The World After, Book 2 Read online

  The World After

  Book Two

  Ryan Casey

  Higher Bank Books

  Contents

  Bonus Content

  The World After

  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

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

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  The World After

  Book Two

  Chapter One

  Ben wasn’t sure just how much further he could possibly walk.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the weather was intense. It was rare for it to be this warm in Britain, especially in September. The sun beamed down right on the top of Ben’s head, as he made his way down this narrow country lane. He’d heard rumours that the loss of power was something to do with the sun. Solar flares, that kind of thing. And actually, the more he thought about it, the more he remembered watching a television program before the end of the world hypothesising about that kind of situation.

  Of course, he didn’t know for certain. Nobody knew for certain.

  The only thing he knew?

  He’d been walking from place to place, city to city, town to town for weeks and still he was no closer to finding anywhere safe.

  “I’m not sure how much further I can go, Ben.”

  When he heard that voice behind him, Ben couldn’t help sighing. He looked back.

  Kirsty was struggling. Her hands were on her knees. She was panting. She looked pale, too, like she wasn’t well. That wouldn’t totally surprise Ben. They hadn’t had a decent meal since Wolverhampton, and that was a long time ago.

  He walked towards Kirsty and put a hand on her back. “We’re going to find somewhere new.”

  “Really?” she said, glaring up at him. “You really, honestly believe someone’s just gonna let us wander in? After everything we’ve seen people capable of? After everything we’ve done ourselves?”

  Ben felt nausea overcome him when Kirsty said those words. He turned back, away from her, unable to look her in the eye. “We did what we had to do to survive.”

  “And so will the people running the places we’re hoping will keep us safe. Face it, Ben. It’s everyone for themselves in this world. The sooner you realise that, the sooner we can just… we can just give up and die.”

  Ben’s skin crawled when Kirsty said those words. He kept on walking though, away from her, and away from the rest of their group. There were only five of them—him, Kirsty, Roger, Hassan and Kelis. He didn’t have much to do with Roger, Hassan or Kelis. They helped each other out. They banded together in order to survive. But other than that, their friendship was strictly to benefit each party with the knowledge each of them had about survival—sketchy, basic knowledge at that.

  The only person who truly mattered to Ben?

  Kirsty.

  His girlfriend of five years.

  He thought about the first time he’d met her. The way he’d caught her glancing at him from the other side of the Black Bull pub. He’d gone over to her, swallowing that liquid courage and all his resistance and fears of bonding with other women, and he’d just gone for it.

  They hadn’t quite clicked right away. Their relationship had grown with age. But right now, five years after they’d first met, their relationship was in better shape than ever.

  At least it would be, if it wasn’t being tested by this new world.

  Ben looked back at Kirsty, right into her eyes. “We’re not going to give up and die. I’m not going to allow that. Okay?”

  A thin, exhausted half-smile spread across Kirsty’s lips. “Okay,” she said.

  Ben felt relieved. He smiled back at his girlfriend. “I love you.”

  “I…”

  She didn’t finish speaking, which sparked a fear inside Ben.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Kirsty’s eyes widened.

  At first, Ben wondered if she was having some kind of seizure. He took a few steps towards her.

  Then he realised Kirsty wasn’t looking at him.

  She was looking behind him.

  He saw the looks on the faces of the rest of his group, too. All of them were staring beyond him, all of them wide-eyed and stunned.

  Ben felt his heart picking up in pace. He knew he had to turn around and face what was in their way. But he couldn’t bring himself to. Not right away.

  But slowly, surely, after taking a few deep breaths to steady his nerves, he turned.

  There was another group of people standing right down the road.

  They were blocking the route. Not only with their numbers but with stacks of filled bin bags. The air smelled nasty, like rot.

  And these people?

  Some of them had guns.

  Ben froze with fear. A part of him wanted to turn around and run, and a part of him wanted to face these people, head on, try and win them over somehow.

  But in the end, he found himself stepping back towards his people, slowly.

  “What should we do?” Kirsty whispered.

  Ben gritted his teeth. He held his breath. The people ahead didn’t look like they were in the mood to bargain.

  He looked over his shoulder. The country lane was narrow, but it was straight and well guarded by hedges. It wasn’t going to be easy to break away from the main road.

  “Ben?” Kirsty said. “What are we going to—”

  A blast cracked through the air.

  At first, Ben was filled with that instinctive rabbit in the headlights fear. His legs went to jelly as he started to run, well aware the rest of his people were already fleeing.

  But no. The rest of his people weren’t fleeing.

  Kirsty was holding her stomach. Her cheeks were even paler than Ben remembered.

  On her stomach, there was a patch of blood.

  Pure dread filled Ben’s body. He moved over to Kirsty, took her in his arms. “Kirsty. No. No.”

  Kirsty breathed short and shallow gasps, perspiration dripping down her face. “You
should—you should go.”

  “No!” Ben said. He could hear the footsteps of the rival group approaching, but he didn’t care. All that mattered to him was Kirsty. All that mattered was his love. “I won’t leave you. I won’t.”

  Kirsty reached out a hand and touched Ben gently on the side of his face. Her eyes were glazed with tears, as more warm blood transferred from her stomach onto Ben. “Together forever. Always. Al…”

  Her eyes drifted.

  “Kirsty,” Ben said. “Kirsty, no!”

  She opened her eyes again. But Ben was the one keeping her standing now, as uncomfortable as standing looked.

  He laid her down on the road. He stroked her dark hair out of her eyes, just like he had when she’d fallen on their skiing holiday in the French Alps two years ago. They’d laughed about it in hindsight. Would they laugh about this? Could they?

  Ben heard footsteps slow down right behind him.

  Hate overtook him as Kirsty struggled for life on the road. He spun around, stood, and threw himself in the direction of the group.

  “You bastards,” he shouted. “You did this. You—”

  “Yeah,” a bearded man with a cigarette in his mouth said. “Yeah, we did.”

  Then he lifted his gun and he fired three shots into Ben’s chest.

  Ben felt the pain right away, sharp and burning. He tried to stay on his feet, but he couldn’t stop himself falling to his knees. His whole world started spinning.

  Just had to make it back to Kirsty.

  Just had to…

  He stretched out his fingers, clawing his way towards his girlfriend.

  He saw her eyes meet his, so beautiful, so alive.

  Then, as the blood drained out of her, he saw her smile.

  He reached out and touched her fingertips.

  The light in Kirsty’s eyes went out.

  Not long after that, Ben followed.

  The September sun beamed down strongly.

  Two lovers lay dead on the road.

  Chapter Two

  I watched the deer through the mounted binoculars and I tensed my grip around the bowstring.

  The afternoon was warm, as most days had been recently. It was dry, too, which also would’ve made for a beautiful summer in the old world. But it’d actually provided us with a few problems in this world, mostly because a little rain meant an opportunity to collect some water.

  We had various water collection methods now. We’d developed several ways to catch it. The best method was harvesting rainwater using a collecting system we’d set up back at the house. The water that collected on the roof trickled down into a bucket, simple as that. Contrary to belief though, rainwater does need filtering still, mostly because of all the pollutants in the air.

  Sure enough, those pollutants weren’t going to be around to worry about much longer. Not now the power was gone.

  But harvesting rainwater was only applicable when there was actually rainwater to harvest.

  Other than that? Things were… okay.

  As okay as things could be three months into the end of the world, anyway.

  I was in the woods and I was lying flat on my stomach. Up ahead, I could see the beautiful deer walking around gracefully, going about its life. I felt a sadness inside me when I accepted what I was going to have to do. Killing animals was no fun, especially for a guy who prided himself on being a part-time vegetarian in his old life.

  What would you think of me now, Harriet? What kind of monster would you think I was now?

  “One who has to survive,” I mumbled.

  I released the arrow.

  It swooshed through the air.

  I waited for it to pierce the side of the deer’s neck, hopefully giving the poor beast a clean death.

  But the arrow didn’t hit the deer.

  It slammed into the tree beside it, snapping in two.

  The deer looked at it, then it looked in my direction.

  We made eye contact, the pair of us. We were both in complete stasis, just for a few beautiful seconds.

  Then the deer sprinted off into the woods.

  I felt defeated. I scrambled to my feet, started chasing after it. But shit. What good was that? I couldn’t out chase a deer. I couldn’t catch up with it. It knew it was being hunted, and if deer were good at one thing, it was evading predators. They’d made it this far, after all. And they, unlike humans, didn’t rely on electricity.

  It was a weird world where the deer was a less endangered species than the human.

  Especially with lumbering bow-wielding fools like me here to miss them.

  After running quite a way, I decided to stop and perch behind a tree. I leaned back against it, then poured some water—this water collected and boiled from a nearby stream—into my dry mouth. Good job I was hunting alone. The rest of the group would’ve had my balls for breakfast—in a comedic way—if they’d witnessed that.

  I held my ground, took a few deep breaths, then peeped around the side of the tree.

  To my amazement, the deer was there again. Well, I couldn’t be totally sure it was the same one, but it sure seemed coincidental. It was grazing around in the grass like it wasn’t alarmed at all.

  I slowly lifted my bow and aimed another arrow. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” I said. “I know. I really am that pathetic that even a deer’s not fazed by me.”

  The deer didn’t budge. It didn’t even look up at me.

  I held my breath, crushing the guilt that pressed against me.

  I pulled back the arrow.

  I went to fire.

  Then, I heard voices.

  My skin crawled with fear. Right away, I released the arrow, but into the ground in front of me. I backed up against the tree, pressing right against it. I didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t.

  There were voices. Voices of other people, out here in the woods. Sure, I was used to seeing other people. There were a few others living on the suburban street we’d made our home. But strangers… they made me uneasy; made my skin crawl.

  I kept completely still as the footsteps of those men edged nearer towards me. They were coming in my direction. Shit.

  I looked ahead of me. There was so much woodland. I was far from home. And what did I have? A bow and arrow, which I was rubbish at using, and a knife.

  Slowly, my heart racing, I lowered the bow and pulled out my knife. I held it to my chest. If these people came near me, I’d stab them. I had to.

  Because I couldn’t face them.

  Facing them could be dangerous.

  I heard their footsteps and their laughter even closer now. They were talking, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying properly.

  My chest tightened. I tensed my grip around the knife.

  Then the footsteps stopped. “I don’t think it went this way,” a man said. “Come on. Let’s head back.”

  I let out a sigh of relief as the men started to walk off. I kept my ground, though. I couldn’t risk catching their attention again in any way.

  They walked away. And as they did, I saw images of the other people I’d run into over the last few months. The prisoners who’d killed Derek and Jason. Bill and Margery, the creepy couple running the house that we rescued Jenny from. And so many more, all of them evidence that people on the outside couldn’t be trusted.

  I kept my ground and I prayed that when I looked around the tree, maybe, just maybe, that deer would still be there.

  But when I mustered up the courage to look, it was long gone.

  I’d let a catch slip.

  All because of my fear of running into other people.

  All because of my paranoia over what I’d have to do if they came anywhere near me…

  Chapter Three

  I sat at the table back at the house and, for a moment, I could convince myself that everything was normal.

  It was night. Outside, I could hear the wind picking up. Wind brought hopes of rainfall, so we’d cleaned the roof and double-checked the catching
system we had set up was all in place. We didn’t discuss what might happen if we failed to capture water. After all, Haz was always going on about all the different methods he knew to clean water, to filter it, from streams and rivers and even swimming pools, apparently.

  But the thought of losing access to rainwater, or not stumbling upon a good source, or worse, not being able to filter it properly like Haz claimed he could… that fear was constant, lingering over us, like so many other fears.

  Speaking about it just broke the illusion that everything was okay. And sometimes in life—especially in circumstances like the ones we were in—you needed a bit of an illusion of normality to hold everything together.

  We were all sitting around the dining room table. Haz was at the far end. By his side, Jenny. The pair of them seemed to be getting along fine. Jenny was still something of a mystery. We’d found her at Bill and Margery’s household, captured there. She hadn’t told us much about her previous life. Whenever we asked her about it, she told us tidbits—that she had medical training, that she’d fallen into some troubles that led her to Bill and Margery’s house in the first place—but mostly she expressed that it didn’t really matter. We were all living new lives now. We weren’t defined by the people who we used to be.

  There were Sue, Aiden and Holly, too. They were tucking into their freshly caught fish, rolling their eyes because it’d been all fish lately. Again, they didn’t complain, though, credit to them. They were young enough to be justified in complaining. But they kept quiet because, for whatever reason—probably Sue expressing the difficulty of the situation to them—they accepted that things could be a whole lot worse. To appreciate everything that came their way, every meal they got.

  Then there was Remy, who was always the voice of reason amongst the group. He was a good man. I trusted him. He was a close friend.

  And then Hannah…

  Hannah looked up at me while tucking into her fish—only a small piece of it—and she smiled.

  I felt a warmth in my chest. I smiled back at her.

  The more I saw her, the more she reminded me of Harriet. Not looks-wise, so much. More her actions, the way she moved, the way she rolled her eyes and made her facial expressions obvious about every situation no matter what was happening.