by Ryan Casey
Nobody saw the blood under his fingernails.
He saw a child in that car window. A little blonde girl on the back seat.
He looked at her and smiled.
She started to cry.
He chuckled. Kept on walking further down this road. Something had happened. He didn’t know what, but he knew it was catastrophic. And if something had happened, there was only one thing he could do now. There was only one way he could make the most of his short time outside before all of this was cleaned up, one way or another.
He had to enjoy himself.
He had to make the most of this.
He looked at the sign for Windermere in the distance.
He smiled.
He had to find a populated area. But an area where he would draw less attention to himself.
An area where he could bide his time and then strike.
He took a deep breath as the beaming sun glowed down against him, and he smiled.
Then, he walked in the direction of Windermere.
Towards whatever bright future lay ahead.
Chapter Twenty-One
Martin didn’t wait long before setting off for Ambleside.
It was a nice day. The bright sun made him squint and long for summer. He and Ella were on another long, winding country road. The surroundings were growing repetitive. Cars in the middle of the road, totally stationary. Most of them were abandoned, some of them with people still sleeping inside, waiting for this to all boil over. A lot of people were trekking back home to wherever they were from. But Martin got the sense that wasn’t a good idea. Especially if everywhere was affected in the same way.
Heading back to somewhere more populated was growing gradually more unappealing by the second.
Especially as he was heading towards Ambleside.
Everywhere they walked, Martin got the sense that he and Ella weren’t really seeing the real impact of this solar event—which it looked pretty damned likely to be right now. They weren’t in one of the towns or cities, so they wouldn’t see the collapse or the disarray.
But at the same time, they wouldn’t see any potential rescue operations, either.
It was a fine line to walk.
Martin cleared his dry throat. He couldn’t stop thinking about Mick’s son and what he’d told him. Finding him dead. Insistent that something bad had happened to him—that it looked like murder.
He felt defensiveness, and he felt sympathy. If that was his daughter, his Ella…
He felt that anger growing within. A desire for revenge that wasn’t even his to feel.
And then he reminded himself to stay focused on the journey ahead.
“So tell me,” Ella said, traipsing along just behind Martin. “Why is it we’re going to Ambleside again?”
Martin rubbed the back of his neck. He was torn over going to another town. But it felt like something that had to be done. He still hadn’t seen enough to be absolutely certain this was widespread.
He knew he was an idiot for thinking that way. He knew if he was a character in a damned book, people would be screaming at him to just trust his instincts and make a break for the hills.
But this was reality. And in reality, it wasn’t just enough to have a feeling things weren’t all right.
In reality, you needed to see proof that this really was as bad as it looked.
And then there was Ella.
“It’s the nearest town,” Martin said. “About a six-hour journey on foot from here. So we’d better get a move on.”
Ella sighed. “More walking. And you still haven’t answered me. What are we even going there for?”
“We might be able to find some answers there.”
“And if we don’t?”
“If we don’t, at least we might be able to find someone who can…”
He stopped. Looked around at Ella. Saw the way she looked at him with those big wide eyes. He knew what he was going to say. Ella knew, too. At least we might be able to find someone who can look after you better than I can.
But the silence hung in the air for far longer than was comfortable. If anything, it made things worse between them. Like it was an unspoken truth that Martin just wasn’t capable of being there for this kid. He might be physically and mentally strong enough to deal with whatever the hell this world as it was had to throw at him. But looking after Ella was a different kind of strength altogether.
It was Ella who broke the silence, thankfully. But it wasn’t exactly a re-steering of direction.
“Let’s just say we get to Ambleside,” Ella said. “And it’s the same there as Eskdale Green. Or the same as everywhere else we’ve seen. Or even worse. What then?”
Martin looked away. Stared up at this tree-lined road. Saw a silver car, door wide open, abandoned like it had lost all its value overnight. “Then we get you back to your grandma.”
“And what if that’s not enough?”
“Is there a point to all this, Ella?” Martin asked.
Ella shrugged. Rubbed her forearms. Something she did when she was nervous, Martin noticed. A note to lower the snappiness of his tone, if nothing else.
“Sorry,” Martin said. “I get you’re scared. But even if this is the absolute worst-case scenario—and I don’t for a minute believe it will be—then there’s still ways of surviving.”
“How?”
Martin didn’t want to go down this route, but he figured it’d pass a little time on their journey. Any excuse to entertain his nerdy interests was good enough for him. “The way I learned, the most important things are the four ’S’s. Shelter, supplies, sanitation, and sustainability. Shelter, preferably somewhere rural. You want to be as far away from the big cities as possible when the sh… when things go south. Supplies, gather as many useful supplies as you can—and that means things that’ll last, not the bargain bacon from the supermarket shelves. I’m talking peanut butter. Portable stoves. Dental floss for stitching. All kinds of things like that. We’ll focus on that. Third S, sanitation. You’re going to want to keep clean. Especially when there’s nobody around to look after the sick. Disease will be rife. Important you keep yourself in as good a shape as possible. Now, usually, those three will be enough to get you through a short-term event like this. But if it’s a long-term thing, we need to think about that final S.”
“Sustainability?” Ella said.
Martin nodded. “Supplies don’t last forever. The difference between those who survive and those who don’t is usually down to how willing they are to adapt to a more classic way of life. Hunting. Farming. Cultivating crops. Creating water filtration systems. Trading with other like-minded people. None of it’s easy. If it were, we’d do it anyway. But lucky enough, I know a thing or two. Spent a lot of nights on the side of the road in the front of my lorry. Plenty of time to research this stuff. But anyway. It won’t come to that.”
Ella smiled a little. Her eyes lit up. She looked like she was genuinely curious. “And you’ll stick around?”
Martin frowned. “Huh?”
“If that’s how bad it gets. You know a thing or two like you say. So you’ll stick around and help me and my grandma if that’s what it takes?”
Martin’s mouth dried up. He smiled, just a little. “I’m not sure Grandma Moira’s gonna approve of me lodging so much, is she?”
Ella shrugged. “She’s not even five foot. Let’s see her try and stop you.”
She smiled back at him. And then Martin found himself smiling at her, too. He found himself remembering the first time he looked into her eyes as she lay in his arms, cooing. Smiling, right from the day she was born.
He remembered the love he felt, right from that very first moment.
He wanted to tell her he loved her.
That he wished he could do anything for her.
But then he heard a blood-curdling cry, right over his shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Martin spun around the second he heard the cry.
He saw s
omething up the road. Something sitting amidst the many broken-down cars.
An ambulance.
His stomach turned. A flashback to a moment he hadn’t even been present for—the death of Sarah. He pictured the blue lights outside her house as they went in there. The cries when Moira found out. The coldness in his body when he got that call; the shivers up his spine. The sense that she was just a ghost now; that all their time together was gone. Just like that.
He heard that wail again, and he arrived right back in the moment.
He looked at Ella. Saw her, hands in front of her body like she was guarding herself from whatever was up ahead. He wanted to tell her to hold back. To stay out of the way. He wanted to protect her.
But he knew nothing would keep her away.
She had her mother’s inquisitiveness.
So he might as well make sure he kept an eye on her.
“Stay close,” Martin said. “Don’t leave my sight. Okay?”
He saw something. A shift in her eyes. Maybe she detected the quiver in his voice. Maybe she could even hear his pounding heartbeat. He didn’t know, not for sure.
But there was that sense, for maybe the first time, that they were really in a dangerous situation. A situation that could turn sour at any moment.
They’d been cocooned in the countryside. It was only now that it felt like they were facing up to the very real horrors and dangers of the real world.
Reality was creeping up. Fast.
“I remember hearing the sirens,” Ella said.
Martin’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”
Ella looked into the distance, over towards that ambulance that they were getting closer and closer to. “When Mum died,” she said. “I remember being at Grandma’s. I remember hearing the sirens go past. It was weird, ’cause I remember wondering for a moment, what if? What if it was Mum? What if something was wrong with her? And there was. It was her. I used to wonder it so, so much. But this time, I was actually right.”
Martin couldn’t say a word. He could only keep walking towards the ambulance, towards this crying, not sure whether he wanted to get any closer, not sure whether he wanted to see what was ahead.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, kid,” he muttered. “I’m... I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all of this. It’s not right.”
“And I’m sorry you’ve had to go through it, too,” she said.
Martin turned to her. He felt his heart swelling more with every moment. He’d lost this girl. And yet she was so eager to connect with him again. So eager to connect with someone who just wasn’t deserving.
“Come on,” he said, half-smiling to try and reassure her more than anything. “We’d better go check this out.”
He turned back to that ambulance. There was nobody else around here. Some cars had crashed into one another. Telegraph poles stretched across the street. And up ahead, this ambulance sat there, waiting.
Rear door ajar.
He held his breath. Wondered for a moment what he might find in there. How much he was actually risking it right now.
And then he swallowed a lump in his throat and opened that door.
The first thing that hit him was the smell.
The smell of urine, strong and pungent in the air.
So strong he could actually taste it catching the back of his throat.
“Ella,” he mumbled, covering his mouth right away as his eyes watered, trying his best not to gag. “I... You should...”
But it was already too late.
She was staring into the back of the ambulance. Wide-eyed.
Staring at what was ahead.
He didn’t want to look.
He didn’t want to see.
But he had to turn around.
He looked.
There was a man lying there on the bed. Strapped down by his veiny old arms. He was so skinny. So emaciated.
The air had a smell of booze.
His gaunt face peered up at Martin. His eyes were wide. His lips were so dry. Martin could see brown between his legs, where he’d soiled himself.
He’d been left here.
Abandoned.
“They said they’d get help,” he gasped. “They... they said they’d... they said they’d...”
Martin’s instincts kicked in right away. He launched himself up the ambulance towards the man. Yanked those straps from his frail, bony arms.
“Hey,” he said, holding his weak head. “You’re okay. I’ve got you now. You’re going to be okay.”
The man peered up at him. Tears trickling down his face. Lips quivering. “Why did they leave me?”
Martin felt a lump swelling in his own throat. The man was so pitiful. He felt so sorry for him.
There was so much he wanted to do for him, and yet nothing he could.
Nothing other than be here for him.
Comfort him.
“It’s okay,” Martin said. “We’ve got you now.”
He thought about how many people would be in this state. The hospitals would be in disarray. Life support machines switched off in an instant. Operations stalled, right in the middle of them. Thousands and thousands of elderly relying on medication deliveries, all of them stranded, all in an instant.
Add that to the people dead in plane crashes, in car accidents, or on cruise ships, stranded in the middle of the ocean…
The death toll would be high already.
And it was only going to get higher.
He heard movement to his left. Barely remembered Ella was even here.
He noticed something, then.
She had an open water bottle in her hand.
She rested it against the man’s dry lips, just lightly, and poured a little into his mouth.
Martin watched her as she poured this water. He heard her caring for him. Saying things were going to be okay. He watched her wiping this man’s lips, and he knew that she’d had to care for her mother, right away. She’d had to deal with awful situations.
And she needed someone to look after her too.
She glanced up at him as she nursed this man. Half-smiled at him.
And he smiled back at her, holding the dying man’s hand, comforting him. Helping him.
The man died twenty minutes later.
His cold hand still in Ella’s.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was already going dark when Martin and Ella reached Ambleside.
Martin knew long before arriving what the situation was. But now he was here it just drilled the severity of the whole damned situation home to home. Abandoned cars everywhere. People rushing down the streets, looking over their shoulders as they raced shopping trolleys full of all kinds of everything down the road. There was broken glass on the pavement. Some of the shops had boarded up already.
It was only the second night, and already tensions were mounting.
Martin held on to Ella’s cold hand as he walked down the street. She’d been quiet ever since the incident with the old man in the ambulance. It’d got to her. Reality hitting her, perhaps for the very first time. A sense that this caring world wasn’t so caring anymore—and these were just the early days.
Martin looked at Ambleside and felt his stomach sink. Seeing such a beautiful little lakeside town in such disarray was heartbreaking. Ambleside was always so quiet. So peaceful.
And it posed the question to Martin. If somewhere like Ambleside was already spiralling out of control, then what would the larger towns and cities be like?
One the one hand, at least there might be military there to try and ease things.
On the other... the military might just increase tensions even more.
Martin didn’t know what was worse right now.
“So what do we do now?” Ella asked.
It was a good question. One Martin knew he was going to struggle answering. After all, what did they do? He’d walked from the log cabin towards Eskdale Green. He hadn’t found any hope there. He’d headed even further in
to Ambleside and found it the same here.
There was only so far he could go before realising that things were the same everywhere.
This blackout. It was widespread.
He went to answer Ella, still not totally certain what he was going to say, when he heard shouting over to his right.
There was a beefy man standing in front of the supermarket. Another man had two baskets full of items. He was skinny. Trying to stand his ground.
But the beefy guy kept on prodding a finger into his chest and ordering him to hand his supplies over.
There were a few other people around. Some of them were trying to calm the bigger bloke. Others looked like they were encouraging him.
And Martin heard things. He could hear what the big bloke was shouting. “You’re not even from around here. You’re just a frigging tourist. You’ve no damned right taking our stuff!”
“It’s not your stuff,” the skinny man said. “If you wanted it, you should’ve got it when you had the ch—”
It happened, then.
The big man took a swing at the skinny bloke holding the baskets.
The baskets dropped to the floor with a clatter.
Browning apples and tins of tuna spilled everywhere.
And nobody helped the skinny man up.
Nobody went to his aid.
They just grabbed what they could of the debris before disappearing.
“Can’t we do something?” Ella asked.
Martin looked at that skinny bloke lying on the ground. He put a hand to his jaw, which looked broken. Looked at what little remained all around him, as a big purple bruise swelled up on the right side of his face.
“We need to get away from here,” Martin said.
He walked further down the street. Passed the places he used to love visiting. The old country pubs, where everyone was so friendly and welcoming. The famous Apple Pie Bakery, which usually smelled so sweet and delicious, now closed and with no sign of life inside. The little green area in the square, where children usually played on trampolines and mini-golf, distressingly vacant but for just two children sitting on the swings, moving lightly.