Fighting Darkness: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller (Fighting to Survive Book 2)

by Alex Knightly

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  He looked up and found Josh sitting on the couch, staring at him. Their mother was still fast asleep on her airbed in the corner. He could tell by the way she was breathing. “Eh?”

  “I thought you’d be pleased. We got away. This is what we’ve both been trying to do ever since you landed us in that mess with Harry.”

  Pete rubbed his cheek and yawned. He was even more tired now than when they’d gone to bed the night before. “I am. It’s just… I don’t know.”

  “You’d better not mess this up. We’re so lucky they agreed to let us come.”

  “Lucky? They only agreed because you happen to know the guy down the road.”

  “So what? That’s completely understandable after what we did.”

  “We had no choice.”

  “I know that.” Josh eased himself down onto the ground. “Let’s not mess this up, alright? It’s a chance to start again.”

  “Is it? I can tell they don’t like having us around.”

  “You’re imagining it.”

  “Am I? Haven’t you seen the way they looked at Mum?”

  Josh flushed. “No. You’ve got to stop thinking like that. You have a chip on your shoulder a mile high. That’s not going to help anyone warm to you.”

  “Warm to me? Do you think I care what these people think of me?”

  “Pete.” Josh shoved him with his shoulder. There was nothing gentle or playful about it. He lowered his voice. “Play it down around Mum, alright? Maybe you wouldn’t normally hang out with these people but that doesn’t matter now. They’re our ticket to survival and we bloody well need to make ourselves useful around here.” He sighed. “Think about it. You’ve spent all your life running after Harry Harman and trying to impress him. Look where that got you. He’d have killed us both if he caught us.”

  Pete closed his eyes. Josh was right. The drive back to Crosby Road had been nerve-wracking. Neither of them had said a word. Harry was sneaky. For all they knew, he’d stationed people outside the front and back of their mother’s house. To be on the safe side, they’d gone around the back way, breaking into the back neighbour’s house and jumping the wall into their mother’s back garden. They’d checked the front to see if there was anyone watching, but it was impossible to know for sure.

  They’d only relaxed when they were on the motorway, sure they weren’t being followed. Then that whole drama with the cars following them and that woman Annie ordering them out of the car at gunpoint.

  Pete clicked his tongue. “What gets me is the way they tricked us on the way up here. There was no need for that. They didn’t have to frighten Mum like that.”

  “That wasn’t about us, Pete. Like I told you. They had to make sure Harry wasn’t trying to trick them. For all they knew, he’d taken our car and driven up pretending to be us.”

  He shook his head, filling with anger the more he thought about it. “It’s not right, though. They checked the boot after they knew it was us. What was that all about? Did they really think we had someone hiding in there? So they can trust each other but not us because we’re too chavvy for them?”

  “That’s bullshit, Pete. Look at Terry. He’s salt of the earth. None of these people are loaded. They’re just normal people. Seriously.”

  Pete grimaced. How was Josh not seeing what he’d seen? Maybe it was because he’d become so used to hiding where he was from and acting a part. “I don’t like the way that policeman keeps looking at me.”

  “Pete,” Josh said. “You’re going to have to relax. Promise me. Seriously, I can’t leave here until I know that you’re going to do everything you can to fit in and help around here. Getting bitter and causing a scene isn’t going to be good for any of us.”

  Pete bristled. “I’m not bitter.” He frowned. “Wait, what are you talking about? What do you mean you’re leaving here?”

  “Not for good, it’s just… well, it’s only an idea.”

  “What? What idea? Where the hell are you going to go? I thought we had nowhere to go. That’s why we were stuck chasing this lot for Harry.”

  “I didn’t have anywhere to go. Not until I heard them mention Miles Sanderson.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pete jumped to his feet and paced to the window. This was just like Josh. Sometimes Pete thought he did it on purpose to confuse Pete and make himself seem more clever.

  “Let’s go talk to the others. It’s not good sitting in here just the two of us. We need to mix. To fit in.”

  Pete was about to argue that he’d prefer to keep to himself, but Josh had already opened the door and walked out.

  He looked over at his mother and felt a stab of pity. The poor thing hadn’t been sleeping when they were stuck at the warehouse. He’d leave her to get some rest now.

  He followed Josh out the door.

  “There you are,” the policeman said when they came in. Pete could feel his eyes on him, judging him, probably. He avoided looking anywhere near them, instead focusing on the others around the table.

  The policeman’s wife seemed a bit dotty. She kept fussing over the big bloke, Terry, who seemed like the only normal one out of the lot of them. Aside from Max and Si, that was. Pete realised she was staring at him. He flinched. There was something about her, but what did that matter? Not only had he tried to kidnap her for Harry, he’d failed and let her trick him. She must think he was a right idiot.

  “There’s some food on the counter,” said Annie.

  He couldn’t really make her out. She was older and lived here. He knew that. Otherwise, everything about the way she carried on seemed foreign to him.

  That was the thing. He had nothing in common with any of them. Josh kept going on about how this was their salvation, but it didn’t really feel like that to Pete. It felt like they’d booked the wrong holiday or something. Like they’d opted for the beach holiday in Majorca and ended up on a skiing holiday with a load of middle-class wankers talking about yoga and Land Rovers.

  He shook his head. He knew somewhere deep down that this was better than Hadstow, but it was hard to shake years of Harry Harman’s approval being the only thing in life that mattered. Sad but true.

  “You look deep in thought.” It was Dan. Annie’s husband. The guy who’d been bleating on about murdered sheep. Pete smirked to himself. Bleating on about sheep. That was a good one.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Josh said in a voice that Pete hated. There he was trying to impress them again with his put-on accent and know-it-all tone. “He’s a grumpy little sod. Don’t think he’s not grateful, though. We both are.”

  The response around the table was lukewarm at best. Pete ignored them all and went to the counter to check the saucepan that was sitting there. His stomach rumbled even though it was only rice and beans. He had to admit it looked amazing after the crap they’d been eating. Harry should have kidnapped a chef along with everyone else, he’d said to Josh once or twice. Josh had just given him the evils in response.

  It tasted even better than it looked. He filled a bowl and wolfed it down.

  “We’re going to try and build a pizza oven in the yard,” someone said.

  “We should concentrate on sorting out this business with the neighbours before we do anything else,” said someone else.

  Pete took another helping.

  “Where’s your mother? We all need to sit down and have a chat.”

  “She’s sleeping. I don’t think she slept at all when we were gone,” Josh said.

  “Perhaps we should wait for her.”

  “Nah. We can fill her in.”

  Pete wanted to argue that their mother wouldn’t like that, but he didn’t bother. This food was so good and he didn’t want to get drawn into their conversation anyway.

  “Tell me about Miles Sanderson, Josh. It’s one hell of a coincidence that you know him.”

  “Not really,” Josh said. “It’s a huge company, but even if I wasn’t working in his div
ision I’d probably know him. Everyone does. He’s like a celebrity in that place. Walks around yelling into his phone at the top of his voice. He seems like a showy asshole at first glance, but he really backs it up.”

  “It almost sounds like you admire him.”

  So Pete hadn’t imagined that note of longing in his brother’s voice then. The poor sap probably wanted to be like this prick they were talking about. Pete could picture him now: braying voice, expensive striped suit stretched across a paunchy belly. He couldn’t think of anything worse.

  “I used to, I suppose. Don’t forget that this was before all of this. And I worked for a big investment bank where guys like that get ahead. He’s sort of the pinnacle, I guess. He’s only forty three and he’s a managing director.”

  “Jesus,” Annie muttered. “I would have pegged him for fifties at least.”

  “He’s not. Late nights, I guess.” Josh shrugged. “What’s he done?”

  Pete sat down at the table. He was interested now. He’d always loved a good fight. None of this lot looked like they were up for a fight. Well, maybe Max, but that was about it. He cringed as he remembered how easily Si had tricked him. There’d been two of them and all it had taken was one small girl to outsmart them.

  Mortifying.

  Annie sighed and looked at Dan.

  “They only moved here after the EMP strike. It used to be an old man that lived there. Apparently he was Sanderson’s uncle. It started with little things, really. Letting our sheep out. Letting our cattle out. Then stupid things like setting fire to the reeds down at the river. There was no need. There are rocks down there you can walk out on and fish.” He wrung his hands. “It might sound petty, but it grew from there. Someone snuck over and broke our fishing rods. Then sabotaged traps. Then they went into the barn where I’d put the sheep and hurt one. Just one. And left it there where I could see it.”

  “And there was the roadblock,” Annie said.

  Pete shook his head. That had been weird. “It wasn’t really a roadblock,” he said without thinking. “We moved it in two minutes.”

  “That’s the whole point,” Josh said. “He didn’t want to create a roadblock. It wasn’t about that.”

  “What would you know? You were hiding in the back. You didn’t help.” He shook his head. Josh had jumped in the back and told him to drive when they were pulled up just after they got off the motorway. It had made no sense at the time and it made no sense now. He’d muttered something about being able to surprise someone. Pete hadn’t been able to see the point in it at all.

  Josh looked at everyone that was sitting at the table. Great, Pete thought. I sense a lecture coming on. His brother was so predictable.

  “I did that for a reason. I wanted to wait until we’d all caught up on what’s happened, but I suppose now is the time. Everything you’ve said is so consistent with what I know about Miles Sanderson. He’s a bully. Always has been. That’s what this was. He’d been bullying you into a corner.”

  “Yeah, we’d gathered that.”

  Pete felt a strange surge of protectiveness towards his brother even though he spent most of his time hating him. It was different. He could hate Josh, but strangers couldn’t.

  “I’m just trying to explain my thoughts. I think I know what to do to solve this.”

  “So do I,” Annie said darkly. “Like I said yesterday, it involves a gun. I thought I was sleep deprived and not thinking clearly, but I’ve slept on it and I’m no calmer. He has no right to come over here and kill one of our sheep. What’s it going to be next? We have to neutralise them before they cause serious damage that jeopardises our ability to live off the farm.”

  “Yes, but that’s too heavy-handed.” Clive shook his head. “They’re annoying, yes, but we can’t overreact. We might have equal numbers now, but not all of us are up to fighting.”

  “He’s baiting you,” Josh said. He laced his fingers together. “Listen, he’s a master strategist. He’s sneaky. The sneakiest person I’ve ever seen. But that’s why he was so successful.”

  “In a bank,” Max said. The big man cracked his knuckles. “Not in real life.”

  “They outnumber us where it counts,” Clive said. “Plus there’s the fact that we have a very limited amount of ammunition. And we don’t know what they’ve got.”

  “We’re stuck,” Dan said.

  “I have an idea,” Josh said. “Like I told you. You don’t know who he’s got and what weapons he’s got. You don’t know what he’s planning. I can help.”

  “How?”

  “Let me go in there.”

  There was a collective intake of breath. No-one was more shocked than Pete was. So this was what Josh meant by leaving. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know him. If I worm my way in there, I can feed you information.”

  Pete shook his head. “No. It’s a terrible idea.”

  “Stop,” Clive said. “Listen to him.”

  “Look,” Josh said. Pete had never seen him so determined before. “He’s not just sneaky. I think he’s downright dangerous. He’s a shark. He’s probably trying to bait you into attacking him so he has an excuse to come for you. Appearances are important to him. He’s not going to stop if you ask him to. You’re just an inconvenience to him, what with living so close. I’ve seen him wipe out people who tried to stand in his way or pull him in.”

  “But we were here first. This is our home. He—”

  “Doesn’t matter. He won’t care.”

  “I don’t see what you’re going to do,” Annie said. “If he’s this destructive.”

  “With all due respect,” Josh said. “I’m a kid from a single parent family in one of the worst areas of Britain who got a job in one of the most prestigious investment banks in the world. I can work him. And once I’m in I can help give you what you need to bring him down. I can sow doubts in the minds of the others. Trust me on this.”

  “Why?” Dan said. “Why should we trust you?”

  “Because of everything I’ve just said. I’m not making this up. I’d be the first to admit I can’t do something. Like with the radios.”

  Pete nodded. “He did tell Harry he had no clue how to do that.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Dan said. “I mean why should we trust you? What’s in it for you, going in there and passing information to us? How do we know you won’t betray us and tell them everything you’ve heard from us? If you admire this guy so much, wouldn’t you rather go live with him?”

  Pete looked at his brother. Was that what Josh had been planning?

  “No,” Josh said. “No way. This is the reason I hid yesterday, so he wouldn’t see me and know I’d met you.”

  “You just said he doesn’t know you.”

  “I said he probably doesn’t know me. I wasn’t taking the chance. Think about it. What if he’d been at that roadblock? Plus you’ve said there are others like him over there. I might know some of them.” Josh shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t want to work for him. Far from it. Haven’t I just told you he’s a bully and a snake? I’d have to watch my back every minute of every day. It doesn’t seem like that here. You lot really seem to have each other’s backs. And I understand why you don’t trust us yet, but I can tell you’ll give us a fair shot when we’ve proven ourselves.”

  The others all looked at each other. Pete stared at Josh. He didn’t know how he felt about this. It was a strange, empty sensation. It made no sense. He’d always despised Josh. Now here was a chance to get away from him. He should have been thrilled.

  But he wasn’t.

  “It sounds very risky,” Clive said. “But a damn sight better than starting a fight we can’t finish. It’s the first solution I’ve heard that might work.”

  Dan

  Dan was still stunned by everything he’d just heard. Was it really so easy? Was this the solution that had evaded them for so long? So much of what Josh said made sense. The neighbour’s actions were so irrational that the only explana
tion that made sense was they were doing it to bait Dan and the others into starting a fight on enemy territory.

  Still, there were a lot of question marks in his mind. Such as whether this was all too good to be true. He watched Josh, who was walking on ahead with Clive. They’d decided to go up the hill to have a look through the binoculars and see if Josh recognised any of the other men at the farm next door. They had two sets now, which helped.

  He still couldn’t shake the niggling sense that there was something wrong about this. Josh seemed decent. Dan couldn’t say the same about his mother and brother, though.

  Was that just snobbery on his part?

  Or was it something else, some deep instinct trying to tell him something?

  He didn’t know. How could he? His brain was full already, trying to process the threat of the neighbours and make sense of everything they’d need to do. It had never seemed important to get the hang of farming. It wasn’t like he’d grown up on a farm or had any relatives who were farmers. He’d freely admitted that he was one of those city dwellers who opted into the lifestyle without understanding anything about it. And back then it had been a lifestyle, with the supermarket always there as a backup in case they stuffed up. He thought it’d be easy, seeing as they were so outdoorsy and low maintenance.

  He’d been wrong.

  Something struck him then. He hadn’t thought of it before with all the stress of trying to keep watch all the time. Perhaps it was Josh’s story about raiding his uni library for books that had put the idea into his head.

  “Clive,” he said. “Do you want to cycle to the village later? See if there’s anything in the library about horticulture? We have all those seeds, but I’m not a gardener.”

  “York, you mean? I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “No,” Dan said, shaking his head. Of course he didn’t mean the city. He didn’t intend to go anywhere near it now, after everything that had happened. It was nowhere near as large as London, but that didn’t matter. Two hundred thousand people all cooped up together meant trouble. “Middleton. I told you about it before. It’s where the river flows to. It’s a small place.”