by Ryan Casey
But at least she had a chance.
At least she was still alive.
She pushed. Pushed with all the force she had. She thought of Dad. She thought of Kelsie. She thought of Alison. She thought of Gina and Sofia and Ian and Arya.
She thought about them. And as she pushed as hard as she could with her weak body, she felt the thought of these people fuelling her. She felt them giving her strength. She felt them filling her with confidence, filling her with hope.
She felt the tears rolling down her face as she pushed, harder, harder.
She pushed against Mary, and she felt so bad that this was what she’d been reduced to. Tossed away in a pile.
She felt like she’d been shown the greatest disrespect. She’d been thrown away. Discarded.
She felt like she wanted to do something for Mary. To give her a proper send-off.
And then she pushed her harder, and she saw light.
She felt hope at first. Optimism. Because she could see. Which meant she had a chance. A chance to get out of here. A chance to break free.
She went to drag herself out of this mass when she saw movement.
There were people. People in gas masks. Four of them, five of them, maybe more.
She saw them carrying a body over towards the pile. Saw them walking towards her.
She closed her eyes.
Then she felt the body knock into her.
She tumbled as the body hit. Just a little. And for a moment, as she let herself fall, eager not to get caught out, she thought she’d missed it. She thought she’d blown her moment.
But then when she opened her eyes, just a little, she realised something.
She was on the outside of the other side of the bodies.
The way that body had knocked against her, it’d loosened the bodies around her, set her free.
She kept totally still. Held herself firm.
And she waited.
She heard the footsteps around her. These people, they were silent. They didn’t say much. It sounded like they were methodical. Like they had a plan.
She knew she had to get away from here. But at the same time, she had to pick the right moment. She couldn’t make a rash break for it. She had to time things to perfection.
Because she’d seen the chaos here, and she had no doubts that these people were the ones behind it after all.
She tightened her fists together. Eased around the side of the bodies.
Then when she looked around, she saw something.
Two things, in fact.
First?
In the distance, she saw someone.
Someone entering the flats.
Someone with a dog beside him.
Someone with Arya beside him.
“Dad,” she said.
She felt joy, just for a moment. Elation, just for a moment. Because he was still here. He was alive. He’d made it. He wasn’t just another body in the pile.
But that’s when she noticed the other thing.
That’s when the other thing caught her attention.
The thing that sent shivers up her arms.
One of the people in the gas masks.
They were looking right at her.
Pointing right at her.
Then, together with three other people, they were hurtling in her direction.
Chapter Seventeen
Mike watched the three masked people step inside Kelsie’s room, perfume bottle in hand, and he braced himself for the worst.
The group were focused. They didn’t say anything. And it was that speechlessness that got to Mike. It sent shivers up the back of his neck.
Because they didn’t seem to be willing to cooperate.
They didn’t seem to be willing to negotiate.
They just had an agenda, and as far as Mike could see it, that agenda was to wipe this place out.
He pushed Kelsie behind him. Took a few baby steps back, too. Arya stood beside him, holding her ground, growling.
But he was under no illusions about this room. He was surrounded. There was no getting out of the window.
The only way was through the door.
And right now, three masked people with one of them holding what Mike could only assume was a canister of Novichok were blocking his path out of here.
He saw them coming towards him, and he thought about speaking. He thought about asking them to show mercy, but he wanted to know first and foremost where the hell they’d stumbled upon a pile of Novichok. Could it be the rival group? The foreign army changing tactics? That made sense. It added up.
But he knew damn well there was no room for delay. There was no time for it. It wasn’t going to work.
So he looked at the jewellery box in his hand, and he did the only thing that seemed plausible right now.
He threw it.
Threw it right at the man stepping towards him with the bottle.
The man fell back when it hit him in his chest. The spray bottle lowered, just for a moment, just for a second.
And now his defences had dropped, now he had nothing left in his hands to fight these people with, he knew he had to take his opportunity. He knew he had to take his chance.
So he threw himself, Kelsie’s hand in his, past the man, through the other two people, and towards the gap in the door.
Just when he got there, he heard a cry.
He looked around.
The two people had hold of Kelsie.
They were dragging her away from him.
Mike pulled her arm, hard. Anything to just get her from the grips of these people.
But it was already too late.
The man he’d thrown the jewellery box at was back on his feet.
The perfume bottle was in his hand.
And he was walking back towards them.
Panic rose as Mike tried to back away. One of the people—a man, clearly—had hold of him now. He tried to shuffle free of him, but his grip was tight.
And the man with the bottle was getting closer, closer.
He saw his life flashing before his eyes. He saw Kelsie falling, pictured it in his mind.
He imagined how he’d feel to lose someone else. Someone else he cared about.
He imagined all these things as that man got closer, the thoughts flashing through his mind, and he knew he couldn’t just submit.
He knew he couldn’t just give up.
He felt the grip tightening around his shoulder.
And then he swung around and sunk his teeth around two of his fingers.
The man yelped at first. He tried to pull away. Tried to pull back.
But Mike wasn’t letting go.
And he certainly wasn’t letting up.
He dug his teeth down deeper. Dug them down until he tasted blood. Dug them down until he felt the bone getting closer.
Dug them down until the man let out a cry, then dragged his hand away.
And in that moment, Mike made a lunge for Kelsie.
In that moment, he turned around, made another break for the door.
In that moment—
A flash.
It all happened in a flash.
Arya holding her ground. Kicking back. Staring at the man with the bottle.
Then the man with the bottle lifting it.
Pointing it in Arya’s face.
Mike threw himself at the man. He plummeted into his chest, knocked him down to the ground. He punched him repeatedly. He knew the danger he was putting himself in. He knew the risk he was putting himself through.
He knew that one spray of that thing could be a spray too far.
But this was Arya.
He cared about Arya.
So he ripped off this guy’s gas mask.
The first thing that really struck him was this guy was significantly less scary and intimidating with the mask off than with it on. He was gaunt. Yellow teeth. Wispy blond hair. Mid-forties, maybe a little younger but aged by this world.
He was looking up at Mike with
fear.
“We’re just doing what we have to do,” he said. “We’re—we’re just restoring order. We’re just seeing in the new world in the only way we can.”
Mike heard the others behind him. He heard Kelsie struggling. He heard Arya barking.
He had no idea what was going on.
Just what he had to do next.
He pulled back his fist and plummeted it into this man’s face.
Then again.
Then again.
And when he was finally weakened and bloodied, he pulled the Novichok spray bottle from his hand and turned around.
When he turned around, Mike’s stomach sank.
Arya was standing there. She was kicking back. Still barking.
But the other people were nowhere to be seen.
And something else.
Kelsie was nowhere to be seen.
Mike’s heart raced. He rushed to the door. Scanned the corridor.
Then he ran to the door. Pushed it open. Looked around outside.
His stomach dropped.
His knees went weak.
The men were gone.
And Kelsie was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Eighteen
Holly turned from the group with the gas masks, and she did the only thing she could.
She ran.
She sprinted away from the pile of bodies, away from the people chasing her. Her heart pounded. Her chest was tight. She was shaking all over, partly because of the fear, partly because of the adrenaline of realising she was still alive after all—but also of realising what danger she was in, too.
She needed time. Time to adjust back to her hardened mentality. Time to adapt to the way she used to be.
But she needed to survive this exchange to even get close to a recovery in the first place.
She looked around. Her vision was blurred. Her judgement wasn’t at its sharpest. Her stomach was doing somersaults, and her legs felt like they were going to give way at any moment.
But she took deep breaths as she ran. She steadied her movement. Focused her intentions.
She needed to get away.
Didn’t matter where.
Didn’t matter how.
She just needed to get away from these people or she was in big trouble.
She looked over her shoulder. Her stomach did more somersaults when she saw they were closer than she’d first realised. Shit. She had to keep going. She had to power on.
She had to get out of this place.
She thought about Alison and the rest of the group. She wondered where they were. Whether they were okay. She had to hope so. The thought that they weren’t… Holly wasn’t sure she could take it. She’d grown so used to the peace here that just a taste of the loss was starting to haunt her all over again.
She thought of Dad. She’d seen him with Arya, going into the flats. She hadn’t heard anything since. Barking. Shouting. Anything. She wanted to know where they were. She wanted to know they were okay—that he was okay.
But he had to fight his own battle right now.
Just like she had to fight hers.
She reached the entrance to the place, and she ground to a halt.
The main gates had been blocked. There was something in the way. Something huge. Metallic.
Something that looked like a vehicle.
A double-decker bus.
Holly ground her teeth together. She had no idea how it had got here. But then there were plenty of mysteries outside in this world. One thing was clear—it had been parked here with the intention of blocking people in.
Which meant that whoever these people were had planned this. Carefully.
She took a step towards the bus, tried to figure out if there was a way she could climb her way through it, get out the other side. There was just the door. Just the main door. And right now, it was closed shut.
And then she heard the footsteps right behind her, and she turned.
She looked.
The masked people were surrounding her. Four of them. All standing around her. All looking at her. Closely.
She backed to the bus. When she hit it, she realised she’d made the wrong move because the gap which she could’ve run through had gone. There was only one way now. Only one way, and that was either get captured by these people or try to get through this door, try to get through the bus.
One of the men lifted a hand. Turned it towards her. Gestured to her to step closer.
She swallowed a lump in her throat. Took a couple of steps in the man’s direction, trying to convince him she was walking his way, trying to catch him off guard.
And then she spun around and threw herself at that bus door.
The first thing that hit her was a stomach-churning “what if?” What if the doors didn’t open? What if she just bounced off them? What if she hadn’t hit them hard enough?
And then she felt the sharp shards of glass scratching against her face and her neck, and she knew it had worked.
She tumbled through the door of the bus. Landed on one of the seats. Went to pull herself further inside, past the doors which were snapping shut around her already.
And then she felt the hand grab her leg.
It was tight. Firm. And it was pulling her back towards the outside, back towards the safe zone.
She kicked back. A hard thump.
But not enough to loosen the man’s grip.
She felt something sharp, then. Let out a yelp. The glass. The broken window glass. It had cut her leg.
She was so caught up in the pain that she was falling back; the man was dragging her through the glass.
She let him. Just for a moment, she let him.
And then when she was almost back outside, she picked up a piece of glass from the floor of the bus.
She spun around.
Swung it into the man’s shoulder.
He let out a cry. The first sound he’d made.
And then his grip dropped, and she fell back into the bus.
She steadied herself. Got back to her feet. Looked around the inside of this bus, disoriented.
There was no doubt about it. It was a double decker bus. She didn’t know how it had got here. She didn’t know how it was still working. She didn’t have the time to ponder it right now.
She had to get out of it.
She ran to the other side of the bus. The windows were covered, tinted. She punched against it, but her knuckles just bounced back. Her head was still hurting from the collision with the glass earlier. She wasn’t sure she could do that again.
She went to punch the glass again when somebody banged against it.
She stumbled back.
Then she realised something.
The group. They were pulling themselves into the window, through the broken glass.
Holly turned around. She felt cornered again. Surrounded again.
She scanned the bus.
There was only one way she could go.
She ran. Ran up the stairs. Up to the top deck.
And when she got there, she saw something that made her stomach lurch.
There was a man in the seat nearest the stairs.
He was dead.
She felt the sickness crashing into her. She felt a wave of nausea engulfing her. She felt all of it suffocating her.
Then she heard the footsteps.
The footsteps hitting the floor of the bus.
She blinked. Felt jolted back to life. There was only one way out of this bus.
The window right at the back.
Smashed.
She ran down the aisle. Ran towards it. And when she reached it, she stopped. Hesitated.
The drop. The drop outside the bus. It was big. Too big.
She heard the footsteps running up the stairs.
She turned. Saw them.
And she knew there was only one option right now.
She knew the choice she had to take.
She climbed onto the chair.
Dangled h
er legs out of the window.
She eased herself to its edge as those people threw themselves down the aisle, getting closer and closer.
She held herself down. Made it so the drop would be as manageable a distance as possible.
She closed her eyes.
Held her breath.
The footsteps were so close.
Her heart pounded.
Only one option now.
Only one choice.
She swallowed a lump in her throat, tears streaming down her face.
“Please,” she said.
Then she let go.
Then, she dropped.
Chapter Nineteen
Mike didn’t think about repercussions anymore.
He didn’t think about the situation he was in. He didn’t think about the danger of being within the walls of a place he’d called a “safe haven” until very recently.
He didn’t think about any of that.
He just thought about finding Kelsie.
About saving her from the people in the masks. The ones who’d taken her away.
And then getting out of this place—for good.
He ran across the slushy grass. Mud splashed up against him. Arya was by his side. To her, this was all just fun. This was all just a game.
But there was nothing game-like about it to him.
There was only finding Kelsie.
He heard the thunder rumbling above. Saw lightning crackling nearby. The rain had let up temporarily, but it looked like the heavens were going to open all over again.
He was drenched as it was. Drenched in rain. Drenched in sweat.
But still, none of that mattered.
Just finding Kelsie.
He looked all around. Looked for signs of life. He felt bad, in a way. Discriminatory. Because he knew there were other people here who he could be looking out for. He knew there were other people who needed help, and who he could aid.
But he’d lost his daughter. He’d lost Alison.
And now he’d lost Kelsie.
He couldn’t let that end the same way.
The shock of losing Holly was still raw. He still hadn’t got used to it. He still hadn’t accepted it.