After the Darkness: A Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (Survive the Darkness Book 5)

by Ryan Casey

  “Good boy,” she mumbled. “Now give it here.”

  But he kept that piece of wood in his mouth. Wagged his tail like this was a game.

  “I’ll play later, lad,” she mumbled. “Now’s not the time. Give me that stick. Now.”

  He backed away a little. Made that playful whine of his.

  Not now, Rex. Not frigging now…

  She took a deep breath again. Doing all she could to keep her cool.

  Closed her eyes.

  You’ve got this. You’ve got this…

  Then, she opened her eyes and looked right at Rex.

  “Come on,” she mumbled. “Give me the damned stick. You owe me that much.”

  For a second, she thought he might turn away, might bolt.

  But then something else remarkable happened.

  Rex walked back over to her.

  Dropped the stick right in her hands.

  “Good boy,” she gasped, still in disbelief. “Good boy.”

  She cut at the ties, then. Praying it was sharp enough. Praying it was enough to at least help split them. Praying that all this wasn’t for nothing.

  She pulled and pulled and rubbed at the material around her wrists, again and again.

  She was about to give up and scream when she suddenly felt her wrists come free.

  She lay there, a few seconds. Not moving. Just lying there, heart racing.

  And then she pulled the gag around her mouth away.

  “Good boy,” she said, stroking Rex. “Such a good boy.”

  She untied the ties around her ankles.

  Then she stood up and handed the stick to Rex. Stuck it in his mouth and patted his head.

  “That’s yours now,” she said. Then she looked up, over into the darkness of the woods. “Now let’s go find our new friends.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kyle wasn’t sure how long they’d been carrying this fella from the helicopter when he suddenly became aware that they weren’t alone.

  Or at least that’s how it felt, anyway. Stood to reason that people would be out here, drawn to the crash site. People just like him and his group. After all, what sane person could ignore something like that? A world without power, and suddenly, out of nowhere, a helicopter appears. Goes crashing towards the earth in a huge ball of fire.

  And even weirder… someone actually survives that crash.

  How can you just ignore shit like that?

  He thought back to the woman in the woods. The one who was trying to drag this bloke away. Selfish, she was. Probably a scavenger. Wanted him all for herself.

  Well, that’s not how shit worked. She could’ve co-operated. She could’ve given them a heads up. She could’ve been an asset.

  She got what she deserved out there.

  “You were a bit unreasonable with her, you know?” Gina said.

  Kyle sighed. “Don’t start this shit.”

  “But you were. She was on her own. She was bound to be a bit… well. Edgy.”

  “You helped me carry her out there.”

  “I know what this is about, Kyle. We all know what it’s about. But you can’t just go tarring everyone with the same brush.”

  Kyle knew what Gina was getting at, and it made the hairs on his body stand on end just to hear her allude to it.

  The flashback.

  The flashback to the woman with the gun.

  Pointing it at him.

  Begging him to lay down his own weapons.

  And then firing that pistol and it all going wrong and…

  “What happened to Patrick—”

  “Don’t say his name,” Kyle said.

  Gina took a deep breath. “What happened to your son. It doesn’t always end like that. That’s not always the way, you know?”

  Kyle was back there, then. Back at camp. Holding his pistol, pointing it towards that woman, holding the gun.

  Trusting that she was just afraid.

  That she was just fearful and mistrusting, just like everyone.

  And then, just as he lowered his gun, her pulling the trigger.

  Patrick crying.

  Falling to the ground.

  Choking on blood, and then the light in his eyes going out.

  “I think about it all the time,” Kyle said. “I ask myself if I coulda done something different. If I coulda done something better, y’know?”

  A hand on his arm. Gina. “You did everything you could.”

  He didn’t believe her. He never believed his people when they told him he couldn’t have done more. And the thought that he could’ve done more tortured him every single day.

  But just hearing her say that, it was something.

  Just hearing her reassure him, just a little… he had to take it.

  He looked down at the man from the helicopter. His eyes were closed, but he was snoring. Sleeping. A little blood still trickling from his head, but not as much as before.

  “Let’s just… let’s just get him home. I don’t like it out here. There’ll be loads of folks heading towards the helicopter. The sooner we get away from here, the better.”

  He looked around. Around at the open fields. Over at the trees, where the orange glow still illuminated the sky. Where the smoke rose up above.

  He turned back around when he noticed something.

  Laura and Rupert. They’d stopped walking.

  They were staring right ahead at something.

  “Guys?” Kyle said.

  But when he walked up to them, when he looked ahead, he stopped.

  Because he saw them too.

  Up ahead of them.

  Standing in front of them.

  All of them, in their way.

  “Who are…” Kyle started.

  The next thing he remembered feeling?

  Pure fear.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Aoife clutched her bleeding shoulder and ran through the woods in search of one thing.

  Thomas Suzuki.

  And the group who’d taken him.

  The darkness was intense. The night felt endless. The air was cool. Either that, or she was just in shock after everything that’d happened. In shock that she’d actually managed to escape the predicament she’d found herself in.

  She knew she was lucky to be on her feet again. Knew most people wouldn’t have stood a chance and that it was only through the fortune of fuelling Rex’s fetch obsession that she’d actually got out of that mess.

  But now, she had a chance.

  And she had to take it.

  She ran through the trees. Her shoulder stung and bled like mad. She knew she needed to get it bandaged up, get it seen to. She wasn’t an idiot. She’d bled pretty badly already and risked picking up an infection, so she had to be really careful.

  But she had another priority right now.

  Finding that man.

  And getting him away from the thugs who’d left her for dead.

  She saw the flames of the helicopter up ahead. Wanted to steer clear of there if she could. There’d be other people about by now, surely. And it wasn’t a good idea to get caught up with anyone else. Not right now.

  Shit. How far she’d come from just hours ago when she’d give anything to run into somebody.

  She took a turn, fully aware that she was going off the tracks from the group. She’d followed them closely for a long time. Not easy in the night, but she was good at tracking, so she had full confidence in her abilities. Something she’d always been good at. Dad taught her well. And then after that… well. Max helped her a lot, too.

  She thought of Dad, thought of Max, and felt a warmth inside.

  Was she doing the right thing?

  Or should she be prioritising her own health and safety right now?

  She pushed those thoughts aside as she limped through the woods, and then she heard something.

  Up ahead. It sounded like a cry.

  Rex barked.

  “Ssh,” she said. “Don’t go giving away where we’re at. Not now.
Just… just chew your stick or something.”

  She looked ahead. Heart racing. That shout, it came from somewhere beyond the woods. It came from exactly where these tracks led to.

  All she could think of?

  Thomas.

  It sounded like him.

  She started running again when suddenly she heard something else.

  Over to her left.

  A branch snapping.

  A whisper.

  Movement.

  She looked around at the trees. Over to where she’d heard that movement.

  More shuffling.

  And what sounded like more whispers.

  Rex growled.

  She looked at those trees for a sign of life. Whatever was in there, those noises had really given her the creeps.

  The hairs on her neck stood on end. Because it felt like someone was watching her.

  Closely.

  She turned back around and went to run, eager to just get away from this place.

  She had to focus.

  Find Thomas.

  And then… well. She could figure out what she was going to do about Kyle and his people when she got to him.

  She ran further through the tall grass. Clouds thickened, covering the stars, suffocating the moon’s light. It was pitch black. Total darkness.

  And behind her, as the wind blew against the leaves of the trees, she swore she could still hear movement.

  She swore someone was still watching her.

  She turned back around, kept on going, when suddenly she heard it again.

  The shout.

  Only…

  It didn’t sound like Thomas.

  She crouched down. Heart racing. Palms sweating. She crept through the tall grass, getting closer to where she’d heard the scream. She could still see the tracks beneath her. Kyle’s group was close. They had to be close.

  She kept on going, unsure of what she was going to find. Still conscious of the feeling of being watched. Fully aware that she was injured, and she needed to see to it—ASAP.

  She kept going until she saw it.

  Up ahead.

  Right in front of her.

  She stood up, fully.

  Looked at the scene before her.

  Her skin went cold.

  Goose pimples spread across her body.

  She’d found the source of the cry.

  But it wasn’t what she expected.

  It was far, far worse.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Aoife stared at the scene before her, heart racing.

  The clouds had parted a little, the moon shining through. If it hadn’t, she wouldn’t have seen what was before her properly. She wouldn’t have seen just how bad it was.

  But standing here in the middle of this field, right in the middle of the tall grass, a throbbing pain crippling her shoulder, she saw the source of the cry.

  And it wasn’t what she expected.

  For a start, it wasn’t Thomas.

  But it was someone she recognised.

  She walked through the grass, over towards him. She passed fallen bodies on her way. She passed the woman who’d shot her with the arrow, throat cut, eyes staring dead into the sky. She passed the other woman, Gina, the one who’d carried her through the woods. Then the other bloke, the one who hadn’t said a word.

  All of them, throats cut.

  And weirdly, all of them had their right legs turned at the knee. Almost to make it look like they were… kneeling?

  She heard a gurgling sound up ahead. Heard a cry, muffled now. Barely even a cry at all. More a… gasp. Like it was losing power. Losing steam.

  She walked to the middle of this bloodbath and saw the man called Kyle lying there, clutching his throat.

  His leg was bent at the knee. But it looked like it had been bent through even more force than the others. Aoife could see a bone poking out of his leg. All bloodied and nasty.

  He looked up at her. Choking as blood bubbled from his mouth and from the cut across his throat. Between his fingers, as he tried to hold it in, tried to stop it all fountaining out.

  “Please,” he gasped. “Help. Please.”

  As Aoife stood there, she found it hard to feel any degree of sympathy for Kyle. Especially after what he’d done to her.

  But mostly, she felt fear.

  Fear about who had done this.

  And fear about where Thomas was.

  She crouched down. Right over Kyle. Grabbed him by his shoulders. “Thomas. The man from the helicopter. Where is he?”

  “They—they took him. They took him, and they… Please.”

  “Who took him?”

  “The… the people in white.”

  Aoife frowned. “The people in white?”

  “They were… they were talking about the light. We told them where he was from. Where he came from. They… they said he was theirs. That he belonged… belonged to them. Belonged to… to Robert now.”

  Aoife’s stomach dropped. Something about the way he said that name. “Who’s Robert?”

  Kyle coughed, gasped. “Please,” he said. “I… I need help. My people. They… Please.”

  She could hear the pain in his voice. The desperation. It was like he’d already accepted his fate, like he already knew what was coming, but at the same time couldn’t quite get to grips with the reality that this was indeed the end.

  And she pitied him for that.

  “I’m sorry for what… for what I did to you,” Kyle said. “But my… my throat. My leg. Please. I need help now. Please.”

  He reached up. Grabbed her arm with surprising force. Gripped it tightly.

  “Please. Don’t—don’t leave me alone. I’m sorry. For what I did. I just… I’ve lost too. Please don’t leave me alone.”

  She looked down at this man, and once again, that pity kicked in. That sense of pity for him, lying here. And for what had happened to him. To his people. Even after what they’d done to her. At the end of the day, she got it. It was a paranoid world. And she knew how it looked, back in the woods. Trying to keep that man for herself. Wanting to weigh up what the other people out there were like before blindly trusting them.

  And as much as these bastards had hurt her, as much as her shoulder ached like mad right now, she couldn’t hate them.

  Because whatever was out there—whoever had done this to them—were clearly far, far worse.

  And they couldn’t be far away.

  “They took him. The man from… from the helicopter. They took him, and they said he was a gift. They said he was a gift from above. And that… and that he was going to make everything better. For everyone. That—that he’s the one who Robert promised.”

  Aoife heard these words, but she couldn’t make sense of them. She thought Kyle sounded miles away, sounded out of it. And he probably was, in all truth.

  But there was a weird lucidity to him, too. To the way he spoke.

  A sense that he wasn’t completely bullshitting about this Robert or whatever experience he’d been through.

  “Just don’t leave me alone,” he gasped. His voice getting weaker. His grip on her arm getting looser. “Just... just don’t leave me alone to die. Please.”

  Aoife looked up ahead, into the darkness. Then over her shoulder, back towards the woods, back towards the helicopter, and back towards where she swore someone was watching her, not long ago at all.

  And as much as she wanted to get out of here, she took a deep breath, and she nodded. “I won’t leave you.”

  “Thank you,” Kyle said. Crying. “Thank… thank you.”

  She wasn’t sure how long she stayed by his side. Holding his hand. Telling him to be quiet, to stay calm, that everything was going to be okay.

  She had no idea how long it was.

  But eventually, the moon disappeared behind the clouds again.

  Kyle breathed his last breath.

  Everything went still.

  She closed his eyelids. Stood up. Looked over into the distance, whe
re the many footprints headed, off towards the suburbs, back towards civilisation.

  Rex by her side.

  “Let’s go find this Robert. Let’s see who we’re dealing with.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  She stared across the field and watched the woman and the dog closely.

  It was dark except for the moon, shining down brightly from above. The air was warm. Probably from the fire behind her more than anything. There was a strong smell of smoke in the air. The taste of burning and death.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about the man from the helicopter.

  Then the confrontation between two groups of people.

  And then…

  The others.

  The ones who’d got here last.

  Something about them that scared her.

  Because she knew exactly who they were and exactly what they did.

  And she knew exactly how sure of their own “prophecy” this occurrence would make them.

  Insufferably so.

  Dangerously so.

  But there was someone else she couldn’t stop thinking about. Someone she couldn’t get her mind off.

  And that somebody was the woman walking away from her, right now.

  Dog by her side.

  She shuffled to get a better look at her from behind the trees. She’d heard someone screaming in the distance, in the darkness, and she knew it couldn’t be good. She knew it had to be to do with that larger group. The ones who followed Robert.

  Because she knew exactly what kind of people they were.

  But this woman.

  The one walking away from her, right now.

  She wanted to get a good look at her.

  She wanted to know.

  She wanted to see, to be absolutely sure.

  She stepped on a branch, and the woman turned around, looked right at her.

  The dog looked, too.

  And when she looked at her, even though it was dark, even though the moon was swallowed up by the clouds, she was certain.

  It was her.

  She froze. Her heart raced. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to do anything.

  Because it was her.

  Over a year on, and it was her.

  It was Aoife.