A Solar Winter (Into the Dark Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller Book 4)

by Ryan Casey

  Sofia walked up to her. Pointed the knife at her. “I have to find Ian. I have… I have to find the girl who killed my son—”

  “I know you don’t want to believe it was an accident. I know you want to blame somebody for what happened. And that’s fine. That’s understandable. I blame her too. But we’re walking out into the wild. It’s not safe out—”

  Sofia smacked her then. She pointed the knife to her chin. “Don’t tell me what’s safe or not safe. Don’t even try and tell me what I should be doing. We’re here because of your girl. We’re here because of what happened to my son.”

  “And there’s no taking away from what happened,” Alison said. “But you have to grow up. You have to face up to reality. It’s happened. It’s done. It’s over, and I’m so sorry. But we need to move forward now. Or it’ll tear us apart. It’ll kill us all.”

  Sofia turned her head. She looked at her son, lying there on the ground. “He was always so kind,” Sofia said, “He was our second, you know? We lost our first.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She didn’t seem to hear. “And I swore if anything ever happened to him, if anyone ever tried to take him away from me, I’d…”

  She looked at Alison then. Something had shifted to her face. There was a different look in her eyes. Like something had shifted.

  “Get on your knees,” she said.

  Alison frowned. “What—”

  “Get on your knees right this second.”

  Alison saw the way she lifted the knife.

  She saw the way she came towards her.

  And she knew there could be no messing around. Not anymore.

  She went to swing the knife at her, and Alison could only do one thing.

  She turned around, and she ran.

  She ran through the trees. She ran through the snow. She felt her knees wobble as she moved, weakness still splitting through her system. But she had to get away. She had to get somewhere, and she had to hide from Sofia.

  Because if she didn’t, she was going to be in trouble.

  Big trouble.

  She went to take a left and hide behind a tree.

  But right away, she felt something punch against her back.

  She rolled onto the ground. Spun over. Tried to kick and fight free.

  But Sofia was on top of her.

  Knife raised.

  “Don’t do this!” Alison shouted.

  Sofia held the knife there. Tears streamed down her face. “My son’s gone. Both my sons are gone. And now my husband’s gone. But you’re still here. You’re still here and it’s… it’s just not fair.”

  Alison heard Sofia’s crying. And she found herself crying too. Because she was right. It wasn’t fair. This world wasn’t fair. What Holly had done was wrong.

  But it was what it was.

  “I’m sorry for what you’ve suffered. But I’ve suffered too. I’ve lost too. But we’re alone now. We’re alone together. So we’ve got to make the most of it. We’ve got to survive.”

  Alison saw the way Sofia’s face shifted. She saw the consideration, the uncertainty.

  Then she heard the way she sighed, saw the way her head shook, twitched.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just… I just can’t.”

  She brought the knife flying down towards Alison.

  Alison closed her eyes.

  Held her breath.

  And then…

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Holly followed the oil trail from Gina’s van and wondered what the hell she was walking towards.

  It was late. The darkness had arrived far quicker than she’d expected, and it had brought along with it one of the iciest blasts of cold Holly had experienced in a long time. Emma walked alongside her, footsteps crunching through the heavy snowfall. The wind raced past Holly’s hooded head, her ears like frozen little blocks.

  But she had to keep moving because she had a goal in sight. She had a place where she wanted to go—at last.

  Wherever Gina was going.

  She looked over her shoulder, back at the darkness. Part of her wanted to go back for Alison. But it was too far at this stage. There was nothing she could do for Alison. Not anymore.

  So she turned back ahead.

  That was when she saw the light.

  She stopped walking right away. Emma didn’t, not at first. Not until she realised Holly had stopped. “What’s up?” she asked.

  Holly stood there. Stared into the distance, into the darkness. The whistling of the wind all around her; the racing of her heartbeat reverberating in her chest.

  And this thing in the distance.

  This light.

  She kept totally still. Because there was no denying what was right in front of them.

  A light.

  Not the light from a candle, either.

  But the light from a torch.

  She felt the dread building up inside. She wanted to take out her knife and take on whoever this was.

  But then there was Emma, beside her.

  Emma, who she’d sworn to protect.

  So she reached for Emma’s hand. “We need to get off the road.”

  Emma shook her head, reached for the rifle, which she clearly didn’t know how to use. “But—”

  “No buts. We get off the road right this second.”

  She pulled Emma off to the right, made a break for one of the side streets. The snow just seemed to be getting thicker, more and more tricky to wade through.

  Holly looked back over at that light.

  But then something struck her.

  It was gone.

  There was just total darkness now.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat as she looked back there and tried to get her head around why it had disappeared; tried to understand.

  And then she turned down the side road, and she saw it again.

  She stopped. Stopped dead in her tracks, body completely frozen.

  Because this light. It was the same light she’d seen before.

  Or…

  She saw more of these lights then. More of them flicking on from the windows of the building to her right.

  And she felt her skin begin to crawl.

  “Emma, we need to run. Now!”

  “But Holly—”

  Holly didn’t even wait to listen to her. She just sprinted out of the side road, back onto the main road. Because those lights. She didn’t know who was holding them. She didn’t know who they belonged to. Just that they couldn’t belong to anyone good, because there was no good left, not anymore.

  She ran down the main street, but the snow just got thicker and thicker. It felt like she was wading through thick tar. She wasn’t sure how much further she was going to be able to keep on going, just that she had to, or those lights would surround her, they’d get her, they’d swallow her up whole…

  She looked over her shoulder, and what she saw made her stomach drop entirely.

  There was a whole cluster of lights. Like stars in the night sky.

  And they were all getting bigger as they got closer to her and Emma.

  “Holly, what’s wrong?” Emma shouted.

  But Holly just ignored her again. She kept on running, even though running was growing more difficult, even though the snow got thicker, even though those lights got closer.

  But the weirdest thing was who she was thinking of.

  The weirdest thing was that she wasn’t worrying about herself anymore. At least not solely.

  She was worrying about Emma.

  She fell to the snow. Emma fell with her. She was screaming at her. Shouting at her.

  And Holly just wanted to hold Emma. She wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay.

  But in the darkness, she could see other people in Emma.

  She could see the people she’d killed in Emma.

  She could see little Tommy in Emma.

  “Holly? Holly!”

  She felt the lights surrounding her. “I’m sorry, E
mma.”

  Then a smack against her face.

  “Holly!”

  The lights vanished. The buzzing in her head eased. Even the snow around her didn’t feel as thick anymore.

  “Holly, what’s wrong?”

  She looked up. Saw Emma staring down at her. She couldn’t see her face in the darkness, but she could tell she was… bemused.

  “The… the lights,” Holly said.

  “What lights?”

  “The ones I saw. The ones we were—we were trying to get away from.”

  Emma shook her head. Sniffed up. “There weren’t any lights.”

  “There were—”

  “There weren’t,” Emma said. “It’s just us.”

  Holly’s heart raced. She couldn’t have just hallucinated all that. It felt so… real.

  But then Emma hadn’t seen it.

  She was telling her she hadn’t seen it.

  She looked up at her, feeling even colder than she had before. Her head was starting to spin, mostly through the release of adrenaline now than anything else.

  “I don’t… I don’t think I’m very well,” Holly said.

  Emma didn’t say a word. But Holly knew there had to be fear there. After all, she was the responsible one. She was supposed to be protecting Emma.

  How could she protect Emma if she couldn’t even protect herself?

  She pushed herself up to her feet. Her legs shook, wobbled. As scared as she was—of her own mind rather than anything—she had to keep a measured demeanour.

  She held out a hand to Emma.

  “Come on,” she said. “We should keep moving.”

  “We should get some rest.”

  Holly nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  She set up camp, made sure they were sheltered, for the night at least. They had to make use of some old tarpaulin, but it would do, for now. It’d keep the wind out.

  Some of it, at least.

  When they were set up, Holly curled up, wrapped her arms around her freezing body and stared up into the stars.

  She knew she should rest. But she couldn’t sleep a wink.

  Or at least she didn’t think she’d slept a wink.

  If she had stayed awake, she’d have noticed the footsteps approaching her and Emma in the dead of night…

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mike looked at Kelsie’s unconscious body lying on the ground, and he wasn’t sure how to react.

  He ran towards her out of instinct more than anything. He landed by her side, put a hand underneath her head.

  “What happened?” he shouted. “What the hell happened?”

  “Just fell,” Sergei said, using his limited English. He looked deeply panicked, deeply concerned. “She—she just fell.”

  Mike looked down at Kelsie’s face. Her eyes were closed, but they looked like they were moving underneath the eyelids. She was breathing rapidly, which was a good sign at least. Her little heart was pumping away.

  “Please, Kelsie,” he said, stroking her hair, the fear of losing someone else so present, so real. “Don’t die on me. Please.”

  As he looked down at her lying there, the only thing that came to his mind was his daughter, Holly. Because it felt like it was her lying there. He felt the same pain that he would for his daughter. He felt the same sense of loss.

  Because this girl. She’d been through so much.

  Not least because of him. Because of what he’d done to her father.

  He stroked her face. “Please, Kelsie. Just… just stay with us. Please.”

  But as he sat there, he realised something. He couldn’t keep beating himself up for what had happened to Kelsie’s dad. He couldn’t keep punishing himself for what had gone down.

  It was survival. Especially in those early days.

  And sure, it was good to be mindful of the decisions you’d made; the things you’d done. It was the fine line to walk between surviving and turning into a full-blown killer.

  But Mike knew he’d more than repaid a debt to this girl, and to her father.

  “Kelsie, pl—”

  Kelsie coughed.

  Her eyes opened. She looked up at him.

  But there was something about the way she looked at him that was… different, somehow. Like she was lost.

  “Where’s Dad?” she said.

  In that instant, Mike felt his heart sink. He swallowed a lump in his throat. He didn’t want to tell Kelsie the truth. He couldn’t. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s me. It’s Mike—”

  “My dad,” Kelsie said. “He—he went. He went, and I haven’t seen him for…”

  She stopped, then. Stopped, mid-speech.

  Mike sensed Kelsie was coming around; sensed she was remembering who she was, who Mike was, where she was.

  “It’s okay,” he said, leaning towards her. “You just had a little faint, that’s all. Probably from all the walking, and the shock of everything. But it’s okay, now. You’re back.”

  Kelsie nodded like she was just accepting her fate. She looked around at Yuri and the others, then at the snow. “It looks so pretty like this,” she said.

  Mike frowned. “What does?”

  She looked up, then. Looked right into his eyes. “Everything.”

  And then a trickle of blood seeped out of her left nostril.

  Then her right.

  Dread hit Mike square in the chest. “Kelsie?” he said.

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  But then her head fell back, and she passed out again.

  Mike shook her. “Kelsie!”

  But it was no use.

  Kelsie was unconscious, again.

  “What’s happened?” Yuri asked.

  “She’s—she’s passed out again. But she’s bleeding this time. She’s bleeding and—”

  “Mike, you need to stay calm.”

  He stood up. Squared up to Yuri. “Don’t tell me to stay calm.”

  Yuri raised his hands, fear in his face. “I’m just saying. We need to stay calm if we want to keep Kelsie safe. She’s not safe on the road right now. We need to get her somewhere. Somewhere she can recuperate.”

  Mike raised his hands. “Somewhere she can recuperate? We’re in the middle of frigging nowhere. We’re halfway to this place you’re supposedly leading us to. But she isn’t going to make it long enough. She’s weak, Yuri. She needs help.”

  “Maybe we know someone who can help,” Yuri said.

  His head lowered when he spoke the words, which filled Mike with suspicion. “What do you mean by that?”

  Sergei looked back at Yuri and Andrei. He said a couple of things to them in his language, and they argued for a while, which didn’t reassure Mike.

  “What is it?” Mike asked. “What do you suggest? Because we need to do something. We can’t just leave her on the damned road to die.”

  “We have some… colleagues. A few miles from here. They are holding on to a medical outpost. They should have the supplies we need.”

  Mike sensed trepidation from Yuri, like this wasn’t as simple as he was suggesting. “But?”

  “But we kind of broke from this group. It didn’t end nice. Let’s just say they’re much like the bad people you feared us to be. So getting them to help us… it’s not going to be easy, let’s say.”

  Mike looked at Kelsie as she lay there in the snow, blood drooling from her nostrils.

  Then he looked back at Yuri. “If it means looking after this girl, I’ll do anything.”

  “Would you die for her?” Yuri asked.

  Mike thought about what Kelsie meant to him. He thought about Holly, out there, somewhere. And he knew she’d be getting by. He knew how much it hurt him every day to know he wasn’t with her, but at the same time he knew how strong she was.

  She could do without him.

  But this girl… she deserved to live.

  He couldn’t just let Kelsie die.

  So Mike nodded.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Y
uri sighed. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t say that.” He raised his rifle. “Alas, I suppose it is time for a detour, after all.”

  He turned around. Walked up to Sergei and Andrei. Chatted with them for a few minutes, debated with them.

  Then eventually, they all stepped to Mike, all stepped to Kelsie, and all stood there.

  “We’ve had a vote,” Yuri said, smiling. “We decided we’ll help you out after all–”

  “Not as simple as that,” Sergei said.

  Then so quickly, so rapidly, everything changed.

  Sergei lifted his rifle.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Too dangerous.”

  Then Sergei fired at Yuri. Shot him down in a blast of bullets.

  Andrei looked back in fear. Tried to bargain with Sergei, tried to scramble for his gun.

  But it was already too late.

  Sergei shot Andrei, who was too stunned to do anything about it.

  Then Sergei pointed the rifle at Mike. Shook his head, sadness on his face.

  “Sorry,” he said, his English forced. “But I don’t die for you.”

  He looked at Mike. Then he looked at Kelsie, lying there on the ground.

  And then he turned around and disappeared into the snow.

  Mike and Kelsie were alone again.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Alison tightened her eyes as Sofia’s knife came flying down towards her.

  But it didn’t hit her.

  She heard the knife smack into the snow beside her. And then Sofia fell onto her, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “I just want my boy back,” Sofia said. “I—I just want my little boy back.”

  Alison felt Sofia’s grief. She put a hand on her back, tried to edge her away. “I’m sorry. Really. None of this was supposed to happen this way. But I’m not your enemy here. Nobody is.”

  Sofia lifted herself from Alison, then. She wiped the tears from her eyes. For the first time in a long time, she actually looked lucid. And Alison had to take advantage of that while she could.

  She edged her way from underneath Sofia. Stood up, looked down at Sofia as she lay there, head in her hands, tears rolling.

  “That—that girl. That Holly. She took everything away from me. Everything.”

  “And now she’s gone,” Alison said. “She’s out there somewhere… but we don’t know where. She’s walked away. So… so now’s not the time to start thinking about what has happened, painful as it is. Now’s not the time to start pursuing revenge. Now’s the time to start moving forward.”