by Ryan Casey
They’d given me direction.
They’d shown me what I needed to do.
Where I had to go.
I turned around. Looked beyond the trees, back out towards the extraction point, and towards the direction Ian’s trucks had headed.
It was time to trust my instincts.
It was time to trust myself.
It was time to fight.
Chapter Forty-Two
Sarah stood at the back of the trailer she’d been locked up inside and watched as the woods behind them got further and further away.
And, deep down, although she didn’t understand exactly what was going to happen, she knew full well where they were heading to.
Only it wasn’t with the people—the person—she’d wanted to get there with at all.
It wasn’t under the circumstances she’d wanted to get there.
She knew Ian and his people didn’t exactly have the best intentions in mind. There was a reason she and the others had been locked away in here, and she knew those reasons wouldn’t exactly be pure ones.
She just had to hope that she found a way out of here one way or another before it was too late.
She stuck her fingers out of the gap that she could see through, tried to push and pull.
But it just didn’t budge.
“Face it, Sarah,” Ellie said. “We’re screwed.”
Sarah felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She spun around, glared at Ellie. “You might want to give up but I’m not interested in that.”
Ellie raised her hands, barely visible in the darkness, other than for the little light beaming through that gap in the trailer. “I’m not saying we give up.”
“It sounds to me like you’re saying exactly that.”
“Hey,” Ibrahim said. He stood up, stepped between them. “The last thing we should be doing is falling out right now.”
Ellie shrugged. She habitually reached for a cigarette, only to find she didn’t have any remaining.
“It’s important we stay together. We can’t start fighting with each other. We’re in this together. All of us.”
Sarah sighed. She looked over Ellie’s shoulder, over by the kids. Kaileigh had her head rested on Will’s shoulder. Will was sitting there, staring into the nothingness, Hailey by his side. He hadn’t known Hailey for long. None of us had. Honestly, Sarah thought she’d probably be dead after she’d been left behind at the bridge.
The fact that she was on her own, none of her people with her… that filled Sarah’s mouth with a bitter taste.
She dreaded to think what might’ve happened to the rest of her people.
She cleared her throat. Stepped up to Ellie, to Ibrahim, looked over at Hailey.
“I’m not undermining any of you. I’m not playing down your opinions or anything like that. And I’m certainly not playing games. But we have to be realistic here. We’re trapped in here. And if we don’t get out, something bad is going to happen to us. And I don’t want to be around when it does.”
She looked at Ellie then, right into her eyes.
“So are you in or are you out?”
Ellie looked up at her. Opened her mouth, like she was getting ready to counter Sarah, to tell her it wasn’t possible, that they couldn’t get out of here, it couldn’t be done.
Then she let out a sigh and shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “Anything’s better than rotting away in here, I guess.”
Sarah nodded. She looked at Ibrahim, who was with her, clearly. Then she looked over at Hailey, who sat beside the kids.
“Hailey?” she said.
Hailey looked up at her. And in the faint light peeking through into the trailer, she saw the tears on her cheeks. That look of loss etched across her face. She knew she’d been through something horrible. But they all had. They’d all lost.
“We could really use your help,” Sarah said.
Hailey nodded. She wiped her face. Then she leaned over to Will, whispered something.
When she stood, Will was still sitting there, still silent, Kaileigh still by his side, holding his hand.
“What’s the plan?” Hailey asked.
It was then that it dawned on Sarah that there wasn’t a plan. They didn’t know what the hell they were going to do. Only that they had to do something. Because if they didn’t… yeah. They were screwed. They didn’t know how screwed they were. They didn’t know how they were going to be screwed. Only that being screwed was a certainty if they stuck around in here.
So Sarah walked over to the gap in the trailer. “There has to be a weak point somewhere. This trailer’s hardly brand new. If we can figure a way to force something free, we might be able to get ourselves out of here.”
Ellie started saying something.
“What was that?” Sarah asked.
Ellie shook her head. Sarah could tell she was eager to counter, eager to protest. Not today. Not today.
She searched the sides of the trailer for weaknesses in the foundations. The more she searched, the more cautious and unsure she grew about this whole situation. After all, even if they did find a weakness in the foundations, they were going to have to create noise to get out of here. And that noise may well alert the attention of Ian and the drivers dragging them along.
But the engines. The sound of the engines.
They might just be enough to cloak the sound of them trying to get out of here.
They might just be enough to—
“Here.”
When Sarah heard the voice, she didn’t know where it came from. Not at first. It certainly didn’t sound like Ibrahim, Ellie, or Hailey.
It was only when she saw the movement at the other side of the trailer that she realised it wasn’t any of them who had spoken.
It was Kaileigh.
Sarah stepped over to Kaileigh to see what she’d found.
When she saw it, she couldn’t believe her luck.
There was a door. Some kind of little trap door, right behind where Kaileigh had been sitting. It had a chain wrapped around it, a padlock stuck to it. But it was something they had to work with. Something they could start with.
Sarah smiled at Kaileigh, stroked her hair. “Good one, kiddo.”
She heard the engines revving loudly.
She lifted her foot, looked around at the rest of her group.
“I know it seems a daft idea, trying to kick it down. But it’s all we’ve got right now. So we’re going to have to try. Right?”
Ellie looked like she was going to counter once again. But again, she decided not to bother, to stay in line instead.
She stepped up beside Sarah.
Ibrahim joined her.
Hailey joined her.
Together, they stood by that door, getting ready to kick it in, getting ready to battle their way out of here, no matter how hard it was, no matter how much it took.
She pulled her foot further back and went to boot it down.
Then, something happened.
The engines stopped.
The trailer stopped.
She fell to her side. Tumbled down with the shift in the force.
Banged her head on the cold metal.
She felt pain split through her head. She clutched at it. Then she opened her eyes, looked around. “What was that?”
It didn’t take long for her to realise that everyone else was lying on the trailer floor too.
And not only that.
It didn’t take her long for her to hear one of the truck doors open.
To hear footsteps scrape across the earth outside.
Then, to hear his voice.
“Well, well,” Ian said. “Looks like we made it. Open up the trailer. It’s time to let our lovely friends know exactly what’s going to happen to them now.”
But there was something even worse than that.
The sudden sharp pain in her stomach.
The sense of foreboding overwhelming her as weakness filled her body.
As the taste
of blood kissed her lips.
Then, as the door to the trailer opened and light filled the inside, her vision faded, the pain took hold, and Sarah felt nothing.
Chapter Forty-Three
I walked towards the edge of the woods and I saw the extraction point up ahead.
And I knew, deep down, that no matter where Ian and his people—and my people were right now, they would end up here eventually.
It was whether I could afford to wait.
Whether I could afford to be patient.
Of that I wasn’t yet too sure.
The clouds were thick in the late afternoon sky now. The evening wasn’t far away. And in a way, I didn’t want to have to deal with this at night. I wanted it done during the day. The night, although it brought stealth advantages, that kind of thing, wasn’t ideal for this kind of situation.
A situation that didn’t strike me as particularly stealthy.
This was going to be a standoff. Make no mistake about it.
And it was a standoff I wasn’t sure I could win.
But a standoff I had to find a way of winning nonetheless.
I looked at the trees around me; at the vast open space ahead of me. There was nobody there, not right now. I made sure I scanned it just to be certain. One sight of Ian and his people and I knew that was the time to act. That was the time to do whatever I had to do.
Of which I still wasn’t totally sure, totally confident.
Only that it had to work.
It just had to.
I was about to step out of the woods when I heard someone gasping beside me.
I spun around. Looked over at where I’d heard the throaty grunt come from.
When I saw the source of it, I froze completely.
It was a man. He was lying on the grass. His hand was against his chest. Blood pooled between his fingers.
As I looked at this man, lying there, desperate for help, I realised there was something familiar about him. Something I recognised.
And then it clicked.
He was one of Ian’s people.
I’d seen him. Seen him standing alongside Ian, right on that first day I’d seen him.
And now here he was, lying here, wound in his chest.
“Help,” he gasped. “Please. Please.”
As I looked at him writhing around on the ground, I had a mixture of emotions. Part of me felt glad to see him like this, as if some kind of justice had been served. Another part of me was hopeful that the fact that he was here, like this, was a sign that somehow, Sarah and the rest of my people had escaped and been able to harm him on their escape.
But the prevailing feeling was that this wasn’t something my people had done at all.
This was Ian’s doing.
I walked over to the man’s side. Crouched beside him.
He looked up at me, continuing to gasp, blood oozing down his chin. “Help me.”
I looked at his wound and I knew already that helping him was out of the question. He was too badly wounded. There wasn’t time to do anything about him; time to help him in any way.
I put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched.
“Where are they?” I asked.
He opened his mouth like he was going to speak, then closed it, shook his head. “Can’t—can’t—”
“You can,” I said, “and you’re going to. Because I know that if you’re like this because of Ian for whatever reason, you had a disagreement. And if you had a disagreement you have to see things from my perspective. From where I’m coming from. Ian. He has my friends. He has my wife. He has our child. You need to tell me where they are going.”
The man groaned, leaning forward to look at his wound. His cheeks went totally pale when he saw them. He looked back up at me, half a smile on his face. “You’ll never stop him.”
I felt an urge to hurt this man fill me. An urge to torture him for information.
But I took a few deep breaths, controlled that urge. Because considering the circumstances, I didn’t think that approach had much of a chance of working right now.
“Look. I don’t know your name, but—”
“Bob,” he said.
“Bob. I… Bob, I need your help here. I know your people and my people have clashed. I know we’ve had… different ideas about things. Different ideas about the future. But forget the future. Forget allegiances. Forget all of that. And just think about what matters here. Truly. Family. Friendship. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’m asking you to help me with. Please.”
I sat opposite this dying man and it struck me then how far I’d come. I was asking this man for help, sure. But this was an old enemy. Not only an old enemy, but a stranger at that.
I was trusting him to help me.
I was trusting myself to believe him.
He looked up, right into my eyes, and he smiled.
Then, he lifted a shaky finger and he pointed.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Bob said. “He’s… Without fear, he’s nothing. Don’t forget that.”
I wasn’t sure what to say at first; what he was getting at.
But then I heard the rumbling.
The engines.
I turned around.
I saw the trucks speeding along.
Speeding towards the extraction point.
A large metal crate-like trailer in tow.
“What is that?” I asked.
When I turned back to Bob, I saw he was already dead.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. Stood up. Took a few deep breaths, as I watched the trucks and the trailer get nearer and nearer to that extraction point.
There was only one thing I could do now.
Only one place I could go.
And that was into the eye of the storm.
I tightened my fists.
“I’m coming, Sarah,” I said.
Then, against every instinct screaming out at me, I walked.
Chapter Forty-Four
When Ian reached the gates of the extraction point, he knew the day he’d been waiting for so, so long was finally upon him.
The afternoon sky was getting gradually cloudier, gradually darker. There was a cool breeze to the air, which made him smirk. It wasn’t gonna be cool for some people around here. Not for much longer.
Not unless the people inside the extraction point listened to his terms very carefully.
Not unless the people in the extraction point wanted blood on their hands after all.
It was the soldiers on the wall he saw first. He saw them raise their guns, point them towards him, towards his people, tell him to stand down.
Ian raised his hands into the air. “You aren’t going to want to do that. Not when you know what’s inside the crate. Not once you know what’ll happen to the people inside that crate if you so much as think about pulling that trigger.”
Some of the soldiers looked at one another. Doubt building in their minds.
Good. That was all Ian needed. Just a bit of doubt.
“Now, I want to be diplomatic about this. But I need to know we’re on an even footing, so to speak. So I’m going to have to ask you to make sure every single person in this extraction point sees what’s about to happen, okay?”
“When you’re beyond the gates, you’re beyond the gates,” a voice echoed from the tannoy above. “You don’t turn back.”
“I appreciate the rules,” Ian shouted. “I’m a man of rules myself. Strict ones. I understand the need for rules. But sometimes, you’ve gotta relax. Sometimes, you’ve gotta lift those rules to get anywhere. To make some progress. So come on. Open the gates. Let everyone see what’s going to happen here. Or I swear to God I’ll murder a pregnant woman right in front of you. And that shit’ll be on you and your fucked up sense of trust.”
Silence followed. Tension grew in the eyes and on the faces of the soldiers above. Tension, as they surely realised just how serious this was now. “We have protocol to follow. Strict protocol.”
Ian sighed. He rubbed his forehead. “Bring one of them out.”
The door behind him clanged. He saw the eyes of the soldiers, the guns of the soldiers, all turn their attention towards the crate behind.
He heard struggling. And before he knew it, Ibrahim was in front of him. Sitting on his knees.
“Ibrahim here might look like he’s sweating,” Ian said, a cigarette between his lips, a match between his fingers. “And hell, maybe he is. But no. That you see there isn’t sweat. Shall we show them what it is, team?”
Ibrahim kicked out and struggled. “No. Please don’t. Please—”
But it was already too late for Ibrahim.
Ian threw the match onto him.
In an instant, he burst out in flames.
The flames were tall and violent, just inches from Ian’s face. But it wasn’t the flames that were the worst thing. It was the screams. The pained, childlike screams as Ibrahim kicked and punched and writhed right in front of him. And the sheer length of time it took to finish him, too. That was one thing a lot of people don’t realise about burning to death. Sure, sometimes the nerve endings take a while to burn through. But that isn’t always the case.
And judging by the screaming that was still coming from Ibrahim, he was taking a little longer.
When he’d finished screaming, his body nothing more than burning embers, Ian stepped over to the crate. He looked inside. Saw the fear on Ellie’s face, on Hailey’s face, on the faces of the children…
And Sarah.
She was lying on her back.
Blood streaming from her nose.
Clearly on the brink of unconsciousness.
Then he looked back over beyond Ibrahim’s smouldering body, which smelled like delicious charred meat, and up at the soldiers on the wall.
“There’s more in here,” he said. “He really was the beginning. So please. Unless you want more screaming people on your conscience, we’re going to come to an agreement here.”
Silence from the soldiers.
Silence was good.
Silence was consideration.
And consideration was exactly what he needed.
“You’re going to open those doors,” Ian said. “You’re going to let us inside. And we’re going to come to a new arrangement. Right this second. Or all of them burn.”