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

by Ryan Casey

  She thought about that bond she’d felt with Mike. That undoubted, undeniable connection.

  And she couldn’t shake the feeling she wasn’t going to see him again.

  “We should think about setting up a camp,” Kumal said.

  Alison’s stomach sank. She kept on moving, not wanting to slow down. “We’ve made it this far. We should keep going.”

  “We’ve been walking for miles,” Kumal said. “You know me. I’m all for getting to this safe zone. But I think… I think we need to face up to reality, Alison. We aren’t going to find it. The helicopter, wherever it was, has gone. And this safe zone… it doesn’t exist.”

  A knot tightened in Alison’s stomach. She kept her eyes ahead, kept her focus on the road. “We don’t know that.”

  “We know that Holly and Harriet heard a rumour,” Kumal said. “A rumour that we have no way of knowing whether was true. We’ve tried to push on. We’ve tried to find this place. But… but it’s not here. It’s not here.”

  Alison stopped walking. She looked at Arya, by her side. She felt a pull to go back to help Mike. She had no idea what kind of situation he was in, and that Holly was in.

  And that was it.

  Holly.

  “Harriet died trying to find this place,” Alison said. “Holly was captured trying to find this place. Mike… Mike left us trying to find this place. And do you remember what his final wish was? Do you remember the last thing he wanted us to honour?”

  Kumal lowered his head. Gina kept quiet.

  “He wanted us to move forward. He—he wanted us to press on. He wanted us to find it. That’s all he wanted.”

  More silence followed. But it was Gina who looked up this time.

  “Maybe he did,” Gina said. “Maybe—maybe they all did. But the fact is, if we don’t find it, we can’t put all our eggs in one basket. We have to be realistic. We have to start thinking about ‘what if?’ What if we don’t find it? What if it’s not out there at all? What’re we going to do then?”

  Alison looked between Kumal and Gina and she felt outnumbered. Like the pair of them were just giving up. But she couldn’t give up. There was something holding her back. And that something was a someone. That someone was Mike.

  “You do what you want,” she said, battling a lump in her throat. “I’m not stopping.”

  She turned and kept on walking.

  Kumal walked after her. “I remember another of Mike’s wishes,” he said. “He wanted us to stick together, no matter what. If you walk away… well, you own that decision. But if you do that, we’re not united anymore. That trust that we told Mike about… that unity… that’s gone too. So what’s it going to be?”

  Alison looked at Kumal. She looked at Gina. And she knew deep down that she had a choice. Walk on. Find the safe zone. Or stay here and set up camp.

  Alone or together.

  Untied or separated.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat, then looked up at the stars above. She thought about her mum. Thought about what she’d say, about what she’d suggest.

  And then she looked back at Kumal and Gina. “I’m sorry, but I c—”

  That’s when she heard it.

  The gunfire.

  She froze. Looked at Kumal and Gina, then went totally still.

  Gunfire.

  Cries.

  Then silence.

  She turned around in the direction of the gunfire.

  “Alison,” Gina said.

  But Alison wasn’t waiting for anyone.

  She walked through the trees, Arya by her side.

  Walked in the direction of that gunfire.

  Because she wanted to see.

  She wanted to know for certain.

  “Ali—”

  Then something else.

  More gunfire.

  Except this was behind her now.

  Between her and the others.

  Then shouts. Footsteps.

  She turned back. Looked at Kumal and Gina.

  They were too far away from her.

  They needed to run.

  She looked Kumal in the eye. Saw him looking back at her, fear in his.

  And then more footsteps emerged.

  More gunfire.

  Kumal and Gina disappeared into the darkness.

  Alison’s heart pounded. She looked around, knowing there was only one thing she could do.

  “Come on, girl,” she said to Arya.

  And then, together, they ran.

  She kept on moving through the trees. The gunfire seemed to have stopped now, but she could still hear voices, still hear footsteps. She didn’t know exactly where they were coming from. She was lost, disoriented.

  So she just kept on pushing on, kept on heading forward.

  She saw the edge of the woods ahead. She saw lights. And she heard things. Voices.

  Excitement picked up inside. Maybe this wasn’t the rival group. Maybe this wasn’t the enemy. Maybe these were the good guys, all along.

  She got to the edge of the woods, and she saw it.

  The helicopter, first. Sitting there. Empty.

  And then she saw the military.

  They were standing over a group of people.

  All of those people were dead.

  Military peacekeepers.

  Police.

  And two of them—a man and a woman—lying together, hand in hand.

  Alison felt her stomach lurch to the ground. She let out a sob, unable to temper it, covering her mouth in the process. Because this was the military safe zone. This was where the rumour had led them. Holly had been wrong. Harriet had been wrong.

  There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

  There was no safe zone.

  She turned around. Looked back into the woods. She could hear voices in there. But they were getting further away.

  She tried to see if Kumal and Gina were out there somewhere. Tried to see if she could see them.

  But they were gone.

  They were long gone.

  She looked at Arya, heart racing, feeling totally alone.

  Then she looked back at the woods.

  “Just you and me now, girl,” she said.

  Then with Arya by her side, she headed off into the woods, to whatever road lay ahead.

  Alone.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Holly looked down at her dad as he lay there, bullet wound in his chest, and she didn’t know what to do.

  It was dark and it was quiet. The caravan was surrounded by the enemy military. They had their guns raised, pointed at the caravan. Dad had a rifle by his side.

  “This is what will happen,” a man said, foreign twang to his voice. “You will step outside. You will get on your knees. And you will realise the price for causing trouble.”

  Holly looked down at Dad. He was holding his chest. Struggling to speak. His breathing was shallow, and he sounded like he was in pain.

  She was trapped in here. Everyone was trapped in here.

  Time was running out.

  “If you don’t,” the man said.

  And then he lifted a gun and fired.

  The bullet hit the neck of one of the people in the caravan. They spluttered, held their neck, then fell down to the caravan floor. Everyone around them jumped and screamed.

  “That’s what’ll happen,” the military man said.

  Holly’s stomach turned as she crouched over her dad. She knew there were two options. She could comply, step outside, and probably die—along with her dad.

  Or she could step up.

  She could fight.

  She could repay the sacrifices her dad had made for her—the sacrifices she’d failed to truly recognise all this time—and she could fight.

  She looked at the rifle by his side. She’d never fired one. She was a Brit, after all. She didn’t know how to use them.

  But she had to think outside the box.

  She had to try something else.

  “Time is ticking,” the mi
litary man said.

  And then he fired another shot, and another person fell.

  Another series of yelps, of cries. More drama. More tension.

  And then Holly put a hand on the side of her dad’s head.

  She felt the warmth of his face. The whole world seemed to disappear around her, around them both.

  And suddenly it was just the pair of them. Just the two of them. Together.

  “I’m going to fight for us,” she said.

  Dad opened his mouth, a little blood drooling out.

  “I’m going to fight for both of us. Just like you fought for me. Just like you’ve always fought for me.”

  Dad leaned into her hand. And at that point, he smiled.

  “Always… always my strong girl. Always my strong girl.”

  Holly felt the tears building up in her eyes as her dad struggled to stay awake. She wanted him to be there for her. She wanted him to have her back, once again.

  But she knew this time things were going to be different.

  Uncle Norman was right, what he’d said to her at the funeral.

  She needed to be strong for her dad.

  He needed her right now.

  She stood up. Rifle in hand.

  Looked out at the military.

  They looked back at her. A smile spread across the face of the leader.

  “Hello, little girl,” he said. “You want to dance?”

  Holly pointed the rifle to their side, over at the boxes beside them. “No,” she said. “But you are.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  The next thing she knew, there was a huge explosion.

  The flames blasted through the caravan site. Holly flew back, as did so many others. The military men were engulfed in flames, struggling, screaming.

  But they’d fallen.

  They’d fallen.

  Holly lowered her rifle, still in shock at what she’d just done.

  She held her dad.

  But his eyes were closed.

  “Dad?” she said.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Dad!”

  She crouched there in the caravan, the rest of the site burning around her.

  She listened to the flames flickering away. Listened to people talking to her. People thanking her. People telling her they needed to get out of here.

  She listened to all these things, but all she could do was hold her dad’s hand.

  “I love you,” she said. “I love you so much.”

  Dad didn’t say anything in response.

  His eyes just closed, and his breathing went completely still.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Mike felt the life drifting from his body…

  Kumal and Gina looked at the wreckage of what must’ve been the former military safe zone and they were quiet. Completely quiet.

  There were bodies everywhere. Bodies of civilians. Bodies of military people, too.

  People had been lured here.

  They’d been slaughtered here.

  And then the helicopter had moved on to someplace else, something they’d witnessed as they made their way over here.

  Kumal swallowed a lump in his throat, took a deep breath. He looked at Gina, and he knew what she was thinking, too. Alison. There was no sign of her. No sign of Arya. No sign of them anywhere.

  They were alone together now.

  And Alison, wherever she was, was alone with Arya too.

  Gina cleared her throat. Her eyes were watery. “What now?”

  Kumal took a deep breath. Looked into the woods. Remembered something Mike told him, right back at the start. “Now’s where our journey really begins.”

  He saw Holly in his mind’s eye, and he felt so much admiration for her, so much love…

  Alison looked at the burnt-out remains of the caravan site and her stomach sank completely.

  There’d been an explosion here. There were a lot of burned bodies. And as she approached, she stalled. Because she didn’t want to find Mike here. She didn’t want to find Holly here. Not in the way all these other people were.

  But she hadn’t found them. In fact, she’d found something else entirely. The bodies, they were mostly military men. Aside from a few of the prisoners from the caravan, the bulk of them were the troops, some guns still left behind.

  She looked into the caravan Holly had been inside. Found it empty.

  Then she sighed and let out a smile, even though her eyes were filled with tears.

  She walked over to the rifles, which had been left at the back of the caravan. Picked one up.

  Then she stepped outside, Arya jogging to her side.

  “Come on, girl,” she said. “It’s time to go.”

  Then, together, they walked on to whatever lay ahead.

  …and then, Mike opened his eyes.

  Want More from Ryan Casey?

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  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any reference to real locations is only for atmospheric effect, and in no way truly represents those locations.

  Copyright © 2018 by Ryan Casey

  Cover design by Damonza

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published by Higher Bank Books