by Ryan Casey
“Whoa!” one of them said, backing off. “Whoa. There’s no need to—”
“Back off,” Remy said. “Right this second.”
I saw the blood in the hallway, then. I saw a body. I didn’t have to look closely at it to know it was Derek’s.
“We can come to some sort of agreement here,” the man’s voice said.
“There’s only one agreement we’re going to come to. You’re going to back away—”
The next part was even more of a blur.
One of the men grabbed my left arm. He tightened his grip on it.
And in that blurred, muddled moment that ran at no speed at all, I pointed the gun at him and I fired.
The sound was electrifying. The blast made my ears ring. It felt like life changed, right then. Life before the shot was fired and life after.
I didn’t realise what was happening until I saw the man falling slowly to the floor. His eyes were wide, reflecting in the bright glimmer of the torchlight. He was looking down at his stomach, which was bleeding. Everyone around him looked shocked, too. Even the people beside me.
When he hit his knees, he gasped for a few seconds. He tried to say something, tried to get something out.
But then, he just looked back up at me with such fear, such disbelief.
“Monster,” he said. “You… monster.”
His eyes rolled back, then. He fell backwards, onto the floor of the hallway.
And at that moment, as the rest of the people fled, Remy and Hannah pointing their guns at them, I looked down at the body and I knew.
I knew the man was right.
I knew what I’d become.
Monster.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I looked down at the two bodies lying in the earth and I felt a wave of nausea take hold of me.
It was morning. The clouds were thick, and the rain was falling heavily. We were outside in Derek’s garden, which was mostly made up of long, overgrown grass and various contraptions all around the place. There were a few sheds, which were on the verge of collapse, propped up by long, thick beams of wood.
As run down as this place was, it was clear to see that it was Derek’s pride and joy. He cared a lot about his home.
So much so that he’d died protecting it.
I looked down at him lying there in the earth. He was six feet under, thereabouts. A couple of the others had suggested we bury him and the man I’d shot together, but I wasn’t comfortable with that. They deserved their own graves. Their own resting places.
Derek, in particular, after everything he’d done to defend this place.
I felt a hand brush my arm, and it made my jump. When I looked to my left, I saw that it was Hannah.
She half-smiled at me, grey-faced. “You okay?”
I gripped the shovel in my hand and nodded, but of course I wasn’t. I felt sick. I knew that, for as long as I lived, that smell of the damp earth would remind me of what I’d done.
Of what I was now.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You need a hand digging—”
“No,” I said, sternly. “Thank you. But no. I need to do this myself.”
Hannah opened her mouth, looking like she was about to protest.
Then she sighed and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Just as long as you know you did what you had to do.”
You did what you had to do. That’s what everyone kept saying. But they didn’t know the truth. They couldn’t be inside my head when I’d reacted at that moment.
All I knew was this man had reached out for me. He’d grabbed my arm. For all I knew, he was just trying to get me to lower my weapon, using the only way he saw feasible.
I’d reacted purely out of fear.
“Maybe I didn’t have to,” I said, not wanting to mope but unable to stop the guilt crippling me.
“You can’t say that,” Hannah said. “You did the only thing you saw right at that moment.”
“We could’ve negotiated.”
“They killed Derek.”
I heard Hannah’s words clearly this time. And when she looked at me, I knew she didn’t feel any guilt about what I’d done. But then again, why would she?
She hadn’t pulled the trigger.
“I just…” I started, feeling my throat begin to swell up and wrap around my words.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You can get it off your chest.”
I sniffed and turned away from her, from the hole in the ground in front of me. “I want to just be myself. I don’t—I don’t want to be this person. I can’t be that person. Because it’s not who I am.”
Hannah squeezed my arm a little tighter. “Scott, none of us are the people we used to be. Our identities aren’t fixed. One event like this, sure, it can change everything. But it doesn’t make you a bad man. It doesn’t make you a villain. You did what you thought was right. And besides. We’re safe now.”
She said those three words with little conviction. I knew she didn’t believe them, not really, and neither did I.
“You finish off here,” she said. “Then come meet the rest of us. We’ll talk.”
I smiled at her as the rain poured down from above, trickling down my face. “Thank you,” I said.
“Stay strong.”
She walked away, and she left me alone with Derek, who I felt partly responsible for, as I dug my shovel into the earth and began to cover him.
Beside the grave, Lionel lay with his head on his paws and began to whimper.
Thirty minutes or so later, I walked away from the grave I’d dug for Derek and joined the rest of the group around the front of the house, Lionel by my side.
It was Haz who saw me first. He lifted a hand and waved, and then the rest of them turned and faced me, looking at me like I was some kind of ill school kid returning for the first time, trying to act welcoming and accommodating while secretly not wanting to be anywhere near in case they caught some of whatever was in my system.
“Hey,” Hannah said, as I walked up to them. “How’re you—”
“I’ve thought about staying here, but truthfully, I think we owe it to Derek to make the most of his supplies and begin our journey.”
“Our journey where?” Sue asked.
I took a deep breath. “The military safe zone that Derek told us about. The one by the coast.”
Haz shook his head. “Can’t help feeling nervous about that idea. We saw what the military did the last time we got near them.”
“That was there. We can’t judge everyone based on that. It can’t be the same everywhere. There has to be something in what Derek said. We have to have faith. Otherwise… well, we just stay here, and then what? We just wait until the day we run out of supplies? We give up? No. That’s not what we do. That’s not who we are.”
I saw the looks on the faces of Sue, of Remy, Hannah, Haz, and Sue’s kids.
I pointed back at the house. “In there, there are things that can help us. Things we can use to aid what we’re trying to do.”
“A lot to learn,” Remy said.
“Well, no better time to start learning than the present.”
“And you’re sure this is the right call?” Sue asked.
I realised then—the questions I was having posed at me—all of it was adding to my credentials as some kind of leader. I’d never been a leader. I’d always been in the background. I didn’t think I could be a leader.
Someone had to be. And it looked like that was going to be me.
“I can’t be sure,” I said. “But I am sure about one thing. If we don’t do this—if we don’t try—we’re going to regret it for the rest of our lives.”
I saw Hannah walk towards me. Then Remy. Then Haz, and Sue, and her kids.
“So what do you say?” I asked. “The safe zone. We’re all agreed that’s where we go. Okay?”
I saw the smiles. I saw the nods.
“We’re with you,” Hannah said.
I looked over my shoulder at the
hole in the ground where the man I’d shot lay.
Then I looked at the hole where Derek was and remembered that cracking sound I’d heard—the first of two moments that I knew would never leave me, not ever.
I looked down at Lionel. “And are you ready, boy?”
He looked back up at me and let out a little bark.
I took that as a yes.
It was time for us to make our way to that safe zone, once and for all.
Chapter Thirty-Four
We’d been walking for two days and exhaustion was well and truly starting to catch up with us.
The sky was grey, thick with clouds. It’d been like that for the bulk of our journey. We’d spent a lot of time walking between suburbs, trying to divert clear of them before we could step inside them. As we had things—supplies from Derek’s safe room—we didn’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves.
That said, there were a lot of people around who had the same idea of moving out of the suburbs because of the chaos of the cities spreading there, so it wasn’t like we were alone or anything like that. We encountered someone new pretty much every hour.
But fortunately for us, despite a few frosty moments that could’ve got nasty, things seemed to be going okay. We hadn’t had anything stolen, and we hadn’t lost anyone else.
Not yet.
We hadn’t taken the car from Derek’s quite simply because there wasn’t enough fuel in it to get it running. And besides, as much as we could use fuel from other cars, we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. We knew what was the priority here—getting to that safe zone. If we could get there as quickly as possible, we wouldn’t even have any need for a car.
We had to think long term. We had to be careful.
Hannah put her hands on her knees and leaned forward as we reached the end of a field. She turned and shook her head. Her lips were chapped, and she looked pale.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Blisters on my feet are hurting like a bitch.”
“Want a massage?”
“Ew,” she said. “No thanks.”
“I was joking.”
“I should hope so.” She stood up again then. The rest of the group passed us, carried on their walk forward. “Hey. How’re you holding up?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat and tried to shake off what Hannah said right away. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? It’s just—”
“I’m fine. Really.”
She didn’t look convinced. I couldn’t blame her for being that way.
But she just said, “Good. Because what you did back at the house…”
“Was the only way,” I interrupted. “Right.”
Again, Hannah looked like she wanted to push me to speak some more. But she wasn’t going to get a thing else from me.
“How much further?” I asked.
Hannah puffed out her lips. “Remy seems to be the directions expert. I’m just the follower.”
I nodded, then stepped forward to the stile, crossing over into another field.
“Hey,” Hannah said.
I stopped. Looked at her. “What?”
“Do you really…”
“Do I really what?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“No. It does matter. What were you going to say?”
“It’s just… this talk of a safe zone. I’m not sure I believe it.”
Hannah’s words vocalised my own thoughts and fears this entire journey. “Derek is… was a clever man. If he says he heard something, then I’d wager a bet he did.”
“But it’s been days. Do you really think there’s going to be something there? I mean, who’s to say it won’t just be another place that has closed the doors to everyone from the outside, like the bunker back near Sue’s old place?”
Sickliness grew in my body, stretching right up through to my chest when Hannah spoke those words. After all, they were my fears too. She wasn’t alone in her uncertainties.
But I took a deep, sharp inhalation of breath and smiled. “We won’t know what’s waiting for us if we give up. So as far as I see it, we’ve no choice but to press on. Okay?”
A look of uncertainty on Hannah’s face. Then a resigned shrug and a smile. “Okay.”
“Good.” I offered a hand.
She looked at it like it was something filthy. “I can walk without someone holding my hand. Thanks.”
I walked ahead, past Lionel—who seemed to be settling into our company pretty happily—before I had to face up to any more embarrassment.
We walked on, much further. Rain fell heavily now, making the mud squelch beneath our feet. Holly and Aiden were playing in the mud, which made Sue smile for the first time since Jason had died. Haz walked with Lionel for the most part, a match made in heaven it seemed.
Remy walked alone, right at the front of the group.
There was something that intrigued me about Remy. It struck me that, in spite of how long we’d all been together now, there was still so little I knew about him.
There was a time for everything.
And now felt like the time to learn who Remy really was.
I caught him up and smiled. “How we progressing?”
He studied the fields like he could tell just from a glance where we were at and what we had to do next. “I’d say we’ll be there in a few hours. Hopefully before nightfall.”
“And if we don’t get there before nightfall?”
“Then we continue tomorrow.”
Remy’s answers were matter of fact, and hard to take for anything other than their base value. I was finding it hard to start a conversation, especially with the big elephant in the room about his past that was annoying me.
“I know you’d like to know more about me.”
I frowned. Remy’s words had caught me by surprise. I felt like he was reading my mind. “What?”
Remy half-smiled. “I see the way you look at me. The curiosity. You want to know my past. Don’t you?”
I scratched the back of my neck and thought about trying to lie my way around it. But in the end, it felt like honesty was the best policy. “I can’t lie. It’d be nice to know something about you. Starting with why you were in the elevator with Julia at my workplace. Or my old workplace, I guess.”
Remy chuckled like he was enjoying his lack of transparency and the effect it was having on others. “You know I’m in the alternative medicine business.”
“So what was a guy in the alternative medicine business doing in my workplace? That’s my question.”
He looked at me, then. And I felt like he was seeing inside of me, the first person to do so for a long time. “Julia.”
My stomach sank when he said her name. “What about Julia?”
“She thought you could use some help in work.”
My cheeks flushed. I didn’t know what to say. “What?”
“Julia saw the effect losing your mother and your wife had on you. She figured it would help you get back to your best if you had someone come in and talk to you. Someone to train you in meditation, mindfulness, that sort of thing. I was supposed to be sitting in on your interview to monitor your situation.”
The explosion of guilt was paralysing. I was literally speechless for a few seconds. “Julia?”
“Julia.”
“Julia Wilkinson?”
“That’s the one.”
“But she hated me.”
Remy shrugged. “Sometimes there is a fine line between love and hate.”
My desire to know more about Remy evaporated at that moment. All that seemed to matter was the act of kindness Julia prepared for me, especially for that day. So she must’ve been planning on giving me the job after all. She must’ve seen just how much I was really struggling.
And I’d left her behind.
I was about to ask Remy more when I saw someone up ahead.
It was a woman. She had short, black curly hair and was wearing a maid’s outfit like someone fro
m another century. She was smiling at us, practically beaming. She gave me the creeps.
Then she opened her hands. “Welcome to your salvation,” she said. “You made it!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
It turned out the woman wasn’t from the safe zone after all.
But she had food on the table, and we were all sitting around it now darkness had fallen, rain hammering against the windows, wind creaking the foundations of the house.
The woman was called Margery. Her husband, Bill. He was a plump man with a balding head. He had these brown eyes and this flat smile that didn’t seem like it really connected with you when you looked at it; more looked through you.
It unnerved me. But again, food was on the table, and this pair was offering shelter.
The dinner table was large and candlelit. Funnily enough, there weren’t any light bulbs in the house. The lights were emptied of bulbs, and wax had trickled down the sides of the candles, which made me wonder if perhaps this family didn’t use electricity at all, relying on the light of candles to get by. If you’d told me people like this existed a couple of days ago, I’m not sure I would’ve believed you.
But right now, after having seen Derek’s prepper lab and everything else along the way, I was pretty much ready to buy into anything.
The weirdest thing about Margery and Bill’s home? The young girls, sitting around the table.
There were five of them, and all of them were dressed in the same white nighties. They looked too young to be Margery’s children, and yet Bill looked a lot younger than Margery himself. Perhaps they were grandchildren. Relatives, of some kind.
Whatever they were, the longer this situation dragged on, the more uncertain I got.
But damn, the stew was good.
“So,” I said, seeing the need to cut through the awkward silence. “How’ve you been coping so far?”
Margery frowned. “Coping?”
“The blackout. The EMP strike or whatever it is. How’ve you been getting on?”
She glanced at Bill, and Bill glanced back at her like the pair of them didn’t know anything about what was going on.