by Ryan Casey
“I’ve spent the last three days trying to get out of here,” Kelsie said. “Just… just trying to find a way out. For me. For my baby. For my dog.”
The people lifted their rifles. Pointed them down at her.
“I know what you do. I know what—what you have to do. And I know you probably have your reasons. Even though you’ve hurt people. Even though you’ve killed people. Innocent people. I… I understand everyone has their motives. I see that now.”
They held their ground. Held their rifles.
And Kelsie could only look up into their goggled eyes.
“I just… I want a future. For my baby girl. For my dog. And I won’t lie. I want a future for me, too. A future for myself. Because I deserve it. I’ve worked for it. I’ve fought for it. And… and if I go out to sea and I die out there then so be it. But at least I tried. At least I gave it my absolute best.”
The people in black looked around. Looked at one another. Then looked back down on Kelsie.
Then the leader spoke—with more sympathy in his voice than Kelsie had been expecting.
“Like you said. It’s orders. Just orders. Nothing personal.”
He lifted his rifle again.
But Kelsie found herself lifting her arm.
“Wait.”
He didn’t pull the trigger.
There was a moment.
A moment where everything froze.
Where everything just stopped.
“What you’re doing. Before you do anything… I just want to understand something. A final question; call it whatever. Can you answer that for me?”
The leader sighed. Then nodded. The slightest nod, but it was enough. It was all she needed.
“If there’s something coming. If there’s—if there’s a clock ticking out to the end—which I know about, by the way. Then why are you people here? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why do you need to do it? What… what is the place you come from?”
There was a moment, then. A moment’s hesitation. A moment’s pause.
And then there was another sigh, and the leader lifted his goggles. Just slightly. Just enough so that Kelsie could make out his face. Just enough to humanise him.
“We’re just as lost as you are,” he said.
Kelsie frowned. She couldn’t figure this out. Couldn’t make sense of it. “What—”
“The home. The home you might’ve heard about. This power-filled safe haven many miles away. Or however else you’ve heard of it. Whatever else you’ve been told. I’m sorry to break it to you… but it doesn’t exist. At least it doesn’t exist anymore.”
Kelsie shook her head. She couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t make sense of it. “I don’t…”
“We did have a home, for a time. A home with power, sure. But it didn’t last. Imagine going from a world where there are no rules to suddenly having a governing power telling you what you can and cannot do. Imagine going from a world where you’ve learned how to survive to a world where you have to serve, all over again. It worked. For a while. A short while. But then… well, it turned out there were other places out there. Other places that weren’t too keen with the place we were building. They wiped it out.”
Kelsie looked into this man’s eyes. She was speechless. She still couldn’t get her head around this. Still couldn’t understand.
“But…”
“We escaped with what we had while we could. Helicopters. Planes, in some cases. But mostly boats. We fled before the enemy slaughtered our people completely. The bulk of us found ourselves here. The closest untouched location. Britain. Still yet to be rebuilt. Still cut off from the rest of the world. But surviving. Getting by. Only… well. Things weren’t so straightforward. The enemy, they had plans for Britain, too.”
“What kind of plans?”
The man swallowed a lump in his throat. “Cleansing.”
Kelsie frowned. She still couldn’t wrap her head around any of this. Still couldn’t understand any of it.
“What…”
“The group who were hunting us. Seems like they’re the most powerful force on the planet. And there’s one thing you should know about them. They don’t trust outsiders. They don’t trust anyone but the group they have managed to build for themselves. Thousands strong. And they believe in something else, too. Wiping out those who may be deemed to be a threat. Taking down order—and disorder. And that includes Britain. As much as we wanted to get away… as much as we wanted to flee… we found ourselves here. Only to find out they were still chasing us. That they were still hunting us down. That we’re not even safe here. We’re running. Just like you.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you’ve been slaughtering us.”
“The virus,” he said.
Kelsie frowned. “What virus?”
The man sighed. “That’s something else. Another reason the powers that be were so desperate to clean out the ‘old world’ and start again. Britain. It was one of the original sites of the EMP. The Eastern front many years ago… they targeted many attacks at Britain. And that started a virus. A deadly virus that changes everything. And that means that… I’m sorry, but it means that you can’t go back into the outside world. Ever again. Because you’re just too much of a threat to our future.”
And suddenly, everything clicked into place.
The Outsiders.
They had escaped their homes and come here.
They were on the front foot because of the stories they’d heard about the order-less world here. Because they wanted a world for themselves.
But they were just as lost as everyone else.
They were just as trapped as everyone else.
And time was running out for them like everyone else.
“This virus,” Kelsie said, humouring them more than anything. “What’s it supposed to do?”
“Makes women lose the ability to conceive, for one. But worse than that. It slowly poisons you from within. Cuts life expectancy in two. So you understand. You understand we can’t have that kind of thing around—”
“But you’ve seen it,” Kelsie said. “You’ve seen my people for yourself. Seen how old they are. Seen how there’s… there’s no evidence of any virus.”
The man sighed. “Britain was allowed to live on. At least for a while. But as soon as people started finding ways to escape… we saw just how much of an impact it had on people from outside. People that weren’t within the biggest radius of these Eastern attacks. And I’m not sure why it doesn’t affect some of you here as much. Maybe it’s a resistance that has been built up. But the fact stands. You can’t go stepping into the new world. And… and you can’t co-exist with us, either. You just can’t.”
Kelsie closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Because as much as she understood the pain these people were going through, too… this was her chance. This was what she’d worked for. Worked towards.
And it was on the verge of being taken away, right at the death.
“What about the countdown?”
“The countdown?” the man said.
Kelsie’s hands went clammy. What if that wasn’t true, either? “The countdown to the end. The time this place will be attacked. Wiped out completely. What do you do then? Why are you still here?”
The man took a deep breath and sighed. “Like I said. We came here searching for a place to hide. A place to lay low. A place to make our own. But we were foolish. Because they’re coming for us here, too. Which is why we have to get away. And… and why we’re so sorry. That we made you and your fellow citizens’ final hours so damned miserable. And all for nothing. But this is it, now. This is the end of the road.”
Kelsie wasn’t ready to give in. Wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. Not now she understood. Not now she saw the humanity in this man’s eyes—even for all the awful but desperate crimes he’d committed.
“You could at least let me try,” Kelsie said.
“And what?” the man said. “Risk you getting into the outside
world? Risk you spreading the virus to others? Face that for the rest of my life?”
“There is no virus,” Kelsie said.
“How do you know that?”
“Because—”
“You don’t know that. You just believe there isn’t because you’re still here. But you have to have noticed problems. Difficulties. Changes. You have to have noticed the conception issue like I said. Just the first of many. You don’t believe it’s true because you don’t want to believe it’s true. But we’ve seen the other side. We’ve seen a different angle.”
Kelsie thought about the fact that people over the age of thirty could no longer conceive, and she wondered. Was it true? Had there been some kind of chemical release, too? Something that had rendered everyone here impossible to mix with the new world?
Or could it really all just be fear tactics?
“I am sorry,” the man said. “Truly. But I have to… It’s too much of a risk.”
“It could be. But soon this place is going to be destroyed, and there’s going to be nothing left anyway. And besides. What shit do you give about the outside world, anyway? So give me a chance. One chance. I’m just one person. One person. A baby. A dog. Give us a chance to try. Give us a chance to get away. Even if we go somewhere totally remote… just give us a chance. Just one boat. That’s all we need. Please.”
The man looked to his side. At his people, who were shaking their heads. He sighed. Then back at Kelsie. And for a moment, as he pointed that rifle at her, at her baby, at her dog, she thought that was it. She thought it was over. That everything was over.
But then he did something.
He threw his rifle into her boat.
He pulled the lever, which kicked the boat to life.
And then he stepped back.
“Good luck,” he said.
She felt the boat kick to life.
And then she felt herself move.
Power across the water.
Behind, she heard the gunshots.
She heard the shouts.
She felt some of those shots slam against the side of her boat, and she held her breath.
Because she knew what had happened.
She knew what had gone down.
She knew that the leader of that group had done something that’d broken every procedure.
Every protocol.
But all this time, she could only hold her baby to her chest.
She could only hold her dog to her side.
And she could only feel the bullets hit the side of the boat again, and again, and again.
Until eventually they slowed.
Eventually they were just the occasional pepper.
And then, at last, they stopped.
And the boat powered on into the distance.
Kelsie held on to baby Holly, and she cried.
Chapter Forty-Four
Kelsie had no idea how long she’d been travelling across the water, only that she had been moving for quite some time—with no land in sight.
The sun was peeking over the side of the boat. Late morning, then. Which meant that whatever was about to occur must be imminent.
It took her a long time before she lifted her head and looked back. A long time before she truly assessed her surroundings.
And when she saw the wide openness of the sea, she couldn’t help feeling fear split through her.
When she saw the sheer emptiness and the crashing waves all around her, she felt alone. Totally alone.
It didn’t help that Baby Holly hadn’t stopped crying for hours.
She rocked her. Tried to move her from side to side, to put her at ease. But she’d been trying for a long time now, and it just wasn’t working.
She was beginning to accept that she just wasn’t going to get her to a state of ease. To a point of rest.
The sooner she could fully accept that, the better.
Arya Jr was lying down. She didn’t look at her best, in all truth. The boat’s movements must’ve been making her feel sick. She could see where she was coming from. She didn’t feel all that great herself.
But what choice did they have?
None.
They couldn’t get out of the boat.
They couldn’t turn back.
All they could do was keep on going and hoping that their journey came to some kind of end that didn’t involve dehydration and starvation.
She looked at the sea ahead. And the crashing grey waves made her second guess herself even more. Maybe she should change direction. Maybe she should try somewhere new—something different. Because the journey she had been on hadn’t been fruitful so far. What were the odds it would be eventually?
She started running through horror stories in her mind. Flashes of what might’ve happened. She might’ve drifted off course. She might be heading north towards the Arctic. Or she might’ve missed Ireland completely and be heading into the vast empty abyss of the Atlantic.
She’d never really understood the true scale of the ocean. Not before now. She’d never been lost and drifting in it like this before. It really brought home its vastness. Its emptiness.
She felt the fear building up inside. The fear that she was lost. That she was drifting. That this was all just heading in one inevitable direction.
Eating Arya Jr.
Eating her daughter.
No.
No!
She wouldn’t get to that point. She was wrong for even letting thoughts like that crash into her mind.
But on the other hand, it was a reality she had to consider.
That she couldn’t push out of her mind.
Even if she knew deep down she’d die before she did harm to either of these two.
She looked at Arya Jr.
Saw the animal in her eyes.
She wondered if she’d take the same attitude.
She felt something, then. A surge. A sudden surge of nausea. An arising and passing of thoughts crashing dizzyingly into her. The Outsiders. What they’d told her about the truth—about there being no safe haven there, not anymore. About the rise and fall of society, all over again.
About the fact that they were fleeing from an even greater, even stronger evil.
And how the survivors in Britain had supposedly been affected by a virus, many years ago.
Something that meant they couldn’t go back into the wider world.
Britain as an island of quarantine, and nothing more.
She thought about that virus they spoke of. Was it real? Was it true?
She saw why they’d come to Britain doing what they were doing.
Even if that home was going to collapse any time soon.
She looked at baby Holly as she lay in her arms, and she realised something, then. She’d stopped crying.
She was looking up into Kelsie’s eyes.
And there was something else, too.
Baby Holly was smiling.
In that moment, Kelsie saw Siobhan. She saw her grin. She saw baby Holly’s life unfolding ahead of her. She saw school, and music, and boyfriends and love and family and children.
She saw all the things she wanted for her. All the things she hadn’t been able to have herself.
But then she saw there was still a chance to be happy.
Still an opportunity to live.
Because that’s exactly what Kelsie had done, too.
She looked into baby Holly’s beautiful big eyes and stroked the little furry hair on her head.
She looked at her like she was the last thing she was ever going to see.
And then she felt it.
She couldn’t describe it any other way. A feeling. A feeling right in the middle of her body, shaking her from within.
And then there was the deafening blast.
She looked up. She couldn’t help but. Looked over the side of the boat.
And when she looked, she saw it.
Just for a moment, she saw it.
The explosion.
The cacop
hony of explosions in the distance.
And then the light.
Brighter than sunlight.
A hundred times brighter that sunlight.
Searing her vision right away.
She stared into that burning light and watched as it lifted above her, and she knew. She knew right away what this was. What this meant.
She saw the light surrounding her, swallowing her vision totally, first in front of her and then behind her and everywhere.
And she held onto baby Holly.
She tried to comfort a barking Arya Jr.
Because this was it.
Britain had fallen.
Everything she’d feared was over.
And that burning light was only getting brighter and brighter, the buzzing in her ears getting louder and louder…
Chapter Forty-Five
Kelsie wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the blast, only that the blinding brightness still filled her field of vision.
She had no idea what time of day it was. No idea what the weather was like. She could hear water beyond the ringing in her ears. Hear baby Holly crying again, too. And by her side, she could feel Arya Jr pressed up against her. The warmth of her body much needed as she drifted there, salty air filling her nostrils and lungs.
But she couldn’t see.
She’d expected the brightness to fade after a while at first. Expected it to just disappear, much like when you looked at the sun for a little too long only for the pattern in your eyes to disappear eventually.
But this wasn’t disappearing.
This wasn’t fading.
If anything, it was getting worse.
And that filled Kelsie with dread and fear.
The countdown. The thing they’d been fearing. The destruction of Britain. The moment everything had been building towards. That had passed, now. It had gone.
But it hadn’t marked the end.
There had been no great escape from the jaws of death.
There had been no dramatic rescue right on cue.
There had been no change of heart from a morally conflicted enemy, right when it counted.
Because this wasn’t a story.
This was reality.
She was floating alone with her baby and her dog in the sea.