by Casey, Ryan
Come on, Aoife. One step at a time. You’ve got this.
She decided not to even attempt pushing herself free of Harry again. It was useless. The only way she was getting from underneath him was if she wormed her way free. She remembered being a kid and getting stuck in some caves on a school trip. The fear she felt. And hearing the words her instructor shouted down to her.
Act like you’re a worm! Use your whole body, every single muscle, and worm your way free!
She heard those words now and felt that same terror she’d felt back then, all those years ago.
And then she began worming her way backwards. Dragging herself from underneath Harry’s weight.
Step by step by step.
All the time, the smell of smoke grew stronger.
The heat from the flames got warmer.
And Aoife’s heart beat harder and harder and harder.
She dragged herself backwards. And in a moment of terror, she got an image of stretching her neck and Harry’s weight falling down onto her, choking her to death, right before she burned—
No.
Don’t think about that.
Just focus on getting out from under him.
She pulled herself back, more and more. And as the flames grew stronger, she thought about the emergency services again. Why weren’t they here? Why was nobody here to help her?
And then she remembered her dad’s words.
You can’t always rely on other people to help you out, Aoife. Sometimes in life, you’ve got to find the strength to help yourself.
She closed her tearful eyes and yanked herself further out when she felt a burning pain right in her shin.
“Agh!”
She yelled out. Cried. Pulled back a little haphazardly, shifting Harry’s weight more than she would’ve liked.
There was something in her leg.
Something sharp.
She needed to get it out.
She needed…
Aoife. One step at a time. One frigging step at a time.
She took a breath, even though the pain in her leg was immense.
She dragged herself further from under Harry.
Almost there. Almost…
And then she pulled herself free of Harry, who fell to the broken window of the bus again.
She stood up, dizzy, and keeled over straight away. The pain in her leg was bad. She looked down and saw a piece of glass sticking right out of her thigh.
Felt nauseous and sick, straight away. Went shivery and cold, even though it was getting hot in here.
She took a few deep breaths.
There was no time to wait.
No time to hesitate.
She yanked that shard of glass from her leg.
Blood trickled out.
She’d bandage it up as soon as she got away.
Right now, she needed to get out of here.
She needed to escape.
She looked up at the windows above. She couldn’t see any smoke escaping out the top of them. So they weren’t smashed by the looks of things.
Which meant she’d have to smash them first.
She looked around for something she could use. Anything.
And as the smoke got thicker, as she had to stop her breathing to stop herself choking, she saw a fire extinguisher at the back of the bus.
She limped over towards it.
Grabbed it.
Tried to shoot it towards the flames, but it spluttered and failed.
Damned public service cuts. Typical.
She looked up at the window above.
She’d need to balance on the side of one of the seats. She’d need to climb. And then she’d need to jump.
She shivered. Shook as she scrambled around to get on the edge of one of the chairs. She couldn’t think anymore. She couldn’t ponder. She just had to act.
She climbed onto the side of a chair, putting all the weight on her right side, and wished she’d stuck with those yoga classes to give herself some more flexibility and balance.
She pulled back the extinguisher.
She went to smash it against the glass.
And then she slipped off and fell and hit the floor.
She looked at the fire. It was spreading fast, covering the entire front of the bus now. No chance of getting out the door. She had to get out of a window. It was going to be her only way out.
But she couldn’t. Not with this wound on her leg.
She looked at the piece of glass.
And then she looked up at the glass of the bus window again.
She looked up at it, and she broke the problems down into smaller ones, just as Dad would’ve told her to.
Think, Aoife. Think.
She gripped the extinguisher, tight in her hands.
She pulled back her arms.
“Here goes nothing,” she said.
And then, as hard as she could, she threw it up towards the window.
A crack.
It fell back down beside her.
And even though the window hadn’t smashed in the dramatic fashion she’d hoped, it was enough.
Enough for her to work with.
She climbed onto the chairs again. Winced with the agony in her left thigh.
And then she stretched out for the window, fire extinguisher balanced in her hands.
“Come on,” she said, bashing against it. The smoke filling the bus now. So much so she felt dizzy. On the verge of collapse. “Please. Come on. Come…”
It all happened so fast.
The window broke.
The smoke escaped outside.
Glass rained down on Aoife.
She had a chance.
She reached up, stretched as far as she could, so far her fingers felt like they were going to pop out of her hands, her hands out of her arms, her arms out of their sockets.
Come on. Come on!
And then she felt the sharp broken glass at the edge of the broken bus window dig right into her palms, and despite the pain, she felt relief.
Total relief.
“Almost there. You can do this. Almost there.”
She stretched. Pulled herself up. Even though she was sore, stiff, purely acting on adrenaline, she pulled.
She knew she could do this.
She knew she was strong enough.
She…
That’s when she heard it.
A cough.
A cough from inside the bus.
She looked around. Frowned.
And then, in the glow of the flames, she saw something that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand right on end.
Harry’s eyes were open.
He was lying there.
And he was alive.
He looked right up at her, terror in his eyes.
“Please,” he whimpered. “Don’t leave me. Help me. Please!”
Chapter Fifteen
Max watched the smoke fill the train cabin, drowning the mother from sight, and listened to the baby’s screams.
It was boiling hot here. He was absolutely dripping with sweat. Seriously, it was really fucking hard to believe it was actually the middle of winter when he felt like he was standing in a furnace.
In front of him, a burning train. The train that had crashed when the power went out.
A lot of people had managed to crawl their way out of the train. Further down, though, Max saw a man dangling out of a window, half-burned. His stomach ripped apart from the window’s jagged edges, digging into his torso. A woman screaming as she held her limp, burned child in her arms.
And behind, down on the ground, chaos. Panic. Pandemonium.
A realisation that this wasn’t ordinary. That something very, very wrong was happening here.
And still there were no emergency services here to help.
Max turned back around. Looked at that smoking mass inside the train’s cabin. He could still hear that baby inside, crying away. No sign of the baby’s mother anymore.
He knew what the l
ogical thing to do would be. To turn away. To get the hell away from this train and get back home, where he’d be safe. Because he had supplies. He had gadgets, that if this were some kind of electromagnetic pulse or coronal mass ejection, would be protected from the fallout.
And most importantly, he didn’t have any responsibilities. Didn’t have anyone waiting on him.
And he preferred it that way.
But standing here, he knew he couldn’t just let that be the case.
He knew he couldn’t just give up on this woman and her child.
He pulled back his bloodied fists once more and smacked hard against the boiling hot glass.
It was hot. So hot. So hot that he had to stop immediately. He wasn’t making any progress.
But the thought of turning away. The thought of giving up. The thought of letting this child die…
“No,” he said.
He looked around. Saw that window the bloke had died trying to get out of. Could he get in through there? Did he have a chance?
He gritted his teeth. Heard debris tumble from the burning train somewhere behind him. Heard the lines creaking.
And in that moment of adrenaline, one thought came to mind.
“Fuck it,” he said.
He rushed over to the glass. Saw the bloke dangling out of that train window. No wonder he’d hurt himself. Impaled himself on a real sharp piece of glass, by the looks of things.
And Max felt bad. Of course, he felt bad. He knew this guy probably deserved better than to be used as protection from the broken glass.
But right now, he needed to act fast.
He clambered his way inside and was hit with the double assault of thick, suffocating smoke and intense heat right away.
He tumbled against the floor of the train. The whole place felt like it was on fire. He could see the inferno over to his left. And he turned away from it immediately. He didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to face it. Didn’t want to accept that it was there, and it was real, and it was coming for him, and that he needed to get away from it—fast.
He covered his mouth as he spluttered. As the smoke stung his eyes, making him cry scorching hot tears. He squinted over towards where he’d seen the woman, heard the child, but he couldn’t see anything for the smoke. Not a thing.
He stumbled forward. He wasn’t even sure he was going in the right direction anymore. Wasn’t sure about anything.
Only that he couldn’t give up.
He had to keep trying.
Please, Max. Save him. Save David.
He heard her voice and took a few more steps forward. Bumped into a body lying there, unconscious. A man. Heard screaming down the carriage.
And all this time, he couldn’t shift his attention from where he thought the woman was.
Where he thought her baby was.
And all this time…
He couldn’t help noticing he couldn’t hear the baby anymore.
He stood there. Shaking, even though he was roasting. His vision was fading. His body felt weak. If he stayed in here much longer, he was going to cough his guts up and die.
He had to walk away.
He had to go.
You failed. You failed, again.
“No!”
He stepped forward, and he saw her.
The woman.
The baby in her arms.
Both of them silent.
Both of them with their eyes closed.
Both of them gone.
He stood there in the burning inferno as the smoke picked up and stared at the pair of them.
And then, in that instant, he saw himself back at the house, three years ago.
Kathryn dying.
Going into the bedroom.
Finding David.
The pain he’d felt.
The grief he’d felt.
The anger at how he couldn’t have done more.
He stood there and stared at the pair of these bodies as the smoke got thicker and the flames got closer, and he knew he didn’t have a choice anymore.
So he turned around, staggered away, and climbed back out of that window.
Out into the air.
Out into the open.
Out into the darkness outside.
It was only when he’d staggered away from the train, down the steps, back to the ground, past all the panicking people, that he swore he heard a baby crying from inside that train.
Chapter Sixteen
“Please,” Harry shouted. “Don’t leave me here. Don’t let me die here. Please!”
Aoife didn’t know what the hell what happening or what the hell to do. Harry. He was alive. She was convinced he was dead. She’d wormed her way from underneath his heavy body, clambered her way across the bus, struggled to escape the smashed window, and dragged herself up it. Got a piece of glass in her leg for her troubles.
But this was supposed to be straightforward, now. There weren’t supposed to be any more twists here. Any more turns. She was supposed to climb out of this bus and get away before the flames engulfed it. And then she was going to find help. Find someone who could help her. Help she was convinced should’ve already arrived by now.
But Harry.
She saw him crouched there amid the flames. Saw the sweat pooling down his face. Saw the tears interlinked with blood. And she felt so bad for him. Because sure, he was a shit to her. Sure, he was a creep. But his life was in danger here. The flames were growing around the bus. If she didn’t help him out of here, he was going to be burned alive.
“Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean to hurt you. Just… My leg. It’s stuck. Don’t leave me here to die. Please.”
She saw him struggling with his right leg, which was wedged between the chair and the side of the bus. And again, she sympathised. Because as much as she wanted to go back to him, as much as she wanted to help… she knew there wasn’t much she could do for him. She wouldn’t be able to drag him the way she’d escaped through. And those flames were getting thicker. The smoke was getting thicker. Time was running out.
In the end, she only had one choice.
“I’m going to get help.”
Harry’s eyes widened. He looked like he was crying. “What? No. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
“There’s—there’s nothing I can do. But time’s running out. I… I need to get help. I need to get us help and—and I will. I’ll get help right now, and I’ll get you out of there. I promise. I promise.”
She saw him shaking his head.
Saw that wall of flames growing even brighter behind him.
It’d swallow him up in no time.
“No,” he shouted. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!”
She turned around and climbed off the side of the bus.
She was shaking. In shock, for sure. She felt cold. Freezing cold. Shivering. Everything looked… surreal. Everything shimmered like she was in some kind of dream. Some kind of nightmare.
Maybe that’s what this was. A nightmare. She’d had vivid dreams before, dreams where she was being hunted, dreams she was being torn apart.
But nothing as vivid as this.
She looked around at her surroundings.
The bus had collided with a row of terraced houses. The front of it looked like it’d smashed through a tree, too. There were people on the streets. A baby crying somewhere.
And everything was so dark.
All of the street lamps were off.
All of the lights in the houses were off, too.
She wondered if the bus had hit something. If it’d damaged the electricity cables down here, caused a power cut.
But shit. She didn’t have time to speculate.
Not while Harry was still shouting out for help in that burning bus.
“Help,” she said, limping along.
A man looked around at her. He was standing by the side of his car, trying to work his phone. He looked at her with wide eyes. Inside the car, an old lady who looked… sh
it. She looked dead.
“Sorry,” he said. “We all need help, love.”
Aoife turned away from him, walked further down the road, towards the terraced houses. She could see a few people gathered by the houses. All of them looking at their phones. Trying to get their phones to work.
“There’s—there’s somebody in there,” she shouted. “There’s—there’s a man in there. He’s trapped. I got out, but he needs help. It’s burning. Please!”
She saw these people staring at her. People asking her to sit down, to breathe. Telling her everything was going to be okay, but nothing could be done.
“The phones,” a woman said. “The phones are all out. The power’s all out. And even the cars are out, too. We can’t get an ambulance down ’ere ’cause we can’t let ’um know.”
And Aoife didn’t understand. She didn’t get it. Only this whole scene was taking on the form of a nightmare more and more by the second.
She looked around at that burning bus. Her teeth chattered together. She could still hear shouting in there. Shouting, which got more and more pained by the second.
And as she watched the flames rise, she wanted to go back over there.
Because for all the shit Harry had put her through tonight… he was human.
He was afraid.
And he was alone.
She went to walk back, determined to help him however she could, when she heard a few shouts behind her.
Saw people running past.
Fear on their faces.
All looking up at the sky.
She turned around. Looked up.
That’s when she saw it.
It was only small. But there was this light. This bright orange light, that looked like it was getting bigger and bigger.
“It’s a plane!” someone shouted, running past her. “It’s gonna blow the whole street up. Run!”
Aoife didn’t get it. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t put two and two together.
But then, as that light grew brighter, and as a sound of something whizzing through the air grew in intensity, she realised, and her stomach dropped.
A plane.
There was a plane falling from the sky.
Hurtling to the ground.
And it was flying right towards her.
Fast.
Chapter Seventeen