by Ryan Casey
I didn’t want to go as far as saying I liked her in that way. That would be a betrayal to Harriet. As much as she’d insisted I find someone else if she passed away, I still felt like I’d be turning my back on her, letting her down.
I felt the spectre of Harriet looming over me at all times, more so when I looked Hannah in the eye. And it just reminded me how damned much I missed her.
“We’re going to have to talk about moving on.”
The voice seemed to echo from nowhere. It took me a few seconds to register that it was Jenny who spoke.
I curled my toes when she said those words. I cleared my throat. “And why’s that?”
Jenny leaned back, her plate cleaned. She had this constantly pale demeanour that made her look sick at all times. She’d done well, though. She’d been on death’s door when we’d first come across her. We’d pulled her out of the abyss and into the land of the living again. For that, I was sure she must be grateful.
She just didn’t show it all that often.
“We’re struggling to find food,” Jenny said. “Even water’s a challenge. I don’t think we can keep on living here in this little fantasy world pretending like everything is okay.”
My stomach churned. I reached for my cup of water, which was barely filled. “Everything is okay.”
“But for how long?” Sue asked.
I flinched when Sue spoke. After all, Sue was usually so reserved. She was good with her children, but she kind of went with the flow, leaving the whole leadership business to other people like me.
“If we move away from here,” I said, “we run the risk of losing everything good about this place.”
“Everything good?” Jenny said. “We’re playing at doll houses. This isn’t a sustainable livelihood.”
“What constitutes a sustainable livelihood anymore?”
Jenny didn’t say anything back to that. Not initially.
It was Hannah, of all people, who broke the tense silence. “Maybe finding a larger group wouldn’t be the worst idea.”
My stomach dropped. I cleared my throat. “What?”
Hannah leaned forward and looked around at everyone else. “Look. I’m not saying everyone out there is worthy of trusting. And sure, we’ve had some bad experiences on the road. But… but not everyone out there is going to be bad. There are going to be good people. Bigger groups. Hell, we’ve seen them. Who’s to say we can’t just join one of those?”
I shook my head. “It’s naive.”
“What?”
“Believing that another group would just let us on in. It’s naive.”
“Is it naive,” Remy said, “or are you just afraid of taking the leap?”
I saw the eyes of the entire group on me. I felt like they were staring into my soul, like they could see me for real.
I fidgeted around in my chair. “I just… I just care about you all. That’s all.”
Hannah smiled. “We don’t doubt that. It’s just sometimes, I think you need to realise that caring about us means more than just worrying about us and God-forbid anyone else gets involved.”
“You let me in your group after all, right?” Jenny said.
I didn’t like being cornered like this. I rubbed my hands against my legs and swallowed a lump in my throat. “I guess. But for now. While things are good. We should stay. Only when we absolutely have to leave should we leave.”
Jenny stood up, started clearing the plates. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
As Jenny took my plate away, I tasted a bitterness in my mouth.
I knew we couldn’t stay here forever.
I knew this really was a fantasy.
And one day, it was going to come crashing down all around us.
Just not today.
Not today.
I hoped…
Chapter Four
Everything was going just fine for Stephen Wilkinson’s group until the evening Helena went missing.
The sunset cast a gorgeous glow over the northern countryside. Really, Stephen knew he shouldn’t revel in the downfall of society or anything like that. After all, there were more downsides to the loss of electricity than there were positives. Make no mistake about that.
All that said… Stephen still had to admit there was something kind of beautiful about the sheer solitude of his existence now. He was living with four other people in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. After previously living in a terraced house right in the thick of the city centre, it was a relief to finally have the freedom of the outdoors. He’d grown up on a farm, when his mother had been seeing a farmer called Pete. But that relationship had soon soured, and before Stephen knew it, he would be spending the next thirty years of his life cooped up in some grotty city centre house or other.
He should be more grateful, he realised that. After all, a lot of people were far less privileged than he was.
But he couldn’t help counting his blessings at his current circumstances.
Some things were shitty, but some things were… absolutely fine.
The weather was something he was growing to appreciate, too. It had been an extended spell of summer-like conditions. Sure, there had been the occasional shower, but nothing that he wasn’t used to living here in Britain.
Really, it may be easy to believe that Stephen was perfectly, completely content. He had a farm. He was adapting to life as an off-the-grid survivor. He got along with each and every one of his companions, as if he had known them for years and not months.
But then Helena went missing, and things changed.
He walked through the tall grass. In front of him, he could see footprints, and a trail through the grass where someone had walked. He felt a knot in his stomach when he saw it. He knew there was a chance it could be the footsteps of one of his group members. But he was pretty certain they weren’t his.
Someone had taken Helena away. That was the only thing he could consider; the only option his mind would entertain.
He kept on walking, regardless. He had his knife with him, and he’d become pretty adept training with it. He’d use it if he had to.
He just hoped he wouldn’t have to.
There was total silence to the fields. It was usually pleasant. The silence wasn’t something Stephen had been accustomed to when he lived in the city. He treasured this silence, usually.
However right now, it was just… well. Eerie.
He longed for the noise of old.
The trail went on, right over towards the trees. A sickening feeling built in Stephen’s gut. He didn’t like the trees. He didn’t trust them. They went hunting in there sometimes—after all, they had to make their livestock as sustainable and long-lasting as possible.
But when he was in those woods, there were times when he was convinced he’d heard whispers. He’d seen shadows moving behind the trees. He knew he was probably just being paranoid.
But what if he wasn’t?
What if all this was related?
Shut up. You’re imagining things. You’re letting your mind get the better of things.
He walked on, further. There was nothing else inconspicuous about the trail. Eventually, it came to a halt.
He was about to turn around and head back to the farm, spreading the news that Helena wasn’t here; that she’d probably just gone out on a mission of her own—as out of character as that was.
But he stopped.
He stopped when he saw what was in front of him.
There was blood. It was stained on the grass.
Stephen’s heart began to race. He edged towards the blood, then backed away.
The whispers.
He thought he heard them.
He thought he saw them.
He swallowed a lump in his throat and took a deep breath.
You’re imagining things again. It’s probably just the blood of an animal. It isn’t related to Helena. Not necessarily…
The blood trail went on further than he expected. H
e looked over at it, as it stretched towards the woods.
As he stood there, he felt himself being torn in two directions. On the one hand, he should go back and alert the rest of the group that there was a problem. He shouldn’t go into the woods alone. Going into the woods alone was stupid, regardless of how many times they’d been into the woods without a problem.
But on the other hand…
If this was Helena’s blood, then there was no time to be wasted. He had to go after her. He had to be fast.
He took a deep breath. “Shit. Screw it.”
Then, he took a few steps forward and followed the trail of blood.
He tried not to look at the blood trail. Instead, he just observed his surroundings. It really was silent. The sun was setting even further, casting an orange glow over the fields. Really, it was so beautiful. What a fortunate man he was to be able to live like this, even if he was only living a lie.
It took Stephen a few seconds to realise he’d trailed off into a daydream when he heard something in front of him.
Rustling.
He swung around. Looked into the mouth of the woods.
There was nothing there.
He looked down and saw that the trail of blood had gone, completely.
But there was something else.
Down in the dirt beneath him, there was an earring. It glistened silver in the setting sun.
He felt his stomach sink. He stared down at it, then crouched towards it.
It was Helena’s. No doubt about it.
He wasn’t sure how long he perched there as the light drifted from the sky.
But he heard rustling again.
He looked up, over at the woods.
This time, there was someone there.
He shot up to his feet. He clambered for his knife.
Then he felt a hard thump, right on the top of his head.
He tasted blood on his lips right away. His vision faded. Everything was going blurry.
If he could just get to his knife…
Another thump cracked against him.
He fell to his knees, and then to the ground.
He watched the sun set, as blood trickled from his head, his body twitching in a way that he knew, deep down, it would never recover from.
What a beautiful way to die, he thought, as the sun made its final descent.
What a beautiful way to…
Chapter Five
I lay in bed, stared up at the ceiling and longed for warmth beside me.
It was the middle of the night. I used to sleep well, back before the EMP struck and the electricity grid collapsed. Really, sleeping was never an issue for me. I usually drifted off the second my head hit the pillow.
Well. That was something of a lie. Granted, sleep had got a lot more difficult after Harriet’s passing. It crept up on me slowly at first. There were the hours I’d spend just tapping around on my phone. Then there were the long nights of just staring upwards, wondering what we’d be doing tomorrow if she were still alive, and the day after, and the day after that. I wondered what we’d be bickering about. What joke one of us would crack to make the other screech with laughter.
We were good together. We just… worked.
And now she was gone.
I rolled over onto my side, the pillow digging into my face. I listened to the silence of the house. Even though my people were all in here, it just felt so empty. It was only since the EMP that I’d actually realised how empty my life was without Harriet. I’d had a delayed kind of shock, I guessed, where as much as I’d struggled without her, I’d been able to bury my head in the sand and get along with the things that needed to be done.
That was a whole lot trickier when there weren’t as many things to be done. When there wasn’t work to worry about, and things like that.
Survival had been a welcome distraction, for a while. But even that had been replaced by a sort of stasis that I both loved and loathed simultaneously.
I heard a snore. I looked to the side of my bed and saw Lionel. When he looked up at me, he wagged his tail a little, and I smiled back at him. At least I had him. I didn’t know what I’d do without him.
I thought about the group that had come to our doorstep a few weeks ago. They’d offered us sanctuary. And we’d considered it. Really, we had.
But in the end, I took a look at what we had—a home, a roof over our heads, abilities and skills of our own—and I’d told that group we didn’t want their sanctuary. That we were happy as we were.
I knew there were others amidst my group who would’ve lost a hand for the hope of some mythical sanctuary. But I’d done what I’d done for the benefit of those people. After all, I’d seen the kind of people we’d run into on the road. I knew what they could be like. I’d seen how dangerous other people could be. Because at the end of the day, everybody wanted something. They either wanted shelter, or they wanted food, or they wanted your working ability. And some people simply wanted to cause chaos.
I didn’t want to let myself and my people fall victim to the traps of the new world. So I’d made damned sure we were surviving, together.
And sure, there were other people on this street, but they kept themselves to themselves. The illusion would fade one day, I knew that.
Just not right now.
Right now, things were fine.
I thought about something my mother once told me, as I closed my eyes. I was arguing with a friend of mine when I was in primary school. It was something inane and insignificant, like he’d stolen my toy or something.
She’d leaned over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t make friends by burning bridges. You make them by building them.”
I hadn’t totally understood what she’d meant by that, not at the time. But right now, I heard those words echoing around my head as I tried to sleep, and I wished I could believe them.
I felt my eyes getting heavier. Sleep was creeping up on me. I had to just let it happen, as I stared up at the ceiling.
There was no going back to Harriet.
There was no bringing Mum back from the dead.
There was just the here and the now.
Keeping my people safe.
Keeping my dog safe.
I just had to—
I was just about to drift off to sleep when I heard something that opened my eyes, wide.
A scream.
Chapter Six
I heard the scream and my entire body turned to stone.
The first thought that came to my head, as impossible and incoherent as it was? The scream was Harriet’s. She was calling out for me from the grave, begging me to save her. She was still alive. She was still in the road and I had to get to her and help her and—
“Did you hear that?” A voice. Remy.
I snapped back into reality, sweat rolling down the sides of my face as I climbed over Lionel, who was disturbed by the scream too. I made my way to the bedroom door. I stepped outside the room and saw Remy standing there. I could see other people—Jenny, Hannah and Sue—all emerging too, peeking around their doors and wondering what was going on. “Course I heard it,” I said. “We… we’re all okay in here. Right?”
“It came from outside,” Hannah said, as she walked up beside me.
I felt my stomach turn. “Then we… we wait.”
“What?” Hannah said.
“We wait. We see how… see how things play out.”
Hannah tutted. “Scott, someone just screamed like they’re in danger. One of our neighbours. And you want us to just wait and see how it plays out? No chance.”
She started storming down the stairs. Right away, I felt the tension of the situation increasing. I couldn’t let Hannah leave because she might end up in danger. I couldn’t lose anyone else.
“Wait,” I said.
She stopped and turned around, looking up the stairs at me with disappointment. “We can’t just wait around. Someone is in trouble out there and they need our help. We’d want them to
do the same for us. Right?”
“I’ll go,” I said.
“What?”
I didn’t dwell too much on what I’d just said. I couldn’t afford to. “You should all stay here. I’ll go outside and see if I can find the source of the scream.”
Silence followed. I knew each and every one of my people were politely trying to find a way to say the right words.
“You shouldn’t,” Sue said. “We do things together. Right?”
“I don’t want to put any of you in danger. If anyone should go out there, it should be me. If anything happens, I’ll call out a signal. Say… “Fall back,” for example. If I shout that, you get out of this place and you run.”
“And if you don’t shout a thing?” Hannah said.
I took a few seconds to compose myself. “If I don’t shout a thing, then you’ll know I’m gone.”
I walked past Hannah and the others. I stepped up to the front door. In my hand, I held a knife. I knew I’d have to grow more accustomed to using it. After all, it was a fantasy to believe that I could’ve made it in this world without violence. I’d already done violent things. I’d killed people, a thought that still haunted me to this day. I’d actually taken not just one life, but two.
Sure, they were bad people. They were trying to harm me.
But I’d killed them.
And I had to be willing to kill again to protect those closest to me.
I reached for the door handle and lowered it.
“Scott?”
I looked back. Hannah was looking down the stairs at me, as was everyone else.
“Stay safe,” she said.
I took a deep breath, nodded, then stepped out into the night.
It was a cold, dark night. Totally cloudless, the moon and the stars casting a haunting glow over this little cul-de-sac. I could see movement around the other houses, where people had inevitably heard the scream, too. I couldn’t see anyone on the streets though. They’d been the intelligent ones who had stayed in their homes when they’d heard a scream. I was the idiot who was out wandering in the middle of the night.
