by Ryan Casey
And then he wrapped the bag over her head again and tightened it so much that she could barely breathe.
“But you will learn,” he said. “And you will kill. We’ll make sure of that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I woke the following day feeling surprisingly energised.
The train was bright. At first, I thought it was from the sun. But no. There was something else.
A light?
No.
It was snow.
Outside, there was a thick lining of snow covering the railway tracks. It had put a hell of a lot down last night. It must’ve poured down, because the rain and hail that had fallen earlier didn’t seem to have made a slushy undercoat at all.
And it had frozen over, too. I could tell that much from how much I was shivering, and how much Lionel was curled up into a ball on my lap.
But the funny thing about all of this?
I didn’t feel bad about the snow.
I didn’t feel pessimistic about how the weather would affect my chances.
In fact, I didn’t feel anything like that.
I just felt like today was a new day. And that things really could be better, starting right now.
And right here.
I stood up, patting Lionel so he’d hop off me. It took some time and perseverance, but eventually he did.
When he was down, I went to stretch, then remembered the wound. Shit. I couldn’t go bursting any more stitches. That might just be the death of me.
I lifted my shirt. I didn’t want to see the stitching. I didn’t want to know what kind of state it was in. I’d been bleeding, and that bleeding wouldn’t have just stopped.
But I had to check the condition of the wound. I was forced to, really. Especially if self-preservation was my aim. Which it was.
I lifted my shirt, holding my breath.
What I saw amazed me.
The wound had a little bit of blood around it, but nothing too bad.
Which could only mean one thing.
The bleeding had stopped.
The stitches had worked.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I stood in this bright train carriage. Outside, the cloud had cleared, and there was nothing but blueness.
I walked over to the door, Lionel trailing closely behind. I still felt a little shivery and sniffly, but hell, it was freezing, so that could only be natural.
As I stood at that doorway, I thought about the events of the last few days. The people Holly and I had run into. The people that had taken Holly away from me. The helicopter I’d seen. And the knowledge that Holly was heading towards Blackpool with that masked group.
It wasn’t going to be easy. Hell, it might be a bridge too far.
But I was going to do my damnedest to make it, no matter what it took.
“Lionel?”
He tilted his head, then ran over to me. He stopped right at my feet.
I looked down at him. Then I crouched down, and I ruffled his fur. “We’re going to get some breakfast, you and me. And then you know what we’re going to do after that?”
He kept on tilting his head, like he was listening. I knew he wasn’t really. He’s a dog. I’m not an idiot. But it felt good to have someone to talk to, to bounce my ideas off. I was a lonely wanderer. Allow me that.
“We’re going to go find Holly. And then we’re going to find that extraction point. Together.”
He lunged forward and licked my face. I fell back, laughing, and then I play fought with him. He jumped around, nipped at me. I could see the happiness within him. And I wasn’t going to let him down. Ever.
This wonderful dog had been here for me all this time, through all of the hell I’d been through. He’d suffered with me. He’d felt moments of joy with me.
He’d kept me alive even when it seemed like there was no hope, and that there was nothing but darkness.
I wasn’t going to leave his side.
I was going to win. For him. For everyone.
I stood up then, calming Lionel down. I walked back down the length of the train, and I grabbed my coat. I zipped it up, as tight as I could. Nerves tickled at my hungry stomach. Dehydration tormented my limited body. But I wasn’t going to let those things stop me. It was time to go. It was time to not just survive, but to prosper.
Because Holly was worth it.
I stepped out of the train and looked down the tracks towards Carlisle, where the helicopter had headed, still so many miles away.
“Wait for us,” I muttered. “Please.”
Then I looked over in the direction of Blackpool.
I didn’t know what lay ahead. I knew there would be tough times. I knew there would be moments that weren’t easy. I knew I might not even survive.
But that wasn’t going to stop me.
“Come on, Lionel,” I said, as I began to crunch through the snow and down the tracks. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.”
I stopped. I didn’t know what to think at first. A trick of my mind? My loneliness catching up with me?
It had to be. It couldn’t be real.
I wanted to just carry on walking, denying what I’d heard, when I noticed snow crunching behind me.
My body turned to stone.
I went completely still. Completely rigid.
I didn’t want to look.
I didn’t want to accept.
But in the end, I didn’t have a choice.
I turned around. Slowly. And as much as I’d convinced myself that I was prepared for whatever came ahead, I felt myself challenged, right away.
There was a man.
He was all alone.
And he was walking right towards me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I saw the man walking towards me, wading his way through the snow, and I instinctively reached for my axe.
The man was wearing a thick parka. It was pulled right over his head. He had thick-rimmed glasses, which were cracked on one of the lenses. He was holding a walking stick in one hand, and in the other…
Shit.
He had a knife.
“Don’t come a step closer,” I said.
The man stopped, then. It was as if he’d only just noticed me for the first time, even though he’d spoken already. He stared over at me, and I stared back at him. By my side, Lionel growled.
We stood there, the pair of us, looking at one another and trying to weigh each other up. The wind whirred past, cold and quiet. I swore if I focused enough, I could hear this man’s breathing, it was that silent.
I didn’t know who was going to break this silence. I didn’t want to. The thought of breaking it scared me, in all truth. Because this man could be anyone. Literally anyone.
But in the end, it was him who broke the silence.
“And why the hell wouldn’t I come a step closer?”
When I heard him speak, my stomach sank right away. I didn’t want to become embroiled in a conflict with him. I’d been involved in enough conflicts for a lifetime, in all truth. I was tired of fighting. I just wanted things to be normal. Amicable, even if it meant not bonding with someone exactly. Just getting to know them a little. Not being alone.
I regretted leaving the people who’d stitched me up and saved my life behind. There was no doubt about that now.
But the damage had been done where they were concerned.
There were more people out there.
People like this man.
I hoped.
But I found myself lifting my axe, that reluctance to bond with another person still running strong through my body. “I don’t want to have to hurt you. But I do need to know who you are. Where you’ve come from. And how long you’ve been watching me.”
The man laughed, then. He snorted, and shook his head, his breath frosting in the cold. “Watching you?” he said. “Boy, you do have a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”
“Well if you aren’t watching me, what’re you doing here?”
He sh
ook his head and sighed. Then, he did something I didn’t expect him to do. He lowered his knife and started walking towards me, disobeying what I’d asked of him.
“Don’t,” I said.
“You aren’t going to kill me,” he said, in a mocking voice.
“And how can you be so sure of that?”
He stopped, just a few feet away from me. Lionel had stopped growling, and was tilting his head in curiosity as the man rustled around his parka pocket. “Because I don’t think we’re dissimilar, you and I.”
He pulled something out of his pocket—something like dried meat—and held it out for Lionel.
“Lionel, wait,” I started.
But it was too late.
Lionel was already bolting over to the man, taking the food from his hand. And before I knew it, Lionel had a new best friend. Wow. The loyalty of dogs. What an overrated cliché.
I looked at Lionel as he sat beside this man, looking up at him expecting more food. “Sorry, boy. Nothing left for you. Not sure your dad’ll be too keen on me handing you any more stuff anyway.”
He looked at me and smirked, dimples prominent on both cheeks.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Tim,” he said. “Tim Wilkins. I come from over the Pennines. The better side, if we’re both being honest. And you?”
I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to open up. That reluctance was still there.
“Hey, I don’t need a name right now,” he said, waving off the question. “What I need to know is whether you saw it, too.”
I hesitated when Tim said that. Because I knew what he was referring to. Of course I did. The helicopter. The helicopter that had flown over in the direction of Carlisle. The direction I wasn’t heading in.
“Please,” Tim said. “Put a man out of his misery. I’ve spent the last night thinking I’m going batshit crazy seeing things. Things like helicopters.”
“You weren’t seeing things,” I said.
“What?”
“You weren’t seeing things. I saw it too.”
Tim whistled, like he hadn’t really trusted what he’d seen up until now. Like it was only just becoming a reality for him. “Whoa. Well. That changes things. That really changes things. Only…”
He looked at me. Then he looked at the direction the helicopter had been heading in.
“If you saw it too, why aren’t you going after it?”
I didn’t know what to say then. I didn’t want to drag someone else into my battle. And besides, I wasn’t sure if I even could. It was one thing involving people in the battle to win territory from Mike a few months back, but it was another thing to convince a man who’d just seen a helicopter heading in a different direction to divert his journey.
“You’ve lost something, haven’t you?” Tim asked.
As he walked closer, I found my hand shaking. I found the knife lowering. And I found myself looking at the ground.
Tim edged ever closer. “Or… shit. You’ve lost someone.”
I looked up at Tim. And for the first time, I felt like I had someone I could talk to. Someone who could help me.
I had to try.
I had to—
“I’ll help you,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. It was as if he had read my mind. I started to wonder whether this was just an illusion of my own. “What? But—”
“The helicopter’s quite something. Make no mistake about that. But I dunno. Call me a cynic, but I can’t see things working out all that rosily where that chopper’s concerned.”
He held out his hand.
“So whatever it is you’ve got on. Whatever it is you need help with. I’ll help you. How’s that sound?”
I looked at his hand. I didn’t want to trust him. I knew trusting him or anyone was dangerous.
But the lure was just too strong.
I had to trust him.
For Holly.
For myself.
I took a deep breath.
Then, I took Tim’s hand.
“Okay,” Tim said, nodding as he shook my hand firmly. “Where do we start?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I walked with Tim from sunrise to the middle of the afternoon, and I knew Blackpool was close.
The sun was edging rapidly towards sunset, the days getting shorter. It reminded me of the times when I’d come in from work when it was dark, only to get up and go to work the next day when it was still dark. It was strange, thinking and complaining that we spent so much of our lives in darkness, when really we didn’t. We had lights. We had artificial brightness.
Now, there was none of that. We really were in the dark.
It was cold, obviously. I couldn’t remember the last time my teeth hadn’t chattered, as I clambered my way through the thick snow. It was just typical that it had snowed so heavily this year. Honestly, it was a running joke in Britain about just how pathetic and pitiful our snowfall really was. The railway and the public services could be ground to a halt by a little sprinkling of snow, sending the nation into panic. I wondered how they’d react to this. Not well, I knew.
But they weren’t here to react now anyway.
We had waded off the train tracks a while ago, and into the leafy suburbs nearby. I could see houses behind the trees, and seeing houses just made the hairs on my arms stand up, because houses meant people. Not in all cases, but that psychological factor was still there. See a house, and you know there’s a chance someone could be sheltering inside it.
And sure. I’d seen first- hand now that not everyone out there was a bad person. Not everyone had ulterior motives. But that lack of trust still nipped at me. I’d made a friend. I wasn’t exactly looking to make any more. One step at a time.
There was total silence other than the crunching of our feet in the snow. Every now and then, Tim stopped and coughed. It sounded like he had something rough on his chest. I didn’t want to ask him about it. Felt rude to pry.
In all honesty, I was still surprised—and a little uncertain—about Tim’s decision to help me out at all. It did make me wonder why he wasn’t so determined on reaching that helicopter, as no doubt everyone who’d seen it would be. It made me think there was something incomplete in his life, too. Like there was something missing.
It intrigued me. But I was grateful for it.
I was grateful that I wouldn’t be taking on my enemy alone.
“Don’t worry about the chest,” Tim said, once again as if he was reading my mind. He had a remarkable way of reading me, like he knew exactly what I was thinking at all times. “I’ve had it rough since I was a kid. Asthma. Always figured it’d kill me someday. Might not be far from the truth after all.”
He sucked on an inhaler, but in truth it didn’t seem like there was much spray left in there.
“So what’s your story?” I asked.
Tim smiled. “Because that’s how we start conversations these days, right? We ask about our stories. Well. I’ll tell you my story. My wife died. I was left on my own. I didn’t feel like I had shit left to live for. And then the world went to crap, and I figured I kind of liked life after all, so I’d better do something about it if I wanted to stay living. You?”
After Tim had spoken, I felt stunned, as I walked with Lionel at my side. It was strange just how similar this man was to me. He’d lost a wife, just like I had. He’d been through the things I’d been through.
In a sense, we were like mirror images of each other.
Only he was more willing to help out strangers.
He was more willing to connect.
“I… I lost, too,” I said.
“Oh I can tell that. It’s all over your face.”
“How can you seem so…”
Tim narrowed his eyes. He was smiling. “So what?”
“With everything that happened to you too. With your wife. How can you seem so positive about it all?”
Tim shrugged, like he was merely mulling over a general knowledge question in a pub q
uiz, not the expired life of his beloved wife. “In the early days, it hurt. And I’m not gonna lie. It still hurts now. There’s times I wake up and wonder if any of this is even worth it at all.
“But then I think about how beautiful my Shireen was. I think about what she’d want me to do. And I’ll tell you something, the stubborn bugger would’ve wanted me to keep fighting. So hell. What can a man do but respect the wishes of his dearly departed?”
He smiled again. But it didn’t put me at ease at all, as we kept on moving through the snow, hoping to reach Blackpool before dark. Instead of putting me at ease, it tugged at my skin. It made me feel like there was something inside me, something I’d repressed, something waiting to burst out.
“We have something in common,” Tim said. “We both lost. But it’s how we react to it that defines—”
“I killed her,” I said.
Tim stopped. And I hadn’t realised it yet, I hadn’t registered it, but I stopped too.
Tim narrowed his eyes. “What?”
I felt the truth flooding from my body for the first time. I felt the horror of the old world welling up. The pain I’d had inside me all this time. The truth I tried to hide from everyone I met.
It was a reality I’d tried to run away from in this new world. A reality that I knew I was judged for in the old world—by my employers, my family, Harriet’s family, even by Julia at work.
But it was reality.
“I tried to tell people that Harriet was killed when she was hit by a bus,” I said. “And… and I guess I tried hard to tell myself that, too. But that’s not true. She… I knocked her over. I was on a driving lesson and I knocked her over. I was the one who killed her.”
Just saying those words brought it all back. Finally growing the balls to take driving lessons. Hearing my instructor snoring beside me. Seeing Harriet in the distance, and feeling the excitement of being able to prove to her that I was something resembling an adequate man after all.
And then everything had gone horribly wrong.
It had happened quickly. The botched gear change. The quick acceleration.
But by the time my instructor awoke, it was too late.
Harriet was on the road. The collision itself hadn’t killed her, not directly. But it had been enough to knock her down, cracking her head on the road, putting her into an irreversible coma that eventually led to her demise.