Into the Dark (Book 8): The Next World

by Casey, Ryan

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The moment Mike’s journey to reclaim the hospital began, he couldn’t deny feeling like himself again—even if he might be on a slow-walk to certain death.

  The winter sun was bright, melting the crispy frost beneath their feet. Mike could see his breath clouding up in front of him. The more he walked with Gina, Kelsie, Siobhan, Arya, the more he felt the chill getting to him. Somehow, he’d been able to push it from his mind when he’d been surviving on his own.

  But now things were different.

  He was with his people again. So he was feeling the elements. For better, and for worse, he was feeling again.

  “I swear this isn’t the way to the hospital,” Mike said.

  Gina looked around at him and smiled. Considering the time that had passed since they’d abandoned the hospital, she looked pretty healthy. Made Mike wonder what kind of a place she’d been surviving in after all. “We’re not going to the hospital. At least, not yet, anyway.”

  Mike wondered what she meant by that. But the very fact she was confident about their return to the hospital at all had him wondering even more.

  What did she know that he didn’t?

  What was she hiding from him?

  He looked to his right as he kept on walking, and he saw Kelsie and Siobhan together. He still felt guilty, especially now he’d seen Kelsie again. Guilty for leaving her. Guilty for abandoning her and everybody else.

  But he hadn’t done it out of malice.

  He’d done it because in that dark moment, he couldn’t see another way.

  “So what was your plan?” Kelsie asked.

  Mike frowned. “My plan?”

  “Out here. What was your plan? For the future?”

  Mike heard Kelsie’s words. He thought about them for a few seconds. But in all honesty… he didn’t know what to say. “I guess… I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead, really.”

  She half-smiled back at him. “At least we found you, right?”

  Mike nodded. “Right.”

  They walked further, some more.

  “How’ve you been… going on, anyway?”

  “Without insulin you mean?” Kelsie asked.

  “Well yeah. There is that.”

  Kelsie looked at Mike, smirked. “Let’s just say I’ve made sure I got as many supplies as I could from wherever I could.”

  Mike nodded. But he knew it was temporary. He knew time was going to run out, eventually.

  “Hold up.”

  Mike heard Gina’s voice. When he looked ahead, he saw she’d stopped. She had her finger over her lips. She was looking through the trees at something in the distance.

  It was only when Mike squinted that he realised what it was.

  Or rather who it was.

  There was a little house ahead. Leaves and moss had begun to grow up the walls. Ivy was splitting out of the cracks. The windows were frosted, condensation and damp-ridden, nature in the process of taking it over.

  Mike figured this was the house his people had been staying at. The house at the edge of the woods. It looked cold and damp… but it was enough. It was a roof over the head. More than he could say about his recent living accommodation, after all.

  But there was someone outside this house now.

  Two people, in fact.

  And both of them were holding knives.

  “Is that…” Mike started.

  But Gina shushed him, nodding in the process.

  She didn’t have to say anything.

  These people were from the hospital.

  David. Ryan. Two people who’d always had Graham’s back.

  One of them—Ryan—was the last person Harrison had been seen with.

  The first thing Mike noticed was that they looked skinnier. Undernourished. Way less healthy than they were during Vincent’s rule. Which said a lot for the way Graham was running the place.

  But the fact they were searching around this house, blades in hand… it hardly filled Mike with confidence or optimism.

  Unless they were here because they’d defected.

  Gina looked around. And she had that look in her eyes. A look that Mike recognised he’d had in his eyes plenty of times before.

  She looked at Kelsie, then at Siobhan.

  Then right at that moment, the pair of them lifted out knives.

  Mike narrowed his eyes as he watched Kelsie and Siobhan pass by him.

  He watched them race towards these people, keeping as quiet as they could, as silent as they could.

  He watched as the two men went to turn around.

  The looks on their faces as Kelsie threw herself at Ryan, who had fear in his eyes.

  “Wait ple—”

  But it was already too late.

  Kelsie stabbed him in the neck. Repeatedly.

  And Siobhan did the same to David.

  Mike could only watch, eyes wide, as the two girls took out these two people—people whose motives they didn’t even know.

  He could only watch as they stepped back and left the pair of them to gargle on their own blood.

  He could only watch as the girl he’d tried so desperately to protect from the horrors of this world turned into something else right before his eyes.

  She looked back at Gina. Half-smiled. “Done.”

  Gina nodded. It looked like she’d had the closure she’d been after for so long without letting vengeance get the better of her completely. “Good. Mike. Are you coming?”

  Mike looked at Gina, fully aware he was in a daze. “I…”

  “Things changed when you were away, Mike. They had to be tougher. There was no other way of going about it. Maybe if you aren’t happy with what I’ve done with these two… you shouldn’t have gone away at all. Now are you coming or what?”

  Mike was still caught in a daze. But at this point, he knew he had no choice, not anymore.

  He followed Gina through the trees.

  He stopped as they went to unlock the door. Looked down at David’s gargling body. He reached up a hand, the other clutched to his neck. It looked like he was trying to say something. Trying to beg. For forgiveness? For mercy?

  Mike wasn’t sure.

  “Mike?”

  He looked up. Saw Gina standing by the open door. A dusty lair lurking behind.

  “Come on,” she said. “It’s time for you to see what we’ve got.”

  He looked down at David.

  His eyes had gone glassy.

  His hand was by his side.

  His struggle was over.

  Mike took a deep breath.

  And then he walked over the bodies, over towards the entrance to the house.

  “I would say ‘excuse the mess,’” Gina said. “But you’ve been living in a tent for God knows how long.”

  Mike looked around. The house was pretty much as he’d expected. Dusty. Plates scattered around the place. A smell of mould and damp from long ago still cutting through the air. Photographs and paintings, remnants of the people who once lived here, all around.

  Ghosts.

  “Come through here,” Gina said. “I’ll show you what we found.”

  He followed Gina through to the kitchen. And when they got there, he didn’t see what Gina was standing beside. Not at first.

  But then when he reached the wooden kitchen table, his body went still.

  “That’s…”

  Gina smiled at him, eyes wide. “Yes, it is.”

  Mike couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He couldn’t understand it.

  But he couldn’t deny it, either.

  There was a stack of dynamite sticks sitting on the table.

  Gina stepped in front of him. “We’re going to go back to that hospital,” she said. “We’re going to make an explosion Graham can’t ignore. And then we’re going to take our home back for ourselves.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  When Mike saw the hospital, he couldn’t deny the combination of emotions that went hurtling through his
body.

  It looked beautiful, sitting there in the glimmer of the late winter sun. From a distance, it looked peaceful. Undiscovered. Like he was the first to encounter it.

  But Mike knew that there was no peace in this place. Not compared to how it used to be.

  First impressions could be deceiving.

  He looked to his right, where Gina was standing. She had the dynamite in her hands. Her plan sounded pretty simple in essence: create an explosion just outside the hospital grounds. Not enough to cause any lasting damage, but enough that it would capture the attention of the people inside.

  “And you’re absolutely sure this is going to work?”

  “I can’t be absolutely sure,” Gina said. “None of us can. But I’d like to hope that it’ll cause enough of a distraction that it’ll lure some people out. And when it does… that’s when we make our move.”

  “You keep saying ‘make our move’ like it’s a plan in itself. But what do you mean? Really?”

  Gina shrugged. A smile stretched across her face. “I don’t know, Mike. Why don’t you make a suggestion or two?”

  Mike felt the baton of responsibility being handed his way, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Mostly a sense of discomfort.

  But then he’d faced up to the fact the things that had happened to his people in the past weren’t his doing. They weren’t his sole responsibility.

  And as much as he’d convinced himself that taking a leadership role could only be a negative… he was starting to feel himself fall back into it quite naturally, especially now his urge for some kind of order was rearing its head.

  “I say we take out one of the walls,” Mike said.

  Gina frowned. She looked stunned by Mike’s suggestion. “What?”

  “I know it’s risky. I know it’s weakening the foundations of the hospital. In the short term, it’s attacking the strength of that place. But… but in the long term, we can rebuild. It’ll give us a chance to really sneak inside via the back of that place. Because they can’t ignore an explosion at the wall. There’s no chance they can.”

  “You’re sounding like Graham,” Gina said.

  “What?”

  “All this talk about short-term loss for long-term gain. That sounds an awful lot like what Graham was suggesting.”

  Mike took a deep breath, sighed. “I guess we can learn from everyone, in a sense. But I can promise one thing. I won’t play with lives in the way Graham has. I’ve… I’ve done things, sure. Some things I’m not proud of. But I know where my moral compass is. I haven’t lost sight of it.”

  Gina smiled. Put a hand on Mike’s arm. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  There was a silence, then. A silence, as Kelsie and Siobhan held back, Arya by their side.

  “So what do you think?” Mike asked.

  Gina shrugged. “I think it sounds like you’ve got a solid plan. That’s exactly what I was hoping for.”

  “Wait,” Mike said.

  “What?”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t really have a plan all along, aren’t you?”

  Gina tried to hold an expression of surprise at what Mike was saying. But in the end, she let that smile widen and shrugged. “I just knew if I put you in an environment where you had the opportunity to flourish, you would do, in the end.”

  Mike shook his head. “You tricked me.”

  “Hey,” she said. “You’re back with your people. You have a chance to take back your home. You’re getting to do what comes natural to you—lead. Are you complaining? Really?”

  “I guess I can’t, can I?”

  He looked over at the hospital walls, then. Thought about what he was suggesting. Exploding the wall. Sneaking in there, making sure Romesh was okay.

  But then taking this place?

  That still seemed… fuzzy. Out of sight. Somewhere in the distance.

  Mike felt like taking this place was going to be something he figured out at his own pace.

  But in the end, there was only one way he could envisage anything of the sort happening.

  “We have to take Graham out,” Mike said. “We have to bring him down. Whatever it takes. If we can do that… that’s when we can start making a change.”

  Gina nodded. “That’s the spirit. So. Shall we get to work?”

  Mike looked at Kelsie and Siobhan, who were holding back with Arya.

  Then he looked over at the wall, off in the distance.

  He felt bad that he was walking away from Kelsie again already.

  That he’d only just been reunited with her, and already they were being separated.

  And he knew damn well that if he was wrong about this… this time could really be final.

  He walked over to Kelsie. Held out Holly’s ring to her.

  “You take this,” he said. “You take it, and you hold on to it.”

  But Kelsie didn’t take it.

  She pushed Mike’s hand back, gently.

  “You should keep it,” she said. “Because it gives you strength. I… I don’t need the strength from it. Not anymore.”

  Mike looked at the ring.

  Then at Kelsie. How far she’d come. How much she’d grown.

  He took a deep breath then he put the ring in his pocket.

  “Look after yourself,” he said. “And look after each other. Okay?”

  “You’ll come back,” Kelsie said. “You always do.”

  Her voice faltered just a little when she said those final words.

  He didn’t want to press her about it, though.

  He took a deep breath. Turned around. Then he walked back to Gina’s side, as together they looked down at the hospital.

  “It’s time,” Mike said.

  Gina nodded. Looked at the dynamite sticks, then at the hospital walls in the distance.

  “Let’s finish this,” she said.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Gerry felt his stomach rumble, and he knew something was going to have to change at this place—fast.

  The sun had a little warmth, but the winter breeze was cool, making his body shake. His fingers were so cold that they were developing sores right at their tips. And his toes… well, they were even worse.

  He knew winters were always tough. That was something Graham had briefed them about, prepared them for. Not that they needed it. They’d survived winters before—and in far worse circumstances.

  But this winter at the hospital was going to be different. They didn’t have power, for one. They didn’t have the kind of supplies they used to.

  And the sense of order that Graham had worked his hardest to instil was falling apart at the seams.

  He looked out into the open. Out beyond the walls at the trees in the distance. And sometimes he wondered. He wondered what was out there. Whether there was somewhere else like this, but before things had gone sour. Somewhere things were good.

  He thought about going out there, sometimes. Just leaving his post and walking off into the distance, seeing what he might find.

  Because as much as he couldn’t pretend he was ever totally on Vincent’s side—as much as he realised in hindsight that he’d perhaps been harsh on him, to a degree—he’d seen the contrast since Graham had taken over. He’d seen that this guy wasn’t totally capable of holding things together.

  But then security was what kept him here.

  The sense of the known; of the familiar.

  “What’re you gawping at?”

  Gerry felt his stomach sink the second he heard Tate’s voice. He’d never liked Bobby. He was one of those guys who just blindly followed whatever Graham wanted. The kind of guy who always seemed to be looking for trouble, no matter how much of a mess it got this place into.

  Gerry knew damn well that if there was ever a coup against Graham, Bobby would be one of the first in line against his current ally.

  “Am I supposed to be looking somewhere else?” Gerry asked.

  Bobby grunted. His face was gaunt, his beard was
patchy. “I can see when you’re on guard and when you’re staring into space. What’s on your mind?”

  Gerry sighed, shook his head. “That’s not the kind of thing you usually ask. Having an existential crisis or something?”

  “I dunno,” Bobby said. “I just figured we’ve been working together long enough. Might as well get to know each other a little more.”

  “And what if I’m not interested in getting to know you any more?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Suit yourself. Stare into space. Go back to whatever the hell you were doing. Just remember that this was your moment. This was your chance to be the start of something new. Something different.”

  Gerry looked around, then. Looked at Bobby. And he wondered whether he was jumping the gun already. Whether he was suggesting exactly what Gerry had suspected, all along. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ah,” Bobby said, smiling. “So now you’re ready to get on board, are you? Now I leave you with a little cryptic clue, you’re all keen on listening?”

  “Forget it then. Suit yourself. At the end of the day, you wouldn’t be dropping this kind of info in if you didn’t want me to know about it.”

  “Let’s face it, Gerry,” Bobby said, seeming to ignore what Gerry had said. “Graham’s got good ideas. He’s got good values. But he’s got no leadership skills. It’s about time someone else came in. Did things differently.”

  “And who are you suggesting?”

  Bobby stretched out his arms. “Someone assertive. Someone who commands the respect of the people, you know?”

  It was only then that Gerry realised exactly who Bobby was suggesting.

  And when he did, he couldn’t help laughing.

  “Wait. You’re not seriously suggesting you, are you?”

  Bobby frowned. “What’s so bad about that, dickhead?”

  Gerry couldn’t stop his laughing. “You’re so predictable. The second Vincent’s leadership starts to crumble, you’re jumping on board. The second Graham’s grip starts to slip, you’re talking about starting afresh.”

  “And isn’t that just intelligent?” Bobby said. “Isn’t that just the right way to do things?

  “It’s disloyal,” Gerry said. “And that won’t get you anywhere. Not in the long run.”