by Ryan Casey
The sun had receded behind a rare bundle of clouds. The morning was turning from early to late far, far quicker than Mike could ever have imagined. Before he knew it, it’d be dark again, and he’d face another night on the road. Or rather, a chance of rest, of sleep, which he knew Alison and he needed to take eventually—as did Arya.
But right now, there was an obstacle in their way.
An obstacle in the way of his hopes of getting out of the city, of getting towards the countryside.
And that obstacle came in the form of this man walking towards them, sharp shard of metal in hand.
He listened as the man’s footsteps crunched against the ground. He saw that he was walking funnily. He was wearing strangely expensive looking clothing, which didn’t match well with his demeanour at all.
“Oh shit,” Alison said.
Mike looked at her. “What?”
“This guy. I know him. He’s one of the vagrants from town. John Walker.”
“John-bloody-Walker? Like, seriously?”
“You’d better believe it.”
“Should we be worried?”
“He’s not the nicest of guys. Gets a lot of other homeless people into troublesome situations after taking them under his wing. A lot of them go onto the streets just in need of a home and then end up sticking needles into their arms every day of the week. He’s a bad influence.”
Mike looked back. And he saw the man step right towards him.
“That’s far enough,” he said.
John smiled. “I don’t think it is. See, it looks to me like you’ve got some nice clothes on you. And in that bag there I’ll bet you’ve got some nice kit, don’t you? So why don’t we just get this done with? You hand your stuff over and there doesn’t need to be any trouble.”
“John,” Alison said. “It’s me. Alison Crealey, from the police. We’ve met. I’ve locked you up a few times. No need for any of this.”
John’s eyes narrowed, like he was trying to figure out whether he remembered Alison. And then they lit up. A smile stretched across his face. “Detective Crealey. Of course! I knew you were familiar. How you keeping? Don’t suppose work’s on the cards today what with all this blackout shit?”
“Maybe not in the conventional way,” she said. “But we won’t have anyone wandering around with blades, either. So put it down. There’s no need for any kind of drama here. We’re all just trying to get by in our own ways.”
John looked from Alison to Mike. Mike wasn’t exactly in the mood for going along with Alison’s line of conversation. He just saw John as a guy in the way right now, and nothing more.
“Who’s the dog?” John asked, smirk on his face.
“This is Arya. And she’s really bitey. So that’s another reason for you to play nicely.”
“I didn’t mean the bitch. I asked who the dog was.”
Mike realised then that John was talking about him.
“He’s—”
“Who I am doesn’t matter,” Mike said. “What matters is you move the hell out of our way and let us pass, or there’s going to be trouble.”
John’s eyes widened. He started to laugh. He walked another few steps towards Mike and Alison. “Trouble! Oh, wow. Trouble. I mean, we wouldn’t want any trouble, would we? After all, I’m the one holding the blade here, and you’re the one standing there with a dog I know is soft as shit.”
Damn it. John must’ve known the homeless guy who owned this dog. The fact he knew she was soft had them at a disadvantage.
John kept on walking towards them. And it wasn’t long before he was too close for comfort. Mike didn’t like it when people were threatening like this. He always saw possibilities of how he was going to react—options opening up in front of him.
And right now, one option was becoming abundantly clear.
It just wasn’t an option he wanted to take.
John stepped right up to Mike. He smiled. Mike could see his teeth were rotting, and could smell his putrid breath. Large patches of his hair were missing, and his eyes didn’t look like they were totally focusing correctly.
“You might have a way of making friends that’s different to how I make friends,” John said. “But one thing you should know is that you just made a big mistake by talking to me like you did.”
“And you made a big mistake breathing in my face with your awful breath.”
John’s eyes narrowed, then. It looked like he’d taken a turn. Like he’d actually taken Mike’s words quite personally, and that this whole standoff had been elevated.
Alison sighed. “Come on, fellas. Play nicely.”
“You need to train your dog better,” John said. “Wouldn’t want him to get hurt.”
“We wouldn’t,” Mike said, holding his ground, holding his stare. “And we won’t be the ones getting hurt.”
John smiled then. And he moved right up to Mike’s face. “You know, yesterday, I might’ve let this pass. Yesterday, a police officer beside you, I might’ve just let it go and walked away. But you’ve no idea how long people have been stamping me down. You’ve no idea how long people have been telling me what to do, again and again and again.”
“John,” Alison said. She looked a little fearful now. “Don’t.”
John didn’t even glance at her. He just kept his attention on Mike. “A friend told me something once. There’s a saying. If you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say it at all. Only that’s bullshit. It’s not about not saying it. It’s about being willing to own the things you have said when the time comes to defend them.”
Mike held his ground. Held his breath. Held everything. “Try me.”
John smirked a little. Let out a laugh. His eyes drifted to Alison.
“John,” she said. “Step away, right this second.”
He shook his head, sighed. Then he looked back at Mike. “And we were getting along so nicely.”
He stepped back.
But Mike saw it coming before it even happened.
John lifted the piece of metal and swung it at Mike.
Mike stepped to the right. He tripped John up. He felt himself honing in, focusing, returning to how it used to be, the way he used to act; the instinct of an impending kill, back when he was on tour in Afghanistan.
John fell to the road.
Mike wrapped his arm around his neck.
“Mike!”
But Alison’s voice didn’t break through.
Instead, Mike was back there.
Back in that burned out building.
Back where he’d found his friends, butchered.
Back with his arm around the neck of the person who was responsible.
“Mike!” Alison shouted. She grabbed him. Tried to pull him away.
But it was already too late.
Mike twisted John’s neck to the right.
He heard a snap.
A brief struggle.
Then, John went still.
And suddenly Mike was back in the present day.
There was a silence to the air. The birds weren’t singing. The sun peeped through the clouds, emerging once again.
Alison stood there, disbelief on her face.
“What…” she said.
And it was all she could manage.
John lay dead on the floor in front of Mike.
Neck snapped.
Sharp blade by his side.
Holly
Four hours passed and they still hadn’t reached the log cabin.
They’d made their way out of the inner city, which was something. The afternoon sun had been suffocated by clouds now, bringing a chill over Holly. She figured she was still just cold from last night, when she’d slept in the woods, under the stars. That kind of setup took a while to recover from, really. She wondered if she’d ever be warm again—properly warm. Whether she’d feel the warmth from heating or a hot bath. Or whether she’d just be relying on the warmth of an occasional fire, now.
Whatever the case, she was l
ooking forward to getting to this log cabin at the Rocky Cliffs. She was looking forward to starting a new life—however long this blackout lasted.
And she was hoping that by chance of a miracle, her dad would be up there waiting for her.
She looked at the fields either side of her. She could see farms in the distance, and cattle chewing down on the grass. They had no idea the world had changed. As far as they were concerned, this was just a normal day like any other.
Only it was more likely they were going to be killed for meat. After all, people were going to become desperate. People were going to steal.
It wouldn’t surprise Holly if the vast majority of farm animals were gone after the first few weeks—aside from those raised by the people starting new communities of their own.
She took a deep breath of the fresh summer air. Her mouth was dry, and she kept burping up stomach acid. She felt a lot better than she had earlier though. Gina looked better too. Whether it was some kind of nuclear radiation or just the shock of their new circumstances—and the shock of losing Benny—she didn’t know. It was just a relief that she was getting out of the suffocating city.
She wondered about the other people trapped there and felt her stomach turn. There’d be so many people locked inside their own homes, waiting for things to get back to normal; waiting for things to resolve all by themselves.
But Holly knew well that things weren’t going to play out that way.
She knew that they were the people who were putting themselves at the biggest disadvantage of all.
Holly looked at Gordon as she walked further. Despite her initial reservations, he actually seemed like a reasonable guy. He was from Wigan and was in his early twenties. He was studying English with Creative Writing down at the University of Nottingham and had come home for a break when the blackout struck.
“Guess that puts my graduation on hold,” he said. “But hey. I never really was a fan of the hats anyway.”
Holly smiled as she walked beside him. Her feet were sore, and she was ready for some kind of rest and food.
She remembered some of the techniques her dad had taught her, already thinking about long-term survival, about what to do if the power stayed out. Dad had taught her something once. Nothing too fiddly—practical application of setting a trap, of catching an animal.
One of the most important animals to catch—grim as it may sound— was squirrels.
Once they find a route, squirrels tend to stick to it. All that needs to be done to catch one? Prop a stick against a tree and get them used to climbing up that way. Wrap a few snares on the wood, with a noose of about ten centimetres, and they’ll walk right into it.
And with the way that squirrels tend to leap when they feel trapped… well, let’s just say it’s a pretty effective noose.
Grim, but something to bear in mind.
If only Holly remembered more of what Dad taught her.
“What’s your story anyway?” Gordon asked, smile on his gap-toothed face.
Holly looked away. “It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got a long time.”
“Really? I was kind of hoping we were nearly there.”
“Sorry to disappoint, kiddo. Bit of a trek to go yet.”
Holly looked over her shoulder. Gina, Harriet, and Kumal were walking with Brian and Alex.
She didn’t want to open up to Gordon. But at the same time, she didn’t see any harm in doing, either.
“I lost my mum a few months back.”
“Oh,” Gordon said. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Unless you were involved.”
He looked down, clearly a little uncomfortable. “It’s just… Well, I know how you feel.”
“Oh,” Holly said, cheeks flushing. “Well, I’m sorry too.”
“Never mind me,” he said. “I’ve had plenty of time to deal with my screwed up life. How’re you holding up?”
Holly had to admit that learning there was some dysfunction in Gordon and his brother Callum’s lives went a long way to explaining why his brother was living in some derelict remote cabin at the top of a hill, that was for sure.
“It’s been tough, I can’t lie. And my dad… he hasn’t taken things too well.”
“Where is your dad?”
Holly stopped walking. Swallowed a lump in her throat.
“Holly?”
She thought about Dad. About where he might be. About how he might be getting on in this world. About how he just had to be on the way to the same place as them. He just had to. She had to believe.
But at the same time… that doubt kept on taunting her, rearing its ugly head time and time again.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Sure. But if you want to talk about it…”
“I said it doesn’t matter, okay?”
She walked further. Alone. And before she knew it, she was slowing down again, that longing to open up bubbling under the surface.
“I just… I feel like he was so broken by what happened to Mum that he never really thought to ask how I was coping. To check how I was.”
Gordon slowed down, by Holly’s side again now. He sighed. “People grieve in different ways. But I know one thing for sure.”
“What’s that?”
He smiled. “He raised a pretty kickass daughter. He’ll be proud of you.”
Holly felt something, then. A welling up in her chest and throat. Because it felt like that’s what she wanted to hear. Like that was all she’d needed to hear, all this time.
“I guess I’ll never find out,” she said.
Gordon’s smile widened. “I’d say there’s a good chance that one day you…”
He stopped. And Holly didn’t know why. Not at first.
Not until she turned and saw where he was looking, fear on his face.
There was a bunch of people on the road ahead.
Only there was something different about them.
Something that sent chills up Holly’s spine.
“Are they what I think they are?” Kumal asked.
He didn’t have to say it for Holly to know exactly what he was talking about.
These people were holding guns. Long, military-style guns.
And then one of them turned and looked right into Holly’s eyes.
Mike
Mike and Alison didn’t speak much after the incident with John a few miles back.
The sun was high in the sky now, beaming down through the clouds. Mike could feel the skin on the back of his neck burning, and he knew he’d have to stock up on some sunscreen eventually. That was one of the things people took for granted really. They remembered food, they remembered things to keep them warm. But it was the basics like toothpaste and sunscreen that were really going to be forgotten.
For that reason, Mike was pretty confident he was going to be able to find some a little further down the line. He didn’t imagine tan protection was going to be top of many people’s lists when they were slowly starving to death.
Mike sat opposite a fire. On it, he was heating up a pan of water and some noodles. He knew a few ways to set fires in the wild—one of them was the traditional method, with matches and sticks. But there were other methods, too. Methods that went beyond the cliched rubbing of sticks together that you saw in films and the like.
Alison was keeping quiet. She hadn’t said much. And she didn’t even seem too enthusiastic about eating. That was, of course, a problem.
But whatever the issue here, Mike knew his goal. He was going to keep on heading towards the Rocky Cliffs in the countryside, right at the top of Beacon Fell, where he hoped he’d find his daughter. He knew that she held that place dear, and she’d hinted at it on her note to him.
But at the same time, he’d seen how people were acting already. He’d seen the levels they’d sunk to, just a day into the event. And he found himself praying to whoever was up there that wherever she was, Holly was safe.
He didn’t even enter
tain the idea that she might not be at the Rocky Cliffs. Because without that hope, without that goal in mind, he had nothing.
He looked up from the fire, the noodles bubbling away. “You fancy some of these?”
Alison glanced up at him. Her eyes were wide. She looked at him differently than before. Like she’d stopped trusting him all over again.
“Well,” Mike said. “Never mind. More for me and Arya, then.”
Arya tilted her head and walked over to the noodles from Alison’s side. Talk about loyalty.
Mike served the noodles up. He kept some aside for Alison because he knew she’d want some eventually. She needed to eat. Everybody needed to eat. She had to keep her strength up.
“What happened,” Mike said. “Back on the road.”
“You mean you breaking a man’s neck?”
“He was about to hurt us.”
“I could’ve handled it.”
“Alison, he had a sharp piece of metal. He was swinging it at me.”
“You didn’t have to kill him. You… you didn’t have to sink to his level.”
Mike sighed. “I did what came natural to me.”
“Breaking necks like that comes natural to you? Who are you, Mike? Who are you really?”
A feeling washed over Mike, then. Like the reality of his life was opening up in front of him, being revealed once and for all. “We don’t have to talk about that.”
“We do. Because if we’re travelling together, I want to know who I’m with isn’t going to just decide to break my neck on a whim.”
Mike smiled. “If you stay on my good side, you’ll be fine.”
Alison didn’t look like she’d got the joke.
Mike sighed, then. Because as much as he didn’t want to dig into his past, he didn’t see any other option right now. She had him cornered.
“I used to be in the military,” Mike said.
Alison’s eyes narrowed as the fire crackled between them. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
A flash came back to Mike. A flash that filled him with dread, made him twitch. “I… I saw some things. Went through some rough things on a tour of Afghanistan. I was young. Didn’t really understand what I was getting into. But anyway. We were on duty in Kabul one day. Found ourselves in this weird old building. Felt off right from the start. My friends, my colleagues, they went on in and told me to cover the outside just in case. Next thing I knew, gunshots.
