by Ryan Casey
I didn’t let it faze me. After all, that just meant more supplies for me when I killed every last one of them.
I saw movement to my right and crouched down, hoping darkness would be my friend once more. My heart beat fast, but my slow breathing kept it under control. As the man walked close to me, towards the entrance to the village—a makeshift gate—I felt a twinge of nerves at the thought of what I was going to do to this guy.
But that’s all it was. A twinge.
Because seconds later, I stood up behind the man, covered his mouth and drove the blade into his body.
I gripped on to him as he struggled, falling down to the ground. When he fell and finally stopped struggling, I knew I’d have to move him. I didn’t want to attract any attention. This was going to be as quick and as straightforward as possible. It was going to be—
“Jeff?”
I heard the voice behind me and turned around.
Someone was walking towards me. Two people, actually. Their torchlights were shining in my direction, but the rain was falling so heavily now that it was affecting visibility.
I stood my ground and held the handgun in hand. Didn’t want to use it, but would if I had to.
“Jeff? What’s up? You okay there?”
I felt my heart picking up when the men got feet away from me. In the past, I might’ve thought about their lives before. How they were just trying to get by in this crazy world, just like me.
But I didn’t think that anymore.
They were savages.
I was just even more savage right now.
I lifted my gun and fired two shots at the men.
One of them fell right away. Can’t have known much about it.
The second guy dropped down, but he lifted his gun and popped a few bullets in my direction.
I dodged them. I knew my stealthiness was gone now. I ran over to the fallen man, still hopping from side to side to disorient him.
He lifted his gun and pointed it at my chest.
“You’re done,” he gasped, through a pained grimace. “You’re finished.”
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“No,” I said, pulling back the metal as the rain washed the blood of those I’d killed out of my hair and down my body. “You’re finished.”
“Pl—”
I swung the metal pole at the man and he went silent.
I heard more voices, then. They were to my left. I heard the panic. The confusion. So I ran to the right, climbed up a few crates and went into a side street.
When I was in there, I kept low. I kept on moving. I could hear the fear in the voices of Danny’s group and I had to admit it sounded good. Because these people had put so many others through hell. They deserved what they were going through—what they were going to go through.
Sure, they might’ve had lives. They might’ve had normal existences. They might’ve been the nicest damned people on the planet, before the collapse.
But I didn’t give a shit about that. Not anymore.
I stopped running when I saw someone at the end of the alley.
He lifted his gun. Pointed it at me. I couldn’t see his face properly, but I could tell he was shaking.
I lifted my gun too. Pointed it back at him. I knew I was putting myself at risk by doing so, but I didn’t want or have the time to consider that anymore.
Just what felt right at the time.
Just pure, primal, gut instinct.
“One of us is going down,” the man said. “And I’m gonna make damned sure that isn’t m—”
I fired two shots at him.
His body collapsed before he could even pull the trigger.
“You sure about that?” I asked.
At that point, I heard people flooding down the alleyway towards me. I had to get away from here, fast.
I kept on running to the end of the alley and reached the garden gate where the man must’ve come from. Instead of going through there, I climbed on top of the brick wall that the gate had been cut into and then jumped into the partly-open window opposite. I felt my grip loosening, heard the footsteps getting closer. I pulled myself up inside that window with all my strength.
When I got into the dark room, I crouched there and I waited.
I watched the four men reach the garden gate. I saw them turn around, look over their shoulders. I thought about picking them off right here, one by one.
Instead, I let them run through the gate and continue their wild goose chase.
I wanted the power of stealth and invisibility on my side again.
When I was sure they were gone, I dropped down the side of the building and ran back down the alleyway.
Something caught my eye when I reached the end.
There was a shop. Looked like one of those twenty-four-hour places. Only the shutters had been pulled down, the shop name covered by graffiti.
I don’t know what drew me to that shop at first. But as I got closer, the smell coming from the place hit me. Then I saw the blood in front of the side door.
I tried the handle, but it was locked.
I looked over my shoulder. The rain was falling heavily.
So I pulled back my metal pipe and smashed the window open.
I climbed in through the gap and the smell of urine and of faeces got more intense. It reminded me of the Animals’ prison train back in Selly Oak.
Which made me wonder if maybe, just maybe…
Then I heard it.
I heard it, and the most beautiful déjà vu repeated itself.
“Dad?”
Chapter Forty
“Dad?”
I got flashbacks to Selly Oak. Flashbacks to the last time I’d rescued Olivia from captivity. She was surrounded by other people then, too, just like now.
Not a lot of those people who I’d saved from Selly Oak made it in the end. They were too weak. Too malnourished. And the journey north was just too much of a step for them.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
I ran over to Olivia first, into the awful-smelling place, and I wrapped my arms around her.
“I’m here for you,” I said.
“Dad, Danny—”
“Don’t worry about Danny. I’ll sort him out.”
“He’s got Bouncer.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Danny’s got Bouncer. Bouncer’s okay.”
I felt a massive weight lift off my shoulders, relief coursing through my body. Bouncer was okay. Danny really had looked out for him after all, just like he said he would. I guess I owed him for that.
But the rest of his atrocities far outweighed one act of kindness.
“You totally sure?” I asked, as I broke Olivia out of her cuffs.
She nodded. “He just shot him with sleepy medicine. But he came and saw me. He was just the same.”
I smiled, my eyes welling up. “That’s good. That’s—that’s really good.”
I allowed myself that moment of emotion, that moment of relief.
Then I wiped the tears from my eyes.
I couldn’t afford any more emotion. Not with what I was planning.
I looked around at the silhouettes tied up in this room. I saw glimmers of fear in their eyes. Specks of hope.
“Believe me when I say I’m going to come back for you. Every single one of you. But out there right now, it’s not safe. As long as Danny and any of his people are alive, it’s not safe. So I’m going to make it safe. For all of you.
“I know it’s a long shot. I know it’s a leap of faith. But if I go out of here with Olivia—my daughter—Danny and his people will come after me. If there’s one thing I know and we all know about Danny, it’s that he doesn’t like being upstaged. So I’m going to upstage him. I’m going to upstage all his people. The ones that’re left. And I’m going to kill them.”
“And why should we trust you?” a woman said.
I looked at her. Then I pulled Alec’s necklace
out of my pocket. “I travelled down here with a man called Alec. He told me… he told me Danny took his wife. He didn’t make it. But he wanted me to be here.”
I looked around at the people in here for some kind of reaction; some kind of proof that Alec’s wife was still in this place.
“She didn’t make it,” that same woman said.
I turned to her, my stomach sinking.
“She was one of the first to fall when Danny took us in. I’ve been here a while. A long while. Guess my time’s gonna be here soon.”
I pulled out the second handgun. The one I’d taken from the second fallen man. I walked over to the woman nearest the door and put it in her shaking hand, as well as some extra bullets.
“There’s not much ammo. But there’s enough to hold off anyone who comes by here while I’m gone. They’re running out of people. The tide is turning. We’re going to get out of this place. Away from here. All of us. Do you trust me?”
I looked around at the people locked up in here—the men, the women—and I saw their faces turning from fear to positivity and confidence. I saw nodding. I heard muffled approval.
I knew right then that I had their trust.
“Come on, Liv,” I said to my daughter. “We need to get out of this place.”
“I’m staying here,” Olivia said.
I shook my head. “That’s not—”
“Someone should stay here. Someone should watch these people. It should be me.”
I crouched down opposite Olivia. Part of what she was saying terrified me because I’d only just reunited with her. I couldn’t bring myself to walk away from her again.
Part of me knew she had a point.
But she was part of the plan. I respected her wishes, but they just weren’t going to work out.
“I need you with me,” I said. “I know you’re strong. I know you’re tougher than I can ever imagine. But I need you with me. It’s the only way Danny will follow me. He won’t want me to win. So it has to be you.”
I saw Olivia look around at the rest of the people in here, disappointment on her face, and I realised just how much this girl had grown up in such a short space of time.
“You’re strong. Far stronger than I am. But right now, you just have to trust me. All of you have to trust me.”
I sensed the disappointment. But I also sensed that these people got it.
That Olivia got it.
I took her hand in mine and I smiled at her as the rain powered down outside. “You ready?”
She nodded, reluctantly. “Ready.”
I took a deep breath, stood up and stepped outside the shop.
The coast looked clear. In a way though, that made me even more paranoid. So I stayed low, making sure Olivia was protected from the open by me. There had to be a balance, which was difficult. On the one hand, I wanted to remain stealthy. On the other, I needed someone to know I was on my way out of this place.
Or more specifically, I needed Danny to know.
I fired a shot into the air and sprinted towards the main gate.
I didn’t look back. As much as I knew I should, I didn’t.
I could sense safety getting closer. I could feel freedom closing in. I could taste it in the air.
And then when I saw the main gate, I stopped.
Danny was standing there. Six of his men—presumably the last ones left—stood either side of him.
At his feet, on a leash, Bouncer.
Danny smiled at me as the rain poured down his burned face. He smiled with such calmness, such composure. Like he was actually enjoying this.
“Hello again, Will,” he said. “I believe you killed a few of my people.”
Chapter Forty-One
“So,” Danny said, a grin stretched across his burned face. “From where I’m standing, I’d say it looks like you’re pretty screwed, right?”
I didn’t want to agree with Danny, but I had to concede, he had a point. Six people were behind him, all of them armed—a few with guns. By my side, I held strongly on to Olivia’s hand.
By Danny’s side, Bouncer stood.
Just seeing him there, still alive, was enough to galvanise me into wanting to get out of here. This wasn’t part of the plan, though. It wasn’t supposed to work out this way. We were supposed to draw Danny and his people out of this village so that I could focus on picking him up where I had the advantage of higher ground. It wasn’t supposed to end right here, with Olivia and I cornered, trapped inside the man-made fences in this village.
“What?” Danny said, glancing over at me with bright, wide eyes. “You really think we’d let you just walk out of this place? That we wouldn’t catch up with you at some stage?”
“There’s no need for this shit. Not anymore.”
“Oh, I agree,” Danny said. “I’m fast running out of patience with this crap, too. So how about we get right to the point. You are going to drop your weapons. You are going to turn around. And you are going to walk back to the same place you just broke your daughter out of. Both of you.”
I shook my head, forcing a smile. I was scared—of course I was scared—but I had to put across the illusion of being totally confident here.
“I don’t think that’s going to work for me or Olivia. Or for my dog.”
Danny looked bemused. “I’ll tell you what worked for your dog here. The fact we kept him alive. In spite of everything, we kept him alive. And I was thinking about keeping him alive a lot longer, too. A kind of companion in this new world. At least, until we run out of humans, anyway. But now, I dunno. Now I’m not so sure.”
“You can take me. But you leave my daughter and my dog out of this.”
Danny started laughing. The rain fell down heavier from above now. “Why the hell would I do that?” he said. “I can see how much they mean to you. I can see how much it hurts you to think you might be the last one standing here. So why the hell would I let you off the hook like that?”
“Because I don’t think you’re inherently bad. I don’t think anyone’s inherently bad. I just think… I just think you got lost somewhere. Along the way.”
Danny’s eyes locked with mine. And in that moment, it felt like we were connecting. Like what I was saying spoke to him, somehow. There were a lot of clouds between us; a lot of interference. But there was something there.
He understood me.
He wanted to believe what I was saying.
Then he pulled out his gun and pointed it at me.
He walked up to me, towards me. He kept on going until he had the gun to my chest. He pushed against it. Hard. Pressed the end of it right into my diaphragm.
His eyes were still locked on mine.
“You’d really take one, would you?”
I didn’t answer him.
“You’d really take a bullet for your family?’
I always thought saying “yes” would be difficult. I always expected it to be the hardest thing to have to say in a situation like this.
But in the end, it was easy.
Completely easy.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d take two.”
A smile twitched at the corners of Danny’s mouth. “Good,” he said.
Then he turned the gun towards Olivia.
Instinct kicked in right then.
I saw him turn the gun to Olivia almost like it was in slow-motion.
I lunged forward, towards him, fully aware that the rest of his people could turn their weapons on me in an instant.
I didn’t care.
As long as Olivia was safe.
I pushed her to the ground but as I did, I heard another blast. Then another, then another. In a moment of horror, I thought maybe Olivia had been shot, or that Bouncer had been shot.
But then I saw that it was Olivia who had pulled her trigger.
She’d fired at two of Danny’s people and by the looks of things, taken them down.
I realised then that Danny was standing over me. But the people behind him weren’t moving
. They looked stunned by this. Like the violence was catching up with them. Like, now there were only four of them left, they had a power restored that wasn’t outweighed by group opinion.
Danny looked over his shoulder at his people. I knew that he’d seen the fear in their faces. The uncertainty. “So this is where we just give up, is it?” he said. “This is where you just decide to grow a pair of moral balls all of a sudden?”
“It’s been going this way a long time,” one man said. He lifted his gun and pointed it at Danny. “We never thought the way you led us was permanent. We just thought it was while we couldn’t—”
“You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me. Don’t you forget that.”
Danny turned around and looked back at me. It was amazing, seeing his people crack, all because of this one situation.
“Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “S’pose this is it then.”
He turned his gun towards Bouncer and went to pull the trigger.
I jumped in front of it, again by instinct.
But Danny didn’t end up pulling the trigger.
He turned the gun, and that’s when I realised what I’d done.
Olivia was exposed again.
He pointed it at her stomach as she lay on the ground.
“Sorry, kid.”
Then, he fired.
Chapter Forty-Two
When Danny fired the trigger at Olivia, my whole world felt like it fell apart.
I heard the blast cut through the rainy air. I smelled the bullet, right away. I waited for the cry.
But Olivia didn’t cry. She didn’t make a sound.
She just gripped onto her shoulder and closed her eyes tight.
I heard shouts erupting around us. I heard chaos unfolding, pretty much. But none of that mattered. Not even if Danny put that gun to my head and took me out too, right now.
All that mattered was Olivia, who I held in my arms.
“Dad,” she spluttered.
“It’s okay,” I said. I pressed against the bullet wound on her shoulder. Quite a lot of blood was pooling out.