by Ryan Casey
Sam looked to my side. “I mean, it looks like you’ve been settling down with a new family of your own. Hello, kid. What’s your name?”
I lunged towards Sam, pointed the gun right at his forehead. “You don’t say a word to him. You don’t say a word to either of them. Not a word.”
Sam raised his hands. He didn’t seem fazed by the gun to his head. If anything, he seemed to like the fact that my attention was away from his gun-wielding friend, however briefly.
“There’s no need for violence,” Sam said. “We could reach a very peaceful resolution here. You just… well. You have a choice to make, Alex. Where we’re going, it’s awful crowded. And I’m not sure we’ll all be able to stay safe. I have a feeling one of us is going to have to stay behind. Tommy?”
Sam nodded, and Tommy turned the weapon right on Sarah.
A mixture of emotions filled by body: relief that the gun was away from Bobby, but despair that it was now pointing at Sarah. I moved my handgun back on Tommy. “The only ones not making it out of this alive is you two if you don’t stop threatening my family right this second.”
Sam smiled, the torch shining up at his face. “Aw. Cute. Hello, boys.”
I didn’t know what he was referring to, not at first.
Then I heard the footsteps right behind me.
And before I knew it, there were two more men upon us. Five total, now.
One of them had hold of Suzy, the other had hold of her son, Will.
Sam grabbed the gun from Tommy. He took it and he walked closer towards me, Suzy and Will. I wanted to take my shot. I wanted to make a move, now that the attention was away from my family.
But I couldn’t.
I just couldn’t.
Sam moved the gun between Suzy and Will. “See, I’m going to give you a choice,” he said.
He moved the gun back to Sarah, and then to Bobby again.
And then back around to Suzy and Will. “New friends?” he said.
Then back to Sarah, and to Bobby “Or old friends?”
He kept on spiralling around, like this was all just a game to him.
Fear took a hold of me, but I kept my grip on the gun in my shaking hand. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t,” he said. “You’re right. But I want to. I mean, the freedom of this new world. It’s alright really, isn’t it? Don’t you think?”
Defeat starting to circle me, nerves taking hold, I did something I hadn’t expected myself to do, and I lowered my handgun. I swallowed a lump in my throat. “We can tear ourselves apart or we can come together. But if… if we choose to tear ourselves apart, we aren’t going to make this. None of us are. This EMP, don’t make any mistake about it—it’s serious. Its effects are going to be felt for a long time. But we have a choice of how we’re going to react to it. We have a chance to be different. Instead of tearing ourselves apart like we have been doing for decades, we can come together and make things work.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. His friends looked on, cautious.
Sarah was looking over at me, tears in her eyes, smile on her face.
I knew right then she was proud of me.
“So lower the gun. Don’t let this end in violence. Let’s find a way to walk out of this situation, together. Let’s find somewhere we can all move forward. Because it’s only through banding together that we’re ever going to move forward.”
I looked at Sarah.
“I realise that now.”
Silence followed my words. No sounds other than the falling rain. And in that silence I felt optimism. In that silence, I felt hope.
Hope that my words had radiated.
Hope that things didn’t have to be the way they’d been for years.
Sam wiped the rain from his face. He brushed his hair back and sighed. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “I hear what you’re saying,” he said. “Really, I do.”
Then he turned the gun on Suzy and tightened the trigger.
“But you didn’t answer my question.”
What happened next happened in a blur.
I saw him pulling that trigger.
I saw who it was pointing right at.
I saw the blast.
And I did the only thing I could.
I threw myself in front of Suzy.
In front of the progressing bullet.
I held my breath as my jump unfolded in slow-motion. I saw Sarah and Bobby. The family I’d worked so hard to reach. The people I’d convinced myself were the only people I cared about.
But that wasn’t true.
It couldn’t be true.
In my mind, I said my goodbyes. I said my sorrys. I told them how much I loved them, that I’d do anything for them, but I couldn’t allow this to happen. Not to Suzy. Not to anyone.
A moment of silence.
A millisecond of nothing.
And then I felt the bullet scrape against the side of my chest, and pain took over.
Chapter Forty-Five
I felt the bullet thud against the right side of my chest and I wasn’t sure of anything for a while after that.
The pain was agonising. I could feel it burning and searing all across my right pec. I didn’t know how deep the bullet had gone, or how much damage it might’ve done. I couldn’t think about anything right now—not even where I was or what was happening—all because of that pain from the bullet taking over all my senses.
I was on the ground. I could feel the slushy mud covering my body as I writhed around in pain. Somewhere in the distance, I heard Sarah shouting, calling out for me, but I couldn’t make out her words.
All I could do was hold my chest.
All I could do was lose myself in that pain.
All I could do was close my eyes and try to make the pain go away…
Something heavy pressed against my back. A boot. I felt it pushing me down, further into the mud. “You made a nice call there,” the voice said. “An honourable call.”
The boot pushed further. I knew whose boot it was. Sam’s.
I tried to turn over, to get a look at his face through my blurred, pained vision.
But right as I tried to turn around, Sam punched me in the face and knocked me down into the mud.
He reached down for me, grabbed my hair and held me just above the mud. “But it was the wrong call,” he said. “Because you’re going to die. Your family is going to watch you die. And it’ll be you that left them all alone. It’ll be you that chose some random strangers over the mother of your child. Shit. Sarah deserves better than you. She deserves so much better than you.”
He pushed me down into the mud, so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
I battled to pull myself free of the suffocating mud. But as he held me there, the pain in my pec not getting any less intense, I thought about what he’d said. Had I made the wrong call? Should I have done what the old me would’ve done and just put my family first? Should I have let that bullet hit Suzy?
But it seemed absurd to even be thinking that way. Because no. Of course I shouldn’t. That wasn’t the right thing to do.
It wasn’t me.
Not anymore.
I pushed back against Sam’s hands, coughing and spluttering, trying to get a lungful of air.
And eventually he loosened his grip, let me resurface. And as I looked up, I saw Suzy holding onto Will, two people standing behind her, Tommy’s gun pointed at them. I saw my gun on the ground, just out of reach. Too far away to do anything about. And I felt trapped. Totally trapped.
Sam turned me onto my back, then. And then he climbed on top of me, straddling me, eyes focused on mine, torch shining right up at him.
“You should’ve just stayed away,” he said. “You should never have followed us. Because it’s only going to end badly for you.”
The pain still growing to crippling intensity, I fought with every instinct in my body to find the words I needed to find. “You’re wrong.”
Sam frowned. He looked startled that I’d spok
en at all. “I’m wrong, am I? And how am I wrong?”
I felt myself losing consciousness, passing out. But I kept on holding on. I had to. Just for a little while longer. “When you said I’d made the wrong decision. You’re wrong. Because I… I put someone else first to keep them alive. And… and it’s only through making those sacrifices that society will ever come together.”
Sam grinned. He shook his head. “Wow. You really are full of it, aren’t you? I mean you’re really, full-on deluded.”
He tightened his hands around my neck.
But I let him.
Because as he did it, he moved closer to me.
As he did it, he gave me an opportunity to grab the knife from his back pocket.
And as he did it, very little strength left in my weakening body, I pulled that knife away.
He noticed. He must’ve noticed. Because in the space of a second, his entire demeanour changed.
“Don’t you—”
But he didn’t say another word.
I rammed the knife through his throat.
I pushed it so hard that I felt blood pour down onto my face, warming my cheeks.
I kept on pushing, kept on going until I felt it scrape the back of his neck, cutting through the muscles, the flesh, the skin.
I kept on going until his entire head was nothing more than food on a skewer for the rats to feast on.
And nobody stopped me.
Nobody fired a gun.
Nobody did a thing at all.
He gargled. Gasped. I knew he didn’t have much left in him. But I held that knife there anyway, kept on looking into his eyes.
I wanted him to see the man who’d killed him.
I wanted him to see the kind of sacrifices I was willing to make.
And I wanted him to see what I did to people who didn’t value the survival of the species as much as I did.
He let out a final, pained splutter and then he fell to my side.
I dragged myself to my feet, the splitting pain in my pec crippling in its own way. I put my hands on my knees, let out long, harsh gasps, knowing damn well I didn’t have long left, not bleeding like this.
I looked up at Tommy, at the rest of Sam’s people. All of them with wide eyes. All of them with shock on their faces.
Then I found the strength to say the words I needed to say.
“You have one chance to walk away,” I said, lifting my pistol. “One chance. Or I’ll kill you. Every single one of you. I’ll kill you.”
Tommy held onto his gun.
The tension of the situation went on.
The consciousness slipped further and further from my body. And for a moment, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be awake to witness the end, to know my family—because they were all my family now—were going to be safe.
But then Tommy lowered his gun.
“Shit,” he said, shaking his head, staring at Sam’s body. “This… it shouldn’t have happened. Shit. Shit.”
And then he did something remarkable.
He took off into the woods.
His friends took off with him.
Me, Sarah, Bobby, Suzy and Will were the only ones left.
I looked over at Sarah, at Bobby. I wanted to go over to them, to hug them, to hold them.
“Alex,” Sarah said.
She came running towards me.
But I was already on my knees.
I felt her wrap her arms around me. I smelled the faint hint of perfume on her neck. I felt her hair brushing against my cheeks.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “I promise. I promise.”
And as I lay there on the muddy ground, the rain falling down even heavier, my wife and my son so close once again, I believed Sarah.
I really believed her.
Right until the moment my consciousness faded.
Right until the second everything went black.
Chapter Forty-Six
When I opened my eyes, it was daylight.
Sun shone in through the window. There was a gentle warmth filling the room. For a moment, if I lay there still enough, I could convince myself that everything was normal. That everything that had happened—the blackout, and all the nightmares that followed—had been nothing more than a nightmare.
But I felt the pain splitting through the right side of my chest and I knew that I was being overly optimistic.
I looked around the room I was in. White bed sheets. Brightly painted walls. The cream curtains swaying in the breeze. I couldn’t believe that it was only yesterday I’d been drenched in the rain, held down in the dirt, facing off against Sam and his people.
At least I thought it was yesterday. Really, I had no idea how long I’d been out. Days? Weeks? Perhaps I was the old post-apocalyptic cliche; the guy who wakes up and finds everything gone to shit. Or an even bigger degree of shit, perhaps. Shit squared.
I took a deep breath and felt the discomfort still present in my chest. Didn’t seem as intense, which made me wonder further just how much time had passed at all. I’d fallen unconscious with the pain when the bullet hit me. But somehow, I’d woken up here, far away from wherever it was I’d fallen.
I looked down at my chest. There were bandages wrapped around me. Somebody had tidied me up, brought me here.
I just had to hope that whoever it was, they’d brought my family along too. Especially after how long I’d spent and how hard I’d worked to reunite with them.
The thought that I’d found them only to lose them all over again… it was something I couldn’t even entertain.
And there was Suzy and Will, too. I’d taken a bullet for Suzy. I’d done what I didn’t think I’d be able to do for anyone—family aside. I hoped it was for something. I hoped they were still here.
But at the same time, I just hoped that they were still safe, wherever they were.
I lifted myself off the side of my bed. The pain wasn’t nice at first, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I wondered how many painkillers I’d had forced down my throat to make me feel this way. Not that I was complaining. Whoever had seen to me had clearly known what they were doing and done a decent job.
I walked across the bedroom floor, listening for any sounds or signs of life in the house. I reached the door, waited there for a few seconds, still on edge, still not willing to take too much of a risk, especially when I didn’t know where I was or who had brought me here.
But when I opened the bedroom door, my worries disappeared right away.
Sarah and Bobby were standing there.
Seeing them standing there in the hallway of what seemed to be a bungalow… seeing the sun bouncing off her blonde hair, and seeing that little grin on Bobby’s face—missing a milk tooth—melted my heart, right there.
All the pain in my chest disappeared.
All my fears and worries went up in smoke.
Because they were okay.
My family was okay.
I took a trepidatious step towards the pair of them. Then I saw Sarah and Bobby do the same.
And before I knew it I was running towards them and they towards me and they were in my arms.
“I missed you,” I said.
“It’s okay.”
“I… I never thought I’d—”
“Ssh,” Sarah said. “It’s okay. We’re here now. We’re all here.”
I held on to Sarah, held onto Bobby, and I allowed myself to sink into that moment, just for a while. I allowed all my fears about the future, the memories of my past, to disappear. Because this was what I’d been working for. This was all that mattered.
I pulled away from them, tears blocking my vision. I looked between them, checking they were still there, that they were really… well, real.
They were.
They were still here.
“How did I…”
I trailed off, unable to speak for long, but they clearly knew what I was referring to.
“We’re lucky,” Sarah said. “All of us are lucky we hav
e a good medical mind on hand. And that the bullet didn’t hit you too directly.”
I frowned. “A good medical mind? Suzy. Is she…”
“Don’t worry about Suzy and Will,” Sarah said, before leaning in to kiss me. “They’re fine. They’re both fine. Come and see.”
I held Sarah’s hand and followed her through this bungalow and outside. When I got there, I looked at the garden. It wasn’t the biggest of places. Not enough real room to start a homestead or build a farm or anything like that. But it was nice. It was quaint. It would do.
It was the people I could see in that garden who were of most interest to me.
Suzy was standing by Will’s side. She smiled as I approached her. A grateful smile. And I figured I’d never truly understand just how grateful she was. I’d taken a bullet for her. I’d probably saved her life.
That understanding was a sign of ultimate trust.
She was family now.
Will was family now.
But there was somebody else here, too.
He was tall, long-haired and had a bushy beard. A smile was on his face.
There was no doubt about it.
“Peter?” I said.
He chuckled. “Noticed you three had done a runner from the motorhome. Figured I couldn’t just leave you. So I found a way around the military blockade. Made my way to your house. Saw your footprints in the dirt. You’re lucky I made it to you when I did. Just about managed to get you back in time to get the bullet out and disinfect the wound.”
I shook my head, welling up again with the sheer kindness of people. The selflessness. It gave me hope.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m grateful. So grateful.”
“Let’s just say you owe me one. Or two. I’m losing count of how many times I’ve done you a favour now.”
I stood there with these five people—my new family—and I didn’t say anything. Not for a while. Because standing here in the sun was enough. Standing here and knowing that I had good people around me. That I had people around me who were all on the same page…
That was good enough for me.
That was all that mattered to me.
It was Sarah who broke the silence, as she held my hand, the pair of us watching Will and Bobby play in the light of the sun.
