After the Blast

by Ryan Casey

  “And the ones who did?” Mike asked.

  Kumal nodded in the direction of the graveyard. “They aren’t going to be bothering anybody again.”

  Mike brushed his hand through his hair. Hearing that groups were resorting to cannibalism wasn’t all that surprising. After all, human flesh was probably one of the most abundant sources of meat there was—and the easiest to catch. For animals, you needed detailed, elaborate traps, and a bit of luck to boot. Humans? You just needed to make them trust you.

  The weirdest thing here, though?

  There were sheep in the nearby fields. It wasn’t like they didn’t already have another option—a better option.

  But for some reason, David and a few of his right-hand men were resorting to these depraved depths rather than just utilising the resources they had.

  Why?

  Some people were unpredictable.

  Some people just wanted to make other people suffer.

  That was a harsh truth that not many people wanted to stare in the eye; that not many people wanted to admit.

  Trust is the most dangerous weapon in a world where everybody must be questioned at all times.

  “And you?” Kumal asked. “The last we saw you, you were going after Holly.”

  Mike swallowed a sickly lump in his throat. “Like I said. Holly… she’s fine. Or at least she was fine. We were surviving out there in the wilderness. Ran into some guy who was in a sorry state. After that, she went missing.”

  “And your leg?”

  Mike looked down at his leg. It’d been remarkably pain-free for the last few hours despite all his walking; probably something to do with the painkillers Claire had given him. “It’s holding up. It’s a long story. And we don’t have all the time in the world.”

  “What about Alison?” Kumal asked.

  Mike sighed. “I was hoping you’d be able to answer that.”

  Kumal told him about them reaching that supposed extraction point, and then finding nothing there but bodies. He told Mike about how they’d got split up with Alison and Arya and hadn’t seen either since.

  Mike thought about them both. He cared about them dearly. But he knew Alison was strong. And he knew Arya was in good hands, too. They were going to get each other through whatever problems they ran into.

  “So what next?” Kumal asked.

  Mike knew there were two options. Staying here, eventually heading back to Claire’s place to help out with this new society she was supposedly building. Or keep on going. Keep on searching for Holly.

  And when he put it like that… he knew there was actually only one option.

  “I have to find Holly,” Mike said.

  Kumal sighed. “This place you told me about. It sounds like the sort of place we shouldn’t pass up on. The kind of place where things could actually start to get better.

  Mike nodded. “And they will get better. I believe that. But only when I find Holly.”

  He stepped up to Kumal, whose head was lowered.

  “I’m sorry about Gina. I knew how much she meant to you.”

  “She… she was a good friend to all—”

  “No, I know how much she meant to you.”

  Kumal looked back up at Mike then, and Mike saw it. That expression of grief on his face. A grief that was only going to get worse.

  “But a grief you have to believe you’ll get through,” Mike said.

  “What?” Kumal asked.

  Mike shook his head, realising he’d thought aloud. “Nothing. You just… you look after yourself.”

  Mike turned. Walked away from the church. As much as his feet were blistered, he couldn’t hold off anymore. As much as he was slipping into dehydration and hadn’t had enough to eat, there was no more time to waste.

  “Wait,” Kumal said.

  Mike turned. Saw Kumal walking after him.

  “There’s nothing that can stop me, Kumal,” Mike said. “You have to understand that—”

  “And I’m not trying to stop you. I’m getting some stuff for both of us, and then I’m coming with you.”

  Mike frowned. Shook his head. “It’s not safe—”

  “Holly’s my friend. I’ve seen the rest of my friends fall. Benny. Harriet. Gina. I… I can’t see Holly fall too. I just can’t. I’ve turned my back on people I care about too many times. I can’t do that again.”

  Mike wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Kumal to start making his own way back to Claire’s place, where he’d come from. He could be happy there. He could be safe.

  But in the end, he couldn’t deny what Kumal was offering.

  He smiled. Nodded. “Then we’d better get started.”

  They packed their things. Kumal said his farewells to the remaining group members—many of them shell-shocked.

  And then when he’d got his stuff, he stood with Mike at the church entrance, looking down at the abandoned streets, which he knew would lead back down towards the woods where he’d lost Holly.

  “Ready?” Kumal asked.

  Mike took a deep breath. Pulled back his shoulders. “Ready.”

  It was time to find his daughter.

  No matter what.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Holly felt herself falling, rope around her neck, and braced for the moment when everything came to a sudden and violent end.

  She’d read about hanging, once. One of her schoolmates, Brett, hung himself, and the thought of it haunted her. So she spent late nights Googling the topic, researching it, finding out how long it took to die, that kind of thing.

  When she learned that death wasn’t instant—that it could take minutes to die—she hadn’t slept. She hadn’t slept for a long, long time.

  All she could do was lie there, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about how awful those final moments must’ve been, especially if Brett changed his mind when it was already too late.

  All of this happened in a flash. The memory of her schoolmate. The memory of the horror she’d felt.

  Because she was falling, now.

  She was falling, and she knew her time was coming to an end.

  She closed her eyes when the rope started to tighten. Held her breath. Went to cry out.

  Then, something happened.

  First, a slight tug around her neck; a tug that she thought would be the last thing she ever felt before she slipped into unconsciousness.

  But then something else happened.

  The rope. It snapped.

  She fell to the road below.

  Landed with a thud.

  She lay there a few seconds. She could taste blood, and one of her teeth had chipped and gone sharp. She looked at the hard ground below, and she couldn’t believe she was interpreting these signals; she couldn’t believe she was actually, somehow still alive.

  But then she heard the shouts from above. She heard the voices.

  And she knew she was running out of time.

  She got up. Stood up, her knees wobbly and her body shaking all over. She looked ahead, her vision blurred. She knew the people who’d tried to hang her would be after her. She knew they’d chase her.

  But she had to keep on going.

  She had to get out of here.

  She wouldn’t be quite as lucky the next time.

  She turned. Looked down the street and went to run.

  Then she saw them.

  Two people coming her way.

  Her instinct was to turn the other way; to flee.

  But then there was something else sparking inside her, now. Another desire. Another urge.

  The urge to fight these people.

  She might be smaller. But these people had tried to kill her. And if she didn’t send them a message, they were going to keep on trying to kill her.

  She looked around. Ran over to the car to her right. Grabbed a shard of glass from its broken window. Behind, the footsteps were still powering after her.

  And the two people running at her. They were still going. Arms opening, readying to gr
ab her.

  She tightened her grip on the sharp shard of glass.

  She wasn’t going to let them grab her, no matter what happened.

  They were just feet away now. And Holly started to wonder if she was making a mistake here. She started to wonder whether the fall had given her delusions of grandeur; made her overestimate her abilities, her potential.

  But there was no time to speculate.

  There was only one way to find out.

  The man moved closer towards her. Went to grab her, arms closing in.

  She lowered the shard of glass.

  Then she rammed it into his belly, and she sliced.

  She saw the look in the man’s eyes. She saw the way his body opened up; the way blood drooled from the hole she’d shredded in his skin and muscle.

  She saw the way his friend stopped, slowed down. The way people behind shouted out as this man stood there, trying to hold his flesh together.

  She watched as he fell to his knees, staring up at her, blood spilling from his lips now.

  And she didn’t feel any regret.

  She didn’t feel any guilt.

  These people had tried to kill her.

  She’d do it again in a heartbeat.

  She looked over her shoulder. Looked at the people who’d tried to kill her. Looked at the other hanging bodies, and the rope that had snapped; the luck that had favoured her.

  She wanted to go back there. She wanted to kill them all, one by one.

  And maybe she would.

  Maybe, one day, she would.

  But instead, for now, she found herself taking a deep breath.

  Turning around.

  Stepping past the man who was dying on the road, and his friend, who was comforting him.

  She looked at the surviving man, saw the way he looked up at her, and she thought about stabbing him in the neck.

  But then she dropped the shard of glass, and she ran.

  She was on her own.

  But she was alive.

  And that was the most precious thing of all.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Alison stared at Gina as she sat there, Arya by her side, and she’d never felt more grateful to see someone again.

  A couple of hours had passed since Alison had found Gina in the bushes, Arya beside her. She’d wanted to ask her all kind of questions about where she’d ended up, and what had happened to her, but in the end, getting Arya back to the bunker to stitch her up was their priority.

  They’d carried her back through the woods. And of course Alison had felt tension over whether she was going to run into the armed group back there. Of course she’d felt nervous about the possibility of running into those awful people again, especially after what’d happened to Jenny.

  But she’d made it back. Gina had made it back.

  They’d cleaned and stitched up Arya’s wound. And as much fear as Alison felt for Arya, she knew she was going to be okay, because she believed in her.

  Two hours later, Arya was lying at their feet.

  She wasn’t bleeding anymore.

  She was okay.

  Limping a little, whining a little from time to time, but okay.

  Gina looked back at Alison. She hadn’t said much yet. Neither of them had, really. She half-smiled. “At least you found somewhere nice to stay,” she said.

  Alison swallowed a lump in her throat. She hadn’t moved Jenny’s body yet. She was still outside, still waiting to be dealt with. It wasn’t going to be easy. And at the same time, that’s what made her cautious about Gina’s return. She didn’t want Gina to befall the same fate that everyone else she knew seemed to be succumbing to.

  “It’s good enough,” Alison said. “But the last few days… they haven’t been—”

  “Ideal,” Gina said. “Tell me about it.”

  Arya looked at Gina closely. She saw marks on her arms. Burns, no doubt about it. And a large bruise on her head, too. “What happened to you?”

  Gina glanced back at Alison. “Let’s just say I probably should be dead. But I’m not. I’m here. Only…”

  She stopped, then. Looked away. Alison felt a question welling up. A question she needed to ask.

  “What about Kumal?”

  Gina sighed, then. And it was a sigh that had Alison fearing the worst.

  “I don’t know how Kumal is,” Gina said. “That’s the truth. We were in a burning building together. This lunatic who ran the group we ended up in, he was standing over me. Knocked me down. Then—then Kumal caught his attention. I got a chance to escape. I didn’t look back. I—I just kept on running.”

  She paused then like she was coming to terms with all that had happened; all she’d done.

  “I knew I should’ve gone back for Kumal. But after seeing the things I saw… after knowing what was going on at that place… I just couldn’t.”

  Alison put a hand on Gina’s arm. “You did what any of us would’ve done.”

  Gina looked back at her. But she didn’t seem too certain. “What about you two, anyway? How’d you roll up here?”

  Alison told her about her lonely travels on the road. She told her about Jenny, and about that foreign military presence.

  “Bastards,” Gina said. “Whoever they are… we’re going to make them pay someday. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but we will.”

  They were both silent a little while longer.

  And then at the same time, they both said the words.

  “How about Mike and Holly?”

  They looked at each other. Then away. Neither of them had to respond to that. The very fact that they’d both asked the same question meant that neither of them knew the truth.

  “The good thing is, the camp where Holly was being kept was in a real state,” Alison said. “I mean, a real state. And I didn’t find… I didn’t find any trace of Holly or Mike. Good reason to believe they found their way out of there.”

  Gina nodded. “That’s got to count for something.”

  Alison nodded back. There was a pause between them then, as they sat inside this bunker. Because as nice as it felt here—as secure as it felt—Alison’s meeting with Gina had sparked something within. A desire. An urge.

  “You said something about leaving Kumal without him knowing you’d made it,” Alison said.

  Gina nodded. “I had to run. This man, David… I don’t know what happened to him, but I just felt like I had to run. I’d just about escaped with my life. I wasn’t going to risk losing it, not after that. So I kept going and going, and I didn’t stop. Not for anyone.”

  “And you have a rough idea how long it’d take us to get back to this village?”

  Gina’s face turned. “I’m not sure that’s such a great idea.”

  “You said it yourself. We don’t leave each other behind.”

  She stood up, then. Held out a hand.

  “We go and search for Kumal. We bring this group back together. And if we die trying, we die trying. But surely anything’s better than solitude. Anything’s better than loneliness. Believe me. I’ve felt it.”

  Gina paused. She looked at the hand Alison had outstretched like she was pondering her offer.

  “I just don’t want to lead you into something you can’t come back from,” Gina said.

  Alison stretched her hand out further. “Then let me lead the way. I’ve got this. And so do you.”

  Gina shook her head. She sighed.

  And then she half-smiled.

  She took Alison’s hand.

  Alison pulled her to her feet.

  They stood there, inside this bunker, inside this place that so many people would stay in because it was safe, and they prepared for the impossible.

  “Let’s pack up and get out of here,” Alison said. “Let’s find Kumal.”

  If only they knew what awaited them on the road ahead, maybe they would’ve done things differently.

  Chapter Thirty

  Mike walked with Kumal by his side, and he truly felt li
ke today was the day he was going to find Holly.

  As much as that belief wasn’t based on anything but pure hope; pure optimism.

  The sun was back out again. The rain clouds of the last few days had passed over, and summer had returned in full stead, a late bloom of beauty. Maybe it was that sunshine that gave Mike the optimism he was currently experiencing. Because, as he said, his hopes of finding Holly again were just that: hopes.

  But there was something about today that made Mike wonder. There was something about today that made Mike feel there was positivity in the air.

  And that something was the fact that despite all the odds against it, he’d managed to reunite with Kumal.

  He looked to his left. Saw Kumal walking alongside him. He was quiet, but that was understandable, especially after everything he’d told him had happened to Gina. Especially with the bond he had with Gina.

  It was hard. Of course it was hard.

  But at least he had Mike with him now.

  Their goal was simple: to find some trace of Holly. Mike had led Kumal back in the direction he’d lost Holly. He was amazed just how far he’d been taken from that location when he’d ended up at Claire’s place. It’d taken time to find his bearings again, but he was back on the right path.

  There might be no Google Maps anymore, but it was a good job he was a guy who knew where he was going.

  Holly had to be somewhere along this path.

  Or perhaps she wouldn’t be. Perhaps she had been taken off the path by whoever had taken her.

  And that was the problem. She could be anywhere…

  But he had to keep going. He had to keep trying.

  He had to keep hoping.

  They walked through a quiet little village. Saw a couple of people in the distance, who disappeared upon sight of Mike and Kumal.

  “You’re going to have to speak to people,” Kumal said.

  Mike gritted his teeth. “Not if I don’t have to.”