by Ryan Casey
Holly cleared her throat. She knew what she had was big. “They said there’s a safe place. A safe zone. A military drop point where peacekeepers are being deployed. And I swear I heard something about—about extraction.”
Harriet’s face went red. “What?”
“And… and they said it’s only ten miles from here. Just past Garstang. Only ten miles away. A safe place.”
Chapter Eight
Day Six
As soon as Mike woke, he knew something was wrong.
The sun was barely up, and the birdsong was loud, which could only mean one thing—it was the break of dawn. And with it, a sense of disorientation initially. Mike thought he was camping with Caitlin and Holly somewhere. He thought that they’d spent the night in the tent.
But no. This was different. This was…
He looked over and saw Arya staring into his tent, tail wagging.
“Hey girl,” he said. She looked concerned about something, like there was something on her mind. He was surprised how quickly he’d managed to bond with her, in all truth. Maybe Alison was right after all. Having a dog wasn’t such a bad thing.
But something didn’t seem right, as Mike clambered out of the tent. Other than the birdsong, everywhere seemed so silent. And of course, it was normal that it was silent. They were in the woods after all, and there was barely anybody else around.
But this silence. It struck Mike as something else. It struck Mike as… well, emptiness.
He looked over at the tent that Holly stayed in, and right away he felt a knot form in his stomach.
He could see from the way it was moving in the breeze that somebody was missing.
Tension filled up inside. The thought that she might be gone. That someone might’ve come in the night and taken her.
And all he could do was throw himself towards it, to see for certain.
But there was something else, too. Something else that was getting to him, niggling at him.
He’d slapped her. He’d shown her up in front of everyone.
What if she’d left of her own accord?
What if she’d chosen to disappear?
He tried to calm himself, tried to tell himself he was just speculating. She wasn’t gone. He was imagining things. She was still here.
But then he pulled the opening of the tent aside.
Gina was in there. So too were Kumal and Richard.
Holly was nowhere to be seen.
He let go of the tent door right away, his whole world crumbling before him. “Holly?”
He looked around. Looked at the trees. Looked at the rest of the tents. Looked at the area beyond the forest, inside the forest.
He looked everywhere and he couldn’t see her—couldn’t see a trace of her.
But there was something else.
Or rather, someone else missing.
Harriet.
Holly and Harriet were both gone.
He staggered towards the trees, over towards the only place where he could think to look, the only direction he could think to head in.
Towards the area of the woods they’d been going out to set traps, to hunt in.
He ran. Ran as quickly as he could. He knew he should alert a few of the others. He knew he should give them a heads up about where he was going, where he was heading. But at the same time, there were things more urgent than that. The most urgent thing of all being finding his daughter. Making sure she was okay.
Even if she had walked away of her own accord… he couldn’t lose her again. He just couldn’t let that happen.
He thought about that last conversation they’d had as he ran through the woods, the tree branches scratching against his face as he pelted past them. The way she’d looked him in the eye with such… disappointment. And she was right to. She was justified in doing so. He’d let her down again. Alison was right. He’d reacted in a rash, awful way. He should’ve known a lot better.
He just hoped he hadn’t missed his final opportunity to make amends.
He raced further through the trees. He heard something, then. Footsteps. And for a split second, he wondered if it might be Holly—if he might’ve come across her already.
But then he realised it was Arya. She was running alongside him. She had his back.
So he kept on going. He kept on going because he couldn’t back down. He kept on going because he couldn’t give up.
He’d never give up on his daughter.
He’d never…
He stopped when he reached the trap.
He saw it. Sitting there. Perfectly made.
He’d got so wound up when she couldn’t make it right just two days ago.
But this. She’d laid this. She’d…
“Dad?”
Mike spun around.
Holly was standing there. Harriet was by her side.
Mike felt joy and relief fill his body. He staggered towards her, barely able to move.
And amazingly—unexpectedly—she fell into his arms.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Mike said.
“It’s okay. Dad—”
“I—I’m working on being better myself. I’m trying. But—”
“Okay, Dad. Okay. Just hear what I have to—”
“I promise I’ll never—”
“Dad!”
Mike stepped back. Holly was looking at him, a glow in her eyes. A similar glow in Harriet’s eyes. “What is it?”
Holly looked at Harriet, and Harriet looked back at Holly. “Do you want to tell him or shall I?”
Mike frowned. “Tell me what?”
Holly looked back at Mike. And this time, he saw a smile on her face. The kind of excited smile he usually saw when he used to take her to the fairground and he told her she could have ice cream.
“What?” he said. “Are you both just going to stand there or are you actually going to tell me what all this is about?”
“I came out here to set a trap,” Holly said.
“Is that what this is about? You did a great job—”
“Harriet followed me. And… and then there were some other people.”
The hairs on Mike’s arms rose. “Other people?”
“Police. Armoured police.”
“What? Where are—”
“We hid from them. But we heard them say something. Something… important.”
Mike frowned. “Holly?”
She cleared her throat. Looked at Harriet once again, then back at her dad. “They said there’s a safe place. A military safe zone where drop-offs are being made. Where extractions are going down. And where peacekeepers are being deployed. And it’s only ten miles from here, just beyond Garstang.”
And with that information, whether Mike liked it or not… everything changed.
Chapter Nine
Mike heard Holly’s words resonate around his mind and he wasn’t quite sure how to react to them.
He was back at camp now. Everyone was out of bed. There was a fire going, where Kumal was cooking some beans on a pan. Mike winced when he first saw it, because he wanted people to really make the most of everything they had, even if he had managed to gather a few extra supplies at that shop. Eating at a bare minimum was just an unfortunate necessity of survival now, and it would be even more so as time progressed.
But then again, if what Holly and Harriet said was true—if there really was some kind of military safe zone just ten miles away from here—then maybe his worries were wrong-placed after all.
“So you’re certain you heard what you say you heard?” Richard asked.
Holly rolled her eyes. And as much as Mike wanted to have his daughter’s back, he couldn’t help being sceptical himself. “I’m telling you. They were armed for one. Looked like police. They were definitely some kind of authority figure, anyway.”
“And you heard them too, Harriet?” Kumal said.
Harriet looked nervously from Holly to Mike and back at Kumal again. “Well…”
“It’s just it’d really help if
we could have two people absolutely certain of what they heard rather than one person not quite sure.”
“Hey,” Holly chipped in. “I know what I heard. I’m not stupid, okay?”
Kumal raised his hands. “I’m not saying you’re stupid at all. I’m just saying you need to be right. We all need to be absolutely certain you heard right before we risk doing anything that could put us in danger in any way.”
“Kumal’s right.”
Mike hadn’t intended to speak the words so loudly. He hadn’t long ago fixed things between him and Holly, so he didn’t exactly want to make it look like he was conspiring against her in any way.
But he saw the way Holly turned. Saw the way she looked at him. “Are you doubting me too?”
“This isn’t about doubt,” Mike said. “It’s about making sure we’re absolutely certain what we’re dealing with.”
“Of course. Because the alternative’s sitting here in this shitty camp and waiting for the day we run out of food and water.”
“Language, Holly.”
“Language? That’s literally all you care about of what I just said?”
She huffed, turned around. She really was a short fuse these days. Then again, could he blame her, really?
“All I’m saying,” Mike said, trying to restore some calm and order, “is that we don’t really know for certain that those people knew what they were talking about. Even if they did say what Holly says they said—which I have no reason to doubt—how can we know for certain that they didn’t just hear it from someone else? That it’s not just hearsay to them, too?”
There was a silence, then. Even Holly looked like she was really considering what Mike had said. After all, it was right. There were bound to be a lot of rumours going about. There were bound to be hopeful rumours going around.
“But,” Alison said, “there’s a chance Holly’s right, and that these people were right. And I think we owe it to ourselves to investigate it.”
Mike looked at Alison, his skin prickling a bit when she spoke. He hadn’t been expecting her to go against the tide here. “So you’re saying we ditch camp and risk walking through some potentially dangerous areas in order to find out?”
“I’m saying that it’s worth the risk,” Alison said. “Because like Holly says. It’s that, or stay holed up here forever. And I know which gamble I’d rather take.”
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat. He saw the way Alison was looking at him, the way Holly was looking at him. He saw Harriet, Kumal, Richard and Gina, all of them united in their curiosity now.
“I can’t say I’m, like, enthusiastic about any of this,” Gina said. She didn’t say much. Still seemed pretty traumatised, pretty shaken up, after her abduction a couple of days back—her near-death experience, just like everyone else. “But… but like Holly says. I think we’d be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn’t at least try.”
Mike rubbed his hands through his hair. He looked over at the woods. “If it’s ten miles and through Garstang… that’s not exactly an easy journey. It means—”
“It means we go right through Longridge before we even get to Garstang, yeah,” Alison said. “Going through Longridge is the safest route. Otherwise we end up looping right back towards Preston, where it’ll just get busier and busier. And that’s not something we want to risk. So Longridge it is.”
Mike nodded. “Longridge is just down the road, and we’ve no real choice but to go through at least the outskirts of it. A town. You know what state towns are going to be in now, don’t you?”
“Well,” Alison said. “Longridge is barely London.”
“You think it’ll be all rosy there? You’re dead wrong.”
Alison shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
She stepped forward. Reached Holly’s side.
“Of course, we don’t all have to go. A few of us could investigate. A few of us could wait here, if we’re not feeling up to it. See how Longridge is looking then decide what to do from there.”
Mike narrowed his eyes when she said that. He could tell she was winding him up.
“So we have a choice,” she said. “You’re either in or you’re out. So what’s it going to be?”
Holly was the first to step forward. Then Kumal joined her, as did Richard. “All in,” they said.
Harriet and Gina were the only two left.
And even they reluctantly stepped forward, leaving just Mike, there on his own.
He looked at Arya. Even she staggered forward, joined the others, clearly wondering what was going on.
He shook his head. Rubbed his beard. “It’s a mistake. I swear, this… this isn’t going to end well.”
Alison shrugged. “Perhaps not. But I’d rather die trying to make my situation better than survive in the dirt. So what’s it going to be?”
Mike looked around at the camp. He looked at the tents. Looked at the little cesspit they’d created. And Alison was right. This was no life. It was a life they’d been dealt… but it was no life.
He sighed again. Shook his head.
Then he stepped forward.
“I guess I’m in,” he said.
Alison smiled. As too did Holly.
“Then we’d better get packed and ready to go.”
Mike wished he could change his mind, right then.
But it was already too late.
It was time to head back into the abyss.
He just hoped it was the right call.
Chapter Ten
Later that night, Holly looked up at the stars and readied herself for the beginning of a whole new journey.
The days were starting to blend into one. It felt like all concept of time was lost; like if the power ever did come back, the calendar would just pick up from where it left off.
But of course, she knew things weren’t ever going to be the same again. After all, people had already been through so much. People had changed in ways they never expected, never imagined. People had seen things they couldn’t etch from their minds; lost people they didn’t think they could survive without.
Holly was never going to be the same again.
But she was going to try.
She looked around the camp. Most people had gone to bed early, anticipating the early start at sunrise tomorrow. They’d all decided to go tomorrow morning because they could make it in a day if they set off early. They didn’t really want to get caught up near one of the towns when it was dark. It was a compromise they’d made, really. She could tell her dad wasn’t sure about this whole venture. He had his reservations. And she could understand why. She saw where he was coming from. It wasn’t a journey she was looking forward to, exactly. It wasn’t a journey any of them were looking forward to.
But at the same time, she saw the possibility that this journey held. She saw how it might turn out. The hope it provided.
And she believed.
She believed that there was hope.
She had to believe there was hope.
Because if there wasn’t… then what was there, after all?
Her mum used to always tell her something when she was little. “People are inherently good. Even the bad ones, they’ve just got mixed up somewhere along the line.”
She held that close to her heart now, as much as she doubted it. She believed it, truly, as much as she knew it was going to be challenged.
She heard the rustling to her left, almost jumped out of her skin.
But when she looked, she realised it was just her dad.
“You scared me,” she muttered.
Dad walked over, sat beside her. She felt the hairs on her arms stand on end when he did. It wasn’t that she was nervous around him or anything like that. It was just… well, it still felt like the pair of them had a long way to go to build their relationship again. They had a lot of fixing to do—perhaps even too much.
But as with everything, they’d try. They had to.
“You should get some rest,” Dad said.
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“Yeah, well I can’t.”
“Holly,” he said. And she heard from the tone of his voice that he was serious about something. That he wanted a real conversation, and yet the idea of a real conversation was repellent to Holly, made every inch of her body squirm and recoil.
She stood. Started to walk to her tent. “Yeah. You’re probably right. I should—”
“What happened, when Mum died. I went down a path I shouldn’t have gone down. I abandoned you. Hell, I abandoned myself. I see that now. And there’s nothing I can do to fix what happened. There’s nothing I can do to change the past. But if there’s one thing I can do… it’s to try and make the future better for you. So if I act rash or if I act like a bloody idiot, it’s just because I care.”
Holly looked at him, then. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to bond with him because it hurt to do so. Because bonding with him was still an acceptance that they had a different relationship now—that things had changed now Mum was gone.
But she looked at him anyway and saw the sadness and the desperation in his eyes.
“I’m trying,” he said. “And you need to bear with me. I know I wasn’t… I wasn’t ever Mum. I’ll never be Mum. The relationship you two had, that was special. It was unlike anything else. And I’m not trying to do that. But I’m trying all the same, okay? I’m trying.”
Holly felt a lump in her throat. And then she found herself doing something unexpected. Something out of the blue.
She reached over and she hugged Dad.
“You aren’t Mum,” she said. “But you don’t have to be. Just be Dad. Just… just be you.”
He held her. And she held him. And as the moon shone down, as a breeze blew, she felt closer to her dad than she had in a long time.
She pulled away then, not wanting to be close for too long. And when she moved away, she noticed something had changed in Dad’s face. He looked like there was life in his eyes now. A light that had switched back on.
“I still don’t forgive you for slapping me, though,” Holly said.