by Ryan Casey
Surviving the Blackout
Surviving the EMP, Book Four
Ryan Casey
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
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Chapter One
Owen ran as fast as he could through the woods.
The suffocating dark of night was paralysing. Everywhere he looked, he could see shuffling between the trees. Branches stretched out like monsters, scratching at his face. His movement was unsteady, the ground beneath his feet wobbly, and he knew he could take a more steady route if he had the time.
But he didn’t have the time.
Not with who were out there.
Not with who were chasing him.
The night was as humid as the day. There was no differentiation between the two anymore. Sunset offered no respite from the day’s intensity. It had been a brutal summer. The old people who were left and had made it this far, all credit to them, were dying in their masses. Owen didn’t have the luxury of an accurate thermometer, but he knew the heat was passing forty each day. He didn’t know why exactly. He figured it had to be related to the blackout, which was a good four months ago now. Perhaps the blackout—sparked by an EMP or something different—had sent the temperature skyrocketing, shifting something in the weather patterns. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. How could anyone really know anymore?
He didn’t have much time to worry about it right now.
He could only run.
He heard nothing but the pounding of his footsteps against the ground, the crunching of fallen branches underfoot. There was no breeze. No birds stirred as he ran. Crippling anxiety tightened its death grip around his stomach. It threatened to stop him in his tracks, send him keeling over to the ground.
But he had to push through it.
Because he was lucky to be away.
Nothing was worse than being back there.
Nothing could be worse than what he’d found.
What he’d seen.
He lived with four other people on a small camp just outside these woods. They’d been together since the early days. Five blokes, all separated from their families, all thrust into this world alone, brought together by circumstance.
They weren’t exactly survivalists. Owen in particular didn’t come from a very practical background. He used to be an ICT assistant in a local school. He knew more about coding and formatting than hunting and foraging.
But he’d been forced into a new world, and forced to adapt. Fast.
He’d done what he’d had to. He’d learned ways to hunt. Learned how to create shelters. Learned how to filter water, and how to start fires.
And a lot of it was trial and error. Occasionally, you ate the wrong kind of berry and ended up puking for days. Sometimes, the water didn’t filter properly, or a fire didn’t start properly, or flies got to the deer you’d spent hours trying to catch, rendering a whole number of meals useless.
And those setbacks were tough to take, especially when life itself was on the line.
But you just had to keep on going. You couldn’t let it grind you down. You had to step up and be a leader in your own way. You had to own your decisions, fully stand behind your choices, no matter what they were or how deadly they might be.
This world didn’t favour the passive.
He looked back over his shoulder as he raced into the darkness. He breathed rapidly. His heart pounded. He swore he saw movement approaching as colours from exhaustion filled his eyes.
It all started when Malc went missing. Malc was the younger of their group, and the fittest. He was ginger, with a long beard that he took too much pride in. He was well-built, muscular, and remarkably he seemed to be maintaining his muscle tone, even if daily recommended calorie intakes were a thing of the past. He was athletic, practical, and good to have on side.
But he’d disappeared. Just like that. One morning, Owen and the others woke up and he was gone.
They’d debated what’d happened for a while that day. Maybe Malc had just taken off alone, decided to make a break for it himself. He was a whole lot better at this whole surviving business than the rest of them. Maybe he fancied his chances without them holding him back.
But then… no. Owen knew Malc. He was a loyal guy. He was always honest. When he didn’t think something was right, he’d say. When he was having doubts about their course of action, or about any of them in particular, he’d always express his feelings.
It might be frustrating sometimes, hearing Malc telling you that you were holding the rest of the group back, or that you were a shit hunter, or that you couldn’t trap a fly in a room full of Venus Fly Traps, let alone a squirrel in the middle of the woods.
But he was honest. And that was the important thing. The sticking point.
Owen had gone out to find him. To see if he could track him down.
He’d found something. Something that sent shivers up his spine.
And now he ran, back into the night.
He’d got lost sometime earlier. Found himself by a stream he thought he recognised. He decided he’d follow it. If it were the stream he thought it was, it would lead him right back home eventually.
But he’d come across something else on his travels when the darkness arrived.
A camp.
A camp, right in the middle of the woods.
A flame-lit camp.
He’d stopped. Approached it. There were some loons out there, but most people were willing to help if you made it clear you weren’t a threat. Especially if you could offer some item or skills for barter.
He’d gone to approach that place.
And then he’d seen it.
He’d seen him.
He’d seen what they’d done to Malc.
The way his dead eyes stared back at Owen.
Terror in them.
Fear on his face.
And then Owen had done the only thing he co
uld.
Run.
He kept on going. The anxiety was crippling. The stitch tore through his chest. He could feel himself slowing down, feel himself needing to stop, needing to take a break.
And all this time he had to tell himself he wasn’t lost.
He was closer to home.
He was getting closer to camp.
He had to get there. He had to warn his friends. Tell them what was out there. Tell them about Malc.
He dreaded the thought.
But he knew it was what he had to do.
He went to take another step when he slipped and fell to the ground below.
The hard earth punched him in the face, made his teeth sting as he lay there, flat. He felt the urgency to get back to his feet, to start moving again. He couldn’t afford to wait around; he couldn’t afford to delay.
But he was somewhat grateful for the rest, too.
The momentary respite.
He looked up and he saw something up ahead.
There was a tree to his right. It might be dark, but he’d recognise that tree anywhere. It was unlike any other. It reached across one of the others, a branch curving its way against a companion, like it was holding it.
Or trying to suffocate it.
He smiled. He pushed himself up. He was close to home. He knew where to go from here. Only about fifteen minutes if he ran as quickly as he could.
He went to run when he heard something.
At first, he thought it was his mind playing tricks on him again. He was exhausted. He was bound to be a little delirious.
He went to keep moving when he heard it again.
The shuffling.
The movement in the trees beside him.
He froze. The hairs on his arms stood on end. That anxiety crippled him, gnawed right away at his stomach, made him keel over a little. He swore he felt a patch forming on his trousers, his bladder weakening.
He couldn’t hold back.
He had to keep moving.
He went to move again, jogging, unable to sprint. Fifteen more minutes. That’s all it was. He was close to home. He could make it. He could warn the others. He could—
Shuffling either side of him.
He stopped. Froze.
Stood there in the dead of night.
Heart pounding.
Teeth chattering despite the heat.
He looked to his left.
Didn’t see a thing.
To his right.
Nothing there, either.
He gripped his sweaty fists together. Maybe it was just an animal. He’d heard rumours of animals on the loose. Escaped zoo animals. Lions. Tigers.
And the scary thing about his thoughts?
He somehow found the prospect of escaped zoo animals the more preferable option at this moment.
He shook his head, then he started running again. He wasn’t getting anywhere by standing here.
He heard something right behind him.
Something like laughing.
He looked back.
There was a light.
Small, but definitely there.
Enough for him to know for certain.
They were on to him.
They were here.
He turned back around. Looked ahead. His vision was fading, his eyesight blurring.
And then he saw it.
Enough to make him stop dead in his tracks.
There was a figure.
Standing right in front of him.
Totally still.
Totally calm.
He stood there, and although it was dark, Owen could tell this man was smiling.
“You really thought you could get away from us?” he said.
He took a step towards Owen.
“You really thought there was any chance we’d let you go the moment we saw you?”
He walked right up to him. Stopped. Stared into Owen’s eyes.
His breath smelled… like smoke.
Like meat.
Barbecued meat.
“Go on,” he said. “Go back to your camp. Go back to your people. I hope you find the comfort you seek.”
And then just like that, he stepped to one side.
Owen didn’t know what to say or what to do.
He could only stare at that figure as he stood there, hand raised.
“Go on,” he said. “What’re you waiting for?”
So Owen did the only thing he could.
He ran.
His running picked up. That sense that he was being followed—being hunted—increased.
There was something so wrong about this.
An inevitability to all of this.
And yet he still ran, even if he felt his fate was already sealed.
He must’ve run for fifteen minutes like this until he finally reached his camp.
He looked at the tents. Saw the three figures sitting before them. Which was strange, in a way. They were so still. So…
“Gary,” he said. “There’s—there’s something… there’s…”
He stopped.
Because when he reached Gary, he realised something.
Something that made anxiety finally cripple him once and for all.
Gary was missing a head.
All three of them were sitting upright, missing heads.
Owen dropped to his knees. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He had fully pissed his pants, now.
“No,” he said. “No.”
He heard footsteps right behind him, then.
And then he felt a blade touch his neck.
“I’m sorry,” that familiar voice of the man said. “But if it’s any consolation, this was an inevitability. It was how it was always going to end up. And you’re serving something much greater than yourselves. Rest well in that knowledge.”
Owen closed his eyes tight.
He felt the blade slice his throat.
A momentary blast of pain as that blade kept on slicing.
A struggle for breath.
And then the colours filled his eyes and everything went dull.
Chapter Two
Jack looked out at the caravan site and smiled.
It was late summer. Three months had passed since the conflict with Logan, since the death of his son. It was still the first thing he thought of when he woke, every single day. There was a brief moment when he regained consciousness that he wasn’t aware of anything; where he was totally content, because he couldn’t remember.
And then he remembered, and it punched him in the gut.
But he kept on getting up and out of bed. He kept on forcing himself to get ready, to face the day. In the early days, it was difficult. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to cope with alongside the death of his other child, India, several years ago. The anger. The pain. The guilt. The sleeplessness and the anxiety about it all making it so much worse.
But they were on the move in the early days, shifting between camps. And in a way, the quest to survive occupied the majority of his thoughts, pushing his grief to the background of his consciousness.
But now they’d been at Heathwaite’s caravan site for a month, and things had … well, they’d settled.
He looked out of the caravan door, past the little rectangular garden area, down the pebbled driveway and across the road, over at the sea. They’d approached this place with trepidation when they first got here, because of course any new home like this always deserved the right levels of caution.
He’d noticed people here. Life here.
And that had made him even more cautious. Because he’d seen the depths people could sink to when they so desperately wanted to defend their home.
He’d seen the depths he’d sunk to.
But the people here—around twenty of them total—had let them in. The leader of this place was called Gregory. He was a decent guy—generous, pragmatic. But he had a bit of a problem with blind faith. He was too invested in this place. He glamorised it way too much. He didn’t see the flaws
that it blatantly had.
But his heart was in the right place, and Jack had to trust him.
The people of Heathwaite’s gave them each a caravan. Told them they were a part of their community, and gave them all responsibilities. Jack was partly responsible for maintaining the crops at this time of year—watering them, tending to them, growing them, nurturing them. There were all kinds, from tomatoes to chives, potatoes and oats, and beyond. And the caravan site, Heathwaite’s, had a lot of fields surrounding it that they could put to perfect use, although their agricultural expansion was very much in its infancy. Their animal numbers were low. They mostly relied on chickens since the cows had fallen sick. It was a blow, but one that Gregory was keen to frame as nothing more than a hurdle.
In a sense, forgetting everything else… there was something comforting about stepping back and being subservient again. He never thought he’d admit that—he’d always seen himself as something of a lone ranger, which by extension made him a leader—but he was happy to take orders now. He was happy to be a follower.
He felt a nudge to his right and saw Villain staring up at him.
He crouched down. Ruffled Villain’s fur. “You okay, lad?”
Villain let out a little grunt of contention. This journey had been tough on him, too. He might be an animal, but everyone missed their home comforts.
One thing was for sure, though. He’d been a rock to Jack. Always had, and always would be.
He walked alongside Villain to the bottom of the garden, which was filled with wildflowers, and saw Hazel across the road.
