by Ryan Casey
Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. Her knees felt frozen, locked in place. She knew she had to get out of here. She knew she needed to move. She knew she needed to get away.
Because if she didn’t, whoever was in this house was going to find her with Peter’s body.
And they were going to make her pay.
They were going to put Oscar in danger.
“Keep quiet, Oscar,” Harriet whispered, barely able to utter a sound. “Keep quiet. Please.”
She went to turn that handle leading out to the back of the house.
The handle didn’t turn.
The door was locked.
Her heart sank. More sweat trickled down her face. Her body heated up, like the temperature had risen dramatically in here, very suddenly. The back door wasn’t budging. There was no hope of getting out through the kitchen door to the lounge because there was someone in the lounge.
She scanned the kitchen. Looked for another escape.
Looked for somewhere to hide.
She saw it. A little door leading to a cupboard under the stairs. If she could wait in there, maybe she had a chance. If she could just keep Oscar quiet and keep a low profile... maybe she’d be okay.
Maybe.
“Come on,” she whispered. “We’ve—we’ve got to hide from the monsters. But it’s really important we stay quiet, okay trooper?”
Oscar looked terrified.
But, bless him, he nodded. He trusted her.
She wished she trusted herself.
She rushed across the kitchen, over towards that door leading under the stairs. She felt the blood squelching under her feet again. Almost slipped on it.
But then she crossed it. Reached the other side of the kitchen. Opened that kitchen cupboard door and threw herself inside it.
She closed the door as gently as she could and felt the darkness surround her.
She stepped back. Held her breath as much as she could. Heard Oscar shuffling around. She knew he needed to be quieter. He couldn’t draw any attention to himself. Neither of them could draw any attention to each other.
“Ssh,” she whispered. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She stared at the darkness. Heard those footsteps getting closer. It was like waiting for the inevitable. Reminded her of being a kid, doing something wrong and just waiting for her parents to find out.
That sense of dread. That sense that something bad was coming her way.
Only this was worse. This was far, far worse.
She stood by that door, praying for some kind of break, when she heard the door open.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence filled the kitchen.
And then she heard the voice.
“Shit. Peter! Shit!”
She closed her eyes and listened to the events unfold. She still couldn’t make out who this guy was. She heard him running to the middle of the kitchen. She heard the squelching of the man’s shoes in the blood.
And she heard the panic in his voice, too.
“Oh, shit. How am I gonna explain this? How am I gonna frigging explain this?”
And in that moment, in a moment of weakness, Harriet sensed something.
She sensed an opportunity.
She sensed a chance.
It was a risk. It was practically suicide.
But it was something she needed to bear in mind to use if the moment arose.
But for now, she just held her ground. She just kept as quiet as possible. Kept on reassuring Oscar, rubbing the back of his neck. Telling him as softly as she could he was going to be okay.
But the man. The sounds he was making. It wasn’t like he was searching the room. It was like he was worried. Panicked. And that added the fuel to her thoughts about what she might have to do. The lengths she might have to go to.
But she needed to know for certain. She needed to see.
She edged closer towards those doors. Tried to peek through the cracks in the wood. She had to move up and down a little to see anything coherent. Took her a few tries.
But she did. And she saw him.
It was someone she knew. A guy called Clive. He was alright, as Peter’s allies went. Alright in that sometimes he’d give you some extra food, or sneak Oscar some little animal he’d made out of paper. There didn’t seem to be any ulterior motives. Not like it used to be with Peter.
He was doing something.
Dragging Peter’s body across the kitchen floor.
Muttering under his breath.
But heading right towards her.
“Shit,” Harriet muttered.
She stepped back.
But then she heard something clatter by her side.
Something fell to the floor.
The sound of that man being dragged along stopped. Everything went silent, just for a moment.
Harriet’s heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. She held her breath. Prayed. Please. Please don’t hear us. Please don’t say a thing. Please—
“Is—is someone there?”
The second Clive spoke, Harriet’s stomach sank.
She felt like the world was opening up beneath her. Felt like this was a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. She’d had dreams like this. But never this intense. Never this strong.
“Hello?” Clive said. Stepping towards the cupboard now. “Is—is anyone there?”
And Harriet felt so defenceless. She felt so weak.
Because she didn’t have any weapons.
She didn’t have anything to defend herself with.
She just had a choice.
She looked down at Oscar’s outline in the darkness. Forced herself to smile, even though she was crying.
“You’re going to be brave. You’re going to trust Mummy. You’re going to be a superhero. Okay?”
He looked back up at her with those brown eyes. And as scared as she knew he was, she saw him nod.
“Superhero,” he said.
She turned back to that doorway, took a deep breath. Told herself this was the right thing to do. It had to be the right thing to do. The only thing to do.
And as those footsteps reached the doorway, she closed her eyes and said the only thing she could.
“It’s—it’s Harriet.”
A pause. Silence.
“Harriet?”
She lifted a shaky hand. Pushed against the door.
Clive stood there.
Knife in hand.
Fear in his wide eyes.
And Harriet sensed an opportunity.
She sensed a chance.
She had to act.
“You’re going to listen to me,” Harriet said, sounding as strong as she could. “You’re going to listen very closely to me, or things aren’t going to go well here. You’re going to help me and my son get out of this place. You’re going to help us escape. Or you’re going to go down for what happened to Peter. Understand?”
Chapter Eighteen
Martin waded across the frosty grass and wished he was back at the log cabin.
It was morning. The sun was just about rising. Him and Ella hadn’t slept a wink since the incident at the cabin. He called it an “incident” ’cause that downplayed what’d happened a bit. Didn’t like facing up to what’d happened. Didn’t like accepting how close he’d come to losing his life, to losing Bruce, but more than anything, to losing Ella.
They were lucky to still be alive. Struggling, but lucky.
But the more they walked, the more Martin’s hunger started to grow. The thirstier he grew.
And the more he realised just how precarious his situation had become.
He gripped his knife in hand. It was the only weapon he had left. The hunting rifle had got lost in the flames. Everything had been lost in the flames. Food. Water. Supplies. The whole lot.
And for the first time, stripped of any kind of bug out bag and forced to start again, from scratch, he realised that this was really going to be a test of just how good a survivor he
was. Of just how capable he was of looking after himself. Looking after Ella.
He felt doubtful of his abilities.
But he had to keep moving.
He had to keep trying.
“So where exactly are we going?”
Martin looked around. Ella looked bruised. A couple of burns on her arms, but nothing serious. She smelled of smoke. Everything smelled of smoke.
But she looked surprisingly… at ease. Despite everything that’d happened.
She looked like she was handling this far better than she should be doing.
Maybe it was just the shock.
Martin rubbed the back of his neck. Truth be told, he didn’t know exactly where they were heading. He hadn’t figured that much out yet. On the one hand, he knew they needed water. Shelter. Food. But on the other, he knew just how hard those things were going to be to find, especially stripped of all their essentials like they were right now.
And with that enemy out there. The guys who’d attacked his home.
One of whom Martin had killed.
Who knew what kind of mentality they had?
Who knew what kind of revenge they’d seek for their loss?
But then they’d burned the cabin down. He had to hope they thought he was trapped in there; dead in there.
He remembered the burning bodies at that camp, and he shivered.
But at the same time, it gave him an idea.
“That camp I headed to the other day. There were tents there. They weren’t in the best nick, but it’s something. It’s a start.”
“And after that?”
“After what?”
Ella sighed. “We find a tent. Whoopi doo. What about food? Water? What about… about surviving?”
“It’s going to be… a one step at a time thing. It’s going to be a challenge. But we’re going to make it through this. If I have to fight the whole damned country to make sure we make it, I will.”
“And you don’t think we should be looking for, like, a community or something?”
Martin winced at the word. “We’ve had this discussion before. Communities are dangerous. There’s only so long those places will stay together. As long as the rations last. The bulk of them will be run by looters now. They’re a bad idea. No. We’re better off finding a farm. Somewhere of our own, where we can start growing our own food, rearing cattle, that kind of thing.”
“And how are we supposed to do that when we don’t even have anything to fight with? When we don’t know where we’re going? When we—”
“Look, I’m working on it. Okay? Just… just give me some space to think. Jeez.”
Martin saw the disappointment in Ella’s eyes. He knew he shouldn’t have snapped. Truth was, he felt just as displaced as her right now. Maybe even more, because he was lost about what they were going to do; where they were going to go. He had his plans. He knew how to catch food. He knew how to set up shelter. He knew how to filter water.
But it was one thing knowing those things and another actually putting them into action…
“And you don’t think you’re just being overprotective?” Ella said. “You don’t think that’s anything to do with why you don’t want to find a community or something?”
Martin looked around at her. Frowned. “What?”
“I’m just saying. You go over the top worrying about me. You don’t let me out of sight. You didn’t even let me come hunting with you or learn anything. You don’t think this whole avoiding people thing isn’t something to do with any of that?”
Martin didn’t want to answer Ella. Not because it was nonsense. But because deep down, somewhere inside, he got a strange sense that she was telling the truth. She was spot on.
But he shook his head. “You overthink things. Come on. Before we do anything, we’ve got to get to these tents, first. We’ll reassess when we get there.”
They walked further, silent now. Bruce trotted along in front. In a sense, Martin preferred the talking to the silence. The silence reminded him just how in danger they were. Just how precarious their situation was. Because Ella was right. How were they going to survive when they didn’t have any supplies? This was literally survival now. They needed water—and fast. They needed food. They needed shelter.
And all the time, the mornings were getting darker, colder, winter rearing its ugly head and threatening to take everything away from them…
“I always worried this might happen,” Ella said.
“What?”
She stared off into the distance. “This. Losing it all. Because… the cabin might’ve been nice. But it was always a fantasy. It was never going to last. And you know it.”
Martin looked away again. He couldn’t bear to look Ella in the eyes. He knew it, and she was right.
And now here they were, a month or so after the blackout, forced almost certainly to head into more populated areas in search of whatever supplies they could find.
Forced to traverse dangerous territories and come into contact with all kinds of people.
“I’ve been trying my best,” Martin said. “It’s all I can do. Sometimes, we just don’t know how things are going to work out.”
He stopped, then.
He stopped because Ella put a hand in front of him.
A finger over her lips.
He glared at her. “What…”
Then he saw where she pointed, and he understood.
He crouched down right away.
Pulled Bruce to the cold, frosty ground with him.
And he covered his mouth, so his frosting breath wasn’t visible.
Because up ahead, he saw a caravan site.
A few static caravans right in the middle of a wooded area. Cars perched on makeshift driveways, which hadn’t moved an inch for weeks.
He smelled meat burning in the air.
Heard voices.
He looked ahead, and he saw this shelter.
And he saw supplies.
He tightened his grip on his knife.
He knew what he had to do.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’re going to listen to me, Clive. You’re going to do as I say. Or I’ll make sure you go down for what’s happened to Peter.”
The morning sun shone into the kitchen, glistening against Peter’s blood smeared across the black and white tiled kitchen floor.
Clive stood opposite her. Knife in hand. Fear in his face. Peter’s body by his side.
And as mad as Harriet felt for taking this line, as dangerous a route as it was... she needed Clive’s help getting out. And she sensed a weakness in him, too. She sensed that he was worried about his discovery of Peter’s body. That’s why he’d dragged him across the floor, desperate to hide him.
So she had to make the most of that weakness. She had to exploit it.
Clive shook his head. Held his knife with that shaking hand. “I didn’t—I—”
“You’ve got to see things from the perspective of someone on the outside,” Harriet said, Oscar hiding in the cupboard right behind her, clinging on to her hand at all times. “I mean, you come in here. You find Peter’s body like this… it doesn’t really add up, does it? And besides. I’ve heard the rumours. The rumours about how you’re not totally happy with Peter’s rule. We’ve all seen the signs.”
Clive shook his head. “Please. Don’t do this to me.”
“Then help us. Help us both get out of here. Or I’m afraid there’s only one choice.”
Clive looked away. And then he looked around the kitchen, his eyes widening. He looked at his hands, smeared in blood now. It looked like he was waking up to what he’d done. Realising how this looked.
Waking from a nightmare only to find it was real.
“They’ll kill me if they find out. Peter... Peter wasn’t the only one with power in this place.”
“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you stood by his side and helped him.”
“He—he didn’t leave me with a choice. Please. I—I k
now I’ve done bad things. I know I’ve stood by while he’s turned this place upside down. But I just wanted what was best.”
Harriet stepped forward. She pulled Oscar along with her. She felt stronger now. A situation that could turn on its head at any moment, sure. But she felt like she had some upper ground. And she was going to exploit it for all it was worth. “You wanted what was best for yourself. You did what was best for you. And you turned a blind eye. A blind eye to some of the things Peter was doing. You turned a blind eye when he dragged me in here. When he dragged my son in here.”
“Please, Harriet. You know I’d never do anything that put you in danger.”
“But you did. You stood by. You allowed that to happen. So forgive me if I don’t show any sympathy right now. But the way I see it, we’re both in the shit. And I saw the look on your face. I heard the fear in your voice when you found Peter. You know just how bad this looks. You know just as much as I do how it looks. So do the right thing. This place is collapsing. So help us out of here. And if you’ve got any sense about you... you’ll get as far away from this place yourself as you can.”
Silence filled the kitchen. A sense that everything was at a crossroads. The feeling that this could go either way right now. Clive could accept what she was saying. Or he could react. He could get violent.
She might feel like she was the one in power right now. But that could very easily flip at any moment.
“If not for yourself or not for me, think about Oscar. Think about my son.”
He looked down at Peter’s body. Kept on muttering, cursing, under his breath.
And then he looked back around at Harriet, and he nodded.
“I don’t want to do this. But you’ve not left me with much of a choice.”
He walked across the kitchen, then. Started opening cupboards and drawers.
“What’re you looking for?”
He opened the final drawer on the right of the counter and lifted a key out. “This.”
He walked over to the kitchen door, then. Stuck it into it, turned it. And then he opened the kitchen door, and a surge of cold air swept inside, sending a chill right through Harriet’s body.
“Are you just gonna stand there?” Clive asked. “Or are we actually getting out of this place?”