by Ryan Casey
Now, we’d stopped in the woods, where I was attempting to cook without using the portable stove or any of Derek’s contraptions. Whenever anyone asked me why, I said it’s because we might not have those things forever, and that I wanted to be sure I had the knowledge to know what I was doing if I did end up with completely nothing.
I’d curled a small flexible tree sapling into an oval, using the smaller branches as a cord. I’d added some crossbars using leftover branches, the flexible cord letting them slide up and down to suit whatever food was going on it perfectly. That way, I could roast whatever meat or food I found over a pile of coals or an open flame. It was hard work, but I was making progress.
“I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face,” Hannah said.
Her voice made me jump a little. It seemed weird that she was addressing last night—or at least alluding to it. “Might be better to avoid talking about it,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I’m better when I talk about things. Gets things off my chest.”
“Just a shame for the rest of us who have to hear it.”
“Look. What happened last night happened. But I… I can’t help thinking if this is just how it is. How things always have been.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What’re you trying to say?”
“I guess I’m thinking whether we’ve really changed so much at all. If the world’s really changed. Or if this shift has just brought out the worst of us that’s always been there, deep down.”
I thought about what Hannah was saying. Did I have the capability of killing someone a few days ago? Did I think I could survive in a world where everyone was out for themselves?
No. I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I walked over to Hannah and put a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever the case, we’re still here. And we’re getting closer to the safe zone. When we get there, sure. We’ll have memories. Things we’ll have to live with for the rest of our lives. Hell, I’ll have nightmares. But at least we’ll have security. At least we’ll have order. And that’s the most important thing of all. Right?”
She smiled a little then, and I saw a twinkle in her eye. “I’ve not been entirely honest with you.”
My stomach sank. I didn’t know what was coming, but I wasn’t sure if it could be good. “What do you mean?”
“Back when we first met,” she said, lowering her head. “I told you I was a student.”
“Wait. You’re not a student?”
“I’m a patient.”
I frowned. I couldn’t understand what Hannah was saying. “A patient? Like…”
“Not anything physical. But… mentally. I was sectioned three months ago. I lost both my parents in an accident and I… I didn’t cope too well.”
I saw her holding her wrists like she always did, and suddenly things just clicked into place in an awful way. “Hannah…” I said.
“I wasn’t supposed to get too far from the place where I was staying. And it was a nice place, really it was. But I just felt suffocated there. So I… Even though I knew it’d get me in trouble, I caught a train, and I figured I’d see where I ended up.”
She shrugged, then.
“And here I am.”
We were silent for a while. The rest of the group were quite a way ahead now.
“So the stuff about your boyfriend…”
“All made up.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. About your parents. Really.”
She smiled back at me. “I know you are. But weirdly… since all this chaos, I know it sounds completely crazy but… well, I’ve felt freer than I have in a long, long time. I just worry that when we get to the safe zone—”
“It’ll be back to normality, where you’ll be judged crazy by the people in charge.”
I saw the tears build in her eyes like I’d taken the words right out of her mouth—words I was sure she hadn’t said to many people—if anyone.
Then she did something unexpected.
She stepped towards me and hugged me.
I put a hand on her back and hugged her, too. I felt her warmth as she held me close, together in the silence.
“I’m glad I met you,” she said.
I felt my jaw quivering and tears of my own beginning to roll down my face. “I’m glad I met you too.”
We stood there for a while, holding one another, when Haz stepped back towards us.
“Sorry to interrupt whatever this is,” he said. “But you might wanna know something important.”
“What?” I asked.
“We’ve found it,” he said, smile on his face. “The safe zone. We’ve found it.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When I stepped outside the woods and looked down the hill towards the sea, I saw right away what Haz was talking about.
It was a military base of some kind, no doubt about it. It looked like it had been set up pretty recently. There were fences, makeshift tents, all kinds of things like that. There were even green military vehicles parked up and waiting.
There was no sign of life, which disconcerted me and made me wonder. It made tension well up inside me.
But I didn’t want to address that right now.
“We’re here,” Sue said, smiling, tears rolling down her cheeks as the kids jumped up and down beside her. “We’re actually here.”
We stood there together a little while longer. I hadn’t said anything. Neither had Hannah, or Remy or Haz. No doubt, all of us were thinking the same thing. Hoping the same thing.
That there would be life inside those tents.
That there would be order inside those tents.
That the nightmare would end inside those tents.
“Well?” Haz said. “No point waiting around. Last one to the safe zone’s a big loser!”
I saw Haz attempting to look optimistic as he jogged down the hill towards the safe zone, Lionel chasing after him with his tongue flying everywhere, but I could see he was trying to fool himself. He was trying to put on a front to convince himself that everything would be okay down there. Because everything had to be okay down there, didn’t it? They’d put all their eggs in one basket, and that basket was right ahead of them.
If the kind of hope they were expecting wasn’t there waiting for them… well, I didn’t like to think about the other options because I wasn’t sure what the other options were besides to try to survive for as long as possible before inevitably starving.
I looked at Hannah. She looked at me.
She held out a hand.
After a few seconds, I took it.
Then, together, we made our way down the hill, towards our safe haven.
The closer we got to it, the more the silence of the place really started to become apparent. We slowed a little because Jenny was still struggling, and she needed all the strength she had, even if she had shown signs that she was getting a little better recently.
As for the silence… well, it wasn’t a noticeable difference from anywhere else. After all, silence had been a prevalent thing the last few days.
But the very fact that we were at a safe zone, expecting something other than silence, and weren’t being met by any kind of noise…
That, I found, disconcerting.
“We go in together,” Hannah said, as we all reached the partly open gates. “We stay close.”
“Will they have toys, Mummy?” Aiden asked.
“Will they have other children too?”
Sue looked like she was about to say yes, there would be toys and children and all kinds of joys inside this place.
Then she must’ve seen the uncertainty on my face because she didn’t say anything else.
We slowly walked towards the entrance to the tent. As we got closer, past the vehicles, all empty, I wanted to believe that we were just the first ones here. I wanted to believe that I was just being paranoid after days of searching, days of hope, none of that hope being realised.
I reached the tent. I moved my head close
to it, so that I could hear inside.
There wasn’t anything to hear.
I closed my eyes then and took a few deep breaths. Just like when I’d reached the upstairs room at Bill and Margery’s, I didn’t want to look behind this tent entrance because I knew that what was behind it could destroy all the hope I—and everyone here—had.
“Go on,” Remy said. “You have to. We have to.”
I looked from Remy to Sue to Hannah to Haz. Then, I looked at the kids. I hoped for their sakes that there was some kind of hope behind this tent entrance.
Then I moved the tent opening aside and stepped inside.
I walked inside the huge tent. I could see traces that people had been here. Empty crisp packets, discarded. Cigarette stubs. And I could smell humanity in the air too like plenty had been here. Kind of like it was a concert hall that had been full of life not so long ago.
It was empty now.
“Is anyone here?” Sue said. It sounded like she’d tried to shout, but in the end, her voice went to nothing but a weak whimper.
I walked further inside, into the tent.
And when I stepped around the corner, I wished I hadn’t.
“Stop,” I said, holding up a hand and covering my mouth.
“Scott? What’s—”
“Get the kids outside. Now.”
I realised then it was too late. Everyone was alongside me. Everyone was looking where I was looking.
There was a gated area.
And behind those gates, a mass of bodies, piled on top of one another.
I felt my bottom lip quiver. I heard Sue scream and more commotion.
I wanted to turn away.
I wanted to run.
Instead, I walked towards that pile of bodies.
The closer I got to them, as white as shop front mannequins, I realised what’d happened to them. They’d been shot. They were mostly clean wounds, right through the heads.
I could see some of the people inside were wearing military gear. And I couldn’t know for sure what had happened here. Only that, in the back of my mind, I could still hear the echoes of their screams.
“What happened?” Hannah said, her voice quivery. “How… how can this happen?”
I looked at the body of a young woman, not much older than Hannah.
Then, I saw something in her palm.
I reached down towards her, totally detached now, still cold with shock.
“Scott? What’re you—”
“It’s a note,” I said.
I pulled the note from the girl’s cold, solid fingers. I looked into her eyes, so dull and lifeless, such a waste, and for a moment I felt all the hope I’d ever had sinking from my body and turning to liquid.
I looked at the note. Opened it up. Slowly.
And as I read the words, I felt that little hope I had left inside drifting further and further away.
Army were here. Boats came. Some army went bad, no space on boats. Going to kill us. Love you Sam. X
Then, a splatter of blood across the bottom of the note.
“Scott? What’s it say?”
I looked at Hannah. Then I looked past her at Jenny, Haz, Remy, Sue and her kids. I wanted to give them good news. I wanted to give them hope.
But all I could do was give them the truth.
“It’s over,” I said.
Haz narrowed his eyes. “What is?”
I swallowed a sickly, nauseous lump in my throat as the thought of that young girl’s dead eyes staring back at me spiralled my mind.
“The safe zone. The hope. Our survival. The old world. All of it. It’s… it’s over.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I walked off into the distance, way ahead of the rest of the group.
The afternoon was stretching on. Soon, it would turn into evening, then that evening would turn into night, and darkness would fall once again.
Total darkness. Darkness I knew I wasn’t going to escape or be able to conquer.
Darkness that would be in place for as long as I lived, even if the power did somehow miraculously switch back on.
I squinted at the sunlight. I knew I should appreciate it, especially contrasted with how dark it could get in Britain. I looked at its beautiful form shining over the trees, and the towns and suburbs in the distance. Maybe I’d go back to one of those towns. Maybe I’d find a place to stay for a while, to lay down and hide in.
Or maybe I’d just keep on walking, alone.
Because one thing was for sure.
There was no way I could stay with my group. Not now I knew what staying with them meant.
Survival. Biding our time for the next disaster to happen, moving from place to place until the day we inevitably died.
That was life now.
And it was a life I wasn’t sure I was ready to face.
I heard voices behind me. Haz, I thought. He was calling me, telling me to wait up. But I wasn’t going to slow down, not for anyone. Sure, I’d feel guilty just ditching this group, especially since I had some supplies. Not much good me keeping them anyway, to be honest. What good was I going to be at surviving on my own? I didn’t know the things Haz knew. I didn’t have the drive Hannah had. I didn’t have the calm, collected nature that Remy had. And I didn’t have the caring, maternal drive that Sue had.
I was just Scott Harvard, a normal guy, just like most of the rest of the population, and I didn’t have what it took.
I tasted sickliness in my throat as I stepped further through the grass and drifted towards the trees. I heard birdsong, and I thought of my Harriet and the times we’d go on walks like this, losing ourselves in the middle of nowhere. So many times in those walks, we’d played out a fantasy that we were walking with two beautiful little twins—a boy and a girl—and that we were each holding their hands, laughing with them, crunching through the leaves with them.
And although I’d realised for a while now that I was never going to have that life, it finally dawned on me, right now, as I walked completely alone.
“Scott!” Hannah called. “Wait up!”
I looked back. I could see the rest of the group jogging towards me, but they were quite a way away.
“I’m sorry,” I said, under my breath, swallowing a lump in my throat. “Take care.”
And then before they could catch me, I drifted off into the trees, into the nothingness, alone.
Chapter Forty
I wasn’t sure how long I ran into the woods, only that I had to keep on going.
I could still hear voices somewhere behind me. They seemed to be getting further and further away, though, which was what I wanted. My feet were sore. My back, even more so, from the pack I had. But more crippling than anything was the guilt I felt for what I was doing.
Running away.
Not facing the problems head on.
Not stepping up, standing naively in the background, just like I’d always been accused of doing.
I ran further, and I thought of my childhood. I thought of school, where I’d never lead groups, rather follow and hope for the best. I remembered my desire to be on the school football team. My obsession with the sport… only not to make it, all because I didn’t have the confidence to push myself in the way the other boys did.
I’d missed out on so many things, all because I’d chosen to step into the shadows time and time again rather than emerge into the limelight.
I stopped, then. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter that I could hear voices or footsteps heading my way. Suddenly, none of that seemed to matter at all.
What mattered was that I was still here.
That little voice in my ear kept on whispering at me telling me to give up, to slip into the background again, to go into hiding because that’s all I was, really—a hider. A quitter. A faker. I was worthy of nothing and no one, so I was just to fall back into oblivion and leave the world to do its thing around me.
But for the first time in a long time—maybe even the first time in my life�
�I found myself standing there, breathing deeply, and saying the word: “No.”
Just saying that word liberated me, in a sense. I wasn’t sure how to describe it other than I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders, rising into the sky above.
“No.”
And right away, as I stood in the middle of the trees, sweat pouring down my face, heart racing, I felt the weight of that one word building up in meaning.
No, I was not giving up.
No, I was not running away.
No, I was not going to abandon the people I’d worked so hard to bond with; the people I’d fought so hard to unite.
Instead, I was going to stand up; I was going to take some responsibility, and I was going to fight.
For what?
For our survival.
I turned around and saw Hannah and Remy running through the trees, Lionel by their side, clearly enjoying the exercise.
“Scott?” Hannah said. “What the hell are you doing?”
I thought about lying, but then I realised there was no better option than the truth in times like these. “I was running.”
“Running?” Hannah said, struggling to get her breath back. “Running from what?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat and looked her in the eye. “From you.”
Soon, I saw Sue, Jenny, and Haz in the background. And as they approached, Sue’s kids running too, I didn’t feel alone. Not at all.
Because these were my people now.
These were my family now.
“I was running away because I couldn’t face up to the idea that all we’re seeking out is shelter. Survival. I couldn’t… I couldn’t accept that there’s no permanent solution. Not anymore.”
“There might still be,” Remy said.
“No,” I said. “The longer we believe that, the more danger we put ourselves in.”
“Just so you know,” Haz said as he panted his way towards me. “You nearly killed me then. I haven’t run like that since… well. Since ever.”