by Ryan Casey
But even so, Holly got the sense that these people had been here a lot longer than they thought, just weighing things up, just waiting to strike…
The first thing that struck her was Gina. She was alive, which was a relief. But she had tape over her mouth now, and it looked like she’d been crying a lot. She thought about how trepidatious Gina was about everything—how uncertain she was about being pushed out of her comfort zone—and she felt sorry for her. So sorry for her.
She hoped that whatever happened, she could get Gina out of this. That these men would spare her.
There was something else though, too. Something beyond the men with the guns.
She wasn’t sure why because she could only see what the moonlight illuminated.
But deep down, she got the sense that someone else was out there.
That someone else was watching.
She didn’t know whether it was a good or a bad thing just yet. Maybe it was just a hunch. Who knows?
“We’re going to have to do something about this,” Kumal said.
“Wow,” Harriet said, her old snark returning. “Aren’t you a genius?”
“I’m just saying. Those people out there. They know we’re here.”
“You sure about that?” Harriet asked. “Callum. Did they see you?”
Callum looked distraught. It was like his haven was being glimpsed at for the first time, and he didn’t like it one bit. “I… I don’t know. I mean—”
“We can see you in there, you know?”
The voice brought the whole place to an anxious silence. Holly’s heart raced. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything at all.
“Now it looks to us like you’ve got a nice place set up for yourselves here. And if we’re not mistaken… you’ve got a motor, too. A working motor. That could have some serious value to it in these days, couldn’t it?”
“Shit,” Gordon said. “He knows about the fucking car.”
“So there’s a few ways this can go. And I want you to listen very, very carefully to these options ’cause you’re not going to get them again. Okay?”
Holly looked at Callum. Callum looked at Gordon. Nobody knew what to do, what to say.
“Okay,” the man said. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ Here it is. You’re going to step out of that nice little love shack of yours. You’re going to come outside, hands behind your heads, no funny business. And importantly, you’re going to show us how that car of yours works. You’re going to explain how it works. And when you have… well. Maybe we’ll let you live.”
Holly’s knees weakened. She looked around at the rest of the group. It was all she could do.
“And just to make it even clearer to you that this is serious, I’m going to count down from ten. If there’s nothing by the time we get to zero… well, I’m sorry to say but not one of you is gonna be left breathing. And neither is this girl here.”
Holly’s body tensed. Gina. She couldn’t let anything happen to her. She already felt guilty for what’d happened to her in the first place. And she was even thinking about that before what might happen to herself.
“Anyone got any ideas at all here?” Harriet asked.
Callum scratched his head, flakes of dandruff falling to the floor like snowflakes. “I—I think I have a plan.”
Gordon’s face turned. He stepped forward. “Bro?”
Callum turned to Gordon. He put a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t just sit back here. I… I can’t just watch as shit falls apart. I’ve got to try something. One of us has to.”
Gordon’s eyes watered. “But we need you.”
“Don’t be daft. You got here all by yourselves, didn’t you? You’re tougher than you think.”
He squeezed his cheek, winked.
“Things are going to be okay. I’m going to be okay. We’re going to sort this. Promise.”
He patted his brother on the back.
Then he took a few deep breaths and opened the door.
The second the door opened the men lifted their guns.
“Whoa,” the lead guy said, holding a hand in the air. “No need to welcome our new friends like that, is there?”
The men lowered their guns, with a little hesitation.
“Now if I remember rightly, I asked for you all to step out here, didn’t I?”
“We don’t have to fight here,” Callum said. “We… we don’t have to scrap for this world. We can work together. We’re going to build a farm here. A proper homestead, where people can come and survive. We’re going to rear some livestock. You can be a part of that. We—we can trade.”
The lead man’s face turned, a smile stretching across it. “Well isn’t that cute?”
And then he lowered his gun, pointed it at Callum.
“One problem,” he said.
The rest of his people lifted their guns.
“We don’t do sharing,” he said.
And then he pulled the trigger.
Holly’s vision blurred. Her senses faded.
All she could see was the explosions from the guns.
The flashing in the night sky.
And at the other side, Callum.
Gunshots pelting his body.
Blood spurting everywhere.
She heard Gordon scream. Saw him dragging himself to the door, only to be pulled back down to his feet by his friends.
But as she stood there, all she could do was watch.
Callum’s body dropped.
The men stopped firing.
And then the lead guy looked right at her.
“Unlucky,” he said. “Now we’re just gonna have to kill you all.”
Then he lifted his gun, and he fired at the log cabin.
Mike
Mike watched the gunfire splatter against the young lad and he felt every muscle in his body turn to stone.
The gunfire lit up the night. And in those flashes, he was taken back to when he was in Afghanistan. Taken back to the blast of gunshots, the shouts of terror. All of it hit him like gunfire itself, yanking him back to those awful times; back to those times he’d rather forget.
He heard the scream from the log cabin. The boy. The boy—brother or friend of the one who’d just fallen—who’d just been forced to watch that just happen. The boy who knew now, for certain, without any shadow of a doubt, what was coming next.
And he saw Holly, too. Saw the way she stared through that glass. Saw the way the lead man looked back at her too—right into her damned eyes.
And he felt his fists tensing. Because he wanted to make him pay. He wanted to make him pay for what he was doing.
He stepped up out of the bushes.
“Mike,” Alison said.
She grabbed his arm. Stopped him from going any further. “Mike, there’s nothing we can do.”
He looked back into her eyes. And as much as he knew she was just looking out for him, just trying to care for him, he shook his head. “I can’t accept that.”
He tried to step away again.
“Seriously, Mike,” Richard said. “That… that dude there. That was… that was Callum. That was my friend. I can’t… I can’t…”
And then he staggered backwards. Stumbled off towards the trees.
“Richard?” Alison said.
He shook his head. His eyes were entranced. He looked traumatised. Completely traumatised.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I—I can’t do this.”
“Richard—”
But it was too late.
Richard was already running off into the forest, off into the trees.
Mike watched him run. And he wanted to go after him. He wanted to make sure he was okay.
But then he heard more gunshots.
He swung around. Looked back at the house.
The men were getting closer. Nobody else had stepped out. They were trapped in there. His daughter and her friends were trapped in there. And they couldn’t do a thing to get out.
; “We’re going to try again,” the lead guy said. “Step out, hands above your heads… and maybe, if you’re lucky, we’ll let one of you live.”
No sign of life. No movement. Just knowledge that time was running out.
Mike closed his heavy eyes. He took a deep breath. He thought back to an Escape Room task he’d once done with his daughter. The final task. The way he had passed on the information to her while trapped behind a soundproof glass wall. The information she’d understood; that’d got them out.
“I need to try something,” Mike said.
Alison grabbed his arm. “No. You can’t go too.”
“I’ll be okay—”
“You saw what just happened. You saw what they just did to that—that kid.”
“I have an idea.”
“You can’t leave me on my own, Mike.”
Mike did something, then. Something that he wasn’t even expecting he’d be able to do himself.
He put a hand on Alison’s cheek, stroked her hair.
“Trust me,” he said. “Just… just trust me, okay?”
“But I—”
“You’ve made me realise there’s more to life than drinking. That there’s more to life than sticking my head in the sand and feeling sorry for myself. You’ve reminded me what it is to fight. And I thank you for that.”
He planted a kiss on her head, as awkward and as vulnerable as it made him feel.
Then he took a deep breath and turned back towards the house.
The men were approaching.
Getting nearer.
“If anything happens—” Mike said.
“Nothing’ll happen.”
“But if anything happens…”
Alison tightened her grip on his arm. “No. Nothing’s going to happen.”
He took a deep breath. Swallowed a lump in his throat.
And then he did what he had to do.
The only thing he knew how to do.
He stepped out of the woods.
Out into the open.
And then he opened his mouth.
“Hey!” he said.
The men stopped walking. They stopped firing. They turned around.
And at that moment, Mike knew it was time to put his plan into action.
He knew there was no turning back now.
This was it.
Holly
Holly watched as her dad emerged from the forest and she wasn’t sure whether she was seeing things or whether this was real.
It couldn’t be real.
It just couldn’t.
Could it?
The rain was lashing down now. She couldn’t see her dad properly. She just knew it was him because of his voice.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Stop that. You’re wasting your ammo.”
She didn’t know what he was doing. Didn’t know what he was playing at. And to be honest, although her friends in here were saying things—mostly panicking—Holly couldn’t focus on anything else.
Just her dad.
Her dad, approaching, hands raised.
She saw the way those armed men had their guns raised. She saw how they had their weapons pointed at him. She wanted to cry out. To tell him to back off. To go away. Because all he was doing was putting himself in danger.
She’d seen what these people had done to Richard. She’d seen how ruthless they’d been towards him; how unforgiving. She didn’t want to see her dad suffer the same fate, not right in front of her.
“And who the hell are you supposed to be?” the lead guy said.
Dad kept still. He was so covered by darkness that Holly started to wonder whether he even was her dad after all, or whether this was all just a big illusion; a big hallucination.
But then she heard him speak again, and her suspicions were confirmed. “The people in there. You don’t have to worry about them. In fact, I’d be very careful with them.”
Holly frowned. She heard Harriet mutter something like “what’s he think he’s doing?”
But she knew Dad. She knew he wouldn’t do something like this without a plan.
What was his plan?
What was he trying to do?
“I’m gonna ask you once more,” the lead guy said, raising his gun now. “Once more, then that’s it. Time’s up. And you’d be brave not to answer. Very brave. Okay? What the hell is your deal?”
A pause from Dad. Hesitation. Hesitation he couldn’t afford, not for much longer.
And then he spoke. “There’s no point going in all guns blazing. It’s not going to get you anywhere. Not unless you want to know how we’re going to get the engine burning.”
She heard the way he emphasised that last word. The “burning.” Of course, at first, she wondered what he was on about, why he was saying the things he was saying.
But there was a clue. Dad spoke in clues sometimes. It was a part of the way they communicated. A part of their deal. One element of connection they did have between them.
“A tunnel? And how the hell would you know that?”
“Because this is my place,” the man said. “And I want to smoke those bastards out of there just as much as you guys do.”
More confusion. The armed men clearly didn’t know what Dad was saying. And to be honest, Holly was struggling. Something about “burning”. Something about “smoking out.” Even the “blazing.” Could it have a meaning?
But what was he hinting at?
What was he suggesting?
“Why should we give a damn that you own this place?” the armed man asked.
“Because if you go in there and go all gun’s blazing—or if you kill me—you won’t ever really know about some of the things I’ve got hiding under the hood. And you won’t know about the generator, either.”
A pause. Silence. Silence in which Holly knew she should be trying something. But there were still people watching the house. Still people keeping an eye on her.
“The generator?” the lead guy said.
“You wonder why lights are burning in there? That’s the generator. And there’s so many more things about this place you’ll want to know if you want to get the most out of it.”
There was another silence, then.
But this silence was different.
Because in it, a light bulb flickered in Holly’s head.
Burning.
Smoking.
All of these things…
“I think Dad wants us to set this place on fire,” Holly said.
Harriet looked at her. Kumal looked at her. Everyone in the room looked at her. “What?”
“Just… I know it sounds mad. I know it sounds dangerous. But I think Dad’s trying to tell us to lure them in here. To burn it down.”
Gordon shook his head. “That’s madness.”
“Maybe it is,” Holly said. “But what else have we got? What else have we really got?”
Holly walked across the room. She grabbed some logs. Set them across the house.
Then she covered them with the petrol and the bioethanol fire-lighting gel, which was a real handy burner to have hold of, apparently.
She led it right the way up the stairs. Right to the back of the house. She couldn’t see Dad. Not anymore. But she knew he’d be out there. She knew he was up to something.
And if she’d understood his clues correctly, she knew he’d be leading them right here.
She reached the bedroom window right at the back of the house. It was quite a drop. Too much of a drop, that was for sure.
But she had to trust.
She had to have faith.
“Holly,” Harriet said. “I… I’m not sure about this.”
Holly grabbed Harriet’s hand. And then she looked at Kumal, at Gordon, and at Brian and Alex. “We have to have faith. We have to believe. Because—because I trust my dad. I trust that he’s got a plan. And I know he’d never want me to do something that he didn’t think we could get out of.”
Tears rolled down Harriet’s cheeks. Gordon looked traum
atised. Even Kumal—usually so calm, so measured—was cursing under his breath.
“We can do this,” Holly said. “Whatever’s going to go down… we can get out of this.”
She closed her eyes.
Held the match.
Then she waited.
Then, she heard the front door swing open.
Footsteps. Footsteps echoing as they stepped inside the house.
Several of them. One pair. Two pairs. Three pairs.
“So where is this generator, then?” the lead guy asked.
There was a pause.
And then there was a slam.
And at that moment, as shouts emerged, as gunfire peppered around the house… Holly took a deep breath.
She lit the match.
And then she threw it out of the room and watched as the blaze engulfed the log cabin.
Mike
Mike held the door and felt the tears streaming down his face.
He heard the gunfire. Felt specks of wood snapping off all around him as the men he’d locked inside the house fired blindly at him. He knew that any moment now, one of those bullets could just fire through, piercing through the wood and through his body in the process. He had to hope Holly had got his clue. That she trusted him.
But he hadn’t noticed any sign of burning. He hadn’t noticed any sign of anything.
So there was a good chance this could go wrong. Very wrong.
He heard more gunfire. Shouting.
“You’re a fucking dead man!”
And he knew they were right. He knew that he didn’t have long left at this rate. And neither did Holly. They were going to get to her before he could do anything. He had to get in there. He had to stop them before they hurt her. He had to…
Then he smelled it.
First, the burning smell. He’d never smelled fire so beautiful, so fresh. But it took him back. Dragged him back to a time he’d failed; a time he’d let his friends down.
And then he heard it.
The men started to shout. To scream, even. And as they screamed, more gunshots pelted around the house. But those shots were blinder now. They were even more wayward than they’d been before.
