The World After (Book 1) Read online

  I walked across the pathway, which was waterlogged. The brief stint of summer Rochdale had experienced had given way to the usual summer now: damp, humid, and all round a little bit depressing. As my footsteps splashed through the puddles, I saw some hoodies on bikes in the distance, hanging around the graves. It made me tighten my grip around the stalks of the flowers. It always struck me as totally disrespectful when kids hung around graveyards, a fact I’d discovered for myself as the losses in my life stacked up. I used to always tell Harriet that they were the “dregs of society,” but at the time she took a much more sympathetic view. “Better hanging around with the dead than bothering the living,” she’d say.

  She was always so full of beautiful little turns of phrase like that. That was part of what I loved about her.

  I stopped when I reached my mother’s grave and I looked down at it.

  Seeing her name—Patricia Harvard—etched in those capital letters was still surreal. It was hard to accept that this was all my mum was, now. Just an etching on a stone in the ground. I saw the flowers in front of her grave had all had their heads nibbled off by rabbits. And I knew the flowers I had in my hand right now would suffer the same fate.

  But still, I visited, every week, just to spend some quiet time with my mum, to watch the birds circle the cemetery, listen to the silence.

  I crouched beside the grave, pulled up the old flowers and snipped at the new ones before putting them in place. When I was finished, I just sat there for a while. She’d died six months ago. Heart attack, very sudden. She didn’t suffer much, if at all. One second, she was with us, the next, she was gone.

  There was the shock of it, of course. She was only in her late sixties, and she was a relatively healthy woman. She’d always boasted of how she’d be running long after I lost my ability to walk, teasing Harriet about her “awful posture.” The pair of them got on very well, so her death came as much of a shock to Harriet as it did to me. She didn’t have parents of her own. She’d been adopted, and the adoption went sour, so as far as she was concerned, my mum was the closest thing she’d ever had to a mother herself.

  But we stuck together, as hard as it was. I was suddenly the man without any parents—I’d never known my dad. Harriet was my rock. She’d been by my side and I’d been by hers, right through those months of hell.

  Until one evening, Harriet didn’t come home from work. She walked to work, in admin and reception down at the local vets. It was a ten-minute walk, tops. She didn’t have to worry about traffic or anything like that. “It’s the least of my concerns,” she used to say.

  How ironic it was that a double-decker bus slammed into her when she was crossing the only road she had to cross every single day, breaking every bone in her body.

  She didn’t die instantly, though. It was all a bit of a blur, to be honest. I went out to try and find her when she wouldn’t answer her calls. And when I’d seen the people gathering around, an onion I’d half-chopped still in my hand, I knew, right away, that something was wrong.

  The onion fell to the road, and I fell to Harriet’s side.

  She was still alive, but she was gone, of course. The bus had hit her with such force that it had knocked all consciousness from her broken body.

  I’d sat by the side of her hospital bed in intensive care and, even though I wasn’t a religious man, I found myself praying. Not cursing God, like some people did when they lost. Just praying that Harriet wasn’t going to leave me, so soon after my mum had left me.

  Then my prayers changed, somehow, as if a divine hand was transforming their direction.

  I was praying that whatever happened was for the best. For Harriet. For me.

  I was praying that I’d find the strength to conquer whatever challenge lay ahead.

  And then the doctors came in and told me the awful, life-changing news that I never thought I’d have to hear.

  Harriet wasn’t going to survive.

  They were switching off her life support.

  I glanced over in the direction of her grave. There wasn’t a headstone there, yet. Just a tall wooden cross with a little gold emblem on it. There were flowers laid on the grave, but none of them mine.

  I couldn’t go over there.

  Going over there meant acceptance that she was gone.

  I still wasn’t ready to accept that yet, even if it had been two months.

  I tricked myself, sometimes. I listened to old voicemails she’d left me asking me to pick up tomatoes or chickpeas on the way home from work. She was a vegetarian, and yes, she’d half-converted me to her ways a few nights a week, so cooking was a favoured hobby of ours.

  Other times, I read the emails she sent me when I’d been at work and pretended she’d only just sent them.

  Other times… Yeah. I looked at her nudes. Shameful. Made me feel ill, simply because it was like I was attempting to resurrect her from the dead when in fact she was gone. Totally gone.

  But there wasn’t anything sleazy about it.

  I missed her body.

  I missed her skin.

  I missed her warmth.

  I’d never feel anything like it, ever again.

  I went to stand when my phone rang, breaking me from my trance.

  When I looked at the phone, I saw it was…

  Shit.

  Gavin.

  I lifted the phone to my ear. “Gavin. All okay?”

  “Hi, Scott,” Gavin—my boss—said. “Look, I heard about your interview the other day.”

  My cheeks went red. “Ah. You did?”

  “Look, I’m not gonna pretend you stormed it. But I’m not happy with the manner in which it was conducted. At the end of the day, Gregg might’ve bought a 70% stake in the company, but 30% of that company is still mine. I want to be there to fight my 30%.”

  I turned around, unable to believe what I was hearing. “Wait. Are you suggesting—”

  “Congratulations, and all that,” Gavin said. “Looks like you’ve got a second interview. But don’t screw this one up. You promise me?”

  “Sure,” I said, my body shaking with relief. “Absolutely. I’ll—I’ll give it my all.”

  “Good,” Gavin said. “Anyway. I’ll leave you to it. This merger is taking it out of our systems, therefore out of me.”

  “Thanks, Gavin.”

  “Scott, it’s no problem. You’re a good worker and a good man. Just… be there. I’ll text through the details.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later, Gavin.”

  “Oh, and Scott?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do some goddamned reading up on coding. You’re gonna need it.”

  The phone went dead.

  But as I stood in the cemetery, the sun started to peek through the clouds and shone right down on Harriet’s grave.

  “Thank you,” I muttered.

  Then I hurried out of the cemetery.

  I had a big night of study ahead of me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Somewhere…

  HE LOOKED at the weapon and he couldn’t help smiling with pride when he saw it.

  He’d heard about the sheer devastation a weapon like this could cause. It was attached to a nuclear warhead, which would explode above ground, rendering everything beneath it powerless. The electricity would go down. The satellites would go down. An entire country could go black.

  He knew the United States had technology like this. EMP warheads, they called them. And he knew that the battle for these arms was spreading secretly and quietly around the world, unbeknownst to the general public. The general public was instead worrying about minor distractions like terrorism, immigration, the breakdown of the old world order, things like that.

  They had no idea a new Cold War had been occurring right underneath their noses.

  Well, they were about to find out.

  He walked up to the weapon, which was surrounded by scientists in white coats. He was flanked by two of his most loyal companions. He was making sure their guidance o
ver this project was duly rewarded.

  “And you intend to launch this device, sir?”

  “We must do,” he said. “Before our western oppressors have the chance to hit us.”

  He turned around and smiled at his aide.

  “Today is a great day for our nation. Tomorrow will be a day of darkness for them, and a day of prosperity for us. Are you ready?”

  His aide smiled and nodded. “We have waited seventy years for this. Of course we are ready.”

  “Good,” he said. Then he turned around to face the EMP warhead. “Then we begin. Line up the target. Prepare for launch. Tomorrow is the first day of the new world order. Tomorrow is the day the West dies. Tomorrow is the day we rise.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I sat on the train to Manchester, still in disbelief that I’d managed to get a second interview with Holmes & Wisdom at all.

  I had no idea at that point that I was on a journey that would change my life in ways I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  It was eight in the morning, which meant that the train was absolutely ram-packed full of all types of people—holidaymakers going to Manchester Airport, taking up way too much corridor space with their suitcases that they didn’t trust to put in the baggage areas. People in suits heading to work. Students travelling to university. It was always the case this time in the morning, which was another reason I liked the flexibility of my job—I could start at ten a.m. and stay on a little later in the evening, but honestly, Gavin used to let me leave early anyway.

  I was fully aware that things were going to change under the new management. The reality was that I’d likely have to catch this crammed train every single morning, so full of people that it was warm and stuffy; a dampness of morning sweat to the compressed air, which made me feel very nauseous.

  Not to mention the impending prospect of a looming interview.

  I leaned back against the seat, which wasn’t comfortable in the slightest. Voices rang in my ears. The train didn’t seem to travel peacefully, as usual, but rocked from side to side. I didn’t want to look at my watch because looking at my watch just made me face up to the reality of my situation: the train was running fifteen minutes late as it was. My interview was at nine a.m. I’d have to jog to Holmes & Wisdom from Oxford Road station, a prospect I wasn’t looking forward to.

  But there was no point looking at my watch anymore. That wasn’t going to make time speed up. I just had to keep it together and ride this one out.

  I know what you’re probably thinking. A man in his early thirties living in Rochdale, which is only a twenty-minute drive from Manchester. Why not drive? Well, that’s the thing. I kind of don’t drive. I know, I know. I’m inept. I’m incompetent. I’m not a proper person, let alone a proper “man.” But the truth was, I’d just never needed to learn to drive. I’d had a few lessons, like everyone, when I was seventeen. I was okay. But honestly, I was more interested in girls and drinking at the time, so I’d skipped a few lessons and got sacked off by my driving instructor as a result.

  After that, I’d gone to university in Nottingham when I was eighteen and spent four years there studying both a BA and Masters in English with Creative Writing. When I was down there, all my jobs and all my life, for that matter, were within walking distance.

  And when I finally moved up north, close to Manchester to live as affordably near to Holmes & Wisdom as I could, again, I was just a short jog from the train station. Not to mention the prevalence of Uber and public transport. Sure, having no car was a little shit in times like these, but the positives of not owning one actually outweighed the negatives, particularly from a financial perspective.

  But, hell. What I’d do for a car right now.

  I felt my head spinning, and when I burped, I tasted a little of my Weetabix and banana breakfast burn the back of my throat. I gulped it back, aided with a swig of water.

  There was a woman sitting opposite me. She had long, brown hair, and bright blue eyes. She was pale, but attractively so, with a little freckle right in the middle of her right cheek. She was reading something on her Kindle. Or at least, she was pretending to. She seemed more interested in my sudden nauseous fit.

  I swallowed back some water, and then I smiled at her. “Bit of a nightmare, this train, eh?”

  She smiled back at me. “Try taking it this time every morning. I’d love to know the last time it actually got in on time.”

  My stomach sank, then, as I looked down at my watch. Eight fifteen. Shit. This was getting to disaster point. I usually started later, so the morning rush didn’t affect me. “What, um… what time’s it usually—”

  I was interrupted by what I could only describe as a very sudden halt. It was strange. It felt like the entire train just blacked out for a split second, then sparked to life again. Over the radio, static crackled loudly.

  At first, I wondered if it was just me who had been imagining things or something. But I saw the looks of the people on the train.

  “My phone went. Just for a second.”

  “My music cut out.”

  All these mumbling voices, all talking about some weird kind of power cut.

  I looked across the table at the woman.

  She was restarting her Kindle.

  She glanced up at me and rolled her eyes. “My boyfriend always says I should carry paper books with me. I guess this proves him right.”

  I smiled, then looked down at my watch.

  Eight seventeen.

  The incident before was soon forgotten as we continued our slow journey to Manchester. I started to weigh up the possibility of getting to work faster if I got off at Salford Crescent and caught a taxi, but knowing my luck, I’d just end up stuck in traffic.

  I just had to close my eyes and relax. I would get there. And if I was late, I could explain. Yeah. I’m a thirty-one-year-old man relying on someone else to drive me to work. Hire me now, yeah?

  My peaceful moment didn’t last long.

  I heard the sound of the train cut out, suddenly, but the train was still moving. I couldn’t hear any brakes.

  I saw the lights switch off inside the train.

  I saw the phones go off.

  I saw the woman opposite me turn her Kindle around, try to switch it on again, but to no luck.

  The train was still moving, but it was gradually getting slower.

  Then, I heard a massive screeching and went flying forward.

  It didn’t last long, but I could only assume it was some manual brake override.

  And as the train came to a total halt, silence filled the carriage.

  It wasn’t that the train had broken down. It was the weirdness of everything else. The phones. The Kindles. Everything.

  “Anyone know what the hell’s going on here?” someone muttered.

  And I was fascinated. Really, I was.

  But naive little me was still just worried about getting to Holmes & Wisdom on time for my second interview.

  I looked down at my watch, desperate to see if I had enough time left to make it from here.

  The second hand had stopped.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I sat totally still and waited for the train to come back to life, but that niggling voice whispering in my ear kept on telling me that something was desperately wrong.

  I didn’t know what time it was exactly anymore, mostly because my watch had gone, as had everyone else’s in this carriage, and as had all the phones, laptops, tablets, Kindles and other e-devices. I felt totally cut off from the outside. What was even more infuriating? The fact I couldn’t just call work and tell Gavin there’d been some kind of freak accident on the train and that I wasn’t going to be in on time. Shit.

  I was sure he’d see it on the news at some stage, though. After all, a train stuck on the line was a pretty dangerous feat. I’d seen the driver and staff stepping outside, trying to get a signal to contact some mechanics, but they seemed to be struggling too. That was surely dangerous, especially if another train w
as on the line.

  I’d heard a few whispers and theories. Some people suggested that there must’ve been some kind of electrical fault on the train that was so strong it’d basically knocked out everything else in its vicinity. Others discussed more far-fetched theories—terrorist attacks, blackouts like they’d seen on television shows and movies.

  Personally, I just figured I’d do as the staff said and stayed put. I wasn’t going to gain anything by getting out of the train and running in the direction of Oxford Road station. I was only going to lose time—and possibly my life—by running on the tracks.

  No. The train staff would get in touch with someone soon. This mechanical fault was temporary. It wasn’t going to last.

  It better damned not last.

  “So. We’re sardined on a train together. Are you going to tell me why you’re so fidgety?”

  I looked across the table and saw the woman with the dark hair and the blue eyes smiling at me.

  I cleared my throat. “Job interview.”

  “Congratulations. Better luck with the next place.”

  “Thanks. It was a re-interview for my own job at Holmes & Wisdom Media, too. A merger. Making a good impression on the new people in charge.”

  “Oh,” the woman said. “Yeah, that is rough. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “At least I get to spend the morning trapped on a train, without any form of electricity and surrounded by a bunch of sweaty university students.”

  “Living the dream,” the woman said. She leaned over, held out a hand. “I’m Hannah, by the way.”

  “Hannah,” I said, taking her hand. “I’m Scott. Nice to meet you.”

  “Don’t lie. Neither of us wanted to meet each other in these circumstances.”

  I pulled my hand back, my heart pounding. To be honest, I wasn’t that great at speaking to women. Well, to strangers in general, for that matter. I usually came off a little sarcastic and cutting when really I was just trying to break the ice. Misinterpretation and misunderstanding were big, big bedrocks of my existence.

  But Hannah, well. She seemed to be going along with what I was saying. I appreciated her for that.