by Ryan Casey
“You sound like you know something about that from first-hand experience.”
Alison glanced at Gina. Then she looked away. “More than you’d ever realise.”
They sat there for a while, in silence. Arya snored. Kelsie had fallen back to sleep. And Alison knew they’d be okay. Whatever happened, they’d be okay.
It wasn’t long after that the door slammed open and footsteps made their way down the corridor.
Alison looked at Gina.
Gina looked back at her. Wide-eyed.
Alison went to stand, knife in hand.
But when she saw who stepped through the door, she went still.
It was Ian.
He was with Calvin.
Calvin had been beaten. He had been cut. A new fear was on his face.
But he was alive.
“Ian?” Alison said.
“I’m sorry,” Ian said. “But I had to. I just… I just had to.”
But Alison wasn’t concerned about Ian or Calvin. Suddenly, she was concerned about something else. Someone else. Someone much, much closer to home.
“Where’s Mike?” Alison asked.
Ian frowned. “Mike? I didn’t see him out there.”
“But he—he heard the scream. Calvin’s scream.”
Ian looked at her in a way that made her know what was coming before he even said it.
“Calvin didn’t scream. I made sure of it.”
Alison looked at Gina. Gina looked back at her. Uncertainty between them. Tension between them.
And then she said it.
Gina said the words that echoed everything Alison was thinking.
“If it wasn’t Calvin, and it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
They looked outside.
Out into the stillness of night.
In the darkness, in the quiet, someone was out there.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Mike opened his eyes, all he saw was darkness.
He tried to move, but he couldn’t. He was tied to a tree. At first, he thought it was just dark, but then he realised there was something covering his eyes.
He was in the shit. Again.
He tried to move regardless. Because if he’d learned one thing from this mad world, it was that sitting back and accepting his fate wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
He tried to pull at the rope around his body. Tried to break free of its suffocating grip.
But to no avail.
He tried to shout, then. Tried to let out a cry. But it looked like he’d been gagged, too.
His first thought—his instincts—were that this was Calvin. It had to be. Who else could it be? He’d led Ian out into the woods. He’d broken free, somehow. He’d sneaked up on Mike. That was the only option. The only explanation.
But then something didn’t seem right. He’d heard the cry coming from another direction, he was sure of it.
Then he’d seen movement in the woods. Heard movement in the woods.
And there was something he remembered.
A blurry final vision.
The person who’d sneaked up on him. The person he’d caught a glimpse of, right at the end.
He wasn’t certain. He couldn’t be certain.
But something deep inside told him that the person had been a woman.
He tried to move again. Tried to wriggle free. But there was no getting out of this mess. His sense of urgency began to grow. Because if this person wasn’t Calvin, then who was it?
If this person had caused the scream, then how? What were they doing?
And then there was Kelsie. Alison. Gina. Arya. All of them back at the cabin.
Just how long until they got scared?
Just how long until they ventured outside?
Just how long until they couldn’t stay in that place any longer?
Mike thought about Alison. How determined she had been to join him. He knew she’d be getting irate. After all, Mike wasn’t even sure how long he’d been out here. But he could safely assume it’d been a while.
He went to make another push, another attempt to snap free of the rope around him, when he heard something.
Movement.
There were footsteps. Squelching through the mud. Crunching across the fallen branches that had been knocked down by the storm. Someone approaching. Someone getting closer.
It was then that he caught a sense of a smell. Something nearby. Something… sour. Rancid. Of course, that natural defence mechanism inside him made him want to know what it was. It made him want to know where it was coming from. For his own safety and security more than anything.
But another part of him didn’t want to see. It didn’t want to know.
And that movement.
That squelching against the ground right in front of him.
It made his uncertainty grow even more…
He kept still. Tried to listen. Tried to hear any slight movement, any subtle shifts. But mostly he could just hear his own heart pounding in his chest. Mostly he could just hear his own shaky breathing, his own raspy exhalations.
And in the end, he kept on hearing more sounds. More movements. Some he was sure were real. Some he wasn’t.
There was no doubting one thing, though.
There was somebody else right near him.
He kept still for a while. Just waiting. Waiting to see what happened. Waiting to see where this whole thing progressed.
And when he next heard the footsteps, it was followed by a cold blade to the neck.
He took in a sharp inhalation. He felt trapped. Cornered. He started to run through all the possibilities in his mind. All the potential options. They could be psychos. They could be cannibals. They could be the worst of the worst.
But he didn’t have much longer to think about it.
He didn’t have much longer to consider it.
The person cut the hood away from his head, and Mike saw light.
That was the first thing that struck him. He was in the woods. Tied to a tree. Morning light shining down onto him. So that’s how long had passed. Hours. Hours out here alone. Hours with the others back at the cabin worried about him.
And then there was Ian and Calvin. Ian could’ve done it by now. He could’ve finished Calvin off, then ended his own life.
And where did that leave him?
Where did that leave all of them?
Square one.
Square one all over again.
But he didn’t have time to think about the possibilities.
He didn’t have time to mull over the many options.
Because his hood was off.
And there was somebody perched in front of him.
Right in front of him.
It was a woman. Long, greasy ginger hair. Bright green eyes. Torn clothes. And it was pretty clear that the rancid smell had been coming from her after all.
And that knife to his neck. Yeah, that was problematic.
She looked at him. Looked at him from head to toe. Like she was scanning him. Like she was considering who he was. Like she was weighing up how much meat she could scrape from his bones to snack down on.
And there was something about her. Something that caught his attention. Something… familiar.
He wanted to speak to her. He wanted to try and get through to her. But the gag. It was still on his mouth. It was still…
Then, something happened. Something unexpected.
The woman cut the gag from Mike’s mouth.
And then she put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a long way from home, Mike,” she said.
Mike frowned. “What…”
And then it clicked.
It clicked. Hard.
“Oh,” he said.
It was about all he could manage.
Because this small world had just got a whole lot smaller.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The second Ian and Calvin walked through the door, with no sign of Mike with them, Gina knew they w
ere in trouble.
The morning had arrived fast. The rain had totally stopped falling. There was a smell to the air that always followed a storm. A freshness. The smell of rain and mud, earth and water.
But it had a bitter tone to it today. Mostly because of what had happened. Mostly because of the change of circumstances. The return to the unknown.
Gina looked around this dim, dingy room. She wasn’t sure how Calvin had stayed at this place for so long. But one thing was for sure. As much as she kind of wanted to believe Calvin was at fault in some way here, mostly because that made it easier for her to hate him… she couldn’t argue with the truth: he was not involved in Mike’s disappearance.
And Ian had roughed him up, sure. He’d put him through some serious shit.
But he’d kept him alive.
And the pair of them hadn’t seen Mike.
“We need to go out there,” Alison said.
Gina felt resistance. Reluctance. But at the same time, she couldn’t argue with her. She couldn’t deny that they had to go out there at some stage. Mike wouldn’t leave them behind. He never would’ve done that.
They had to show him the same level of respect.
They just had to be careful about how they went about it.
“Is he really so essential?” Calvin asked.
It caught Gina’s attention. It caught everyone’s attention.
“What did you just say?” Gina said.
Calvin shrugged. “I’m just saying. Mike. I know he’s like your self-proclaimed prophet. But do you really need him to lead you to the promised land?”
Ian went in to smack Calvin across the face, to which Calvin recoiled, something that filled Gina with a momentary rush of pleasure. “Don’t push your luck,” Ian said.
“I’m just saying,” Calvin said. “Not putting anything unjust out there. I just wonder whether going charging out there and searching for someone who’s quite clearly got themselves in a bad situation is really the right idea.”
Gina wanted to fight back, too. She wanted to protest.
But there was something deep within her that made her kind of see where Calvin was coming from.
There was something deep within that made her want to agree.
“We can’t turn our backs on Mike,” Alison said. “As much as this bastard wants us to tear each other apart, we just can’t. So as far as I see it, there’s only one option.”
“And Kelsie?” Calvin said.
Alison turned to him. She looked like she was going to punch him now, too.
“Hey, hey,” Calvin said, raising his hands again. “Like I said. Just saying. Just putting it out there. But do you really want to lead this little girl here into a potentially dangerous situation? Do you really want to do that to her, especially when salvation is so very close?”
Again, Gina felt that desire to have a go at Calvin. She felt that urge to chastise him.
But then she looked at Kelsie and she thought about what Calvin was promising—what he was claiming to lead them towards—and again, she had to ask the question.
Did he have a point?
“I’m not suggesting you split up in any way,” Calvin said. “I mean I loathe to make suggestions about the safety of your people. But maybe just… just hold back a little. Just be careful out there. And if not, I can always babysit, if that’s what you’d like.”
“Not a chance,” Alison said.
This time, Calvin smiled. It was only then that Gina realised Calvin was missing a tooth that he wasn’t earlier. Ian’s work, no doubt.
“Regardless of how safe we are or how in danger we are or whatever,” Alison said. “Mike’s out there. And as long as he’s out there, we’re without one of our people. So—”
“I think Calvin has a point.”
Gina wasn’t sure where the words came from. Not exactly. Some deep place inside of her that she’d tried to hold back; that she’d tried to resist.
But she had to look back at her prejudices.
She had to be as rational as possible.
And what Calvin was suggesting was rationality, right now.
“What?” Alison said.
“Maybe it’s not right Kelsie going out there with you people. Maybe it’s not safe. So maybe… maybe I should stay here with Kelsie. At least for a little while longer. If… if this is what we really want to do.”
Alison sighed. She looked around at Ian, who looked back at her. Then she looked back at Calvin, who had a smile on his face. As if his influence was spreading in far greater ways than he could ever have imagined.
“What do you think?” she said to Ian.
Ian shook his head. “I don’t know. I really… I really don’t know.”
“I can look after her,” Gina said. “And I can look after myself. You’ve seen it for yourself already.”
Alison swallowed a lump in her throat, rather visibly.
Then she did something that Gina wasn’t expecting.
She surged over to Gina and placed her knife in her hands.
“You stay in this room. Anyone comes in here, you take them out. You don’t hesitate. Nobody, I mean nobody. Okay?”
Gina half-smiled at Alison. And then she nodded. “I’ve got this. Really.”
Alison looked like she was going to change her mind. She looked like she was hesitating.
Then she turned around and walked to Ian’s side.
“Kelsie and Arya stay here,” she said, walking up to Calvin. “And… and so do you.”
Calvin frowned. Like he wasn’t expecting it.
Then Alison smacked him across the face, and he fell to the floor.
“Tie him up,” she said.
Ian frowned. “What?”
“We need him alive, too. It pains me to say it, but he’s important. If we lose him, we lose the key to our future. So we can’t take him into whatever mess Mike’s in right now. Right?”
Ian didn’t look convinced. But in the end, he nodded. “Right.”
“Right,” Alison said.
She looked at Gina. Walked over to her. “Are you okay with this?”
And Gina had to admit she wasn’t sure. Gina had to admit she wasn’t comfortable being around Calvin.
But she knew Alison was right.
And as long as he was tied up, everything was going to be okay.
“I’ve got it,” Gina said.
Alison nodded. “Good,” she said.
Then she turned around, walked over to Calvin, who lay stationary on the ground.
“Get him tied up. And then we go find Mike. And we don’t let a thing get in our way.”
Gina looked at Calvin as Ian lifted him upright and started to drag him along the floor.
Just for a second, she swore she saw him open his eyes and wink right at her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“So. Just how long have you been surviving out here, Mike?”
Mike heard the words that Sonia was saying. He heard them, but he still couldn’t believe them. He still couldn’t believe any of this. Because it was yet another twist in this crazy small world that felt like it was getting smaller every second.
“And how’s your daughter doing? Holly, isn’t it?”
Mike felt his stomach churn when Sonia said Holly’s name. Mixed emotions. Mixed emotions because he’d have to break the news that Holly was gone.
But something else.
Something he could share with Sonia.
Something she was going to eternally thank him for.
But first, he wanted to know more about what she was doing here.
First, he wanted to know what she had planned for him. Why she’d captured him.
He wanted to know just how safe she was going to be around his people… regardless of who she was; regardless of who she was related to.
“Holly’s not here anymore,” Mike said.
Sonia’s face turned. A glimmer of emotion flicked across it. “I’m sorry for that. This world, it claims a lot of victims
. My husband. My… my—”
“She didn’t die at the hands of the world. She died at the hands of another person. Another person with an agenda. That’s how it is now. That’s the way it goes.”
She took in a deep breath and nodded like she was considering what Mike was saying. “It’s just unfortunate,” she said. “Unfortunate there have to be so many victims. That there have to be so many… sacrifices.”
Mike didn’t like the way she said that word. It didn’t sit right with him. And that smell. That stench somewhere ahead of him.
Sourness. That’s the only way he could describe it. A deep, thick sourness that stuck right to the back of his throat when he inhaled.
A stench that he knew for certain now was actually Sonia.
“How have you been surviving out here, anyway? I thought you were on holiday?”
Sonia narrowed her eyes. “What makes you say that?”
Mike realised very quickly that he’d blown his cover. He didn’t want to divulge much. Not yet. And especially not with Sonia speaking in this way; in this manner.
She wasn’t how he remembered her. And sure, this world was bound to change everyone. But this went beyond mere change. This was… eerie, actually.
“Your daughter. She said something to Holly. Before you went away.”
Sonia looked like she was satisfied by that. Like she understood. “My daughter said a lot of things. Big mouth. Only always in the wrong circumstances. Not brave. Not brave enough for this world. Not brave enough for—for anything. She needs her mother. She needs me.”
Mike wanted to tell her how wrong she was as he tensed his fists. He wanted to tell her just how strong her daughter was. Just how much she’d fought to get this far.
Because there was something else about Sonia.
The reason he knew her. The reason he recognised her.
She was Gina’s mother.
“I was away,” Sonia said. “We… we were heading back. Airplane coming in to land. I didn’t tell Gina we were heading home early. It was a surprise for her. Mostly to see what she’d been up to. To catch her in the act of whatever she was doing. Knew she wouldn’t cope without me. Knew she wouldn’t be strong enough. But then we ran into turbulence. And the next thing we knew the plane went crashing into the runway. And then everyone… everyone around me was dead. I had to react. I had to get out of there.”