Survival (After the Storm Book 3) Read online

  “You don’t have to. You just have to let my daughter go. You can shoot me. You can do whatever the hell you want with me. Just leave my family out of this. Our family. Please.”

  It was the “our family” that did it. I could see it now. Stu was realising exactly what he’d done. He looked around like he was waking from a nightmare, and he saw the chaos around him. “I… All this. All this.”

  I stepped closer. “We can fix things. We can put them right.”

  Stu shook his head. He was shivering now. “No. No. It’s too late. It’s—it’s too late.”

  And then he lifted the gun.

  Only this time, he didn’t point it at me.

  He pointed it at his own head.

  I felt a knot in my throat. Maybe I should’ve been pleased that he had a gun to his head and was doing the deed himself.

  But I didn’t.

  I couldn’t let him kill himself.

  That went against everything I’d been trying to achieve here.

  “Put the gun down, Stu.”

  Tears rolled down his cheeks. “There’s nothing left for me.”

  “There is something left for you. There’s… there’s this place. There’s life itself. And there’s Kerry.”

  His teeth chattered. He shook his head. I got closer and closer, one step at a time.

  “Put it down, Stu.”

  “I’m sorry. For—for everything I’ve done.”

  “Stu, we can work together. We can make the world a better place.”

  “I can’t…”

  He squeezed the trigger.

  Only not quite all the way.

  Just as the trigger got close to being fully engaged… he stopped.

  He threw the gun to the ground. And he cried.

  He looked at me like he understood. Like he wanted a second chance.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “For everything. I’m so—”

  Then he gasped.

  I didn’t understand what’d happened at first.

  Then I saw the blood pooling out of his lips.

  I saw him tumble forwards.

  And then I saw him hit the ground with his knees.

  “Please,” he gargled. “Please.”

  I nodded. “I forgive you. And we’ll make the world a better place in your honour. I promise.”

  He fell face flat onto the ground.

  A screwdriver was wedged into the back of his neck.

  Kerry stood behind him.

  The morning stretched on. The wind blew over the barracks. Silence permeated around the place as the dead bodies were moved, as people were buried, as wounds were attended to.

  But all I could do, despite being reunited with my family—this time for good—was think about Stu.

  How desperate he had been to repent in his final moments.

  How eager he had been to turn things around.

  How much he’d loved Kerry, in his own, twisted way.

  And then the final shovel of dirt covered his face, and Stu and his dreams were no more.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  One month later

  You know spring is close when you see the first daffodils.

  The daffodils were always a beautiful sign. Even though this world was hardly a great one compared to the old one—at least to outsiders—there were still simple little things that could make you feel better and more optimistic. The daffodils were one of those things. They brought with them hope. Hope not that things could miraculously return to the way they once were, but rather hope that things were still going on, in some ways. Nature was still progressing like it always had. The only things that had gone were the old structures we used to build around ourselves. The video games. The social media. The mobile phones and the news. All of these systems, we engulfed ourselves in, and really, all they did was make us forget just how beautiful a place the world really was.

  In that respect, this new world—even if it wasn’t exactly new anymore—was far superior to the old one.

  I stood by Kerry’s side and looked at Stu’s grave. He had been buried alongside the rest of the bodies of the casualties that had fallen in that great, awful battle. I still felt guilty for what had happened then. After all, when I looked at the cold, hard facts, I’d led people to their deaths.

  Except I couldn’t look at it that way. In truth, they’d chosen to follow me. They wanted to stand up against Stu. They’d all heard something in the words I’d said, and they wanted to help me do something to change it, no doubt about that.

  It was just such a shame how the battle had played out. Twenty-two casualties. The bulk of the two groups wiped out.

  But the beautiful thing?

  We were building already.

  It started with a group of five that stumbled upon the barracks just three days after the battle. After some initial resistance and hesitation, we’d managed to convince them to trust us, and they’d joined our ranks. It felt weird, having the boot on the other foot, someone else struggling to trust me rather than the other way round. Poetic justice, in a way, that things had changed so dramatically.

  Then more had followed. And before we knew it, there were thirty of us. We had plans to split between the camps we had. Plans to expand and draw new people in. I still couldn’t believe the man I’d become; the person I’d turned into.

  But I wasn’t perfect. There were still things to work on.

  That began with the relationships I had with the people around me.

  “I miss him,” Kerry said.

  I looked at her. She stared down at the earth where Stu was buried.

  “I know it sounds mad. I know he was a loon. And what he did to our daughter… that’s unforgivable. But I miss what we had, for a time.”

  I knew from the way Kerry looked at me that she thought I was judging her.

  Instead, I just half-smiled and looked back at the grave, too. “We can’t help who we fall in love with. Besides, I don’t think he was really such an awful guy. I think… I think he was just mixed up like the rest of us. Lost.”

  Kerry was silent then. “Thank you. I don’t think… after all this time I still don’t think I’ve properly thanked you for everything.”

  I nodded. “Anyone would do the same for their family.”

  “They wouldn’t, though,” Kerry said. “That’s the point.”

  I saw a twinge of connection in our eyes. For a second, I wanted to lean over and kiss her, recreating our marriage all over again.

  But I didn’t. I just smiled at her, and she smiled back like she was realising it was all just an illusion, too. A convenient revisiting of how things used to be, but not something permanent. Not anything that would last.

  I opened up my arms, and Kerry sunk into them. We stood there, and we held each other, and we cried, both of us, for a few minutes, maybe longer.

  Then in the end, when she pulled away, she looked up at me and with the sincerest voice, she said, “I’m glad you’ve found someone else. I really am.”

  I leaned over to Kerry and kissed her on the head. “Me too. Me too.”

  We walked back to the barracks, hand in hand. I still thought I saw movement in the trees, right to this day, like people were watching getting ready to attack. But that would fade. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it’d be a curse that I’d be afflicted with for the rest of my life.

  I was still here. That was the important thing in all of this.

  I walked until I reached the barracks. Olivia and Bouncer were there to greet us. I leaned down, kissed Olivia, and ruffled Bouncer’s fur.

  “I missed you, Dad,” Olivia said, leaning in and wrapping her arms around me.

  “Missed me? I’ve only been gone…” I looked at my watch, which obviously wasn’t ticking.

  Olivia laughed. “Don’t go away again. Please.”

  I tightened my grip around my daughter and felt a lump growing in my throat. And for the first time, I could confidently promise my daughter something. “I won’t. Don’t worry.
I won’t go anywhere.”

  We held each other a little longer. And the longer I held my daughter, the more I realised something. The more I understood that I had been ignoring what was right in front of me, all along.

  I hadn’t been able to let other people in, I thought. I only had the ability to look out for my family. To care for my family. To love my family.

  But I had let someone in.

  I had cared for someone else.

  I had loved someone else…

  “Anyway,” I said. “You go show your mum some of those mushrooms you found. Take Bouncer with you, too.”

  “Where are you going?” Olivia asked.

  “I… I have somewhere to be.”

  I looked Kerry in her eyes, and she looked back at me.

  She genuinely looked happy for me.

  When I knocked on the door, I felt that cautious nervousness, and I felt like a teenager all over again, asking a girl to dance.

  Not that I did that much as a teenager. I was one of the dorkier kids. If I asked anyone to dance, it’d probably be my nan, and even she wasn’t always up for it. Hip problems, you know.

  I heard her footsteps move along the floor inside the room. I took a few deep breaths, steadied myself, told myself everything was going to be okay.

  This was what I wanted.

  This was what was right.

  This was my place in the new world.

  The door opened, and she was standing at it.

  Kesha frowned. “Hey. What’re you doing—”

  I didn’t even think about it.

  I didn’t even say a thing.

  I just leaned in and kissed her.

  She pulled away. And for a second, I saw doubt in her eyes.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  I stroked her hair out of her face, put my hands behind her back. “I’m definitely sure.”

  Then we closed our eyes, pressed our lips against each other, and for once in this world, everything was perfect.

  I didn’t see it yet.

  But my watch started ticking again.

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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 © 2017 by Ryan Casey

  Cover design by Damonza

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  Published by Higher Bank Books