by Ryan Casey
He looked at Holly. Then at Kumal and Gina.
“Anyone?”
“No,” Gina said. “At least… at least not that we know of.”
Mike sighed. The sudden onset of some kind of epilepsy was hard to believe, especially with such timing like this. “Either she’s got an undiagnosed condition, or…”
He didn’t finish.
“Or what?” Gina asked.
Mike held his breath. “All I can think of is that the EMP is affecting bodies in some way that we perhaps didn’t think before.”
Alison narrowed her eyes. “What’re you talking about?”
Mike closed his eyes, put a hand on Harriet’s chest and waited for her to ride this seizure out. “I did a bit of reading about the effects of an EMP on the human body, once. Generally, a quick pulse just passes through without issue. But causing real damage to the electrical currents in the body? That’d take a sustained magnetic field increasing in size.”
“First, what does any of that mean?” Gina asked. “And second… whatever it is, do you think it’s a possibility?”
Mike swallowed a sickly lump in his throat. “I… I don’t know. By its very nature, an event like this would take us out of the realm of an electromagnetic pulse into something different entirely. And there’s no evidence that an EMP could harm the human body aside from a few unproven studies, like I said. But… I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
He looked down at Harriet’s seizing body. And he knew that there wasn’t much that could be done.
“We have to get her to a hospital,” Gina said.
Mike shook his head. “Absolutely out of the question.”
“Perhaps—perhaps she did have epilepsy or something. She kept a lot from us about her private life, after all. Maybe… maybe if she did, we can go to the Grimsargh Medical Centre nearby. It’s not a big hospital. But they have a pharmacy in there. They—”
“Alison and I saw the state the main hospital was in on the first day,” Mike said. “Trust me. The hospitals will be in the hands of gangs and looters now. Druggies will be dosed up to their eyeballs on all kinds of shit. Infection will be rife. Seriously, a hospital is the last place we want to be.”
Gina stood her ground, tears in her eyes. “So we just let her die?”
Mike heard Gina’s words. And at the same time, he saw the way the rest of the group was looking at him. Again, they had that expression, the expression he recognised. Like they were judging him. Like they were holding onto a humanity that was going to get them killed.
“We can’t go to the hospital,” Mike said. He looked at his daughter now. He wanted her to see. He wanted her to understand. “Holly, you have to listen to me. We just can’t.”
She looked at Mike. And this time, he didn’t see disdain in her eyes. He didn’t see hate.
He saw understanding.
“I know you care,” she said. “I know you just want to keep me safe. To keep all of us safe. But we have to try, Dad. We just have to try.”
Mike looked at Harriet. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. The shaking was less violent. But one thing was for certain: much more of that was going to kill her.
And Holly was right.
They couldn’t just give up.
Even though they were so close to the end of their journey, it wasn’t close enough.
“The medical centre,” Mike said, taking a sharp breath and resisting the pull of his instincts to keep on going. “How far is it from here?”
Gina raised a hand, pointed over towards the road. “Probably an hour’s walk. But I know the way. I know a quieter route. I can lead the way. I can… I can do this. We can help her.”
Mike stood there, looking down at Harriet. He wanted to give up and keep on going. But what did that make him? What was he if he didn’t at least try to help this girl? He had an idea of what kind of medication he could search for. So why shouldn’t he at least try?
So he took a deep breath, then he crouched down and lifted Harriet up.
“Then we go to the medical centre,” he said.
Chapter Twenty
Harriet’s eyes closed, and she saw everything.
It was cold. Far colder than she remembered it being. For some reason, a voice in her head told her that it was summer. So why was it so cold? Why was it so freezing?
She could see a window somewhere ahead of her taking shape. And outside, she could see snow. She found herself smiling when she saw the snow because she was young again. A young kid. So all the stuff about her being an adult was a dream? All of it was just a figment of her imagination? It was possible. Kids had the wildest imaginations, of course.
A taste of blood across her lips. Just for a moment.
Jaws tensing…
But then everything was normal again.
She looked at this window, at the snow falling outside, and she felt a smile creep further up her face. She loved the snow. Even though she’d only ever seen it on telly. She always told her dad how much she wanted to go to Lapland, spend some time with Rudolph and the other reindeers. Dad used to smile at her. Told her to save her pocket money up, and maybe someday she would get to visit.
She’d been saving for a long time. And for some reason, whenever she thought she had enough saved—five pounds once, six pounds another—the pocket money would go missing.
She didn’t make the link between the needles that Dad carried into the house for him and mum and her missing pocket money. After all, Dad wanted to go to Lapland too, didn’t he? He wouldn’t take her pocket money. It was hers.
She walked towards the window. Stood on her tiptoes. But she couldn’t reach it. She just wanted to open the window. She just wanted to feel the snow fall. Dad told her she couldn’t leave the house because there were monsters outside. That’s why she wasn’t allowed to go to school either. Even though a nice lady once came and wanted to know where Harriet was, that she was okay… she just had to pretend she had the flu.
The nice lady hadn’t been back since.
She looked around the room. Then she saw it. The cabinet. The cabinet where Dad kept his photo frame with the photo of his mum sitting on top of. He always told Harriet not to touch it because she’d get her fingers chopped up if she did.
But she wasn’t going to touch it. She was just going to move it a bit so she didn’t slip up over it when she climbed on the cabinet, when she saw the snow.
She got up. Clambered her way up the side of the cabinet. It creaked a bit, a little wobbly. And she thought when she stood on it that it wasn’t going to hold her; that it was all going to fall down like a Jenga stack.
But then she steadied herself. And now she was higher up.
But the window. It was still to the left a little. She’d have to reach over and open it to feel the snow.
She climbed to the edge of the cabinet. She felt it creaking some more. Dad was upstairs somewhere. She hadn’t seen him for a while. She could smell something, though. Something chemical. She didn’t know what it was, only that the smell got on her chest, made her want to be sick.
She reached the edge of the cabinet and leaned over, desperate to get to the window, desperate to just feel the snow.
But there was a gap. A gap she’d have to climb if she wanted to get onto the window-ledge.
She stretched out her leg, but the gap was too far. But she was here now. She’d made it this far. She didn’t want to give up.
She thought about what the superheroes would do. They’d do a big jump over, or fly over. They wouldn’t let stupid little gaps stop them. They wouldn’t let miserable daddies stop them. They’d just do it.
So she held her breath, looked at the snowy window, and she jumped.
At first, she felt amazing. She felt like she’d made it. She saw the snow in front of her and she felt like she was outside amidst it.
But then she felt herself smack against the window, head-first.
She felt herself crack back—bounce back.
She tri
ed to reach for the side of the cabinet to grip onto it, like Lara Croft would in that Tomb Raider game Daddy’s friends and him would play late at night when it was way past bedtime.
But her fingers scraped against the photo frame.
The one Daddy told her never to touch.
And before she knew it, Harriet hit the floor.
She saw the photo frame moving. Saw it hurtling through the air towards her.
And she wanted to stop it. She wanted to use her special powers to reach out, to cushion its fall.
But it was too late.
The photo frame hit the floor.
Smashed into pieces.
She went still, then, head aching badly. She heard movement upstairs. A door opening. Voices. Then a door slamming and footsteps racing down the stairs.
And as she held her breath and waited for Daddy, she remembered looking at that frame and seeing something behind it. Something white. A powder. Lots of it.
But at the time, she didn’t think anything of it.
She just felt sad that she’d broken Daddy’s favourite photo frame.
She just felt sad that he was going to be upset.
With her.
He stepped around the corner of the doorway, and she saw right away, from the look in his eyes, that he was cross.
“I was just trying to see the snow,” Harriet said, back hurting, legs hurting, everywhere hurting.
Dad reached down. Picked up the remains of the photo frame. He looked sad, but sadder at the powder than at the photo, which Harriet didn’t understand.
And then he looked at her, broken glass in hand.
“Come on,” he said, reaching out for her arm. “It’s time I taught you a thing or two about discipline.”
Harriet never brought that memory to mind. She repressed it from that day and hadn’t revisited it ever since.
But as she lay there in Mike’s arms, unbeknownst to her that she was seizing, the memory flashed through her mind again.
The pain of her childhood sparked up inside her, all over again…
Chapter Twenty-One
When the group reached the medical centre, Mike knew coming here was a bad idea.
The afternoon was racing on. The longer the day went on, the more progressively convinced Mike grew that they weren’t going to make it to the safe zone by nightfall. The goal had been to get there today. But already, those ambitions were falling apart. The obstacles were stacking up. And if they weren’t careful, it was only going to get worse.
And now here he was, carrying Harriet in his arms, a couple of hours or so—longer than the hour Gina had insisted—after considering giving up on her.
He looked down at Harriet as she lay in his arms. She was still out cold. The seizure had stopped, and some colour had returned to her cheeks. She needed some medicine. An anticonvulsant; a carbamazepine like Tegretol. He wasn’t sure if it could do much to get her out of her current state. But if it could do anything, it was at least to prevent future events like this occurring.
That said… the medical centre.
The windows had been smashed in. Cars had been abandoned outside it. There were wheelchairs on their sides, ambulances empty of people. Mike swore he could smell dead bodies, and already he knew this wasn’t good.
He looked over his shoulder, back at the rest of the group. And then he looked at the street beyond the medical centre. He’d seen a few people on his way here, but they’d kept themselves to themselves, much to his relief. At least not everyone had turned into a psycho since the power went out.
“This… this doesn’t look good,” Mike said. It was all he could say to the group. After all, it was the truth. The medical centre looked like it’d been well and truly looted already. There were flies everywhere. And inside, there could be people.
Alison stepped up to Mike’s side. “We’re here now. We might as well check it out.”
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded. “Some of us should wait outside.”
He looked around. Saw Kumal and Gina look at each other with uncertainty. Holly and Richard didn’t look too keen either, and neither did Alison.
Even Arya looked insulted by the proposition.
Mike sighed and turned back to the medical centre. “Nobody’s up for waiting outside then? Really?”
“I don’t think it’s such a great idea for anyone to wait out here alone.”
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat. Took a deep breath. “Then I’ll go in alone.”
He walked over to Kumal. Held out Harriet to him.
He looked back at Mike, bewildered. “Mike?”
“There’s no way all of us are going in there. And there’s no chance any of us are going in there if there’s nobody on watch. So this is how it’s going to go. I’m going in there. I’m going to find the meds, and I’m going to get out of there as quickly as I can.”
Holly walked up to Mike. She shook her head. “You can’t just go in there alone, Dad.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. Looked into her eyes. “I can, Holly. I can, and I will.”
“But—”
“We came here to get Harriet something to get her out of this state and then keep her strength up. The sooner we do that, the better. You have to trust me when I say I’ve got this. And you have to keep an eye on everyone else while you’re waiting out here. Okay?”
He saw Holly open her mouth, saw her get close to objecting.
And then she just sighed and shook her head. “Come back,” she said. “Please.”
Mike leaned over, kissed her head.
Then he stood up and looked at the rest of the group.
“Any problems, you run, okay? You don’t worry about me. You run. If someone approaches, the last place you want to be is wedged inside this medical centre.”
Holly started to argue. “But—”
“No buts,” Mike said. “If you want me to do this, then this is the only way I’m doing it.”
He looked around at the group, then. He looked at Kumal with Harriet, Gina with Holly and Richard, and he looked at Alison with Arya.
And he saw something in Alison’s eyes. Something similar to the look in his daughter’s eyes.
“Make sure you come back,” Alison said. “Okay?”
Mike nodded. Took a deep breath.
Then without looking in his daughter’s eyes again, he turned around and walked into the medical centre.
The first thing that hit Mike as he stepped inside the medical centre was just how damned eerie it was in here.
The place had been ransacked already, that much was clear. There was dirt from shoes all over the floor. The bright lights that usually illuminated these places were nowhere to be seen. On the floor over by a little store—already emptied—a drip, fallen to the floor.
He took a deep breath, ignored the reluctance inside his body and made his way through the reception area. He had to get to the pharmacy, which was just down the corridor on the left. And he had to get there as quickly as he could.
The further he got, the tenser he grew. He thought he heard people coughing in the distance. He could smell sweat and rot in the air. But he just pushed it to one side. He had to, after all. He couldn’t get caught up in what might’ve happened in this place. He couldn’t let his imagination run wild. Now was the time for finding the supplies Harriet needed.
And then he had to get out of here.
He walked further down the corridor, which got narrower and narrower. He saw a children’s ward on his left, avoided looking inside—for fear, through pain.
He kept on going further. And as he walked, the memories came to him. The memories of when Caitlin had been in hospital. The times he’d walked down the hospital corridors, over and over again. The fittest time of his life since his military days.
He walked further. Saw the pharmacy up ahead. He had to just hope the meds he was after were left, in some form or other.
But then he stopped.
To his right, he
saw a doorway. And inside, through the window, he saw something that made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
Intensive care. It was only a small ICU. The room was totally silent.
And there were people in there. Hooked up to machines, which had gone out.
Dead people.
And beside one of those people, there was a man. He looked like he was just sat there at first, by his wife’s side.
But then Mike saw the cut marks down his arms; saw the blade on the floor, the blood that’d spurted from his body.
A tragic end.
He turned away. Kept on going. He was so close now. But that sense that someone else was here was building even more. That sense that there was somebody onto him—trying to get to him—grew more and more.
He reached the end of the corridor, reached the pharmacy, and he saw it.
The place had been emptied out. There were meds all over the floor, cartons emptied, pills crushed.
And there was something else, too.
A woman sat there. She was dressed in her pharmacy gear, propped up against the counter.
She was holding onto a bloody wound on her torso.
Mike’s first instinct was to walk. He didn’t want to get too close, too attached.
But then he found himself going over towards her.
Found himself crouching down opposite her, examining her wound.
“What… what happened here?” he asked.
He saw the woman open her mouth. Saw the fear in her eyes. She was trying to say something.
He moved closer. Tried to listen to her. Strained to hear.
And that’s when he heard it.
That’s when he heard the words.
“Get—get out. They’re here. They’re here.”
His skin crawled. He moved back. Narrowed his eyes. “Who’s—”
He didn’t say anything else.
Because that’s when he heard the footsteps.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mike heard the footsteps and every muscle in his body went numb.