by Ryan Casey
But now they came flooding out.
He cried for a while. Wished he had someone there with him. Because this loneliness, it wasn’t good for anyone. This lone ranger thing, it wasn’t for him.
But he had to pull himself together. He had to keep on going.
It was when he stood up that he saw it in the distance.
At first, he wasn’t sure what it was. Not exactly.
But then he smelled it.
Smoke.
A fire.
His stomach turned. His whole body wrenched. Because he could see where that smoke was coming from. He could see it, and he knew what was in that direction, roughly.
It was Woodbridgeton.
The place where David’s church was.
The place where Gina was.
He started to run, then. Because he didn’t know what was going down there. He couldn’t.
Only fire was never good news.
Not a fire that big.
He jumped over fences. He raced through streets. He didn’t stop to look left or right. He knew he was acting recklessly. He knew he should be more cautious, more careful.
But there was no time to waste.
He thought about Gina. The way he’d felt when he’d walked away. He did have feelings for her. He had feelings, and he wanted her to know. He was wrong to leave her alone there. He had to make her know the truth.
When he got closer to Woodbridgeton, it was dark.
He stopped right at the top of the street. Looked down at the church.
Because there was something off.
Something very wrong.
The church wasn’t on fire.
But somewhere else was.
The pub.
Kumal tensed his fists, then. Because as much as he wasn’t sure what was going on, he knew there was something with that church. Something hiding. A secret.
He just hoped Gina hadn’t gone in there.
He just hoped she hadn’t tried to find out what he’d tried to find out.
He moved further through the village. Those flames, they brought back memories. Memories of being trapped inside that burning cabin with Holly and the others. He missed them. Missed their company.
He just had to hope that Gina was okay.
He reached the pub. People were gathered outside, surprise on their faces, fear in their expressions. They were people he recognised. People who’d been a part of David’s group.
But Kumal didn’t see David.
And he didn’t see Gina.
He could feel the heat from the flames inside. He swore he could see movement, too. Movement, behind the wooden board, which had been torn down.
He moved towards it, looked inside.
That’s when he saw her.
Gina was lying on her back. She was holding up a hand.
David was standing over her.
“Gina,” Kumal said.
He went to step inside the pub. Because whatever was going on in there wasn’t good. David. The way he was standing over Gina. The way he was looking down at her.
He got inside the pub. The heat was intense. The smoke was making him cough and heave. But he had to keep going. He couldn’t give up.
When he got inside, that’s when he saw Gina wasn’t the only problem.
There were others in here. Except they weren’t standing. They weren’t the landlords David had spoken about.
They were chained up.
And some of them had parts of their bodies cut away from them.
Some of them weren’t even dead.
Yet.
Kumal felt sickness wash through him. He went to heave, realising what this was—realising what this awful secret was.
“You’ve done it now, girl,” David said, still focused on Gina. “You’ve buried yourself. You’ve dug your own grave, and now you’ll lie in it.”
And then Kumal saw her.
Gina looked right over at him. Blood trickling from her nostrils.
“Kumal,” she said.
David stopped. He turned around.
Looked at Kumal and then smiled.
“Oh, hello,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here.”
And then he brought his fist cracking down towards Gina’s skull.
There was a flash, then. A huge bang and eruption of light as one of the wooden beams from above went crashing towards the floor.
Kumal’s knees went weak. He felt himself tumbling down.
Because as the flames formed a barrier between him and Gina, all he could do was watch.
All he could do was stare.
Gina was on the ground.
Trapped behind the flames.
Trapped in the burning confines of this building.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The sun was at its midpoint, and Mike still hadn’t found a single trace of Holly.
He’d been walking all night and all morning. His feet were sore and blistered. His leg, which had only recently been stitched up after his horrible encounter with a wolf trap, was aching like mad, something the painkillers Claire had left him with weren’t doing much to help. But nothing was going to get in the way of his search. Nothing was going to stop him. He might be alone. She could be at the other side of the country to him for all he knew.
But he wasn’t going to get anywhere by sitting around and just hoping.
He was only going to get somewhere by being proactive.
He looked at the street he was walking down. It was a quiet street, just outside a village. It was always a pretty quiet place here compared to the towns and the cities, he knew that. But now, it was different. There was a different kind of silence to this place. An eeriness that was unmatched and could only be a part of this new world.
He looked at the buildings. Wondered if there was anybody at home here. Even if they were, what was he going to say? “Have you seen a sixteen-year-old girl with long, dark hair?” He was being ridiculous.
The best thing to do would be to back down and admit defeat.
The best thing to do would be to…
He took in a sharp inhalation. No. He wasn’t going to admit defeat. He might be on a wild goose chase. He might have to explore every single damned part of the country in hope of finding his daughter.
But if that’s what he had to do… well, he’d do it.
Holly was worth it.
He wasn’t going to be away from her forever. That just wasn’t going to happen.
The further he got down this street, the more his tension and trepidation started to rise. Because he swore there were people in the windows. People looking at him.
And with a rucksack like this over his shoulder, he knew he was pretty much advertising himself to be robbed.
He walked further down this street, picking up his pace. He’d been getting bad feelings for a while now. That madness that came with travelling alone, sparking up all kinds of fears, all levels of paranoia.
He took a deep breath. Looked all around. Reassured himself that he was okay. He was alone. He was going to be just f…
He stopped, then. He stopped because he saw it, right up ahead.
And when he saw it, he wasn’t sure what to say; what to think.
There was a pub in the distance. It looked like it had burned out.
And then there was something else.
A church.
Except there were people outside this church. People speaking to one another. Survivors.
Mike felt his fists tense. He had no idea who these people were or what their deal was. All he could gather was there was some kind of community here. Some group of survivors that had pulled together.
But the burned-out embers of that pub…
Mike started to back away. He was caught in two minds, in all truth. One of them wanted to go over to these people, to ask them if they knew about Holly… but then, they could be the people who had captured Holly. Which meant that maybe the better option was just to hold back, wait and analyse the situation before interc
epting this group himself.
He went to step away when something else caught his eye.
Or rather, someone else.
Mike couldn’t believe what he was seeing at first. He couldn’t believe who he was seeing. He put it down to sleep deprivation. Because this wasn’t possible. It was too much of a coincidence. Far too unlikely.
But the more he blinked, the more he focused, the more he realised the person he was looking at was real after all.
It was Kumal.
He started to move towards Kumal. He was sitting amongst this group of people. Except he was… well, he was distant from the others. Detached from the others.
The closer he got to Kumal, the more he started to wonder. The more he started to doubt. Something didn’t seem right here. Something seemed very wrong.
He started to move past the burned remains of the pub when he heard footsteps behind him.
He turned around. And when he looked, he saw someone standing there, police baton in their hand.
“You’re going to turn around,” this man said—although he was barely old enough to be called a “man” in all truth. More a lanky late teen boy. But hey. Everyone had to be a grown up in this world now. You wouldn’t still be here if you hadn’t grown up. At least this guy looked like he was defending what was his.
Mike lifted his hands slowly. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Us neither. Which is why you’re going to pretend you didn’t see a thing here, and you’re going to walk away.”
Mike could hear shakiness to this guy’s voice. And it made him wonder… it made him wonder whether there was a way he could reach out to him.
“I know one of the people in your group,” Mike said. “Kumal.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. He looked like he wasn’t sure whether to believe Mike or not—but at the same time, he must know that Mike couldn’t be bullshitting about Kumal. “How do you know him?”
“He’s a friend of my daughter’s,” Mike said. “We got split up on the road a few days back. All of us did. He—he was with two other people. A woman called Alison and a girl called Gina. There was a dog with them, too. Do you know anything about them?”
The man lowered his baton and sighed.
“The woman and the dog, I can’t answer for.”
Mike narrowed his eyes. “And the girl? Gina?”
The man looked at the burned out pub, sadness to his face. And Mike didn’t understand. Not at first.
Then it clicked.
The burned-out pub.
The look of regret on this guy’s face.
The way Kumal was sitting there looking so lost, so distant.
“No,” Mike said.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “But by the time we got in there, it was already too late.”
Mike felt the ground open beneath him.
He felt it swallow him up.
Gina was gone.
Another of his fellow survivors, gone.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alison didn’t move from her spot looking down at the bunker for quite some time.
The day was surging on. The rain had stopped falling, but there was that earthy smell to the air. A smell she always used to love, back in the day.
But a smell she’d never stop associating with death. Not after what she’d just watched happen to Jenny.
Not after what she’d done to Jenny.
The armed group had moved on from the bunker. They’d searched for her for a while, but then they’d taken supplies with them from the bunker and just kept on walking off in the opposite direction. Alison had wanted to go down there. She’d wanted to make those bastards pay for what they’d done to Jenny—or what they’d forced her to do to Jenny to spare her the terror of what they were going to do to her in her final, awful moments.
But she couldn’t.
She just stayed here. Unmoving.
She’d barely known Jenny, but it felt like she’d just lost a dear, close friend. After all, she was the closest person she’d been to these last few days. When she’d been alone for so many days prior, that really did mean something.
But now she was gone.
She was gone, and Alison was alone again.
She was…
Tension right in her gut.
“Arya,” she said.
She stood up. Rushed back towards the woods. Because she’d forgotten. She’d got so caught up in the situation that went down with Jenny—the horror that had unfolded—that she’d allowed herself to forget about Arya.
She felt so bad. So guilty. Because Arya had been wounded. She’d told Arya to stay put. Begged her not to go anywhere, just hoping she’d comply.
But time had passed. A lot of time had passed.
So who was to say the worst hadn’t already happened?
Who was to say Arya hadn’t gone completely?
Alison shook her head. She couldn’t think that way. She couldn’t afford to speculate like that. She had to just hope—pray—that Arya was okay. She had to hope she hadn’t left it too late to help her.
She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she had.
She ran into the woods. Lost all regard for her surroundings, for who might be nearby, for the fact that she could bump into anyone out here.
The further she got, the more she lost sense of where she’d actually left Arya. Her heart pounded. Her chest tightened. She was in here somewhere. She wasn’t far from the woods where she’d left her.
Or was she? Had she actually gone further into the woods than she’d thought?
Or had she got up? Had she tried to find Alison only to end up getting herself in more trouble?
She didn’t know.
She just needed to find her.
Alison kept pushing on. She was lost. She was disoriented. She felt pain inside over her change in circumstances.
She just had to keep her shit together a little while longer.
Just until she found Arya.
Then she could think about the next step. Then she could worry about what she was going to do; how she was going to progress.
She was about to keep on going when she saw it.
There was a bloody patch right in front of her.
She could see in the patch of grass that something had rested here, too. Not long ago at all.
And then it dawned on her that this was where she’d left Arya.
She looked up. Looked all around. Silence, except for the birds. No sign of Arya at all.
She called out her name.
Her voice only echoed through the woods.
Silence.
She stood there, then, bottom lip shaking. She’d told herself to be strong. She’d told herself to try and hold everything together. To remember what Jenny told her about survival—she had to own it. If she couldn’t own it, nobody was going to god-damned own it for her.
She looked ahead and saw something.
The blood. There were patches of it further ahead.
A path.
She tensed up. Because she knew what this was. And she knew that as horrible a thought as it was, she was going to find something at the end of this dark tunnel.
Arya had walked away.
She’d walked off into the woods.
Bleeding.
And she wasn’t going to make it.
Alison took a deep breath, told herself to be strong. She’d suffered so much loss already, and that should have broken her. It should have rendered her frigging unable to do anything.
But she’d found a way to push forward.
She’d found a way to fight through.
She could take another loss.
She could deal with another tragedy.
She had to tell herself that.
She had to believe it.
She followed the trail of blood, fully aware of what she was going to encounter, fully braced for what to expect. She thought about the first time she’d met Arya. The way she’d sat beside her poor, deceased owner. The way
she’d looked at her, right from the off. Like she trusted her.
She’d given Arya a chance.
And Arya had been her loyal companion through all this chaos.
She wasn’t sure what she’d have done without her.
She moved further along. She saw the bushes ahead, thickening. She couldn’t have made it far, not with a wound like the one she had.
She had to be close.
She…
She saw the movement in the bushes.
Rustling.
What sounded like a whimper.
And at that moment, Alison knew.
She wiped the tears building in her eyes. Then she forced herself to step forward.
“It’s okay, Arya,” Alison muttered, her throat tight and her voice shaky. “I’m here for you now. It’s okay.”
She stepped beyond the bushes.
And when she looked, what she saw wasn’t exactly what she expected.
Arya was there.
And she wasn’t alone.
“Gina?” Alison said.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mike sat in front of the church and tried to wrap his head around everything Kumal had told him.
It was late afternoon. He’d managed to grab a bit of sleep, thanks to the generosity of one of the guys running the show here. Apparently, things had changed very quickly. There used to be a guy called David running this place.
But something had happened. Something that changed everything.
“I left because this place gave me the creeps. When I got back, I saw the pub was burning. I went in there. Found… found this David standing over Gina. I tried to go for him. Tried to stop him. But it was already too late. The flames and the smoke were too thick.”
Mike felt so uneasy when he heard those words. Mostly he felt pure sympathy for Gina. She’d been through so much already. She’d survived so many times—proven her survival instincts, repeatedly.
But in the end, she’d found herself taking a step too far. She’d survived too many times.
Nobody had nine lives.
“Some of the guys here dragged me out,” Kumal said. “I was lucky to survive. But—but I told them the truth. I told them what I’d seen in there. I didn’t trust anyone here but… but they made a promise not to let things go south again. They insisted they didn’t know what was happening behind their backs, what David was doing. At least… most of them didn’t know, anyway.”
