by Ryan Casey
The woman shook her head. “You know, at first, I felt kind of guilty about all this business. I don’t like doing what I do in Danny’s group. It’s never nice to take lives. But it’s food. It’s the way the world works. But you… I thought you’d be different. I mean, you’re a person. You’re not cattle. And yet I’m looking forward to putting a bullet between your eyes in all truth. Least it’ll shut you up.”
Kesha couldn’t help raising a smile, even though it was a nervous one. “Charming.”
The woman walked around the side of Kesha’s bed. She stopped and looked down at her. Kesha could feel her heart beating heavily. She hoped the woman wouldn’t see it. A heavy heartbeat was something Kesha had always had problems with. Straightaway, it exposed her nervousness.
She just tried to take some deep breaths and hoped she could maintain her confidence and sense of order.
“You really think he’s going to come for you, don’t you?” the woman asked.
Kesha licked her lips and gulped. “I’d say it’s in both our best interests if he and Danny put their differences aside and both show up here.”
“See, both of them aren’t going to show up here. You know that as much as I do. Let’s not kid ourselves here.”
Kesha waited a few seconds before speaking. She didn’t want to say what she thought. She didn’t want to tell this woman that she could tell from the sound of Will’s voice that something had happened. Something serious. “And let’s not lie about me, either,” she said. “Even if Danny gets here, you’re not going to let me go, are you?”
The woman smiled. She lifted her gun and put it to Kesha’s temple. “You’re learning, bless you. A little late, but you’re learning.”
Kesha swallowed a lump in her throat. “I don’t think you’re going to pull that trigger.”
“And what makes you so sure of that?”
“Because… because I think Will’s going to get here. And when he does—”
“Sweetheart, Will’s not coming for you. Even if Danny hasn’t made it, he’s not coming for you. He has his daughter. He’s a family man. Why would he put himself and his family at risk for you? You who, respectfully, are nothing more than someone to keep him warm at night. For a while.”
The words hurt, but shit, Kesha was growing used to pain. Her leg still wrecked. “I don’t think that’s true,” she said. “I think Will’s going to find his way here because… because he cares about other people. Not just his family.”
The woman leaned in closer, her breath sour. “Then you keep on telling yourself that. We’ll just have to see how it plays out, now, won’t we?”
Kesha wasn’t sure how much longer she lay there, the gun to the side of her head. She didn’t hear any clocks ticking or anything like that, mostly ’cause clocks weren’t in order anymore. She just lay there and waited for that fateful moment where the woman pulled the trigger.
She had to hope Will made it here. She was too hurt to fight herself. She didn’t like being so reliant on another person, not least a man. It belittled her, somewhat.
But shit. She needed someone right now. She needed a hand. Or a leg. That made her chuckle in the most sinister kind of way.
“The thing about men is,” the woman started, sitting down opposite Kesha’s bed now. “They’re all the same. They want what comes easiest to them. They fight. Sure, they put up a fight. But when things get too muddled and difficult… boom. They let go. Settle down for something easier.”
Kesha shook her head. She couldn’t accept Will was going to drop her like this. She couldn’t believe it.
“Anyway,” the woman said, glancing at a watch that wasn’t there. “I think we’ve chatted enough now, don’t you?”
She walked over to the side of Kesha’s bed and pressed the cold gun against her skull.
Kesha had imagined dying a lot of times. She’d pictured the begging. Putting up a fight. The drama of that moment.
Really, it was all just so normal. All so… contrived, even.
“Any last words?” the woman asked.
Kesha thought of her sons, Mick and Ally. She thought of the guilt she felt for leaving her handbrake off. She’d never be able to forgive herself for that moment when her eagerness for a hit of booze drove her to make the biggest mistake of her life. Ever.
The only word she could find was “sorry.”
But she didn’t get to say it.
She didn’t get to say it because of the gunshot.
Not in here, but outside.
There were gunshots outside.
Chapter Four
I was beyond the point where I cared much about anyone who wasn’t family.
And in my eyes, Kesha was family.
We rolled into the barracks three hours later. It felt strange to be driven in a vehicle again, like I was in some kind of dream, recollecting a previous life. It’d been a long time since I’d been in any kind of motor vehicle, sparse as they were these days. Most of them had been fried in the EMP strike. But there were a few survivors. A little like the people driving them, really.
As we arrived at Alec’s old barracks, there was only one thing in my mind.
And that one thing on my mind could be summed up by the handgun lying across my lap.
I went to open the door when someone grabbed my arm. I turned and saw it was Arthur.
There was that same look of concern on his face right now as there had been when we’d first set off. Like he didn’t totally approve of my plan to get Kesha back. “Be careful,” he said.
I nodded and continued to open the door. “Thanks for the concern.”
“Not just careful with yourself. But careful with my people, too. Remember we’re here fighting with you. Don’t screw us over.”
The concern in Arthur’s voice alarmed me somewhat because it made me look in the mirror and question what kind of a person I was turning into. Was I really some monster who didn’t care about anyone but those closest to him? And, hell, was that so bad? I’d survived this far by putting those closest to me first. It was through the search for my family that I’d got to where I was today.
I couldn’t make any mistakes about it. I would look out for Arthur and his two friends, Moira and Stan, sure. But I wasn’t going to babysit them. I had my own work to do. They owed me. If it weren’t for their people, I wouldn’t even be in this mess in the first place.
As I climbed out of the car, I caught a glimpse of myself in the wing mirror, and for a moment, I didn’t recognise myself.
Then I heard the rest of the doors closing, and it snapped me out of my trance.
We made our way to the gates of the barracks. I kept my handgun raised at all times. I knew we were risking it. Elana, who I’d spoken to on the long-range radio, had been clear when she’d said she was waiting for Danny to get here or Kesha would die. But from what Arthur had said, she didn’t exactly have an army here. Still, we’d have to keep on watch. We could come under fire. The last thing I wanted to do was screw up this rescue mission.
“We stay low,” Arthur said, Moira and Stan trailing closely behind. They too had their weapons raised. “If you let me go first, I can talk with Elana. Make her see sense.”
I hesitated when we reached the wall. “You’d do that?”
Arthur licked his lips, nervously, and then looked back at the rest of his people. “Look. We know each other. She won’t just shoot me. None of them will.”
“They said they wanted Danny.”
“And we couldn’t provide Danny ’cause you decided to feed him to your dog,” Arthur said. There was a slight hint of frustration in his voice like he didn’t approve of my methods. But hell, Danny had more than deserved what he got. “So you let me try this my way. You don’t just go in there and kill my people. That’s not how it works.”
I waited a few seconds. Arthur had a point. In truth, I wasn’t sure why I was so reluctant to go full-steam-ahead with his plan. It benefited me more if he tried to speak with Elana before I did. I
f she saw me, she’d just kill Kesha.
Still, something was bothering me about all this.
“Okay,” I said, albeit reluctantly. “Go in there. Give it a try. But…”
“Don’t say some bullshit like ‘stay safe’. Don’t pretend you care. Not after bringing us here.”
I didn’t. Instead, I just let Arthur walk up to the gate. He started banging on it. Above, from the dim, grey sky, which hadn’t quite cracked into full daylight yet, specks of rain began to fall.
Nobody responded at the gate.
“Elana!” Arthur called. I kept as low and discreet as I could. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself right now. “It’s Arthur!”
No response.
I gritted my teeth as Arthur looked back at me, more of the rain pouring onto him now. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s com—”
A blast.
One moment, Arthur’s head was there on his shoulders.
The next, it exploded with blood and Arthur fell to the ground.
I lay flat on my stomach right away as more shots fired from behind the wall. My ears rang from the gunshot. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, only that Arthur was dead. He was clearly wrong about his own people. They weren’t quite as loyal to him as he hoped they’d be.
I looked up and saw more bullets firing through a hole in the fence. Moira and Stan were preoccupied, trying to shoot back. I saw a bullet hit Stan in the back of his leg. I could’ve gone over. I could’ve helped him up.
Instead, I used him as a distraction and ran to the right of the fence, then started to climb it.
I listened to the occasional bullet fire, the scattered screams, as I made my way up the side of the fence. When I was on top of it, I swung over, and then made the drop down below. I hurt my knees on the landing, almost twisted my ankle.
But I was on my feet.
I was inside.
I saw a man up ahead turn his gun towards me as I caught his attention.
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think.
I fired two shots at him.
I wasn’t sure which of the two took him down, but one of them did. That was all I needed.
I made my way towards the area where Kesha was the last time I saw her. The rain lashed down now. In truth, I was surprised how quiet the place was. Arthur had told me that Danny didn’t have many people here. But the quietness really broke down that illusion that they were a strong, thriving group.
They were a group on their last legs.
I just had to make sure Kesha didn’t die with them.
I made my way up the final set of steps towards the room where Kesha last was.
That’s when I saw the bodies.
The medical people who’d been seeing to Kesha. They were lying dead beside the door. It looked like they’d been shot in the head.
Goose pimples spread up my arm as I walked hesitantly towards the door of Kesha’s room. I saw all kinds of scenarios in my mind. Finding her dead. Watching her get shot. Forced to listen to her scream…
When I opened the door, I didn’t see any of these things.
Kesha was alive.
She was alone, and she was alive.
I stepped towards her, and I saw that she didn’t have a look of relief on her face. Instead, it was more a look of fear.
When I stepped towards her, I realised why.
I turned around. The woman—presumably Elana—was standing at the other side of the room. She was holding a gun and pointing it at Kesha.
“It’s sweet that you came. Really, it is. I didn’t think you’d make it. But the games are done with now. You’re going to tell me what happened to Danny. And you’re going to back the hell off. Or I’ll put a bullet through your Mrs.”
I lifted my gun. It was a gut instinct reaction more than anything. I felt like the adrenaline was making me call the woman’s bluff.
“Whoa,” the woman said, turning red. She tickled the trigger with her finger. “Don’t make me kill her. Besides. Your wife. I’m sure you’d love to know what happened to her, wouldn’t you?”
That stalled me, too. Those words about my wife. They stopped me in my tracks and made me reconsider everything. “Where is she?”
“Lower the gun, and you’ll find out.”
I didn’t. “Where is she?!”
“I know where your wife is,” Elana said. “And I’ll help you get to her. All you have to do is lower your gun.”
I didn’t know how to react. My mind was spinning with all the events that had unfolded. I didn’t know what to believe or who to trust.
I started to lower my gun.
Elana smiled. “Good. That’s good.”
But as I lowered the gun, I remembered something. Danny’s dying moments. The laughter, the certainty, that he was the only person who could tell me where my wife was.
A dying certainty that was hard to argue with.
It was at that same moment that I saw Elana’s gun turn towards me, just slightly.
That I saw her finger tighten around the trigger.
“You’re a liar,” I said.
I lifted my gun.
And before Elana could shoot, I sent a bullet through her neck.
I looked away when I’d fired. I waited for the struggling to stop, for the wincing to cease. It took just under thirty seconds. But when Elana breathed her final breath, silence followed. Another stomach-turning silence that I’d potentially just lost someone who could lead me to my wife.
And who could have the lives of those at Heathlock in her hands.
But no. She was bluffing. She had to be bluffing…
I swallowed a lump in my throat, and I lifted the woman’s gun.
It didn’t take me long to realise that there was no ammo in it all along. She was just all talk, begging for her life.
Well, she’d lost.
She gave up the right to live when she started eating other people.
I stood up, then. I walked over to Kesha. She was staring at Elana’s body, shock in her wide eyes.
I held out a hand to her. “Come on,” I said. “It’s time to go home now.”
She took a few seconds. Opened her mouth, and then closed it again.
Then after a while, without saying a thing, she took my hand.
This wasn’t a world where we messed around anymore.
This wasn’t a world where morals or ethics bogged us down.
This was survival.
Chapter Five
One month later…
Four weeks was a long time to know your wife might still be alive in the world somewhere and have no clue where she’s at, or who she’s with.
The morning sun was rising over the tops of the trees up ahead. It was always a nice view from the barracks at this time of morning. The burning glow of light peeking over, proving that no matter how much electricity had collapsed, and no matter what sort of state the world was in a year after its fall, nature was still powering along at breakneck speed, no regard for the feeble follies of humanity. I’d always liked the earlier hours, in truth. I was a writer before the world went to shit, so I suppose that was a kind of cliché. Early to rise, seize the prize, and all that.
But since the world had ended—at least, the world as we knew it—I had an even greater renewed admiration and respect for the morning. It felt so peaceful. Like everyone was going about their lives somewhere in this country, quietly, subtly.
And sure, there were bad people out there. People like Danny’s group. But they wouldn’t be the majority.
At least, I hoped not.
And as for trusting anyone outside my inner circle… that wasn’t something I was entirely comfortable with.
Scratch that. I wasn’t comfortable with it one bit.
I felt the cool air blow against my skin, making me shiver a little. Winter had really crept up fast. I thought about all those old people out there who struggled in the cold in the old world, let alone this one. If there were any of those old people lef
t, well… They’d probably have been better off dying a long time ago.
“Fancy finding you up here again.”
I flinched when I heard Kesha’s voice right behind me. I frowned, turned away from the horizon.
She was on crutches, but she was walking. She looked a little drained. Her skin was pale, and she looked frail. But she was walking. A damned force of nature considering she’d stepped in a trap not all that long ago, really.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” I said.
“Ahh, scrap that caring act. I’m better when I’m moving around.”
“Phil said to rest.”
“Phil doesn’t know what it’s like to live inside my body. I need to stretch my legs. I get ratty when I’m not getting enough air.”
“Well, just don’t stand too close to the—”
“The edge,” she said. “I know. I know. And I appreciate the whole loving, caring vibe, I really do.”
We stood in silence together for a while, both of us just staring out into the distance. I could tell there was some kind of conversation coming. I didn’t know what it’d be about exactly, but I could harbour a guess that it wouldn’t be something I’d be entirely comfortable talking about. In that respect, I felt Kesha and I had something of understanding, now. I knew when she wasn’t happy with me. She knew when I had something on my mind. It was just a matter of playing chicken before the first person broke the awkwardness and got straight to the point.
“It’s still bothering you, isn’t it?”
I felt a knot in my stomach, then. She’d gone right for the big gun. “Wouldn’t it bother you?”
Kesha sighed and lowered her head. “Will, I… As much as, for yours and Olivia’s sakes, I want to believe Kerry is out there…”
“He said she was still alive. Danny said he hadn’t… he hadn’t killed her. And that he was the only person who knew where she was.”
“You had to kill him,” Kesha said.
“I didn’t have to kill him.”
“He butchered people. He didn’t deserve to—”
“But he knew where my wife was.”
I regretted raising my voice right away. Especially on the topic of my wife. It made things a little awkward between Kesha and me. It wasn’t that we had anything going on with each other, really. More just… well, an unspoken admiration for one another. We just got each other.