by Ryan Casey
Into the Dark
A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller: Book One
Ryan Casey
Contents
Bonus Content
Into the Dark
1. Prologue
2. Mike
3. Mike
4. Holly
5. Mike
6. Mike
7. Holly
8. Miranda
9. Mike
10. Holly
11. Mike
12. Holly
13. Mike
14. Holly
15. Mike
16. Holly
17. Mike
18. Holly
19. Mike
20. Holly
21. Mike
22. Holly
23. Mike
24. Bobby
25. Holly
26. Mike
27. John
28. Holly
29. Mike
30. Holly
31. Mike
32. Holly
33. Mike
34. Holly
35. Mike
36. Holly
37. Mike
38. Holly
39. Harry
40. Mike
41. Holly
42. Mike
43. Holly
44. Mike
45. Holly
46. Mike
47. Holly
48. One Day Later…
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Into the Dark
Book One
Everybody thinks they’re prepared for the end of the world.
Some people are just naive. They believe that they are completely safe. They believe that because they are living in a “civilised society,” nothing can threaten their way of being. They go about their days, mess around on their smartphones, like nothing could change a thing; like nothing could take away what they believe they have a God-given right to access. The internet. The media. All of it, constructed by humans, there to support humans, there to inform and to educate humans. Constant connectivity.
Of course, people get anxious when a power cut strikes, or when their cell network provider goes down for emergency maintenance. And panic can hit full force when their bank providers are hacked and their details are compromised.
But even then… that naive belief remains.
The belief that everything will be okay in the end.
That things will turn out okay and sort themselves out, no matter what.
Naivety. Pure and simple.
There are other people. People who are warier and more conscious of the fragility of the world. After all, we live in dangerous surroundings. Rare times of relative peace, for sure, but a dangerous place in the wider universe. There is the risk of asteroid impacts. We rely on gravity to keep us rooted to the ground. We rely on the poles not shifting.
But again. What is this based on?
Science?
Or blind faith?
There is also the threat from solar flares. Coronal mass ejections, as they are also known. Huge bursts of solar energy from the sun that could wipe out all the carefully planted infrastructure in the blink of an eye.
On the surface, it’s easy to dismiss a solar flare as something that’d just bring about a short-term stint of darkness.
But it’s really far worse than that…
Phones would be wiped out, stamping down on an addiction in one fell swoop. Cars would come to a standstill, ending the most common form of transport as we know it. Communication and travel wiped out in an instant.
And then there’s planes in the skies. Pacemakers in chests. People on life support. Food production. Nuclear plants. A whole host of electronically supported ventures… gone.
Since the introduction and gradual spread of electricity in the last couple of hundred years, things seemed good. So good that the people of the world threw all of their eggs into one basket.
But has anyone ever stopped to wonder what might happen if that basket tumbled? If the eggs fell to the ground?
Of course, there have been people who have considered it, usually journalists writing ill-informed think pieces for newspapers and websites. “A return to the dark ages,” they say.
The problem with that statement?
If a solar flare ravaged the earth’s electricity, it wouldn’t be a return to the dark ages. Because prior to the dark ages, technology was nowhere near what it is now.
It’d be worse. Because people are so used to having everything spoon-fed, so used to having everything served to them on a plate, so used to ordering meals and cars and everything online, they wouldn’t be able to survive with such a sudden change in fortune.
Electricity is our silent overlord.
And we don’t even take the time to respect it.
There is another type of person. The kind who is well aware of the threats posed to this world. A type of person who does their research. Preppers, they are called.
Preppers come in various forms. Some of them go as far as building lavish, expensive bunkers and filling them with foods, weapons and the likes. Others focus more on how they would survive in the wilderness were they ever to find themselves in such an unfortunate situation.
These people are automatically in the top per cent of society, simply because most people just aren’t ready for what the impact of such a disaster would be. So much so that many educated sources predict seven million Americans would be dead within six months.
And that’s just America.
The likelihood of a coronal mass ejection is scarily likely. There was a significant one in 1859—the Carrington Event—but that came just before electricity was widespread, so people weren’t as reliant on it to survive and thrive at that stage. There have been several others since—one in Quebec in 1989, causing widespread power failures. Another in August 2010, causing a significant aurora. And in the summer of 2012, a massive solar superstorm barely missed the earth.
And you tell yourselves you’re going to be okay. Tell yourselves the government will sort it out because they have your best interest at heart.
Just remember you are sitting on a ball of rock in a vast universe that is expanding at an unprecedented rate every millisecond… and you try telling yourself that everything is within your control.
Of course, the threat of a blackout doesn’t just come from the solar regions. There are several nations developing the technology capable of mirroring the effects of an electromagnetic pulse. All it takes is to strap a nuclear device with an EMP, explode it above the territory in question… and watch as the line of dominoes falls, piece by piece.
Russia is developing EMP weapons. North Korea is developing EMP weapons. China is developing EMP weapons. All of these countries know that electricity is the new way of warfare, and taking it out is enough to bring any nation to its knees.
But they aren’t the only threat.
Your own country is developing EMP weapons.
And they are testing those weapons.
What if one of those tests goes wrong?
What if in the race to acquire one of the most significant weapons in history in a new arms race, someone makes a mistake?
It doesn’t bear thinking about.
But we’re going to have to think about i
t.
We’re going to have to prepare for it.
Because if we don’t, we become one of the millions of dead…
There are different degrees of prepper. And all of them have their own ways of surviving, their own ideas of how to do things.
But this is a story about one man who knows a thing or two about survival. A man who understands the rules of a world without power, without having a bunker, or guns, or anything like this.
This is the story of an everyday survivalist whose world is turned upside-down.
But the end of the world didn’t come on the day of the event for Mike Callaghan.
The end of the world came three months prior.
This is the story of that man, the world he left behind, and the world he stepped into…
Mike
Three months ago…
Mike Callaghan held on tightly to his wife’s hand and thought about all the things he wanted to tell her that he’d never get the chance to say.
The sun was shining brightly through the windows of the hospital. The first sign of real spring, as March segued into April. It’d been a long, arduous winter. He didn’t like winters at the best of times.
But especially with everything that’d happened with Caitlin—with how quickly everything had progressed—he knew for certain that he would never be able to cope with winter again, not after this.
He listened to the bleeps of the nearby beds in intensive care. He looked around at them. All these sleeping people, all so peaceful. And yet it wasn’t a location of peace, not really. Because although these people were unconscious, inside, their bodies were fighting the toughest battles of their lives.
He tightened his grip on Caitlin’s hand. He didn’t want her to think she was fighting her battle alone. He couldn’t bear the thought that she’d go through this thinking he’d abandoned her.
He met Caitlin when he was sixteen. He was in his early forties now, so they’d known each other for the best part of three decades. They hadn’t got together at first. Kissed at a few parties, hung out at the cinema a few times, that kind of thing that a teenager does. But then they’d gone their separate ways. Caitlin had gone to university down in London, while Mike had followed a path of his own.
It was a whole seven years after they’d first met, when they were both twenty-three, that the pair of them met again. Just a chance meeting, more than anything. The usual Friday night pub trip with his mates, flirting with the bar staff, that kind of thing. Going home to his mum’s and getting told he needed to find a girlfriend; he needed to move out.
But honestly, Mike had never met anyone who’d made him feel like he wanted to give up his life as a singleton. He liked his private time, and more than anything, he liked his Fridays with his mates.
That was until he re-met Caitlin.
They hit it off right away. Threw themselves headfirst into dating. And before he knew it, just six months later, they were renting a flat together. Eventually, they’d go on to buy a house, and just two years later—when they were both twenty-five—Caitlin gave birth to their first and only child, Holly.
Life couldn’t be better, really. Sure, money could be a bit better. Mike had a job driving buses by day and taxis by night, which wasn’t exactly the most entertaining life. Caitlin worked at the council, which was rife with cuts at the moment. Their daughter, Holly, now sixteen, was a clever girl, but her GCSE projections weren’t looking as promising as they’d all have hoped.
But they’d get by.
They’d find a way.
They were family, after all. And family always found the solution to problems, no matter what.
And then tragedy struck.
It started with Caitlin complaining about a pain in her chest. And initially, the pair of them just dismissed it. Caitlin was a notorious hypochondriac, after all, so it was probably just a pulled muscle.
But the pain didn’t get any better. So Mike got her down to the doctors immediately—as averse as she was to actually going, which was weird for such a hypochondriac—and they told her it was likely a bout of pneumonia. Of course, it had them both worried. But they were given antibiotics. So everything was going to be fine.
But when the antibiotics didn’t shift the pain, Caitlin was taken in for scans. And the problem, it seemed, was something far different to what doctors had suspected.
Caitlin had a rare heart condition. A problem with one of her valves. It was causing her respiratory problems, and needed to be addressed with a quick fix.
Of course, Caitlin was terrified. She was terrified of anything medical. But the promise from the doctors and the surgeons that the surgery was “as routine as an appendectomy” was enough to reassure Mike at least.
He remembered holding her hand when she went under. Smiling at her. Kissing her on her lips. Telling her everything was going to be okay.
Caitlin contracted sepsis shortly after the operation.
She hadn’t woken up since.
Mike kept hold of her hand. He felt rough and groggy. He’d barely slept all week. He was losing track of what day it was, what time it was.
And by his side, a doctor telling him what the kindest thing to do would be.
“I’m sorry, Mr Callaghan. But there’s nothing more we can do for your wife.”
He heard the words. They didn’t sound real, somehow—like they were some figment of his imagination, distant, detached.
He didn’t want to believe them. But at the same time, he heard what they were saying. He heard what they were implying.
The right thing was to let Caitlin go.
He turned to the surgeon, still holding Caitlin’s hand. He felt his jaw tensing. Felt the tears building up. Felt his chest shaking. He wanted to fight because this was their fault. The surgery had messed up, and it was their fault.
He wanted to cry.
But he couldn’t.
He just couldn’t.
So instead he found himself turning back to Caitlin. Leaning over to her, kissing her on the head.
“I love you,” he said. “I’ll never stop loving you.”
Then he turned to the surgeon and nodded.
The doctor looked back at him, concerned. “Don’t you want to inform family—”
“Just do it,” Mike said.
He felt the doctor sigh with sympathy. Watched him walk over to the machine, then click the power off.
Then he waited as the support waned.
He kept on holding on to Caitlin’s hand.
Waited, as her breathing got shallower, shallower, then stopped.
He felt her tense his hand. Just a little. Just enough.
And then it loosened.
That was the day Mike Callaghan’s world ended.
Not three months later, like everyone else.
Mike
The Day Of…
Mike Callaghan cracked open his sixth bottle of beer of the afternoon and convinced himself he wasn’t a big drinker.
It was a nice day outside. Bright, warm, the thick of summer. Britain didn’t always have great summers. Usually, it was two or three weeks of nice weather and the rest of it all clammy and rainy. But today was nice. Today was good.
And there was nothing better on a nice day than a cool beer.
Mike sat in his garden and felt the sun burning down on his skin. He saw the curtains twitching in the upstairs window of the cottage next door. He knew Barry, who worked from home, would be judging him for his afternoon, mid-week drinking. And once upon a time, it might’ve bothered him. He’d never been a big boozer. And he’d always cared about giving the right impression to people.
That died the second Caitlin died.
He looked around at the garden. The grass was getting a little long. He could probably do with mowing it, especially when Barry’s garden over the fence beside him was so clean, so immaculate.
He waited until he was sure Barry wasn’t peeking out of his window and he poured a little beer onto his flower bed. That�
�d teach him not to be such a nosy, interfering sod.
As he lay there on the grass, bees buzzing by his face, a dizzying comfort starting to take over him from the booze, he thought back to the summer days he and Caitlin used to look forward to most. They’d always take a couple of weeks off to get a few jobs done around the house, but in the end they were usually lucky with the weather, so they’d end up just lounging around, soaking up the rays.
He used to love that silence between them as they lay there. Silent, but together.
That was never going to be the case again.
He closed his eyes. If he let go of his thoughts just enough, he could convince himself that Caitlin was still right beside him; that things could go back to the way they used to be. That nothing had changed, not really.
But it was all the more painful doing that because eventually, he’d have to step up and return to his normal, everyday life.
And when he did, he’d soon be reminded that it was a life without Caitlin.
He felt a chill come over him. Squinted up, saw a thick covering of clouds were in the way of the sun. That was the problem with any situation: it was always so temporary. Memory didn’t remember the times the clouds got in the way of the sun. Memory only remembered the good times. The bright times.