by Ryan Casey
The afternoon was getting late. Soon, darkness would be upon them. He fully intended on being somewhere safe and sheltered by the time darkness came around. After all, it was cold, too, reminders of winter’s impending arrival all around them.
He’d never been good out after dark. It was something he’d been averse to ever since he was a kid. He got lost, when he was playing out with friends, once. He’d cycled back home a route that he cycled many, many times with others beside him. Deep down, he was sure he knew the route. He was certain he knew where to take a left, where to take a right.
But somehow, he’d managed to get himself lost.
And these were the days long before mobile phones.
He remembered walking around those dark streets, his bike by his side. His bottom lip shook, and the sheer horror that filled him was unmatched to this day. It felt like he wasn’t ever going to see his family again. Like he was going to die. He walked past so many houses wondering whether they were safe to knock on the door of and tell he was lost.
But then he remembered what his mum said about talking to strangers, and the fear filled him once again; fears of being plucked apart, thrown into a stew, no one around to hear his screams.
Of course, he hadn’t been plucked apart. He’d run into a police officer not much long after he’d got lost. But he’d never escaped that phobia of being away from home after dark. Even when he was working away, staying in the comfort of luxury hotels, he’d never truly felt safe.
The new world had provided him with a lot of discomfort on that front—that was for sure.
He watched the man move towards Scott, Holly, and Lionel, knife in hand. He gritted his teeth. He wasn’t a violent man. But Scott was his friend, and as far as he saw it, someone was threatening his friend.
He’d tried to be diplomatic. He’d tried the reasonable, peaceful approach.
But sometimes that approach didn’t work.
He tightened his grip around the sharpened screwdriver in his hand and he prepared to go out there and do what he knew he had to do—as grim and disconcerting as it was.
He moved, and he felt a hand stop him. When he looked, he saw it was Haz.
Haz frowned, holding on to Lionel. “What’re you doing?” he mouthed.
Remy looked at the man approaching Scott.
Then he looked down at his screwdriver.
The colour drifted from Haz’s face in an instant, as he shook his head.
He should’ve been expecting this reaction from Haz. After all, he was the queasiest in their group. But what he lacked in stomach, he more than made up for in his knowledge of technical expertise and “prepper tips,” as he called them.
“I have to,” Rely said, glancing back across the road to check the man wasn’t onto Scott yet. “There’s not enough time.”
“There’s time to reach out to him,” Haz said, a little too loudly for Remy’s comfort. “There’s time to do something different.”
Remy swallowed a lump in his throat. He wanted to believe in what Haz was saying. After all, he was a good kid. A kid with his morals in the right place. Remy would’ve liked to have kept his morals in the right place too. He still believed he was a good person. He’d always believed that. Even when he was younger and he beat up a kid for no real reason, he’d still thought he was good.
It was one of those incidents that defined his childhood. He’d been bullied at school, mostly for his race. And he took it. He took it from the other kids, took it from the teachers.
But one day, it just got too much, and he’d cracked a fist across Danny Norton’s face.
Of course, he’d been expelled. He’d been forced to move school. And when he did move, the same cycle repeated again. But he’d learned to compose himself, then. He’d learned tips and tricks and methods that kept him calm and somehow detached from those awful situations.
He’d carried what he’d learned into his work.
And now he was standing at the edge of a road, preparing to push a screwdriver into a man’s neck.
Was that real change?
“Please don’t,” Haz whispered. “I’ll—I’ll shout. I’ll get his attention.”
Remy smiled. He put a hand on Haz’s shoulder. “You won’t. Because that would get us all killed.”
He pulled away from Haz, who held on tightly at first, then slowly loosened his grip.
Then he crept slowly across the road.
The man was so close to Scott, Holly and Lionel now. How Lionel had stayed so quiet was a mystery. Remy pictured Scott holding onto him, covering his mouth for dear life.
He took a few more steps across the street, getting closer to the man searching the hedge. He kept as light-footed as possible, moving as stealthily as he could.
If he didn’t, his cover would be up.
This man could alert the rest of his group.
It would all be over.
He kept on going, the wind picking up. And when he was just a few metres away, he saw himself as if from outside his body. Standing there, sharpened screwdriver in hand. A monster, just like the rest of the monsters in this world.
But doing what he had to do.
Doing the right thing.
He clenched his jaw, his heart pounding, and he lifted the screwdriver over this man’s back. This man, who could be innocent. This man, who could have a family, friends, the whole lot.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m—”
He didn’t finish what he was saying.
He saw the shadow from behind him.
And by that point, when something heavy cracked against the back of his head, it was already too late.
Chapter Twenty
I held my breath as I watched the man behind Remy step up and knock him down.
I felt guilty, right away. I knew it was wrong to just sit by and watch as he got knocked down, especially when he’d risked his life creeping across the road from out of the hedges in an attempt to help Holly and me out.
But I’d been so focused on keeping quiet, on holding Holly and making sure that the man couldn’t see us, that I’d been willing to let anything happen in order to maintain that silence.
If that made me a terrible human being then so be it.
“What’s bothering you, anyway?”
I saw the man who’d been searching for me look at the hedge, scanning the area right beside me. “Thought I saw someone round here.”
The other guy pointed to Remy, who he was tying by the hands. “Yeah. Well. Here he is.”
“No. There was someone else. There was…”
He stopped, then. He stopped because he’d heard something. Something had caught his attention.
I held my breath. I knew what had caught his attention.
The rustling in the branches at the opposite side of the road.
Across the road, Haz fell out, losing his balance and collapsing onto the gravel. Lionel was by his side.
Haz looked up, panic on his face. “Please,” he said, raising his hands. “I—we mean no harm. We were just hiding from the others. We were—”
He went silent, as one of the men wrapped a band around his mouth, effectively gagging him.
He held Haz out and showed him to his friend, like he was a fish caught from a pond, and not another human being. “This the other guy you were on about, Bill?”
Bill—the man who’d been searching for us—glanced across the hedge. His eyes stopped just inches from me and Holly. For a moment, I thought he looked right at me.
“Must’ve been him,” he said. “Could’ve sworn he went into these hedges. And that he wasn’t as chubby as this guy. But I can’t argue with the truth.”
“We all know what you’re like for mis-seeing things. Wouldn’t be the biggest shock in the world if you’ve got something else wrong.”
Bill shrugged, as he reached down for Remy’s unconscious body. “Alright, Victor. Ease off, okay?”
Victor chuckled. “I’m just saying.”
I watched the pair of them walk away. Bill had Remy over his shoulder. He was bulkier than the rest of his group, clearly strong. The other man—Victor—was making Haz walk, pushing him along with a knife to his back, Lionel being dragged along at Haz’s side. And as I watched them move, I started to wonder if maybe they were just members of the same group who had Hannah, Sue and Aiden after all. But hell. Did it even matter? They had Haz and Remy. The group had been pulled apart.
All that was left of us were me, Holly and Lionel.
I waited until the men had disappeared out of sight and earshot before stepping out of the hedges, Holly’s hand still in mine.
When we stepped onto the road, I looked in both directions. Empty both ways. A relief to see right now.
“Are we going to find my mum and brother?”
I looked down at Holly. Then I glanced back up at the two roads. There was the way we were heading originally, which was clear. And then there was the way we’d come from, where I knew there were plenty of people heading now.
That should’ve been enough to put me off, to make me walk away.
But those people included Hannah, Sue, Aiden, and now Remy and Haz.
Could I really just turn my back on them?
Could I really just walk away?
“I… I want to say we’ll find your mum,” I said, not really thinking about the words coming out.
Holly’s face lit up. “Is that a posh person way of saying yes?”
I frowned. “Posh person?”
She put a hand in her mouth and looked away shyly. “Well, you are a bit posh.”
I laughed a little, despite the situation. I couldn’t help myself. “If there’s one thing I’ve never been accused of, it’s being posh.”
Holly looked at me like I was speaking an alien language. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”
“I… I don’t know. Let’s say it’s a good thing, right?”
She smiled at me and nodded, and I smiled and nodded back.
“So are we going to my mum now?”
I felt a knot in my stomach as I looked down the open road. The groups were getting further away. And as much as I wanted to go and get my people back, they weren’t exactly going to let me just take them away, were they? They were armed. They had numbers.
I was putting Holly in danger by going in their pursuit, as much as it seemed like the morally right thing to do.
“I have to be honest with you, Holly,” I said. “I… I don’t know if we can. Not right now.”
She looked at me with a frown, like she’d been betrayed. “But… but why?”
I wanted to tell this girl about the dangers of this world. I wanted to tell her about the bad things that waited on the road ahead. I wanted to tell her about the monsters in the night.
But I couldn’t do that to her. She was just a girl. I couldn’t put her through that.
I crouched down, instead, and I took her hands in mine and looked her in the eye. “Holly, I… I want to tell you why. I want to explain why it’s not the right thing to do right now. But—”
“Is it ’cause you’re scared?”
I shook my head. “No. No, not at all.”
But I was. Of course I was scared. I didn’t want to have to face up to another group. I didn’t want to have to cross other people. It was like one comfort-zone defeating step after another, and they were steps I couldn’t face up to.
“Just know that… that I’m doing what your mum would’ve wanted me to do. I’m doing the right thing. And we will see her again. We will get to her again. I promise. But right now, we have to shelter. Okay?”
Holly scanned my eyes, like she was looking for some evidence that I was lying somehow.
Then she nodded. “Find shelter. Okay.”
I hugged her. Then I stood up, took her hand, and turned around to face the open road.
The road wasn’t open.
There were three knived men opposite us.
The knives were raised and pointing at us.
“Don’t worry about shelter,” the one in the middle said. “We’ve got some shelter waiting right back at camp for you.”
I tried to run, Holly’s hand in mine.
But then I felt the sharp nick at the back of my neck, and I knew that was it.
I was captured.
We were all captured.
And there was no escape.
Chapter Twenty-One
There were few things Mike Crayford liked more than the sight of his camp, and the prisoners within it.
It was late, and the moon was hidden behind the clouds, which meant it was hard to see the prisoners. But he could smell them. He could smell their sweat drifting in the air. He could hear their whimpers, their cries.
But more than anything, Mike could just feel their terror.
He walked slowly down the long, winding pathway within the campsite. He’d found this place a couple of months ago—a static caravan site. In the beginning, there had just been a few people, but eventually the group had grown to the current number of twenty-one. There was no leader, not officially, but he liked to think of himself as the man with authority.
Of course, having a man like him as an authority figure meant that sometimes, things could be… well. Things could get complicated.
He didn’t have a big stomach for people standing against him.
It hadn’t taken long for the people who resisted his way of doing things to end up nothing more than burned bodies on the side of the road. They’d kept them there, as a warning to anyone passing by. Join us, or die.
And so far, that had been going well.
On both the “joining us” and “dying” part.
He whistled as he walked over to the static caravan on its own right at the back of the site. For it was there that he could hear, taste, and smell his subjects. He didn’t really have any use for the prisoners, in all honesty. After all, they had twenty-one people not including them, and they got by just fine. They had people who could scout, people who could hunt, people who could do all kinds of tasks this new world required.
The prisoners were there for two reasons. One, authority. Keeping prisoners showed you meant business, and made other people realise that they weren’t to mess with you.
Second?
For Mike’s amusement.
Honestly though, they were mostly there for his amusement.
He climbed up the steps of the caravan. He looked around before he reached for the door handle. He wanted to make sure he was alone. He preferred his alone time with the prisoners.
He wasn’t sure why he was the way he was; he’d just always taken great pleasure in making people suffer. As long as he was amused, everything was fine with the world.
He didn’t think of himself as evil, per se. Just more in touch with his emotions than the vast majority of the population. And okay, some of his impulses may seem a little… well, violent, at times. But he didn’t really second-guess them. After all, he was just doing what seemed natural to him.
He turned the handle of the caravan door and felt the adrenaline surge through his body as the voices inside reduced to a sudden silence. His heart pounded. He enjoyed their fear. He enjoyed the way they were so terrified of him.
And that was it. That was the kick this all gave him.
That was what made this worth it.
He took a deep breath of the fresh, outside air, then he opened the caravan door.
When he looked inside, he saw the whites of eyes staring back at him, and smelled faeces strong in the air.
“Phew,” he said, stepping inside. “Someone’s really dropped a nasty one. Ben, was that you?”
“It—it wasn’t me—”
Mike cracked a fist across Ben’s face, knocking him back against the caravan wall.
“Now. In case you didn’t notice, we have some new guests.”
He lifted a hand in the direction of Hannah, the pretty one, Sue, the wailing mother, and the boy, Aiden.
“It�
�s only right we give our new guests a proper welcome, huh?”
“Let us go.”
The voice came from right in front of Mike.
Everyone else went totally silent, their collective shock sucking the atmosphere out of the caravan.
“What did you just say?”
It was the wailing mother, Sue. Tears were rolling down her face. “Just—my boy. Let my boy go. You can take me, but my boy. Let him go. Please.”
Mike felt a smile stretch across his face. He walked slowly across the caravan floor, his footsteps echoing on the hard floor. He crouched down, right opposite Sue.
He lifted a finger, and moved a strand of hair from out of her eyes. “See, I know you’re new. And I know it’s only fair you learn at the same pace as everyone else. But we have standards, here. We have rules. And rule number one?”
“Do not beg.”
The voices echoed around the caravan in a way that made Mike’s hair stand on end—in a good way.
“That’s right,” he said. “Do not beg.”
He lowered his smile and tilted his head to one side in mock disappointment before looking at Aiden.
“Sorry, kiddy. Looks like your mummy wants us to take you away. So we will.”
Mike grabbed Aiden and cut away his ties.
“No!” Sue screamed. “My boy!”
Mike pulled Aiden away, dragging him out of the caravan. “Oh, don’t worry about your boy. He’ll be much better off out of this shit-heap.”
Sue lashed against her ties, kicking and screaming and desperately trying to escape. “Please! Please!”
Mike listened to her wailing. He listened to her defeated cries.
And then he stepped outside the door and held on to the handle, Aiden under his arm.
“Sleep well. And shut her up before I shut her up myself.”
He slammed the door, and inside, Sue let out a deafening scream that would be heard for miles.
If there was anyone outside this camp to hear it for miles…
He took a few deep breaths of the cool air, then. And then he lowered Aiden, dropped him to his feet.
“Well,” he said, lifting a knife, pressing it to the boy’s Adam’s apple. “Looks like it’s just you and me now, eh boy?”
