“What just happened?” Rick asks.
“My wife just happened,” Dan replies with a look of awe that reflects how Rick feels. “That was amazing, Cas!” he continues as he reaches for Lina’s hand and helps her to stand.
“Thank you, babe.”
Rick walks over to the doorway where Ray lies in a crumpled heap, the imprint of the gun’s butt already showing as a spreading bruise.
“Hah! And there’s me thinking the gun wasn’t loaded,” he says with a wry grin and turns to Cassie. Her breath comes heavily but her face is glowing. “I seriously underestimated you, lady.”
Her smile widens. “Never underestimate a Morgan,” she returns then looks down at Ray. “What are we going to do about him?”
“Leave him,” Rick replies.
Chapter 18
“Whoa! Check that out!” Harry exclaims as they join the motorway for the road heading north. Dense, black smoke billows from within the urban sprawl of the town to the left. “The whole place is burning down!”
“There’s no one to put it out,” Lina says, her voice downbeat as she watches the cloud fill the sky.
“You can see the flames climbing up that building,” Celie says excited.
“It’ll burn the bodies.”
“Huh?”
“The people in it that died. It’ll burn them.”
“And kill off any disease,” Cassie adds, “so that’s a blessing.”
“So, speaking of diseases, why didn’t you kill him?”
“Who? Ray?”
“Yeah.”
“Well … if he’d died when I butted-”
“You smashed his head in, Cassie, it was awesome!”
“Thanks for the reminder, Harry. Well, if he’d died when I ‘smashed his head in’ then I could have lived with that - men like him don’t deserve to live - but I couldn’t do it in cold blood.”
“I could’ve,” Lina replies. “After what he’s done.”
Cassie turns to look at the young girl in the passenger seat, her youthful skin pallid under the summer tan. “I get that Lina, but I don’t think you’d want that on your hands, not really. Anyway, he’s not going to harm you now.”
“But what if he does it to some other kids?”
I should’ve killed him. “I’m hoping he’s learnt his lesson and … he’s not going to get out of those ropes anytime soon.”
“You sure?” Lina asks.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Cassie replies. “I tied those ropes pretty tight. Maybe he’ll never get out of them.”
“Yeah, he might die ‘cos he can’t get out. That’d serve him right.”
“Oh. You could be right, perhaps …” she falters, struggling with her conscience, then continues. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, but you’re right, it would be justice.”
“Cassie!”
Do kids ever stop asking questions? “Yes,” she answers.
“There’s a car behind us.”
“It’s just Rick,” she replies but looks out of the rear-view mirror. A red car sits in the distance, central to the mirror’s width.
“What? Let me see,” Celie exclaims, straining against the seatbelt to peer out the back window.
“Yeah, a red car and it’s coming up pretty quick.”
“It’s a long way behind, yet.”
“That means there are other people alive!” exclaims Lina, twisting in her seat to take a look at the car.
“They’re coming up awful fast, Cassie.”
“Yeah, they are,” she replies, eyes fixing on the mirror once more.
“Go faster, Cassie! Don’t let them catch us.”
“Oh, it’s OK. Let them pass. We need to go steady on the fuel.”
“They’re nearly here. Go on Cassie. Race them!”
“Let’s race!”
“Yeah, Cassie. Let’s race them. Go faster.”
“Hah! No, if I do that then we’ll use up the fuel too quick. We’ve got to be careful with it.” She says looking out of the rear-view mirror again. The car is approaching fast—too fast—right behind them. She puts her foot down on the accelerator and the car’s powerful engine thrums and pulls them forward. She watches as the speedometer reads another 5 miles an hour. Can’t go too fast—it uses too much fuel. She pulls over into the slow lane of the motorway and waits for the car to pass. It shifts behind them.
“It followed us,” Celie says a touch of anxiety in her voice.
“Why’d they do that?” Lina asks, turning around again to look out of the back window. “Idiots!”
Cassie puts her foot down again on the accelerator. The engine thrums and the dial reads another 10km per hour faster. The car behind creeps up.
“They’re tailgating! That’s what my dad calls it—called it—tailgating. Go faster Cassie!”
“It’s Ray! Cassie, it’s Ray!”
“If you slow down, he’ll have to slow down.”
Cassie ignores the rising anxiety in the car, Milo’s voice hovering in her memory. ‘Do what you have to do to get away from him’
She takes a deep breath and shifts into sixth gear. The Mercedes pulls forward with ease. The lights behind drop back and she breathes heavy and lets her shoulders sag a little, relieving the building tension.
“He’s fallen back.”
“No, he hasn’t. Look he’s catching up again.”
Dread sinks like a stone in Cassie’s stomach.
Bang!
Cassie lurches forward, the seatbelt cutting into the soft flesh of her shoulder.
The children scream.
Bang!
Cassie puts her foot down to the floor and the car moves faster. The car behind drops back, but as she stares at it through the rear-view mirror, the lights are back on her tail.
“Get rid of him, Cassie.”
“Stay calm. Just stay calm.”
Bang!
Screaming again.
“Cassie!”
‘Do what you have to do’ Yes, Milo but what the hell do I do?
“We’re going too fast!”
“Cassie, slow down, please!”
Cassie pulls the car to the middle lane. Now. She presses the brake. ‘Not too much, Cassie, just enough to slow you down.’ The car shoots past them. Now!
“Hold on kids!”
Cassie puts her foot to the floor and drives up to the right side of Ray’s car. Hands gripped around the steering wheel, she veers to the left, smashing into the side of the car. The children scream. Hold your nerve, Cassie. Pulling the steering wheel to the left, metal screeching against metal, she pushes Ray across to the hard shoulder.
“Cassie! Look out!”
Hands still gripped, teeth gritted Cassie looks into the distance. Ahead of them an abandoned JCB sits jutting into the road, its digging arm across the first two lanes.
“Cassie!”
Hold it! Hold it!
“Cassie! The digger.”
She pushes one more time at the red car then swerves to the right, gripping the steering wheel, her skin burning with the tightness of her grip, her ears ring with the children’s screams.
The JCB passes as a blur past the left side of the car, metal screeches again as the car catches against its metal shovel and the bumper rips off. The car veers to the right. Too sharp! Too sharp! Cassie’s muscles burn as she grips the wheel, holding it tight as it fights against her. Stay calm. Stay in control.
As the metal of the digger’s arm screeches against the Mercedes’ sides, Ray’s car slams into the solid steel of its body. A deafening boom shakes the car.
Straightening the Mercedes, she holds it in the middle lane, her heart beating wildly, pounding heavy and fast against her ribs. There’s silence in the car as the children sit tight within themselves in shock. Cassie looks into the rear-view mirror and watches for a second as flames leap up behind the heavy, yellow mass.
“I’ll pull over,” she says, her voice low. “I just need to pull over.”
The car rolls to a
stop on the gritty hard shoulder. Cassie opens the door, her hand trembling as she grips the cold metal of the door handle. Stepping out, her legs shake and she crumples. As she slides to the ground, tears well and spill over her eyelashes.
A dark shadow falls over her.
“That was one hell of a stunt you pulled there, Cassie,” Rick says looking down at her.
A fist bangs on the inside window of the car door and Rick reaches across to let Harry out.
“Did you see it? Boom!” he says grinning up at Rick. “Boom!” he repeats, making the picture with his arms.
“What the hell just happened?”
“Ray. He caught up with us.”
“Well, he won’t be bothering us again,” Dan returns, hands on hips looking back at the dancing flames. “No way he could have survived that.”
“Can we go to the farm now? Please?”
“We sure can,” Rick says looking down at the pleading eyes of the small boy. “We sure can,” he repeats and puts his arm around the boy as Dan crouches next to Cassie, strokes her face and helps her to stand again, and knows in his heart that come hell or high water he’s going to get these people to safety. Everything he’s ever known has been turned on its head. Everything is lost, but perhaps, just maybe, these people are the future, his future.
The smoke from the burning town billows black across the sky as Deacon pulls out onto the main carriageway. He shifts the gears up and the bike growls low as the engine opens up, propelling him forward, its thrum vibrating through his thighs and buttocks. The transition from the powerful engine is smooth as he pulls the throttle back some more and pushes the engine harder—a flicker of excitement waving over him as the exhausts roar and echo, eerie in the emptiness of the day.
The road ahead lays still with only the occasional discarded car blocking his way. He’s getting used to the surprise of their stillness and the obstacle course the roads have become. The greens and golden browns of the late summer pass as a blur as he inches the throttle back. Faster, push it faster, there’s no one here to stop you now. Yeah, and no one to pick up the pieces if you fall off! He slows momentarily, wary, Jules’ voice still insistent in his memory, ‘be careful babe. I know you’re a great rider, but there’s so many idiots on the road. I don’t want you to end up like Sam!’ He slows again. Sam! He hadn’t stood a chance. That was the problem with country lanes in the middle of summer—they twisted and turned, yes, that was their beauty, but they were dangerous too: huge tractors with their bone-breaking ploughs, combines massive, rolling off the fields after harvest, tired farmers pushing out into the lanes and—wham! Goodbye Sam. His stomach grinds as he remembers his friend in his arms. No! Shake it off. This is now. This is the open road—the farmers are all dead—no one to pull out in front of you and become that brick wall. The world is empty and this road is straight—his own personal racetrack. Smiling, he opens the throttle again and clenches his teeth, the muscles of his jaw tight, bites down at the memory of Jules and Sam and focuses on the heat waves in the distance, the black of the billowing smoke a dark contrast to the brightness of the other side of the road where the sun shines hard on the uncropped wheat of the fields. The farmers are all dead. All dead.
Peering into the distance the road ahead curves and beyond that flames black smoke twists and billows above leaping flames. Whatever it was had better not be blocking the road. The flames leap high and black—black like the burning of oil. He’d seen that before—in the deserts of Kuwait—the burning oil fields—the smoke thick and black. Now there was a memory he wasn’t going to follow. He takes the bend then slows, the arm of a digger sits across the first two lanes, its body consumed in flames. A car, or what’s left of it, sits upturned and skewed into the bank of the hard shoulder, the flames devouring it. Beyond that carnage, a group of cars sit parked and people stand around. He slows a little more—not rubber necking speed, but slow enough to be safe as he passes the men, women and … and kids! You should stop. Not a chance! Just keep going Deacon. Just keep going. The days of looking out for everyone else are done. Anyway, it could be an ambush. Doesn’t look like one. Looks like some people in need. Doesn’t matter. There’s only one person who matters now and that’s number one.
The road ahead is clear—the people watch his approach. He nods as he reaches them, recognises the haunted look in their eyes, ignores the frowns and raised eyebrows as he passes then tries to forget the image: the children clinging to the adults, the blonde with her arm around the man with the beat-up face, the soldier following him with his eyes. He nods his recognition then opens up the throttle, changes up the gear, and glides through the air, the bike powering him forward. He won’t stop. Doesn’t need to. They’ve got each other. What use is the good Samaritan in this world? He’s seen what that does for you in the past weeks. There may not be many people alive now, but the ones that are, the ones he’d seen anyhow, were different—needy, clinging, ruthless—Dan Morgan’s ruined world. He was having none of it. The further away he could get from people the better. Being alone he could stay safe and not have to worry about anyone—not let anyone into his heart—that hurts just way too much. He takes a final look back at the huddled group and focuses on the empty road ahead.
THE SAVAGE ROAD: Not ready to leave Cassie, Dan and Deacon behind? The story continues in THE SAVAGE ROAD, Book 2 in The World Torn Down series.
AMAZON
Author Notes
October 5th 2017
If you’re reading this then I guess you’ve read through the entire story. I hope that you’ve enjoyed it and thank you for giving up your time to come along for the ride.
I’ve always loved stories that pit man against the elements or overwhelming forces and wanted to write something exciting that would see ordinary, and perhaps quirky, characters in extraordinary situations. How we react to extreme situations fascinates me and it’s not always the obvious candidates that become the heroes of the hour. We’re complex beings. We have emotions, desires and needs. The quietest of men or women can become ruthless when threatened and, when the world turns upside down, we may survive by drawing on strengths we never knew we had. Those who have seemed stalwarts of morality and right can break and turn bad. The survivors aren’t always the good and the strong. What would you do to save yourself?
I’ve planned A World Torn Down in a serialised format to be published regularly. Once complete, I will be publishing the entire series in an omnibus edition.
If you enjoyed this story then stay in touch! Join my newsletter for monthly updates on progress and news of future publications. I love keeping in touch with my readers and am happy to respond to any questions you have about my books. CLICK HERE TO JOIN for updates and to stay in touch. I’ll also send you a copy of my story The Storm, an apocalyptic rescue thriller. If you’re not keen on newsletters I also keep my Facebook page updated and you can join me or message me there.
Also by Rebecca Fernfield
Dark Powers Rising
If you enjoy darkly dystopian post-apocalyptic thrillers with danger and suspense and well-developed characters then you’ll love Dark Powers Rising.
AMAZON
The Road to Ruin: A post-apocalyptic survival series (A World Torn Down Book 1) Page 12
