After the Blast

by Ryan Casey

  David shook his hand a while longer before turning his attention to Gina. “And you, my lady? Aren’t you an absolute figure of beauty?”

  The way he said it brought a bitter taste to Kumal’s mouth. But again, he put that down to watching too many films about situations like this going wrong. This wasn’t a film. This was reality. And in reality, there had to be goodness. There had to be positivity. He had to believe that the values his father instilled in him hadn’t just gone away with the power.

  “Gina,” she said, taking David’s hand.

  “Gina,” David said like he was pondering her name. “Well, may I just say it’s an absolute pleasure to meet you both. I understand any cynicism. Really, I do. I’m sure you’ve seen some… unholy things in your time in this world. We all have. But you don’t have to worry about us. We’re friends. Hell, you can be a part of our family too if that’s what you want. We’ve got a nice home. Food. Shelter. Sure is better than being stranded on the road like this.”

  Kumal looked at the group around this man. He saw the smiling women, many of them gloriously pretty. He saw the men, most of them bearded, jovial.

  But he couldn’t help being struck by one detail.

  A minor detail, perhaps. But one that bothered him.

  “Any reason I’m the only Asian dude here?”

  David’s face dropped. He looked back at the others, and then looked back at Kumal. “Isn’t that so? Honestly, now’s the first time I even realised. I’m colour blind, truly. Well, we’d be happy to have you aboard, friend, if you want to put a change to those demographics.”

  He smiled again. That reassuring smile. But that smile Kumal couldn’t get his head around; that he couldn’t judge.

  The smile he just couldn’t weigh up.

  “Who are you people, anyway?”

  David chuckled. “Who are we? Well, we don’t have a name. I suppose you can just say we’re friends. Friends of humanity. Friends of God.”

  The hairs on Kumal’s neck stood on end with that. “Friends of God?”

  “Are you not a believer, friend?”

  “It’s not that I’m not a believer. It’s just… I don’t know. Too many movies.”

  David laughed again. “Too many movies indeed. All we want? All we want is for people to be happy again. All we want is for humanity to make the most of these awful circumstances. All we want… all we want is if we can’t get things to how they were, at least we can give it a damn good shot at not letting the world around us swallow us whole, right?”

  Kumal looked at Gina. He wanted to turn around. He wanted to take his chances on the road. Even if he was struggling, he just wasn’t sure about David and his big happy family.

  “So what do you say, friends?” David asked. “Ready for an adventure?”

  Kumal turned to Gina again. Opened his mouth to discuss it.

  But then she did something unexpected.

  She looked at David, smiled and nodded. “I guess we are,” she said, without Kumal even having a say.

  “Good!” David said. He slapped Kumal on the back, pushed him towards his group before Kumal could even do a thing to resist. “Welcome to the family,” he said.

  Kumal told himself he was just giving himself the creeps unnecessarily.

  But he couldn’t shake the feeling, deep down, that he’d just made a terrible decision.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mike looked at the space where Holly was, and he felt his whole world falling apart right in front of him.

  Emptiness filled the pit of his stomach. He felt shivers covering his arms, sickness engulfing him, ears ringing. Because this felt too familiar. He’d lost Holly before. And now he’d lost her again.

  He had no idea where she’d gone.

  No idea who’d took her.

  Only that she couldn’t be far away.

  She just couldn’t.

  “Holly!” he shouted.

  He raced away from the man who was bleeding out on the ground. He threw himself back in the direction he’d come from, back towards where Holly had to be. His body ached. He was shaking all over. Because his daughter. She’d gone. She’d gone—again.

  “Holly!”

  He rushed through the trees. Looked left, looked right. He thought he could see movement all around; thought he could hear footsteps and voices, but he wasn’t sure how much that was for real and how much that was in his imagination.

  He just wanted to know where his girl was.

  He stood still. Shaking. Looked all around. He’d lost sense of where he was. He’d lost his bearings. He had no idea where Holly’s captors had gone. In truth, he had no idea whether there were any captors at all—just that he’d heard her scream. One second she’d been behind him; the next, she’d been gone.

  There’d be no other reason for her scream. There’d be no other reason for her to react like that.

  Only…

  He stopped.

  He stopped because he saw it.

  The movement.

  The movement right up ahead.

  Someone running through the trees.

  He lifted his knife and launched himself in the direction of that movement. He pointed his knife towards it. Thought about closing in on them, stabbing them without even hesitating, but then wouldn’t that be the biggest twist of fate of all? Come down on them heavily, knife in hand, and take out his daughter in the process.

  No. He couldn’t be rash here.

  He had to keep going, sure. But he couldn’t be stupid.

  He raced further on. He was driven by nothing but that primal urge. The urge to make sure he didn’t lose Holly again. They’d had their tough times. They’d had their troubles in the early days. Holly had walked away from him at one point, but she’d saved his life when they’d been reunited.

  And in the days since, things had been good. They’d been close. Closer than they’d ever been.

  It couldn’t end now.

  She couldn’t be gone forever.

  Not after how far they’d come.

  He reached the area where he’d seen the movement and stopped.

  There was nobody around.

  No voices.

  No footsteps.

  Nothing.

  His heart raced. His breathing was rapid. He wanted to close his eyes and wake up and find that this was all just a nightmare. Because that’s all it could be. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be how it went down.

  He was supposed to be by her side, no matter what.

  He looked around. Looked in every direction. Took one step in one direction, then one in the other. Because there was no knowing, now. There was no knowing where his Holly had gone.

  There was no knowing where her captors had gone.

  So he could only do one thing.

  “Holly!” he shouted, right at the top of his voice.

  Nothing. No response. Just an echo. His voice drifting off into the distance.

  He felt tears building in his eyes. Tears of rage. Tears of defeat.

  And all this time, those words Holly had said to him echoed around his mind. The final words she’d said to him before her disappearance.

  “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. This—this is a mistake, Dad. Please.”

  He was about to shout Holly’s name again.

  That’s when he heard it.

  “Dad!”

  The second he heard her voice, he looked right in its direction.

  He didn’t even think, not anymore.

  He just ran.

  He didn’t look. He didn’t stop. Because nothing was getting in his way now. Nothing.

  He pummelled further forward, getting closer to where he’d heard that voice, getting closer to Holly. He wasn’t stopping. Not for anyone. Nothing was getting in his way.

  If he’d been less urgent, he might’ve noticed the trap in front of him.

  Instead, he felt it.

  A sharp snap, right around his ankle.

&nbs
p; Searing pain as he went flying face first to the ground.

  Then, agony.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Alison opened her eyes, she had no idea where she was.

  She was lying on her back somewhere. Except… it seemed like the sky above her was moving. She could see the treetops drifting in and out of her gaze, and she was so drowsy that she found it remarkable rather than scary. How odd. How damned strange.

  But then she felt a sickening punch right in her gut.

  The EMP.

  The blast.

  The amount of time she’d spent out in the wild, all on her own.

  And then…

  She blinked a few times and realised something that made a shiver creep right down the length of her body.

  The sky wasn’t moving.

  The trees weren’t moving.

  She was moving.

  She went to turn over, to shuffle free of whatever was moving her, when she saw something ahead of her.

  Or rather, someone.

  “Arya?”

  Arya was walking ahead of Alison. It seemed like Alison was on some kind of surfboard that Arya was dragging along. Which didn’t make sense. She tried to place what’d happened before she’d fallen unconscious. She’d just fallen to sleep as normal, hadn’t she?

  And then it hit her.

  The woman.

  The woman with the bow and arrow who’d saved her life.

  She’d been desperate for that woman to give her a chance. Just something to end the monotony and the torture of being out in the woods surviving on her own.

  Had she done this? Had she tied her to Arya to drag away? Alison wouldn’t put it past her. She’d made it pretty clear that she wasn’t interested in making friends, after all.

  She went to clamber off the surfboard when she saw someone else.

  The woman was right behind her. She was looking at Alison and Arya with narrowed eyes, holding a rucksack over one shoulder and the bow over the other. “Sleep well?” she asked.

  Alison got to her feet, a little unsteady at first. “What the hell have you got Arya pulling me along for?”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “She’s a Siberian husky. Dragging things along like that is in her nature. Wolves. Common ancestors, right?”

  Alison looked at Arya. Admittedly, she didn’t seem too fussed. If anything, she looked like she was enjoying it.

  “Besides,” the woman said, walking to Alison’s side. “I couldn’t exactly leave you back there to fend for yourself. Not with the state you were in. Here.”

  She handed Alison an ominous-looking piece of meat. Alison wasn’t sure what it was, only that this woman had caught the animal herself. She wasn’t too fussed either way, especially not when she bit into it. She was just so hungry. So hungry that she felt sick.

  “Take it slow,” the woman said. “You’re pretty weak. I think you’ve got some sort of infection. You’re running a sky-high fever. Probably contaminated water and a bit of dehydration in there too. But fortunately for you, I’ve got some antibiotics. Stay on those, and I’m sure you’ll be feeling better in no time.”

  Alison nodded as she ate the meat. She had to admit she was feeling a little better already.

  The woman walked slightly ahead, leaving Alison behind. Then she stopped. Looked back.

  “Oh, and I’m Jenny. Wish I could say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I’d be lying.”

  Alison looked at the antibiotics Jenny had handed her. Her head spun. All of this was just getting too much.

  But the main thing here?

  Jenny had accepted her. She’d allowed her to come along with her. Hell, she’d saved her.

  Alison had to view that as progress.

  “Hey,” Alison said. She went walking after Jenny, eager not to lose her now, eager not to get left behind, not after all this.

  “No time to stick around and chat,” Jenny said. “There’s somewhere I need to be. Somewhere very important.”

  “I just wanted… I just wanted to thank you. Truly.”

  Jenny stopped. She smiled at Alison. “You won’t be when you find out where I’m going.”

  Alison swallowed a lump in her throat. She wasn’t sure she wanted to ask.

  “But anyway,” Jenny said. “I figure an extra body could help me with what I’m trying to do. If that’s what you want, anyway.”

  Alison saw no choice now. “And what’s that?”

  “I’ve been living in the wild since the outbreak. Fortunately, I know my stuff. Let’s just say I did my research and spent enough time on shitty camping holidays with shitty men to know a thing or two about how to stay alive out here. But anyway. Group of men stole from me when I was sleeping. They took some supplies from me. But more than that, they took something that means something to me. Something very precious. I’m going to pay them a visit and take it back.”

  “What did they take from you? And—and who are these people?”

  “Average thugs,” Jenny said, air of disgust to her voice. “Five of them. But nowhere near organised enough to stop me.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Alison said.

  Jenny looked at the ground. For the first time, Alison got an air of vulnerability about her.

  Then she took a deep breath and looked back at Alison, strength returning to her expression. “They took a drawing my son did for me before he… before he…”

  She stopped, then. Once again, that vulnerability took over.

  But in a matter of seconds, it was gone again.

  “I’m going to go in there, and I’m going to make sure they know damn well who they messed with.”

  Alison felt a wave of nausea come over her. “Yeah, you were right when you said I’d probably not be too keen on joining you.”

  Jenny stopped. Smiled. Pointed off into the woods. “Then there’s always a chance to turn back. Always.”

  Alison looked into Jenny’s eyes. She saw a scar, right across her face. There was something different about this woman. Something… authentic. That’s the only word she could think of. Like she was suited to this crazy world in some way; a way that Alison couldn’t put her finger on, couldn’t define.

  “I’ve tracked the group to a small bunker a couple of miles from here. Derelict place. Cold war shelter. Not as locked up and stocked up as it would’ve been once upon a time. Anyway, I was tracking them when I came across you. I appreciate you slowing me down, but there’s no more time to waste.”

  “So you’re going to go to this—this bunker? You’re going to take their stuff?”

  Jenny laughed a little. “Honey, I’m going to take their goddamned bunker. Consider it interest for all the shit they’ve put me through.”

  Alison stood there, then. She watched as Jenny walked off into the distance, Arya annoyingly by her side.

  “So are you coming or are you going?” Jenny asked. “There’s a bunker in it. If it goes to plan, of course.”

  Alison thought about the safe zone, the extraction point. She thought about the hope she’d had about getting out of this chaos… but then how unfounded that was in the reality of everything she’d seen.

  She thought about this bunker, and what it might offer, what it might mean.

  She took a deep breath. Looked over her shoulder.

  Then she looked back at Jenny.

  “I’m in,” she said.

  Jenny nodded. “Good,” she said. “Then we’d better get started.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  A whole day of travelling with the “Friends of God” and Kumal still felt like he knew nothing about them.

  The frustrating thing? Whenever he felt like he was getting close to learning something about their backstory and their history, Kumal ran into a roadblock that he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get past.

  Because whether you were fooled by this group’s promises or not, one thing was for sure.

  Kumal didn’t feel comfortable with them.

  It took th
em a few hours to reach the place they were staying. It was a church just outside of town, in one of the smaller villages called Woodbridgeton.

  “This place was never busy,” David said. “Always sleepy as hell. But two days after the event… the place was just deserted. Some people stayed, of course. A few of them ended up with us. Some of them stood their ground, dug their heels in, and stayed home, God bless them. But most of them, they just left this place. Probably figured there was a better chance of surviving outside the villages. Big mistake, seeing the things we’ve all seen.”

  Kumal looked around the grounds of this church. He’d seen people digging in the cemetery, planting things. A few small shelters had been constructed. It looked like they were getting this place ready for the long-term, especially with the sheep so close in the fields beside the church. He couldn’t deny being impressed at the spirit these people had shown to get this far so early into the end-times. They’d buckled down, pulled together, and focused on the resources that were most important, and it looked like it was taking them far.

  But still. There was something uneasy about all of this.

  And he had to talk about it with Gina.

  The day passed by. He ate tender, juicy mutton with the group—killed Halal, as promised by David. And he found himself for the first time in the entire day sitting with Gina inside one of the quieter rooms in the church, just the two of them.

  Except there was a problem.

  She looked happy. She looked content.

  “What do you think?” Kumal asked.

  Gina smiled. “I can’t fault it,” she said.

  A knot in Kumal’s stomach. “Really?”

  “Well, can you?”

  Kumal scratched the back of his neck. “Well, not on the surface. But… but don’t you at least get the feeling that something’s going on here? Something… unseen?”

  Gina frowned. “I think you’re just scared, in all truth.”

  “Scared? Thanks. Good to know you have faith in me.”

  “It’s not a criticism. It’s just… We’re bound to be scared. The things we’ve seen. The things we’ve been through. We wouldn’t be alive if we weren’t a little afraid. But… but you need to see this place for what it is. You need to open up to the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, there is some good in this world. That there doesn’t always have to be questionable motives behind everything.”