by Ryan Casey
“Let us out!” the man cried. “Let us the fuck out!”
He listened to the crying of the men. Felt the door ahead of him heating up. And he felt a mixture of emotions. But the overriding emotion, above anything, was one of pride.
He was proud of Holly.
He was proud of how intelligent she was. How clever she was.
He was proud that she’d understood exactly what he wanted her to do.
He looked over his shoulder. Saw the girl with the tape over her mouth. Gina, he thought her name was. She was sitting there on her knees, eyes wide, staring at the scene. She looked shocked. Totally traumatised. Poor kid.
But at least now she was okay.
He listened as the shouting and the crying out got louder. He was sure that all of that shouting was coming from downstairs.
But there was still someone pushing at the door.
Still someone trying to get out.
The longer they pushed, the less time he had to get to Holly.
The longer they pushed, the less time he had to—
Then the door collapsed.
The leader of the group staggered out. Gun in hand.
He lifted it. Pointed it at Mike.
And as Mike prepared to roll out of the way… he noticed something else.
This man was on fire. He was burning all over. His friends were in flames in the room behind him, screaming and writhing.
This man was still walking. Gritting his teeth as his face melted away. As he held on to the gun with his shaking hand.
He looked at Mike with a glare of pure hate, of pure disdain.
And then the gun fell to the ground and the man followed not long after.
He lay at Mike’s feet, his skin burning from the muscle, the muscle from the bone. And as Mike watched him lying there, twitching, he heard the voice in his head telling him that this was it. He’d done it. The plan had worked.
But then he heard a shout from upstairs.
He stood up. Walked towards the front door.
And then he froze.
The memories.
The memories of the war zone.
The memories of that building where his friends had died.
The fire that he’d been forced to battle through in order to get to his friends, to stop them from falling.
How he’d not been able to go in there and help his friends after all.
How he’d left them, all along.
He remembered the guilt he’d felt for that. The guilt he felt to this day.
And then he remembered the guilt he felt for what’d happened to Caitlin, too. The way he’d been by her side. The way he’d tried to keep it together for her sake.
The way he’d failed, and how that’d had an impact on Holly.
He stood there and he felt his fears swallowing him up, engulfing him.
Then he took a deep breath and shook his head.
“No,” he said.
He stepped inside the house. But it was already an inferno. The flames were hot, so much so that if he stepped any further inside, he was sure his skin would just melt away.
He looked at the staircase. It’d crumbled down. There was no getting up there and there was no getting down there. He needed to try something else.
“Get to a window!” he shouted.
He listened for a response, heart pounding.
But there was none.
“Holly! If you’re up there, get to a window!”
Again, there was no response.
But he just had to hope they’d heard him.
He just had to hope he’d done enough.
He rushed around the side of the house. Looked up at the window. Nobody there.
Then he rushed around the back. Still, nobody there.
He started to regret his plan. Started to dread that it hadn’t been the right call at all. In one fell swoop of trying to kill the people who attempted to harm his daughter, he’d destroyed a perfectly good log cabin and killed his daughter in the process—
No!
He couldn’t think that way.
He swallowed a lump in his throat. Held his breath, as he looked up at that back window.
And he found himself praying.
Praying to whoever was up there that he caught a break.
Praying that his daughter was still alive in there, as the glow of the flames flickered through the window.
Praying that God would help him pull through.
“Please,” he said. “Please. Not again. Not someone else. Not…”
And then he saw something.
Movement.
Movement at the window.
The window opened.
Someone appeared at it. Not Holly, but someone else. A guy.
He was covered in soot. His eyes were droopy. He looked an awful lot like a younger version of the guy Mike had watched die on the doorstep of this place.
“Look after them,” he said. “Keep… keep them safe.”
And then something remarkable happened.
The guy lifted a girl and threw her out of the window.
Mike grabbed her. But she was too heavy. When she hit him, he fell to the ground.
He looked at her. “Holly. It’s okay. It’s…”
But when he saw her… he realised it wasn’t Holly.
It was someone else. A blonde.
Tears streaming down her face.
Mike looked up again. He saw there was another guy at the window. An Asian guy.
And he saw there was something different about this guy.
He was holding someone in his arms.
“Holly,” Mike said.
The Asian guy stepped onto the window ledge. He steadied himself. Shook his head. “I—I don’t know if I can make it.”
Mike scanned the drop. It was a long one, but it wasn’t impossible. “You can do it,” he said.
The guy shook his head. “I—I—”
“Trust me. You can do this.”
The guy closed his eyes. Paused.
And then he stepped out of the window.
Mike didn’t care that the guy would knock him down. He didn’t care that he could do some serious damage, break a few bones.
Because this guy was holding on to his daughter.
He took the full weight of the guy, trying his best to cushion his fall.
He fell to the ground. Felt his arm tweak out of place. Felt his neck smack against the dirt.
But he didn’t care.
Dizzily, he clambered onto his front.
Looked at the guy, who seemed to be okay.
And then he looked at his daughter.
She was lying on the ground.
She was covered in smoke and soot.
And as the log cabin crumbled apart, he noticed something else.
Something horrifying.
Holly was unconscious.
And she wasn’t breathing.
Holly was gone.
Holly
Holly felt the darkness closing in.
And for the first time in her life, she found herself moving towards it, slowly, slowly.
She didn’t know what time it was. She didn’t know whether it was warm or cold. It felt like all feelings, all senses, had just morphed around her and she didn’t really have a sense of her body anymore; a sense of where she was.
She just knew that she was someplace that she wasn’t going to get back from. Not easily.
She took a deep breath. She could smell something. Burning. Why would she smell burning? What had been burning?
She could taste burning, too. Burning and blood. She wanted to cough. She wanted to clear her throat.
But she felt too weak.
She felt like she had no energy at all.
She felt herself sinking further and further into this darkness. Because although she was a little afraid of it… she thought it felt nice, too. It felt warmer now. And the more she gave in to it, the warmer she got.
And then suddenly, out
of nowhere, a light.
The light was bright. It was uncomfortable. She wanted to push back against it. She wanted to resist it.
But in that light, she could see someone.
Someone she loved.
“Dad,” she said.
She could hear Dad saying things to her. Hear him crying out to her. Hear him begging her to stay with him, to keep fighting, to keep pushing.
But the darkness felt much nicer than the light. The darkness felt more comfortable.
So she kept on sinking into that.
And the further and further she descended, the further and further she morphed with the darkness, she realised something else.
The darkness was Mum.
She smiled when she felt Mum’s presence. She’d missed her so much. She loved Dad loads, but there was nothing that matched her and her mum’s relationship. They went shopping together. They stayed up late watching rubbish films together. They spoke about boys together.
And Holly wanted that. She wanted it again. Even if it meant pushing back against the light. Even if it meant drifting further and further into the darkness…
But then she heard something else. Her dad’s voice. He was saying something to her. Something clearer, now.
“I’m sorry, Holly.”
She didn’t understand what he was apologising for. Not at first.
But then she saw a flash.
A flash of light.
And in that flash… she saw the last few months, and she understood.
Mum dying.
Dad turning to drink.
Dad losing interest in her.
Dad falling further and further down a hole that he was fighting to get out of.
And she felt bad. She felt bad that he hadn’t been there. She felt bad that he hadn’t helped her because she’d been hurting too.
But at the same time… she felt sorry, too.
Because she could’ve done more for Dad as well.
She could’ve been there for Dad more.
She could’ve helped him more.
She felt the light growing as she lifted herself towards Dad. But it was painful. Moving towards that light was painful, and sinking into the darkness wasn’t. Sinking into that darkness felt peaceful. Sinking into the darkness meant being with Mum again. Sinking into the darkness meant…
Then it became clear to her.
The choice ahead.
The fork in the road.
Two paths.
She could fight.
She could rise up.
She could face the world—harsh as it was—with Dad.
Or she could fall into the darkness.
She could be with Mum again.
But Dad would be all alone. Broken. Finished.
She wanted to be with Mum. She felt Mum’s warm caress surrounding her.
But as she felt that caress tightening, she found herself resisting even more.
“No,” she said.
She gritted her teeth. Went to reach a hand up.
“Please, Holly!” Mike shouted, as he did chest compressions on his daughter’s lifeless body. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please!”
She reached her hand even higher. But the darkness was getting more stubborn now. It was getting more resistant.
Mike felt the tears dripping from his face. He didn’t want to give up. “Please.”
And then as Holly made one final push, the darkness reached up again. Grabbed her by the shoulders. And she realised, now she was staring it well and truly in the face, that the darkness wasn’t Mum at all. The darkness was something else entirely.
So she pushed with all the strength in her rapidly weakening body, and she let out a cry.
“Please,” Mike said.
He stopped. He stopped because Kumal’s hand was on his arm. He looked up at Kumal. There was a defeated look on his tear-soaked face.
“It’s over,” he said. “She’s… she’s gone. She’s fucking gone.”
Mike looked at his daughter. And he felt the pain he’d experienced losing Caitlin all over again. He felt that pain rising to the surface once more.
The darkness pulled Holly down.
She needed to hear Dad’s voice again.
She needed him to keep on fighting for her.
And then Mike remembered something.
He remembered how he’d given up on Holly before. How he’d told himself he’d never stop fighting. Ever.
“Come on,” Kumal said, patting Mike on his back. “Let’s move her away from here. Let’s—”
“No,” Mike said.
He went back to doing chest compressions. He blew into her mouth, timing the breaths and the compressions perfectly. And as he did, this time, he felt it with his heart. This time, he believed.
“Come on, Holly.”
Holly saw her dad again, the light getting closer, her arm stretching out further.
“Come on, Holly. You’re tough. You’re my girl. You can do this.”
Stretching out of the darkness, into the light, into the—
“Come—”
And then, out of nowhere, there was a cough.
One Day Later…
Mike looked at the embers of the house and took a deep breath of the morning air.
It was a beautiful morning. The kind of morning at the Rocky Cliffs where he used to wake up with Caitlin, emerge from the tent and have a mindful moment just aware of the sun. He used to love those mornings, as much as Caitlin complained about how early he’d woken her up, and how when you’d seen one sunrise, you’d seen them all.
He knew she didn’t mean that, of course. She used to love witnessing that sunrise over the country, over the towns, just as much as he did.
It was their thing.
And then Holly had come along. They brought Holly along too. She became a little regular to this place. When she was young, she used to be the one waking Mike up even earlier, convinced that she could see the sun beginning to rise, when in fact it was just one light or other sparking in Blackpool.
Again, he’d complained at the time. He’d told Holly not to wake him and her mum up so early.
But looking back—reflecting—Mike missed those moments, too. Because it showed just how much of a chip off the old block his daughter really was. It showed just how similar she was to him, and how much she cared about the same things he cared about.
He saw how interested he used to be in his daughter’s interests. And it showed how much his interest in those interests had gone by the wayside since.
He felt regret for that. He really, really wished he’d made that final ballet performance of his daughter’s.
“You okay, Dad?”
Mike looked around and saw Holly standing beside him. She was bruised. Her hair was greasy. She’d seen better days.
But in this sunlight, he never thought she’d looked any more beautiful.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“What’re you thinking about?”
He swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. He didn’t want to burden Holly with his worries.
But then, at the same time, he knew that was exactly part of the reason they’d drifted so much since Caitlin’s death.
He needed to be more open. More honest.
He needed to let her in.
“I was thinking about that time you jumped on my chest in the middle of the night when we were camping here because you thought you saw a bear.”
Holly laughed. And Mike laughed, too.
“Remember what Mum said?” Holly said.
“She said there was only one grizzly in the tent and that was her because we’d woken her up.”
They laughed some more. And in that laughter, as the sun beamed against them, Mike felt like they were healing.
“Do you ever think the sadness will stop?” Holly asked.
Mike looked at her. Pulled her close and hugged her. Then he looked back at the view over the cliffs. “I don’t think it’ll ever stop. But it’ll get be
tter. Every single day, it’ll get better.”
They walked back to the burned down house, then. And when they got there, Mike had the awkward pleasure of being introduced to Holly’s friends all over again. There was Harriet. There was Kumal. And there was Gina, who’d been saved from the clutches of that awful group.
There’d been others, too. A guy called Callum and his brother, Gordon. Brian and Alex. But they’d passed away in the fire.
That was something Mike would never forget. He’d never let their memories die in vain.
They’d always have a special place in his heart.
“So, what now?”
Mike looked around and saw Alison beside him. And beside her, Richard, who’d decided to jog back after all after his moment of shitting himself in the woods.
Mike looked at Arya. He looked at Richard. He looked at Holly’s friends, at Alison, and then at his daughter.
Then he turned around and looked out over the cliffs; out at the EMP-struck, post-electric world.
“Now’s where our journey really begins,” he said.
Want More from Ryan Casey?
Surviving Sundown, the sequel to Into the Dark, is now available to pre-order on Amazon: http://smarturl.it/SurvivingSundown
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any reference to real locations is only for atmospheric effect, and in no way truly represents those locations.
Copyright © 2018 by Ryan Casey
Cover design by Damonza
