by Ryan Casey
Physically, anyway.
Mentally… well, that was a whole different story.
She walked into the woods. Right away, when she stepped inside, the smells of the fresh leaves hitting her, the echo that always accompanied rainfall, she felt like she was much more at ease. Like this had been a good decision; a decision she wasn’t going to regret.
Even if the traps she set were hopeless, she was out here, and that was progress.
As she walked, she tried to remember where the traps were that Jenny had laid. She thought about going back, asking her, but no. She was out here now. She might as well keep going.
But the further she got into the woods, the more her uncertainty grew. There was no sign of them. They couldn’t be that hidden, right? After all, Jenny said they were out there; that she’d find them if she looked.
She looked around. Looked at the tall trees. At the branches. At the space between them. Nerves started to creep through her. She rubbed her arms, throat tightening. She backed away, sensing somebody nearby, somebody watching.
And then she saw it.
A flash.
A flash of that child’s terrified eyes staring up at her, blood dripping from his neck.
A flash of his body being buried in the damp earth.
The worms eating away at his flesh.
A flash of him coming back, grabbing her, dragging her down with him.
Then, nothing.
She stepped back. Started to leave the woods. She was wrong. She didn’t have her shit together enough to be out here. She had to get back to the bunker. She had to…
That’s when she saw something else.
The trap.
She’d found it.
And there was a dead rabbit caught in it.
Alison felt a wave of relief. At least she didn’t have to go back empty-handed. At least she could say she’d achieved something out here.
She walked over to the trap. Crouched down beside the rabbit.
She saw that its eye had popped out, and that its neck was bloodied from the snare.
She recoiled. Staggered away. The memory of the child. The child whose name she didn’t even know. She’d just gone in there and killed him, just as Jenny killed the others.
She swallowed a lump in her throat, took a deep breath. She had to keep her shit together.
She removed the rabbit as carefully as she could. Then when she’d done that, Arya sniffing around, she got to work at setting up a new trap. It was quite a complex one, something Jenny had taught her that went beyond simple snares and deadfalls. It made use of the arrows that Jenny seemed so adept at making. It was a spring spear trap, where a long flexible piece of wood was tied to five other vertical, sturdier sticks, four of them on one end of the longer piece of wood and the other at the other end. A spear is attached to one end of the longer piece of wood, and a thin piece of wire is wrapped around it, which releases when the animal walks through it, impaling it right away.
It was messy. It was dangerous. And Jenny had a few close calls with the spear.
But eventually, with perseverance… she did it.
When she was done, she stood up. Brushed her hands together. She felt a sense of achievement. As hard as this was, she’d conquered it. She’d stepped over the hurdles, and she’d done what she had to do. She could go anywhere from here.
She went to turn around, to walk away, when she heard it.
There were voices.
And they were heading towards her.
She froze. Went totally still. The eyes of the woods were on her. The trees were spinning around her. She had to run. She had to get away.
“Arya,” she said. “Come on.”
But Arya didn’t come.
She was focused ahead.
Growling at something.
“Arya,” Alison said. “Come on. Right this second.”
And then it happened.
All in a blur.
A shout right ahead.
Arya running from Alison’s side, barking, leaping through the air like a wolf.
“Arya!”
Moving through the trees.
Panicked voices up ahead.
Alison wanted to move. She wanted to go after Arya. She wanted to get to her and get her out of trouble.
But then she heard it.
The loud barks.
The muffled, scared struggle of people.
And then the worst thing she could possibly imagine.
Alison heard Arya’s pained yelp.
Then the barking stopped.
Chapter Twenty
Gina had felt at home in David’s camp. She had felt like she could get used to this new sense of normality.
But ever since Kumal left… she was starting to wonder. She was starting to question.
That niggling urge to investigate was beginning to bloom inside her.
It was grim. The rain was pissing down. She was sitting outside under the shelter with a couple of others from the camp. She was chewing down on some of the meat that one of the group members had salvaged from a nearby field. The most succulent, delicious sheep she’d ever tasted.
Just strange she’d never actually seen any of the animals being slaughtered or learned where the slaughtering was going down.
She looked around at this place; at the grounds, at the fields beyond, at the empty little houses that could be re-habited. All of it was so great. All of it had the potential to be idyllic. A new world that she could believe in.
But… she couldn’t shake it since Kumal left a few days ago.
There was something different.
Something hidden about this place.
Something just out of sight.
“You okay, Gina, m’dear?”
Gina looked around. Saw David by her side, smiling. He was holding out a glass of water.
“I’m fine,” she said. “For water. For everything. Really.”
He sighed. Sat down beside her. “I’m sorry about your friend. Really, I am. If he has any sense about him, he’ll come back here.”
A bitter taste in Gina’s mouth. Caught up in two ideas: one, feeling the same suspicion as Kumal. Another, wanting to believe in this place. Because everything she’d seen was good. She hadn’t seen anything to the contrary.
And yet…
“I hope so,” Gina said. “I really do.”
David rose to his feet. He started to turn away. Then he stopped.
“Did he say anything?”
Gina frowned. “About what?”
He looked at her. And it was a look she hadn’t seen from David before. Like he was scanning her for the truth.
“About why he might be leaving?”
Gina swallowed a lump in her throat. “Just that he wasn’t settling in. That this life wasn’t for him.”
“And that’s all?”
Gina paused. Thought about what Kumal had told her. The uncertainty he’d felt.
The pub.
The Bull & Royal.
“That’s all,” Gina said.
David half-smiled. He patted Gina on her shoulder.
“Whatever happens, you’ve got us now. We’re your family. People come, and people go, but families never do. Don’t you forget that.”
He walked back inside the church, leaving Gina sitting on that step, staring off into the rain.
But as she sat there, as she stared, she knew deep down she couldn’t sit around anymore.
She couldn’t just blindly believe in this place anymore.
She looked over at the pub, all boarded-up in the distance.
She knew what she had to do.
She waited until night before she did it.
It was still raining heavily, which was on her side. She got up, grabbed a crowbar from the supply shed, and then looked around to make sure she was totally alone. It was pitch black, but her eyes were adjusting. She thought she could see movement, but she wasn’t sure.
She just put it down to a trick of the night.
>
She had to be quick.
She had to act fast.
She stepped out of the grounds of the church and onto the quiet main street of Woodbridgeton. And as Gina walked, she had to admit that Kumal was right. This place was eerie. It was weird how empty it was.
And it was especially weird and unlikely believing there was just somebody living in that pub, alienated from the rest of this community.
She walked closer towards it, feet drenched with the rain. She saw the cars that had been abandoned in the pub car park, their final visit to a place of such comfort. She walked across the yard, towards the window around the back.
That’s when she saw it was boarded up totally.
Kumal had said there was a gap in that window. Had the people inside boarded it up?
And if so… why had nobody seen anything?
Gina looked around again, just to make sure all was clear.
Then she stepped up to the window, and she pressed the crowbar against it.
Funny thing happened.
The door opened right away.
It wasn’t locked.
She frowned. Froze a little. Stood there, totally still. There was a smell coming from inside. A smell like… burning. Not fire burning. More like meat burning. A barbecue.
She walked inside, slowly, trying her best not to make a sound, trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible. She didn’t want to alert anyone inside. At the same time, she was just as cautious about alerting someone outside.
She stepped further within. Saw tables unoccupied, the seats barely moved, pints unfinished. Flies were buzzing around plates of food, which had been left half-eaten. She walked further through, into the main area. Saw pints sitting at the bar. A game of pool, unfinished.
She was about to walk into the main area when she saw them.
They were sitting by the back of the pool area. And at first, Gina thought they were just watching her, or sleeping, or something.
But they weren’t sleeping.
They weren’t dead, but they weren’t sleeping.
But something was wrong. Very wrong.
She went to back out of the room when she saw another.
She saw another. And another.
And it dawned on her.
The truth dawned on her.
The reality dawned on her.
Because the people in this pub weren’t dead.
At least, not all of them.
She looked at the dismembered leg, partly cooked, and she hurled up the contents of her stomach on that pub floor.
In her vomit, she saw the meat.
She staggered back. Kumal was right. She saw the pieces now; saw what they meant.
She had to get out of here.
She had to warn the others.
No—she had to just get away. She had to escape.
David did have a secret. A secret he was covering up.
And it was the worst secret of all.
The place he was getting his meat. His “prime stock.”
No wonder she’d never seen the sheep being slaughtered.
No wonder she’d always wondered why it didn’t taste anything like the lamb she was used to.
It was people.
These people.
She went to step out of the pub, frenzied, when she saw someone standing opposite her.
She stopped. Went to cry.
Then a smack over the head, and she hit the floor.
And all she could think about was the sickening truth; the bitter reality.
Kumal was right about this place.
Chapter Twenty-One
One moment, Holly had a bag over her head, total darkness surrounding her, screams muffled by the dirty sock in her mouth.
The next, the bag was dragged away.
And then there was light.
At first, her vision was blurred. She wasn’t sure how long she’d had that bag over her head. She wasn’t sure how long ago she’d been grabbed in the middle of the woods and dragged away. She just knew that she’d been travelling for a long time.
Some of the journey she’d made on foot. Other times, she’d been carried. She had no idea who the person with her actually was, only that they smelled of sweat. They must be male, too. She could tell that much.
She wanted to cry out for her dad this whole journey.
But she knew damn well her dad wasn’t going to find her.
She was weary. She’d barely eaten, barely drank. Whenever the man pulled the sock from her mouth, she tried to scream, to which he hit her, and then forced her to drink. It seemed like he was trying to keep her alive. Trying to keep her alive for something.
She dreaded to think what that something would be.
She’d stopped for a while a few times. Gone out to walk some more. She didn’t know whether she was walking anywhere in particular or just around in circles to disorient her. She just didn’t know.
But now the bag had been lifted from her head, and her eyes were finally adjusting to the light. She was surprised to find that she wasn’t in the woods. Far from it. She was in the middle of a town.
The town she didn’t recognise. It was hilly. The streets were like the streets of most towns—abandoned cars, smashed windows, graffiti sprayed on the walls. She even saw dead bodies in the distance, which flies buzzed around, and skinny dogs racing around the streets, stray now, wild now.
But there was something different about this town.
There was a small group of people in the streets. But they weren’t scrapping. They weren’t fighting. Nothing like that.
In fact, they all looked like they were on the same page. United.
Holly tried to speak, but the sock was still in her mouth. She tried to shuffle free, but she was weak, tired, and her ankles ached. She looked around, adjusting to everything around her. She was on some kind of bridge. A bridge that rested over the town below.
And then she saw him.
The man beside her was strange. He had flaky skin and hair that was patchy. His eyes looked wonky. The kind of guy that she’d do all she could to avoid back in the old world—and especially so in this new world.
“I have good news and bad news,” he said.
The group below—all of them looking up at her—muttered amongst themselves. But one thing was clear. They were all in awe of this guy. They were all believers in him, whoever the hell he was.
“The good news is… I found a new hunting ground!”
Whoops amongst the crowd. Cheers. Claps. Holly’s throat tightened. Her heart picked up. She knew the bad news was coming, and she had the feeling it had something to do with her.
“But the bad news…” the man said.
He put a hand on Holly’s back. She went numb. She sensed whatever news this guy had, it was coming. And she’d better be ready for it.
“The bad news is this girl here was a part of a group who torched our supplies. Who killed one of our people.”
Holly looked at him. Frowned. That wasn’t true.
She heard boos amidst the crowd. She heard hisses. Looked down, saw all these people looking up at her, shouting at her like she was some kind of demon.
“I wanted to show mercy,” the man said.
“No mercy, Paul!” someone in the crowd cried.
The man—Paul—looked like he was enjoying this, slight smile to his face. “I wanted to give this girl another chance.”
“No more second chances!”
“But I suppose I do have to leave it to you.”
Holly heard the cries erupt, then. She felt things being thrown at her. Bottles filled with warm, smelly fluid. She heard the curses. She heard the cries.
And then she saw something.
There were bodies. Bodies hanging below the bridge. Bodies with nooses around their necks, swinging from side to side. Some of them looked fresh. Some of them looked older.
But one thing was clear.
If she didn’t get out of here, she was going to be next.
<
br /> She looked around at the man. Saw the half-smile on his face, as the crowd demanded justice. And she saw something clear, then. This guy was sick. He was using other people—innocent people—to further his grip of power over these others. She hadn’t done a thing to hurt him. She could only assume nobody else hanging here had done a thing, either.
But that didn’t change matters.
It didn’t help her right now.
Knowledge did nothing but torture her even more.
“Sorry, little girl,” he said. “Looks like my mercy is lost on my people.”
Holly held still.
And then she booted the man in his balls.
Hard.
She spun around. Ran across the bridge. She heard the crowd erupting with anger. Behind, she heard the man’s footsteps getting closer.
But she had to keep on going.
She couldn’t stop for anyone.
She looked at the buildings up ahead. Looked left, and then looked right. She didn’t know which way to go. She didn’t know how to escape.
She just knew she had to try something.
She reached the turn in the road and went to run right.
That’s when she saw two people emerge up the steps, chasing after her.
She turned to her left.
The rest of the people were coming from that direction.
She looked back.
The man—the leader—was right behind her.
She stood there, shaking. Stood there as this mad town surrounded her. And at that moment, she felt fear. Total fear.
She went to throw herself through the window ahead of her.
But then the man behind grabbed her.
Dragged her away, kicking, trying to scream.
He put her at the edge of the bridge. The crowd below shouted, booed.
The man put a noose around her neck. Pushed her right to the edge.
“Today, another sacrifice is demanded,” he said.
Holly struggled. Tried to kick free. Tried to fight back.
The man pushed her further to the edge. “Today… another warning to anyone who stands against us.”
The sock came free. Just a little. “I didn’t,” Holly shouted. “I didn’t—I didn’t do anything. Plea—”
