by Ryan Casey
“If you want a better chance of finding Holly, you’re going to have to speak with people who might’ve seen her. You know that.”
Mike sighed. He knew Kumal was right.
“So how about you start with these people up ahead?” Kumal asked.
Mike wasn’t sure. But hell—he was going to have to try something.
He went to walk towards the people who’d disappeared when he saw something.
There was a group of people standing in the road ahead.
They were holding knives.
Mike’s skin recoiled. He reached for his Becker BK-2 right away, instinctively. Because these people were dangerous. These people were a threat. And he was going to have to do everything he could to survive.
“Wait,” Kumal said.
Mike frowned. “Wait? Really?”
“These people are—are just as scared as you and me,” he said. “But we don’t want trouble. We just want to speak. Make that clear to them.”
Mike wasn’t sure about Kumal’s proposal. But at the same time… he sensed truth to his words. Sure, this situation could explode into something nasty. But it didn’t have to.
He could try.
The people walked towards him, towards Kumal. There were six of them. They didn’t look like they were messing around.
“Brave move walking down this road,” one of them—face covered by a balaclava—said. “What’ve you got for us?”
Mike thought about standing firm. He thought about holding his ground.
But then he thought about the kind of trouble this situation could descend into, and how he had to avoid it at all costs.
“We’ve got food,” Mike said. “Water. Weapons. We’ve got a lot.”
He took off his rucksack. Dropped it on the ground. Gestured for Kumal to do the same.
Despite seeming keen earlier, Kumal didn’t look too enthusiastic anymore.
But eventually he complied.
The group looked at them with curiosity like they weren’t used to this kind of response.
The leader of the group walked towards them. Opened the rucksacks, checked inside. Then he nodded, gesturing the rest of his people to take the stuff while some of them kept an eye on Mike and Kumal. “Either you’re stupid, but that wouldn’t have kept you alive this far. Or you’re cowards… but again, that wouldn’t have got you this far. So I can only harbour a guess that you’re doing this for a reason.”
Mike thought about turning back on his actions. He thought about standing his ground and fighting.
But he was in too deep now to turn back.
“My daughter,” he said.
“Ah. Always a loved one involved.”
“Tall. Dark hair. Holly, she’s called. I lost her not far from here. She got taken from me. Last thing I heard was her screaming.”
“And what does this have to do with anything?”
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat. “If you know anything… I’m willing to offer all my stuff—all our stuff—for that kind of information.”
A few whispers amongst the group. A few glances.
Then the leader looked back at Mike. “And if we don’t?”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to take our stuff anyway, right?”
Again, Mike got the sense his words had caught this guy and his people off guard. They were used to fighting for supplies. They weren’t used to this kind of gesture of goodwill.
“So you actually are stupid,” the leader said.
“Maybe so,” Mike said. “But that’s what my daughter’s worth to me.”
The man looked back at his people. He nodded.
And then something unexpected happened.
They threw their bags back towards Mike and Kumal.
Started to walk away.
Mike frowned. “What—”
“We don’t know where your daughter is. But we do know about a group near here. Real nasty. Kidnap people. Kidnapped one of our own. Seem to go for younger girls and women.”
Mike’s stomach turned. “What do they do with them?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Nobody really knows. But I will say one thing.”
He walked right up to Mike, then. Beneath his balaclava, he looked into Mike’s eyes.
“I’m offering your stuff back because I think you’re a genuinely decent human being, which is rare in this world. And because I want to soften the blow of what I have to tell you next.”
He told Mike.
The blow wasn’t softened.
Everything changed.
Chapter Thirty-One
Holly walked off down the road, totally alone, but feeling more optimistic and more positive than she’d felt in a long time.
Or at least as optimistic and as positive as someone on her own out here could.
The afternoon was warm and humid. Her neck still ached. She’d no doubt she’d probably done some pretty bad damage… but she still felt fortunate and grateful, mostly because anything was better than the alternative.
She didn’t have any real goal in sight anymore. Just making it to somewhere safe. She had her dad in mind. She didn’t know where exactly she’d lost him—in the woods somewhere, sure, but she wasn’t sure exactly. Attempting to go back there was futile. Besides, she knew Dad. He’d have come charging after her.
Only problem was, she wasn’t sure which direction he’d headed in. She wasn’t sure how long he’d followed her, or who he might’ve bumped into on the way. She knew nothing.
All she could do was make her own path—as hard and bitter a pill as that was to swallow.
And hope she ran into someone and somewhere on the road that would help her find a new place she could call home.
She was surprised by her own commitment to this. After all, she had plenty of reason not to trust people, especially after what’d happened in the town a few miles back.
But she was fast realising that she couldn’t do this alone. Nobody could. People needed each other if this world was to survive; if it was to push forward. People couldn’t keep on doing their own thing, going their own ways.
She had to try and find somewhere. She had to try and find someone.
And if she didn’t… then that just went to show the sorry state of this world.
She walked further. She hunted. She gathered water. She went through all the “silly” things Dad taught her in her mind, over and over again. She was thankful for her dad, of course. He’d taught her so many things, trained her in so many ways. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him—she knew that too well.
But she couldn’t keep clinging to the idea of him. If she wanted to survive, she had to find her own path; find her own way.
That was the only way she could truly honour him.
But beyond that. She had to be willing to do the things not even he had been willing to do.
Because people would look down on someone like her. People would frown at someone like her.
She had to be something even darker if she wanted to survive in this world.
She’d been walking for some time when she saw a village up ahead.
It was quiet. There weren’t many people around. There was a church, and some kind of pub although that didn’t look in the best state.
Holly stared over at it and wondered if maybe there could be something building there. There were a few people; maybe they were the start of something.
But that caution remained.
That hesitation.
She went to turn around when she saw a man standing there.
He was tall. Bulky. He looked dishevelled, but in a way that suggested he had looked pretty good not long ago at all.
His eyes were red. His shirt was torn. He looked like he was burned in several places—and quite badly.
He looked at Holly in a strange way. A way that she couldn’t describe. Not at first.
Then it struck her.
The word for it.
Desperate.
“Please,” he said. “You… you have to help me. Please.”
Holly’s hackles rose up right away. She wanted to help this man, but at the same time, she was cautious. She was hesitant.
He staggered closer towards her, arm outstretched. “You—you have to help me. Please. Please.”
“Okay,” Holly said. “Okay.”
She was surprised at herself that she’d actually said the word to be honest. She still wasn’t sure about all this, about any of it.
But then what was she going to do?
Leave this guy on his own?
Leave him to fend for himself?
He was clearly in a bad way. In need of help.
And there was something about him.
Something that drew her towards him.
She wasn’t sure what it was, but she found herself following her instincts anyway.
“Thank you,” he said. Then he staggered further towards Holly, and she wasn’t sure what was happening, not entirely, not until he fell down in front of her, wrapping his arms around his body and shaking.
“Can I… can I get you some food or something?” Holly asked. She didn’t know what else to suggest. “I got some berries when I was on my way here.”
She handed the man some berries, and he took them, gratefully. He ate them, appreciating every bite.
And when he’d done, some of the juice dribbling down his chin, he looked up at Holly, and he smiled. “Thank you. You’re an angel, truly.”
“I’m just helping.”
“Not many people help these days. Trust, it’s a dying commodity.”
Holly helped him sit back up. When he was upright, she sat next to him. She didn’t know why, but he made her feel comfortable. He made her feel okay.
“What’s your name, anyway?” he asked.
Holly felt her tongue swelling in her mouth. She didn’t want to say the truth. Something was still holding her back.
But then she found herself saying it.
“Holly.”
The man smiled. Leaned closer towards her. “Holly,” he said.
He held out a hand.
Holly hesitated. Just a moment.
Then she took it. Shook it.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, smile stretching across his face. “My name’s David.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Alison felt like everything was going well for her, Gina, and Arya until they reached the small village of Goosnargh, where everything changed.
The day was stretching on, flying by far too fast. They’d been walking for quite some time now. Arya was doing particularly well considering she’d been stitched up not long ago. But still, Alison was worried about her. She was worried that she was going to push herself too far.
She had to hope she was going to be okay. She wasn’t sure how far she could push, how much she could take.
But they’d made it this far. That had to count for something.
But things had changed. They’d reached Goosnargh. And at first, everything seemed good. At first, everything seemed quiet.
Gina walked by Alison’s side, head lowered. “You know, sometimes I can’t help feeling like I’m a liability.”
Alison frowned. “Don’t feel that way. Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“Right from the beginning, I know how my friends see me. They see me as the timid one. The worrier. But I don’t want to be that person. Not forever. And escaping David, escaping that pub… I don’t know. Even though I put all my faith in it, it made me feel stronger. It made me feel better.”
Alison felt her stomach knotting as they walked. There was something she wanted to say. Something she’d wanted to say for a long time.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your friends.”
Gina lowered her head. “That’s okay—”
“But it’s not. It’s never okay, what you’ve been through. And you don’t have to feel like you’re sensitive, or a liability, or anything like that. You’re a survivor. And you’re going to keep on being a survivor.”
Gina looked into Alison’s eyes. She smiled, then. And Alison felt a connection between them. She felt a connection strengthening.
And then just as they were walking down the main street, Alison heard a scream.
She froze at first. Went totally still. Because that scream, it was the unfiltered sound of someone in fear, or in pain, or in agony.
Then Alison saw the person in the window.
Saw them standing there, gun in their hands.
Her body went numb. Because there was no doubting who this was. It was the foreign military group.
“They’re here,” Alison said.
Gina went quiet, too. Arya went still. And as they stood there, Alison heard another scream.
And with that scream, she knew they couldn’t wait around anymore. She knew they couldn’t stall.
“We have to get off this street,” Alison said.
She ran. Right away, she made a break for the houses at the side of the street. Just somewhere to lay low, somewhere to shelter.
Then she saw the movement to her left.
“They’re coming,” Gina said.
Alison threw herself into the alleyway down by the side of the houses. Once she was down there, she kept on running, kept on going towards the end, Gina and Arya following closely behind.
But she could hear someone else, too.
More footsteps. Footsteps heading in the direction of the alleyway.
Footsteps heading quickly in their direction.
She threw herself even quicker down the alleyway, even faster towards the end of it, when she saw something that made her stomach sink.
The alleyway came to a dead end.
There were bricks stacked at the end of it; a solid wall.
There was no getting past it.
“Shit,” Alison said. She went to turn around, went to head back.
Then she saw the shadows.
There were a few moments that bordered on the horror movie-esque that Alison had encountered since the EMP struck. A few moments that would live in her psyche for the rest of her life.
But there were few as pertinent; as prominent, as this.
The way the shadows of this armed group lit up in the setting sun—the shadows that headed in the direction of the alley.
Alison felt her stomach sink. There was no way they were getting out of that end of the alleyway. But there was a dead end, so there was no getting over that wall either. There were no windows either side. There was nothing. They were trapped.
“What do we do?” Gina asked.
And it was a question that stayed with Alison, as she watched the shadows get closer.
It was a question she found herself asking repeatedly, as the tips of those rifles appeared, as the group reached the top of the alleyway.
It was a question she asked as she stood there, facing up to the reality that there was no way out of this, no matter what she thought of, no matter how much she tried to mentally manoeuvre her way out of this.
The group emerged at the top of the alleyway.
They looked down in Alison, Gina, and Arya’s direction.
There was a pause. Just for a moment.
And then the group lifted their rifles.
Chapter Thirty-Three
An hour had passed since the leader of that rival group told Mike those fateful words, and still he just couldn’t accept them.
It was night. Mike and Kumal were sitting around a fire. They’d walked off the road, off into the fields. It was quiet around here, but Mike swore he could hear the murmurings of speaking somewhere off in the distance, which was keeping him alert even if it was one of their turns to grab some rest soon, while the other stayed on lookout for a while.
But Mike might as well take lookout all night. Because there was no way he was sleeping anytime soon.
Not after what that man had told him.
He’d told him of a town in the distance, about seven or eight mi
les from here. A town where they’d heard a group were holding down, kidnapping random strangers, forcing some of them into work, torturing others.
But the hardest part of what he’d said?
This group were supposedly hanging people, too.
And the man had seen a young girl hanging.
A young girl matching Holly’s description.
“It might not be her,” Kumal said.
Mike looked over at Kumal, his face illuminating in the glow of the fire. He wanted to believe him. But at the same time, he was scared. Scared of what he might find. Because sure, there was a good chance it wasn’t Holly. After all, there were so many girls matching her description.
But there was also a chance it was Holly.
It was somebody’s Holly after all, so why not his?
Whatever the case, Mike wasn’t sure how he was going to react if it was.
“At the end of the day,” Kumal said, stoking the fire. “I’d say we have a choice.”
“Enlighten me.”
“We go to that town. We find out for ourselves.”
“Or?”
“Or you’ll never know. You’ll never have the closure you need right now.”
Mike didn’t like what Kumal was saying. This talk of “closure.” Because he didn’t want closure. He wanted Holly, alive, safe.
But at the same time… he knew where Kumal was coming from, and he knew what he had to do.
“We get up first thing,” Mike said, as hard as it was to say the words; as hard as it was to accept. “We have some food, prepare ourselves. Then we leave. We’re going to find my daughter. Or we’re not. But one way or another, we’re going to that town, and we’re finding out the truth.”
Kumal smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
If only he knew what was coming next.
Mike woke to the smell of burning.
Except… wait. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep. He’d been on watch. He wasn’t supposed to drift off. What’d happened? What’d gone wrong?
He opened his eyes, saw it was still dark. And that smell of burning, it wasn’t there anymore.
But it was replaced.
It was replaced by something else.
Shouting.