by Ryan Casey
I looked over at the barns in the distance and something told me she was inside there.
Something told me…
I heard footsteps to my left.
I spun around, tension filling my body.
And I got ready to attack.
“Alex?”
I froze right away.
Because it wasn’t the enemy.
It was Suzy, Will, and Kaileigh.
“Ellie,” Suzy said.
They ran to each other, shook hands, embraced. “So glad you’re okay,” Ellie said.
The five of us stood together, then. I could tell there was a look of concern from Suzy, and I knew what it would be about. Why Sarah wasn’t here, and where she was.
“I think I know exactly where she is,” I said.
I looked over at the barn in the distance. And I knew that no matter what dangers it might hold, no matter what harsh reality I might be about to face, I had to face it.
So I started to run towards it.
The rest of the group followed closely behind.
I stopped. I stopped right at the doors. I could see it was partly open.
I stepped inside, trying to be as slow as possible.
When I saw the scene ahead of me, right at the back of the barn, my body froze.
There was a man. He had Sarah on his knees. And a gun to her head.
I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t hold myself back. I couldn’t react in any other way.
I grabbed two cattle prods from near the entrance. Two I knew were still working, the barn acting as a kind of Faraday cage when the EMP struck.
Then, as quietly but swiftly as I could, I made my way over to that man.
Sarah spotted me. I could hear this man muttering things to her, telling her how he didn’t want to have to hurt her. He was so transfixed by what he was doing that he didn’t notice me stepping up behind him and whacking him with one of the cattle prods until it happened.
He fell down, blood seeping from his head. His pistol fell a few feet away. When he tried to lunge for it, I pressed the prods against the side of his head.
“No, please,” he said.
I tensed my jaw and watched him beg. “You tried to hurt my wife.”
The man was crying, tears pooling down his chubby face. He pressed his hands together. “I—I wasn’t hurting her. Wouldn’t hurt a pregnant woman. I just…”
I tightened my grip around the cattle prod triggers.
“I know a safe place!”
He said those words and I couldn’t stop myself from listening. From wondering what he’d broken his composure for. What he was holding secret.
“Please,” he said. “I—there’s a safe place. One you’ll want to know about. One better than—than everywhere else. Paradise.”
“Then why aren’t you there?”
“Because—because Ian hasn’t built up a strong enough army to take it over yet. He’s—he’s biding his time. But I never wanted to overthrow it. I just wanted to go there, too. It’s just I was still with Ian and it was—it was the safest place to be at the time. Please, man. Don’t do this.”
I tensed my jaw and listened to this man’s words. And as I looked into his eyes, I wanted to believe there was another safe place out there. Somewhere safer than here. Somewhere better than everywhere.
“Just—just let me go. Let me go and I’ll take you there. None of this has to get any worse, man. None of this has to get any worse than it already has. Please.”
I took a deep breath. Tensed my jaw.
Then I loosened my grip on the cattle prods.
I saw the man’s face drop. I saw the relief hit him.
Then I tensed my fists.
“I’m sorry. But you made your choice.”
I tightened my grip on the cattle prods.
I listened to the electricity surging out of their ends. I heard the crackling, watching as the man convoluted from side to side. I listened to him crying out, shouting out, trying his best to grip onto life.
And only when he stopped squealing did I loosen my grip.
I threw the cattle prods to the floor beside the man’s steaming body.
I grabbed the pistol that had fallen to the floor.
Then I held a hand out to Sarah.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s time to leave this place. For good.”
Chapter Fourteen
I stood by the door of the barn and listened outside for signs of life.
But in the aftermath of the chaos, all I could hear were signs of death.
It was warm in the barn. Or perhaps that was just me. Perhaps all the running and all the tension and chaos we’d been through had just made it feel this way. I could hear birdsong outside, mixed with the cries of the dying. I couldn’t hear any more gunshots. I couldn’t even hear any footsteps or voices. But I knew I had to be careful. I couldn’t just assume this was all over simply because the chaos had died down. There were animals in here. And if Ian’s group really were interested in taking everything away from me and my people, then I knew full well that animals would be right at the top of his list in their usefulness.
But the way he’d gunned down my people. They way he’d shown no regard for what he was destroying. It made me wonder whether he even cared about sustainability and the future at all, or whether he just wanted to watch the world burn.
There were many types in this world. And Ian’s type was certainly one of them.
I looked around at the people in the barn behind me. Sarah. Suzy. Ellie. Will and Kaileigh. And I was relieved to see them all still standing, all still alive. It was harsh towards the rest of the people in this place, of course. There were a lot of good people here. But seeing the people I’d come here with in the first place… that filled me with a sense of relief. A sense that I was surrounded by people I could trust.
That was the most important factor.
“We’re gonna have to go out there eventually.”
I heard Ellie’s voice and my stomach sank. I knew she was right. We couldn’t stay holed up in here forever. “We’re better waiting a little while longer.”
“We haven’t heard any noises from them for a while.”
“That could be because they’re waiting. Waiting for more people to step out there.”
“Or searching for their friend,” Sarah said, staring down at the body of the man I’d killed.
I looked down at him and I felt my stomach sink. I hadn’t enjoyed killing that man. Far from it. In fact, killing was never an enjoyable thing.
But at the same time, what I’d done, I’d done it for the good of everyone here. I’d done it for the good of the people.
That man had threatened Sarah.
And no matter how much he tried to squirm his way out of the situation he’d found himself in with that bullshit about a “safe haven” that he wanted to defect to, I couldn’t bring myself to trust him. Because trust had done me over one too many times already. Never again.
I stepped over to the barn door then, the urgency of everything just welling up inside. Because Ellie was right. There was silence outside. And there might not be many more opportunities to experience silence like that. This might well end up being the only chance we had.
“I’m going outside,” I said.
“Alex?” Sarah said. “You can’t—”
“One of us needs to see what’s happened to this place. One of us needs to see whether we’re clear. If it’s any of us, it should be me.”
I put my hand on the door to the barn and before anyone could protest, before anyone could try and stop me, I pulled the door open.
I braced myself for bullets to pierce my body. The graze I’d taken from gunfire earlier fortunately wasn’t bad at all. But right now, I waited to be gunned down, to fall to my knees right in front of my people, my family.
But that didn’t happen.
The only thing that hit me was the brightness of the sun.
I allowed my eyes a few moments to ad
just to the change of light.
When they did, I wished they hadn’t.
The first thing that I noticed were the bullet holes in the caravans. The smashed windows. The torn up crops, the churned up land.
And as I stepped outside into the silence, I began to realise for certain that Ian’s people hadn’t wanted our things. For whatever reason or other, they hadn’t really wanted to take our stuff from us—they hadn’t needed to.
They’d just wanted to cause destruction to this place. They could clearly afford to cause destruction to this place.
And destruction they’d caused.
That’s when the sight of the bodies hit me.
There were so many of them splayed out on the ground. Men I recognised, limbs contorted in impossible positions. Women holding the hands of their children, blood oozing out of their bodies as they’d tried to make their final escape.
I felt myself welling up as I walked past faces I recognised; past people I knew. I saw Adam. And then I saw Betty, who usually crept up on me and asked how I was doing whenever I was gardening. I saw Kendrick, who usually played with Will and Kaileigh. I saw all these people, all their glassy eyes and dead faces, and I couldn’t stop my body from shaking.
And then I saw movement.
I stopped at first because I thought it might be one of Ian’s people.
But then as I made my way closer to this movement, I saw it was on the ground.
And then I saw exactly who it was.
Bill.
He was lying on his back. He had a gaping bullet wound in his stomach. His face had gone pale. He was looking up at me, tears in his eyes, like a child who needed reassuring when they were in pain.
I hadn’t had the best relationship with Bill. It didn’t help that he’d tried defying me, right at the last moment, right before Ian’s attack.
But that didn’t matter. Not now.
I crouched down and held his hand.
He gripped onto mine tightly.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
He kept on gripping tightly, his hand shaking as it got weaker and weaker.
Then he spluttered something. “Peace.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got you—”
“Peace. Give… give me peace…”
I saw then he was looking to his side, then back at me.
By his side, a chunk of sharp debris that had been blown from the wall.
I felt my stomach turn. “Bill, I—”
“In pain. Peace. Please. Please.”
I swallowed a sickly lump in my throat and let out a short exhale, unable to believe what Bill was asking me, unable to accept what I was about to do.
But then I looked back at him, desperation in his eyes, and I knew there was no choice.
I tightened my hand around his even further.
Then I reached for the piece of debris.
Lifted it over his head.
“I’m so sorry for this,” I said.
And for the first time since meeting him, as mine and Bill’s eyes met for a final time, Bill smiled at me. A genuine, warm smile.
Then I brought the debris down on his head.
Four hits later and it was done.
Bill had his peace.
He was just one of the many fallen now, as the birds sang their songs, and the wind blew the growing smell of the dead across our broken idyll…
Chapter Fifteen
I looked out beyond the broken wall and I knew it was time.
The sun beamed down strongly from above. The sky was completely clear. If it weren’t for the circumstances, it would’ve been a beautiful day.
It was late morning already and the day was racing on. I knew that the longer we stayed here, the more chance there was of Ian and his people returning. I didn’t know where they’d gone to. I could only assume that they’d caused enough destruction to this place to scare us into staying here, to working for him, whatever that may entail.
But we were going to do exactly the opposite.
The rest of the survivors had already made their own way out of this place, no intention of joining with us. And it soon became clear to me that this wasn’t a group. Not anymore, anyway. The days of this being a group were long gone.
We were all in it for ourselves, now.
Sad, but the reality we lived in.
I looked at the trees in the distance and I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what kind of future awaited us in those woods. I just knew it was going to be a more difficult future than the present we’d been living—and that wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Life was difficult now. That was just the way it was.
But we were going to stand up.
We were going to hold our heads high.
And one way or another, we were going to fight.
We’d been faced with worse odds in the past. We’d been pinned back in more difficult situations. And we’d found our way through.
I had to keep telling myself that.
I had to keep believing it.
I turned around then and looked back.
Sarah, Ellie, Suzy, and the kids were filling their rucksacks with whatever they could salvage. It wasn’t an ideal situation. A lot of things had been looted already, and we didn’t exactly have time on our side. It was all about getting enough essentials to get us through, but also taking along a few longer-term items that might come in handy down the road. We didn’t know how long we were going to be out there, after all. And that was a thought—a reality—which made me shudder.
I looked beyond my people; looked at the ruin this place had suffered. A matter of minutes and it had been broken beyond repair. Even if we did stay here, even if we did find a way to salvage some of it, there would still be the blood on the ground, the reminders of what happened here, the reminders that we weren’t the big fish in this world. That no matter what, we were always in service to someone else. There was always someone crueller out there. Someone more willing to make rules and laws of their own. Someone ready to inflict misery on others.
I was glad we hadn’t sunk to those depths. But sometimes I wondered if we’d have a better chance of staying alive if we did.
No. We were still here. We were doing something right.
I walked over to Ellie, Suzy, and Sarah, knowing full well that it was time for us to get out of here.
“Are we ever gonna come back here, Uncle Alex?”
When I heard the voice beside me, I turned right away, a little confused.
It was Kaileigh. She was playing with Will.
I walked over to her, crouched down opposite her. Took her hands in mine. “Kaileigh, there’s no easy way of saying this, but—”
“You said my mum might come here someday. How will she know where I am if we’re not here anymore?”
I looked into Kaileigh’s worried eyes and I knew that the lie I’d told her was going to catch up with me eventually. I’d told her that her mum was still out there somewhere. But of course, I knew that she wasn’t. I’d watched her die. Protecting her daughter was one of the final things Beth requested of me. So that’s what I was doing. That’s what I had to keep on doing.
“My mum’s not coming back, is she?”
When Kaileigh spoke those words, I felt a mixture of emotions. Guilt. Sadness. But also relief. Relief that it was Kaileigh that had reached that conclusion on her own, without anyone else having to tell her it first-hand.
I wiped my eyes and as much as I wanted to keep up the illusion, to maintain the facade, I shook my head. “No. I’m so sorry Kaileigh. But she’s not coming back.”
I expected her to break down. I expected her to begin grieving right away in hysterics. I expected the misery to take a hold.
But instead she did something unexpected.
She walked over to me and wrapped her arms around me.
“Least I’ve still got you, Uncle Alex. And all the others. You’re all nice people.”
I put my hands on Kaileigh’s back a
nd felt her warmth. “I’m glad I’ve got you too, Kai.”
We let go of each other. Then, holding her hand, Will beside us, I looked at the rest of our people.
“It isn’t going to be easy out there,” I said. “There’s going to be times when we don’t think we’re going to make it through. But as far as I see it, I’d rather be a free man out there than a slave in here.”
“Yes to that,” Suzy said.
“We have to believe there’s somewhere else out there. But we can’t get too attached to that idea. Because right now, we have to rely on ourselves. Right now, we have to trust ourselves. Right now, we have to find strength in each other and know that as long as we do that, we can make this. We can survive.”
“Too right,” Ellie said.
I looked into Sarah’s eyes, then down at her belly.
“It isn’t going to be easy,” I said. “But it never has been easy. Not even before the EMP.”
Everyone nodded. Everyone agreed.
I looked over at the caravans, peppered with bullet holes. I looked at the bodies. I looked at the farm, felt such guilt over the cows, which were still mooing away. At least we’d left them with plenty of food. And at least we’d left the doors open so they could go out and live the free life of grazing they’d always deserved.
I thought about what a beautiful home this had been. And I had to believe there was something else like this in our future.
Then I took a deep breath and I turned around. “Come on,” I said. “It’s time we got out of here.”
I started to walk. All of us started to walk.
It was only when we stepped outside the destroyed wall that we noticed the movement to our left.
That we heard the footsteps.
“Hi,” a voice said. “You heading somewhere?”
Chapter Sixteen
“Hi,” a voice said. “You heading somewhere?’
The second I heard it, I spun around and lifted the pistol I’d taken from the man in the barn. My initial instinct? That this was Ian. Or it was at least one of his people. They’d been watching. They’d been waiting. And now they’d found the perfect moment to strike.