by Ryan Casey
“You could do with getting some water down you,” Holly said.
“I’ve tried.”
“If you don’t, you’ll get dehydrated and—”
“I said I’ve tried!”
Holly heard the frustration in Gina’s weary voice. And she had to admit she was feeling pretty nauseous herself, too. Like there was something not quite right about all of this. Something that went beyond the shock and adjustment to the death of a friend; to such a radical change in circumstances.
She didn’t want to leave Gina to be sick on her own. But she put a hand on her back as she retched some more. “I’ll leave you to it. You know where I am if you need me.”
It was only as she was walking away, back to the rest of the group, that she saw a speck of blood in Gina’s vomit.
When she got back to the others, she saw that Harriet and Kumal were both awake. Harriet looked up at her, more tired than usual, make-up smeared. She half-smiled.
“Sleep okay?” Holly asked.
“Best night ever,” she said. “You?”
“Bingo.”
She sat down opposite Harriet then, as Kumal got up to gather some sticks for a fire.
“Still can’t quite believe it, you know?”
Holly knew what she was talking about right away. “I’m not sure any of us do.”
“He was so… full of life. Like, you could be in the middle of the worst shit imaginable and Benny always found a way to lighten it up. Even if it was just him coming out with something stupid… he always had a way.”
Holly nodded. She knew that too well. Benny was the first one in this group who’d really taken her under his wing. She was going to miss him. Even if the power did return, the world was never going to be back to the way it was.
“He liked you, you know?”
Holly felt herself blushing the second Harriet spoke. “You don’t know that.”
“No, I do. He liked you. And I liked him. And I guess… I guess that’s why I judged you. I guess that’s why I gave you a hard time. It wasn’t from a bad place. It was shitty, but it wasn’t ever aimed at you, not really. But now this has happened. After—after all this. I’m sorry. Really.”
Holly felt her stomach sink the second Harriet spoke. Because she felt like she was seeing a different side of Harriet to the one she thought she knew. A truer side.
Benny liked her. And Harriet had liked Benny.
That explained her dislike towards her.
That explained why she’d acted the way she had, time after time.
Holly went over to her. And she found herself doing something surprising—she took her hands.
“We’re going to stick together, no matter what. We’re going to keep on fighting. We’re…”
She felt herself going dizzy, lightheaded. Her focus shifted to Gina, who was puking up her guts.
“You okay?” Harriet asked.
“It’s nothing. I just…”
Then Kumal came running through the trees.
“Fallout,” he said.
Holly frowned. “What?”
“The nuclear plant nearby. The generators must’ve failed there. I think—I think there’s radiation leaking.”
And suddenly, it clicked. The sickness. The vomiting. If the nuclear plant was failing, that was a valid enough reason for these things to be happening. Right? Holly really didn’t know enough about it to be certain.
“So what do we do?” Gina asked, returning to the group, vomit dribbling down her usually immaculate chin.
“We do the only thing we can. We get the hell away from here and hope they manage to find a way to shut the plant down before it pisses out more of that awful stuff. I mean, there’s a good chance they’ve got backup systems in place. Ways to bring the fission reaction offline. But that’s not for certain. I remember reading something about Fukushima, where the backup generators were built underground and got flooded. So these things aren’t foolproof.”
“So we don’t know for certain that the nuclear plants are leaking then?” Holly said.
“We don’t,” Kumal said. “But it’s not a chance I want to take. Especially not while a few of us are feeling sick.”
“We could just be sick because of what’s been going on, right?” Gina said. She sounded desperate, vomit dripping down her chin.
Kumal shrugged, brushing his fingers through his hair. “It’s a possibility. But again. I don’t know. None of us know. Not for certain.”
An urgency grew inside Holly, then. An urgency to get away from here, to get to the only place she knew where to go in these circumstances.
“Then we keep moving towards the Rocky Cliffs,” she said. “We have a few supplies now. And we have a few ideas of how we’re going to go about this in the worst case scenario. And we do have to be ready for that worst case. Because right now, it’s looking like just the way it is.”
Harriet nodded. Kumal nodded. Even Gina nodded. Holly wasn’t sure whether it was a shocked trance or what, but it seemed like the tragedy of Benny’s death had united them. It’d happened. It was real. So it’d made them all realise just how real it was.
Holly took a deep breath. Turned around. Got ready to begin the next step of her journey.
But when she turned around, she saw movement up ahead.
There was another group in the woods.
And they were looking right at them.
Mike
Mike looked at the fallen bridge ahead of him and he knew that if he wanted any chance of getting out of the city anytime soon, he was going to have to cross it.
The sun shone down brightly from above. Perhaps it was just in his head, but he swore it seemed hotter than usual. Or maybe it was evidence of a solar flare, or even a layer of the Earth’s atmosphere had been affected by whatever EMP blast might’ve caused this. There were a whole host of possibilities, most of which he was certain were bad news.
But it wasn’t the time to speculate about the macro issues. It was time to worry about the simple problems ahead.
The bridge was mostly still intact, but the helicopter that’d crashed through it had left the right side of it totally broken, totally crumbling. Any wrong allocation of weight and Mike was certain that trying to cross it would lead to a certain death below.
Alison looked on, gobsmacked. “You seriously think actually climbing across this thing is the best idea?”
Mike rubbed his hand through his hair. “I’m not saying it’s ideal.”
“Oh good. Good. Because I’d say, right now, it looks like about the furthest thing from ideal.”
“We can loop around it. But it’d take us a hell of a lot longer. And I’m not sure time is on our side right now.”
“You keep saying that, like the city’s just on the verge of falling apart.”
“You’d be surprised,” Mike said. “Looting seems like it’s already started. The shelves of the supermarkets will have been raided, leaving everyone in a mass panic. The fact that the power still hasn’t returned… that’ll be a problem for so many people. Because they’ll have been expecting the power to come back on. They’ll have been expecting some sort of reprieve by now.”
“And they’ll have been disappointed,” Alison said.
“Exactly. Besides, there’s the Harvard Nuclear Plant near here. And I don’t want to really be right in its path when the backup, backup generators fail.”
“You really think that’s a possibility?”
Mike squinted behind him, over at the thickening clouds. “I don’t want to be around here to find out.”
He turned back to the broken bridge ahead of him. It wasn’t ideal, but it was a chance to cross. A chance to find the quickest route to get out of town. And even more importantly, a chance to get into the countryside to the place he and his daughter held so dear.
He hoped she was there. Prayed she’d headed there. Because he wanted nothing more than to be reunited with her again. He wanted nothing more than to look after her.
&nb
sp; “And what about Arya?” Alison asked.
Mike looked at Arya. Saw her tilting her head.
“She’s a dog. She can jump, right?”
“I’d hate to find out if that answer’s ‘no’,” Alison said.
Mike stepped towards the edge of the bridge. He knew there was no point in waiting around, no point in stalling, not anymore.
“Right. I’ll go first.”
“Whoa,” Alison said. “Whatever happened to women before men?”
Mike shrugged. “Social justice warriors, I think?”
“Fair point.”
“Can’t even hold a door for a woman without being accused of reverse sexism anymore.”
“Okay, okay. Now’s really not the time for a rant about ethics. Are you going or what?”
Mike looked at the narrow path of the bridge beside him. He tried not to look at the fall below… but he couldn’t help himself.
Just seeing it made his stomach turn.
“Sure you want to go first?” Alison asked.
Mike took a few deep, steadying breaths. He looked again at the drop, but then refined his focus to the path itself.
“Here goes nothing,” he said.
And then he started to make his way across the broken up path at the side of the bridge.
He held his breath with every step. He had to make sure he kept his balance, made sure he didn’t fall. If he did, it was over.
And as he moved, keeping his weight as slight as possible, he started to wonder whether he had been mad after all to even attempt this. He could hear cracking underfoot; see concrete breaking off from the side.
But he had to keep his focus.
He had to keep his balance.
He had to keep on going, no matter what.
He stepped further along, keeping his breathing as steady as he could. He could hear Alison saying stuff from behind him, but he couldn’t really focus.
Just one step, then another.
One step, then another.
He went to put down his right foot.
And then he felt something.
The ground beneath him, wobbling.
He went still. Totally still. Because he knew that one bad distribution of weight would break the bridge away, send him tumbling below.
He moved his foot, gradually, away from the loose bit of ground.
Then he put it down just ahead.
When he didn’t go falling to his death, he had to admit a slight bit of relief.
He kept walking further. And soon, he reached the other side. He collapsed onto the road, gasping, totally relieved that he’d made it.
Then the dread picked up again when he remembered that Alison still had to cross, too.
He turned around. And when he looked, he was surprised to see Alison already edging her way towards the bridge, Arya in front of her.
“Just take it steady,” Mike called. “One step at a time.”
“Thanks for that pearl of wisdom,” she said. “I was thinking of taking it two at a time.”
Mike watched her, step by step. He winced every time she put a foot down; every time Arya pulled just a little too hard.
But she was getting closer. Closer…
“Come on,” he said. “You’re almost there.”
“Yep. Trying my best not to rush.”
“You’ve almost made it. You’ve almost…”
Then, Mike’s heart stopped.
Not literally. Not like some of the people who’d suffered as a result of the EMP blast.
But he saw Arya put a paw on the broken bit of ground.
And then he saw the rocks go tumbling below.
“Quick!” Mike shouted.
The ground crumbled.
The entire bridge was going to go.
She had to make it across.
They both did.
“Run!”
Panic covered Alison’s face as she realised what was happening.
She looked up at Mike, the ground falling away.
And for a second, Mike was convinced that this was it; that Alison’s chances were gone.
And then she stepped back, Arya by her side, and she jumped.
He watched her jump, almost in slow motion.
Watched her move through the air, Arya by her side.
He pictured all the things that could happen; all the ways this could go wrong.
And then she landed by his side.
As too did Arya.
He went over to her. She gasped for air. He went to ruffle Arya’s fur but got mixed up in the moment and accidentally messed Alison’s hair up.
“You did it,” Mike said. “We all did it.”
She looked up at him. And for a moment, he wondered why she wasn’t smiling; whether it was just the shock of everything.
But then Mike saw she was looking past him.
Behind him.
He held his breath.
Turned around.
And then he saw him standing there.
There was a man. Dishevelled. Long hair. Smelly, even from this distance.
He was holding a sharp shard of metal.
And he was walking towards him and Alison.
Holly
Holly looked at the other group standing opposite her and she felt her defences rising right away.
Standing here, in the trees, she remembered something her dad once told her when she was younger. If anyone ever squared up to her, she was to buck common logic. She wasn’t to do what most parents told their kids to do. She wasn’t to run away or to back down.
She was to stand up for herself. To show confidence.
Only then would the bullies respect her, in a strange kind of way.
Only then would she gain the respect she deserved.
So as much as she felt daunted in this situation right now, she felt herself standing taller. Felt herself holding the stares of this group.
And in doing so, she felt stronger.
There were three of them. All of them guys. They looked a little older than her and her friends. The main guy was ginger and lanky. He was looking at her in a way she wasn’t sure she liked.
She felt the tension of the situation building. She knew she had to be willing to fight. She’d seen what’d happened with Curtis already. The way shit had gone down, all because they hadn’t taken the threat seriously.
And even though it was day one… what’d happened with Curtis taught her something. A timely lesson.
People were already acting differently. Wildly.
And the more time went on, the wilder their behaviour was going to get.
“We don’t want any trouble,” the guy said.
It surprised Holly. She hadn’t been expecting him to speak. And if he had, she didn’t think it’d be quite so conciliatory.
“Neither do we,” Holly said, standing her ground, not willing to even risk losing anyone else. “So I suggest you keep going. You keep walking. You leave us alone.”
The guy narrowed his eyes. He looked at his friends. “Hear that, guys? We’re to keep on walking—”
“No fucking messing around,” Harriet said, appearing at Holly’s side. “We’ve been through enough shit as it is. You go your way, we’ll go ours.”
The guy smiled, then. Lifted his hands. “Okay. Okay. No need to get off on such a tetchy foot. We just saw you out here in a pretty grim state and wondered whether you wanted to join us. But I guess a remote log cabin far away from all this shit isn’t high on your lists after all, huh?”
He started to walk away, as did his friends. And as much as Holly wanted to stand her ground… she found herself curious. This mention of a remote log cabin. It reminded her of something. Made her think of something.
“This log cabin,” she said. “Where is it?”
He looked around. “Did someone say something just then? I mean, to me it sounded like someone just asked a question.”
“Lay off the bullshit,” Holly said. “This log cabin. Where?”
The guy stopped. Narrowed his eyes. “My brother, Callum. He has a log cabin in the middle of nowhere, over at the top of Beacon Fell. And he’s been prepping for this kind of crap for a long time. Always thought he was just mad, to be honest. Mum thought he was insane. But hey. Looks like he’s had the last laugh after all.”
Holly couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what to say. All she knew was… she knew of this log cabin. She’d seen it when she’d been to the Rocky Cliffs with her mum and dad. She knew it was legit.
“I’m not asking you lot to trust us,” the guy said. “I’m just… Look, I’ll start with my name. I’m Gordon. This is Brian and Alex.”
“Gordon?” Holly said.
Gordon narrowed his eyes. “What’s the matter with Gordon?”
“Nothing. Just… well. A weird name.”
“Gordon’s not a weird name.”
“Yeah, it really is,” Kumal said. “I mean, I swear I read somewhere that there hadn’t been any Gordon’s born since, like, the 1990s.”
“Well, I’m obviously the guy who bucks that trend,” he said.
“You learn something new every day.”
Holly looked at Kumal. Then she looked at Gina and at Harriet.
“What do you think?” Holly asked.
Kumal shrugged. “I can’t see how it can be any worse than where we’re stuck now.”
“Besides,” Harriet intervened, turning her attention towards the other group. “If they make one wrong step, I’ll make sure they regret it.”
Holly took a deep breath, then. And then she walked over towards the group, towards Gordon, towards his friends.
“You lead us to this log cabin,” she said.
“We’re heading that way anyway. We might as well—”
“But if you try anything… if any of you try anything…”
She didn’t finish what she was saying. She just looked Gordon in the eye, then Brian, then Alex.
All of them turned away first.
And then Holly clapped her palms together and smiled. “Right then,” she said. “Looks like it’s time we went on a little adventure.”
Mike
Mike watched the dishevelled man walk towards him and he knew he had to be willing to do whatever he could to make sure this didn’t become a problem out of his control.
