by Ryan Casey
Everyone was formerly something. We were all united by just one occupation now. Survival.
In a way, it didn’t matter who Alec’s people were right now. They’d brought us back here and for whatever reason, they’d stitched Kesha up. They’d saved her life.
As angry as I was for what they’d done to me—for making me believe the people around me were suffering—I couldn’t help but be grateful for that.
I looked at the bloodstained bandage on Kesha’s leg.
“Lucy says I’ll be off my feet for a while.”
“And she’s wise to say that,” I said.
Kesha shook her head. “Uh-uh. Not happening.”
“What?”
“Your wife. We have to get to her.”
“Kesha, you know that isn’t—”
“I made a promise to you. To Olivia. I made a promise that I’d stand by your side and help you get to Carlisle. And I’m standing by that promise. Even if, well, standing is out of the question.”
Kesha laughed. I couldn’t believe her good humour in spite of the circumstances. I wondered if she’d been dosed up with meds to ease the pain. After all, this was an army barracks. There were sure to be some kinds of medical supplies around here.
I nodded and smiled. “Good. Because I want you beside me when we make this final stretch of the journey.”
Kesha smiled back at me. But between us, in the silence, both of us knew Kesha wasn’t going to be getting off this bed anytime soon. She might not even get off this bed again at all. The operation had happened, but the poor sanitation still put her at risk. Big risk.
Which was why I had to put out the idea I was going to put out.
“Listen,” I said, looking around at Olivia, at Bouncer, and smiling at them both. I turned back to Kesha. “I want you by my side. You know that.”
“It’s what we’ve agreed on. And nobody breaks an agreement with me.”
“Right. But if… if anything happens, I want you to make me a promise.”
Kesha’s eyes narrowed as I struggled to find the right words for what I wanted to say.
“If… If I have to leave this place. Alone. I want you to promise me you’ll look out for Olivia and Bouncer.”
My stomach sank when I spoke those words. And judging from the look on Kesha’s face, she understood exactly what I was saying, too.
“Will, you don’t have to—”
“What I’m doing. Where I’m going. It might not be safe out there.”
“It won’t be safe out there. But we’ve made it this far.”
“But what they’ve got here, I don’t understand who they are yet or what their motives are, but they saved you. And for that reason, I’m inclined to think this place is pretty safe. Safe enough for… for you to wait for me. To bring Kerry back here. And to look after Olivia and Bouncer.”
There was no disguising what I was trying to say anymore. Not from Kesha, not from myself, and not even from Olivia.
I was asking Kesha to look out for the people I cared about while I went after someone else I cared about.
I was asking her that because I was worried about what might happen to me while I was on this mission.
Kesha wiped her eyes. She sniffed up. My offer seemed to have touched her. Spoken to her emotionally. “You know, I lied to you the other day. When I told you about—about the accident.”
I narrowed my eyes. “The accident?”
“I didn’t knock two little boys over in the road on the way to work. I mean, there was an accident. But I… I… Will, I used to be an alcoholic.”
I heard the words spill out of Kesha’s mouth and it was like an over-inflated balloon finally being punctured.
“I used to be an alcoholic. I was running late for work. I had two kids. Two boys. Mick and Ally. I was taking them to work and… Oh God, I should never have had that whisky.”
“It’s okay,” I said, taking Kesha’s hand. “It’s okay.”
“But it’s not okay,” Kesha said, looking up into my eyes. “I started the car running then I had to run back. Just for a hit of the booze. Because—because my boss was angry with me. He was angry, and I needed to be confident if I wanted to fight for my job. And I couldn’t be confident without alcohol.
“So I ran inside. But I guess I forgot to apply the handbrake. I heard the crash and I didn’t think much of it at first. We were on a busy road. Crashes happened.
“But when I went outside, I saw it. I saw it and I saw the smashed windows and my car on its side, a boy racer’s car in the side of it and I knew. I just knew.”
“Then it wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“I left the handbrake off, Will. I left the handbrake off all for a hit of booze. My own precious boys died all because of that damned gulp of whisky I needed.”
Silence followed Kesha’s words. Silence only interspersed by her cries of guilt.
I looked over at Olivia. I nodded at her to go to Kesha.
She got up, walked over to Kesha, and wrapped her arms around her.
I saw Kesha’s reluctant glance at first.
Then I saw her put her hands over Olivia’s back as the pair of them held one another, as the pair of them cried.
I looked at my family. Because that’s what they were. My new, post-apocalyptic family.
The thought of leaving them brought a tear to my eye.
But it was time to find out why I was here.
And it was time to talk about the next step.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“So, you’re done being an arsehole and you’re ready to actually speak?”
It was afternoon. Late afternoon. Sure sign of the turn of the seasons was the setting of the sun.
“Getting earlier and earlier each day, huh?” Alec said.
I didn’t respond to him. I just stood beside him on the roof of the barracks. I looked out over the town of Dumfries. It was small, a market town, with a little church in the centre. The kind of place you could imagine being dead at certain times even before the world decided to cut out.
Now, it was deader than it had ever been.
“Don’t see much in the way of other people these days,” Alec said, still continuing a conversation with himself. He was wearing a thick parka now, which had fur around the hood. His breath frosted whenever he spoke. “In the early days, we used to. But figure most people either left this place for the big cities in confusion, or the cleverer ones made for the woods.”
“And you?”
Alec looked at me, like he was surprised to hear me speak. “I’ve been here since day dot. Me and my people. Well. At least what’s left of ’em.”
I nodded as I looked back over the town. I was getting eager to start moving. But I knew it was good to talk with Alec. After all, I was going to head to Carlisle alone. I needed to know I was leaving Olivia and Bouncer with people I could trust.
“Your people. How many left?”
“Seven. You met two of them just earlier. And you’ve seen more of ’em when we stumbled upon you in the woods.”
“Yeah. That’s a pretty hard moment to forget.”
“We had to be vigilant. Especially with those nutters out there.”
I glanced at Alec as he looked over the edge of the barracks roof. “You know about them?”
“Know about them?” Alec said, with a snigger. “Will, they were my people.”
I opened my mouth to respond but I couldn’t. Alec’s revelation had taken the wind out of my sails. “What?”
“This barracks used to be thriving. When things went to shit, we held on to some power for a while. We invited people here. They stayed with us. Lived with us. But then the last of our power went and there was a struggle. A struggle over what to do. The next step. In the end, it got nasty. That’s when Danny decided to take the people out of this place—along with as many vehicles and weapons and equipment as he could—and… well. You know what Danny does to people these days.”
“That bastard’s stand
ing in the way of me and my wife.”
“Hate to break it to ya, but if your wife was ever in Danny’s company, she probably ain’t around anymore.”
Hearing that was bitter. But it didn’t change anything. I didn’t know Kerry had ever been in Danny’s company. Just that Andy had been captured by Danny’s people, and was trying to get back to his camp in Carlisle, where Kerry was. “I need to see the truth. For myself.”
Alec tipped his head to one side. “Well you’re a braver man than me.”
I thought about what he said. About the vehicles. The equipment. That explained how the cannibals could communicate. And how they could drive places.
“How come you held on to power?”
“The structure of this place, believe it or not,” Alec said. “The materials in here. Acts as a kind of Faraday cage. A lot of the stuff still got knackered, but hey. We still kept hold of some stuff.”
“Then if you’ve got stuff, why haven’t you gone after Danny?”
Alec shook his head. “It’s mostly just guns we’ve got left. And besides, we don’t get involved in that shit.”
“So you’re just gonna wait here for Danny to come back for you someday?”
“If I have to, yeah. But I’ll be waiting. We all will. And he’ll pay for what he did.”
“There was a man with us,” I said. “A man who told us about a camp in Carlisle.”
“I don’t know about any camp in Carlisle. But I know that’s not where Danny is.”
“So you can tell me where Danny’s people are?”
Alec narrowed his eyes. “What’re you thinking?”
In truth, I wanted to say this was all about Kerry. But this whole mess went beyond just finding Kerry, now. I wanted to get revenge. Revenge on Danny and his people for their attack at Heathlock. For the way they’d been going about the country acting like it was theirs.
Sure, I wanted to find Kerry again.
But there was more to this, now.
“I just need to know where they are. So I don’t bump into them on the way to Carlisle.”
Alec curled his top lip over his bottom one. “You’re leaving so soon?”
“It’s what I have to do.”
“What about your friends? Your family? It ain’t safe for them out there.”
“Which is why they’re going to stay here. With you and your people.”
“You really trust me?”
I looked deep into Alec’s blue eyes. “I think I do. Maybe that makes me an idiot. It definitely makes me feel uncomfortable. But someone once told me I needed to step out of my comfort zone if I ever want to survive this world. So that’s what I’m doing.”
I turned around and started to walk towards the door. It was getting chillier by the second.
“Wait,” Alec said.
I stopped. Turned around.
There was a new look to Alec’s face. A sadness that I hadn’t seen before.
“My wife. She… she’s with Danny too.”
“What—”
“She’s been with his people a long time.”
“And you just let him—”
“I didn’t think I was strong enough. I didn’t think I could do it. But since you got here… hell, I dunno. I’m starting to look around and think maybe there’s more to my life than just seeing out my days in this place.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
Alec walked up to me, slowly. The sound of his boots against the roof still made me wince, reminding me this guy had kicked me with them not so long ago. But hey. I was being difficult. I probably deserved a good booting.
“I’m saying I know where Danny’s main camp is,” Alec said. “And I’m saying we’ve got a whole lot of weapons here. So what say we go after him and then we go on to Carlisle. You and me.”
He held out a hand. And for a second, I let it hang there.
I thought about Kesha. Olivia. Bouncer. I didn’t want to turn my backs on them. I didn’t want to walk away.
But that wasn’t what this was.
This was taking responsibility.
This was doing what had to be done.
For the good of everyone.
I took Alec’s hand and gave it a firm handshake.
“Where do we start?”
Chapter Thirty
Andy saw the small market village up ahead and he felt his stomach turn.
It was late. The last of the sun was creeping down beyond the horizon. The night was gradually getting cooler. He knew that soon, he’d be surrounded by another freezing blanket; a freezing blanket he’d been forced under far too many times for comfort in the last few days of travelling solo.
But tonight was going to be different.
Tonight, he knew for a fact he wasn’t going to be under any blanket at all. At least, not any comfortable ones.
Because tonight was the night he got his revenge.
He listened for voices, for footsteps. He knew from his time in this group that they didn’t always confine themselves to the village. They had people on the outskirts too, always waiting, always keeping watch for that fateful moment when someone stepped within their boundaries, into their trap.
Right now, he couldn’t hear anything but the wind.
He could smell the burning, though. The burning smell that took him right back to those awful days. The things he was forced to involve himself in. The awful thing they made him do to Kerry…
Just thinking of it made him want to throw up. But throwing up would just bring that nasty taste back; another reminder of the most predominant taste of his days in captivity.
It was better if he didn’t think of Kerry. Not anymore. He’d mourned for her. He felt guilt for her—a stronger guilt than was safe to carry around for any extended period of time.
And now, Andy was going to get his revenge.
He listened to the walkie talkie crackle in his pocket. He pulled it out, brought it to his ear. That was another thing he’d kept quiet about. The walkie talkie. A Motorola TLKR T80 Extreme, with a range of up to ten kilometres. It’d been kept in a Faraday cage before the collapse, evidently. Just like the other electrical things still operating, most of which Danny’s group were holding on to.
The key to this walkie talkie though was that it was connected to a direct line with Danny.
And Andy was back in range.
He’d kept that quiet from Will and the others because it just brought with it too many questions. They’d suspect him of being some kind of plant.
And really, if they asked the questions, they wouldn’t be too comfortable with what he was doing.
Leading them in the general direction of where his old camp used to be, sure.
But more than that, leading them towards the village that Danny’s people had control of.
He would’ve liked their help. But he was too guilty dragging Olivia into that.
She’d already lost a mother. She couldn’t lose a father, a carer and a dog as well.
And she couldn’t go through what Danny’s group would put her through.
He heard the voice on the walkie talkie.
“The church spire. As soon as possible. I’ve got eyes on someone.”
A pause. Then a response. “On my way.”
Danny.
Andy felt his heart begin to race. That meant the store mannequin plan was coming to fruition. He’d put it out there in the middle of the woods, dressed it up in clothes he’d found, even splashed a little blood on it. He knew it was a gamble. Danny’s group weren’t stupid, and he wasn’t expecting them to fall for it for too long.
But if he could distract them, just for a while, then that’d be enough.
He tucked the walkie talkie in his belt and started his descent down the hill. In his right hand, he held on to his handgun. He didn’t have many bullets left.
But he wouldn’t need many.
Just one.
He just needed eyes on Danny when he was making his way back from the church.
<
br /> He just needed one opportunity to put a bullet through his head.
After that, he’d use another of those bullets on himself.
Anything was better than what they’d put him through if they caught him.
Anything was better than—
He heard movement to his right.
He dropped down to his belly immediately. He listened to that movement, but the sounds didn’t continue. Up ahead, he heard footsteps. Voices. He knew Danny and some of his people would be making their way to the church right now. He knew that one shot at Danny and his people would turn on him and pursue him right away.
If Danny toppled, they were just savages. Savages without order. Everything would collapse.
Danny might be a savage, but he was an intelligent savage. He was the glue that kept his people together.
Take out the head and you take everything below out too.
He waited. Made sure there were still no sounds to his right. It was just in his head. He was just being paranoid.
“Wait,” the walkie talkie buzzed. “Don’t step outside. I repeat, do not step outside.”
The voice made Andy’s stomach sink right in an instant. Something was wrong.
“Something happening?” Danny asked.
There was a long stretch of silence on the walkie talkie. And the more this silence stretched on, the more paranoid Andy grew about his current situation. They’d seen him. They’d seen him and they were coming for him.
He held his breath and held his gun even tighter. He had to be ready to act. He had to be ready to move.
“All clear, boss. Sorry. Thought I saw something but all’s good.”
Andy sighed a breath of relief. He lifted his head above the grass and looked over at the village, at the church. He raised his gun and shuffled closer towards the village. The light was disintegrating. But he didn’t need light. He just needed eyes on Andy. Then he was going to do what he had to do.
He stopped and waited longer. He heard the walkie talkie crackling. His shaking hands gripped on to the gun as the memories of what had happened, of what he’d done, spiralled around his mind.