After the Storm (Book 1): Blackout Read online

  BLACKOUT

  After the Storm, Book 1

  RYAN CASEY

  CONTENTS

  Bonus Content

  Blackout

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

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  BLACKOUT

  After The Storm, Book 1

  Seven Days After

  IF YOU’D TOLD me seven days ago that I’d be standing with my back pressed up to a static caravan with blood spilling down my body, I would’ve said you were mad.

  Either that, or I’d have suspected some kind of drunken incident. Or an accident in the wilderness.

  But covered in blood for another reason? Covered in a man’s blood, after watching him being stabbed?

  Yeah. That was hardly on my list of things I expected to see in my week away. In my lifetime, for that matter.

  The sky above was so dark. And I don’t just say that lightly, either. When you’re used to living in a world with power, you think you know what a dark sky is like. You think you can see the stars, pick out the constellations. When you’re in the middle of nowhere, you think you see them clearer. You think you see them unfiltered.

  I knew now that I’d never truly seen the stars before.

  Not before the power went out.

  Not before electricity collapsed.

  Not before the storm.

  It might’ve been a storm. It might’ve been something else. Hell, I didn’t really know. Nobody did, not truly. Well, somebody somewhere probably did. I’d heard theories, and they sounded like they had ground. But I had no way of knowing for sure, no way of reaching out to those who did know.

  I was calling it The Storm, though. Others were calling it The Event. Some of them much more extravagant terms like The Apocalypse and The Endtimes. I preferred not to think of it that way. There was something defeatist about thinking of what had happened as an apocalypse. Something permanent about it. Call me naive, but I wanted to believe that things were going to get back to normal someday. That one day, I was going to wake up and the power would be back, and law and order would be restored after a gentle word from the government.

  But as I felt the man’s blood splatter onto my body, I knew right then that there was no going back to the world how it used to be. Even if the power did return, there was no going back. The world had changed. The cloth had been pulled from the eyes of the masses. Seven days is all it took. Well, less, in fact. Take power away, and you leave people with a sense of self-governance. An interconnected society cannot function for long without connectivity. Nobody believed in an illusion of a government. That’s like believing in God, and as much a man of faith as I was, I knew not everyone shared my views. They weren’t happy if they couldn’t see who they were believing in; if they couldn’t see the cause before their eyes.

  The man fell away from me, and I looked at his body lying there in the grass.

  I shook. Couldn’t stop shaking, even if it was the middle of August. There was total silence all around. Silence that followed the struggle that’d raged on just moments earlier. I could taste the rusty metal of blood in the air, as the man lying before me gave up on his last breath, and as his eyes glazed over, clear to see in the brightness of the moon, now that it was shining through.

  I heard a voice, then. Heard someone in front of me, saying something to me. I knew who it was. Somewhere by my side, I could hear barking. All of these outside senses surrounded me, and yet I still couldn’t react.

  Sure, I’d had moments of realisation already in the last seven days. I’d had staggering moments that brought the hairs on my arms on end just thinking about them. I’d made lucky escapes. I’d been fortunate to survive.

  But this, right now. Something about the nature of what had just happened—of what I’d just witnessed—changed everything.

  It made me realise the world as I knew it had completely died. That there was no clinging onto the past anymore. Just moving forward.

  “Will?”

  I heard my name being called. I lifted my head, looked Mike in the eye.

  He glared at me through those dark circles all around his eyes, panda-like. He put a hand on my shoulder, and it made me flinch. “You’re alright. It’s over. It’s over now.”

  I wanted to just accept what’d just happened. I wanted to just go with it. Mike didn’t seem too phased.

  But that was part of the problem.

  Because it was over for now, sure. We were safe for now.

  But how much more would we have to do if we wanted to stay safe?

  How many more people would have to die for us to live?

  I closed my eyes. They were hot and heavy. I needed sleep, desperately. My body was weak, cold, broken.

  “Come on,” Mike said. “Let’s head inside. No use staying out here.”

  He walked away from me. Left the body lying there in front of me.

  In my mind’s eye, all I could see was my daughter, Olivia.

  Wherever she was out there, I hoped she hadn’t seen the things I’d seen.

  I hoped she hadn’t been forced into doing the things I’d done.

  I hoped to God she was okay.

  I knew right then that I wasn’t going to be able to stay with Mike much longer. Not when I looked down at the glazed eyes of the man who’d tried to kill me. Not when I saw the blood specks on his chin, or felt it clotting on my shirt.

  I knew I was going to have to leave, and I was going to have to continue my search, whether I was ready for surviving in this world or not.

  My daughter was out there. My wife, Kerry, was out there.

  I was going to find them, no matter what it took.

  But this wasn’t where the story started.

  The story started seven days ago.

  Or rather, it started a whole month ago.

  When my wife left me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  One Month Before

  TEN MINUTES back in Preston and I hated it already.

  The traffic on the M6 was backlogged way back. There’d been some kind of acc
ident at Junction 32, which was slowing everyone down to a halt. The radio wasn’t working properly in my Range Rover, so I didn’t have a clue what was going on in truth. My signal was playing up too. I hated being disconnected from the world, more so than I liked to admit.

  Must be a bummer to be disconnected longer than an hour.

  At least I’d be back to my fibre optic broadband soon.

  I leaned against my steering wheel and stared out at the long rows of traffic. In the back of a Toyota Yaris, I saw two kids glued to their iPads. Further along, I saw a man leaning out of his car window in an attempt to catch a wayward Pokemon. I tutted, then turned away. See, I liked being connected. But something about me—call it primal instinct or whatever—enjoyed the seclusion of rural life. I liked to step outside the real, interconnected world from time to time. In fact, I was on my way back from the Lake District right now. I’d been up to a little place called Far Arnside. Hired a static caravan for a few days. And sure, it wasn’t exactly survivalism, but it gave me a chance to be at one with nature in a place where 4G signal wasn’t so readily available.

  I guess disconnecting from society was to be expected from a guy who writes post-apocalyptic fiction for a living.

  I heard horns honking. The sun glared down on my windscreen. I flicked the air con, but that was knackered too. Shit. I really needed to think about getting this car in shape. Never know when you might be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a need for air con.

  I bit my lip. Part of me wanted to honk my horn too, but I knew it was no good. I wanted to get back home. I had a plan for a new manuscript, and I was angsty to get started on it at the computer. I had an idea of a drought affecting the world, and the subsequent struggles for power, gear, and supplies across six characters globally. Kind of literary, kind of genre. My publisher would probably love it. My readers would hopefully love it. Another string to my bow. Stephen King, I’m coming for you.

  Not quite.

  I knew what Kerry would say when I got home. I needed to grow up and start writing “adult stuff”. When I told her what “adult stuff” constituted these days, she’d progress to lecture me about the need to find a more secure job that didn’t involve inventing fake worlds on the hope that some readers craving a temporary release from the monotony of everyday life might just put down three of their hard earned pounds on it. I told her that she was jealous. She told me I was probably right.

  My stomach rumbled. Mmm. I could almost taste the roasted vegetable lasagne I knew I’d be going home to. Kerry always made it whenever she knew I was coming back from a trip. Now don’t start calling me sexist—Kerry liked to cook, simple as that. And she was good at it. That’s one thing I’d miss if I got cut off from society for good. Kerry’s cooking. Shit, I don’t think I’d survive without it.

  I was looking forward to seeing Olivia too. I always missed Olivia whenever I was away. Didn’t matter how long I was away for, it was never easy. Olivia was my seven-year-old daughter, and she was an absolute star. She’d never been a grain of trouble, right since the proverbial “day one.” Funny saying, really. Because of course Olivia had been trouble on Day One. She’d caused my wife more pain than she’d ever suffered, and she’d forced me to watch the most frigging bizarre sequence of events in my entire life. Yeah, Day One was trouble. A shitload of trouble.

  Since Day Two, perhaps. Or Day Three. Whenever she stopped puking on me. That day.

  I felt something wet and sloppy at the back of my ear and it almost made me jump out of my seat.

  “Bouncer,” I said, tutting. When I turned around, I saw my black Labrador wagging his tail as he sat upright on the back seat. He was leaning forward, trying to get in the front. Clearly he was growing wound up with the traffic, too.

  “What’s up, boy? Fed up as me?”

  He let out a little whine that said all I needed to know about his boredom.

  I ruffled his fur, then when I saw the traffic was inching forward, I put my foot on the gas and claimed a few inches before the traffic stopped again.

  Bouncer was totally a love of my life, too. Don’t tell my wife this, but I loved Bouncer just as much as I loved anyone in my family. He was nine. We’d got him a couple of years before Olivia was born. He’d helped me through some rough patches. No matter what, he’d always been there for me.

  That was the beauty of a dog. They didn’t judge. They didn’t mind if you were grumpy with them when you’d had a shit day. They didn’t hate you if you didn’t give them a cuddle every once in a while.

  They loved you, unconditionally. They listened to you, no matter what.

  More humans could learn a lesson or two from dogs.

  I noticed the traffic moving much more freely. I shuffled in my seat and carried on driving. “Finally. Let’s get out of here, boy.”

  Bouncer barked. He liked speaking with me in his doggy language. I didn’t mind what he had to say either.

  It took us an extra hour to get home—a distance that should’ve been covered in twenty minutes—but when I got home, as I walked up the driveway of my semi-detached house on Cadley Causeway, I already had the feeling that something wasn’t right. Call it a spidey sense. I don’t know how I felt it, how I knew, but I just… I had these feelings sometimes. Like electricity tingling at my skin, telling me things were going to change.

  When I unlocked the door and felt it open before I could finish turning my key, I knew that something was definitely amiss.

  The first thing that struck me was I couldn’t smell that roasted vegetable lasagne that usually smelled so delicious, every time I’d been away on research trips, waiting for me when I got back home.

  The second thing that struck me?

  My wife, Kerry, was crying.

  And she was twirling her wedding ring around her finger.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Kerry? What’s up? Is your mum okay?”

  “My mum’s fine.”

  “Then what’s—”

  Then, she said six words that changed the course of my life for good.

  “I’m sorry. I’m leaving you, Will.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Three Days Before

  “HAVE you always been so rubbish, Dad?”

  “I beg your pardon, young lady?”

  “I said have you always been so rubbish?”

  “I’ll have you know, I used to be pretty ace at Tomb Raider.”

  Olivia scrunched up her little button nose. “Tomb Raider? That’s for old people. That’s why you’re rubbish at FIFA. Aren’t boys supposed to be good at football?”

  “That, my dear, is sexist.”

  “What’s ‘sexy’?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t go around saying that at school just yet. Anyway. Ready for a rematch?”

  My beautiful daughter looked up into my eyes. Whenever she looked at me, my heart always melted a little. She had pretty brown eyes, which went perfectly with her olive-toned skin. She had a cute little smile, and her curly hair fell down behind her ears in locks. She was wearing Adidas tracksuit bottoms and a souvenir bomber jacket with eagle embroidery, and Stan Smith trainers, which she’d got for her birthday. She had an eye for fashion, even at such a young age. Fashion, generally of the streetwear variety, was one of her passions. FIFA was another.

  And she was thoroughly trouncing me at FIFA.

  “I’m gonna be Chelsea this time.”

  Olivia frowned. “You sure?”

  “Chelsea are the best, aren’t they?”

  She didn’t look too impressed. “Just I want to be York City. And I’ll feel bad if I beat you with York City.”

  “Well we’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen, won’t we?”

  I grinned at Olivia and she laughed back at me.

  I started to load up the game when I saw Kerry in the corner of my eye.

  She was standing at Olivia’s bedroom door. The door I’d painted. The bedroom I’d installed all the furniture in. I’d even created a li
ttle play den for Olivia under her cabin bed, but that’d become a little dumping ground for clothes now. All around, I saw traces of the fun Kerry and I had when we were getting this place in order.

  And now it felt like I was looking back at a time that never happened at all.

  I felt like a ghost in here.

  Kerry looked at her watch and tilted her head. She cleared her throat.

  “Just one more match,” I said.

  She didn’t look impressed.

  I wanted to argue with her. I wanted to tell her that I had every right being here. The house was still in my name. And if I wanted another game of FIFA with my child, I had every right to.

  But at the same time, I felt a counter-weight pulling in the other direction. A counter-weight that was always there in everything I did. That weight told me not to fight. Because fighting was unfair on Olivia. She was going to go through enough as it was, asking the questions why Mum and Dad weren’t living together anymore, and eventually why Mum and Dad were with new people. She didn’t need any nastiness. We’d done a good job, the pair of us, of preventing any of that so far.

  So I sighed and nodded. Then I put the controller down. “Right. Time for Dad to get on his travels.”

  Olivia’s face dropped and it hurt me so much to witness it. “I thought I was gonna beat you as York.”

  “And you will,” I said, wrapping my arms around my daughter, feeling the light beat of her heart tap against my chest. “You will. No doubt about that. Next time.”

  I kissed my daughter on her head. I closed my eyes while I did it, and savoured every moment. I saw myself beside her when she was first born. I felt like I was back there, kissing my child and welcoming her to the world all over again.

  Then I pulled back and stroked Olivia’s hair. “I’ll be back in a week. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to.”

  I walked over to Olivia’s bedroom door. Kerry had gone downstairs now.

  “I’ll miss you, Dad.”

  I stopped. Looked around.

  For a moment, I saw clarity in Olivia’s young eyes. Like she understood what this was, and why it was happening.

  I half-smiled, choking back the tears. “I’ll miss you too, sweet pea.”