by Ryan Casey
She saw herself from above. Saw herself standing there. Saw her baby in her arms. Saw the people around her.
And then she had a sudden flash to a day from now. All of this fallen. Gone. But not like it was a vision. Like it was now.
She saw it then she took a deep breath.
She turned around and handed baby Holly to Tate.
“Watch her.”
“Kelsie?”
“Just… just watch her for me.”
“But—”
“I have to see,” she said.
Tate shook his head. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. “You don’t have to see.”
“I have to see.”
She saw he was preparing to protest. That he was going to argue against her leaving.
So she placed baby Holly in his arms, and before he could say a thing—before any of them could say a thing—she ran off into the distance.
She ran between the old shops. Ran past the rusted cars. She ran past decomposed bodies, remains of people and animals, resting at the side of the road. She saw all of these things and thought about how they’d just become parts of the scenery now. Like litter used to be in the old world.
And she thought how sad it was really. How sad it was that things had come to this. That they just accepted this as the world they lived in now.
She heard the gunfire close by—not as strong now—and she held her breath as she reached a turn in the road.
When she stepped around the corner, she saw it, and her heart sank all over again.
The Empress Ballroom wasn’t in the best state to begin with. But it was the area in front of it that really caught Kelsie’s eye.
Because she could see helicopters.
Multiple helicopters.
And she could see people.
They’d been attacked. Slaughtered. People wearing the Outsider outfits, but clearly not quite in the same faction of people as the ones hunting everyone.
And just seeing this chaos… seeing the blood and the guts and the stunned expressions on the dead faces… it made Kelsie feel sick.
Because this could’ve been them.
It could’ve been them escaping.
But it could’ve been them dying too.
She heard shuffling up ahead. Saw one of those armed people. Instinct told her to go over there. To put them down and die in a blaze of glory.
But then she thought of baby Holly. And how her priority now was just making sure she had the best life she could in whatever time they had left.
She went to turn around when she heard more movement, behind her this time.
She held her breath. Braced herself.
But it was already too late.
There was somebody standing there.
But as she realised who it was… Kelsie felt a different kind of emotion.
Anger.
Fear.
“Hi,” Gina said, holding on to the wound on her chest—the wound where Kelsie had stabbed her.
And then she fell to the ground and passed out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Six Hours to Go…
When Gina opened her eyes, Kelsie felt the pain of what she’d done rising to the surface all over again.
It was early afternoon now. The sun was still beaming down bright from above, the intensity of the day’s heat not letting up. They were on the old pier. It’d been a bit tricky to cross over onto it, a few challenging spots. But it seemed solid for the most part. It seemed stable.
Besides. It didn’t really matter so much anyway. Not anymore.
Not when they knew what was coming for them pretty much exactly a day from now.
Kelsie listened to the sound of the sea crashing against the walls of the pier. Most of them had corroded away, lack of maintenance and care breaking them down over time. Soon, they wouldn’t even be here at all. Nothing would be here. All of it would be gone, with the click of a finger.
It was only in times of the most sincere threat that you really saw just how beautiful the world around you really was.
Kelsie found herself losing herself in those sea sounds, in that smell of the salty water. Found herself thinking back to years ago. Trips to the seaside with her family. The sound of the fairgrounds. The smell of warm candy floss and hot dogs. The taste of delicious fish and chips, making her salivate.
But that wasn’t just the old world. That was the world before the old world. It was another world that had died, just like that, in the click of a finger.
And still they’d found a way to come back from it.
Still they’d found a way to bounce back.
But this was going to be different.
This was going to be final.
This was going to be the end.
But somewhere else… a new beginning.
Just without them this time.
Gina opened her eyes.
And there was a second where she looked around at the people surrounding her. Where she looked at Jack, at Trev and his people, the looks on their faces. Because Kelsie had filled them in on what Gina had done, after all. She’d filled them in on what Gina had taken from her.
But she hadn’t told Trev the full truth.
She hadn’t told him about Gina’s plans to chemically attack other groups.
And how she’d already carried out those plans so many times before.
She’d only scratched the surface of how much of a monster Gina had become.
Then there was Manuel. He hadn’t been sure how to react to seeing Gina again at first. He hadn’t said a word to her. Just stood and stared at her from afar.
Because sure. He knew about some of the things she had done. He’d been involved in some of the things she’d done.
But he’d seen another way now.
He’d seen a light.
And for that reason, it looked like a wedge had been forced between the pair of them, unshakable, unmoving.
Kelsie felt hatred when she looked at Gina. There were still those voices in her head screaming at her about what Gina had taken from her.
About how she’d killed Siobhan.
She heard baby Holly crying in her arms. Saw Gina look at her, process it for a second, then smile. “Glad to see the little one’s doing well.”
Kelsie felt her body tense up. “Don’t even look at her. Not after what you took from her. From both of us.”
Gina’s smile dropped, then. Her eyes widened. Bloodshot. Like the guilt was getting to her. Like it was returning. “What happened… I—”
“You don’t get a chance to apologise. Not again. You don’t get a chance to be absolved of your guilt. Because you deserve that guilt. You should live with that guilt.”
Gina looked down. Nodded. “You’re right. I don’t deserve anything.”
And Kelsie sensed sincerity to Gina’s words. Sincerity that made this whole process even more uncomfortable.
Because she sensed genuine remorse.
And accepting Gina’s remorse wasn’t something she was willing to do.
Something she’d ever be willing to do.
“So what’ve you got planned now… well. Now we’ve got no choice?”
Kelsie frowned. “What does it matter to you anyway? You’re not coming with us.”
Gina half-smiled again. She looked at Manuel like she was seeking some kind of support. When he didn’t answer, she just sighed and smiled even wider. “I know. Not exactly expecting you to carry me along with you.” She looked around, then. Scanned her surroundings. The pier. The bright sun shining down. And she smiled, content. “Emilia would’ve loved it here. Always wanted to bring her somewhere like this. Let her explore the real world. Not the world we’d created. Not the world we were forcing her to survive in.”
Kelsie felt a lump building in her throat. She didn’t feel any sympathy for Gina. But she felt sympathy as a mother, now. “You did your best,” she said.
“But it wasn’t enough, was it? I tried to… I tried to make the worl
d a better place. I didn’t do it in the right way. I see that now. But…” She sniffed. Took a deep breath. Smiled. “Well it’s safe to say things have worked out exactly how they should’ve done, right?”
Kelsie wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Not entirely. But she found herself not wanting to stay here much longer. She found herself wanting to go somewhere private. Somewhere special. Maybe back to her family home from when she was a kid. Or over to the Pleasure Beach, where she could sit on a roller coaster with baby Holly on her lap and wait for whatever was coming to come.
She looked at Gina as she sat there, ties around her wrists and ankles, and she nodded at her. “Your chest wound. It’s infected. It’ll kill you soon.”
Gina didn’t look horrified. Didn’t look shocked. She just looked like she was accepting. Like she had come to terms with her fate, fully.
“At least I’ve got a nice spot. At least I’ve got somewhere I can be alone. At peace.”
Kelsie thought about what Gina might know. How much she might know about all of this. She thought about holding it back. Repressing the truth. Maybe that would be the easier thing to do.
But in the end she told her.
She didn’t know how much she knew, but she told her anyway.
“I’m guessing you came here because you knew it was an extraction point,” Kelsie said.
Gina nodded. “Figured time was running out. Had a late lust for life, shall we say. Look how that worked out.”
“There’s a day left.”
Gina frowned. Like Kelsie’s words had caught her off guard—finally. “What?”
“A day left. Before this place is wiped out completely. Before Britain is flattened.”
Gina looked away. For a second, there was surprise to her face. A look of shock.
But in the end she just looked back at Kelsie and smiled flatly. “I guess that means my time’s almost certainly up, then.”
Kelsie didn’t allow any sympathy to rise to the surface. She just looked at the rest of her people, nodded, then turned around. “Come on. Let’s go.”
She began to walk, her people following closely behind.
Manuel stayed there at first. Looked at Gina. Sympathy in his eyes. But something else, too.
The same kind of hate Kelsie knew she had.
“You killed our people,” he said.
Gina just looked back at him. “You aren’t one to judge, Manuel.”
His eyes widened. He went to storm towards her.
Kelsie grabbed his arm.
“Leave her,” she said. “Just leave her.”
She looked at Gina again. Wanted so desperately for this to go some other way.
Then she turned around. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“There was something you might want to know.”
Kelsie stopped. Looked back at Gina. “What?”
She saw the look on Gina’s face. A different look, now. That colder look. That look of acceptance. But also the look that reminded her of the ruthless Gina. The one detached from reality, somewhat. “I mean, it’s probably not relevant. Especially not if I’m dying.”
Kelsie felt frustration building. She walked back towards Gina. “What are you talking about?”
Gina looked up at her, and she smiled. “It doesn’t matter.”
Kelsie didn’t hesitate.
She grabbed her hair, pulled her head back and pressed her knife to Gina’s neck. “No games. Tell me. Tell me or I’ll finish you right here.”
Gina didn’t look worried. She didn’t look afraid.
She just looked up at Kelsie, and she smiled.
“I heard something,” Gina said.
Kelsie frowned. “Heard something?”
“The group. The group that attacked the Empress Ballroom. I heard them saying something.”
“What kind of ‘something’?”
Gina swallowed a lump in her throat.
And then she told Kelsie everything.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five and a Half Hours to Go…
Kelsie looked out to sea from the top of the pier, and she tried to wrap her head around everything Gina had told her about what she’d heard.
The sun was at its highest point now. The sky was sea blue. And if it wasn’t for the scenes of devastation fresh in the memory, the slight smell of burning from the distance, and the rusting cars and corroding buildings behind, it might actually have been idyllic. It might’ve been peaceful.
But at least there was something now.
And that something was hope.
She looked back. Looked at Tate. At Manuel. At Trev and his people and Jack and Arya Jr.
But also at Gina.
Gina sitting there, hands tied together.
Ankles tied together.
But a look of contentment across her face that Kelsie didn’t know how to interpret.
That she should know better than to trust.
She thought about what Gina said she’d heard. She’d approached the Empress Ballroom after seeing a helicopter landing there. As she’d got close towards it, she’d met the people there. They’d told her she was going on a waiting list. She tried to show her wounds, but they told her she needed immediate medical attention and nothing else.
She’d started to get attention when it happened—the Outsiders as Kelsie called them arrived. Started to take the extraction group out, one by one.
And in her last moment of escape, the nurse had told Gina something.
There was another extraction point up north. Up the coast. In Heysham.
A twelve hour walk away, with a little luck.
But they had time to get there.
They had time to get there and time to spare.
But there was one thing getting to Kelsie.
Gina.
Could she trust her?
She looked at her as she rested there and saw two people. The girl she used to know. The timid girl. The one who was caring. Who always saw the best in people. Who always worried about things.
And then the woman she’d grown into. The woman who didn’t trust other people. Who wasn’t afraid to make difficult, ruthless decisions.
But those decisions were both for the same reason.
Both of those sides of her were for the same reason.
Protecting the ones she loved.
She walked over to her. Crouched opposite her. Looked into her eyes.
“Why would you tell us this?” Kelsie asked.
Gina smiled at her. “Because I figure you deserve a chance to get away.”
She looked around. Looked down the pier. “And why haven’t you just tried to get there yourself?”
She looked back at her.
Gina stared back with emptiness to her expression.
“Because… because I keep moving between wanting to live and wanting to die. Because I’ve nothing left to live for.”
Kelsie felt it again. That twinge of sympathy. That glimmer of understanding.
And then she took a deep breath, and she put the knife to Gina’s ankles, then to her wrists.
She slashed away the ties.
Then she helped Gina to her feet.
“Kelsie?” Manuel said.
“She comes with us.”
“But—”
“We’ve got a day to go. She told us about this place. She deserves a chance for that at least.”
She looked at Gina. A glimpse of surprise on her face.
“Besides,” Kelsie said, embracing the other side of herself. “If it turns out she’s lying to us for whatever reason, I want her to know that next time, I won’t be so forgiving.”
She looked at Gina just long enough to assert her authority.
Then she walked to the front of the group.
She looked at the route to the top of the pier.
Then the route north, up the coast, towards Heysham.
“Time to try again,” Kelsie said.
Then she took a deep breath, and she walked.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Four Hours to Go…
It was a couple of hours of walking before Kelsie and the group finally ran into trouble.
It was mid-afternoon, and it had been sunny for the most part. But for the first time today, the clouds were beginning to form overhead, to thicken above.
And Kelsie hoped it wasn’t a sign of things to come. She hoped it wasn’t a sign of foreshadowing. She didn’t believe in anything like that, but far too many times already she’d seen that when the weather turned, bad things happened.
It didn’t matter whether it was storms or floods or anything like that, it always just seemed like something bad happened when the weather took a turn.
And Kelsie knew full well that if anything bad was going to happen… it was in twenty-four hours.
Because in twenty-four hours or so, something was going to happen.
Something was going to unfold.
And it was going to engulf them completely.
The rest of the group was walking alongside her. It was a familiar picture: Baby Holly in her arms. Arya Jr by her side. Manuel and Tate not far behind. And further behind them, Jack, and Trev and his people.
But there was someone ahead of Kelsie, too.
Someone leading the way.
Someone they were keeping an eye on. A very close eye on.
Gina.
Kelsie wasn’t sure how to feel about Gina leading their group. Their emotions were still very mixed, still very conflicted. But the fact was… she knew about the extraction point. She’d overheard conversation, and she’d shared that information. For what motive, she couldn’t be certain.
But that didn’t matter. It just mattered that she was with them.
And so much for her infected wound, too. Because right now, it looked like she’d been gifted a lease of life. A second chance to thrive.
In a way, that just made Kelsie even more uncertain. Even more sceptical.
But she was here now.
And if it turned out she was double crossing them in any way… she’d pay for it.