A Solar Winter

by Ryan Casey

  “Dad?”

  Mike wasn’t sure what he was hearing. Not at first.

  But then he noticed it.

  The footsteps, right behind him.

  He turned around.

  At first, he felt like he was looking at a ghost.

  She was thin. Deathly pale. Her hair had been cut choppily, and her cheekbones were prominent. Her clothes were torn. She was covered in cuts and bruises.

  But underneath that, there was no denying it.

  There was no escaping it.

  “H… Holly?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Holly looked at her dad standing opposite her, and she didn’t know how to react.

  The afternoon sky had a red hue to it, reminding her of summer. It took her back to those days with Dad when this chaos all began. The days when it still felt like there was a novelty to all of this. Even in all the darkness, there was still a sense of impermanence to it. And after what’d happened to Mum so recently before, it felt like Dad and her were at their closest, back then.

  She’d forgotten these memories. She’d forgotten what the good times used to feel like.

  She’d forgotten what it was like to be a daughter.

  But now it all came crashing back.

  “H—Holly?” Dad said.

  He looked the same. Maybe a little skinnier, but he looked… he looked healthy.

  She didn’t know what he’d been through. She didn’t know who or what he’d ran in to.

  She just couldn’t believe her dad was here right now.

  Maybe it was just the hallucinations.

  Maybe it was her mind playing tricks on her once again.

  But he was on his feet, now. On his feet, walking away from that little girl he was with.

  And then he was walking towards her. And Holly without realising, without processing, she was walking towards him too.

  Emma was saying things to her, asking her who this was, what she was doing, all sorts of things.

  But she wasn’t thinking about anything. She wasn’t focusing on anything, now.

  She was just walking towards Dad, eager to forget everything she’d been through, to forget everything she’d become, to just be a daughter again, to be a teenage girl all over again.

  “Holly,” Dad said, emotion cracking his voice.

  And she wanted to stay tough. She wanted to stay strong. She didn’t want to let her guard drop.

  But there was no repressing her emotions right now.

  She threw herself into her dad’s arms, and she squeezed him as tight as she could.

  “Dad,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” Dad said, stroking the back of her head, pulling her in close. “My love. My angel. I—I knew you were out there somewhere. I knew you’d made it.”

  “I missed you,” Holly said.

  “And I—I missed you too. I missed you so much.”

  Holly pulled back. She blinked a few times, made sure this was actually Dad, that he was actually here, and she wasn’t just imagining things.

  But he was here.

  He was here… but there was a problem.

  “You… you’re so thin,” Holly said, realising her voice had instantly gone more childlike.

  Dad looked down at his body as if he hadn’t realised just how much weight he’d lost. He shook his head, smiled. “I guess the new world is a good method of weight control, hmm?”

  Holly laughed. She laughed because she’d missed her dad. She laughed because she’d missed his sense of humour.

  But she cried, too. Because that sense of impermanence was strong. The sense that this was going to all go away some time soon, just when she’d found Dad again.

  “We need to get you somewhere safe,” Holly said, looking around, panicking, her caring nature shining through even though she was the child here. “We need—we need—”

  “Holly, there’s a place,” he said. “A place hopefully not too far from here. I was heading there with… let’s just say I was heading there with friends. But something happened. A man. He—he broke free of the group. Killed his companions. But Holly. I’m weak. I’m weak but… but you need to do something for me. Something important.”

  He walked over to the girl lying in the road and pointed at her. Her eyes were open one second, closed the next. She looked weak, like she was struggling. It reminded Holly of Harriet, the memories she’d tried to repress about her… and those memories just haunted her, especially seeing this girl in this state.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Holly asked.

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t know. She has type 1 diabetes, but this… I don’t know whether it’s related. She was shot. We were going somewhere. We were going to get her medical help, but—”

  “Then that’s where we go,” Holly said.

  Mike shook his head. “It’s not safe there. It’s not as simple as just going there. The people at that place, they—”

  “I don’t care about them,” Holly said. “I don’t care how they are. I don’t care what you think they’re going to do. I don’t care what you think they’re capable of. I’ve found you. We’re going to make it to this place.”

  He looked at the road and sighed. He shook his head. “You always were resilient. I mean… I mean I always knew you were strong. But this, Holly. This.”

  A smile beamed across his face.

  “You’re alive,” he said. “You’re alive, and you’re here.”

  He hugged her again. He didn’t want to be apart from her, never again.

  “I don’t even want this moment to end,” he said.

  As Holly held him, she felt haunted. As he gave her back her ring—the one that Mum had given to her all that time ago—she felt haunted. Haunted by her demons. Haunted by the past. Haunted by everything she’d done, everything she’d become.

  But she heard Dad’s words.

  She heard them, and she agreed with him.

  She didn’t want this moment to end.

  She never wanted it to end.

  She took a deep breath. And for a second, just for a second, she felt a smile stretch across her face.

  Because she’d made it.

  In this moment, she was happy.

  In this moment, everything was okay.

  In this moment, everything was—

  “Holly!”

  It happened in a blur.

  First, Emma’s voice.

  She turned around. Frowned. Wondered what she was looking so worried at. Wondered what she was so surprised about.

  Then she saw something else.

  Or rather, someone else.

  Alison was in the distance.

  She looked wide-eyed. Terrified.

  She was trying to stop something. Shouting something.

  “Don’t—”

  But it was too late.

  Because by the time Holly realised who was with Alison, Sofia—Tommy’s mother—had pointed that rifle at her.

  She’d looked her in the eye.

  And then she’d pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Alison watched Sofia lift the gun, pull the trigger, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  She saw the way Holly turned around, looked, closed her eyes.

  She saw Mike holding her.

  She saw two other girls. One of them a little older. The other younger, lying on the road.

  She saw all of this, and she knew she only had one choice; one option.

  She threw herself at Sofia.

  Sofia was still firing the gun. When Alison hit her, threw her to the ground, she knew there was a very real chance that one of the bullets could fly off in her direction.

  But she didn’t care.

  As long as she protected Holly.

  As long as she protected Mike.

  Sofia hit the ground. She stopped firing. “Let me go,” she said.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Let me—”

  Alison smacked he
r right across the face. “No!” she said.

  Sofia looked back up at her, startled. She was bleeding a little from her nose. But there was no mistaking the malice in her eyes. There was no mistaking who her real target was—and the lengths she was willing to go to in order to even the stakes, so to speak.

  “I can’t let you hurt her,” Alison said.

  Sofia sighed. She shook her head. “Then you’re in my way.”

  She smacked Alison in the stomach with her gun, winding her in an instant. Alison recoiled instinctively, and Sofia smacked her again, and again. And before Alison knew it, she was falling back, she was overpowered, she was—

  “No,” she said.

  She punched back. Stopped Sofia’s gun—the rifle she’d wrestled from that soldier in the woods when he’d least expected it— and held on to it.

  Sofia pushed down, harder. All their surroundings seemed to blend into the background. The snow was cold on Alison’s back. Sofia seemed stronger. She seemed more determined.

  And she was trying to twist the rifle around.

  “I just want justice,” Sofia said. “For my Tommy. I just want justice for—”

  “And killing me isn’t going to bring you any justice. Hurting Holly, that’s not going to bring you any justice either. It’ll just bring you more pain.”

  “Don’t tell me what it’ll bring me,” Sofia said, her voice bitter. “Don’t tell me how I should feel about my son.”

  Then she pushed down that rifle. Harder. Closer to Alison’s neck.

  “I remember something you said,” Alison said, as she continued to resist Sofia’s approaching rifle. “Your husband. Ian. At first, you were worried about him out there because you said he was the one who was blinded by grief. He was the one who you had to rein in.”

  “But now he’s gone. Now he’d gone, and she’s right here.”

  “Then there’s a chance. A chance to change things. A chance to—to hear Holly out, at the very least. Because if you just hear her out… if you just listen… maybe then you’ll realise she’s not the monster you want her to be. She’s just a girl.”

  Sofia shook her head then. Looked away. And Alison sensed a chance. An opportunity for things to change.

  “Just let go,” Alison said. “Just give her a chance. And if—if you decide you still want your justice, then that’s that. But you have to listen, first. You have to listen. Please.”

  Sofia looked back at Alison. Tears rolled down her face.

  And Alison knew that she had her moment. She knew she had her chance.

  “Please,” Alison said.

  Sofia sniffed up a string of snot.

  Then she nodded.

  She went to speak.

  But before she could, Alison punched her in the throat.

  Hard.

  Sofia fell back off Alison.

  And when she fell, Alison grabbed her rifle. She put it to Sofia’s head. She went to pull her trigger; to end this once and for all.

  “Don’t.”

  A voice. A voice from the right.

  Alison looked around.

  It was Holly.

  Alison felt confused at first, as she saw Holly standing here, asking Alison to show mercy.

  “What?” Alison asked.

  “You don’t have to kill her,” she said. “I know… I know it seems like the easy option. I know it seems like the solution. But it isn’t. It never is. Just… just trust me.”

  Alison shook her head. She looked at Sofia. She was kneeling there, struggling to breathe after the hard punch to her throat, bruise across her tear-soaked face. “She was going to kill you,” she said.

  “And I killed her son,” Holly said.

  Mike’s face narrowed as he watched from a distance; as he tried to understand this entire exchange.

  “I did something awful,” Holly said, stepping up to Sofia now, looking her in the eye, standing between the rifle and Sofia. “Something I’ll never forget. Something I’ll never forgive myself for. And you’re right. I should pay.”

  She reached behind.

  Went to grab the rifle from Alison.

  Alison frowned. “Holly?”

  “Just give it to me. Please.”

  Reluctantly, Alison let go of the rifle.

  Holly took it.

  And then she handed it to Sofia.

  Fear sparked up inside Alison. “Holly, what—”

  “You have a chance now,” Holly said. “A chance to end this. A chance to finish it. But I just want you to know… I want you to know that yes, I’ve done bad things. Unforgivable things. But what happened to your son. What happened to your Tommy. That was never supposed to happen. That was an accident. The worst mistake I’ve made in my life. And you’ll… you’ll never know how sorry I am.”

  Mike staggered forward. “Holly—”

  “So do it,” Holly said, looking Sofia in the eye. “If it truly makes you feel better… pull that trigger. But just think about it. Please.”

  “Holly,” Mike said, surging forward.

  Sofia held the rifle in her shaky hands. She pointed it right at Holly’s chest. She was crying. Holly was crying. Both were totally caught in this unbreakable intensity.

  She tightened her grip on the trigger.

  Holly held the sides of the rifle.

  “Do it. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I want to make things better. I want to help. Please.”

  Sofia tightened the trigger even more.

  “Do it!”

  Sofia let out a cry.

  She tightened the trigger so tight that it was on the verge of firing.

  Then she threw the rifle aside and fell back to the ground.

  She cried. Covered her face. She called out her son’s name.

  And then the most beautiful thing happened, in all this chaos, all this tragedy.

  Holly walked to her side.

  She put her hands around her.

  Sofia hit her. Punched her. Scratched her.

  “I’m sorry,’ she said, continuing to move closer to Sofia. “I’m so sorry.”

  And eventually, Sofia’s resolve began to break.

  Eventually, the scratching lowered, the punching weakened.

  Eventually, she put her hands around Holly’s back.

  And as Alison stood there, blood trickling from her nose, she watched as Holly hugged the mother of the boy she’d killed, and she started to believe there was beauty in this world after all.

  Chapter Forty

  Mike felt pride as he watched his daughter hold Sofia.

  It was late afternoon. The clouds were thickening, and the snow was growing blizzard-like. The street they were in was beginning to feel like home. And yet that wasn’t completely a good thing. Yuri had died here. Andrei had died here. And Kelsie, she still wasn’t in her best state. She could die here if they didn’t act fast.

  But Holly was here. Alison was here.

  The three of them had been reunited, out of nowhere.

  Could this be a dream?

  Shit. If it was, he wouldn’t mind a bit of bloody warmth, or something.

  Alison walked over to Mike for the first time since she’d returned. She looked at him, sheepishly for a few seconds. There was a pause between them. A silent pause.

  And then she fell into Mike’s arms, and they held each other, tight.

  Mike winced when Alison squeezed too tight.

  She pulled away. Looked at him, eyes narrowed. “You look pretty…”

  “Is ‘sore’ the word you’re looking for?”

  Alison half-smiled. “I was thinking something else. But we’ll go with ‘sore.’”

  Mike felt his legs shaking, weak. He hadn’t actually realised just how lacking in energy he was until he’d witnessed the reactions of the people around him. “Whatever happens now… whatever happens to me, it’s okay. It’s—”

  “But it’s not,” Alison said. “Not after… not after all these months we’ve spent apart. Not when you’ve just—just come acro
ss your daughter again.”

  Mike looked down at Kelsie, who was still weak and sleeping. Then he looked over at Holly. He looked at the way she sat with the young girl, Emma, now. He saw how methodical she looked, and how detached she looked.

  “What happened to you two out there?” Mike asked.

  Alison looked to the road, cleared her throat. “There’s some things it’s probably better you not knowing about.”

  Mike went to contest. But in the end, he didn’t. Because Alison was right.

  There were things he’d been involved with he wouldn’t be too keen on everyone knowing about. They’d all done things they weren’t proud of. They wouldn’t be alive if they’d been totally good.

  But Holly. Something felt different about her. It felt like something had truly shifted.

  And it scared Mike.

  “Anyway,” Alison said, patting Mike on his back. “You two should probably get caught up. Don’t let me get in your way.”

  “It’s good to see you again, Alison.”

  Her eyes glistened. They reminded Mike of how Caitlin’s used to look when they first met. That connection between them, strong with every glance.

  She smiled back at him. Nodded. “It’s good to see you too, Mike. But I haven’t forgotten what you did.”

  Mike frowned. “What I did?”

  “Speeding down the road like a madman. The second this country comes back online, you’re in cuffs, man.”

  Mike laughed. “Yeah. About this country coming back online…”

  Mike told her about what Yuri had told him. He told her about the news of the outages, and how it looked like they were global now. He told her what happened to Yuri, what the guy called Sergei did to him.

  She told him about how they’d run in to Sergei; about how they’d told him to keep walking and then collectively attacked him for his rifle. So at least Sergei had got some just desserts.

  “I just can’t get over how ridiculous a coincidence this all is.”

  “Sometimes I believe there’s things at play that go beyond coincidence,” Mike said.

  Alison frowned. “Really?”