by Ryan Casey
The fear, that’s what it was. The fear for their safety; the fear for their lives. Because the longer time went on without any power and without any word from the outside, the clearer it became that things weren’t going to go back to normal. That normalcy wasn’t going to be restored.
And some people saw that as an opportunity rather than a hindrance.
Carey stood outside the large supermarket. There was a mass of people outside. Some of them were throwing stuff; others were spitting. They were all from different walks of life, different backgrounds. But they all had one thing in common: they were scared, and they were angry.
“Why the fuck are you letting us starve like this?”
“Let us the hell inside!”
Carey heard the shots as she stood there, SIG MCX semi-automatic rifle in her hands. By her side, Martin, Bethany, Harrison. She knew they were outnumbered vastly. And she knew there was only so much standing tall with her shoulders pulled back could do against an oncoming crowd.
And the rifles, too. You weren’t supposed to fire them at people unless they posed a distinct danger to lives of others around them… like in a terrorist situation, or something like that.
But if needs be, that’s what they’d just have to do.
They had to adapt to the rules of the new world, no matter how long it might last.
“You need to understand that looting is illegal,” Carey shouted, hoping to strike a chord with the mad crowds. “The power might be out. But the best thing you can do right now is be orderly. We’re going to distribute rations, make sure the food goes out evenly—”
“Screw that!” someone shouted. “It’s been days!”
“And what if I don’t get any? What if my children don’t get any?”
The voices came back at her again. Dissent in the air. There were fights breaking out amidst the crowd. And as Carey looked at these people—professional people, people who had never been in trouble in their lives—she thought about just giving up. Allowing them to pile into this store—one of the few that hadn’t already been totally ransacked—and loot it for all it was worth. After all, who was she to hold up the moral card anymore?
But then she remembered her role. She remembered her duty. She remembered her promise to protect and uphold the law, no matter what.
“We’ll make sure things are distributed evenly,” Carey said. “Nobody has to go hungry here.”
There was a brief respite in the shouts and the protesting. A standstill, almost. And as the standstill went on, Carey started to believe that perhaps the impossible was true. Perhaps this situation could be salvaged. Perhaps nobody had to get hurt here. Perhaps order could be upheld.
Then a tall, long-haired man stepped forward, stared right at her. In his hand, he held an axe.
“I see what this is,” he said. “It’s a coup. A police coup. Because look at ‘em. They might be in their uniforms, holding their guns. But they’re just as lost as we are. They’re just as screwed as we are. And they’re trying to take advantage of us. We can’t stand for that!”
Carey heard the cheers of approval. She heard the rallying cries; saw the crowd united in action and determination.
And she felt every muscle in her body tense.
“So I say we go in there,” the man shouted. “I say we knock these bastards down and we go in there and we take what we can. And we’ll make sure everyone gets enough to get by. We’ll be the ones who decide what’s enough. Because they aren’t the ones in charge. They might be standing there all authoritarian and all official, but they don’t have no power at all. You with me?”
Claps. Cheers. Applause.
And then the very thing that Carey had been dreading all along.
The crowd began to step forward.
Carey’s body tensed. She found herself lifting her gun, almost out of reflex than anything.
And it worked. To an extent, it worked. A few people stopped moving. A few stopped progressing. A few looked at her with total fear.
But the majority looked on with disgust.
Like her lifting her weapon was even more of a reason to resist.
The crowd came charging forward. The hairs on Carey’s arms stood on end. She saw the rest of her unit standing there in the same position, all looking at one another, all curious as to what to do next.
“What do we do?” Bethany asked, her voice cracking with trepidation.
The people charged forward, just metres away now. Some of them holding weapons. Some of them throwing stuff. All of them determined.
“Carey?” Bethany said. “What do we do?”
Carey swallowed a lump in her throat.
She thought about her promise to protect people. To keep people safe.
And then she thought about her promise to uphold the law.
She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.
Opened her eyes again. “We uphold the law.”
Then, she pulled the trigger.
She watched as the bullets pelted into the crowd. She heard the gasps of pain, watched as they fired from such close range against people’s faces, into their eyes, knocking them to the ground. She watched the blood splatter everywhere. Tasted it in the air, like rusty metal.
She listened as her companions fired, too. As they shot at the engulfing crowd.
And as the bullets cut through the screaming mass of people, Carey knew one thing for certain.
Things had changed.
The world had changed.
And it was never going to be the same again.
Chapter Six
Day Six
Holly held her breath as she tried to set up the trap, but the memory of her confrontation with Dad yesterday was still strong in her mind.
It was morning and it was a nice one at that. She’d got up early, before everyone else, to attempt to set up a trap that Dad had taught her about, to prove her worth more than anything. It was a simple spring snare that was apparently good for catching rabbits and potentially even larger things like deer. It functions by setting off a trigger, which pulls the animal into the air when they are caught. There are obvious pitfalls—if you’re trying to catch something larger, you need a branch that will be strong enough to hold it, after all. And there is every chance the cord will snap and leave the animal with it wrapped around their neck—but off in the wild.
And to be honest, Holly didn’t even know where to start. Just that she had to try. She had to persevere if she wanted to make it in this world.
When the branch snapped, she let out a sigh and dropped the floss that she was using as the cord.
She sat there on the dry earth and listened to the birdsong. She could still feel a stinging on her face where her dad had slapped her yesterday. She’d felt mad at him at the time. After all, what right did anyone have to slap her?
But then… thinking about it, she knew she’d acted rash with him. She knew she’d said some things that she regretted, and that she wanted to take back.
It was just hard.
Adapting to all of this… it was hard.
She heard footsteps over to her left.
She froze. Looked around. It could be a rival group. It could be anyone. After what’d happened to Benny and what’d happened in the standoff with the prisoners, she wasn’t taking any chances.
But when she turned, she saw Harriet stumble through the trees.
She smiled at Holly, waved. And Holly found herself feeling something strange about Harriet again. She’d never been fond of her, in all truth. She always came across like she was trying to upstage Holly in everything she did. And, quite frankly, that she didn’t like her very much.
But Holly had learned a few things about Harriet. Things about her family life, about her past. And those things had changed her perspective of her.
So much so that weirdly, she felt closer to Harriet than she did to anyone.
“Someone’s up early,” Harriet said.
Holly shrugged. “Sun’s risen. Figured I’d
make an early start.”
“The sun rises at like, quarter-to-way-too-early in the summer. Doesn’t mean you spring up and into action right away. What you up to?”
Holly looked at the snapped floss, the broken branch. “To be honest, I’m mostly just breaking twigs.”
“Sounds like a decent alternative to sleep. Want a hand?”
Holly smiled. Harriet smiled back at her, just a little. They got to trying to put the trap together, Harriet holding the branches while Holly tied the floss. Her hands were shaky and cold. Every now and then, a rush of anxiety surged through her body; a reminder that this was the world she lived in now; this was the way things were.
“What happened yesterday… with your dad—”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
Harriet sighed. “Not talking about these things is exactly what causes problems.”
“And I respect that,” Holly said. “I respect that… that everyone’s different. Everyone has their own ways of dealing with things. But I don’t want to talk about it.”
Harriet opened her mouth, as if she was planning on saying something. But then she didn’t continue.
Not initially, anyway.
“What he did. He did it because he cares.”
“He slapped me because he cares?”
“Yes,” Harriet said. “Trust me. I’ve… I’ve seen what it means for someone to hurt you when they don’t care. It’s a… a whole different kettle of fish, shall we say.”
Holly paused then. Guilt inside. Because she knew what Harriet was talking about. She knew what she was referring to. The rumours she’d heard. The rumours that Harriet’s parents weren’t nice to her in some way.
She saw Harriet staring at the ground, into space.
And then she cleared her throat, caught her attention.
“I know my dad cares,” Holly said. “It’s just… hard. Adjusting to this world, you know?”
Harriet nodded. “We’re all in that boat together. But you have to be mindful of something. Something important. You have your dad here with you. And you’re pretty damn lucky that he’s a good dad, that’s for sure.”
Again, more guilt built up inside Holly. Because she realised she’d been ungrateful. Her dad had fought to save her, and how had she repaid him? By acting like a brat. She could see that now.
She needed to face the truth. She needed to grow up. It was the only thing that was going to keep her going.
She looked down at the trap. Tied the final knot. The noose held.
Harriet smiled. “Good job. Only I was kind of looking forward to snapping a few twigs—”
“If you ever need to talk about anything. You… you know where I am.”
Harriet stared into Holly’s eyes. Holly saw something unexpected welling up in them. Tears. Redness.
And then Harriet smiled the warmest, most genuine smile Holly had ever seen on her face, and she nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “Really.”
They stood up, the pair of them. Started walking away from the trap, now it was set. The sun was up. It looked like it was going to be another nice summer’s day. And Holly knew they had to make those days count. They had to make the most of the sun while they had it.
Summer wasn’t going to be forever, after all.
And if Dad’s fears really were true—if this EMP blast really was as devastating as he was led to believe—they were going to be waiting a long time before any kind of power returned.
“So,” Harriet said. “What next? Break a few more branches?”
But Holly stopped.
She stopped because she’d heard something.
Something in the bushes.
And then she saw something.
Movement.
“Must be one of the others,” Harriet said. “Must’ve heard me get up.”
But Holly knew it wasn’t one of the others.
The group approaching were strangers.
And they were heading right towards them.
Chapter Seven
The second Holly saw the group emerging through the trees, she knew there was only one thing she and Harriet could do.
“Hide,” she said.
She turned around right away, not paying any real attention to whether the group had seen her or not; and not wanting to stick around too long to find out, either. All she did was run, making sure Harriet was still by her side. She’d seen too much bloodshed at the hands of other groups already to even consider some kind of peaceful resolution. The time for appeasement was far gone. She had to hide.
Her life might depend on it.
She threw herself between a pair of trees. Harriet got behind the other one. Holly’s heart raced. Her chest was tight. She felt like she did when she was having an asthma attack when she was younger. Keep calm. Keep it together. She had to stay in control.
She held her ground for a while. She could hear the footsteps up ahead, traipsing through the grass. She wondered what’d happen if they discovered the trap. Maybe it’d alert them to the presence of a group nearby. Maybe they’d go to their camp, loot everything they had. And when they did, how was Holly going to explain that to Dad? How was she going to convince him she had the best interests of everyone at heart then?
She looked at Harriet. Saw that she was totally rigid, totally glued to the spot. She looked scared. And who could blame her? She’d seen what Holly had seen, after all. She’d seen people their age drop like flies already. Everything was on the table now.
The footsteps became something else: voices. Holly strained to hear them, forced herself to try and listen to what they were saying, if only to get a read on what kind of people they were more than anything.
But they were too far away to hear.
She held her breath, then. Stayed totally still, twiddling the silver ring that Mum had left her with before she’d died around her finger nervously. She knew she was going to have to take a look at these people. For the same reason she’d been straining to hear them, she wanted to know who they were. She wanted to know who she was up against.
So she swallowed a lump in her throat.
And then she looked around the edge of the tree.
There was a group of four people. They looked… professional, somehow. That was the first word that came to mind. Professional.
But then Holly realised why.
They were dressed in black. Holding guns.
And although that filled her with an instant fear, Holly suddenly realised where she’d got that “professional” connotation.
“They’re police,” Holly said.
Harriet frowned. “What?”
Holly moved back behind the tree, still not too keen on showing her face to these people. They could just be fakers, after all. “They’re wearing like, black body armour. Helmets. And they’ve got guns.”
“Like special forces?”
“Exactly like that.”
Harriet didn’t respond, not at first. No doubt like Holly, she was weighing this situation up, trying to figure out the best way to progress; to move forward.
But eventually she broke the silence. One of them had to. “What do you think?”
Holly stayed still. She listened to the footsteps as they got closer, closer. Two possibilities entered her mind. She could step out, and they could hear her out. They could tell her they were here to restore order—to take them to some kind of sanctuary. Or that they knew about the power outages, and that things were being restored.
Or she could step out and they could pepper her body with bullets.
It wasn’t really worth the risk.
“We just… We wait,” Holly said.
The footsteps got even closer. The voices were really nearby now. They were talking about things—arguing, by the sounds of things. Arguing about procedure. Arguing about morals. Arguing about “the next step.” And about “the enemy”.
Their footsteps were just metres away from the trees now. And as they stood there, Holly knew she was going
to have to do something. They couldn’t just hide here forever. They were going to have to make themselves known. They were going to have to step out.
She tensed her jaw. Looked over at Harriet, who looked back at her in turn, the same glimmer of fear in her eyes. And at that split second, as much as she’d struggled for all this time to get along with Harriet, she was glad she was with her. She was glad she was with someone who truly understood.
She took a deep breath. Turned to step from behind the tree.
Then she noticed something.
The movement had stopped.
The footsteps had stopped.
She held her ground a little while longer. Heart racing. Body shaking. Why had they stopped moving? What was taking them so long?
And then she heard something else.
They started to walk away.
She listened to them walk. Held her ground.
But her focus was elsewhere.
Her focus was on their words.
On what they were saying.
What they were discussing.
And what it meant.
Her breathing flowed more easily. Her muscles relaxed. With every step further away this group took, the more certain Holly became that she was going to be okay. She was going to be safe. She and Harriet, no matter what, were going to be safe.
She waited until she was absolutely certain there were no more footsteps, no more movement, and then she stepped out.
Harriet puffed out her lips, rubbed her hands through her hair. “Are they gone? I mean, are they definitely gone?”
Holly looked around the woods. She looked at the trees. She looked as the rising sun glimmered through the branches. She took a deep breath. “They’re gone.”
“Phew,” Harriet said. “For a second there, I really thought we were goners.”
“Did you hear them?”
Harriet frowned. “What?”
“Did you hear them? What they said?”
“I was kind of busy trying not to lose my shit to hear what they were saying. How come?”