by Casey, Ryan
He was called Trent. Mid-forties. Bit of an asshole. Nasty with the women, and not a particularly easy guy to sympathise with.
But right now, he was screaming.
Begging.
Crying.
“Please! Please don’t do this to me, guys. I’m one of you. I ain’t done nothin’. I’m one of you!”
He’d been buried in the dusty ground. Only his head poked out from the earth. He tried to shuffle, tried to shake free, but he was stuck. Trapped. Terrified.
And then Curtis stepped out.
He had his hands on his waist. A smile across his face. Long ginger hair. So tall he cast a shadow over this poor man. Imposing. Unpredictable. Terrifying.
“You know the score, Trenty boy. You’ve stood here yerself, and you know what happens to traitors like you.”
Trent tried to shake free. “But I ain’t done anything! I ain’t no traitor! Curtis, please! Anyone! Please!”
Curtis just stepped away. Kicked a little dust at Trent, making him cough.
“I am sorry, Trent. Really, I am. You gotta believe that. But rules are rules. Ain’t that right, fellas?”
A few claps. A few cheers of agreement.
But mostly, fearful looks.
Fearful stares onwards.
Like everyone realised just how damned deep in this shit they were, and everyone was just too afraid to stand up in case they turned into another Trent.
“So go on,” Curtis said. “You know what you gotta do, hmm?”
He stood there. Hands on his waist.
And not for the first time, Eddie hoped the people wouldn’t comply. He hoped they’d stand up for themselves. Fight back. Resist. He’d heard rumours of defectors. Of people wanting to resist. He just wanted someone to make the first move, so that…
But then he saw the first man step forward and boot Trent right across his face.
And then the next.
And the next.
And before Eddie knew it, he was being carried along again.
Carried along by the crowd.
By the hysteria.
And by the urgency not to appear weak.
Because if you appeared weak, you ended up like Trent.
And Eddie didn’t want to end up like Trent.
Nobody wanted to end up like Trent.
Curtis smiled as his people ran towards Trent, kicking him, scratching him, spitting at him, throwing stones at him.
And Trent could only sit there and cry, blood streaming down his battered, bruised, swollen face. One eye burst. His nose flattened beyond recognition. A little desperate whimper eeking from his lungs.
Eddie stepped up.
He closed his eyes.
Held his breath.
Told himself it’s what he had to do.
Told himself this was survival now.
And then he gave Trent the biggest kick he possibly could, in the hope it put him out of this hellish misery once and for all.
It didn’t.
It went on for another long, excruciating three minutes.
That’s when Trent spluttered out the name “Mitch”—the name of his son—spewed out the last of his teeth and died.
Just another day in Hell.
Chapter Five
Kelly opened her eyes and felt a smile stretch across her face.
She could hear Baby Edward crying at the foot of her bed. In the early days, she’d found it difficult, probably with everything else going on.
But now, hearing that cry was a blessing.
It reminded her of the one thing that mattered most to her in life.
The only person who truly mattered to her anymore.
She climbed out of the soft sheets of the double bed. Walked across the plush grey carpet, over towards the cot. Her flat was small: a first-floor, one-bedroom place. They were utilising space as much as they could here at the Westfield community. Maybe in time, there’d be room to expand, scope to evolve.
But right now, it was good enough. Kelly had everything she needed here.
“Hello, little man!” she said. “You hungry?”
She reached in for Baby Edward, lifted him up. She’d never thought herself particularly maternal. In all truth, the idea of having a kid never really appealed to her at all. Always pictured herself as one of those cool aunt types who never had a kid and kept on clubbing into her forties, as fucking tragic as she always found that when it happened to other people.
But since Baby Edward came along, her whole life had completely shifted.
She held him close to her breast. And then she walked over to the window, looked outside, out at her community.
When she saw it, she smiled.
In terms of setup, it wasn’t much different to their Galgate home almost a year ago. Terraced-lined streets. Cars parked stationary by the sides of the roads. And people. Lots of people.
This place was as perfect as they were going to get. Location-wise, it was great. Situated near a river, where they could gather fresh water. There were fishing ponds too, where they could control the fish numbers and catch them for food. There were nearby woods they could hunt in, farming areas, crop areas. And there were around a hundred people, all pulling their weight, all standing together.
A new community. A new world.
And Kelly was settled here.
She saw someone walking across the street. Sunil. That grey vest he always wore. Those long, dark locks. And that ever-present smile.
She went to take a step back from the window when she saw him look right up at her.
He waved. Smiled that beaming smile at her.
She smiled back. Nodded.
And then he walked on, down the street.
She liked Sunil. She couldn’t lie about that. She was attracted to him, and he was a lovely guy.
But she didn’t want anything serious with him. She wasn’t ready for anything serious with anybody. It was her and Baby Edward. He was her responsibility. She’d be a mother to him, raise him.
And maybe in time, who knows? Maybe she’d be able to settle. Maybe she’d progress things with Sunil, or with someone else.
But for now… she was happy on her own, with her baby.
There was another side to all of this, too.
And that was a side she didn’t like to admit.
She walked across the cool, grey-painted bedroom. Opened the dresser beside her bed.
Inside there, she saw the letter Eddie left for her. The last memory she had of him. The only link she had to him.
She felt a lump swell in her throat. She hated Eddie for walking away. There was nothing less attractive than an absent father.
But she understood why he’d walked away. And that was one of the hardest things to take, one of the most bitter pills to swallow.
He’d walked away because he didn’t think he was good enough.
He’d walked away because she pushed him away. She’d made him feel second-rate.
He’d walked away, and she hadn’t heard or seen any trace of him since.
She thought about Eddie. About Noah. She liked to think they were both out there, together somewhere. Reunited. Making their own way in this world. And that eventually, they’d make their way here. She’d be pissy at first, of course. Annoyed that Eddie turned his back on their son. Walked away before even knowing what she’d called the baby.
But they’d work through it. Like they worked through everything.
Because there was something between them. No point denying that. No point trying to run from it. Running from it was probably what drove Eddie away in the first place.
Sometimes, it took losing someone to truly realise what you’d had in the first place.
She stepped away from the curtain. Walked back over to Edward’s cot.
“Here you go, little man. You have a rest now. You have a rest.”
She placed him down. Got dressed. Made herself some breakfast. Read a little of Into the Dark, the epic post-apocalyptic series from a dude
called Ryan Casey who seemed to have a thing for writing novels about men with dogs in post apocalyptic worlds. They were decent reading, nothing particularly amazing, certainly not classics, but they kept her entertained and that’s what she needed right now.
Reading was something she was trying to do more of in all this. She used to be a reader when she was a kid, but like most readers, adult life kind of got in the way and scuppered her plans. She enjoyed digging into something like this—particularly something that wasn’t so far from home in the world she now lived in.
Although if one thing was for sure, this Ryan Casey dude wouldn’t know shit about how to survive an actual apocalypse. If only Amazon still existed so she could temper his ego with a three-star review. Fraud.
She was so deeply engrossed in a super long chapter when she heard a knock at the door.
She turned around. She’d totally lost all sense of time. She wondered who it could be.
When she got up and opened the door, she saw Maria standing there, smile on her face.
“Hey, chick. Have you forgotten something?”
Kelly frowned. Maria was a friend of hers. Dark hair in a bob. Bright white smile. Really friendly. They’d hit it off as soon as they met two months ago.
And there was the advantage that Maria had a baby, too. Sam was a little older than Edward, but only by a couple of months. It was nice to think there was someone Edward could grow up with here. A friend he could go to school with.
And it was nice for Kelly to have a friend, too.
She stood there. Frowned.
And then it hit her.
“Shit,” Kelly said.
Maria laughed, shook her head. “What’re you like?”
“I’m sorry. Really. I’d love to say I had a valid excuse, but oversleeping definitely doesn’t count.”
Maria laughed it off, holding on to Sam as she stood in the corridor of their flat block. “It’s fine, you. Seriously. Just come down whenever you’re ready. Not like I have a lot else to do!”
Kelly smiled at Maria. Nodded. She’d agreed to grab a coffee with her in the cafe they had up and running now this morning, but time must’ve slipped her by. She was getting a bit like that lately. Forgetting things. Letting her mind wander, and her thoughts drift.
And she knew it was ’cause that two-month anniversary was getting closer.
That two-month anniversary of Eddie’s disappearance.
She was going to have to push past it.
To move on from the guilt she felt about it.
Move forward, for good.
“Give me ten minutes,” Kelly said. “I’ll meet you in the courtyard.”
Maria raised her thick eyebrows. “I’ll see you there in twenty.”
“I said ten.”
“Yeah. But I know what you’re like.”
Kelly smirked. “Bitch.”
“Love you too. Come on, Sam. We’ll see Auntie Kelly in half an hour.”
They walked off down the corridor, off past the other flat entrances.
And Kelly found herself standing there, smiling.
Life was good.
Life was happy.
There was order here. And there was stability.
But there was still that unshakable sense that it wasn’t permanent.
That awful sense that something could go horribly wrong.
At any moment.
Marky stood on top of the hill, binoculars in hand, and smiled.
“I think we found ourselves a new home,” he muttered.
Chapter Six
Curtis sat back in his own personal shipping container and felt bored as fuck.
It was late. He was tired. He’d spent most of the night drinking non-alcoholic beers down at the Watering Hole. Didn’t like drinking the real stuff, no sir. That shit clouded your judgement. Made you weak.
He’d never forget his mum’s words, as she wrapped her hands around his throat as a little kid. Held him by his neck, making him gasp for air like a drowning puppy.
“Don’t you dare turn to drink, my boy. Not unless you want to turn out like your weak father.”
And Curtis didn’t want to turn out like his weak father. Not one bit. He’d spent his whole thirty-five years trying not to turn into that weak, drunk old fool. Cause that man didn’t know leadership. He just knew sitting there in his chair, reading the newspaper, letting Mum do everything around the house.
He wasn’t no idol. Curtis knew that, right from being a kid, oh yes.
Spent his whole life trying to be the opposite. To be someone else. A goddamned better man.
He’d made some mistakes along the way. He was a bit of a terror in his twenties. Did a few things with women he wasn’t proud of. A few things with kids, too. Small stuff, though, in the grand scheme of things.
But it was all ’cause he didn’t have his head screwed on proper. That’s what Mum always said, anyway. Always said he was a screw loose. That he was clever, so clever, but he wasn’t all there, like.
And he knew he was clever. His IQ was high, way high.
And he had a way of thinking about things that was different to most people. A way of seeing the world that put him at an advantage.
A ruthless streak his mother had helped raise in him.
He turned over on his large, king-sized bed planted bang in the middle of this spacious place he called home and saw the young boy lying by his side.
He was ginger, like Curtis. Smelled like lavender, which sure as hell calmed Curtis down. Freckly. Wore glasses. Curtis preferred him when he wore glasses. Made him look cuter.
“Go on,” he said. “Get your ass outta here. Don’t want you around anymore. No, sir.”
The kid jumped out of the bed. Teenager, probably about sixteen. He scurried across the floor, head down, hopping over a few of the Lego sets Curtis had started crafting large sculptures out of in his spare time.
And watching him creep away, Curtis felt two things. One of them was shame. Shame about who he was. Shame about his interests. He’d never liked women all that much, really, something Dad hated him for even more. They bored him. Didn’t interest him in the same way as men did. Less to play with.
And the younger ones, too. He always preferred them. Something he’d got in trouble for in the past. Something he felt ashamed of.
He smirked as he watched this kid—whose name he couldn’t even fucking remember—scurry across the floor of his shipping container, eager to escape.
“Run along, lil man,” he said. “Fly away like a goddamned butterfly.”
He glanced back at Curtis. Then he went to open the container door.
“Actually, wait.”
He stopped. Froze. His pale face flushed. He looked back at Curtis again. Fear in his eyes. Terror consuming him.
And Curtis liked that. It got him off. Made him feel so big. So strong. So powerful.
People spent their whole lives telling him he wasn’t worth shit. He wasn’t worth listening to.
And now he could make people feel afraid, just like that.
“Never mind,” Curtis said. “Musta slipped my mind. Go on. Get your ass outta here.”
He watched the kid leave the shipping container, slam the door behind him, and lay back on his thick mattress and stared up at a cobweb on the ceiling.
He was bored. He wanted stimulation. Something bigger. Something different. He didn’t know what it was. Life was always like this for Curtis. He felt like he had a goddamned itch on the back of his nut sack, so deep he couldn’t reach.
But he felt like he was so close to finding where that itch was.
So close to figuring out what the hell to do about it.
Another knock on the door.
He frowned. If it were that kid again saying he’d forgotten something, he might just strangle the cunt. He’d sure as hell need some lavender to calm himself down then.
He got up. Walked over to the door. Opened it.
Marky stood there.
“Can I
have a word?” he said.
Marky was a gaunt, thin guy. He never looked happy about anything. But he was one of Curtis’ most loyal aides. He valued him. Closest thing to a friend he had in this crazy place.
They’d met right at the start of this whole virus thing. Fell into a smaller group originally. But the guy running that group started getting ideas above his station, so Marky stood by Curtis’ side as the pair of them took him out.
The rest was goddamned history.
“Course,” Curtis said. “Want a drink?”
“I’m good.”
“Good man. Drink muddies the mind; don’t you know it?”
Marky sat down at Curtis’ round kitchen-style table. Curtis stayed standing. Always liked to maintain his authority. Always liked to make the other person know he had things under control.
“What’s botherin’ you, Marky?”
Marky sighed. “It’s the people. They’re getting fed up.”
Curtis frowned. Something he wasn’t expecting. “Fed up? You mind elaborating, or am I gonna have to read between the lines?”
“The frozen food supplies are waning. The booze is getting lower. We’re even getting low on drugs. And the women… some of ’em are dying. We’re not attracting as many people here as we once were. There’s kids going missing on the road. It’s falling apart, Curtis. I hate to say that, but it is. Even the fights ain’t papering over the cracks anymore.”
Curtis hated hearing shit like this so bluntly. ’Cause he had shit under control. He didn’t need Marky to tell him what he already suspected. “The public executions. They’ll keep people in order.”
“How much longer do you think you can kill innocent people and expect our group not to ask questions?”
Curtis sighed. He did regret the executions. Trent, the last dude they’d battered, was a thoroughly decent chap, all things considered.
But they needed to maintain their aura of control. Their rule of fear.
“Way I see it, it’s only you complainin’ about how we’re doin’ things.”
Marky held up his hands. “Look. I’m your adviser. It’s my job to advise. You told me when you hired me to keep my ear to the ground and never hold back. So that’s what I do, Curtis. I’m sorry if it ain’t what you want to hear, but it’s the truth, as far as I hear it.”