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  And it was already in a bad state.

  He stared at the charred rat between them. Ella sat on the other side. Bruce looked longingly at it, wondering whether he was going to get lucky with more than the few scraps he’d had. As for Ella... she hadn’t said much since her strop earlier. But she was sitting with him at least.

  He wanted to reach out to her. He wanted to say so much to her. He wanted to apologise to her and tell her he was just trying to do the right thing—even if it was hard to tell what was right and what was wrong, sometimes.

  But he couldn’t. He just sat there. Staring at that rat.

  Thinking about the charred remains he’d found at the campsite earlier today, stomach lurching with the memory.

  “I found a bunch of bodies earlier,” Martin said.

  He wasn’t sure where the words came from. He didn’t want to scare Ella. But he owed her honesty. And if she was serious about preparing for the horrors of the world they lived in now, he needed to be realistic with her, so she knew exactly what she was dealing with.

  She lifted her head. Her eyes lit up. “What?”

  “Back at the campsite,” Martin said. “That smoke I saw. It came from bodies. Human bodies. Burned alive, by the looks of things.”

  Ella scratched her arms. She looked unsettled by what Martin had said. “Who... Who did that?”

  “I don’t know,” Martin said, rubbing his cold, dry hands together. “But it’s reiterated the need to stay alert. And it’s made me realise a thing or two, too. About what you said. About preparing for this new world. Real-world experience.”

  Ella didn’t say anything. She just sat there, waiting for Martin to say what she wanted to hear.

  “You should... you should be joining me on hunts and raids. I know they’re dangerous, but you should be there. I’m not comfortable with it for one minute. But if you can’t build some real-world experience, then if anything happens to me—”

  “Nothing will happen to you.”

  Martin cleared his throat. The urgency with which Ella had said those words, it got to him. “We can’t know that. None of us can know that. We need to prepare for any eventuality. We need to be ready for the worst-case scenario. You need to be ready for if you have to survive without me. And I’ve not been recognising that. I’ve not been accepting it enough.”

  Ella’s face turned another shade of white. It hit Martin in several ways. Obviously he sympathised with her, felt bad for her. The girl had already lost her mother. And now her dad was talking about what might happen if he died, too.

  But then there was the other side of the coin. The fact that she seemed so... reliant on him.

  In a way, that felt nice.

  Because he’d never been able to be there for her through the bulk of her childhood.

  And now she really wanted him there for her.

  It tore him in two.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

  “Good. Makes a change.”

  He opened his mouth to counter her. But then he saw that smirk on her face, and he knew this was just her way of breaking the ice.

  Just like her mother.

  The one to make the jokes.

  The one to change the direction of the conversation, when it suited her, and not a moment earlier.

  “I’m just saying,” Martin said. “I’m sorry if I’ve suffocated you. It’s just... finding this balance. Being a dad in this world. It’s hard. I’m learning all the time. I just... I guess I’m just finding my way around this. You know?”

  Ella stared at him a few seconds. She didn’t say a word. Just chewed at that hard, burned piece of rat meat.

  And then she half-smiled. “I know you’re only trying your best.”

  Martin nodded back at her. Felt a little relieved at that. “I appreciate that—”

  “But if we’re on about surviving, we need to be realistic. We haven’t caught anything major for days now. We’re not drinking enough water. The few supplies we have are running low. We’re living in a dream world if we think there’s any benefit staying here.”

  Martin looked away from the log cabin. “It’s a roof over our heads. It’s good enough for us.”

  “But what about when it isn’t?”

  He opened his mouth to respond.

  But then he closed it.

  Because he knew Ella was right.

  Staying here wasn’t a viable long-term plan.

  There was no future for them here.

  They were going to have to move on sooner rather than later.

  They’d stayed here long enough.

  “You really think there’s somewhere better out there?” Martin asked. “Somewhere thriving? After everything we’ve come across? Everything we’ve seen?”

  Ella sighed and stared off into the darkness. “We’ve seen people. Plenty of people. They can’t all be bad.”

  “It’s not about whether they’re good or bad. It’s about whether they can look after themselves. Look after each other. And the more time passes, the more strained their resources get, the more desperate they’ll become. All of them.”

  A pause between them. Martin sensed Ella wasn’t totally satisfied.

  “We’ll go out there tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll hunt. We’ll search for supplies. And we’ll start planning the next step.”

  “The next step?” Ella asked.

  Martin looked back at the cabin he had so many fond memories of. He looked at the dark wood. Looked at the dusty television through the window. Looked at the little balcony area upstairs, where he’d stood with Ella when she was a baby and stared out at the stars.

  “We start planning how we’re going to survive this world. How we’re going to move forward. Together.”

  He looked back at Ella.

  Saw her smiling back at him.

  And he smiled back at her.

  At that moment, it felt like everything could be okay.

  Like the future was optimistic.

  If only he knew what was waiting on the horizon.

  Chapter Eight

  Harriet woke to the sound of shouting outside.

  Her first thought was Oscar. She turned around, fearful he’d gone missing, some residue from a nightmare of losing him she had every single night.

  He was still right there beside her.

  Sleeping. Chest rising and falling gently.

  She turned on to her back. Rubbed her eyes. A dream, that’s all it was. A noise in her sleep, just like the bang she’d heard when the power went out in the first place. An immense crash. Opening her curtains and seeing a bunch of cars stacked up against one another on the main road outside. The cries. The screams.

  No sirens.

  No hope.

  Oscar crying and reassuring him that everything was going to be okay; everything was going to be fine...

  She went to close her eyes again and try drifting off when she heard voices in the house.

  “Did you hear that?” one of them said. Sounded like Karen.

  “Ssh. Go back to sleep.”

  “But did you—”

  And then Harriet heard it, clearly this time.

  A shout outside. Some kind of bang. Shouting growing louder. Smashing.

  Something was happening out there.

  She stood up. Got out from under her torn sleeping bag and crawled out in the freezing cold air of the room.

  She clambered her way over to the window of this dusty lounge. She didn’t have a bedroom. Drew the short straw. Sleeping on the sofa with Oscar was as good as it got.

  But at least it gave her a quicker chance to get away if she had to.

  Besides. She got along with some of the people living here. Yuri was friendly enough. Evelyn was sweet. But she tried to keep her head down. Tried to keep herself to herself.

  Oscar was her priority. She couldn’t let that slip.

  When she reached the window and pulled aside the curtains, she saw the light right away.

&nb
sp; Something was burning. A fire, right at the top of the road. Right at the area of houses where the police stayed.

  She heard another bang, then. Saw a flash of light. And then she saw people rushing along the street, all kinds of improvised weapons in hand, racing towards the police, who scrambled out of their houses and hit back with their batons and their pepper spray.

  And all Harriet could do was watch as this violence unfolded. All she could do was stand there, fear growing more intense inside her every second. Because she knew exactly what this was. This was the worst the violence had been since she’d been here. She’d witnessed minor scuffles before. She’d seen a few conflicts grow out of hand. Usually arguments prompted by Peter and his thugs.

  But this...

  This looked organised.

  This looked like a coup.

  She remembered Peter’s words when she’d bumped into him earlier.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you’re looked after when things change around here.”

  She’d ignored it. Dismissed it as a passing comment. She never thought Peter would actually be a part of a revolt like this. She always believed he’d stay in line, as long as he kept on being fed and sheltered, and looked out for.

  But now she realised he was giving her a warning earlier.

  He was telling her exactly what was going to happen.

  And she hadn’t even seen it.

  “Mummy?”

  Harriet turned around. Oscar stood at the edge of the sofa, manky old comfort blanket trailing by his side.

  “What’s happening, Mummy?”

  Harriet rushed over to Oscar. She put her cold hands on his icy body as behind her she heard more explosions, more animalistic shouts, more signs that things were spiralling very rapidly out of control. “It’s okay, love. It’s—it’s going to be okay.”

  “I’m scared.”

  And as she crouched there and held him, she felt it too.

  His fear.

  Because she was afraid.

  She was very afraid.

  For a whole month, the police had brought order. They’d brought stability.

  Even if things were strained, they’d brought some kind of normality.

  If all that changed, she dreaded to think what kind of world she was heading towards.

  “Harriet?”

  Harriet looked up at the door. Saw Karen standing there. She was tall. Slim. Long red hair, right down to her hips.

  And there was something about her face, illuminated in the darkness.

  Karen was smiling.

  “It’s happening,” she said. “We’re taking this place back from those unelected pigs. We’re making it ours. Are you coming?”

  And at that moment, as she crouched by her crying son’s side, she felt horror. Pure horror. Because Karen was a woman she thought she knew. She was a normal woman from a pretty ordinary background. She missed her job at Tesco. She missed her reality television and tweeting about the shitty decisions made by the judges afterwards. She missed Friday night takeaways and drinks with the girls on Saturdays.

  And now here she was. Listening to the smashing of glass and smelling the burning of God knows what. Smile on her face. Excitement in her eyes. Ready to revolt.

  Caught up in the frenzy that had taken over the city.

  Harriet shook her head. Held Oscar tight. Tried to stop him crying. “I can’t. I... Oscar. He needs me.”

  Karen glanced at Oscar like she’d forgotten he was even here. She pushed her hair out of her eyes with her bony fingers and nodded. “Well, keep yourselves safe. This could get ugly. But it’s for the best, sweetie. For all of us. You’ll see.”

  And then she stepped out of the house, and she was gone.

  Harriet held Oscar in the dark, dour lounge for what felt like hours. The shouts turned to screams. The smells of burning grew stronger. Oscar’s cries quietened, and she kept on rubbing his back, trying to calm him down, trying to tell him stories like they were on a beach in Spain again, eating ice cream, watching the waves hit the shore, building sandcastles and laughing together.

  She waited until the shouts and the cries had died down before she finally stood up and walked over to the window.

  She looked outside. The street looked still. There was no fighting. Not anymore.

  There were bodies in the streets. Bodies of the citizens. And bodies of the police.

  Lots of bodies.

  But she could see someone standing at the end of the street, atop the cars. Right where the police used to stand.

  A few people by his side.

  Peter.

  Peter and his thugs. Gavin and Owen, two of his most trusted mates, standing by his side.

  A police officer right before them.

  Hailey.

  Knife to her neck.

  Hailey was a good woman. A woman who missed her daughter. A woman who’d sacrificed so much to look after this community. A woman who gave them all a little more than she was advised to of the rations. Just someone trying to make it in this world.

  A crowd gathered around Peter as flames burned around them. They looked up at him like he was their hero. Like he was their saviour.

  And he looked back at them like he was loving every second of it.

  “This place isn’t theirs anymore,” he said.

  A vocal minority of the crowd shouted back at Peter. Spat at Hailey. Threw stones at her as tears streamed down her bloodied cheeks. People Harriet thought she knew. People she thought she respected. All of them caught up in the horror. In the violence. In the sanity. Pushed to the brink.

  “This place isn’t theirs,” he said. “And it never has been. It’s ours. Our food. Our home. And nobody’s holding those back from us anymore. Nobody’s standing in our way. Nobody.”

  The crowd clapped and cheered.

  A larger section of the crowd stood back and looked on, wide-eyed. Terrified.

  Karen’s wide eyes illuminated in the moonlight, smile on her face.

  Peter lowered a knife to Hailey’s neck.

  Harriet turned away.

  Covered Oscar’s eyes.

  She didn’t need to see what was happening to know.

  There was silence.

  A series of shrieks and cries.

  And then there was a roar.

  And in that roar, she knew the limbo of safety and security was dead.

  She and Oscar were in a new world now.

  Chapter Nine

  Ally McWilson never got himself into any real trouble his whole damned life.

  It was late. He preferred to act in the dark. One thing he’d learned since the power went out was that people were scared to come out in the dark. They were scared to leave their homes, if they even had homes.

  And even though that meant there’d be somebody home wherever he tried raiding, it meant he could play around with them a little. Tease them. Have fun with them.

  He could lure them out before striking.

  And when he did strike… boy did he strike.

  He walked across the muddy hills of the Lake District. His six friends wandered behind him. He hadn’t known any of them other than his best mate Paul before the blackout. They’d just kind of fallen in with each other. Similar interests. Similar worldview.

  And a similar desire to make damned sure they survived this blackout, no matter what it took.

  He looked at the dark landscape of the Lake District hills. Tightened his grip on the hunting rifle, which was running a little low on ammo. These surroundings always gave him the creeps. Much more of a city boy. Always felt like something could be out there in the darkness. Watching. Waiting.

  He unzipped his rucksack and pulled out a Snickers bar. Tucked into it, tasted that creamy caramel right across his tongue. He savoured every damned bite these days. ’Cause you just never knew when it might be your last. They weren’t being produced anymore. They were gonna run out eventually.

  And it was that thought that made Ally determined to make
the most of whatever damned time he had left.

  He looked back at his people. Chris. Mark. Sajid. Paul. Franco. Trev. None of them said much. Franco swigged back some water from a bottle he’d grabbed back at a campsite a few miles back, that bull tattooed on his neck annoying Ally every time he saw it.

  He thought about that campsite. Smiled. He could still smell the burning in the air. Still hear the screams. The begging.

  He felt guilty then, just for a second. Turned around, looked into the darkness once more. It wasn’t that he enjoyed killing people. That just kind of came along with the territory. He’d never hurt anyone in his life before. Hell, he was the one who was bullied for his big nose right through school. He was the one who was always told he wasn’t assertive enough by employers. He was the one who’d been second fiddle to his dickhead brother, Tim, all his damned life.

  So things were different now. Things were freeing now.

  He felt like he had a power over people. A power he never had before.

  A power to save lives.

  And a power to take lives away.

  Sometimes the pendulum just swung in different directions.

  No real rhyme or reason to it. He was just enjoying getting to know himself. One of the perks of this new world.

  “We’re gonna have to find somewhere to settle down eventually.”

  Ally stopped. Looked back. It was Chris who spoke. Chris was the most problematic member of the group. Short, fat little thing with a bald patch he should’ve accepted years ago instead of trying to cover it up. Always kicked up a fuss about Ally’s treatment of people. Always questioned the long-term sustainability of their plans. Truth was, there was no damned long-term sustainability. People who kidded themselves otherwise were living a lie.

  Everyone was on this ship together.

  And this ship was sinking fast.

  Why not have a little fun before it all broke up and went crashing down?

  Why not enjoy what was left of this dying world’s supplies?

  But he couldn’t tell his people that. He had to make them believe they were working towards something bigger. Something greater.

  “So you keep saying,” Ally said. “And we’ll find somewhere. We’ll—”