by Ryan Casey
I stood up, feeling defeated. I went to walk away. Accept my defeat. I’d been kind to these people. They’d accepted my kindness. Now I had to move on.
I went to walk away when I heard something.
It was light at first. Just a rumbling against the road.
And then it got more intense.
Louder.
I looked up the road and my skin crawled.
“An engine,” I said.
I remembered the last time I’d seen a working engine. The army. And this sounded like a big vehicle, too.
I rushed back over to the woman and the child, knowing now that I couldn’t accept their resistance to my help.
“Get in the bushes,” I said.
The woman frowned. “What?”
“Just do it. You don’t want to run into the people who are coming this way. Quick.”
With hesitation, as the engine grew nearer, cutting through the silence, the woman stood up, whispering in the boy’s ear. They clambered their way into the hedges, found a spot where they could hide. Then I went in after them, covering up my face with the loose strands of the hedge.
I held my breath and I waited, my heart pounding.
I watched the gap on the road where that vehicle was approaching.
I crossed my fingers, the woman and the boy beside me, and I waited.
When the vehicle emerged, when I finally saw it, my stomach turned.
But not for the reason I was expecting.
Chapter Thirty-Four
When I saw the vehicle emerge, I did a double take.
I’d been expecting an army vehicle to emerge over the horizon. And with that came all kinds of horrors. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t tarnishing the armed forces all with the same brush. My cousin was in the RAF a few years ago, and I fully respected the work they did, the sacrifices they made for their country, for the goodness of the world.
But my experience with the forces yesterday had made me wary and suspicious. Those people we’d run into had the best interests of the nation at heart. I just wasn’t sure they had the best interests of the individuals in that nation at heart.
But this wasn’t an army vehicle at all.
This was a motorhome.
I let go of the deep breath I’d been holding, allowed myself to relax a little. If it wasn’t an army vehicle then I didn’t have to worry so much. But at the same time… how was this motorhome working? Did it mean the power was back on?
No. That couldn’t be the case. Somehow, whoever was driving this motorhome had kept the motorhome from experiencing the effects of the EMP.
And whoever it was, they were heading right in our direction.
“What should we do?” the woman whispered.
I held my breath and I held my ground. Sure, I might be relieved that it wasn’t army, but that didn’t mean I should immediately trust these people.
“We hold our ground,” I said, gripping onto the handgun.
But I couldn’t resist the urge to contemplate.
What if they were good people?
What if they could take me back home?
I kept totally still as the motorhome passed by. And as it moved by, it didn’t slow down at all. Part of me wanted to step out of the hedges, wave my hands, alert the driver to my presence.
But it was too late.
The motorhome passed by.
The opportunity was gone.
I sighed. The “what ifs” started circling my mind again. What if they’d been good people? What if they’d been able to help?
“Come on,” I said. “If you’re still all for staying on your own, just make sure you watch out for the military. They aren’t as trustworthy as you might think they are right now. They’re going about maintaining security in the best way they can… but I’m not sure it’s the best for everyone.”
“Are you sure you want to step out?” the woman asked.
I frowned. I didn’t know what she was referring to. Not at first.
Not until I realised that I couldn’t hear the engine anymore.
My skin went cold. I turned, looked in the direction the motorhome had headed.
It was stationary, not moving anymore.
And there was a man standing beside it.
A long-haired man. Old, probably in his early sixties. Big build. Wearing a blue fleece, smile on his face.
He was taking a leak.
He was far enough away from the motorhome that I had an idea. Maybe it wasn’t the purest of thoughts, but it was a logical one nonetheless.
The motorhome was working. It was up and running.
It was perfect.
What if we took it for ourselves?
I stepped out of the hedges slowly, prompting the woman and the boy, presumably her son, to follow closely behind. We moved onto the road. Because whether we took this motorhome or whether we attempted to build bridges, one thing was for certain. I wasn’t letting this opportunity pass. Not now I’d been gifted a second chance.
I walked slowly towards it, the pair by my side. The closer I got, the more my self-doubt started to kick in. I’d made the wrong call. I should’ve just stayed in the hedges. I should’ve laid low, waited for them to pass by completely. I’d seen what people could be capable of.
But at the same time, I’d seen the inherent kindness of people like Stuart, and I knew that not everybody out there was bad. There had to be more goodness in this world.
The man finished up. He started to walk back to his motorhome, not even looking in our direction.
And as he moved, again, that doubt kicked in. Leave him. Let him go.
But no.
Build bridges. Don’t burn them.
Trust.
That’s what will conquer.
He opened the door and climbed the steps and I knew this was my moment.
“Hey,” I called.
The man stopped. At first, he didn’t turn around, and I felt frozen in time, like this was the awful miscalculated moment that would define my life in this new world.
Then he turned around and looked.
The smile had gone from his face. A sincerity had crept into his eyes. A seriousness, like he was weighing me and the people around me up, trying to figure us out.
I held my ground. The woman held her ground. So too did the boy.
And in the end I thought about turning. Walking back into the hedges. Hiding.
But then something happened.
The man smiled.
He raised a hand.
“Hey, folks,” he said. “How’s it hanging?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I looked at the man opposite and he looked back at me. And to be honest, the longer this stare-off went on, the more I wished I hadn’t bothered approaching at all.
A cool breeze brushed along the country road. Suzy and her son, Will—as I’d found out their names were—stood beside me, totally silent. In front of us, on this otherwise silent and empty rural road, a motorhome. A working motorhome.
And a man standing right beside it, smile on his bearded face.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the look in his eyes. Friendly? Possibly. But that seemed hard to imagine. I mean, if I had a working vehicle like this, the last thing I would be was friendly, especially when I knew just how much people would want such a valuable commodity. It was hardly the most subtle vehicle either, but I supposed the guy hadn’t had the luxury of being able to choose.
He just seemed to lack suspicion. There was a self-assuredness about him that honestly, I wasn’t sure how to feel about.
Was it because he was confident that he had the better of us somehow?
Or was I just misreading everything and was he really just a friendly guy?
“So. You’re a quiet bunch, eh?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat.
He shook his head. “Well. I apologise first and foremost that you had to witness me taking a wee in the middle of nowhere. But, y’know. I thought I was on my own. My b
ad.”
We still didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what to say.
The man sighed. “Look. I guess we should start with names. That’s how normal people introduce one another, right? They share their names.” He cleared his throat, brushed down his fleece, that smile still wide on his face. “Well I’m Peter. And this here’s Mary. Mary the Motorhome.”
He looked at Will and grinned. But Will still wasn’t seeing any of the humour in the situation. Clearly scared by whatever he’d witnessed on the road.
The two dead bodies beside him and Suzy. The woman. The girl.
I wondered how that had happened. I wondered who those people were to Will and Suzy. I wondered just what had gone down.
Peter rolled his eyes and sighed. “See I think the normal way of doing things is you’re supposed to tell—”
“Your motorhome. It’s working. How?”
I wasn’t sure where exactly the words came from. I just blurted out the first thing on my mind, hoped for the best, that kind of thing.
And in the end, Peter’s smile dropped, because he’d clearly realised by now that we weren’t the types who were just going to have a little cheery small talk and act like everything was normal. We’d been through shit. I didn’t know Suzy’s story and she didn’t know mine. But we’d struggled. Day two and already we were wondering whether we had it in us to face whatever day three and beyond held in store.
We had to. There was no other way around it.
This was the world we lived in now.
This was just who we were.
“Well, I wish I could tell you,” Peter said. “But she just kind of sparked to life—”
“Bullshit,” I said.
Will looked up at me, wide-eyed that I’d just dropped a swear word.
“I’ve seen the cars on the road. I’ve seen the vans on the road. All of us have. The only vehicles I’ve actually seen moving are military ones, and those are best steered well clear of right now. So tell me. How is it you happen to have a working motorhome? And what else are you keeping from us?”
Peter looked at the three of us, examining us closely. “Cynical bunch, aren’t you? Not even told me your names and already you’re… Anyway. Yeah. You’re right. I wish it were a more elaborate story but it really isn’t. I bought one of these ’cause I heard the older engines would be resistant to solar flares, that kind of thing. There aren’t loads of these left in the country. Couple of thousand, at a push. But there’s more around Europe. So when they figure out how to ship um over here, perhaps we’ll all be driving one of these in no time.”
“Hate to break it to you but this isn’t just Britain. It’s affected the entire world.”
Suzy looked around then, narrowed eyes. “What?”
I told them about what I’d heard at Stuart’s. The broadcast. The final words of a solar flare affecting the entire planet.
And I told them about Stuart’s fears of just how long this was going to last.
“Well damn,” Peter said, sitting on the step outside his motorhome. “I mean, I thought maybe it’d all be down for a few weeks, which is more than enough to damage humanity anyway. But… but this. This sounds serious.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat and nodded. “It is.”
Peter was silent, then. He looked like he was trying to get his head around something. Some backstory I didn’t know about. Some deep secret he was holding beneath the steely exterior.
And at that moment, it felt like the perfect time.
“I’m Alex,” I said. “This is Suzy and her son, Will.”
Peter looked up at me, then at Suzy and Will. “Finally. I can stop thinking of you as the unnamed trio and start actually treating you like people.”
“You’d have one up on a lot of people if you did that,” I said.
“Rough journey?”
“Just about.”
I told Peter about my experiences so far. I told him about the looting. The state of the streets. I told him about the run ins I’d had, the decisions I’d been forced to make—even if I didn’t fully elaborate on them.
And in the end, as I watched him absorb everything I’d told him, I saw him smile again.
“I’d just got back from France. I… I have family over there. Mum and her cats. Seven of ’em. All look the same, but I can pick them out with their backs turned to me. I always go out there and spend time over there around this time of year, usually a bit later though. Just part of my yearly routine. But then as soon as I got back, the power went. Guess I should count my blessings, in a way. If I’d been on that boat when the shit went down… I dread to think. Those poor people.”
“You were lucky,” I said. “Heading back to family here?”
“I wish,” Peter said. “My partner. He… he passed away a few months ago.”
I felt my stomach sink. “I’m sorry.”
Peter shook his head. “It’s okay. I guess that’s—that’s why I headed out to France a little earlier this year. I needed to get away. I needed to get out of the walls of my house and just breathe some different air. Because it was suffocating me. All the reminders of him. All if it was just…”
He shuddered a little, then he glanced up at me, vulnerability to his eyes.
“And what about you?” he asked.
Suzy rubbed Will’s back. The pair of them looked at the road. “Nowhere to go. Not anymore.”
Then Peter looked at me.
I knew I could’ve lied. I could’ve played the sympathy card and pretended I had nowhere to go either. Maybe then he’d offer me a ride in the motorhome wherever he was going.
But honesty was the best policy.
“I’m heading back to my wife and son. We have a farmhouse. A few animals. Livestock. Fields to grow things. That kind of thing.”
Peter raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like you’re pretty setup for the end times.”
“I’ll only know for sure when I get there.”
I was hoping Peter wouldn’t realise what I was implying straight away. But he clearly had.
“You want a ride, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t ever ask that of you directly. But there could be something in it for you, too. For all of us.”
And then I prepared to say something that just yesterday, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to say at all.
“My home. There’s plenty of room for more of us. There’s more than enough food to go around.” I cleared my throat. “You can stay there with us.”
Peter smiled. He shook his head. “I appreciate your offer. Really, I do. But I’m on a path of my own right now. I don’t know where that path will take me. But I knew for certain that it’s only by following that path that I’ll be able to make things right. For myself.”
I felt my stomach sink as the rejection weighed up inside.
“But I will take you back to your family.”
I looked up. “What?”
“You need a ride. I’m heading north, and there’s not far to go, but we’ll have to take a few dodgy roads ’cause the main ones aren’t safe to travel down in a big hunk of metal like this. You seem like good people. So I’ll help you. It’s the least I can do.”
A smile stretched across my face as my muscles, sore from all the walking, loosened. “Thank you. Really.”
I took a step forward then I looked around at Suzy and Will.
They were standing there, wide-eyed. Totally still.
“Are you coming?” I asked.
Suzy shook her head. “I couldn’t. I can’t.”
I walked over to her. Then I put a soft hand on her shoulder.
“You can,” I said. “And you should.”
She looked up at me then, right into my eyes.
And for the first time since meeting her, she gave me a wide, unforced smile.
“Thank you,” she said. “Truly.”
I watched as she helped Will onto the motorhome. I climbed up the steps myself, and looked at the road I’d headed down, and then u
p the other way. I took a deep breath of the fresh country air. Whatever lay on the road ahead, I’d be ready for it. Whatever awaited, I’d be prepared.
I clipped into my seat in the passenger seat of the motorhome, which was filled with pots, pans and all sorts of canned food and clutter. Peter took the driver’s seat, while Suzy and Will took the table.
Peter looked at me and smiled. “You ready?”
I looked at the road ahead and I gripped the arms of the chair tightly. I didn’t know what was waiting. But I was ready.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah I am.”
The motorhome kicked to life.
The vehicle started moving along the road.
The final stretch of the journey was underway.
I was going home.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sarah never expected any of Alex’s wacky conspiracies about the end of the world to actually come true.
But now it seemed like they had… well, she just had to eat a little humble pie and be grateful to have a home like they did.
It was late afternoon and the sun was scorching. Britain usually got its summer earlier these days, one of the many impacts of a rapidly changing global climate. May was good; June was usually pretty good, but after that it was downpour after downpour. It seemed to Sarah like every year they were breaking some kind of record for downfall of rain in July and August. She wondered how long it’d be before the rain just got the better of everything and washed away Britain completely. It’d probably not be a bad thing for it to start again. Not with the vast number of idiots inhabiting this island.
She poured some seed in the hen’s coop. The hens were clucking around, clearly grateful for their meal. They’d laid around twelve fresh eggs between them, which was perfect. Sarah didn’t want to imagine a world where they didn’t have a homestead like this, where they could be self-sufficient and get their own food. She didn’t want to be in the outside world right now. She’d ventured out as soon as the power had first gone down, but it didn’t take her long to realise something was drastically amiss. The pylons were lying across the streets. People were glued to their car steering wheels, their bodies shaking with the force of electricity.