The World After: An EMP Thriller Read online

  “Guys, I’m not sure about this,” Haz said.

  I sighed. I might’ve expected that. “Then don’t come.”

  “No. That’s not fair. I mean, you… you need me.”

  Hannah smirked. “We need you, do we?”

  “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be on bikes right now. You wouldn’t have your backpacks packed full of stuff that’ll keep you alive. And if it weren’t for me, right now you wouldn’t even have a clue what was going on.”

  “Your theory is still only a theory,” I said.

  “Yes, but it’s the best damned theory you’ve got.”

  “Guys,” Remy said.

  “I’m just saying,” Haz continued. “If we want to make a collective decision here, it has to be collective. And I’m a part of that collective.”

  “Guys!”

  Remy’s voice broke through the rest of the conversation. When we heard it, we turned around, because there was a reminder in his tone of the way Haz had spoken when he was trying to get our attention about the bikes a few miles back.

  This time, though, as I held my breath, there weren’t the crowds I expected. There weren’t people like the scavengers. Or worse, people trying to scavenge our bikes and our equipment.

  When I saw what Remy was bringing our attention to, the realisation was subtle, at first.

  And then it clicked.

  There was a movement up ahead, right in front of the tunnels.

  It was coming from one of the cars. A red Honda Civic, which had smashed into a green Toyota Prius.

  That movement was a person’s arm.

  “Shit,” I said.

  There was someone trapped between the cars. I could see blood rolling down their raised arm, which flailed weakly.

  “They might not have long left,” Remy said. “We need to check on them.”

  “No way,” Haz said.

  I turned to him, head on. “What is your problem?”

  “It’s—it’s too dangerous down there. This might be some kind of trap.”

  “Oh, wake up from your little fantasy,” Remy cut in, more direct and agitated than I’d seen him up to now. “There’s someone down there who needs our help. And we’re supposed to just stand by?”

  “Then you go,” Haz said. His voice was shaky, and there were visible tears rolling down his cheek. “I’ll wait here and—”

  I didn’t hear what Haz said next. I saw the surprise on the faces of Remy, Hannah, and Haz too, but mostly I heard a ringing in my ears and felt a suffocating pain split through my skull.

  I fell off my bike, slammed against the road.

  My vision was blurry. I didn’t realise what had happened, not at first.

  But when I saw the movement—movement not from Remy, or Hannah, or Haz—but movement from someone else, I knew what had happened.

  “Just let me take it and I’ll leave you alone,” a voice said, muffled, mumbled.

  And then I saw them lifting my bike and taking off with it.

  But more than that.

  I saw more people emerging from their cars. Ones who’d just been sitting in there, watching as the world went by.

  They were looking at us like they had an idea, now.

  Looking with a feral gaze in their eyes. Like they had got an idea from the man who’d stolen my bike that yes, travelling by bike was the best option right now.

  There were four people. Four men, for that matter. All of them were standing outside their car. All of them were looking at us. Me, Hannah, Remy, and Haz.

  All of them wanted the rest of our bikes.

  “What do we do now?” Haz asked, fear in his voice.

  I looked down towards the tunnel, and I knew we had no choice now. “We run.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I wasn't sure I’d ever really felt real, undiluted adrenaline before this point in my life.

  I raced down towards the entrance of the tunnel. My head was spinning and aching after the blow I'd taken to it. I could feel something warm and sticky trickling down the side of it, and I knew that it was blood.

  I looked over my shoulder and fast realised that I was leading the way now after all. The four men who had been pursuing us were down to three, as one had managed to take Haz’s bike. Judging by the way Haz was running, he wasn't all too fussed that he’d lost his bike. He just wanted to get away.

  Remy and Hannah, however, were holding onto their bikes for dear life. But it was rapidly becoming clear that we were heading in one direction, and that direction wasn't exactly the most comfortable one.

  Whether we liked it or not, we were heading into the tunnel.

  Into the mouth of the beast.

  But as we ran towards it, mingled amidst all the fear and terror I felt, there was something strange. And that something strange brought a smile to my face. It felt like, for the first time in many years, I was back to my childhood again. Back to pretending to be running away from some perceived threat, even though in the back of my mind I was loving every second of it.

  That said, this wasn’t just some perceived threat now. It was a real threat.

  But the child in my mind was having the biggest blast since… well, since childhood.

  I felt a stitch tearing at my stomach and realised just how unhealthy I was, how unhealthy I’d become. Not that I didn’t eat well. I cooked good food. But exercise, despite not being able to drive a car, was something that didn’t come easily for me.

  Shit. At least I was going to get plenty of it in this new world.

  I heard a crash, and when I looked back, I saw that Hannah had given up her bike now, too, and was sprinting towards me, and towards the entrance of the tunnel. Remy was the only one holding on, and he was lagging. Just two men were chasing him. He almost had this.

  Then everything went dark.

  I didn’t know why. Not at first. But then it dawned on me that we were in the tunnel now.

  I saw the mass of cars. I heard screams in the distance. I could smell fumes. Shit. This was dangerous. The collisions could had started a fire. This was a bad idea. It was always going to be a bad idea. Why had I ever thought this was a good idea? This world wasn’t for me.

  I looked to my right, then, and I realised this was the point where I’d seen the arm waving from a distance, splattered in blood.

  That arm had stopped waving now.

  It had given up.

  I’d failed.

  Then, a final crash and Remy was running along with us, bike free.

  We stopped, then. Stopped, just in the mouth of the tunnel. Over our shoulder, the men who had been chasing us weren’t interested in us anymore. They were busier scrapping with each other over the new ownership of the bike.

  I didn’t plan to get involved. Not anytime soon.

  “So we’re bike-free. What now?”

  Remy sighed. “We make our way through here. Slowly. Steadily.”

  “Even with the burning?” I asked.

  “We wanted to get to Salford. This is our best chance.”

  I felt the adrenaline being taken over by nerves, and I tensed my fists together.

  “Looks like it’s our only hope. Wait… Haz? Haz, what the…”

  When I looked at Haz, I felt the biggest dose of horror I’d experienced yet, in spite of all of the strange things I’d witnessed.

  Haz was on the ground. He was curled up in a tearful, gasping ball. He was shaking badly.

  “Is he…”

  “My heart,” he mumbled. “My—my heart.”

  “Shit,” I said. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”

  I went to sit down beside him, not that I knew any first aid to help him with.

  But before I could get to his side, Remy pushed me out of the way and turned Haz onto his back, then gently lifted him so he was sitting upright.

  “Haz, I want you to breathe for me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Deep breath in through the nose. Hold it for a second, then deep breath
out, through the mouth.”

  “I can’t—I—”

  “Yes, you can. Come on. Deep breath in.”

  Haz attempted it.

  “Deep breath out. Good, Haz. Good. Now keep going like that. Come on. In, out. In, out.”

  Soon, Haz was in control of his breathing. He’d stopped clutching his chest. The colour had returned to his cheeks, and he seemed a lot calmer.

  It was then that I realised Remy was more medically trained than maybe I’d have given him credit for—and certainly more medically adept than I was.

  “Is he—”

  “Panic attack,” Remy muttered.

  “But he said his heart was—”

  “Trust me. It was a panic attack.”

  He cleared his throat, took a few methodical breaths of his own, and then turned to face us. “We should move. Right now. The tunnel’s not a long one. There’ll be far longer and more dangerous ones than this. We’re lucky, in that sense. Now we don’t have our bikes anymore, so climbing over the fences at the side of this tunnel is possible. But this is the best, most direct route, and will get us to Salford quickest.”

  There was a pause, then. And in that pause, weirdly, I knew—and I figured everyone knew—what Remy was about to say.

  “But chances are, if it’s like what it’s like here, then it’s gonna be like this in Salford too.”

  “I told you,” Haz said, sounding more in control now. “This thing. This EMP. It’s got the whole damned country. Maybe even the whole damned world.”

  I couldn’t agree. But I couldn’t argue, either.

  I just had to fall in line, taking a back seat and following, like I always had.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  Another pause. Then, “I think it’s about time we started thinking about self-preservation,” Remy said.

  “Self-preservation?” Hannah asked.

  “We’ve got a few supplies, but not enough. It’s time we started going to the nearest supermarkets. Gathering whatever we can. Because that stuff’s only gonna be there once. And when it’s gone… it’s gone.”

  The thought of supermarkets running out of food and water and all kinds of supplies was a haunting one.

  But Remy was right.

  We had to make a move on the supermarkets, while we still could.

  We had to scavenge, while there were still things to scavenge.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Hannah nodded.

  I looked at Haz. I put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, then seemed to return to the present moment.

  “Ready?” I echoed to him.

  “Ready,” Haz said.

  I took a deep breath, steadied my breathing—just the way Remy had told Haz to steady his—and then I walked down into the tunnel, Hannah, Haz, and Remy by my side, and towards what might well turn out to be the final shopping trip of my life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When we stepped out of the tunnel, we were different people to the ones who stepped in.

  The sun was lower, and there was a warmth to the air that did no good to cool us down. I was covered in sweat, the smell of smoke filling my nostrils. I felt like I’d been forced through some kind of haunted house of horrors. I didn’t want to face up to the things I’d seen, even in the pitch blackness. I was doing my best to push them from my mind already.

  We had been walking for another half hour or so. Obviously, I couldn’t be certain of the exact times. As we headed down the edge of the road, we passed by more and more people who were asking if we were having the same problems, things like that. We tried to look just as confused and as baffled as everyone. In a sense, we were, really. We had no advance knowledge. Haz’s theory was still admittedly just a theory.

  But it was clear that his theory was correct, or close to correct.

  The confusion was growing increasingly widespread by the second.

  “You guys got any signal?” a woman asked, as we passed by her Toyota Corolla.

  “None,” I muttered.

  She scratched her head, clearly looking like she was struggling. “My daughter. She… she needs her medication. Shit. Shit.”

  I felt total sympathy for this woman. I wished I could help her, and her daughter. But there was nothing I could do.

  All I could do was be honest.

  “If I can tell you what I think’s going on,” I said. “I… I don’t know when the electricity is coming back. I don’t know if it ever will. So if you need some medication, you might want to think about walking over to wherever you’re heading. And you might want to think about gathering as much of that medication as possible.”

  “But what if it runs out?” she gasped. “What if there’s none left?”

  I saw the desperation in her eyes, but there was nothing I could give her in return. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  We walked on. In the distance, I could see the supermarket.

  “Ah, hell,” Remy said.

  I didn’t know what he was “ah hell”ing about. Not at first.

  Then I saw the lines of people swarming through the car park and into the supermarket.

  “It’s begun,” Haz said. He probably meant for it to sound grand and haunting, but instead, he just ended up sounding very, very afraid.

  “We still go in there,” I said. “Right?”

  Remy shrugged. “We do what we can to get what we need.”

  “What’s your story, anyway?”

  “My story?”

  “I know Hannah’s a uni student. I know Haz works in video game development. But I don’t know a thing about you.”

  Remy sighed. He didn’t smile much. “I used to be into alternative medicinal treatment.”

  “You what?”

  “Alternative medicine. Mindfulness training. Meditation. Presence. All kinds of teachings like that.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I just—”

  “You think what I do is shit, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. I see the looks on the faces of enough people as it is. But anyway. You don’t have to worry about being indoctrinated by my clinic, or whatever. It got shut down just two days ago. Building repossessed. Honestly, I didn’t have a whole lot left to fight for. And now… well, all I have left is myself. And you guys.”

  I felt better to finally have heard a bit of background from Remy. He was struggling, just like the rest of us. He was one of us.

  “Let’s make it quick,” Hannah said when we got to the car park of the supermarket. In the distance, the buildings of Salford, all of them no doubt lacking power. “Haz. You know what we’re looking for?”

  “Of course,” he said, sounding a lot more confident now.

  “Good,” Hannah said. “Then let’s go in there.”

  Stepping inside the supermarket was like stepping into another world. It was weird. It was like we’d just been transported over to Universal Studios or somewhere like that, stepping into the middle of a dystopian movie set where people were terrified of something coming. People were scrambling down the aisles, stuffing their trolleys with way too much stuff. People were arguing over food, some of them getting physical. And all the time, the shop assistants weren’t getting involved. They were gone, some of them. Others, well, they were fighting for what they wanted too.

  I didn’t honestly believe the world would lose its shit so soon into a blackout. But in a way, I’d been naive. Of course it was going to go this way. Every single electronic piece of equipment had fried. It wouldn’t take long for people to realise they were going to have to fend for themselves until some kind of order returned.

  “Is it worth even getting involved in this?” I asked.

  “I have an idea,” Hannah said.

  She started to leave the supermarket.

  “Hannah? Where are you—”

  “Just follow me. I want to make this qui
ck.”

  Even though I felt like time was running out, I followed Hannah outside, as did Haz and Remy.

  “Okay,” Haz said, as we walked through the car park. “I appreciate the need for fresh air, but I don’t think we’ll be finding much in the way of peanut butter and cheese out he… oh shit.”

  He’d stopped speaking because of what Hannah was doing.

  She’d opened the back of a lorry. A delivery lorry.

  And inside that lorry, undiscovered by the rest of the people… food. Water. Lots of it.

  Looking over my shoulder, still unable to shake that fear that some security guard would be watching, I hesitantly climbed inside and started filling my rucksack with canned tuna, peanut butter, all kinds of quick and easy—but healthy and nutritious—snacks that would get me through for the time being. I didn’t know how long “the time being” was going to consist of, so I had to be prepared.

  “You want to make sure you’ve got some Super Noodles,” Haz said. “We can boil water, and they’ll really go far.”

  I put some into my rucksack, feeling much more positive, much more optimistic at our togetherness as a team.

  I turned to Hannah, and I smiled. “Good job thinking of this. I wouldn’t have thought of it in a million years.”

  She smiled back at me, eyes twinkling. “I know you wouldn’t. So it’s a good job I…”

  She stopped.

  All of us stopped.

  We were just about ready to leave this lorry with everything we had when we saw someone standing right at the lorry door.

  It was a family of four. A man. A woman. A little boy and a little girl.

  Only the man was holding a knife.

  “We need this stuff for our family. So you’re gonna drop it and walk away from here. Now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I looked at the man holding the knife, and I felt the most scared I’d felt since the power had gone out.

  The sun glimmered down on him, reflecting against the blade of the knife. We were out of the sunlight, in here in the back of the truck, where we’d gathered our supplies. We hadn’t expected anyone else to come join us in the middle of our search. We were foolish for being so naive, really. Of course someone was bound to come and join us. We weren’t the only people who’d put two and two together, after all.