Collapse (After the Storm Book 2) Page 9

  “Cover your eyes, Olivia. Please.”

  I said these words to Olivia. But in truth, I was acting as an echo-chamber for myself. Because it was me who was horrified by what I was seeing. It was me who was terrified.

  It felt like the sun had gone in, but really we were just under a thick, dark canopy of trees. There was silence all around us, which was unnerving.

  But there was one thing for certain.

  The area we were in smelled.

  It smelled so bad that it made you gag.

  That’s because of what was ahead of us.

  The first thing that caught my attention was the tent. It was a little blue thing that someone looked like they’d really struggled putting up. I saw a whole narrative in my mind. Imagined a ton of scenarios where someone might’ve had difficulty finding the right place to camp, and then when they finally did find somewhere to camp, weren’t sure how to go about their survival, and had to make do with a faulty tent.

  But I didn’t have to create a narrative, or see it in my mind.

  Because the narrative was right in front for me to see.

  There were three people. A man. Two children—two boys.

  All of them were dead.

  But it was the way in which they’d died—the way I could see—that terrified me the most. It was clear from the states of their bodies that they’d starved. Flies buzzed around them. Chunks of their dark hair and skin were missing, and I knew the rats must’ve been here to feed on them. They were so skinny. So bony. Too bony to have died of dehydration before starvation.

  They’d been starved.

  Which meant they’d been kept hydrated.

  And they weren’t just lying across the dirt.

  They were tied up to trees.

  “Dad, what’s—”

  “Andy, please. Take her and Bouncer away from here.”

  “You sure?”

  I wasn’t. Him asking me that question made me hesitate. But what other option did I have?

  “Just get Olivia out of here. Turn her back to this. She… she can’t see this. I can’t let her.”

  When Andy walked a few steps away with Olivia and Bouncer by his sides, I walked over to Kesha.

  She was perched in front of the two boys. There was such sadness to her face. Such defeat. I wasn’t sure how she could sit there without gagging. But she didn’t look totally present in this world. She looked lost in her own thoughts.

  “You reckon they did this?” she asked.

  I looked at the skin of each of the corpses. “No flesh taken away. So probably not.”

  “Shit. How can people be so sick?”

  She was right. How could people be so sick? I was asking that question myself, and it made me want to run back to Heathlock and bury my head in the sand.

  But I had no Heathlock to run back to. That was the painful thing.

  “We can’t stay round here—”

  “We can at least cut them down. Bury them.”

  “Kesha, I—”

  “I know you’re eager as shit to get away from here but this is important to me. Okay?”

  From the cracking in Kesha’s voice, the way she looked me in the eye with tears in hers, I felt that this went far beyond burying these two boys in particular. And I realised just how little I knew about Kesha’s past. How reluctant she was to talk about it.

  So I swallowed the sickening taste in my mouth and I nodded. “I’ll give you a hand.”

  We spent at least half an hour digging with our bare hands. Just enough to give the boys somewhere to rest. When we’d done, Kesha and I cut the two boys free, which was one of the most gut-wrenching things I’d ever had to do. Not just because of the situation but because I sensed this was about more than just the current circumstances with Kesha. Like something here resonated. Personally.

  And just the thought of that alone was horrifying.

  I didn’t want to ask her, though. Now didn’t seem the right time.

  We laid a little sprinkle of soil over the boys. Not enough to fully cover them, but enough to give them a semblance of dignity.

  I reached for Kesha’s hand. She flinched when my fingers made contact with hers.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re resting now.”

  “It’s just…”

  She stopped talking. And as much as I wanted to push her to continue, I didn’t, of course.

  I let her have this moment.

  I let the boys rest.

  We heard footsteps over by Andy, Olivia, and Bouncer.

  We turned to them to join them.

  Then we realised they weren’t their footsteps at all.

  Andy, Olivia, and Bouncer weren’t there.

  There were four people. Two men. Two women.

  All of them were holding knives.

  “Well, well, Maria-me-dear,” one of them said. “Looks like we’ve got some new toys to play with.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I wasn’t sure what to feel more afraid about. The fact that Olivia and Bouncer—and Andy, who was the key to finding my wife—were missing, or the fact that the four people standing opposite us, knives in hand, looked mad enough to be capable of the scene with the family that were tied to the trees.

  The darkness seemed to thicken as they closed our escape route in the canopy. The wind had come to a standstill, bringing an eerie silence to the surroundings. I felt my body shaking as my heart started pounding, a sickly taste covering my lips.

  The same thoughts swirling around my mind.

  Olivia.

  Bouncer.

  And Andy, which meant Kerry, too.

  “The bloke looks kinda cute,” the woman said. She had long, dark hair that was patchy in places. It didn’t look like it’d been washed or cut in any way since the collapse. It looked like she’d just left it.

  She rubbed her thick, slimy tongue against her chapped and warty lips, her green eyes twinkling as she eyed me up. A long time ago, I figured she was probably a good looking girl.

  But just like the collapse had done with the rest of the world, she’d turned ugly.

  Everything turned ugly outside the walls of safety, away from the shelter of security.

  “I think he looks like a prick,” the bloke with the bald head said. His skin was two different shades—white and a deep, sore red. It looked like he’d been scolded. I didn’t really want to ask.

  “Mikey!” the flirtatious woman said. She walked towards me, swirling her knife around like it was nothing more than a piece of jewellery. “Leave the poor guy alone. He looks so scared.”

  “Good,” Mikey said. He smiled, and so too did the other pair. They were less intimidating-looking in truth. The guy had dark, curly locks, which were balding in the centre of his head. Narrow cheeks, gaunt expression, grey eyes. The woman beside him had short ginger hair. She didn’t look like she’d eaten a piece of food in weeks. “You know me, Maria. I prefer ’em scared.”

  The woman—Maria—stepped right up to me and tapped the knife against my chin. “I prefer ’em scared, too. More fun that way.”

  “My family,” I said.

  Maria frowned, as if she didn’t understand what I was saying. “What’s that?”

  “My daughter. My dog. You… you let them go. Right now.”

  Maria’s frown extended. She looked over her shoulder at the three others, bemused. “Did you see anyone else around here?”

  Mikey and the other two people started looking around, like they’d instantly become conscious of their assumed invincibility.

  Then I felt a punch in my stomach.

  I fell forward, winded, as Maria grabbed my hair and pressed the blade to my neck.

  “If there’s someone else with you, sweetie, you better get them here right now.”

  “My—”

  She pressed the knife into my skin. I felt a slice. Like an extreme form of paper cut.

  “Tell me. Right this—”

  “His family are dead.”

 
; I glanced over at Kesha. The man called Mikey was holding his knife to her forehead.

  “Then why’d he ask us to let them go?’

  “He lost them,” Kesha said. “A few miles back. Some bandits took them out. He’s… he’s not been right since.”

  Maria looked from Kesha to me and back to Kesha again. “If you’re lying, I promise we’re gonna make your last moments even more miserable.”

  “He’s not lying.”

  “I mean, we’re gonna have a lot of fun with you anyway. But you don’t want to lie to us.”

  Maria crouched down and pushed the knife into my Adam’s apple.

  “So come on, cutie. Tell me the truth. Look me in the eye and tell me your family’s gone.”

  I looked her in the eye. Looked her right in the eye. I had to play along with Kesha’s game. It might just buy us some time to act.

  Or for Andy to act…

  “Tell me the truth. You can be honest with me.”

  She reached out, rested her hand between my legs.

  She gently groped me there. The smile widened across her face.

  “Tell me the truth about your poor family.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat.

  Then, I felt tears rolling down my face.

  “They’re gone. They’re gone.”

  Maria’s smile spread further as her hand continued to move between my legs.

  Then, she let out a sigh.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  She lifted her blade and went to slice me across the stomach.

  “There’s someone coming,” I said.

  She stopped. And I wasn’t sure where I’d conjured those words from. I’d spoken out of instinct more than anything.

  But that instinct had done enough to make a look of concern stretch across Maria—and her friends’—face.

  “What did you say?” Maria asked.

  I glanced at Kesha, then back at Maria. If we could use our own fear against them in some way, then maybe we could survive this.

  “There’s someone coming for you. For all of us. That’s why we’re here. Laying low. Keeping our heads down. But you know what they do to the people they catch. You know how they treat their victims. And you know exactly who I’m talking about. Don’t you?”

  Maria’s eyes narrowed, like she was weighing up whether I was bluffing or not. “And why should we be afraid of anyone?”

  “Because we’re not yours to kill,” Kesha’s said. “And the last thing you want to do is start a war with the people who we really belong to.”

  Maria turned around then. The group came together in a huddle. I knew we could make a break for it right now, but where to? And Olivia, Andy, and Bouncer were out there somewhere. We just didn’t know where.

  We couldn’t be rash. We had to wait for the right moment. The right opportunity.

  But the thing that bothered me most about these people? These savages?

  They were standing on the partly buried bodies of the boys.

  Like they were nothing more than dirt.

  Maria turned around. Mikey walked up, by her side.

  They both lifted their blades, right in sync.

  “We’ll take our chances,” Maria said.

  I slammed my eyes shut and waited for the blast.

  There was a blast.

  But it didn’t come from the contact of the blades.

  I heard more blasts. And when I opened my eyes, I saw that Maria and Mikey were on the ground in front of us. Behind them, the other two were dead, for sure, blood pooling out of their heads.

  Maria gargled on blood, tried to stretch out for her fallen blade, then her eyes closed and she fell silent.

  I looked up at the person who’d fired the bullet. I looked to see what’d happened—how it’d happened.

  Andy stood there, handgun in hand.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s time we got out of here.”

  But it was more than just that.

  It was a time for Andy to start being more honest.

  Why did he have a gun?

  And why had he been keeping it secret?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “If we’re going to be travelling together, we’re going to have to start being honest with each other.”

  It was the first time I’d brought up Andy’s gunfire since we’d left the horrible scene with the murdered family and the scene where the four bandits had ambushed us. A bit of time had passed. Instantly, I’d wanted to say something. But I was just too caught up in making sure Olivia and Bouncer were okay to do anything.

  We’d hugged. Kesha had thanked Andy. We hadn’t pressed him for answers. Our gratitude overwrote everything else at that moment.

  But the time for questioning was always going to come. And since we’d been walking, pretty much silent, for the rest of the day, now seemed like a good moment.

  I stopped. Turned to face Andy. “The gun,” I said. “Where’d you get it?”

  Andy scratched the back of his neck. “I found it when we were in the woods.”

  “So you found a handgun just lying around? One of the greatest forms of currency in this world and you find it just lying around?”

  “Sometimes we just get the right rub of the green.”

  I squared up to Andy. I wouldn’t usually. He was obviously tougher than me. But the frustration with everything was just building up. The anger was welling up and getting heavier.

  I needed to get back to Kerry. But I wasn’t sure I could trust Andy completely.

  “You’ve already been shifty with us before. You’ve hardly earned our trust.”

  “I shot four people who had you cornered. I think that goes a long way to earning your trust.”

  “The gun,” I said. “And be honest with us. How long have you had it?”

  Andy looked from Kesha to me. Then he lowered his head and sighed. “Look. I wanted to tell you.”

  “Here we go. Another tall tale about how much you wanted to tell us but thought it was in our best interests not to.”

  “I wanted to keep it. Just in case of emergency, you know.”

  “Well, thanks for deeming what happened back there an emergency. You got any other secret rules you want to tell us about?”

  “Look. I had the gun with me for a while. I had six bullets. If I showed you that gun, you might’ve just used it willy-nilly.”

  “You really think we’re that stupid?”

  Andy sighed again. Shook his head. “I used four bullets because you were in danger. I saved your lives. Not only that, but I’ve told you where Kerry’s at. I think I’ve earned a little trust.”

  “And how should we know you’re telling the truth about where Kerry’s at?”

  “Because I brought you her bloody necklace, didn’t I?”

  “You know where Mum is?”

  The temper of the conversation dilapidated at that moment. That moment where I realised I’d let the truth about Kerry slip in front of Olivia.

  And it was a truth I couldn’t hide any longer.

  I looked at Olivia. Looked into her watery eyes as she stood there in the middle of the empty pathway.

  “Olivia,” I said, crouching opposite her. I took her limp hands in mine. She was wearing Kerry’s necklace, a constant reminder of just how close her and her mother were. “I don’t know how to say this, but—”

  “Your mum’s alive.”

  I looked up at Andy, who’d spurted out the truth at that moment. He had his arms folded.

  “Your mum’s alive, and I know where she is. Exactly where she is. So if your dad tries to do something to me, you just remember that he’s taking out the one guy who can lead you safely to your mum.”

  “You prick,” Kesha said, squaring up to Andy. An amusing sight considering how short she was, but you’d be a brave man to mess with her. “You absolute prick.”

  “Yeah, well,” Andy said, turning around and continuing his walk. “That’s what happens when you’re ungratefu
l. Now come on. You’d better hurry up if you want to get to Carlisle in one piece.”

  I didn’t even have the energy to be angry with Andy. All I had was apathy towards the current argument. Total apathy. Because Andy probably had a point. He’d kept the gun a secret, but we’d hardly made him feel the most welcome person in the world. Besides, keeping a secret like that gave you better odds, in a sense. It gave you something over the rest of the people you were with.

  But how much did Andy want over them?

  And how much more did he know?

  Right now though, my focus was on Olivia. And there was a mixture of elation, surprise, and sadness in her eyes. They were probably the same emotions I was experiencing over the knowledge that Kerry might still be out there. Elation for the obvious reasons. Surprise for the even more obvious reasons.

  Sadness…

  Well.

  Sadness because something at the back of my mind told me she hadn’t made it. That Andy hadn’t seen her for a long, long time. So something could’ve happened to her in that time.

  Sadness that she’d been on her own, away from her family, all this time.

  Sadness that I’d given up searching for her once the trail went cold.

  I tightened my grip around Olivia’s hands. “We’re going to find your mum,” I said. “But… But I can’t promise she—”

  “I thought she was dead. All this time.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry.”

  Then, Olivia smiled. “I thought she was dead. And now she only might be dead. I’ll be sad if she is. But if she isn’t…”

  She stepped towards me and wrapped her arms around my neck. I held on to my daughter, my sweet daughter, and I felt tears roll down my cheeks as her warmth spread to my body.

  “She’s not going to be dead,” I said. “She’s not going to be dead.”

  I said it like I was reassuring Olivia.

  But deep down, I knew the truth.

  I was saying it to reassure myself.

  We stood up, then I joined Kesha and Bouncer and squinted at Andy in the distance. He was marching ahead.

  “What do you think about him?” Kesha asked.

  I took a deep breath. “We follow him. But we keep a close eye on him. Any more secrets and you know what we have to do.”