A Solar Winter

by Ryan Casey

  Alison was quiet. She hadn’t really said anything since the incident with the man earlier. Holly knew she was mad with her. She knew she was going to be awkward with her for as long as it took for Holly to bring it up, to apologise.

  And she didn’t really believe in her apologies. Let’s just make that clear. Her apologies were for Alison’s sake. They were for peace’s sake.

  Holly was convinced that she was doing the right thing.

  Maybe not the morally right thing.

  But screw morals. Morals had got people into this situation in the first place. Morals weren’t going to get them out of it.

  But something took Holly by surprise. Something that didn’t usually happen.

  It was Alison who broke the silence.

  “We’re going to have to have a serious talk about you if we’re really going to find ourselves a place to live.”

  Holly didn’t understand her. Not at first. She didn’t know what exactly she was getting at. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean… it’s about time we gave up this bullshit lifestyle. It’s about time we found ourselves a place. And I mean properly gave it a try. Not in the half-hearted way we’ve done before.”

  Holly looked away, dismissive. “We’ve tried adapting to three communities in the last two months. None of them have worked out.”

  “Mostly because of your damned behaviour, Holly.”

  Holly tilted her head. It was a harsh assessment. “The first group turned out to be psychos.”

  “Because you decided to kill one of them.”

  “Sure. I can buy that. Shit happens. The second group, though. The ones at the coast. I didn’t do anything to them.”

  “No. Nothing at all. Just sold me some lies about how they were mistreating you and got us both to leave. By the time we got back there, they’d gone.”

  Holly nodded. She was frustrated that Alison never bought the mistreatment angle. She didn’t say anything about the third group. After all, that was one group they’d fought with that she couldn’t deny her involvement in. She’d got paranoid about their motives. She’d killed a few of them. Her and Allison had been banished. It’s a complex story.

  “The fact stands,” Holly said. “We tried with a few groups. We failed with a few groups.”

  “You need to face up to the fact that you haven't made any real effort to integrate with a group,” Alison said. “For whatever reason, you’ve never even wanted to be with another group. You’d rather be out here. On the road. Freezing.”

  Holly looked away, beyond the crackling fire. “That’s not exactly true.”

  “Then prove it.”

  “What?”

  “We get out of these woods tomorrow. We catch a few hours of sleep then we get out of the woods and onto the road. And then we head to the towns, or out further into the country. We find a farmhouse. We… we just find somewhere.”

  “Not as simple as that,” Holly said. “We have to assess these groups. We have to weigh them up. Case by case basis.”

  “Then you can do what you want,” Alison said.

  Holly frowned. “What?”

  Alison looked away again. And this time, Holly sensed something else was coming. Another development. Another unexpected development.

  Alison glanced back up at her. Uncertainty on her face. “I’m… I’m starting to think we might have to go our separate ways.”

  Holly felt it like a knife to the chest. Or more accurately, to the back. She felt her eyes well up. Felt emotion like she’d never felt it before. “I—I don’t unders—”

  “It’s not what I want,” Alison said. “I want to stay with you. I fought to stay with you. We’ve had each other’s backs for so, so long.”

  Holly swallowed a lump in her throat. She could barely speak.

  “But I can’t go on like this. And neither can you. The sooner you see that, the sooner you accept it, the better.”

  Holly turned away. She didn’t know what to say or how to react. Because as much as she was detached, as much as she strived not to make emotional bonds, Alison was her world. She was her everything. She’d do everything she could to protect her, to look out for her. She wanted to be with her forever.

  And now she was threatening to leave her.

  “I can try and change,” Holly said, hoping it was enough to appease Alison.

  “Don’t try,” Alison said, taking Holly by surprise. “Change. Just change. There’s no ‘try’ about it. Not anymore. Make your choice.”

  As Holly lay there staring at the glow of the fire, she didn’t know what to say, or what to do.

  But she knew one thing for certain.

  She couldn’t change.

  Because change would kill her.

  It would kill Alison.

  And she couldn’t have that happening to the person she cared about most.

  “We’ll look for a place tomorrow,” Holly said, closing her eyes.

  She felt Alison’s hand on her upper arm. “Good,” she said. “That’s good. Night, Holly.”

  Holly didn’t say anything.

  She just lay there with her eyes closed.

  She would look for a place tomorrow. She’d try to find one.

  But one thing was for sure.

  That place wasn’t going to work out.

  Because she couldn’t trust anyone in this world.

  Whether Alison liked it or not, the pair of them were on their own, for good.

  Alison just didn’t realise how little say in the matter she had yet.

  Chapter Seven

  Ian looked out over the frozen fields and took a deep breath at how fortunate he was to have such a home like this.

  It was early morning. He always liked getting up early, watching the sun rise. Of course, “early” in winter meant something different entirely to “early” in summer. But still, he got up before everyone else in the old world when he was running his business with his wife, and now in the new, in this life of survival.

  One of the best parts of waking up before everyone else was that he got to be the first to hear and to see his son Tommy rise, too.

  He couldn’t hear him yet. Hadn’t heard him. But he looked forward to it. Last thing at night, he’d read for him. First thing in the morning, he’d listen to him rise.

  It was the thing that kept him going. His Tommy was the person that kept him going.

  He hadn’t thought anything or anyone could keep him going when he’d lost his first son, Corey, two years back.

  He shook his head, forced the memory from his mind. It wasn’t a moment he liked to think about or consider. He’d been told he shouldn’t reminisce or lose himself in the past. There was nothing he could do to control the past, harsh as it was. He could only affect the now.

  It had been difficult, though. The way he reacted, the way Sofia reacted. He’d wanted to blame everyone. He’d been blinded by what had happened. Blinded by the urge to find whoever was responsible.

  And someone was responsible. Corey had died crossing the road in a hit and run. Only the police didn’t catch the guy who did it. CCTV was unclear. So Ian found himself down a speculative path that he wasn’t sure how to navigate.

  Sofia tried to rein him in at first. But even she wasn’t acting as lucidly as she used to, as much as she tried to convince herself and everyone else otherwise.

  She was driven by the same rage as Ian; the same bubbling tension.

  But that was the past.

  And right now, he had to be there for his wife, Sofia.

  And he had to be there for his son, Tommy.

  Corey was gone. And there was nothing he could do to change that.

  He heard the movement inside the farmhouse, and a smile spread across his lips.

  Tommy was awake. Which meant he’d be down here in no time to join Ian.

  He stayed there a little longer. Stared out at the fields. Took deep breaths of the fresh, crisp winter air.

  They were lucky, having a home lik
e they had. It wasn’t theirs in an old world sense. They hadn’t lived here forever. It was more somewhere they’d moved into a few weeks into the end.

  They’d had to fight for this place a few times. They’d had to battle to keep outsiders out.

  But for the most part, they were lucky. Because they were out of the way. They had fields where in the warmer months, they could cultivate crops. There were animals. They were fortunate with what they’d inherited.

  They might have lost their old way of living, but at least they had a way of living. Not everyone was fortunate enough to be able to say that. Few people were fortunate enough to even have a fraction of what they had.

  He went inside, and he saw Sofia standing there.

  She was staring at him, long dark hair draped over her shoulders, bright green eyes glistening in the early morning light, making him fall in love with her every time he looked into them.

  But there was something wrong.

  He could tell. A sense of the uncanny simply from the way she was looking at him. The way her eyelids were twitching, just at the sides.

  The way she looked at him when something was wrong. Very wrong.

  “Sofia? What is it?”

  And then she said the words that changed everything.

  “Tommy. He’s—he’s gone. I can’t find him.”

  Ian wasn’t sure what hit him first. The first thing his wife said about Tommy being gone, or the second—the ones that she couldn’t find him.

  But at least those final words still left some hope.

  At least it meant he wasn’t gone gone. Like Corey.

  “What—what do you mean you can’t find him?”

  “I went in his room,” Sofia said. “I went in there because… because I don’t know. I just worried about how quiet he was. And he wasn’t there.”

  “Have you checked everywhere?”

  “I’ve checked everywhere, Ian.”

  “The fields. Have you checked the fields?”

  “Ian, I—”

  He stepped outside. “Tommy!”

  His voice echoed off into the distance.

  And he hoped Tommy would hear him. He hoped he would hear his voice then come back here, wherever he was.

  But something told Ian Tommy wasn’t hearing his voice at all.

  Something told him he was far away somewhere.

  “Where do you think he’s gone, Ian?” Sofia asked. “Why do you think he’s gone?”

  Ian wasn’t sure what to say, not at first.

  But then it dawned on him.

  It hit him.

  The conversation.

  He remembered the way he’d gone to read a story to Tommy before bed. He remembered the words he’d said to him.

  “I want to do more to help, Dad. I want to catch things to eat. I want to help!”

  He’d heard those words, and he’d just dismissed them as childish fantasy.

  But he knew what Tommy was like.

  He knew that explorer nature that was deeply ingrained in his being.

  “The woods,” Ian said.

  Sofia frowned. “What?”

  “The woods. I think… I think he’s gone to the woods.”

  Ian stumbled down the steps of the farmhouse. He stepped out onto the frozen grass, past the dead crops that he’d have to replant in the spring—if this long-winded winter ever came to an end.

  Sofia followed closely behind. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “Why would he go to the woods?”

  “Because… because he wants to help. He wants to help us.”

  Ian ran towards the woods. He could hear Sofia’s footsteps closely behind. Panic engulfed him, surrounded him. He knew one of them should stay at the farmhouse just in case Tommy ended up back there and tried to look for them. Or even worse—someone else could get to the farmhouse.

  He knew all the possibilities were on the table, and all the possibilities were bad.

  But still he kept on going, and still Sofia kept on going beside him.

  Because this was their boy.

  Their boy was walking into a dangerous world, and he couldn’t suffer the same fate as their other child.

  “Ian, what if he’s lost out there?” Sofia said.

  “He won’t be lost.”

  “What if we can’t find him?”

  “We’ll find him.”

  Ian searched the woods. He traipsed through the snow, which was still falling in light clumps. He shouted out Tommy’s name, time and time again. He kept on going, kept on searching.

  But eventually, he fell to his knees, Sofia beside him.

  Eventually, he gave up.

  Because Tommy was gone.

  Tommy was nowhere to be found.

  His second son, lost.

  Chapter Eight

  Theo looked at the building in the distance, and he knew he’d found his new hunting ground.

  It was dark. Very dark. Not even the moon illuminated things bright enough for him to see properly.

  But he didn’t mind that. He liked the dark. It suited him, and it suited his people.

  The dark was when he emerged. When he acted.

  The dark was when he did the dirty work.

  The dark was on his side.

  He’d always liked darkness, ever since he was a kid. Probably because he used to see it as his opportunity to run away from home. He’d climb out of his window before his drunken bastard of a dad could come in his bedroom and hurt him, and he’d run as far as he could.

  And in that darkness, he felt free. He felt as long as he had the darkness on his side, he was invincible.

  But the sun always rose. No matter how much he kept on running, it always rose.

  And he’d always get caught eventually. There was only so far he could run. There was only so long he could hide.

  The police would take him home, or someone would recognise him and take him home, or he’d just end up going home himself because he was tired and hungry.

  And then the cycle would begin again.

  The drink. The anger. The hate.

  At least Theo didn’t have any of that to worry about anymore. At least now he could truly rely on himself and his people to do what had to be done.

  He sat on his bony knees in the woods. He could smell something nasty, and he realised it was the blood on his body. The blood from the people he’d killed. He’d kept it on his clothes, not with intention at first, but he knew it made people look at him with fear.

  And fear was a commodity you just couldn’t put a price on in this world.

  He saw the flickering candlelight in that mental health facility, and he wondered what the people were like in there. Of course, he’d been watching them through his binoculars for a long time. He’d been weighing up what they were like, assessing their survival methods, things like that. He had to be certain. He had to be prepared. He had to be ready.

  He heard shuffling to his right. When he looked, he saw it was Jack. One of his people. One of his friends.

  One of his followers.

  One of the people who had suffered at the hands of the sickos from this group—the sickos that Fred had led them right back towards.

  At least they’d given Fred a chance to survive.

  Sort of.

  Jack looked at Theo, thick woolly balaclava pulled right over his eyes. He was shivering and shaking violently. “When’re we going to make a move, boss?” he asked.

  Theo liked being called boss. So much so that he wasn’t even going to chastise Jack too much for questioning him.

  “Soon,” he said.

  “Can’t we make it tonight?” Jack said. “It’s—it’s getting colder out here. Cherie’s got—got frostbite. I can barely feel—feel my fingers anymore. I—I’m not sure h—how much longer we’re going to make it out—out here.”

  Theo took a deep breath of the bitter icy air. Of course, Jack was right. They were going to have to make a move on the facility soon. It looked perfect. Not because of the a
nimals. Not because of the land. And not even because of the space.

  “We wait.”

  “How much l—”

  “We wait just a little longer.”

  “And then?”

  Theo took a deep breath as he watched the candle go out and the place fell into total darkness.

  “We make our move. We take this place down. And we make sure these people understand exactly who they’re dealing with. We make them suffer for what they did to us. What they took from us. And we enjoy every second.”

  Chapter Nine

  The following day, Mike was posed with the chance of heading out to make a trade with one of their fellow communities, but something made him feel uncertain.

  It was morning. It was very still. It took Mike a short while to figure out why things felt so different, and then it struck him. The snow. It had stopped snowing.

  It was a rare sight, seeing the sky so snow-free. Of course, the grounds and everywhere surrounding were still full to the brim with snow, but not to see it falling… it just felt strange.

  Maybe he was reading far too much into it.

  Or maybe not.

  He yawned as he walked out towards the gates of their base, past the kennels, where the dogs barked at him with their ear-piercing greetings. He smiled at them, waved, wishing Arya were here with them—wherever it was she’d ended up. He hadn’t slept much last night. Couldn’t stop thinking about what’d happened to Fred, and the dismay and despair his wife Miranda had felt about losing him.

  Of course, it wasn’t easy. It was never going to be easy. Mike knew that first-hand from losing Caitlin.

  But at least now he had a choice. He could stay around for the funeral, mope about their losses, as sad as they were. Or he could get out early and make his way to the Hopkins’ farm about ten miles from here. It was relatively easy to get there on foot. It’d probably take him seven hours, there and back, so he could be back this afternoon. The run there was always relatively uneventful, if a little hilly in spots.

  But the Hopkins family at the farm were allies. They looked out for Mike’s people just as Mike’s people looked out for them. They provided them with farm supplies, equipment, food, and dairy, and in turn they provided them with manpower and medical supplies.