The World After (Book 3)

by Ryan Casey

  But when I looked up, I saw it, and, blood dripping down my chin, I smiled, and I laughed.

  There was a helicopter.

  It was flying overhead.

  In the direction of Carlisle.

  Where the rumoured extraction point was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  There was only one thing I could do when I saw the helicopter flying overhead.

  Run in its direction.

  The clouds were thickening overhead. The hail was falling down even heavier. I could feel the late afternoon air getting colder by the second.

  But I didn’t care. How could I care, when I was watching a helicopter flying overhead?

  My head spun with all kind of thoughts and theories as I ran between the railway tracks. How was something like this possible? I knew there were still some mechanical things working, of course. Some things had survived the blackout.

  But this…

  A helicopter.

  And not just a helicopter, but a helicopter heading in the direction of the extraction point I’d overhead those people in the tent discussing.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  There had to be something in it.

  Right?

  Lionel panted as he ran alongside me. To him, this was all just some game, and he was definitely making the most of it.

  I knew I had to be careful. I had to stay aware of the direction on the railway tracks I’d been heading. After all, the people in the Venetian masks had been seen heading to Blackpool, so that was where I had to go if I wanted to have any hope of saving Holly and getting her back.

  But this helicopter…

  I couldn’t just give up on it.

  I had to see where it was going.

  I kept my focus on it at all times. Rain lashed down on my face. The wind blew a strong breeze against me. My feet instinctively danced over the cracks in the train tracks beneath.

  And all this time, all I could focus on was that helicopter.

  All I could hope was that it wouldn’t go far.

  That I kept it in sight at all times.

  And then I felt my body hurtling forward, both of my feet off the ground.

  My fall happened in slow motion. I didn’t know what I’d tripped up over, just that one second I was running, the next, flying.

  I tried to scramble to get myself back to my feet; to restore my balance before I hit the tracks.

  But all I could focus on was the helicopter as it drifted between the clouds…

  And then I smacked the train tracks and I tasted blood.

  My head spun. A ringing chimed in my ears. My body shook, and I felt coldness even stronger than I had before.

  Lionel was right by my side, sitting loyally. He must’ve stopped the second I’d fallen, not wanting to go a step further than his master. After all, he didn’t know what I was chasing. He didn’t know the ramifications of discovering a helicopter, what it could mean for all of us.

  All he cared about was that he was loved, fussed, and that he got a good bit of food and water every once in a while.

  The rest didn’t really matter to him.

  I looked up, slowly. I couldn’t hear the helicopter anymore, but I figured that was just because of the ringing in my ears. It had to be. I couldn’t even begin to consider the alternative. That it had flown on. That I was never going to find it. That it might’ve just turned on its way ahead, moving on to some other location.

  No. It would be there. It would be in sight.

  But when I looked up, I felt my stomach sink right away.

  I searched the clouds for a sign of it.

  I squinted through the falling rain with hope that I’d just get a glimpse of it.

  I rubbed my eyes, cleaned out my ears, in the hope that I’d just see a sign… or hear a sign.

  But as I lay there, soaking wet, icy rain falling down onto me, I knew the cold, hard truth.

  I’d seen a helicopter.

  I’d seen it heading in the direction of Carlisle.

  And now it was gone.

  But my memory of that helicopter was not.

  And it wouldn’t be for a long time.

  I looked at Lionel. Lightning flashed above, and thunder crackled overhead, as we sat together on the train tracks.

  I wanted to push on. I wanted to both search for the helicopter, and go after Holly.

  But I knew right now there was only one thing we could do.

  “Come on, lad,” I said, struggling to my feet. I ruffled the fur on his head, which was soggy and damp. “Let’s get ourselves some shelter for the night.”

  I walked away, back down the tracks.

  But then I stumbled.

  It was a delayed response, I realised. But I felt pain on my right side. A sharp pain, right where I’d been stabbed.

  I looked down at the tourniquet and I saw blood.

  I felt sickness come over me. I’d been stupid to run. I’d felt pain the second I’d started running, but I’d pushed it to the back of my mind. But I wasn’t going to be able to ignore that pain forever. I might’ve been stitched up and bandaged up, but I was only going to be lucky for so long.

  I turned around and looked up at where I’d seen the helicopter go.

  There was nothing there but storm clouds, now.

  But I hadn’t even seen the darkest of those clouds yet…

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I sat inside one of the abandoned train carriages and leaned back in my chair.

  The hailstone fell down heavily on the roof above. The lightning and thunder hadn’t stopped since this afternoon. It sounded like the heavens were opening out there.

  But at least I had shelter.

  At least I had somewhere that I didn’t have to build myself, like I’d have to in the woods, for now.

  This whole urbanisation thing was working out well for me tonight.

  Except I had bigger problems to worry about than just shelter.

  I reached down to my right side and felt the damp fresh blood through my tourniquet. There was no doubt about it, I was screwed. Billy and the people back at the house had done a good job of tidying my wound up, but I’d only gone and undone all that positivity by being stubborn and thinking I could sprint after that damned helicopter.

  Part of me wondered whether seeing that helicopter was even a good thing at all, especially after the problems it had caused for me.

  I mean, sure. It was nice to know there was someone else out there—and by “someone else” I meant someone who was capable of flying a helicopter, which had to—had to—mean someone from that extraction point I’d heard rumours about. Sure. It was still a long shot. But sometimes you had to believe in the long shots. They were the things that carried you the furthest in life.

  Lionel walked over to me. He laid his head on my feet and whined. As I rested there, bleeding, I wondered whether Lionel knew what was happening to me. Animals had a much greater sense of mortality than humans did, after all, even if they weren’t always haunted by it in their everyday lives. They had a sense when someone was passing away, or when they knew it was their time to go. Maybe that’s what this was. Maybe Lionel knew my time was up, and that it was going to be all him soon, all alone.

  I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I wasn’t sure what sparked it. Probably all these thoughts about mortality getting me down. But it didn’t feel like a tear of sadness. It felt like a tear of joy. Joy that I’d made it this far. Joy about the people I’d met on my way. So much joy for the love I’d felt. Love that I never thought I’d feel again after my mum and Harriet died within weeks of one another.

  I wished more people were here today. I wished Hannah was here right now. I wished Haz was here, with his wisecracks and his sense of humour. Or Remy with his level-headedness, and his remarkable ways of calming even the most uptight person down.

  I wished everyone I’d grown to love was here now, as the rain lashed down and the darkness got more intense, my body shivering gradually by the sec
ond.

  Because I knew the truth now, too.

  I wasn’t getting Holly back.

  It was my time to go.

  I closed my eyes and thought of her. She was such a good kid. So positive. So optimistic. Three months, I’d been alone with her. Three months, and still I felt like I barely knew her. But I saw why that was now. I’d been reluctant to bond with her. I’d resisted getting close to her. I’d seen my distrust for others and what it had done to even my closest relationships. Hell, my only relationship left.

  But I had bonded with Holly. I had got close to her.

  And losing her to that rival group had torn out my heart.

  Was I just going to give up on life like that and leave Holly to whatever awful fate was in store for her?

  “No,” I said.

  I felt a surge of energy fill my body. A determination and an urgency to act.

  I stood up, as hard as it was. I walked across the length of the train carriage. I could find something to stitch or staple myself up with. I would find something to ease the bleeding. Because I had to. I couldn’t just give up on Holly. I’d always said I’d die before I gave up on her.

  Well it wasn’t my time to die yet.

  I reached the front of the carriage and I found a first aid dispenser. It would be empty. Someone would’ve taken it. They had to have done.

  I looked up at the roof of the train, in the direction of the falling hail, and I prayed for another miracle.

  I opened that first aid dispenser.

  There was no first aid kit at all. None that I could see in the barely moonlit darkness.

  I turned away, defeated, and then I saw something else on the floor of the train.

  Something that made my smile tug at my face.

  A small pack of dental floss.

  I grabbed it. Then I found a sharp, needle-like object and I stitched my skin together as well as I could.

  It was painful. It was a sure-fire infection trap.

  But it was going to slow the loss of blood. And right now, that was about as great a victory as I could hope for.

  I walked back over to the chair where I’d lain, then I went past it, over to the train door.

  I looked outside. Falling hail. Crackling thunder. Flashing lightning.

  But I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way.

  I was going to get some rest. Some much-needed rest and recovery.

  Then, I was going to continue my journey.

  I looked down the tracks in the direction of Blackpool, Lionel by my side.

  “We’re coming for you, Holly,” I said. “Wherever you are out there, I just want you to know that. We’re coming for you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Holly didn’t think she’d ever see again until they took the bag off her head.

  She squinted. It was so bright. She thought maybe she was dead and this was heaven. In a way she kind of wanted that. It would be happier in heaven than with the bad people with the masks, and the weird children. She didn’t want to be around them anymore. She wanted to be with Scott and Lionel. They kept her safe. She trusted them.

  But she wasn’t with them.

  And she wasn’t in heaven either.

  It didn’t take Holly long for her to realise that it wasn’t actually that bright at all. She’d just had that bag over her head for so long that she’d forgotten what it was like to see at all. But she could see the clouds now. She could see that it was daytime. Morning, probably. She didn’t know for definite.

  And she could see something else, too.

  A man standing right opposite her.

  He didn’t have his mask on, but Holly knew he was the leader of the masked people. His face was scarred. But what scared Holly more than anything about this man was just how normal he looked.

  He could’ve been Scott, in another life. He could’ve been someone who’d looked after her. He could’ve been a good person.

  But instead, he was a killer.

  He didn’t say anything to Holly. He just stared at her for a few seconds. Her mouth was dry and her lips were sore. She’d been fed every now and then, but they’d only lifted the bag a little so she couldn’t see properly.

  She heard the wind blowing strongly around her, and she looked around. There were others, there. Four of them. More of those masked people.

  Then in front of each of them, children.

  Holly felt sick when she saw these children. She knew they weren’t normal children anymore. Something had happened to them. Something horrible. And whatever it was, it had changed them.

  She didn’t want to end up like them. She didn’t want to have the same look in her eyes as them—a dead look.

  She just wanted to get away from here.

  But doing so wasn’t going to be easy.

  The man with the scarred face walked over to her, and she felt her knees buckling. She knew that whatever he had planned for her wasn’t going to be good. But if they were going to kill her, they’d have killed her by now. Wouldn’t they?”

  That’s what she thought.

  That’s what she hoped.

  That’s what she clung onto.

  The man leaned over to her, and it took her a few seconds to realise there was something in his hand.

  When she saw what it was, she almost buckled at the knees.

  It was a knife.

  She stumbled back, but there was someone there to stop her.

  “Please,” she said, shaking her head. “Just let me go. Just let me go.”

  The people didn’t say anything to her, but she knew what was going to happen now. This man was going to stab her. Her life was going to end. Everything was going to be over.

  She tried to take another step back, but there was someone there to stop her. So she found herself closing her eyes and wishing she could be back in the darkness again. Because at least in the darkness, she couldn’t see the horrors. At least in the darkness she could just imagine life was better than it was, and that everything was going to be okay.

  She waited for the sharpness of the knife to pierce through her skin.

  But it didn’t happen.

  She kept her eyes closed. What was happening? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

  But she had to.

  She held her breath, heart racing. She had to open her eyes and see what was going on. As scary as it was, she had to know what lay ahead for her. She had to know what was going to happen.

  When she opened her eyes, she was surprised by what she saw.

  The man with the scarred face was still in front of her.

  He was still holding the knife.

  But he wasn’t pointing it at her.

  He was holding it out to her.

  She didn’t understand what was happening until she looked past him.

  There was a woman. She was on her knees. She’d been gagged, and it looked like she had a bruise on her head. She was crying, and her eyes were red and bloodshot.

  She looked at Holly with total fear.

  The man with the scarred face put the blade in Holly’s hand, and then he did something Holly had never heard him do before.

  He leaned towards her ear and, very gently, he spoke.

  “You kill her. If you don’t, you face a fate worse than death. And so does she.”

  Holly went cold. She stared into the eyes of this woman, as she held on to the knife limply.

  And the scariest thing?

  The hardest thing about all this?

  The way the woman was looking at Holly like she was just one of the monsters.

  Her heart raced. A lump tightened in her throat, slowing her breathing. She looked up at the man and shook her head. “I… I can’t—”

  “You will. Because you have to. It’s what we all have to do. To survive in this world. To grow in this world. Because you are a child of the new world.”

  Holly looked around at the rest of the people—the masked people, and the children. She wanted one of t
hem to stand in. To tell the man with the scarred face that this was wrong, and tell her that she didn’t have to do this.

  But none of them did.

  All of them just looked on. Waiting. Expectant.

  And the longer time went on, the more Holly began to realise that this was exactly what these children had done. This was exactly the sort of thing that had made them so empty. So numb.

  This was exactly what they’d been through.

  And this was only the beginning.

  She looked over at the woman. Tears streaming down her face. Total terror in her eyes.

  And then she looked down at the knife.

  A fate worse than death.

  She looked up at the man with the scarred face and she wondered what would happen if she stabbed him instead. How long before the rest of his people killed her? Or would they make her suffer “a fate worse than death” too?

  Then she looked back at the woman.

  Could she do it?

  Could she do it to keep herself alive?

  She tightened her grip around the knife.

  She had to.

  She took a step.

  And when she walked, she saw two things.

  A small, scary smile at the corner of the man with the scarred face’s mouth.

  And also the eyes of the woman go all wobbly, like she couldn’t actually believe what was happening.

  She took another step. She felt sick. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to run away.

  Maybe she could run away. Maybe she could disappear into the trees.

  But the eyes.

  The eyes of the children.

  The eyes behind the masks.

  All of them watching her.

  All of them waiting.

  She pulled back the knife.

  And then she threw it onto the ground.

  She started crying. She looked at the grass beneath her. She shook her head.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I just—I just can’t.”

  There was a pause, then. A pause, where nothing happened for a few seconds.

  Then she felt a hand on her back.

  She looked up through her tear soaked eyelashes.

  The man with the scarred face looked down at her, disappointed.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Nobody does it first time.”