by Ryan Casey
“I promise I wasn’t trying to do anything bad. I just—I was just hungry. I need help.”
“You don’t look hungry,” I said, pointing towards Brian’s gut. “Look like you’ve been pretty well fed to me.”
“I was with another group. But they… they… I’m on my own now. Please. I just needed help.”
I scratched the back of my neck and walked to Brian’s side. “See, that makes me wonder a little. You were with another group. But you’re on your own now. That, to me, either means one of two things. Either the rest of your group fell. Or for some reason, you were made to leave them. After all, that’s how it always works now, isn’t it?”
Brian was silent. All I could hear was his rushed breathing, his croaky exhalations.
“So this time, I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer. What were you doing watching our farm?”
Brian looked around at me then. And for the first time, he held eye contact for an extended period. “I saw your farmhouse and I saw… I saw your children playing.”
The hairs on my arms stood on end.
“And it was beautiful,” Brian said. He was smiling now, but his eyes were glistening with tears, too. “Just to see them playing, it reminded me that there could be good in this world.”
He went quiet. And he was silent for enough time that I didn’t think he was going to finish what he was saying.
“So you were lurking outside my farm because you liked the sound of children’s laughter. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m going to be straight with you,” Brian said. “I… I’m not sure what I was going to do. When I reached your farm. Part of me wanted to knock on the door. To ask for food, water. Maybe even hospitality. But I’ve seen what strangers can be like in this world. We all have. After all, that’s why you’ve got me locked up here now, right? But you caught me. And I… I’m sorry. I really am. I just need your help. And I hope you have it in your heart to help me.”
I looked down at the floor then as I listened to Brian’s broken, cracking words. On the one hand, I wanted to help this man out. I wanted to believe he was telling me the truth. I wanted to let him go with food and water and hope that I’d never see him again.
But on the other hand… I had seen what strangers were capable of. I had seen the kind of deception they could be involved in. It’d got people I liked—Beth, Stuart, Paul—killed. And I wasn’t prepared to let that happen to anyone else. Not to Sarah, my wife. Not to Bobby, my son. Not to Suzy and Peter, my friends, or Suzy’s son, Will.
I’d seen what leniency was capable of. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to be lenient anymore.
“I’m just asking for some food and water,” Brian said, looking up at me like a dog begging to be fed now. “That’s all I need. Just enough to get me through the day. Please.”
I looked at him with sympathy.
I let go of the breath I was holding.
And then I cut his ties free.
He looked at the spots where the ties had been, disbelief covering his face. He looked up at me, then back down at his wrists and his ankles, like he couldn’t understand the gesture I’d just made.
“Are you…”
“Just get up,” I said, not looking him in the eye anymore.
He struggled to his feet, which were blistered and bruised. He put a hand on my shoulder, sweaty and grimy. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You’re a good man. A good man.”
I didn’t look him in the eye, once again. “Head out the door. I’ll show you where you need to go.”
He turned away from me like an obedient child and right then, his back to me, at that moment, I wished I could just let him walk on. I wished I could believe in him. I wished I could accept his story and grant him the freedom he so desperately wanted.
But I couldn’t.
He stumbled awkwardly over to the door. “So is it just through here? What sort of food do you have? All self-sourced or—”
I grabbed him by his mouth and I brought the knife across his throat.
I held him as the blood covered my hands, all warm and sticky. I held him as he kicked out, twitched, fought. I felt his teeth trying to tighten around my palm, but I just held him there, listening to the mumbles, the gargles, and wondering what I’d turned into, what I’d become.
But all that time, as his knees bent and he started to fall towards the floor, I thought of my people and how I was doing this for them.
I thought of the trouble we’d faced, all of us, and how I was unwilling to allow us to run into any kind of trouble again.
I thought of the times I’d shown forgiveness, and how much shit that forgiveness had got me and others into.
Not again.
Never again.
I was still thinking about my people, blanking the horror of the act I was committing, when I realised that Brian had gone still.
At least he’d died with hope.
I just had to pray he hadn’t totally understood what I was doing to him in those awful final moments.
At least he was at peace now.
I moved my hand from his mouth, shaking from the gravity of what I’d just done.
I was so dazed that I didn’t notice the footsteps outside the door.
It was already too late to do anything about them when I did.
The door opened up.
Suzy stepped inside.
She looked at the body first, eyes wide, face pale.
Then she looked up at me, and I saw that trace of fear in her eyes.
She didn’t say anything. Not right then.
But I knew one thing for sure.
I was the monster I feared I was.
I really had stepped over the edge.
Chapter Two
I stood outside the farmhouse and felt a sense of pride as I stared at the animals in the fields.
The sun was setting, casting a beautiful orange glow over our land. I always liked to stand out here at this time. It was always so beautiful. Seeing the cows grazing, the crops that we were starting to grow… all of it was a reminder of just how much we’d worked to get here and how far we’d come.
It hadn’t been an easy winter, that was for sure. After I’d been well and truly reunited with my family, we’d spent a lot of time moving from place to place, honing our skills. It wasn’t long before Peter’s motorhome was beyond use, but in a way, that was a blessing in disguise. We’d learned things on the road. Survival tricks. Things that would carry us a long way. But the thing we had really been searching for? A permanent residence. Somewhere we could call home.
We’d found it just in time for winter, and what a godsend that was. Remarkably, there were still a few animals left alive. The farmer who ran this place must have died or disappeared not long before. And if he came back… well, I liked to think I’d welcome him with open arms. He’d left us with something remarkable. And I was going to do all I could to hold onto this place, no matter what it required me to do.
I looked over at the outhouse. I could still feel blood between the cracks in my palms. The memory of the way Brian had kicked and struggled as I’d sliced his throat. It wasn’t the sort of memory that was going away anytime soon. I had to live with it. And I would.
I looked away from the outhouse then, and back over the land. We had a good few acres. We had animals—cows, sheep, hens. And we had a ton of supplies, some of which we’d collected on our trips to nearby villages and towns, others which were already here in the first place. If there was a farmer lived here, I couldn’t possibly see why he might’ve left. Which worried me a little. Because why would he leave all this behind?
But we’d been here three months now, roughly. Nobody had come trying to reclaim this place. Naturally, a few people had come here, tried to cause trouble. But I’d dealt with them.
I’d dealt with them in my own way.
I tasted bitterness in my mouth as I saw clearly what I was, what the things I’d done made me, and how different that
was to the man I’d been before the power went out.
And then my thoughts were interrupted when I heard footsteps approaching.
“Don’t worry. Only me.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. It was Suzy. She liked the sunset just as much as I did. The pair of us often stood out here, totally silent, just watching. I’d met Suzy on the road right at the start of the outage. She’d been with her son, Will. At first, she was reluctant to accept my offer of help. But eventually she’d followed me. We’d helped each other out. She’d helped me find my family, and I’d helped teach her survival skills, things like that.
She was a friend.
But she was a friend who unlike anyone else in this farmhouse knew exactly what I was capable of.
Who I really was.
“Never gets old, does it?” she asked.
I chanced a glance at her. She was looking out at the fields. “What doesn’t?”
She pointed. “This. It’s always so beautiful. Makes you realise that it’s the same old world, really. Stuff might’ve changed, but it’s still the same. And if we pull together, who knows. Things might be okay again someday.”
I realised then where this conversation was going. “It isn’t the same world. Too much has changed.”
“You mean you’ve changed too much?”
I shook my head. Here it came…
“You need to hold onto your humanity,” Suzy said. “If not for yourself, for the sake of your family.”
“My humanity’s just fine. But thanks.”
I started to walk away.
“That man. The one you killed. Why was that?”
I sighed and shook my head. “He was spying on us. He was well-fed. He was watching our kids and he was getting too curious.”
“So you slit his throat? Like an animal?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes I did. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I knew it was going to—”
“‘Keep this place safe.’ Right. Do me a favour and spare me the whole moral high ground crap.”
My heart raced. “So what would you have done? Just trusted the man? Let him tear everything apart?”
“I’m not saying you had to trust him. Trusting people blindly is madness, course it is. But there’s a difference between blind faith and outright murdering people. You have to see that.”
I shook my head. “All I see is someone was threatening our way of life, and they needed dealing with. And seeing as I’m the only one who seems able to do that, I—”
“What about Sarah and Bobby?”
I stopped speaking right then. Any mention of my family’s names brought the hairs on my arms on end. “What about them?”
Suzy glanced away and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“No. It does matter. What about Sarah and Bobby?”
She looked at me then, right in the eyes. And she said something that I didn’t know how to answer. “What if they knew what you were capable of?”
My mouth went dry. My stomach turned. The thought of my son knowing exactly what his dad did in order to keep him safe… it was knowledge that tore me apart underneath. But I had to keep it together. Because it did keep him safe. He’d understand that. One day, when he was old, he would understand that.
I took a deep breath and turned to the farmhouse. Inside, I could hear Peter telling one of his stories. Will and Bobby laughed, like they always did. And Sarah. Her beautiful laugh. There it was.
I looked back at Suzy. “They’d let me do whatever I could to keep us all together. And so should you. See you inside, Suzy.”
I turned, started to walk inside.
“Just remember,” Suzy said. “One of these days, you’re going to do something that makes those so-called ‘bad people’ look at you like you’re the most despicable enemy there is. And they’re going to retaliate. They’re going to hurt you. I don’t nag you because of morals or ethics or any shit like that. I nag you ’cause I care. Not just about you, but about your wife, about Peter, about your son, and about my son. And if you do anything that might put them in danger… that’s what I worry about.”
I stood at the doorway, then, trying to process everything Suzy had just said.
And the hardest thing about it?
The hardest thing to accept about the words I’d just heard?
I knew what she was saying was right.
“See you inside, Suzy,” I repeated. Because it was all I could say.
Then I stepped inside, out of the beautiful glow of the setting sun, and back into my perfect, happy existence.
But Suzy’s words didn’t leave my mind.
Chapter Three
Later that night, I sat at my son’s bedside and prepared for another difficult challenge of trying to get him to sleep.
It was windy outside, which didn’t help matters. The whirring of the breeze against Bobby’s window sounded like some kind of ghostly monster trying to get inside. Even I felt uncomfortable about it so I couldn’t blame my nine-year-old son for feeling cautious too.
His room wasn’t exactly spectacular. It was a small square room with a single bed, a desk with a little candle on, and not much else. I felt for Bobby. Even though it was a nice enough room, it wasn’t his bedroom, with all his posters, toys and video games. It was just a place where he slept. And a place where he was still struggling, to this day, to feel comfortable.
How awful it must be to not feel comfortable in the place where you were supposed to feel more comfortable than anywhere.
I looked down into Bobby’s brown eyes and I could see already, as the candle flickered, that he was growing agitated and getting ready to ask me a question that I knew would always come. So I decided it would be a good opportunity to jump in first, start telling him a story before he could let his mind wander.
“Remember when you were a little lad?” I said. “And I used to read you bedtime stories?”
Bobby turned his nose as he pushed aside his bedding, revealing the Spider-Man pyjamas that were too big for him. “They were a bit rubbish.”
I mocked a laugh. “Charming. You always said I was such a good storyteller.”
“Did I really?”
“Well. No. Not exactly like that. But the stories made you go to sleep, so that was a sign that they worked.”
“Are good stories meant to make you go to sleep?”
I tilted my head to one side, feeling outfoxed by my son. “Good point.”
I lay at my son’s side and stared up at that window, listening to the howling wind. The candlelight wasn’t relaxing in here. But it was the best we had. We had some working flashlights, but we didn’t want to use them for anything unnecessary. It felt awful, considering the comfort of my son as “unnecessary”. But in the grand scheme of things, it was probably for the better that as little attention as possible was drawn towards his room.
“Dad?”
I turned around. “Yeah?”
“Do you ever think we’ll… we’ll go back to a time when there’s lights again?”
I swallowed a sickly lump in my throat and stroked my son’s hair. “Of course we will, son. Of course we will. Don’t you go worrying about that.”
I saw Bobby’s little eyes contemplating what I’d said. And I saw them not entirely believing what I’d said, either. How had I got to a point where even my own son was questioning his faith in me? A father was supposed to have all the answers. How unfair it was that I couldn’t provide them, not anymore.
“But when the lights do come back. Do you think there’ll be Xboxes again?”
I nodded, reluctant to indulge in the fantasy myself, but knowing I had to for my son. “Of course there will. Xboxes aren’t going anywhere.”
“But what about the bad people? Maybe they’ve stolen all the Xboxes and then… and then it’ll be just the same. There’ll be lights but everything else would be the same.”
I looked at my son and I felt sad. Not because of the lack of hope in his voice, but because o
f the intelligence he had. He was right. The world wasn’t going to dramatically change if the power ever returned. It was already too far gone for that.
Perhaps I was the naive one for believing that I could convince my son that everything was going to be okay, when in fact I should be preparing him for the inevitable struggle of a future he had ahead.
After all, if anything happened to me and the others… I dreaded to think what kind of life my son would face on his own.
“You don’t have to worry about the bad people,” I said, staring up at that window, the faint light coming through it. “They aren’t going to hurt you. I’m not going to let them.”
I waited for Bobby to respond.
When I turned, I saw he was already asleep.
I got out of his bed quietly, blew out the candle and tiptoed across his room. I took a final look at him, my beautiful boy, and then I closed the door and headed down to my bedroom a few doors down, where Sarah was waiting.
Sarah was sitting upright. She was reading Agee’s A Death in the Family for what had to be the five-billionth time. She looked… well, comfortable. And just seeing her in this way was reassuring. We were doing the right thing by staying here. Bobby, he was going to be okay. He’d get used to it. This was our home now.
“Not reading that again, are you?” I asked, as I got into bed.
Sarah tutted and rolled her eyes. “I’ve only read it twice before.”
“Only twice?”
“You know what I’m like with books. I like re-reading them.”
“I don’t get how you can re-read something when you know the twists and turns.”
“And I don’t know how you can be such a grump all the time.”
I raised my hands in mock guilt as I tucked myself under the covers, leaning over and kissing Sarah on her cheek.
“How’s Bobby?” she asked.
“Troubled about the darkness, as usual.”
“It can’t be easy on him. I mean, it’s a lot for him to take. A lot of change for a young lad. For all of us really. But especially for a kid.”
“Will seems to be doing okay,” I said.
“Will’s been through a lot already. I guess people adapt to things at different paces.”