Surviving Sundown (Into the Dark Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller Book 2)

by Ryan Casey

But Mike knew damn well that danger was never too far away.

  They couldn’t be complacent.

  Kumal cleared his throat, carried on his line of thought. “I’m just thinking,” he said. “The group we came across back at the medical centre. You said it yourselves. They looked military. They were dressed like military. They were speaking in accents we didn’t recognise. Languages we didn’t recognise. And then—then this gunshot kid we found. The things that woman in the lift was saying. Again, it might just be coincidence, but… but what if it’s not?”

  Alison shook her head. “I still don’t understand how this links to an invasion.”

  “I’m saying—”

  “He’s saying,” Mike interrupted, “that there’s a chance the EMP was just the initial blast. That it was the start of something.”

  “The start of what?”

  Mike swallowed a lump in his throat. “Full blown invasion from a foreign threat.”

  The silence that pervaded between the group was tangible. And Mike knew why. The suggestion that this was some kind of foreign threat seemed far-fetched; impossible, even.

  But Mike couldn’t help wondering the same thing.

  What if this really was a foreign-led invasion?

  What if the EMP was just the beginning?

  What if they didn’t only have the elements, the looters, and all the obstacles of an EMP-struck world to deal with… but an enemy of military proportions, too?

  He shook his head, took a deep breath. “All we know right now is that night’s fallen. So we’ve got two choices. We head on to the safe zone. If we’re lucky, we might get there in time for morning. But like me, you’ve seen what it’s like out there on the streets. I’m not sure I want to risk anything right now.”

  “The other option?” Alison asked.

  “The other option is… well, we hole up here for the night. We take turns to stay awake. First sign of trouble and we’re out of here. One way or another, we’re going to have to eat a little. And we’re going to have to rest a little. Does anyone have any major objections?”

  The rest of the group didn’t say a thing. It seemed like, for the first time in a long time, they were actually all on a similar page to one another.

  “Good,” Mike said, lifting out some of the remaining protein bars and a partly eaten tub of peanut butter. “Then we rest up. We get our strength back. Then we go out there and we find what we have to find.”

  The group ate, mostly in silence. Mike looked over at Holly. Saw the way she was looking back at him, glassiness to her eyes.

  “You okay?” Mike asked.

  She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something. Then she just nodded. “I will be.”

  “Good. Now I’ll take first shift. I’m not tired anyway. Kumal, you okay to take after me?”

  Kumal nodded. “Always ready.”

  “Good. That’s good. Now get some rest. We’re going to need it.”

  He watched as the group settled down. He looked at Richard, Kumal, Gina, Arya, Alison, and then at his daughter. All of them had their eyes open, as the sky outside the window at the side of this store darkened even more. None of them looked even close to sleep.

  It wasn’t going to be the last time this kind of situation faced them, whether they got out of this world or not.

  Mike leaned back. Patted Arya over, who came and rested on his knee.

  “Doesn’t look like you’ll have much trouble sleeping,” he said.

  He looked out through the window at the streets. Occasionally, a pop of gunfire off in the distance. Occasionally, a shout or cry from someone in a nearby building.

  But mainly, it was his thoughts that kept him alert.

  The Devil. He’s coming. He’s coming for everyone.

  He thought about the invasion theory. Felt his skin crawl.

  Just one more sleep, he thought. Just one more sleep, and they could be on the road to survival, once and for all.

  If only things were that simple.

  If only the world didn’t have different plans…

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Day Eight

  Mike awoke to the smell of fire.

  His eyes darted open right away. His first instinct was that he was imagining things. He’d had a lot of nightmares about fire since the incident with his team back when he was in the military. Often woke up coughing, the taste of smoke on his lips.

  But this was different.

  He could still smell the burning when his eyes had been open a few seconds.

  And then he saw an orange glow from somewhere outside.

  He stood up. Looked around, checked to see who was on guard, disoriented.

  It was Richard.

  He’d fallen a-fucking-sleep.

  “Wake the hell up!” Mike shouted.

  A few of the group stirred. Holly lifted her head. “Dad?”

  “Everybody,” Mike shouted. “Wake the hell up right this second. There’s a damned fire!”

  The “fire” word seemed to do the trick. Heads lifted. People looked around. Unfortunately, it was Richard who was supposed to be on guard, but he looked like he’d dozed off leaning back against the shop wall.

  “Richard,” Mike said.

  He slapped him. Richard’s eyes drifted open, then suddenly a look of panic crossed his face.

  “Yeah, you will panic,” Mike said. “There’s a fire. You were supposed to be awake. You were supposed to let us know if anything happened.”

  Richard looked around then. And when he turned, he saw what the rest of the group had seen.

  There was a fire outside the building they were in, which was visible in the reflection from the windows opposite.

  This place was going to burn.

  Mike shuddered when he saw the flames, which were blocking the main entrance to the shopping centre. It reminded him of the disaster at Grenfell Tower a year or so ago. All those innocent people, all those lives, up in smoke.

  He didn’t want to be another number. He didn’t want his daughter to be another statistic—even in a post-statistic world.

  “We have to get out of here,” Mike said.

  They stood up. Opened the shutters. Raced their way into the building that they’d crossed over into, other people panicking and screaming around them, too focused on themselves to care about the rucksacks over their shoulders, the food in their possession.

  Mike rushed to the escalators. “We need to get out of here. There… there has to be a fire door somewhere.”

  “Is that it?” Kumal asked, pointing towards the door across the corridor, right between a health food shop and a jewellers.

  Mike squinted. He could smell smoke already, did all he could not to inhale it. But he had eyes on the fire door. That was the main thing. “Bingo.”

  He rushed down to the fire door. Went to push it open.

  But then he saw it.

  He saw it in all its glory.

  The flames. They were working their way up the middle of the building at a rapid rate. Somewhere down below, in one of the rooms, Mike heard an agonised scream.

  “We’d better get out of here,” Mike said, pushing the fire door open, feeling guilty for leaving anyone behind—but knowing there was no choice. “We have to…”

  Then he stopped.

  He stopped because he could see what was beneath him.

  Or rather, what wasn’t beneath him.

  The scaffolding that led off the side of the building had been broken away. It looked like something had struck it—a helicopter or a plane, probably, when the EMP struck.

  Whatever had happened, one thing was for sure.

  “We can’t go this way,” Mike said.

  He stepped back into the building. Headed to the middle of the shopping centre again, and looked down the escalators.

  Through the corridor towards the main entrance, Mike could see the orange glow getting closer; hear the screams getting louder.

  “We’ve no choice,” Richard said
.

  “Yes,” Mike said. “We do. We find another way. Because there’s no chance we’re getting down those stairs, and there’s no chance we’re getting down this fire exit. And hey. Perhaps if you’d stayed awake long enough, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

  Mike saw the way Richard’s face dropped. He regretted his words a little. He knew Richard had made an honest mistake.

  But honest mistakes cost lives.

  There was no more room for complacency.

  They rushed back along the walkway. It was the only way they could go. Mike didn’t hear any chaos outside anymore. The riot would have long settled down by now. They just had to get out that way. They just had to make a break for it. They just had to keep going.

  They raced along the walkway. But as they moved along it, Mike saw something that made his whole body weak.

  The flames weren’t just on the building they’d been trying to get out of. They were all over the town. Burning buildings. Burning cars. A town, dying a death.

  And they were trapped right in its confines.

  Mike knew how easy it was for fires like this to spread. With no fire service around to get the smallest of fires under control, people underestimated just how severe the smallest fire could be; just how quickly it could transform into a full-blown blaze.

  Mike swallowed a lump in his throat and looked out of the window at the fire exit from the building they were heading into.

  There were flames inside one of the stores that it passed by.

  “We’re going to have to do this quickly,” Mike said.

  He took Holly’s hand, whether she liked it or not. And then he ran on, across the walkway and to the other side of the shopping centre.

  The second they stepped inside, Mike realised this whole situation was even worse than he’d thought.

  The building was filled with smoke. There were people downstairs coughing, spluttering. People trapped in shops and rooms.

  Mike covered his mouth, gestured for the rest of his people to do the same. Then he walked over to the escalators, down towards the fire exit.

  The heat was rising the further down they got. Any further and Mike was sure he would pass out.

  That’s when he heard the spluttering.

  He looked around. Richard was struggling. He looked like he’d inhaled smoke.

  As much as Mike was pissed at Richard, he headed back up towards him, gesturing for the others to continue. He put a hand on his back. “Almost there,” he said.

  “I screwed up.”

  “Now’s not the time to mope about what you did or didn’t do. We’ve got to get out of here. Come on.”

  They walked down the escalators to the lower floor, down towards the fire door. Alison already had it open and was inhaling the fresh air from outside.

  Mike stepped out, Richard by his side. And together, they began to make their way down the stairs.

  But as they got further down, Mike realised they had a problem. The flames on the inside were working their way out towards the outdoor stairs that led down to the street below. There was a window that was open, on the verge of cracking. Flames were spreading out of it.

  “Quick,” Mike said. “We have to get past those flames. The whole thing’s going to go up in smoke.”

  They rushed down, further down the steps. Mike could feel the heat from the room on his right; see the orange flames in the corner of his eyes.

  And then they got to the worst part.

  That open window.

  The flames burning on the side of the building.

  Spreading. Fast.

  “Come on,” he said. “Everyone past it. Don’t look right. Don’t even think about the fire. We’re almost there.”

  Holly went first. Then Alison, then Gina and Kumal. Arya followed suit.

  And soon it was just Mike and Richard.

  Mike held out a hand. “After you.”

  Richard shook his head. “I screwed up. I should go last.”

  Mike wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time. “Suit yourself.”

  He stepped past the warm, flame-covered window-ledge and made his way down towards the rest of his people.

  It was only when he reached them that he saw they were looking back, wide-eyed.

  Mike turned around.

  Richard was standing opposite the window, staring in at the flames.

  “Richard!” Mike shouted.

  But Richard was transfixed by something. He was shaking his head. Trying to say something. Something like “I can’t.”

  “Richard,” Mike said, clambering up the stairs towards him, towards the flames. “You’ve got to…”

  That’s when he heard it.

  The cry.

  The agonised cry.

  The unmistakable cry of a child.

  Mike’s body went still.

  He looked at Richard as Richard turned to him, tears filling his eyes.

  “I’m—”

  Then the flames blasted out of the room and engulfed Richard’s body.

  Mike heard the shouts from behind him. He heard the cries, as Richard’s flame-covered body stumbled back, falling off the edge of the stairs and down towards the ground below.

  And all he could do was watch.

  All any of them could do was watch.

  Mike closed his eyes.

  He listened to Richard’s screams.

  Then he heard the thud, and he knew it was over.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Holly watched the flames engulf the town of Garstang from a distance, and she tried to feel anything.

  It was still the early hours of the eighth day, and they were surrounded by total darkness. As warm as the days were, the night was cool. But Holly couldn’t feel cool. All she could do was imagine how Richard must’ve felt in his final moments. All she could do was think about how awful it must’ve been, how hot it must’ve been… and having that as your final memory.

  She looked over at her dad. He was setting up a camp for the rest of the night. They’d decided that they’d better get some rest no matter what, especially after what’d just happened to Richard. Except nobody said, “what just happened to Richard.” They said, “the shock” or “the event” like it hadn’t really happened; like they were downplaying the tragedy somehow.

  But Holly was struggling. She was struggling to accept what’d just happened. She was struggling to face up to the reality, to the truth.

  They’d lost another person.

  They’d lost another friend.

  She looked around at the rest of the group. Looked at Kumal and Alison, helping Dad set up camp. She looked at Arya sitting there, wagging her tail when they made eye contact. She looked at Gina, lying there on the side of the road under the trees, eyes closed. She looked at all of them, and she felt so detached from them; so alienated from them.

  She’d made a connection with Richard in the last few days. She felt like he understood her. Like he really, truly got her.

  She should’ve known not to get close. She should’ve known to keep her distance. She saw the truth now. She was cursed. Mum. Benny. Harriet. Richard.

  Everyone she cared about, falling.

  Everyone she cared about, dropping like flies.

  “Are you gonna give us a hand, Hol?”

  She heard her dad’s voice and she knew she shouldn’t recoil. He was trying, after all. But he had a different approach to the one Holly was comfortable with. He had different methods of dealing with pain, with grief.

  And she remembered what he’d said to Richard.

  The way he’d looked at him with such disdain.

  The way he’d told him that he should’ve been awake.

  And then Richard had died. Richard had been the one to pay with his life for his mistake.

  “Holly?”

  “You look like you’re doing fine without me.”

  Dad’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Alison, raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

 
Usually, Holly left situations like this. She’d back away from the argument rather than chase it.

  But she was tired.

  She was tired of filtering her emotions.

  She was tired of everything.

  “What did you say?”

  Dad looked over at her. “Nothing.”

  “No, you said something. I want to know what you said.”

  “I was speaking to Alison and Kumal.”

  “Why do you always do this?”

  Dad stopped building the camp. Stepped to face her. “Do what?”

  “You… you push things away. You push everything away.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “It is. You pushed me away when Mum died. You pushed what happened to Harriet out of your mind. Now you’re—you’re pushing what happened to Richard away, too.”

  “I think you’re reading a bit too much into things. You should try sleeping.”

  “I don’t want to sleep!” Holly shouted.

  She was aware how loud she was being. But she felt like everything was flowing out. Like all the emotions she’d had bottled up for so long were finally coming to the surface.

  “I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to let it settle ’til morning. I don’t want to brush it under the carpet any longer. I want to face it, Dad. I want to face it. And you should too.”

  She saw the way her dad’s face turned, then. Saw the way it turned as if she was sensing he was on to something that went beyond initial appearance. “Holly, don’t—”

  “Mum was cheating on you.”

  “Holly.”

  “Mum was having an affair and you know it.”

  “Hol—”

  “She chose someone else because your problems didn’t start when she died. They started long, long before she died. They’ve just got worse ever since. And it’s about time you faced up to it. It’s about time you accepted it.”

  She saw the way Dad looked at her then. Saw the two emotions spread across his face. Sadness. But also hate.

  He hated that she’d brought up the truth.

  He hated what she’d done.

  But he had to deal with it.

  She wanted him to be open. She wanted him to turn over a leaf.

  But he did something else.