by Ryan Casey
She looked all around. Swore she saw movement in the darkness.
“Let’s get inside, Rex. Now.”
She went to walk towards the back door of the house when she heard something else.
A bang somewhere.
A bang…
Wait.
Was that bang… above?
She looked around. Heart racing. Rex was whining a little now, which made her feel a lot more confident that she wasn’t imagining things. That something was happening here.
She looked up into the darkness, when she saw it.
She squinted up. Not entirely sure what she was looking at. Blinking a few times, convinced this was in her head, that this couldn’t be real.
But no matter how many times she blinked… it was still there.
There was something in the sky.
A light.
No. Not a light.
Something burning.
She squinted up towards it. Heart racing. A meteorite? Just what they fucking needed right now. A fucking asteroid to wipe them all out and put them out of their misery.
But no.
As Aoife stared up at the sky, listened to that whirring, whistling, screaming sound… she realised very quickly this wasn’t anything from outer space.
It was a helicopter.
She watched it hurtle through the sky.
Watched it losing altitude very fast.
Watched it cross over the street, chunks of debris tumbling down alongside it.
She watched it disappear over the distance.
And then, she heard a bang.
Saw the flames emerge.
A crash.
Aoife stood there in the garden. Heart racing. Body shaking. No thoughts in her head. No idea what she’d just seen.
Only one thing was for sure.
She didn’t know how it was real. Didn’t know how it was possible.
But one thing was abundantly clear.
She’d just witnessed a helicopter crash.
They weren’t alone anymore.
CHAPTER SIX
Aoife walked down the street towards the rising smoke, and she knew there was only one thing she could do.
The street was dark. All around her, houses. Old suburban homes, where people used to live. There could be people in this town, laying low, watching her. There could be anybody around.
But strangely… she didn’t feel the same worry as usual. She didn’t feel the same concern.
Because she knew that if anyone had seen what she’d seen, they’d undoubtedly be fixated on one thing, and one thing only.
The helicopter, plummeting through the sky.
Hurtling towards those woods in the distance.
Crashing into the darkness.
She looked at the smoke, and she tensed her fists. She knew there’d be other people heading this way. She knew there was a damned good chance she’d run into other people there. And some unsavoury characters at that. Curiosity was going to get the better of everyone.
But the thought of running into other people, as much as her emotions were mixed around that—as much as she was torn between wanting the connection and wanting to stay safe—it all seemed incidental right now.
Because the main thing on her mind, and the main thing on everybody’s mind, she was sure, was what they’d seen in the sky.
She still couldn’t think straight. All kinds of theories spun around her mind. That helicopter. Where had it come from? How was it working? And who was flying it?
All these questions kept on swimming around her head. Questions she wasn’t even sure she was going to get answers to.
Did it matter?
She felt drawn to this smoke like the proverbial moth to the flame.
She just hoped she didn’t get fucking burned to death when she got there.
She walked further down the road, Rex close by her side. Even he seemed curious about all this. Kept on looking up ahead at that rising smoke, like even he knew something was different about everything. Aoife guessed there was something different about it, in a way. He’d not seen anything with that level of power for a long time either. No doubt it seemed weird to him, too.
She kept walking. Like she was being dragged there, on rails. Like she had no choice or free will in the matter.
And that strange feeling that there were so many others out there, like her, who were making the same journey right now. Who were heading in the same direction.
She walked to the end of the street and saw the woods up ahead. Saw the glow in the dark sky. Saw the smoke rising. The flames.
She stood there, heart racing, palms sweating, and looked to her left.
She swore she saw someone standing there in the darkness. Watching her. Closely.
But when she blinked, they were gone.
She gulped. Looked over there again, a few more times. If there was somebody there before, there was definitely nobody there now.
Or maybe there was nobody there at all.
Unless… shit. Maybe they were still out there, somewhere, and she just couldn’t see them.
She couldn’t explain her mixed emotions about finding other people right now. Just hours ago, it was all she wanted.
But right now, a part of her wanted to get to this wreckage herself.
She wanted to get there on her own.
To find whatever was there.
She didn’t want anyone else to get there before her and make the discovery before she did.
She tensed her fists, dug her nails right into her palms.
“Here goes nothing, Rex.”
She walked towards the woods. Into the trees.
The woods felt dark and suffocating. But she could feel the warmth as she got closer to that burning wreckage. She could smell the smoke in the air. Taste it, making her cough.
And underneath, on the forest floor, she could see chunks of metal wreckage.
Debris that’d fallen from the helicopter as it passed over.
She walked further into the woods. Heart racing. No idea what she would come across, no idea what any of it meant. Only that some slim hope inside her wished for answers. A part of her genuinely felt like there were answers in this wreckage, and she would get them.
She walked further through the trees when she saw it, up ahead.
Right there, in the middle of the woods, in an area flattened by the collision, she could see it.
It wasn’t in her imagination.
Wasn’t in her head.
She could see it clearly, right in front of her.
No denying it anymore.
The burning remains of a helicopter.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aoife stared at the wreckage of the helicopter before her and still couldn’t quite believe what she saw.
In the darkness of night, made even darker by the tall, thick trees all around, there was this burning ball of light. An orange glow rising up from the wreckage before her. Hot. So hot, she could feel her eyes stinging. The smell of smoke, strong. The ground around the helicopter burning too, the grass on fire.
She stood there, and she knew it wasn’t exactly safe to be so close to something that was burning so badly. That she had to be careful.
But it felt like she’d thrown all that caution away.
It felt like everything was irrelevant compared to the discovery.
This helicopter had come from somewhere. She didn’t know where—whether from outside Britain or within. She didn’t know who’d flown it. She didn’t know how it was working, especially in a world without power. She didn’t know a thing.
But she knew that whatever the situation here, one thing was for sure.
It was a big deal. A very fucking big deal.
And it wasn’t something she could ignore.
She stared at the burning wreckage. At the smashed windows. At the twisted, contorted metal. She couldn’t see anyone in there, and that made her stomach sink a little. Not just because she felt an obvious sympathy for
anyone who’d died in this crash. But because it meant she’d never get the chance to find out who the hell these people were.
There were so many unanswered questions here. And she didn’t think she would get the answers she wanted.
She knew she should step back. She knew she shouldn’t get closer to the helicopter, especially not while it was burning like this. She knew it wasn’t safe.
But she’d be damned if she just walked away from a burning helicopter right now. Especially when she’d seen it fall from the sky.
She had to investigate it as much as she could. Even if she didn’t have much hope of finding any kind of answers anymore. After all, what were the chances anyone would survive a crash like this? She was living in dreamland.
She walked up to it. The heat from the flames getting hotter. The smoke getting thicker, catching in her throat. She didn’t see anything distinctive. After all, what exactly was she looking for anyway? It was a helicopter. A black helicopter. No logos or symbols or anything like that.
So what was she trying to find?
She crouched down. Looked inside, through the broken glass.
She swore she could see someone in there. A body, burning away. Someone trapped in the front. The pilot, maybe.
As she squinted through the darkness into that helicopter, she wasn’t sure what she thought she might find. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to see. Some kind of sign of who these people were? Of where they came from?
She wasn’t going to get any answers from here, as much as she wanted to.
She went to step away when she noticed something.
Right there, right inside the helicopter, right by the smashed window. She could see something.
It looked like…
Some kind of chain?
An ID tag of some kind?
She saw the flames burning around it. Knew sticking her hand in there was a very risky move.
But screw it.
What did she have to lose right now?
She saw Rex looking at her, concern in his eyes.
“Don’t you worry. If I burn this hand off, I’ll still be able to feed you. I know that’s all you give a shit about.”
She turned back to the smashed window.
Back to that chain.
She didn’t know what drew her to it. But it was the only thing in her reach right now that looked like it might give her some clue about who these people were. So she had to at least try to get to it.
She gritted her teeth.
Saw those flames rising up, all around the helicopter.
And then she stuck her hand towards it.
Tried to grab it.
Yanked her hand back in an instant. It was just too hot.
She sighed. Held her burning hand. She was so close to it. She just had to try again. Just get a grip on the chain, and she’d be okay.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath of the smoky air, which probably wasn’t the best idea.
Then she reached for the chain.
Grabbed it.
Yanked it out from the stifling heat.
“Shit,” she said, shaking her burning hand. Blowing on it. “Shit, shit, shit.”
It hurt. Hurt like mad.
But she’d got the chain.
She’d got it. And now she could make a start at figuring out whether it meant anything. If it gave any clues about who these people were.
She turned the hot metal chain over in her hand. Looked at it closely.
But the closer she looked at it, the more her sense of disappointment grew.
It was some sort of dog tag.
Thomas Suzuki.
Order of Light.
5-3837-4764
She squinted at it for a few more seconds, as the heat from the flames grew hotter.
She wasn’t going to find anything here. And she was fucking deluded for thinking she was. She’d watched a helicopter crash. Hell, she’d heard it. Of course there were going to be no survivors here. Of course there were going to be no clues here.
Of course all of this would just raise more questions than answers.
She stood up. Stepped back a little, away from the burning heat.
She didn’t want to leave this place. Didn’t want to walk away.
But she knew more people would be arriving soon. And she needed to be absolutely sure about those people before she met them.
She had to watch them. Make sure they were worthy of joining—or not.
And then she had to…
She suddenly heard something.
Right behind her.
Coughing.
Spluttering.
And then, out of nowhere, a wheezy, strained voice.
“Help…”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Aoife heard the wheezy voice behind her, and every hair on her body stood on end.
She didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to look. Because a part of her dreaded what she might find. As much as she wanted to find other people, and as much as she missed that connection with other people so, so dearly… now the opportunity was right in front of her, she wasn’t sure how to handle it.
And besides. She had a feeling this wasn’t just anyone.
She had a feeling this was someone from the helicopter.
A survivor.
Against all odds, a survivor.
She stood there. Still staring at those burning remains of the helicopter right in front of her. The warmth of it covering her body. Her hand still burning from when she’d reached in there for the tag on the chain.
“Help,” the voice gasped. “P—please. Help.”
She held her breath.
Braced herself for whatever she might find.
And then she turned around.
She didn’t see anybody. Not at first. Nothing but the darkness.
But then she saw the shuffling.
She saw the movement.
Right there on the ground before her.
It was a man. A dark silhouette of a man. He was lying on his front. At a glance, he looked Asian.
His face was covered in blood. And he had a nasty cut along his head, slicing right through his dark hair, which didn’t look good.
He was dressed all in black. Looked like some kind of military gear. Which just added to the weirdness of the whole situation. A helicopter. Military. Who were these people?
Aoife wanted to ask this man everything. She wanted all her questions answering. Because there was no doubting one thing, now. He was from the helicopter, that much was clear.
But seeing him there. Crawling towards her. Writhing in pain. Agony.
She knew there wasn’t a lot she could say to him right now.
She knew he needed help.
She walked over to him. Stood there, right over him.
“Are… are you Thomas?”
“I’m… Yes. I’m—Please…”
“What… what happened—”
“I need… I need help,” he muttered. “My head. I… Please. I can’t walk. I think my leg… I just need help.”
And seeing him here on the ground before her, she felt total pity for this stranger. Even though there was a lot about him that scared her. Terrified her, even.
The mystery about him. The element of the unknown.
She didn’t even know whether his intentions were good or bad.
Only that he had a lot of information to offer. A lot of questions to answer. A lot of secrets.
And for that reason, it was in Aoife’s best interests to help him.
She reached down, crouched beside him. Had a closer look at that wound on his head. It was pretty bad. Bleeding like mad. But it did seem to be scabbing over a bit, so with a few stitches, maybe he’d be okay.
“Wasn’t supposed to be this way,” Thomas muttered. Crying. “My Kirsty. My Brett. Wasn’t supposed to be this way. Supposed to be better. For them.”
“Come on,” Aoife said. “Let’s… let’s just focus on getting you away from here rig
ht now. Seen enough people burning alive to last me a lifetime.”
She reached under his arms, went to lift him. But he let out a real pitiful cry.
“My leg,” he said. “It’s—it’s fucked.”
“I’m sorry,” Aoife said. “Trying my best not to be heavy-handed here. But I’m gonna need to get you away from this helicopter—”
“It was supposed to work,” Thomas said. Suddenly clutching at Aoife’s wrist. His brown eyes stared up at her, bulging. The whites of them contrasting the red blood streams down his face so strongly. “It—it was supposed to work, and we were supposed to… supposed to…”
She saw his eyes drifting. Saw them rolling into the back of his head.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “You aren’t frigging dying on me.”
She lifted him up again, being more careful with his legs this time. The first thing that struck her was how heavy he was. He was really frigging heavy, that was for sure. Clearly this armour added a lot of weight to him.
But she had a good hold of him now. And she knew she had to get him out of these woods. Before the fire spread.
And before anyone else got here.
Because she had this strange sense of protectiveness, now.
This strange sense that she wanted to learn his secrets before anyone else. And then only she could decide who to share those secrets with.
“I want to… I want to go back home. I want to… My Kirsty. My Brett. My family. My…”
And then his voice trailed off, and he slipped into unconsciousness, going a whole load heavier on Aoife in an instant.
She sighed. Shook her head. “Could’ve just stuck around for a minute longer. Might’ve made it easier for me.”
She went to pull him further along the ground, trying to figure out where to take him, what to do with him, when suddenly she noticed something else.
Over in the distance, at the edge of the woods, Aoife heard voices.
CHAPTER NINE
Aoife heard the voices in the woods, and she knew she wasn’t alone.
It was dark, especially out of the glow of the flames. She couldn’t really see where those voices and those footsteps were coming from. And it wasn’t that she was especially surprised to hear them. After all, a helicopter had torn across the night sky and crashed into the woods. Of course people were going to be drawn to it, just like she was.