by Ryan Casey
Deal with them.
Finish them.
You know what you have to do, just do it.
And I wanted to listen to them.
I wanted to listen to that demon and do whatever it was asking of me.
But at the same time, I knew I had to be rational. I had to take my time. I couldn’t go throwing myself headfirst into this drama. Especially when I couldn’t be certain where Suzy and Peter had got to.
I looked around for them, squinting as the rain fell down heavily, hitting the trees above before falling from the branches in large, heavy blobs. They were beside me not long ago, then they’d just vanished. And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if maybe that was a good thing. Them being out of the way of this was the best outcome, really, because it meant they weren’t putting themselves in any kind of real danger.
I’d been grateful for their support. But their support could only go so far.
This was the real business. And I had to be willing to do what I had to do in order to get to the bottom of it.
I had to know who these people were.
I had to do whatever I had to do.
And whatever I had to do wasn’t looking all that pretty for anyone on the other side of my blade right now…
I saw them, then. Not Peter or Suzy, as much as I thought it was them at first.
But these people.
This group.
There were a bunch of them. Four that I could see. I watched them walk along. I couldn’t see their faces, not properly as I was crouched under this tree.
But one of them… I swore she was a woman.
I didn’t remember seeing a woman in Jon’s group. And in a way, that disappointed me, because I knew what it could mean. It could mean this wasn’t Jon’s group. It could mean that these people weren’t the ones I was supposed to be looking for.
But maybe…
Just maybe…
I heard them mumbling. I couldn’t make out their words. And yet I was filling in the gaps in my mind.
I imagined they were discussing what they’d done to Bobby. I imagined I could hear them boasting about it, and making jokes about it, laughing about it.
All of it was in my mind. All of it was imaginary. Fictional.
But still I found comfort in the fantasy.
Because I could feel my grip around the blade tightening, the urge to make someone—anyone—pay for what had happened to Bobby getting closer to being realised.
I remembered right at that moment a film I’d watched, one of my favourites. It was called Memento. It’s a reverse-narrative movie about a guy who is seeking out revenge for his wife’s killer. The twist of the movie—look away until the end of the paragraph if you don’t like spoilers—is that he has already got his revenge, and because he suffers from memory loss, he just keeps on creating his own narrative of vengeance over and over again, hunting different people down in order to satiate his craving for vengeance.
I don’t know why that movie came to my mind in this of all moments. But I could see myself as the main character, and I could see these people—these people who I knew weren’t Jon and weren’t his people, maybe—and I could feel my grip on the knife tightening and the urge to make them pay—make someone pay—reaching a fever pitch.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
And I didn’t care.
I looked at the one closest to me and I started to rise to my feet.
Right then, right on cue, I saw Suzy in the distance. She was hiding not far from me, right behind a tree. She was totally soaked. She was looking right at me, shaking her head. I could tell that she was begging me not to do anything rash, not to do anything stupid.
But I couldn’t stop myself.
I climbed further out of the tree roots. I looked at the man closest to me, his back to me. For a second, I thought about his life. I thought about the family he might have. The people he might be close to. The people he loved, and who loved him.
And then I remembered Bobby and I lifted my knife and stepped towards him.
It was right then that he turned around.
He dodged my swing of the knife.
He kicked me in the stomach, hard.
And as much as I wanted to keep on standing, to keep on fighting, I fell winded to the ground.
“Well,” he said, grabbing my hair, lifting my head up so I was looking him right into his intense, blue eyes. “Not the best way to introduce yourself, huh?”
Chapter Nineteen
Being captured by a group that wasn’t even the one I was hunting down wasn’t exactly part of the plan.
But it was the reality. So whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to grit my teeth and roll with it.
I wasn’t sure where we were. We’d been walking through the woods for a long time. Night was setting in. And it was as we walked that guilt filled my body. I knew I wasn’t going to be home for Sarah tonight. Suzy wasn’t going to be home for Will, either.
I’d made a rash call and it’d got us into this mess. That I couldn’t deny.
It was dark when we reached the camp. It didn’t seem like there were many more people here. Two or three. They were living on a log cabin site. Judging from the many barbecues around the place, the faint smell of charred meat in the air, they were doing a good job of hunting here. Living out in the woods certainly had its benefits, if you were willing to adapt to this way of life. The log cabins were a decent idea too. The toilets would contain removable septic tanks, so they were purpose-built for this kind of event, in a way.
I felt a push against my back and I knew I had to keep moving. The group who had dragged us over here hadn’t said much to us. Every time we’d tried to speak, to protest our innocence, they’d chosen not to hear us. And I couldn’t blame them, really. I’d stepped out of the bushes with a knife in my hand and I’d tried to kill one of these people.
And for what?
Because I had a rage inside me.
A rage that wasn’t even directed at these people specifically.
Just a rage that needed to be dealt with. Fast.
We were bundled into one of the log cabins near a lake. The moonlight bounced off it, in the full cover of darkness now. When we stepped inside this log cabin, I was immediately struck by the strong smell of perfume. It was a perfume that reminded me of one my adoptive mum used to wear. It always relaxed me so much. Whenever I’d been through any crap at school or was having a rough day, I could always count on the comforts of home to come back to and make me feel okay again.
And that gave me a strange feeling, now I was here. Because I knew I was in danger. I knew these people might not be so forgiving for what I’d tried to do to them.
But at the same time… they’d brought me here, to this place that reminded me of my old home.
And that comforted me.
The man behind me planted a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Sit,” he said.
I sat on the sofa, Suzy and Peter either side of me. In the darkness ahead, I could see someone else sitting there, staring back. They were smoking a cigarette, puffing the smoke out into the air.
Nobody said anything, not for a while. But it was clear that whoever I was opposite was the leader of this group.
I wanted to open my mouth. To make the first move.
Then, the person spoke.
“So. What happened here then?”
I was struck first by the pitch of the voice. It was a woman, no doubt about that.
The man who I’d tried to stab circled the sofa we were sitting on. “Out finishing our hunt and this nutter flies at us out of nowhere with a knife.”
“Wow,” the woman said, taking another puff on her cigarette, drawing the whole exchange out with severe dramatic consequences. “That doesn’t sound like the friendliest of introductions, does it?”
“Please,” I started.
“Shut up,” she said. Her voice shifted from understanding to mean in the space of a second. She stood u
p. Walked over to us, stood over me so I could see her.
She had long, dark hair. She wasn’t massively built, and she couldn’t have been out of her twenties. I could just about make out her blue eyes twinkling in the moonlight. And the way they looked at me—the coldness of them—filled me with momentary fear.
Maybe this woman was just like the group that killed my son.
Maybe she was just like Jon.
Maybe nobody could be trusted.
She leaned down opposite me. Narrowed her eyes, puffing smoke into my face. “Why’d you go and do that then, hmm?”
I coughed a little on the smoke as I tried to find my words.
“Sorry,” she said, but making no effort to stop. “Nasty habit I’ve had for a long time now. Should really quit. But hey. At least they aren’t as expensive in the new world. And anyway. They’ve stopped being manufactured. I’ll run out of supplies eventually.”
She pulled the cigarette from her lip and in an instant she held it up right to my face.
“I’m going to ask you again,” she said, the meanness returning to her voice. “What the hell do you think you were doing attacking my people?”
I thought of all the things I could say in the space of a second; all the possible outcomes.
And in the end, the only thing I could do that seemed to make any sense was tell the truth.
“My son,” I said. “My… my boy. A group came. I turned them away. And they came back. They… My son. Please.”
I saw the woman’s eyes narrow. It was like she was trying to scan me, to check whether I was telling the truth or lying.
And in the end, as she held that cigarette there, I thought she was going to push it right into my face—a sensation I’d experienced a long time ago, as a child, and wasn’t too keen to experience again.
But she pulled the cigarette away and sighed. She pushed it into an ashtray, broke it all up. “See you’re lucky I believe you. And you’re lucky we’re not the violent kind. Not unless we absolutely have to be, anyway.”
She held out a hand.
“Ellie,” she said.
I was still so stunned that she was actually offering out a handshake that it took me a few seconds to reach for it.
“Alex,” I said. “And this is Suzy. This is Peter.”
Ellie nodded. “You know, I’m not one to lecture you, Alex. I know we’ve all been through shit. But jumping at people and trying to stab them… that’s not the way to go towards building a better world.”
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought. But think about the children. I am sorry about your boy, truly. But there are more kids in the world than just him. And those are the ones we’re gonna be leaving this world behind for. Because, let’s face it. I dunno about you, but to me, it doesn’t seem like we’re getting out of this mess for a long, long time. So I try and do things for other people. I try and set a good example. It isn’t easy. But hey. If we aren’t trying then what’s the point at all?”
The way she asked the question, it made me wonder whether I was going about my revenge in the right way. It made me think, once again, whether everyone else was right when they said I should just take a step back to grieve.
But those thoughts were immediately interrupted whenever I thought back to what happened to my son.
“Anyway,” Ellie said. She walked over to the cabin door, past her two friends, who didn’t look best pleased with the lack of punishment she’d enacted on us. You’d better get on your way. Just don’t show your face around here again because next time I won’t be so forg—”
“Ellie?”
I heard the voice and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I looked at the back of the cabin, over at the other side of the room.
There was a little girl. She was dressed in pink pyjamas, holding onto a panda teddy.
She was looking at me with curiosity, one hand in her mouth.
“Okay,” Ellie said, putting a hand on my back. “Time to leave now.”
But I couldn’t move because there was something about this girl. I knew her. I recognised her from somewhere.
Ellie started to push me out of the cabin, so too did Adam.
But all I could think about was that girl.
All I could see was her face.
As I stumbled out of the cabin, Suzy and Peter not far ahead of me, it suddenly clicked.
“Kaileigh?”
The little girl looked at me. Then Ellie narrowed her eyes.
“How do you know that?” she said. She didn’t sound like she was asking a question out of curiosity. More out of anger.
I looked at this little girl—Kaileigh—and suddenly it all clicked into place.
The photograph Beth had given me.
The little girl she’d told me to search for, to not give up on, no matter what.
There was no denying it.
This was Kaileigh.
This was Beth’s daughter.
I’d found her.
Chapter Twenty
Considering it was only a matter of hours ago that I’d almost killed one of Ellie’s group, their hospitality was certainly more welcoming than we deserved.
We’d stayed the night at the camp. I’d wanted to leave right away, mostly through a desire to get back to Sarah. The thought of her at the farm all alone with Will while Jon and his people were still out there… it was safe to say it made me feel incredibly uncomfortable.
But Ellie and her people insisted we stayed. They told us we wouldn’t get anywhere if we burned ourselves out. So in the end, I’d been powerless to resist.
Last night had been difficult. I hadn’t slept much. I’d tried to crowd out my mind, to resist my thoughts, but it was impossible.
And it disheartened me. Because if that was how my nights were going to be from now on, I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to cope.
But it was morning now. We’d just enjoyed a breakfast of rabbit stew, which, while delicious, wasn’t easy on the stomach at this time of day.
And as I’d eaten that breakfast, I found myself looking out of the window and seeing Kaileigh, smile on her face, running around the camp. And it was just so surreal. I’d sworn to Beth that I’d find her daughter. I promised her, as I’d held her hand on the day she’d passed away, that I’d make sure her daughter was safe.
But then life had got in the way. The realities of the new world had got in the way. And it soon became clear that searching for Beth’s daughter—even though I knew the location she was supposed to have lived—wasn’t going to be feasible.
And yet here I was. And here she was. Living with another group. Surviving, and getting by.
“Are you going to tell her?”
I looked to my left. Suzy was standing beside me.
I swallowed a lump in my throat as I looked through the window once again. I was torn over what to do. On one hand, I felt like I owed it to Kaileigh to tell her the truth about what’d happened to her mother. That way, at least she’d have some closure. She’d know that her mum wasn’t out there, so if and when she grew aggravated with this place and these people, she wouldn’t go on a crazy mission to find her or anything like that.
On the other hand, I looked at the way she seemed so happy, so content, and I felt awful at the thought of telling her what’d happened to her mum—not to mention that it had happened at the hands of the military. I felt like by delivering that news, I’d be breaking her innocence down and plunging her into a dark new world—a dark new world that I had no right to put her in.
So really, that gave me my answer.
“I’ve told Ellie,” I said.
“Do you think that’s enough?”
I sighed. “When she’s old enough… maybe then Ellie can tell her the truth. But not now. I mean, look at her. Her whole life has been taken away from her, and still she’s playing. Still she’s smiling. I promised Beth I’d protect her, no matter what. And keeping her here with these people…
as far as I see it, that’s protecting her. It’s the right thing to do.”
I looked at Suzy and for a second, I expected her to argue my point, to suggest that it wasn’t the right call.
But in the end she simply smiled.
“No choice is easy. But for what it’s worth, I reckon you’re making the right call.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else. But in the end, she just let the moment hang, leaving everything in silence once again.
We stepped outside. Walked past the man who I’d tried to kill—Adam—who wasn’t exactly on talking terms with me, shall I say.
When we reached the gates to the log cabin camp, I saw Ellie standing there, hands by her side. She was smoking, once again. A habit that she absolutely needed to cut down on, I had to agree.
“So,” she said, keeping her hands at her waist. “Leaving us already, hmm?”
I nodded. “I wish I didn’t have to. But—”
“But there’s some nasty people you want to get revenge on for what they did to you. I get it.”
The way she said it, it sounded belittling, in a way. Like she was putting down my urges; trivialising what I knew I had to do.
“I have a wife back home. I have to get back to her.”
Ellie smiled. She punched my arm, a little too hard to be playful. “Don’t lie to me, Alex. I can see it in your eyes. There’s only one reason you’re going out beyond these walls. And you aren’t going to return to your home until you’ve found exactly what you’re looking for.”
I felt like Ellie had read me a little too deeply for my liking. She clearly had a read on me, probably like nobody else, which was remarkable considering we’d pretty much only just met.
I nodded at her, acknowledging what she was saying, and what she was suggesting.
And then I turned around and I saw Kaileigh standing there, staring at me.
I looked into her eyes and I felt like she already knew I had something to tell her. That through some strange force of nature, she understood that I’d known her mother. That she could see the recognition in my eyes.