by Ryan Casey
“I just don’t think sticking together is such a bad idea,” Alison said. “Especially if this really is what you say it is.”
“It is what I say it is.”
“Then why split up? And why leave this poor dog behind?”
Mike sighed as he looked at the dog again. He’d had a dog when he was younger called Carla. A Labrador retriever. He’d loved the life out of her. He remembered exactly where he was when his mum told him the bad news—that he’d gone to “doggy heaven.” That was one of the defining moments of his childhood; one of the tragedies of his youth. It’d stuck with him forever, that realisation that nothing was permanent, that everything faded, eventually.
“We have to think logistically,” Mike said, shoving aside his sentimentality. “A dog is an extra mouth to feed. It’s unpredictable. It’ll slow us down.”
“Why are you so afraid of attachment?” Alison asked.
The question took Mike by surprise. He wasn’t expecting it. He thought he kept himself pretty covered up, pretty well guarded.
But evidently, he wasn’t as good at masking his emotions as he thought.
“This isn’t anything to do with attachment,” Mike said.
“It’s everything to do with attachment. I saw the way you looked at that guy when he died. I saw the way you held his hand. What was that about?”
Mike thought back to Caitlin. And how similar the emotions that’d been evoked were when that homeless man had passed away before him.
“I lost somebody,” Mike said. “But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean I’m afraid of attachment. It just means… I’m practical. But anyway. We need to keep moving. We can’t drag our feet.”
Mike walked away, towards the end of the alleyway. Alison didn’t seem to move.
“I’ll make you a deal, Lone Ranger,” she said. “We go to our respective homes. We find our families. And then we go our separate ways.”
A silence. A pause. “Okay?” Mike said.
“But.”
“Yeah, I got the feeling there was a ‘but’ coming.”
“We take young Arla along with us—”
“It’s Arya.”
“See? You’re attached already.”
“I’m not…” Mike sighed. There was nothing he could do, and no point arguing here.
“We take her with us. And when we get to my place, I’ll look after her. Or I’ll find someone to look after her at the very least. But we don’t leave her here to die. We don’t leave her behind. Okay?”
Mike sighed. He looked at Arya. Saw the way her head was turning from side to side; the way she was looking at him with such hope and curiosity in her eyes.
And then he looked at her side at her dead owner.
He didn’t know how long the pair of them had been on the streets together. He didn’t know what Arya had been through, what she’d seen. But Alison had a point. It wasn’t fair to just leave her behind. It wasn’t fair to just give up.
Everyone deserved a chance.
He walked over to Arya. Crouched opposite her.
“Hey, girl,” he said.
She backed away a little. Whined. Then looked at her dead owner. She was clearly frightened, clearly confused.
He reached a cautious hand towards her, fully wary that if she bit him, he could do without the bleeding and potential infection right now.
But the closer he got, the more he reassured her.
“Your dad’s gone, girl. But we’re going to look after you. We’re going to find you a new home. So you’re going to come with us. Okay?”
Arya looked at his hand as it got closer. His heart started to thump. He was just inches from her fur now, so close to stroking her, so close to patting her.
Then she snapped out at his hand.
He tumbled back. Yanked his hand out of the way, just in time.
And as he lay there on his arse, despite the crisis, despite the severity of this situation, Alison started laughing.
She walked over to Arya. Patted her on the head, without any kind of resistance from the dog.
Then she looked up at Mike and she smiled.
“Looks like the pair of you have a bit more bonding to do than I first thought, huh?”
Holly
When Holly walked off into the night, she knew this journey wasn’t going to be easy.
The streets on the way towards the supermarket were quieter than she expected, in all truth. She could only figure that some people had gone home and to bed, hoping that all this would blow over by tomorrow. And maybe it would. Perhaps the lights would be back on when the sun rose.
But at the same time, Holly knew deep down that Dad had taught her one important fact about what to do in a time of crisis like this.
“The first twelve hours are the most important hours. That’s when you gather your food. That’s when you get your supplies. Most people won’t. You’ve got to make sure you do. Because if you don’t… there won’t be any time left, and before you know it, you’ll be starving.”
Of course, at the time of Dad telling her those things, Holly hadn’t really taken him completely seriously. She always thought he was nothing more than a conspiracy theorist really, and that the tricks and tips he taught her were useless. She’d teased him about it, Mum by her side. And even he seemed to go along with their joking like he was only half-serious, too.
She didn’t even think she’d remembered the bulk of Dad’s words of advice, in all truth.
But now, as she walked, Gina, Benny, Kumal, and Harriet by her side, she was starting to thank her dad for all the times he’d provided her with those nuggets of information. Because she was going to need them.
“So tell me again why we can’t just go home to our parents?” Harriet said.
Holly took a deep breath as they walked down the street. “You can. We all can. But… but for now, we need to gather supplies. If this really is an EMP event, then we can’t afford to waste any time.”
“So it’s okay for you to go looking for your dad, but when the rest of us talk about going home, it’s suddenly not cool?”
Holly had to admit Harriet had a point. She could see her own hypocrisy pretty clearly. But of course, when she’d gone searching for her dad, she knew he knew stuff about survival. She knew he’d be able to help others.
Wherever he was, she hoped he was okay.
“My parents are away anyway,” Kumal said, interrupting quickly.
“That makes two of us,” Gina said.
Harriet narrowed her eyes, glanced around at the group. “I guess I don’t get on with mine anyway. Last people I want to see right now. Don’t want to panic them over nothing.”
It struck Holly as weird, what Harriet said. But she didn’t read any more into it. Not for now.
“What kind of things are we looking for, anyway?” Benny asked. “I mean, if there’s no electricity, how do we even cook?”
“I know a way,” Holly said.
He frowned. “A way of cooking? Without, like, a microwave?”
“Trust me,” she said. “There’s loads of ways of starting fires. And there’s portable stoves, too. But a lot of what we eat might have to be cold and basic.”
“And again,” Harriet said, stopping in her tracks. “Remind me why we’re taking you seriously?”
Holly turned to her. She didn’t want to argue with Harriet anymore. It was a waste of energy. “You don’t have to take me seriously,” she said. “I’m just asking you to trust me. Because if you don’t, there’s a good chance we’ll end up stuck in the middle of nowhere with no food, no supplies, and no way of surviving. If we can get to the supermarkets now, we can start to actually stock up and prepare to ride this out. Or…”
Gina narrowed her eyes. She seemed to be siding mostly with Harriet now—but it was clearly out of fear more than anything. “Or what?”
“Or we gather enough equipment to keep us alive in the countryside.”
Gina shook her head. “The countryside? I da
ren’t even camp in my garden.”
“Then this whole situation is going to be a problem for you,” Holly said. “We need to be out of the way of the cities and towns. Because things are going to get a whole lot worse here.”
“Okay,” Kumal said, stepping in once again. “Let’s not tear ourselves apart here. We’ve established this looks serious. But at the same time, again, we’ve no way of knowing whether this is permanent. But even so, Holly’s right. We need to stock up. We need to make sure we have enough supplies to get us by—regardless of how long the power’s out. We aren’t going to get anywhere sitting around and waiting for supplies to come to us.”
“Kumal’s probably right,” Gina said with a sigh. “I doubt Sainsbury’s are still delivering with all this going on.”
Kumal frowned like that wasn’t the point he was making at all.
“We need to keep an open mind,” Holly said. She had to admit she was kind of enjoying taking on this leadership role. After all, it was helping her take her mind off the fact she’d left home—off what she’d written on the note. She knew the whole leaving home thing wasn’t necessarily permanent. She could go back there and who knows, maybe find Dad there.
But at the same time, she couldn’t help fearing their paths had diverged already…
“I’m doing my best,” Harriet said. “It’s just… it’s hard, you know? Hard going from having everything pretty much on a plate for you. To… to this.”
Again, hearing Harriet speak so candidly like this, it actually made Holly sympathise with her. Maybe she was being too harsh. This wasn’t exactly easy for any of them, after all.
She dropped back. Put a hand on her arm. “Hey,” she said. “We’ve been through rough stuff before. All of us have, in different ways. This is no different. Now the fact we’re actually doing something about all this puts us at an advantage over the vast majority of people. We know we need food. I have an idea the kind of foods to look for. We know we need equipment that’ll make surviving in this world a lot easier. And we know we need all of this. That puts us ahead of a lot of people.”
“That’s what I find so sad,” Gina said, interrupting. “We’ve gone from working together as people to this—scrapping for whatever we feel might keep us alive the longest. I just… I just hope this doesn’t all last. Because if it does… I don’t know what people will do to each other when they get desperate enough.”
Holly heard Gina’s words as they approached the supermarket via the grassy verge beside the road. The fact they were talking about “survival” at all just a short while into what could be a power cut was grim.
But then they’d seen the cars at a halt.
They’d watched planes and helicopters fall from the sky.
They’d seen people, dead.
They had to talk about survival. The sooner they were honest about it, the better.
“Hold up,” Benny said. “Looks like we’ve got company.”
Holly stopped, as did everyone else. And in the distance, she saw it.
The supermarket.
Adrenaline pumped through her body. Excitement arrived.
But it was short-lived.
Because Benny was right.
Dad was right.
There were people all gathered by the entrance to the supermarket.
People running in.
People running out with overstuffed trollies.
People desperate to take whatever they could.
“We stay close,” Holly said. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
They made their way down the hill, towards the supermarket.
Holly was right. It wasn’t going to be easy.
It was going to change their lives forever.
Mike
The second Mike and Alison reached Alison’s home, Mike got a strange feeling right away that this wasn’t about to go exactly as planned.
It was the early hours now. It had to be. The streets were quieter than the very first moments of the blackout. That was the problem with society. People slipped back into old habits far too easily, especially when they were afraid. So many people who had been initially frightened by the loss of power, the sight of things falling from the skies, the loss of control over their vehicles, the lack of access to the internet or the ability to make phone calls… they will have done what comes naturally: returned to their homes.
And sure, that’s what Mike was doing. And that’s what Alison was doing.
But Mike had a longer-term plan.
Because he knew damn well things weren’t going to get better anytime soon.
And if it meant fighting to survive, then he’d damn well fight.
They stopped right outside Alison’s front door. Mike’s heart raced for Alison, he had to admit. He didn’t want to get too attached to someone—didn’t want to make any bonds. Because bonds were only torn apart when he got too close to anyone.
He thought of his daughter, Holly. He was going home soon. He had to hope she’d listened to him all those years ago. That she’d just… just be there, waiting for him.
That way, they could be together. They could figure out a way to survive.
But more than anything right now, he found himself really hoping, for Alison’s sake, that her mum was inside this house, and that everything was okay with her.
“You okay in there?” Mike said.
Alison looked at him. She was holding onto a lead they’d found for Arya. She held it out to Mike and smiled—but Mike could see that smile was forced, attempted. “You can come in with me. If you want.”
Mike shook his head. “You should go in there.”
“But what if…”
She looked away then. And Mike sensed she was hiding something.
“What if what?”
“She has a pacemaker. Had it for years. Three heart attacks already, bless her. If you’re saying this EMP has wiped out all electrical activity… are you saying there’s a chance it’s affected pacemakers too?”
Mike didn’t answer. He didn’t want to give the answer he knew deep down. Because yes, there was a chance that pacemakers were affected. There were multiple schools of thought on the topic. Some people didn’t think they would be, others insisted otherwise.
But there was only one way to find out. And they were going to find out.
“I’ll come in there with you,” Mike said, sucking up his cautiousness, realising that he had to be there for Alison, because this was a difficult moment.
He’d lost someone he loved. He knew how it was.
She smiled at him. “Thanks. But just so you know, my mum really hates drinkers, so no talk about how we met, okay?”
Mike found himself smiling back. “Fair deal.”
They stepped inside the front door. And the first thing that hit Mike was unpleasant, as Arya tugged at his side.
The smell.
There was a sourness to the air. A sourness that Mike didn’t want to bring up. Because deep down, he knew what it was. He knew the source of that smell. He’d smelled it before, a long time ago.
A flashback. A flashback to the explosion. To the terror. To seeing his friends dead in front of him.
Then a snap back to reality.
He saw Alison rushing into the lounge. “Mum?” she called.
When there was no response, Mike feared the worst even more. He stepped up the stairs, while Alison searched downstairs.
And the further upstairs he got, the more the smell grew.
Arya was pulling even harder at her lead now. She was panting away, sniffing at the air. Like she knew something was nearby.
Mike climbed further up the stairs, squinting in the darkness. He’d need to find a good torch at some stage—one that’d survived the blast. There were bound to be some traces of working batteries out there. Things that’d been enclosed in metal surroundings, like mini Faraday cages.
Oh yeah. Faraday cages. They were another thing he’d studied. Here’s what they were: they were a kind of shiel
d designed to block electromagnetic fields. An earthed metal screen that, theoretically, should stop electrostatic influences from penetrating.
Of course, some people would already be ready for an event, so they’d have important supplies in Faraday cages already. Serious preppers might even have their vehicles in a kind of Faraday garage.
But Mike, as interested in the topic as he was, wasn’t a prepper.
He was wishing more than ever right now that he’d practiced what he’d damn well preached.
But right now, torchless, all he had was the light from the moon and the stars shining in through the window.
And when he got to the top of the stairs, he didn’t need a light to see what was lying before him.
“Mum!” Alison called. She came racing through into the hallway again, then charged her way up the stairs.
Mike lifted a hand. “You should wait.”
Alison frowned. “I can’t wait. Why? What is it? Wait for what?”
“Just…” Mike started.
But he couldn’t continue.
Because it was too late.
Alison passed by him.
And when she stepped onto the landing area, she stumbled.
Because she had seen what Mike had seen.
What was lying on the floor in front of her.
Who was lying on the floor in front of her.
“Mum?” Alison said. She staggered forward, then back, then to the side a little.
Mike wanted to comfort her. He wanted to reassure her.
But in the end, all he could do was give her the time she needed.
Give her the space she needed.
He patted Arya on her head, then turned away from Alison, heading back down the stairs.
“Come on, girl,” he said. “It’s time for us to go now.”
When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he heard Alison cry, and he felt her pain as if it was his own, all over again…
