by Ryan Casey
Ten minutes later, Mike fell back into the snow.
Fred was gone.
Another victim to the winter.
Another victim to this world.
Chapter Three
Holly raced through the trees after her prey, knife in hand.
It was afternoon. The snow wasn’t as thick here as it was in other parts of the country. The thing she had to watch out for was the ice. It helped that she was wearing a pair of spiked shoes which she’d stolen from somebody she’d killed a few weeks back. There was no real reason for killing her—she just liked her shoes, and they were pretty much the right size for her.
There was no room for morals in this world anymore. There was no room for making friendships, only to watch them rapidly fall apart and deteriorate.
There was only room for surviving.
And that involved punishing those who had stolen from her.
She heard a voice behind as she raced through the trees. A voice calling out her name. It was Alison. She heard her, and her stomach sank. Alison was too weak. Holly had been telling her as much for a long time now. She was too forgiving of other people. Too understanding of other people.
And sure, in the early days, Holly might’ve been an idealist. She might’ve been the one trying to hold her dad back from judging people before he knew them—before she was separated from him, and then everything changed.
But she was different now.
And as far as she saw it, she was still here. She was still alive. Nobody was getting in the way of that.
Why fix something if it isn’t broken?
She heard herself getting closer to the footsteps up ahead; heard the breathing of her prey get more and more strained, and she felt a dopamine surge. She was closing in.
She got the same feeling whenever she was hunting an animal. Although to be honest, hunting an animal was always tinged with sadness. Because animals were innocent. Animals hadn’t allowed a world as cruel as this to destroy itself. Animals didn’t show greed or irrational hate. They just got along with their lives, even when things had so drastically changed.
Humans were the problem.
So Holly didn’t feel anywhere near as much sympathy for this man as she chased him down.
He’d stolen her stuff.
He had to pay.
“Holly!”
She heard the voice again behind her as she ran through the trees, and she rolled her eyes. Alison was getting annoying. Her inner weakness was holding her back. She wouldn’t make it without Holly. Wouldn’t have made it anywhere near this far.
The sooner she realised that, the better.
She stepped through a muddy puddle of frozen water, felt a shot of cold right up her left leg. She brushed past the trees. She heard a voice up ahead—a voice cursing. She saw the figure of the man running away from her.
And she knew she had him now.
She knew she’d got him.
She took a left past the trees and looped around ahead of him.
She waited until he’d stopped. Kept very still. Watched him, standing there, her rucksack over his shoulder.
When he put his hands on his knees, Holly stepped out.
At first, the guy didn’t seem to notice her. Not until she stepped right towards him, knife raised. Not until she cracked the icy ground right ahead of him.
Then he looked up, and his eyes widened.
First, Holly saw the bemusement. Because that’s how men always reacted to her. Seeing a young girl, skinny as anything, hair torn away (by choice now)… it bemused them. Because they were still attached to their old-world ideas of young women. They were still under the illusion that girls were weaker. That they couldn’t carry out the awful actions that they could.
And maybe in some cases that was true.
But not all cases.
Not Holly’s case.
“Give me my stuff back right this second,” Holly said.
The man—in his early twenties, spots of alopecia over his head, teeth yellow and rotting—stepped upright and pulled out a sharpened screwdriver. “I’d step back if I were you.”
Holly sighed. “That’s how you want to play this? Really?”
“It’s everyone for themselves now. You know that damn well, girl. So turn around. Walk away. That way, you won’t have to get hurt.”
Holly shook her head. She lowered her knife. “You know, I really thought that maybe we could get along here without any mess.”
Then she surged forward and stabbed the man right in his groin.
He let out a yelp. Swung the sharpened screwdriver at her.
But before he could hit her, just before, she dodged him—and the stupid bumbling idiot only went and stabbed himself in his other leg.
He fell to the ground, Holly’s rucksack still over his shoulder. He let out a cry as blood spewed out of both his legs. He looked up at Holly as she stood over him, less with bemusement now, less with authority, but more with fear.
Holly crouched opposite him. Looked into his eyes. Smelled his wretched breath. “You’re going to hand that rucksack over now, aren’t you?”
He shook, both with the pain and the cold.
Then he spat right in Holly’s face. “Bitch. Little bitch.”
Holly barely reacted to the spit. She just wiped it away and smiled. Then she reached for the rucksack and took it away from the man’s shoulder. “Not a very nice way to thank me for not killing you already.”
She put the rucksack over her shoulder.
Then, behind the man, she saw Alison appear.
She looked at Holly, fear in her wide eyes.
Holly looked back at her as she crouched there, holding the knife.
“Don’t,” Alison said. “You don’t have to do this, Holly. You don’t have to do this.”
Holly looked back at the man. He was whimpering with pain now. Tears filling his eyes. His strong facade dropping.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I really don’t like being called a bitch.”
Then she slashed the man’s throat.
She stood up as he struggled. Turned around. Wiped her knife on her towel as she headed back to Alison, leaving the man to gargle and lurch around on the ground.
When she reached Alison, she handed her the rucksack, and she smiled.
“I got our stuff back, at least,” she said.
The man went quiet.
Chapter Four
Before the EMP…
Ian tucked Corey into bed and sat on the chair beside him, ready for his favourite part of the day.
It was night. Corey always loved Ian reading to him at night, before bed. He was nine now and had just entered a weird phase where he had issues with sleeping.
At first, Ian had struggled with waking up at 2 a.m. to go sit with Corey for a while. But it was the discovery of the good old-fashioned bedtime story that changed Corey’s life—and his life too, in a way.
Because it was the moment he cherished the most, every single day.
The moment he never wanted Corey to grow out of.
“Are we gonna read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone again, Dad? ’Cause I think we should. I like that one best.”
Ian smiled when he heard Corey’s excitement. His little brown eyes looked up at his father, hopeful. He had long, curly dark hair, which everyone always commented on. He lay there in his Spiderman pyjamas, and he didn’t look fearful like he used to. He looked excited. All ready for the story.
“How about we finish the other books first before we jump back to the first one?”
“Awww, Dad. I want to read that one again. It was so good!”
“Well, you’re in for a treat. They get better and better.”
Corey seemed intrigued by this. So he allowed Ian to crack open the Chamber of Secrets and read it to him. Usually, he dozed off after about fifteen minutes, but Ian stayed sat there for a while. Sometimes he’d fall asleep here, by the side of his son’s bed, all so peaceful, all so calm. He’
d stay there ’til morning sometimes, when the hectic race of work life began all over again.
He couldn’t really complain about work, in all truth. He worked for himself. Ran a small business. He’d set up a tea company with his wife, Sofia. A healthy alternative to normal tea, with green teas infused with minerals and the like. They had manufacturers over in China, and they’d hit some of the top supermarkets recently, sending their business skyward.
But in a way, Ian longed for the humble beginnings of the business. He preferred it when he was making just enough rather than the added pressure extra finances brought.
It was nice having the freedom of working for himself. But at the same time, he was working for someone else, after all. He was working for his customers. His manufacturers. The supermarkets and the shareholders since they’d gone public.
It wasn’t just his and his wife’s little pet business anymore.
It was a real beast.
He looked up from the book after a while of reading, and he saw Corey was still awake.
He was looking at Ian. Staring at him with those eyes, smiling at him with that cute little grin, milk teeth missing.
“I love that you read stories to me. I love you, Daddy.”
When Ian heard those words, he felt his heart melt. He leaned over, kissed his son on the head, then sat back in his chair beside the bed. “I love you too, son.”
“I’m not scared of sleeping anymore,” Corey said, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m not even scared of anything anymore. Look. See. Not scared.”
Ian couldn’t help smiling as he saw his son tighten his eyes shut, show off how brave he was.
He couldn’t help letting out a little laugh as he felt proud—both of himself and of his son.
He read a little more of the book.
Within minutes, Corey was asleep.
Six months later, Ian held Corey’s hand as he lay there on the ground, blood pooling out of his back.
He looked into those eyes, looked at that curly brown hair, as he lay there in the snow.
“I’m not scared anymore, Daddy,” he said. “I’m okay now. See. See…”
He closed his eyes.
This time, he didn’t open them again.
Chapter Five
Mike sat by Kelsie’s bedside, storybook on his lap, and he couldn’t get the events of earlier today out of his mind.
It was dark outside. He could hear the branches of the trees scraping against the window, scratching at the glass like monsters’ fingers. It was bitter cold, too. There was a candle in Kelsie’s room, which was waving in the breeze. Kelsie was tucked right in to her bed. She was a small kid with dark hair and pale skin. She suffered from Type 1 diabetes, which was obviously far from ideal in any situation, but in this world where medical supplies were stretched as they were—and where no new medical supplies were being made… it was pretty much a death sentence.
Fortunately, they had insulin supplies at Grey Lodge. They were keeping her alive… for now.
He didn’t want to think about the day they ran out.
“Are you going to keep reading, Uncle Mike?”
Mike heard Kelsie’s voice, and his insides felt like they were melting. He smiled at her, shuffled closer to the edge of his chair. “Of course. Sorry. I just got carried away.”
“Is it about what happened to Fred?”
Sadness crept into Mike’s body. He felt sad that Kelsie had to live with the knowledge of such horrors. She was only a young girl, after all.
“It’s best we don’t talk about that,” Mike said. “Now come on. You’d better get snoozing soon. Don’t want your teacher to have a go at me for keeping you up late reading stories now, do we?”
Kelsie smiled a little. And it was that cute little smile that did it; that sparked a recognition inside Mike. Because he couldn’t deny why he was caring for Kelsie so intently since he’d got to Claire’s camp.
Firstly, because of the guilt he felt for murdering her father. A fact that he could never share with her, but a fact that slipped into his thoughts every time he spoke with her.
But also, something else.
Holly.
Kelsie reminded him of Holly when she was a little girl.
“I just think… it’s sad. When bad things happen to people like that. It’s sad that they have people who love them in the world who’ll never know they’re gone.”
When she spoke these words, Mike couldn’t deny their lucidity and their accuracy for such a young girl. “Yeah, well,” he said, leaning over towards her, tucking her in some more. “It’s not a safe world out there.”
“But we’re safe in here?”
Mike was caught in two minds. Telling Kelsie what she wanted to hear and what he wanted to believe: that this place was safe, and they could stay here forever.
Or telling her the truth.
The truth that as good as this place was, it would fall.
It would fall, like everywhere fell.
He sighed. Smiled. “We’re safe here.”
She smiled back at him, then. Closed her eyes. “You can read to me now,” she said in a royal voice.
Mike laughed. “Yes, your highness.” Then he got to reading Kelsie’s bedtime story. It was something he enjoyed, in all truth. Again, it took him back—back to a time when things were good, when things were much simpler, when Caitlin was around, and when everything was just great.
Before Caitlin’s affair.
Before Caitlin’s illness.
Before Caitlin’s death.
Before everything fell apart.
When Mike looked up, he saw Kelsie was asleep.
He stood up as quietly as he could. Leaned over, kissed her. And at that moment, he felt the guilt again. The knowledge that he should be honest. That he should just tell Kelsie the truth about what happened to her father.
But then the fear of what it would do to their relationship, to their bond, to Mike’s pledge that he’d protect her, no matter what… it was too much.
And the fear that he’d lose her—this time capsuled memory of Holly—was even more devastating, selfish as that may sound.
He stepped out of Kelsie’s room, and he saw Miranda standing there, tears in her eyes.
A bit of context, first. This place, it was an old mental health rehabilitation institution. There were several wards, several bedrooms, kitchen and dining areas, things like that. Most importantly, there were fields outside, filled with wildlife—or at least that was the idea in summer, anyway. For now, they were mostly empty, the animals inside for winter. It went without saying that there were no crops at this time of year, either.
But it was suitable for the future. It was future-proof. That was something.
Another bit of context.
Miranda, who was standing here, tears rolling down her face.
She was Fred’s wife.
“Miranda,” Mike said, walking towards her.
“I told him not to go on those runs,” she said.
“He was just trying to help.”
“At least when he was gone there was still a chance. There was still hope. But I told him he wasn’t good enough. I—I told him he wasn’t like the others. And now… and now I have to live without him. And now I have—I have to bring a child into this world without a dad.”
Mike felt surprise, just for a moment. He didn’t know Miranda was pregnant. And it just drilled home the sadness of this entire situation.
He leaned in towards Miranda. Hugged her as she fell into his arms, tears flowing.
“And there’s nothing you could’ve done?” Miranda asked.
Mike felt a lump in his throat. “Miranda…”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… it’s just he’s gone. He’s gone, and I can’t believe he’s gone. How many more have to go? How many more does this shitty winter have to take?”
Mike looked out of the window as he stood outside of Miranda’s room. He looked at the dark skies, looked at the b
arely visible silhouettes of treetops in the distance. He looked at the snow, still falling, still heavy. And he knew Miranda had a point. Just how many more casualties were going to fall in this winter? Just how many more people had to die?
“We’re going to make it through this,” Mike said. “We’re going to help you raise that child, all of us, no matter what.”
The snow fell heavier, the branches scratched against the windows like nails on a chalkboard.
And somewhere in the distance, somebody watched this place.
Closely.
Chapter Six
Holly knew she was going to get a hard time from Alison about what she’d done to the man who’d stolen from them. At this point, it was becoming predictable.
But she wasn’t expecting things to go quite as far as they did.
It was night. They were outside, sitting around a fire. Holly was wrapped up in her thick parka, as too was Alison. She was shaking. They were both shaking. Shaking was just the default state of affairs in this EMP-triggered winter.
And it was serious. Holly knew that. Waking up with snot frozen to her upper lip, never feeling any warmth, she knew how dangerous it was, and just how much it could threaten her life.
She knew that every time she went to sleep, she might not wake up.
But hell. Sometimes she wondered if perhaps not waking up might not be such a bad thing after all.
They’d eaten some rabbit over their fire. Rabbit wasn’t ideal. It was too lean a meat to survive on. But Alison wasn’t all on board with Holly’s idea of cutting the meat from the man she’d killed. It seemed like of all the moral bridges she’d had to cross, cannibalism wasn’t one she was willing to change her mind on.
Shame, really. It was quite a waste.
She listened to the silence of the light breeze through the trees. She couldn’t smell anything right now. Her sense of smell seemed to have dropped over the last few weeks. She didn’t know why it was. She could hazard a guess it was something to do with being stuck in the cold for so long, and that it affected everyone in different ways, robbing her senses of their full capacity.
