by Ryan Casey
“I wish I’d never done it. I wish I’d just walked past. But I got scared.”
Listening to the boy’s words, I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic. But I could tell from the look on Stuart’s face that he hadn’t been as swayed as I had. Clearly more sceptical than I was. Clearly more hardened to the ways of the world.
Stuart stood up and backed away. I joined him on the other side of the room, leaving the lad snivelling.
“What do you think?” Stuart asked.
I looked around at the darkness where the boy was. “I dunno. I mean… his story makes sense.”
“So you believe him?”
“Not a case of whether I believe him or not. I just don’t see how his story is so hard to believe. He’s a kid.”
“He’s not a kid. He’s in his late teens. Old enough to know he’s doing something wrong.”
“Didn’t you ever make a mistake in your late teens?”
Stuart sighed and rubbed at his stubble. “One too many. But that doesn’t absolve him. And that doesn’t change the fact we have to make a decision right now.”
I looked back at the darkness. A decision? What kind of a decision? Were we really debating the kind of “decision” I thought Stuart was implying? One day in and had the world come to this already, really? Or was Stuart even more unhinged than I’d had him down to be?
“You have to hear yourself,” I said. “You have to hear what you are implying, surely. Just listen. Listen to him.”
I saw Stuart listening. Saw him concentrating. Heard the boy crying.
“He’s scared. And right now, the best thing we could do is just… just send him on his way. Make sure he gets as far away as possible from here. Best of both worlds. Okay?”
Stuart shook his head. He was still holding onto his shotgun. “I’m not comfortable with this.”
“And I’m not comfortable with your solution, either. So one way or another, neither of us are going to reach an outcome both of us wants completely. So let’s compromise.”
Stuart sighed once again. Then he walked back over to the lad, shotgun still in hand. He pressed it against his neck, hard, so hard that it made the lad squeal.
“Are you with anyone?”
“Wh—what?”
“I won’t ask again. Are you with anyone?”
“No. No!”
Stuart nodded after a moment’s hesitation and pulled back the rifle. “Good. Right.”
Then he hesitated again for a little while longer, before pulling out a pair of wire cutters and snipping the ties away from his wrists and his ankles.
“Come on.”
Stuart dragged the lad up to his feet by the scruff of his neck. He pushed him forward, and as he passed, in the glow of the light, I saw the lad make eye contact with me. I saw the way he looked at me. And I wasn’t sure what to make of it, how to interpret it.
Maybe I should’ve said something right then.
He made his way up the stairs, up into the hallway. He stood by the door, Stuart right behind him, gun still raised.
“You make your way out of here and you keep on walking, understand? Because if we see you again, we won’t show any mercy. Not next time.”
The boy nodded. Stuart opened the door for him, then pushed him outside, the pair of us following him. The lad lost his footing, almost tumbled over in the rain.
He turned around and looked back at us. And he made eye contact with me again. That weird eye contact that I hadn’t been able to get a read on last time.
What was he looking at me like that for?
Why did he have that expression?
“I’m sorry,” he said.
And right then, something interesting happened. Stuart nodded. His whole expression and demeanour softened. “I’d make you pay for that window,” he said. “If money was worth a damned thing anymore.”
But the boy shook his head. “Not for that.”
I saw that look again.
That look in his eyes.
And then out of nowhere, I heard a crack.
I looked to my left and I realised what it was.
Stuart was on the ground outside his front door. His head was bleeding. There was somebody by his side. Somebody holding a metal baseball bat.
And he wasn’t the only one.
There were three other people, all of them with hand weapons of their own, all of them looking right at me.
“About that fancy gear in here,” the one with the metal baseball bat said. “How about you show us to it and maybe we’ll spare you a little longer, hmm?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I watched the four men walk closer towards me, weapons in hand.
The rain lashed down heavily. The street was dark and quiet, much quieter than it had seemed when I was in bed not all that long ago. The air was humid, and there was a smell of damp that I figured would stay in place for a long time.
But all that mattered in my immediate vicinity were the four people stepping towards me.
The boy was one of them. That much was clear now. Whether he’d broken in here as a distraction or to weigh up just how many people were in here, that I didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
What mattered was the fact that I’d shown a streak of good nature by sparing that boy’s life. I’d believed in the inherent good of humanity.
And what had happened?
The inherent good had stabbed me right in the back.
“There’s no way out, fella,” the man with the baseball bat said. He had a wide grin, a bushy moustache above his top lip. “No point trying to run. We know this place is full of stuff. Useful stuff. And you’re gonna take us to it. If you don’t… Well, we don’t exactly need you in the first place really, do we?”
I looked to my side and saw Stuart lying there, clutching his head. By his side, I saw the shotgun. Did I have time to reach it? Was I making a bad move if I tried?
“I wouldn’t think about going for that if I were you,” the man said again. “That’d be a really, really bad move.”
But I knew I had to call his bluff. I had to, because I had no other way to go right now.
I lifted the shotgun and pointed it at the leader.
“Whoa!” he said, raising his hands, the rain tumbling down his body. “No need for the dramatics. We’re all on the same side at the end of the day, right?”
“Walk away,” I said, backing into the house, even though I knew I was trapping myself in the process.
The men didn’t stop following me. It didn’t seem like they were all that intimidated by the fact I was holding a shotgun.
“You can stay holding onto that gun if you want. But the longer you do, the more you condemn yourself to a fate I really, really don’t want you to suffer.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, adrenaline coursing through my body. I’d been heading to work yesterday morning for my interview. This time yesterday, I was fast asleep at home and everything was okay. I had my family. I had everything I needed.
What had changed?
How had things changed so drastically?
And why?
All because of the power.
“It’s not too late to pull together,” I said. “We have supplies, sure. It’s not too late to trade. Because that’s what’s going to get us through. All of us. Working together. Cooperating. We… we aren’t going to move forward by tearing each other apart.”
The man with the baseball bat looked back at his friends, the boy included.
Then he looked back at me and he smiled. “You keep telling yourself that, friend. You keep telling yourself we work together. But the deal is, that’s not how we do things. We want what you have. And you’re gonna give it to us. Or there’s gonna be trouble.”
I backed up even more, almost at the kitchen now. The shotgun felt alien in my hands. I knew I needed to try a different approach. And I knew I had to make sure this one worked.
The men reached the door of the living room and started to open it.
>
“If you don’t back away, the only trouble’s going to burst from the end of this shotgun.”
I saw the man with the bat look up at me with a glare of bewilderment. “Whoa.,” He chuckled. “Did you actually just say that? That’s a good one. Gotta give it to you. You almost sounded tough saying that. But what do you think, Stan? You think this guy’s got what it takes to take us all down?”
I saw the boy—Stan—look at his friend, or whoever it was, then back at me. There was another look in his eyes now. A different one. I figured it wasn’t dissimilar to the one I’d had in my eyes when I’d looked down at him not long ago.
A look of sheer sympathy.
“No,” Stan said.
The man with the bat tilted his head. “Hmm. Interesting. I mean, I can believe Stan. You let him go, after all. In fact, I wonder which of the two of your people played the bad cop. Was it this guy, Stan?”
Again, Stan looked from his friend to me, once again with that look in his eyes.
“No,” he said.
“Hmm,” the man with the bat said. He walked closer towards me. “Very interesting.”
He kept on walking now. In fact, he walked so far that he was right opposite me. The shotgun was pressed up against his belly. I could feel the gun digging into his weight.
“See, I don’t think you’re gonna shoot me. Because I’ve seen it in your eyes. I’ve heard it already. You’re one of the good people. One of the people who believes society will pull itself out of this mess. One of these liberal bastards who truly, truly believes that one way or another, humanity will prevail, all that bullshit.”
He put both hands on the shotgun. I felt myself flinch.
“But that’s not how it’s going to work. I mean it’s going to work that way right now, because you’re going to lower this gun. And you are going to cooperate. But if you think we’re just gonna get turned away by some weak-arse with a shotgun, you’re very—”
I don’t know what possessed me then.
I don’t know what made me do it.
But I did it because I had to.
I did it because I felt cornered, like it was the only thing I could do.
And when I did it, it seemed like it wasn’t real. Like it hadn’t really happened. The echoing sound in my ear. The shouts. And the smell.
I’d never smelled hot blood before. But now I knew exactly what it smelled like.
I realised then that I had my eyes closed.
But when I opened them, the scene in front of me wasn’t a dream. Far from it.
The man was on the floor.
Blood was spurting out of his ravaged torso.
And I had my finger tensed around the trigger of the shotgun.
Tight.
Chapter Thirty
As I watched the man fall to the floor, I tried to understand what I’d just done.
The kitchen was filled with darkness. I didn’t know what it was like outside. It could be raining. It could be silent. It could be the middle of the day again for all I knew.
There was only one thing that held my attention right now.
The leader of the group who had tried to take Stuart’s supplies was on the floor in front of me. He was clutching at his stomach, which was in pieces. Intestines dangled out of his torso, torn and bloody. Blood spurted out of his mouth.
He looked up at me with total fear.
Seconds passed and the light faded from his eyes.
My ears were still ringing from the blast of the shotgun, which felt cold and alien in my hands. I released the trigger slowly. I wanted to throw the gun down to the floor with the realisation of what I’d just done.
I’d killed a man.
I hadn’t just thought about killing a man. I’d actually held a shotgun, pointed it at someone and fired.
Sickness filled my body. My skin went hot. The taste of vomit clawed at the back of my throat, growing ever more intense.
“You… you killed him.”
I heard the voice break through the ringing in my ears. I looked up, dazed, still feeling disconnected from everything that was happening around me.
I saw another of the men, one with long, dark hair, looking at me with widened eyes.
“You piece of shit. You killed him.”
I saw it happen, then.
I saw the man with the long, dark hair take steps towards me.
I saw the mania in his eyes.
And I turned the gun on him and I fired.
The same process followed. I watched the man fly back, his chest exploding from the gunfire.
I watched him confusedly grip at his body, which poured with blood.
Then I watched him fall to his knees and collapse in a heap, staring up at me in total disbelief.
My heart pounded. My head dripped with sweat.
But I knew I’d done what I’d had to do.
I looked at the remaining man and the boy, Stan. I saw them standing there, shock on their blood-splattered faces.
“I’ve had enough of your bullshit,” I said. “So this is how we’re going to do things now. This is how things are going to go. You’re on someone else’s property. So you’re going to turn around right this second and get the hell off it. Or I swear to God I’ll fire another shell.”
The remaining man held his ground. So too did the boy.
I lifted the gun and pointed it at another of them. “Haven’t you seen enough to know I’m serious already? Back the hell off right this second.”
The standoff dragged on a few seconds further. Mostly it was a standoff of shock more than anything. Disbelief that what had just happened had actually, really just happened.
But then they started to back away, these people. They kept their focus ahead, their gaze on me. But they looked at me differently now. They looked at me like I was above them in the food chain.
And good. That’s exactly what I wanted.
They stepped out of the front door and I followed them right the way. I was expecting to see people on the street outside who would’ve heard the blasts from the shotgun, but I couldn’t see anyone around. Figured people had thought better of coming to investigate, too.
I kept my focus on them as they walked down the yard path, towards the pavement.
“Keep walking,” I said.
“This isn’t over,” the man said. “I promise you that.”
I took a deep breath and I smiled. “You’ll regret saying that. I promise you that.”
And with that, the man turned around and took off.
But the boy we’d kept in the cellar looked at me again with that intense stare.
He nodded at me. Like he understood the way things were now.
I nodded back at him.
Then he followed the rest of his people away into the dark of the night.
When I was sure they were gone, I collapsed by the door. My body shook. My heart raced. The adrenaline of this entire situation built up to a crescendo and burst into pieces right inside of me.
I had to go back inside. I had to clean the blood. Deal with the bodies.
But then…
My body went cold.
Stuart.
I looked to my left and I saw Stuart lying on the ground, right in the same spot as he had been earlier.
He was still clutching his head.
Still bleeding.
And he was letting out a little weak moan.
He wasn’t in a good way.
I had to do something.
I had to help him.
Fast.
Chapter Thirty-One
I rushed to Stuart’s side, but already I knew that things weren’t looking good.
The darkness of the night was intense. The rain had stopped falling, leaving a smell of freshness in the air. But it wasn’t pleasant. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Especially after what I knew I’d just done.
Especially with the feeling of splattered blood crusting against my face.
I looked at the wound on
the side of Stuart’s head. It was pretty nasty, in all truth, and made my skin crawl. Dark blood pooled down his face, joining a puddle that had already formed beneath him. That metal baseball bat must’ve whacked him pretty damn hard, that was for sure. I just hoped it wasn’t so hard a hit that I couldn’t do anything about it. I owed a lot to Stuart, after all. He’d put his uncertainties aside and let me stay in his home for the night. He’d made me food, showed me the supplies and contraptions he had stocked up. He’d even revealed to me the news that the blackout was global, information that a lot of people wouldn’t be aware of.
I had to do what I could to keep him alive.
I couldn’t just give up.
He couldn’t be another Paul; another Beth.
“Any bandages?” I asked, my throat tight.
Stuart mumbled something inaudible.
I went to turn him over onto his back, then I decided better of it. I didn’t want to unsettle him. Especially when he had a head wound.
But shit. I was going to have to move him away from here at some stage. He couldn’t stay out here. Not forever.
“Shit,” I said.
I rushed back inside the house. I made a break for the kitchen. I checked all the cupboards, all the drawers, doing all I could to seek out a bandage, and something to clean the wound with.
I was on the verge of giving up when I found a half-empty bottle of isopropyl alcohol under the sink. That’d be a good enough disinfectant.
I pulled it out. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but I was going to have to clean that wound before I wrapped anything around it.
I still hadn’t found any bandages. Found it hard to believe he didn’t have any. He was a prepper, after all.
But time was running out.
I looked around the room for something I could use, doing all I could not to look in the direction of the fallen bodies. The people that I had killed.
I zoned out from the blood on the walls, that smell of metal in the air, mixed with a strange twinge of raw meat. I knew what that raw meat was. And just the thought of it made me want to hurl.
I swallowed a sickly lump in my throat and walked back over the blood smeared kitchen floor. I heard the sounds of the blood squelching underfoot as I removed my shirt. I could use that as a bandage. Stuart would have another shirt I could borrow.
