by Ryan Casey
“I’ll make—I’ll make sure he knows,” he said.
Then, as more of Calvin’s people approached, and under fire from Calvin, he clambered his way up the fence.
He reached the top.
Then he felt it.
A pain in his leg.
A pain as one of those arrows slashed against the back of his leg, narrowly missing slamming into him.
A close call.
Too close a call.
He fell. Looked back. Saw Calvin still standing there, crossbow in hand.
And then he saw Sofia looking into his eyes as the life drifted from hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
Then he turned away, and he disappeared into the night.
Chapter Forty-Three
Mike didn’t look back towards Calvin’s junkyard.
He didn’t look over his shoulder. Not once.
He just ran into the night, the horrifying memory of what had happened circling around his mind.
He had a rough sense of his bearings. Had a rough idea that he was heading in the right direction. But there was a resistance. A resistance holding him back. A resistance screaming at him not to go back to Ian empty-handed.
Because Sofia had led him back to the camp where she swore Holly was being kept; where she insisted she was.
She’d led him back there, as much as he’d tried to tell her she didn’t have to go any further.
And she’d died there.
He shuddered as he ran. He thought about his last memory of Sofia. The way she’d been telling him that if she didn’t make it, to make sure Ian knew how strong he was. To make sure he knew just how much he’d helped her get by through all the shit and all the loss they’d suffered.
He remembered insisting to her that she was going to be okay. She was going to make it back. There was no way she was dying at that place. Not on his watch.
But she had.
She’d died.
She’d been killed while they were escaping.
And what had Mike been left with?
What had he escaped with?
He stopped. Put his hands on his legs. He had a crippling stitch. The taste of stomach acid filled his mouth. He couldn’t stop the thoughts spiralling in his mind. He couldn’t stop the regret.
But then it hit him.
Or rather… two things hit him.
First, there was Holly.
She’d escaped. She was out here—somewhere. And he knew that Calvin had a malicious streak. He knew he wasn’t just going to give up on her.
He wasn’t going to be happy that she had escaped, and now he had escaped too.
He wasn’t just going to lie down and admit defeat.
But then there was something else. Something he couldn’t get from his mind.
The helicopter. He’d seen it earlier on his journey with the rest of the group. And now he’d seen it tonight, too.
He wondered what it was. Who it was. Where it was going.
And he knew, deep down, he couldn’t let this opportunity just pass by.
He needed to find out who was flying it.
He needed to know.
He heard a sound, and he looked up.
There were footsteps. Footsteps from somewhere in the distance. Somewhere up ahead.
He reached for his knife, but he realised it was gone. He had no weapons. So he looked around. He needed something. Something to improvise with.
He grabbed a loose bit of stone from the kerb at the side of the road, and he raised it above his head.
And then he saw him step out, and he had a whole mixture of emotions.
It was Ian.
He was looking at Mike with narrowed eyes, which were illuminated by the moon. Behind him, Mike could see Gina and Kelsie, Alison and Arya.
But Ian was looking at him with a frown. With confusion.
And all Mike could do was shake his head.
“No,” Ian said, staggering towards him. “No. Please.”
He reached Mike, and for a second Mike thought he was going to take a swing at him. He thought he was going to punch him.
But instead, he fell into his arms.
“Please no,” Ian said.
“I’m sorry,” Mike said. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”
“What—who—”
“I know who did this. The people who destroyed our home. The people who—who took Holly. They killed Sofia.”
Ian shook his head. His jaw tightened with a mixture of anger and grief. “I’ll—I’ll—”
“She told me… she told me to tell you that you’re strong. That you’re far stronger than you believe. That you got her through so much. And that… that she’s sorry she left you. I’m sorry she left you.”
Ian fell into tears, then. Alison and Gina joined his side. Kelsie, she looked weak.
Mike put a hand on Kelsie’s shoulder. Squeezed it a little.
“Is Holly going to be okay?” Kelsie asked.
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat and looked off into the distance. “I hope so. I hope…”
Then it hit him.
The location.
The location she’d be heading towards.
“The helicopter,” Mike said.
Alison turned around. “What about it?”
“I saw it again. Back when I was at the place. It—it flew over. Headed off towards the coast.”
“Which is all fair and good,” Alison said. “But again. What good is that to us?”
“Holly’s bright. You’ve spent time with her. You know how she is. She won’t have come charging back into the storm. She won’t have gone back to the Safe Zone. It’s… it’s not the logical thing to do. And she’s all about logic. She’s all about survival.”
“So you think she’s heading towards that helicopter?” Alison said. “She’s heading to where it’s going?”
Mike took a deep breath and nodded. He looked off into the distance, off towards where he knew the helicopter had headed.
“So that’s where we go too?” Alison asked.
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat.
Then he looked down at Ian as he crouched there, crying, grief-stricken.
“We do,” Mike said. “We have to. It’s the only thing we’ve got. But there’s something else we need to do first.”
He grabbed another piece of debris from the side of the kerb. Then he looked around for more pieces of debris; more things he could use.
“What?” Alison asked.
Mike looked up at the group. Then he looked into Ian’s tearful eyes.
“We’re going to make Calvin pay for what he’s done,” Mike said. “We’re going to bring him down. We’re going to bring all his people down. And we’re not going to let a single one live.”
Chapter Forty-Four
It was an hour later that Holly got the feeling that she was being followed.
It was dark, but the sun was beginning to rise. A sure sign that spring was making its way for summer. The birds were chirping, all getting along with their lives like nothing had changed. In a way, Holly supposed nothing had really changed for them. Things were normal. The status quo was normal.
They just didn’t get fed quite as much by humans. That was the only difference.
There was a scent to the air. The kind of scent you got before any beautiful day. Just that sense that things were going to be stunning. And that sparked optimism inside Holly. That sparked a sense that over the horizon, things were going to change. Things were going to be different.
Things were going to be hopeful.
At least that’s what she was thinking until she got the feeling she was being watched.
She looked over her shoulder. Looked back at the buildings. It wasn’t inconceivable that somebody might be in one of those buildings. There were plenty of other pockets of survivors around, after all. They saw them all the time. It’s just that usually, they kept themselves to themselves. There wasn’t much to not
e about them.
And surely the vast majority of them were good people. They weren’t monsters. They weren’t tyrants. Sure, they’d all done things they weren’t proud of. Things that made them uneasy. Things they were unsure about to survive.
But it just seemed like something wasn’t right here. It just seemed like something was different.
And Holly couldn’t help feeling fearful.
It was probably because she’d escaped the clutches of Calvin. And because she’d seen the helicopter. It had given her hope. And she didn’t want that hope to slip away. Not now. Not after everything.
So she turned around, ignored that awful sense that someone was behind her, following her, watching her every move, and she kept going.
She was careful to make sure she didn’t head right back through the place Calvin had her trapped. She’d taken a few diversions, made sure there was enough distance between those places and her.
And it wasn’t easy. She was for the most part hobbling along on her makeshift crutches.
But she was getting by. And she wasn’t going to let anything like a leg break get in her way.
She was going to keep on going.
Nothing was going to stop her.
Nothing was—
Shuffling.
Shuffling behind her.
She spun around. Looked back. Squinted at the buildings, barely illuminated by the rising sun.
She couldn’t see a thing.
She couldn’t make anything out.
So she turned around again. Her heart was racing. She had to keep on moving. Keep on going forward. She couldn’t let the night get to her. She was probably just tired. Probably just weak. She probably just needed—
“Hey.”
She heard the voice, and a shiver shot up the back of her neck.
She didn’t want to turn around.
She didn’t want to look.
She just wanted to keep on going.
But she knew she couldn’t.
She swallowed, held her breath, and turned around.
There was a man standing there.
He was wearing… military gear. Full military gear.
And he was smiling at Holly.
He was tall. Thin. Dark-haired. And Holly thought she recognised him from somewhere, weirdly. She thought there was something familiar about him.
But before she could even place him, he spoke.
“You lost?”
Holly rubbed her hands against her arms. Her cold, detached demeanour dropped straight away and was replaced with fearfulness. Fearfulness she didn’t want to exude. She wanted to give off confidence. She wanted to give off composure.
But she wanted to believe this man wasn’t as bad as she feared.
He walked towards her, slowly. “My helicopter,” he said. “We had an accident a few miles back. A bad crash. Nobody… nobody else survived. So I’ve been travelling on foot. We’re extracting people, you know? Taking people out of this country and to an island off the coast. Somewhere new. Somewhere with order. Somewhere with power. Somewhere without all this chaos.”
Resistance built up in Holly once again. Because she didn’t want to fall for this. She didn’t want to blindly believe. She’d been deceived before. She didn’t want to be deceived again.
But then… his story. It added up. It made sense.
What was stopping her having a little faith?
“I don’t believe you.”
He frowned. “You’re bound to be sceptical. I’m sure it’s got you far. Anyway. You don’t have to come with me. You can follow from a distance if you want. If that’d make you feel more comfortable. Whatever’s cool with you.”
He walked past Holly. Looked at her, and at her makeshift crutches.
“Good job with the crutches, by the way. Oh. And I’m Oliver. Good to meet you.”
Holly watched Oliver pass by. She saw him walk off ahead, not waiting around for her. And she felt herself at a crossroads. She felt herself not wanting to follow him. Not wanting to go down that route.
But at the same time… she wanted to follow him.
Because she wanted to believe in what he was saying.
She wanted to believe in the goodness of other people. That this world wasn’t all crisis and chaos.
So, in the end, she surprised herself.
In the end, she started walking.
She figured there was no harm in following from a distance.
She followed. Walked for a while. Sometimes, she felt like she was losing sight of him. But when she walked a little further, she realised he was still there.
And it was when the sun had risen, and he stopped for a while, that she thought about holding back.
But in the end, she walked over to him. Reached his side.
When she got to his side, she saw the view up ahead.
It was a beautiful view. A beautiful view of the hills. Of the villages.
Then up ahead, the coast.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” he asked.
Holly took a deep breath of the cool morning air, and she found herself smiling. She found herself relieved. Because she was almost there. She’d come all this way, and she was almost there.
But there was something still getting to her.
Something still bothering her.
“The helicopters,” she said. “The rest of your people. Where are they?”
She looked up at Oliver and saw him smile.
“You don’t have to worry about anything now, Holly. We’re almost there.”
Two things.
Two things struck her with a sickening sense of unease.
First… he’d called her Holly.
She hadn’t told him her name.
And there was something else.
The watch. The Rolex on his wrist. That’s what stood out to her. That’s what made her think.
She’d seen it.
She’d seen it before.
She knew why it was familiar now.
It had been on the wrists of one of the men who’d dragged her from the pile of bodies.
One of the men in the masks.
She looked up at Oliver. Tried to keep herself looking cool, looking composed. But she could feel her composure diminishing. She could feel it all falling apart.
She had to keep herself together.
She had to keep things in order.
“You okay?” Oliver asked.
Holly’s head spun. She turned away, back towards the direction she’d come from.
That’s when she saw them.
The people.
The people standing there.
Calvin.
“I—”
She didn’t say anything else.
She didn’t get the chance to.
Oliver wrapped a cloth around her mouth.
And as she drifted into a deep, black unconsciousness, she watched as Calvin got closer and closer… and there was nothing she could do about it.
Chapter Forty-Five
When Mike and his people reached Calvin’s junkyard, they didn’t find what they expected.
The sun was high in the sky as the morning progressed. There was humidity to the air that teased an approaching summer. It had taken them longer than Mike had hoped to gather a few weapons together, then to make their way towards this place.
But now they had got here… Mike had to admit to feeling less optimistic about all of this.
Because of the state of this place.
The women from the skips had gone. The dead bodies, they were still there, lying there. Some of the people who had their bones broken were still writhing around, struggling.
But the most important thing was that Calvin and his people weren’t here anymore.
And this place had been destroyed.
Mike’s heart thudded as he studied his surroundings. He didn’t know what to make of any of this. He’d been expecting to come across a large crowd of people. He’d been expecting a fight. Expecting resistance.
/>
He hadn’t been expecting silence.
The caravan had been destroyed. There were bullet holes scattered all around. And there were Calvin’s people on the ground.
Someone had attacked this place.
Someone had done Mike’s job for him already.
“What should we do?” Alison asked.
Mike wasn’t sure how to respond. He was hoping for someone else to come up with some suggestions. Because as far as he was concerned, he was stumped.
Ian looked distraught. He’d been begging for his revenge. And Mike had wanted him to get that revenge so badly, too.
But now he was being prevented it. Now he was being denied it.
And being denied that opportunity was surely the hardest thing of all.
But he took a deep breath. Stood upright. He had to look forward. It was all he could do. It was all any of them could do. At least there was still no sign of Holly here. At least there was no sign she’d been caught up in any of this.
“We need to push on,” Mike said. “Towards the place where the helicopters were heading. We need to keep going.”
“But these people,” Ian said. “These… these people.”
They’d found Sofia when they got here. Her body was right where it was when Mike had last seen her. She’d dodged death a few times. Several of their people had dodged death a few times.
But there was no denying the truth this time.
Sofia was dead.
She was gone.
They’d buried her when they were certain they were alone here. Weren’t ideal surroundings, especially not with the connotations of this place, with the links of this place.
But it was all they had. And Sofia deserved a burial. Ian deserved the opportunity to bury her.
But he didn’t seem like he’d settled, mostly because he hadn’t even nearly got his revenge.
“We have two choices here, as far as I see it,” Mike said. “We stay here. We wait for Calvin’s group to come back, wherever they are. And I… I know that’s tempting. I want to make them suffer, too. I want to make them pay. But there’s… there’s another option. Another choice.”
Everyone was quiet. Everyone looked at him.
“We push on to the helicopters. We leave this hell behind, and we hope for the best.”
Ian looked up. His eyes were red. He shook his head. “You’d leave? You’d do that?”
