by Ryan Casey
“I’d be rubbish without you lot,” Kumal said.
Gina tutted. “Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“No, really. I mean, I know a thing or two. But I get scared walking the dogs at night. I lose my shit if I’m driving anywhere without sat nav. Yeah, I’m glad I’ve got you guys; that’s all I’ll say.”
Mike reflected on what Kumal said. And then he thought about Holly. And in spite of the circumstances, he couldn’t help being proud of his daughter, in a weird kind of way. She’d gone out there all alone. Which meant she had confidence. Which at the same time, meant she’d listened to him over the years.
All the times she and Caitlin used to tut at his prepping advice, roll their eyes at his end of the world theories. Still, she’d absorbed the things he’d told her.
He just hoped she’d absorbed it enough to get to where she needed to go.
“Well, I appreciate your info, know it all,” Alison said. “I think I’ll be just about fine going it alone too now—”
“Wait.”
Mike stopped. He stopped because he’d heard it. He wasn’t even sure what he’d heard yet. Just… something.
“What is it?” Gina asked, fear in her voice.
Mike looked around. Started at his left, then spun around slowly, scanning everywhere. “I can hear something.”
“What?”
“Just… listen.”
He waited. And the longer he waited, the more this sound grew.
“I hear it,” Kumal said.
“Is it…” Alison started.
She didn’t finish.
Because she realised what it was.
Just like Mike, she realised what it was.
Mike looked up. All of them looked up.
And then he saw it, right above.
A helicopter. A military helicopter, no doubt about it.
Crossing over them.
Heading in the direction they were heading.
“It’s them,” Kumal said. “It’s… it’s really them.”
Mike watched the helicopter cross the sky. And despite all his fears, despite all his worries that this was going to be a long-term way of life, he found a smile stretching across his face. He’d been wrong. The government—one government, somewhere—had pulled their shit together and were getting them out of this mess.
And where there was one, there had to be many.
The group watched it pass over. Watched it disappear into the distance.
And then they stood there, silently, smiles beaming amongst them.
“What now?” Gina said.
Mike looked at her, then at the others, and his smile widened even further. “It’s time to get out of this shithole,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Holly walked with Becky by her side. But she couldn’t help feeling like everything was just too quiet.
Morning had fully arrived. The sun beamed down, cutting through a small cloud covering to hit Holly with its warmth. In the old world, this would be one of those perfect summer days where she’d go chill at the park or head to the beach, read a book.
She smiled when she thought back to those days; when she remembered how things used to be. She hoped that one day she’d be able to enjoy them again.
Hopefully one day very soon.
They were walking down a long country road that cut through the trees of the woods. Holly had been keen to stay off the road at first, but seeing how empty it was, she realised there was no point avoiding it.
Even if she couldn’t shake that feeling of unease, no matter what she did.
As she walked, footsteps echoing against the concrete, she realised why it was so quiet. The birds. There were usually loads of birds in the trees at this time of year. And they were surrounded by trees, so it went without saying that they’d come across them.
But she couldn’t hear any birdsong. The occasional call of a blackbird, but that was about it.
And Holly couldn’t help finding it… well, eerie. Couldn’t help feeling a knot in her stomach.
She felt Becky tap her side. Looked down at her. “How much longer?” she asked.
Holly smiled at Becky. She was amazed how much she’d come out of her shell since the pair had met a few hours back. “Not far, hopefully. We’ve just got to keep following this road. If we do that… well, I think we’ll get to where we’re going.”
“Where we going again?”
Holly swallowed a lump in her throat. The closer they got to the safe zone, the more uncertain she grew. What if there was nothing there waiting for them? What if the rumour had been just that—a rumour?
Or worse. What if something far more sinister was awaiting their arrival?
“We’re going somewhere that will help us,” Holly said. “Somewhere good people will be waiting. People who know what’s happening with the power and want things to be better again.”
Becky tilted her head to one side. “But will my mum be there?”
A sickness welled up in Holly’s stomach, the truth she was still hiding from Becky—mostly through not wanting to damage this poor girl any more than some of the things she’d already witnessed no doubt had. “I… I hope so,” Holly said.
“But what if she’s not?”
Holly opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I… You know, I have a dad out there, too.”
Becky frowned. “Then where is he?”
“He’s… he’s somewhere out there. I left him.”
“Why would you leave your dad? Will he not be cross?”
Holly smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose he’ll be very cross.”
She stopped. Crouched opposite Becky. Looked into her green eyes, at her little gap-toothed expression.
“But you know what keeps me going?” Holly asked.
Becky shook her head.
“I know he… I know he loves me, deep down. Even if he doesn’t find me. Even if I… even if I never see him again. I know he loves me. And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Becky asked.
Holly wiped her eyes. “Nothing. Nothing. Let’s keep going. We should be there in…”
She stopped, then. Because she’d heard it.
Her heart started racing.
Butterflies invaded her stomach.
“What’s that noise?” Becky asked.
Holly listened. She could hear it. Some kind of engine, no doubt about it.
Only this engine wasn’t on the ground. It wasn’t that of a car.
It was somewhere above.
She looked up. Stared into the sky.
That’s when she saw it.
The helicopter. The helicopter, flying overhead, along the road. Right to the east, right in the direction they were heading.
Excitement filled Holly’s body. She looked at Becky, beaming smile on her face, tears dripping down her cheeks. “It’s real,” she said.
Becky looked back at her, then at the helicopter, like she didn’t really understand.
“It’s real,” Holly said. “It’s—it’s actually real.”
The helicopter disappeared into the distance, descending as it moved.
But now, Holly knew one thing. One thing with absolute certainty.
She was on the right path.
Her journey, it wasn’t in vain.
She was going to get to this safe zone and this nightmare was going to end.
She held out a hand to Becky. “Come on. We’d better get moving.”
Becky looked at it for a few seconds, cautiously.
Then she reached out and took it.
“Can we skip though?” she asked.
Holly laughed. “We can skip all you like.”
Becky laughed with her. And then together, hand-in-hand, they started to skip.
And as they skipped, ridiculous as it was, Holly got a strange feeling deep down.
The feeling like things were going to be okay.
The feeling that things were going to work out.
She thoug
ht about her dad. Felt guilty about the way they’d separated.
“I hope I see you again,” she whispered.
She kept on moving, kept on skipping, smile on her face, Becky laughing by her side, the sun beaming down from above.
And as she looked up, she thought she saw Mum up there, staring down, proud.
“I’m going to do this,” Holly whispered. “I’m going to make it. For you.”
She was so busy staring up that she didn’t see the movement up ahead.
She heard it, though.
The footsteps.
She stopped. Stopped right in her tracks.
And then she saw them.
Emerging in the distance.
Breaking through the silence.
And when she saw them, her stomach sank.
They were dressed in black.
They were holding guns.
They were the same military group she’d seen back at the medical centre.
“Who are they?” Becky asked. “Are they the good people?”
Holly gripped Becky’s hand tight as the group stepped forward, getting closer. “I don’t think they are,” she said. “We—we need to hide. Now!”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mike ran through the woods as fast as he could, desperate to reach the helicopter before they could run into any more trouble.
The morning sun shone through the trees. All he could hear were the footsteps of those running with him. Arya. Alison. Gina. Kumal. All of them together. All of them united in one goal: get to that safe zone. Get to Holly. It was all that mattered now.
He could smell his own sweat as he picked up his pace. His heart thumped, his entire body tingling with adrenaline. He still couldn’t believe what he’d seen: a helicopter. An actual helicopter in the vicinity of the safe zone they’d been trying to get to.
What did it mean?
It could only mean one thing.
The rumour Holly and Harriet heard was right.
This safe zone was real after all.
Now they just had to get to it.
He looked at Alison as he ran. And as he made eye contact with her, he found himself smiling, as she smiled back. He could reach over there and grab her hand right now. Because she’d been one of the ones to make him realise he couldn’t give up. She’d been one of the people to make him understand that he had to keep pushing; that Holly wanted him to keep pushing, deep down.
So he would. He’d keep on pushing if it was the last thing he did.
He wasn’t ever going to give up. Not anymore.
He’d spent far too much time giving up too easily. Those days were behind him.
He turned ahead, and he saw it.
He stopped running right away. The rest of the group stopped, too. Clearly they’d seen it. They had to have seen it.
“Shit,” Kumal said. “Holy shit.”
Mike listened to the rest of the group’s shock, their disgust at the discovery.
All he could do was stand there, silent.
All he could do was stare.
There was a man and a woman up ahead. They looked like respectable people. The man had dark, slicked-back hair and was wearing a white shirt and black trousers. The woman’s dress looked expensive.
But they weren’t standing on the ground. They weren’t waiting to greet them.
They were hanging from a tree up ahead.
The man looked like he had been beaten. Badly. The woman… well, some of her dress was dangling from her body.
Mike felt sickness wash over him as he processed the scene. He looked away, tried to compose himself.
“What the hell happened here?” Kumal said. It looked like he’d been sick.
Mike turned around again. He took a few deep breaths, despite the stench of death in the air as the sun beamed down on the decaying corpses. Then he walked over towards the hanging bodies.
The closer Mike got, the more the tragedy of this scene struck him. Because something else was clear now. Something that made him well up.
“She was pregnant,” Mike said.
Silence followed. Total shock.
It was Alison who broke it. “How… how can anyone be so cruel?”
Mike stared up at the bodies. It was clear from the state of them that they’d been killed before they’d been hung. Which made him feel even more uneasy. “Whoever did this, they wanted someone to see it. They wanted people to fear them.”
“Who could do this?” Gina said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Mike felt the sickly worry spreading through his torso. Then he looked away from the bodies. “I hope we don’t find out.”
He cut the bodies down, then. It wasn’t a nice feat. The details were something he didn’t want to remember. But these people, they didn’t deserve to be displayed like that. Everyone deserved more dignity in death. Everyone.
When he was done, he took the necklace from the woman’s neck. Saw the little girl on the photograph inside the locket, which was engraved with “B”. He wondered where she was. Didn’t really want to think too hard about it in all truth, for fear of what kind of fate she might’ve met.
But then he turned back to Alison, Gina, and Kumal—who was making sure Arya stayed away from the bodies—and he looked them all in the eye, one by one.
“We can’t let this stop us going where we’re going,” he said.
Alison shook her head. “I dunno. I mean, something’s not adding up.”
“In what sense?”
“It’s just the closer we get to this ‘safe zone,’ the weirder shit starts getting. I just dunno anymore, Mike.”
His stomach sank with Alison’s words. “I can’t give up on Holly.”
“I’m not saying ‘give up’. I just… I just think we need to be careful here. Really careful. Because if we aren’t, we might end up in a situation we regret.”
“So what do you suggest? We just stop? We give up? We accept this world?”
“Hey,” Alison said. “You were the one who told us we could be stuck here forever.”
“That was before the safe zone talk.”
“Yeah, well perhaps you should’ve thought about all that before you told your daughter to piss off.”
A silence followed. A cutting silence. An instant look of regret stretched across Alison’s face.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
But Mike had already turned around.
He’d already started walking.
“Mike?” Alison called.
“There’s no more time to waste. We have to keep going.”
“But—”
He stopped. Turned. Looked her in the eye. “I’m as scared as you are. Deep down, this whole thing, it feels just as wrong to me as it does you. But that doesn’t stop me. If anything, it makes me want to keep walking even more. Because the thought that something might be happening to my daughter… the thought that she could run into whoever did this—whoever’s capable of stringing up a pregnant woman—I just can’t let that happen.”
Alison stared at him. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something.
She didn’t manage it.
In the distance, they heard something.
Gunshots.
And then a scream.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Holly saw the armed group approaching and fear invaded her body.
The group were getting closer. They were far enough away that they didn’t seem to have seen her and Becky yet. But they were making their way down the road. And eventually, they were going to reach them.
So as far as Holly saw it, she only had one choice: get off the road. Hide.
Because whoever these people were… they weren’t the good people that Becky wanted them to be.
“Come on,” Holly said, tightening her grip around Becky’s hand. “We need to hide.”
She took Becky into the woods, as far as she could. Then she perched behind some trees, hopeful that they were far enough away from the armed g
roup that they were well covered.
Becky looked up at her, eyes wide. “They’re—they’re not the good people?” she asked.
Holly shook her head. “No. No, they’re not. But we’re going to lay low. We’re going to stay as quiet as possible. And we’re going to be okay as long as we do that. You got that?”
Tears filled Becky’s eyes. “Those people. They had guns.”
“I know they had guns. But they aren’t going to do a thing to us with them because we’re safe here. We’re okay. Trust me.”
Becky looked into Holly’s eyes, then. And in them, Holly saw trust. That innocent trust that only a child could have.
Holly wished she trusted herself enough to be right here. She wished she had enough self-belief to be certain they were going to get out of this mess.
But that tension. That fear. It was there, and it was strong.
“Promise we’ll be okay?” Becky asked.
Holly forced a smile. “I promise.”
Becky smiled. She looked a lot more comfortable now.
And even that made Holly worry. Because she knew damn well she shouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.
The footsteps of the group were getting closer. They echoed against the road. She could hear their voices, and she knew again that her first suspicions had been correct—they were foreign voices. A language she didn’t recognise.
She thought about what Kumal had said about the foreign invader theory. Could it be true? Could that be what this was?
And if it was, where did that leave their future?
Where did that leave the safe zone?
She held her breath, kept completely still, held on to little Becky’s hand.
All she could do was lay low and wait.
The footsteps were right opposite her and Becky now, just outside the woods. The voices were loud, aggressive. They even sounded jovial.
Fear in her bones, she closed her eyes and she held her breath as they passed by. Kept totally still, kept Becky’s hand in hers.