by Ryan Casey
That’s the way it was. And that’s the way it would always be; the way the new world allowed.
Really, the downfall of society had given him the greatest opportunity of all.
“You say they’re getting ready to attack?”
Paul nodded. “They have more than us in number. But in firepower, we have the edge. Plus this place is on a hill. It’ll be harder to intercept when we have the ground we have.”
Mike shook his head and sighed. “And what we had here was so beautiful, for a time. It’s hard to believe it’s going to get bogged down with war, isn’t it?”
Paul shrugged. “We do what we have to do to protect our camp. To protect our people.”
Mike smiled. He liked Paul. He was so loyal, so on the same wavelength as him. He looked up to him, like he was the older brother he’d never had. Of course, Mum told him he could’ve had other brothers, but those ones hadn’t been allowed, not by the men who she was friends with after Stan.
But one thing was for sure about Mike. He’d kill Paul in a heartbeat if he ever so much as threatened to stand against him.
“We do indeed,” Mike said. He walked together with Paul, down towards his caravan. He knew they had a long day ahead.
“There’s something else,” Paul said.
Mike frowned. “What else?”
Paul lowered his head towards the ground. “One of the people, inside the camp. It’s that Scott guy. The one from the suburbs who stood against you.”
Mike wasn’t sure how to feel when he heard that Scott was so close. After all, Scott intrigued him. That look of defiance on his face. The way he’d stood there, fearless, and made him feel a fool—he had to concede that.
But there was another feeling Mike had, and that was one of relief. One of power. He knew where Scott was. Information like that was worth a lot.
Especially when he had people Scott cared about.
“Is that so?” Mike said.
He walked further down the hill, diverting from the caravan he was heading to, and looked over at the prisoners’ camp.
“Where are we going?”
Mike stopped when he was just feet away from the prisoners’ caravan. He knew who he was going for. He knew what he was going to do. He knew how to end this “war” before it even started. It wouldn’t even be considered a territorial dispute when the history books looked back at it. Not that any history books would.
Mike looked at the caravan, picturing the people behind it.
Then he looked back at Paul. “We’re going to end this thing before it even starts.”
Paul looked back at him, puzzlement in his eyes.
Behind him, in a caravan of his own, Aiden peeked through the curtains.
Mike smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I stood at the back of the group as the meeting unfolded; a meeting that would have much more far-reaching consequences than even I realised at this stage.
It was late morning. The sun shone brightly down, but that chill in the air which had arisen over the last few days was very much present. It unnerved me, in a way, because I knew that autumn and winter were approaching. When winter did arrive for good, wrapping its cold, long arms around the lot of us, I dreaded to think of how many more people were going to fall. After all, we were fortunate the electricity had gone down, at the hands of an EMP or whatever else had taken it out, when it did. It’d given us time to prepare. Time to learn ways of surviving. Time to batten down the hatches and decide what kind of survivors we were all going to be.
Winter was going to change things all over again. There was absolutely no doubt about that.
But right now, it wasn’t winter. Not yet.
We had more important, more urgent matters at hand that we had to deal with.
The group were all standing in the middle of the caravan site. Phillip was at the front of them all, standing on the balcony of his caravan. He’d said this was going to be a meeting of sorts, when in fact it was looking more like it was just going to be him telling us how things were going to go. I couldn’t help being uncomfortable about that, and I was sure others were on the same page as me. After all, I couldn’t be the only one who had an issue with our planned approach. There was Haz. There was Remy. Both of them were keeping silent.
Holly, on the other hand, kept on playing with Lionel, as if everything was okay and there was nothing to worry about at all. Oh to be a child again.
Everyone was silent, as Phillip raised a hand to speak. I had a sickly feeling in my gut, like I’d signed us up for something I didn’t have any right to. After all, Phillip had been pretty stubborn and forthright in his demands. I didn’t trust the man. But to his credit, he seemed to be a man of his word. And he was a lot better than the alternative, who we were planning on attacking.
Yet still, something didn’t seem right about Phillip.
“This is how I see it,” Phillip said, leaning against the balcony. “We have knives and blades. We go over there in the day, and then we watch them. We see whether they have people on guard, what kind of protection measures they have. We wait until nightfall. Then we make our way over there and we take down each and every one of them, and get our people back.”
Sickliness filled my body, my head spinning with nausea. Butchery. That’s what Phillip was talking about. Killing people in their beds. And it was, what? Just three months into the end of the world? That was really how long it took for morals to be thrown out of the window?
“I know it’s not a nice plan. But these people have taken our own. They’ve killed our own. And you know how it is now. You know the kind of people we have to be if we want to survive.”
“And this is surviving?” I called.
I wasn’t sure where my voice had come from. I wasn’t sure where those words had come from. Some deep part inside of me, I figured, that I’d been holding back and repressing for far too long. A part that needed to come out.
Everyone turned around and looked at me, silently. Even Haz and Remy looked surprised at what I’d said.
Phillip frowned, as he stood there on his balcony looking over us all, and right at me. “What did you say, Scott?”
I wanted to back down. I wanted to take the words I’d said back.
But I couldn’t. I knew that. I had to either cover up what I’d said, or I had to stand my ground.
And in this case, there was only one option.
“I don’t see how running into a camp armed with knives is going to solve the problem here.”
“Then do you have any better suggestions?”
“I just… Think about it. They are armed. We know they are armed.”
“And we have the numbers.”
“I just don’t think you’re thinking this through. We’re going to lose people, here. People are going to die.”
Phillip raised his shoulders, like death was a necessary part of what was going to happen. “Are you willing to put your lives on the line to deal with a threat that could well obliterate us? That’s the question.”
“He’s not one of us,” Grant said. “That’s why he’s being like this. He doesn’t give a shit about our people.”
More people joined Grant in shouting me down. And for a moment, Phillip allowed it. Just long enough to make me feel uncomfortable.
Then he lifted his hands, and everyone eventually went quiet again.
“No, don’t be that way with Scott,” he said. “After all he has a point. And he has people there of his own, too. It is going to be tough. There is going to be loss. But if we don’t at least try to save our people, then what exactly does that make us?”
I heard more of a furore kicking up. Grant was glaring at me across the crowd. I hadn’t got to know him, but I could tell he’d taken an instant dislike to me. He didn’t like that I was an outsider. And I figured, in a sense, we had that much in common.
I saw Jacqui then, too. She was at the front of the group. She was half-smiling at me, not joining in the stand agai
nst me, like she had something on her mind. Something she wanted to say.
I saw her open her lips, and I readied for her to say her words.
She was standing up for me. That’s what she was going to do. She was going to have my back.
“I think he’s—”
Jacqui didn’t finish speaking.
Not when the blood spurted out of the front of her head.
Not when her neck cocked to the side.
And not when her body fell to the ground, mud splashing up over her face, her eyes going totally still.
And in the shock and the panic of what we’d just witnessed, I heard two words that changed everything.
“They’re here!”
Chapter Thirty
I watched Mike’s group—many of them armed—flood our camp and I knew our hopes of winning the battle against them were as good as over.
The afternoon sun glowed down on us as Mike’s people stepped into the camp. Some of them had guns raised. Others, knives, hammers, axes, everything.
The saddest thing about it all was how our people just watched as they stepped into our grounds. They watched, like there was nothing they could do about it; like their attack was inevitable, and there was no way it could be defended.
I couldn’t help feeling that was the case myself, either. After all, we didn’t have our weapons on us. We hadn’t done any preparation for an ambush. We were scattered all over the place. Vulnerable people, like Holly, were out in the open.
But of course, there was always one.
William, a man who was more brawn than brains, let out a cry and went running in the direction of Mike and his people.
One of Mike’s men lifted his gun and shot William onto his back before he could do a thing about it. Not that he could do a thing about it, in truth.
“Anyone else?” Mike said, smiling as he walked further into the camp. “Are we going to have to put anyone else on their backs? Or are we going to have a nice, grown up discussion?”
“Stop this,” Phillip said. He stood on the balcony in front of his caravan, where just moments ago he’d been planning our assault on Mike’s people, looking totally broken-down; totally defeated.
Mike looked up at him, smiling. “What was that?”
Phillip couldn’t even look at Mike. “Stop this. Please.”
Mike looked around at us all. That wry smile… I wanted to punch it off his face. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. And I knew it would only get more people killed.
He looked at me and he smiled, like he recognised me. “You see, all we wanted was what’s ours.”
“And what is yours?” Phillip asked.
Mike kept his focus on me, and I knew what he was going to say already. “Our prisoners,” he said. “Our property.”
Heads turned. People from Phillip’s group looked at me, then at Haz, Remy, Holly. I felt exposed, all of a sudden, like I was being found out for some mysterious crime I hadn’t committed.
“They are not your people,” Phillip said, assertiveness in his voice. “And they are not your property.”
A smile twitched on Mike’s face. “See, I thought you’d say that. Which is why I brought some… well. Let’s just see what I brought for you, should I?”
Mike tilted his head.
From behind him, three people walked forward. All of them were armed. All of them were holding guns.
And all of them were pointing their guns at three people.
Three people with black sacks over their heads.
My stomach sank. I stumbled forward, head spinning. “Hannah?”
I knew it was Hannah from the mole in the middle of her left arm. And by her side, Sue, and then Aiden. All of them crouching there. All of them kneeling in the dirt.
Prisoners.
Guns to their heads.
“What is this?” Phillip said.
Mike turned to Sue, Hannah and Aiden, and he smiled. “This right here is the rest of your new friend’s people. Hannah. Sue. And young Aiden, I believe.”
“Mummy?”
I heard Holly’s voice and my skin crawled.
Mike’s face turned, also hearing the voice. “Did someone just say ‘Mummy’? Oh, Scott. Scott, Scott, Scott. Don’t tell me you brought that poor girl here to watch what happens next.”
My body tensed and I surged forward. “Let them go.”
Mike lifted a knife of his own. He put it to Hannah’s neck. “One step closer and she dies.”
Defeat filled my body. I stopped, right away. “They’re innocent. They haven’t done a thing wrong.”
“See, I agree with you, Scott. They haven’t done a thing wrong. So it would be a great shame if they had to die here, wouldn’t it?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“What?”
“You… you wouldn’t do this.”
Mike laughed a little. “Oh, Scott. Clearly you don’t know me well at all.”
He pulled the knife away from Hannah’s neck, then moved to Aiden.
“I will cut this boy unless you do one thing. All of you.”
Phillip gritted his teeth, shook his head. “We won’t—”
“What do you want?” I asked.
Mike scanned the group. He looked from Jacqui’s dead body to Remy to Haz, and then at me, and then…
Holly.
“The girl.”
My body tensed up. “What?”
“The girl. It’s only right she is reunited with her family. Isn’t that right, darling?”
Holly looked at me. I could tell there was part curiosity on her face. But there was also part fear. Horror, at what was unfolding. Uncertainty about what to do, what to say, what to believe.
“Don’t you want to be back with your mummy, dear?” he asked.
Holly looked between me and Mike.
“Don’t you want to be back with her?”
“Holly,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t listen to him. He’s not a good man.”
I saw the cogs turning in Holly’s mind. I sensed her dilemma. Go over to Mike and be back with her family. Or stay with me, be safer, but away from them.
She took a few steps forward.
My stomach sank.
And then she stopped and looked back at me. “I want to be with Scott. I want my mum and brother to be with me and Scott.”
Relief jolted through me. I let go of a sigh, which I’d been holding tight in my chest.
There was a pause. A pause where everything seemed to stand still.
Then, Mike smirked. He sighed. “Very well,” he said.
He stepped away from Aiden.
And he nodded.
The men behind my friends, on their knees, lifted their guns.
I froze. Then I lurched forward. “No!”
But it was too late.
Gunfire filled the air.
Into Sue.
Into Hannah.
And into Aiden.
I watched them fall to the ground.
I watched the life drift from their hooded bodies.
And in the corner of my eyes, I watched as Mike smirked, then walked away, together with his people.
“We’ll be back,” he said. “And next time, you’d better be more willing to cooperate.”
All I could do was stand, totally still.
All I could do was stare.
All I could do was watch as my friends—my dear friends—bled out on the ground in front of me in the September sun.
Chapter Thirty-One
I looked down at the four graves in front of me, Lionel by my side.
It was early October now. Autumn had come along fast, shifting the Indian Summer we’d experienced—and partly hoped would last—out of the frame for what seemed like for good. I could see my breath forming in the air, and I knew that many struggles were ahead. For now though, things were okay. Life at Phillip’s camp was good—as good as it could be, anyway. We were surviving. We were getting by.
But I wanted more than that.
I looked at Jacqui’s grave, first. I remembered the conversation we’d had together, not long before she’d been shot dead by Mike’s people. She’d been kind to me. I hadn’t wanted to bond with anyone, not really, but I could tell that she was a good person.
I’d never get to know her better. Not anymore.
I looked at the other graves, then. The ones that gave me the biggest lump in my throat. I didn’t like to face up to what had happened because it just brought the horror of that moment crashing back all over again.
But perhaps that was a good thing.
Perhaps it was good to remember what had happened. What Mike had done to my people.
I saw Sue’s grave first, and I lowered my head. Sue had been a good woman. She’d always put her children first. She’d looked out for them. She’d have died for them.
In the end, she had. Just not in the way she or any of us might have expected.
I looked then to Aiden’s grave, right beside Sue’s. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks as I looked at it. Poor Aiden. He’d been a good lad. A sweet kid. He didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved this.
Was this what this world was now?
Was this the kind of thing that was normal?
Were these the kind of monsters we were supposed to just kneel to?
Mike’s group hadn’t been back, if that was any consolation. It wasn’t, of course. Because every day we woke up with the fear that he might just return, out of the blue. And he would. I’d seen the joy he got from terrorising us. I saw the way he looked me in the eye, like it was all just a game to him.
He was far from finished. That much was for certain.
I looked then at Hannah’s grave, and I felt cold to my core.
Hannah was the first person I knew after the blackout. In a way, she was the first friend I’d ever had in the new world. I’d sat opposite her on that train to Manchester and I’d been convinced that something could work out between us. That perhaps, just perhaps, I could honour my dead wife’s wishes and make something special with Hannah.