, he realised something. Something stark. Something that threw him.
Kelsie. She wasn’t unconscious. She wasn’t unconscious at all.
She had tape around her arms and legs, and over her mouth.
But her eyes.
Her eyes were wide open.
She was awake through all this drama, all this chaos.
Mike gritted his teeth and took another few steps forward.
That’s when he heard the crack under his foot.
The cracking of glass.
He looked down.
Then he looked up.
When he did, the man holding Kelsie was looking right at him.
There was a pause. A moment of hesitation.
Then the man started to run.
Mike didn’t hesitate. He didn’t hold back. He just ran, too. Ran in pursuit of the man. Ran in pursuit of Kelsie.
And he wasn’t going to hold back. He wasn’t going to give in. Not now he was here. Not now he was so close.
The man kept on going. And before Mike knew it, he saw the man take a left down an alleyway, disappearing.
So Mike threw himself around it.
That’s when the man cracked him in the stomach.
He fell back, winded. Gripped his stomach. He tasted bile.
But he knew he couldn’t hold back. He knew he couldn’t give in.
He looked up and saw the man running off again.
The instinct was to run after him, too. To go the same way.
But Mike thought of something different.
He ran to the right.
Ran to the edge of this road.
Then went down the next alley, the parallel alley.
He threw himself down it. But at the same time, he tried to keep himself steady, tried to keep himself composed, and tried to keep himself kind of quiet, too.
He reached the end of the alleyway.
And he heard the man coming down this way.
He stopped. Held his breath.
He waited.
And then he heard the footsteps.
He stepped out.
The man bumped into him.
Looked at him, wide-eyed.
“You shouldn’t have taken her. Really.”
Then Mike jammed the knife into his belly.
He waited. Waited as he bled out, waited as he writhed around.
And then when he staggered to his knees, Mike went back over to him. Lifted Kelsie from his shoulder.
He took the tape from her mouth.
Took it from her arms and legs.
And then when he’d done that, he held her close.
>
“I was scared,” she said.
“It’s okay now.”
“I—I was scared what they were going to do.”
“Kelsie, it’s okay. Ssh. Ssh. I’ve got you now. It’s okay.”
He held Kelsie tight. Tears welled in his eyes. And he felt grateful. Grateful that she was still here, as that man exhaled his last pained breath. Grateful as Kelsie’s warmth transferred to him. Grateful that they were back together, after all they’d been through.
He felt grateful until he heard something.
The shout.
The shout from the building containing the rest of his people.
A pained shout.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Holly looked down into the skip, and she felt her body go numb.
The rain pelted down heavily. The clouds were thick, intense. Thunder rumbled overhead.
And Holly wanted to believe that this was just a dream. Just a bad, nightmarish dream.
But there was no denying what she was looking at.
And when she saw it… she was under no illusions anymore.
It didn’t matter how much Calvin insisted what they were doing here was by the book, that it was just advancing society.
It didn’t matter what promises he made of a better future.
The people at the bottom of this skip. The people who hadn’t complied.
They were all the evidence she needed that this place was hell.
The people at the bottom of the skip had their mouths taped. Their bones had been broken in various places. Some of them were still wriggling around down there. Alive.
And there were others, too. Others that’d had some of the flesh pulled from their bones. Others that looked like they had been experimented on. And they too were still alive.
There was no doubting what this place was.
There was no mistaking the evils that went down here—whether Calvin obsessed about “compliance” or not.
“Now, we have a bit of an advantage with you. Or rather, a disadvantage. One of your bones has already broken. So that means we might just have to move on to another one straight away. Really, we could use blood. We could use body parts. We could use some more experimentation material. Unless… unless you’re willing to reconsider your stance on non-compliance.”
Holly’s mouth was dry. She couldn’t say a thing. Couldn’t speak a single word. Because as much as she felt like she’d been in touch with evil herself since the fall of society… this was something else. This was on a whole other level.
“It’s not ideal, I know,” Calvin said. “I mean, if it were up to me, we wouldn’t have to resort to measures like this. We wouldn’t have to leave people in such a state. But we have to make use of them. The flesh… it would be a waste, after all. Whether we feed them to the people or to our dogs, well, that’s all dependent. It’s just the circle of life, Holly. Just the way things go.”
Holly couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. “You’re… you’re a monster.”
“Not a monster,” Calvin said. “Sure. We do some unsavoury things. But we accept that those unsavoury things are… well, necessary parts of the new world.”
“You could just not do this.”
“What?”
“You could just stop doing all of this.”
“And let the world just die off? Let society fall even further onto its knees when we have a golden opportunity to rectify the situation? Are you insane?”
It was hearing Calvin say those words that made Holly realise he was deadly serious about all this. He didn’t think he was at fault. He didn’t see the evil in what he was doing. Or he did, but he chose not to let it hold him back regardless.
And that’s when Holly realised she had a choice.
A choice of compliance.
Or a choice of being in this skip below.
Of facing the unending horrors that awaited down there.
“Final call, Holly. Final chance to make your choice.”
She looked down at these people. And she felt so bad for them. Because she wanted to go down there. She wanted to help them.
But then there was no helping them if she went down there, too.
That was admitting defeat. That was something she couldn’t do.
She took a deep breath. Then she looked up at Calvin. Looked right into his eyes. She thought she saw something deep within them. Sympathy. A deadness inside.
And she could play on that.
She had to.
She nodded.
“I comply.”
Calvin frowned. “What? What was that?”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. And she nodded again. “I comply.”
Calvin patted her on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Holly. I’m delighted with the choice you made. It’s time to get you ready. You’re about to be a mother of the new world.”
As they wheeled her away, Holly kept a stern face; a deadened expression.
But they didn’t see something.
They didn’t see the sharp piece of metal she’d grabbed from beside the edge of the skip.
They didn’t see the way she’d torn the tape from her wrists.
And they had no idea that she was just biding her time and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Mike walked back towards the building where his people were, holding Kelsie in his arms, and he braced himself for the worst.
It was pitch black. The wind had stopped racing. The storm had passed by. Everything was quiet. Eerily quiet.
Mike didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.
He walked over to the shutter. Stepped under it. Back inside the building. He wanted Kelsie to be safe. He didn’t want her to get caught up in whatever was going to happen next.
But at the same time, he didn’t want to let her go. He didn’t want to leave her side. Not again.
He didn’t want to risk losing her. Not after everything he’d been through to get her back.
So he just held her over his shoulder in one arm, held his knife in the other hand and made his way through the dark, narrow corridors.
Mike crept his way through the corridors. Every step was calm, composed. He wanted to be awake to any sudden sounds or movement. He wanted to be ready for any sudden noise; a sign that someone was in pain or that someone was struggling.
He wanted to be awake to all of it.
But he didn’t hear a thing.
He made his way further through the building. Reached the room he’d hidden in, then sneaked out of. He looked around it. No sign that anyone had been back here. No sign that anyone had stepped back in here.
So where were they?
Where had they gone?
Mike walked to the end of this room. It was uncharted territory past here. He didn’t know where they were. He didn’t know which way to go.
He just had to follow.
He just had to—
That’s when he heard it.
A shout.
A cry, in fact.
His skin crawled. Because he thought he recognised that cry. He thought it sounded familiar.
He picked up his pace, tightened his grip on his knife. Because if anyone had hurt his people—if any one of those bastards who had destroyed their home lay another finger on his people—he’d lose it.
He was going to lose it anyway.
He was going to make them pay for what they’d done.
He was going to punish them.
He walked further forward, further down the corridor. And he felt that instinct growing all over again. That same instinct he’d felt outside. The instinct to fight for his people. The instinct to protect them.
He’d do anything for them. Anything to keep them safe.
And he saw that it went way beyond Holly now. Because sure, she was the most important person in his life. He’d do anything for her. He’d die for her.
But he held his people in the same regard now, too.
&n
bsp; He stepped around the doorway, and he saw what was going down.
But when he looked, it wasn’t quite what he expected.
It wasn’t what he expected at all.
Arya had her jaws wrapped around the necks of one of the men. The guy was bleeding out. Badly.
And the rest of the people… they had dropped. Dropped to the floor.
They were down.
Mike looked around. He tried to figure this situation out. He tried to work out what had happened here.
But then he noticed something.
Something bad.
First, it was Scott and his people. They were on the floor. They’d fallen in the battle. They were clearly dead.
But there were others, too. The people who’d come running into here. The rival group. They had fallen, too.
Both sides fighting to the death.
But then there was something else.
Something that caught his eye more than anything.
There was a woman.
A woman sitting in the corner.
Arms folded over her knees.
Wide eyes.
And then he saw Ian by her side.
He saw Ian holding her.
He saw her staring into space.
He didn’t need to ask. He didn’t need to ask a thing. Not anymore.
Because he saw who it was.
He saw clearly who it was.
“Sofia?” Mike said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Holly held onto the sharp piece of metal she’d grabbed from the edge of the skip and waited for her perfect moment to strike.
It was getting late. The sky was growing thicker with clouds as a chilly breeze swooped in. She was shivering. Partly with fear. Because fear was natural. Fear was to be expected, all circumstances considered.
But she was also shaking with adrenaline.
With anticipation.
At what she was going to do.
At the move she was going to make.
At the fact she was going to get out of here, and nothing was going to get in her way.
She looked around. She was inside a caravan. Not the same caravan she’d been in earlier; the one that appeared to be Calvin’s home.
This caravan was lifeless. Empty. Void of any signs of personality, any signs that someone was living in here.
