by Ryan Casey
I sipped on some water. I poured a little pool for Bouncer to lick up the water from, too. He lay there and slurped it up. “Good boy,” I whispered.
It was hot again. Perhaps one key thing I’d forgotten to pack in my bug-out bag was some kind of suncream. Honestly, though, who wears suncream in Britain? Usually, the sun isn’t out long enough to warrant it.
This last week had been different. I wondered if it was something solar. Whether it backed up the theory that the EMP strikes came directly from the sun rather than anything man-made.
I didn’t know. I probably never would know.
And when push came to shove, it didn’t really matter.
I rubbed my tired eyes as the afternoon stretched on and the urgency to push on to my family grew, and I knew I needed to be patient.
As much as I wanted to reach my family as soon as possible, I knew at that same time I couldn’t be rash. I had to pace myself. I’d end up making myself sick again if I didn’t. I was rash in the early days, and that got me into deep shit. I couldn’t afford that. Not again.
Plus, I was on foot. Which, yeah, was a bummer.
I’d lost the bike three days back. I’d come across a little store. I’d looked around, making sure the streets were clear. Then I’d nipped inside and investigated, picking up a few spare cereal bars, canned meat and dog food while I was in there.
Then when I’d stepped outside, I saw a man on my bike, pedalling away on it at full speed.
I’d chased him for a while. I wasn’t the fastest guy in the world, but I wasn’t exactly willing to just roll over and give up.
But then he’d detached the carrier that Bouncer sat in and tossed it aside, adding to his speed.
I gave up when I got a crippling stitch.
When I turned around, I saw Bouncer sitting in that carrier, tilting his head either side, wondering what the hell was going on.
I was snapped from my reminiscing when I heard a noise in the distance.
I stood up. Ran towards the trap. It was in the direction of my trap. I didn’t look forward to killing any animal. I hoped the death was as smooth and painless as possible.
When I reached it, I saw I was in luck.
A deer. It was totally still. Totally quiet.
“Away, lad.” I made sure Bouncer was clear before gutting and skinning the deer, peeling the hide away and cutting out the tenderloins with my knife. I didn’t have time to hang the meat for jerky. I was on the move. So best to make the most of the meat right now.
When I was done—and it was a messy-as-shit job—I set up a cooking area using a fire with a can above it. I had four sticks—two in the ground at a tilted angle, the longest one resting down between them, with the fourth one hanging down from the opposite side. Dangling from a dent I’d cut in the highest stick was the can. And underneath the can, the fire. Practical. Another trick Mike had taught me. I was learning.
I started on the meat right away. Even if I stuffed my face, it’d be enough to last me a day, or maybe even two.
I hadn’t been cooking long when I heard rustling in the trees.
I looked around. No sign of anything. The birdsong seemed to have stopped all of a sudden. Everything was so deadly silent.
I checked on the meat, the smells making me salivate, when I heard the rustling again right behind me.
I swung around.
Saw movement.
I went still. Totally still. I reached for my knife and pulled it out, slowly.
Bouncer whined, and looked around the trees.
“It’s okay,” I said, my voice getting grainier by the day. “We’ve got this. There’s nothing there. No one there.”
I kept on looking for a second though, just in case.
When I was sure we were completely clear, I turned back to the fire.
Then I saw her.
She was holding a gun.
Pointing it right at me.
“Smells delicious,” she said. “Where’s our portion?”
It was only when she said, “our” that I realised she wasn’t alone.
She was with company.
And that company was all surrounding me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Everywhere I looked, I saw movement.
Of course I wasn’t totally sure that there were people all around me. I’d seen movement in the trees to my left, to my right, behind me.
And in front of me, a woman pointing a gun at me, of course.
But part of me wondered whether it was just my mind playing tricks. Whether I was overreacting to the situation, and I had better odds of escaping than I perhaps thought.
I wasn’t exactly in a position to take any chance, though. What a ball ache.
“Didn’t you hear me?” the woman asked.
“Yeah. Yeah I heard you. I just—”
“Your food. Your stuff. Hand it over.”
I felt the rucksack weighing heavily on my left shoulder. By my side, Bouncer growled. He was scanning around, which made me realise there probably was people all around us after all.
“Can’t we figure something out?”
The woman sniggered. She was dirty, her hair wild and scraggly. She had cuts on her face. Her hands were covered in warts. She held the pistol shakily. “Yeah. We’ve figured shit out. You hand your stuff over, and you come help us survive. Or we take that stuff from you. And you don’t survive. Your call.”
I sighed. Why did everyone have to be so fucking determined to take “stuff”? I knew “stuff” meant survival. And I knew I’d clearly shown enough knowledge of survival methods to catch their eye, which was a compliment in itself.
But they didn’t strike me as the kind of group I wanted to hang around with.
Not when I had a family to get back to.
“If I join you,” I said, testing the waters. After all, misunderstanding and misinterpretation were the names of the game in this world. “You’ll let me hold on to my stuff. Right?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed, and twitched a little. Her grip on her weapon faltered. Behind her, I saw more shuffling. I had no idea how many other group members were with her, but it felt like loads. “Nah. Nah, in fact, we want your shit one-hundred percent. That can be like… like a membership fee. A way of showing trust. Hmm?”
A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. And it was that look that made me wonder whether she had any intention of following through with her plan at all, or whether it was all just a ploy to make me feel even more uncomfortable.
I couldn’t give my bag over. My bag had all my essentials in it.
The woman took a few steps forward. “Hand it over now or I blow the mutt’s brains out.”
“Whoa, whoa! Wait. Wait a second. Just… just wait a second.”
I saw the woman turning the gun on Bouncer and felt my stomach sink.
Bouncer held his ground, growling back at her.
I knew then I had no choice. I could take threats to myself. But to my dog? That was a different matter entirely.
Bouncer was my companion. I was sworn to protect him. I couldn’t let him down.
“The bag, or the dog. What’s more important to you?”
“If you do anything to my dog—anything—there’s not a chance I’m joining you.”
The woman laughed. She flicked her gangly hair back. “Oh, you won’t have a choice, pal. Not the slightest choice. In fact, I’m starting to think maybe Plan B’s a better idea for you after all. I think you’ll look good with a few bruises across your face. Ain’t that right, boys?”
She looked around, as if she was expecting some kind of response.
But concern spread across her face.
It was only then that I realised what she was so concerned about.
The rustling of the leaves had stopped.
All signs of life had… disappeared.
I heard a blast.
Then I felt something whoosh past me.
A bullet.
The gunshot was deaf
ening. I tumbled back onto the ground. Bouncer immediately came to my side, licking my face. I hadn’t been shot, I didn’t think. But the noise. It was so loud. My body felt like it vibrated. It felt like…
I heard footsteps cutting through the ringing in my ears.
Then I saw the woman standing over me.
She pointed a gun to my head. Her bottom lip shook. Her eyes watered, streaming down her cheeks.
“What’ve you done with my people?”
I tried to speak but I couldn’t. I was paralysed with fear, and with something like acceptance.
This was it.
This was how I died.
This was how it ended.
She turned the gun away from my head and pushed it right into Bouncer’s skull. Bouncer just sat there growling, wagging his tail anxiously. “I’ll ask you one more time, and then this doggy’s going to heaven. My people. What’ve you done to them? What’ve you—”
I heard a crack, and my gut instinct told me she’d pulled the trigger.
But then I saw Bouncer’s head was still intact.
The woman wasn’t.
She was lying on the ground in front of me. There was a big bruise on the side of her head, and a speck of blood. The gun had fallen from her hand.
Standing in her place, another woman.
She was small. No bigger than five foot one. She was dressed in all black, and had chocolate brown hair, which was tied back behind her head. She was minuscule.
But she had a shovel in her hand.
My shovel.
“I believe this is yours,” she said.
She threw it down to me. When it landed on my chest, I saw blood on its edge and realised she’d used it to hit the woman.
She held out a hand. “Kesha.”
“Hmm?”
“My name. It’s Kesha.”
“Oh. Oh, hi Kesha.”
She frowned. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Your—”
“Oh. I’m Will. This here’s Bouncer. Did… The people in the trees—”
“Don’t worry about them,” Kesha said.
I looked at the woman’s fallen body.
“She’s probably not dead. But hey. She should learn a thing or two about manners in future, hmm?”
I nodded, a sickly taste filling my mouth as the horrors of the new world crystallised in reality once more.
I looked round and saw Kesha’s hand was still out.
“Come on,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“You what?”
“I can’t. I have family out there. I—”
“It wasn’t a request, Will. It was an order. Come on. I’ve got something to show you.”
Kesha might’ve been pint-sized.
But I was hardly in a position to argue.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Day Fifteen
If you told me a day ago that I’d be waking up in prison, I wouldn’t have believed you.
And that’s coming from someone living in a post-apocalyptic world without electricity.
The morning sun was low and it was shaping up to be another warm day. I stepped outside of the room I’d slept in and looked at the corridor I was on. It was a low-security open prison called Heathlock. Kesha told me that when the world had fallen, all of the doors in here had unlocked, and the prisoners had soon vacated the premises. She lived nearby, so she’d come here, as had several others—twenty, in fact. They were building a community here.
And as dubious as I was about the prospect of a prison community, I had to admit, it was shaping up a lot more nicely than it had any right to.
I looked in each of the rooms, Bouncer by my side. They weren’t cells, as such. If anything, it was more like a hostel. Low risk criminals and youth offenders. Nothing too heavy. Which, of course, meant they lived a life of luxury at the expense of the taxpayer.
Kesha was waiting for me by the main door. She stood tall—well, as tall as a five foot one woman could—and half-smiled at me.
“What time d’you call this?”
“Um, I’d love to tell you. But somehow I can’t seem to get a signal. And funnily enough, my watch doesn’t seem to be working too well…”
“Ha-ha,” she said, mockingly. “Sleep well?”
“I—”
“Good. Now you’ve had your kip, I’d better show you around the place.”
I wanted to tell Kesha that I wouldn’t be staying here. Over two weeks had passed since the beginning of the end now, and it still felt like I’d made no real progress in pursuit of my family.
But she’d let me stay at this place for the night. And she seemed pretty keen on giving me a tour. I had no choice but to honour it.
She opened the door, and Bouncer and I stepped outside.
Looking at this place in the light of day and after a good sleep, I was taken aback by just how… well, perfect it was. There was a garden to the right, where crops were growing. A few people were tending to them. And in the distance, a lake, where people were fishing. Over to the left, I saw pigs and cows.
“This some kind of farm?”
“Rehabilitative wing of the prison,” Kesha said, as we walked down the steps and along the pathway. “This place had an agreement with a local farm. Milking cows, that sort of thing. We thought we’d expand operations now the place is ours.”
I walked along, my jaw literally dropping. “I haven’t…”
“What?”
“Sorry. I just haven’t seen this much order anywhere since the storm.”
“Yeah, well, order’s always been my strong point.”
“How long did it take?”
“The foundations were already here. Like I say, we just expanded them. It’d take years to set up a homestead. Fortunately the foundations were already here in place for us, and the prisoners didn’t realise just how good they had it. Anyway. Time to meet a few of the crew. Ali!”
I looked ahead and saw a guy with gardening gloves on. He was holding a spade. He brushed back his black hair after he’d pulled his gloves off and walked over. “Hey. This the new guy?”
“Will, this is Ali, our head of rural affairs.”
I frowned, bemused by the title, then offered my hand.
Ali smiled brightly at me. “Pleasure to have you.”
“I was thinking you two would get along. We’re low on people in the farm. And all Hailey’s security posts are already full.”
Ali chuckled. “Dodged a bullet there, mate. Hailey’s a demon.”
Kesha glared at him, and Ali soon backed down.
I soon realised she was looking at me, bafflement on her face. “What’s up with you?”
“I just… head of rural affairs?”
Kesha frowned. “Well, yeah.”
“You’ve got some kind of… of government in place?”
“Why is that so surprising?”
“It’s not. I guess. It’s just… Doesn’t it seem a little premature for that?”
“Will, we’ve been without power for two weeks. Two solid weeks. If we don’t start creating some kind of order, then this entire world’s going to fall apart. We’ve just got to hope there’s more communities like this around the country. Communities that stand for peace and for order. I honestly believe that the good people in this country outnumber the bad. I just hope enough people have stepped up to the plate to give communities what they need right now.”
I nodded.
“You’re still smiling.”
“It just—”
“You can be bemused all you want, mate. The fact is, I saved your arse in the woods yesterday. I dragged you back to this place—which is doing just fine, by the way. And I offered you a job. So take it or leave it. But just know that leaving means leaving.”
I had to admit, Kesha was the most intimidating five foot one person I’d ever met.
But I kind of liked her.
“There’s a role on agriculture. Gary’s also expanding his eco
nomy and acquisitions team.”
“Economy and acquisitions?”
“Scavenging, in a nicer way.”
“Ah.”
“So are you in?”
I looked around at this prison. I looked at the barbed fences. At the farm that connected to it. I saw order. Not phony order. But actual order. I saw the seeds of something good, and Kesha was right at the heart of that.
“I respect what you’re doing here. Really. And I apologise for laughing. It’s just like I say. Places like this are few and far between.”
“I like to hope that isn’t true.”
“The fact is, I can’t stay.”
She frowned. “We save you. And you can’t stay?”
“Look, I’m sorry. But my—”
“Your family, right. So you keep babbling on about them.”
“It’s been two weeks. I need to know… I just need to know where they’re at.”
“And if you don’t find them at home?”
“What?”
“If you don’t find them where they’re supposed to be?”
I kept my mouth open at that. It wasn’t something I’d thought about. Wasn’t something I wanted to think about.
But I couldn’t shy away from the possibility.
“Tell you what,” Kesha said, walking further, leading me towards a large metal hangar in the distance. “You help us on a few retrieval missions, we’ll help you find your family.”
“You… you’ll do that?”
“We can sure as hell guarantee you’ll find them quicker than you’d find them on foot.”
I stopped. “What do you mean by that?”
She smiled at me as she approached the hangar. Then she rattled her fist on the metal door. “You’ll see. Open up, Martin!”
I waited a second. Then I saw the metal garage door being rolled up manually.
When I saw what was inside it, I wasn’t sure how to react.
“It’s… a car. An old car.”
“A very old car,” Kesha said. She hopped into the driver’s seat. “1978 Jeep. Lacking a few indicators and brake lights, but what good are they these days anyway? And you know the good thing about very old cars like this?”
She turned the key.
The engine started up.
She smiled. “Some of ’em still work.”
