The man with the knife looked at his friend, who was still sitting on the edge of the boot. He looked less certain and less comfortable than his friend. Lily hoped that could be used as a positive. Like they could get through to him, even if they couldn’t get through to his friend.

  “You were going to suggest sharing?” he said. Clearly bemused. “Well, that’s damn good of you. Really damn good of you. But we’re not interested in sharing, old man. So let me suggest something to you. Let me make you a suggestion. You hand us that stuff. You hand us the keys to this car. Then you let us get out of here. How’s that?”

  Terrance looked at Lily. There was an apologetic appearance to him.

  Then he turned and started to walk up to the man.

  “I’d stop if I were you,” the bloke said.

  He lifted his knife higher.

  Terrance shook his head. “We’re hours into this situation and you’re really talking about what I think you’re talking about? You’re really talking about stabbing me?”

  “Don’t test me.”

  But Terrance kept on walking. In fact, he walked so far that before Lily knew it, he was right opposite the man with the knife, looking right into his eyes. “Come on. There’s no need for any of that. I don’t think you’re a monster, son. I just think you’re as scared as the rest of us. So do the right thing, here. We’re all human. We’re all just trying to get by. So move away from the car and let us take our stuff. If you do that, who knows? Maybe I’ll leave something for you. We can figure something out here.”

  Lily saw the look in the knife-wielding man’s eyes soften. She saw him brush his hand through his hair, then look at his friend.

  “Do the right thing, son,” Terrance said. “Please.” This time, he didn’t sound quite as confident. This time, his voice cracked. Just enough to reveal a flicker of fear.

  The man looked back at Terrance and he sighed.

  And then it all happened so fast.

  Terrance turned.

  Tried to scramble away.

  The lad with the knife surged forward.

  They pushed at each other.

  Scuffled.

  And then Terrance smacked him across his face, and the bloke…

  He pulled back his knife, in the scramble.

  And then he slammed it into Terrance’s stomach.

  His eyes widened right away, this bloke with the knife.

  His friend, he shouted something. His eyes were also wide. “Fuck, Marvin.”

  Both of them, shocked.

  All caught in the chaos.

  The craziness.

  Lily’s body froze. She let go of Beast’s lead, and of the rucksack of supplies. All sounds, all smells, all of it drifted into the background.

  All she could see was Terrance falling to the ground.

  Stab wound in his stomach.

  Blood pouring out of his body.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  She couldn’t think.

  All she could do was stay totally still, totally frozen, unable to comprehend what she’d just witnessed.

  She was so frozen that she couldn’t stop the man with the knife from grabbing the rucksack and running back over to the car, keys now in his hand. Terror in his wide eyes. Terror at the realisation of what had just happened. She could see from the look in his eyes—and his friend’s eyes—that he wasn’t comfortable with what he’d just done. That he was struggling to face up to the reality of the crime he’d just committed.

  He looked at Lily like he was sorry. Like he was trying to apologise to her. Panicked. Wide-eyed. Caught in a frenzy. In the heat of the moment.

  “It… it didn’t have to be this way,” he said.

  Then he got into Terrance’s car and he drove off out of the car park and into the distance.

  Just like that, he was gone.

  Lily staggered over to Terrance’s side. She looked down at him, as he lay there, bleeding out on the road.

  “You… you look after your boy,” he said.

  She grabbed his hand as Beast licked at his face. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”

  He reached up his other hand and stroked her hair. “You… you look after your boy.”

  Lily held on to Terrance’s hand as his coughs got harder.

  As the struggling got more intense.

  And then before she could do a thing about it, she saw his face pale and felt his hand loosen.

  She crouched over Terrance and kept hold of his limp hand as a few specks of cold rain began to fall.

  She was on her own now.

  SEVENTEEN

  BETHANY

  DAY ONE: 11:15 A.M

  When Bethany and her friends reached the shop, their worst fears were already confirmed.

  And when those worst fears were confirmed, it brought home the reality of their rapidly deteriorating situation once more.

  There was a “CLOSED” sign dangling from the dusty shop window. The metal shutters had been pulled down. It looked like there was something in front of the door, like a shelf, blocking their way inside. Someone battening down the hatches. Shit. They were at that point already? What ever happened to community spirit? Looked like there wasn’t going to be any of that early lockdown unity. People really were taking this CME shit seriously.

  Dan stared intently at the door leading into this shop. Susan and Olly had their hands on their hips, both looking defeated. And a little scared, too. A little worried. Went without saying.

  “Looks like we might have to try somewhere else,” Bethany said. With hope, more than anything. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like it one bit. She had a bad feeling about it.

  But Dan didn’t seem convinced. Instead, he sighed loudly and paced around in front of the shop. “It’s not fair,” he said. “It’s just not fair. I mean, we’re hours in. The CME hasn’t even taken power out fully yet, which is clearly something the government were worried about to send out a message like they did. And already people are getting selfish with their supplies. What does that tell you about the world we live in, hmm?”

  Bethany didn’t know how to answer Dan. She could tell he was frustrated. And really, she couldn’t blame him. They’d trekked a fair way to get here. To find that it had already been closed up… well, that was a bitter pill to swallow.

  But wouldn’t they have done the same if they’d had a place filled with supplies like this?

  And besides, they didn’t have any choice but to swallow it. What else could they do?

  What use was getting frustrated? It wasn’t going to get them anywhere. If anything, it was only going to hold them back.

  Dan should know that, before anyone.

  “We should just move on, Dan,” Olly said. “Try somewhere else.”

  “Try somewhere else?” Dan said. Bethany hadn’t seen him lose his shit like this before, and it was unpleasant to witness, especially since he’d seemed so in control up to now. His stoic demeanour had been well and truly shattered, all in an instant. Clearly the weight of knowledge was getting the better of him. He raised his arms and gestured around. “Do you see anywhere else around here?”

  “There’ll be somewhere,” Olly said, backing off. A little quieter. Trying to calm Dan. Playing peacemaker as well as he could. “That’s all I’m saying. This can’t be the only shop around here. Right?”

  “No,” Dan said, shaking his head. “No, we can’t be having this. There’s stuff in there and I know it. We made it this far. We aren’t just walking away. We’ll regret it. And we’re in too much shit to have any regrets like this.”

  He turned away and started walking around the back of the shop.

  “Dan?” Susan called. “What are you doing?”

  Dan picked up a loose piece of rock from the side of the road. “What I should’ve done five minutes ago. Stand back. Watch yourselves.”

  Bethany didn’t have time to stop Dan doing what he was doing. She didn’t have time to even process how wrong it was that he was doing it at all. She couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. But she didn’t think it would be the last time she witnessed something like this.

  She just watched as he picked up that rock and threw it at the window in a door at the back of the shop as hard as he could.

  As glass smashed everywhere.

  The sound of it smashing, cutting through the silence.

  “Dan!” Bethany shouted.

  Susan and Olly stepped in front of her then, all of them walking up to Dan.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Dan shoved his hand through the broken window. Then he started messing around with something on the inside. “If we can’t get into the shop itself, the warehouse will have to do.”

  After much messing with the lock, the door clicked open, and Dan gestured for them to enter.

  “We go in. We get the list of supplies we talked about. Then we get out of this place as fast as we bloody can. I’m not keen on sticking around here one bit.”

  Bethany looked at the open door. She thought about the way the “CLOSED” sign had hung from the front of the supermarket, and how the shutters had all been lowered. There could only be one reason why. There had to be someone in there.

  And that unnerved her.

  “Bethany?” Dan called. “Are you coming?”

  Bethany looked at the empty village street, the place still clearly immune to the fear that Dan insisted would be spreading around the more widely populated areas right now. But there was something eerie about it, too. Something that made Bethany want to go inside and away from here. Something that made her not want to be on her own.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat, unable to believe that they were actually breaking into somewhere—it wasn’t like anything she had ever done, but at the same time, she got the sense that it wasn’t going to be the last time she did something like this, either.

  And then she followed her friends inside the supermarket.

  Against her better judgement.

  The search for supplies went surprisingly well, although the entire quest was incredibly eerie.

  And she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going too well.

  And that it was on the brink of going wrong, at any moment.

  They managed to get most of the things from Dan’s list. Canned food, peanut butter, that type of thing. Common sense stuff, really. But hopefully stuff most people hadn’t really thought about.

  They also grabbed some other supplies, like dental floss, which Dan insisted could be used as an alternative to para cord, and also a handy thing for stitching with—an alternative to the good old-fashioned needle and thread. Mostly the search for supplies went just fine.

  But there was a creepy vibe to this supermarket. The way there was a darkness to the place… it made Bethany feel like someone was watching. Like she really, really shouldn’t be here. Like someone was coming for her.

  Like there was someone in here.

  Someone watching.

  “You sure you’re okay, Beth?”

  Bethany flinched when she heard Olly’s voice. It was nice to hear some concern, to be fair. She wasn’t expecting it from Olly. He was quite a quiet guy. Didn’t speak up much. She didn’t really know him too well. Hadn’t ever had much to do with him. That quietness intrigued her about him, though. She was always drawn to a bit of mystery. Probably part of why she’d been so drawn to Stephen.

  But hearing him speak now, hearing him show some concern… she appreciated. It didn’t seem in character, either. Which kind of intrigued her even more.

  The pair of them were at the back of the warehouse now, near to the door.

  She wasn’t interested in getting into a long, drawn-out conversation about her mental state right now. So instead, she nodded. “I think so.”

  “It’s not right all this, is it?”

  “In what sense?”

  Olly sighed. He looked… troubled. “I just don’t think we should be doing this. I think we should be being more pragmatic. Like, thinking about heading home. Because I know Dan knows his stuff but he’s full of shit, really. He gets off on this crap. He’s living a fantasy.”

  He stepped closer to Bethany, then leaned in to her ear.

  “We should think about leaving, you and me. I mean, we’ve got stuff. Enough to get us back to the cottage, then back to yours or something. These two’ll understand. They really will.”

  Bethany felt discomfort building inside. She hadn’t seen this side to Olly before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to see any more of it. He was with Susan. The pair of them loved one another. Even if they were quite a strange couple, by all accounts.

  But the way he was speaking to her right now… it made her feel uneasy, for the first time in knowing Olly.

  Suggesting even leaving Susan. That didn’t seem right either.

  “Susan,” Bethany said. “She’s… she’s your girlfriend.”

  Olly didn’t comment on that. Not at first. He stared on, into space. Wide-eyed. Bethany had noticed a weird atmosphere between them all weekend. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  She stepped back a few paces. She had to be clear. As much as leaving might seem tempting, mostly just to get back away from the wilderness… she just couldn’t do it. “I can’t. That’s… that’s not something I can…”

  She was about to finish speaking when she saw Dan and Susan walking down the aisle of the shops together.

  And when she saw someone step out behind them.

  She froze. Every muscle in her body went to stone.

  She wanted to shout, but she couldn’t.

  She wanted to cry out to warn them, but she couldn’t.

  And she didn’t have to.

  Not when they turned around and saw him, too.

  It was a man. He was wearing the colours and the logo of this shop.

  On his top, a name tag: GAVIN.

  He was holding a long knife.

  “Hand my shit back,” he said. As if he was trying to sound authoritative. Playing at confidence. “Right this second. Or there’ll be tears.”

  EIGHTEEN

  LILY

  DAY ONE: 12:00 P.M

  Lily wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there, staring down at Terrance’s body.

  Trying to tell herself this was a nightmare.

  Trying to tell herself this couldn’t be real.

  Because… well, it just couldn’t be real, could it?

  It had to be a nightmare. Because stuff like this didn’t happen. Not in real life. Stuff like this only happened in nightmares. Or to other people. Not to her. Not to people around her.

  But here it was.

  Happening.

  And this was no dream.

  This was real.

  The wind had picked up, bringing a chill through the warm summer heat. All around her, she could hear the situation building in intensity. More cars were arriving at the supermarket. More people were shouting and arguing, no doubt over supplies. It was amazing how quickly things descended into chaos in situations like these. Lily had read stories about collapses, about how the world might transform in case of an emergency like this, but she’d never really believed it. She always had this naive belief that there’d be some kind of backup. Or that humanity’s better nature would ultimately prevail. Events and incidents like that were the work of fiction. In reality, shit would be very different. Fiction always over-exaggerated things.

  But she was fast learning that it was her naivety that wasn’t based on the truth, after all.

  There was more truth in the fictional than she ever dared to believe.

  She felt the tears rolling down her cheeks. Terrance hadn’t moved since he’d been stabbed. There was a reason for that. He was dead, no doubt about it.

  Dead.

  Right in front of her.

  And she couldn’t even move him.

  She couldn’t even get him seen to by medics.

  There was nothing she could do. Because there were no ambulances around. And no medics nearby—and if there were, they probably wouldn’t be remotely interested, anyway, as they would be caught in their own panic.

  There was nothing she could do.

  Beast was perched right by his side, like he was just waiting for him to wake up. And a naivety inside Lily kind of hoped for the same thing, too. Because she needed him. She needed him to wake up if she wanted to survive. She wasn’t going to be able to make it without him. He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t.

  But she was under no illusions.

  Terrance wasn’t waking up any time soon.

  She did the only thing she could do in situations like this—not that she’d ever quite been in a situation like this before.

  She wanted to be strong.

  But all she could do was pull out her phone.

  She thought of the people she could ring. The police, first and foremost. An ambulance. She couldn’t just let this go. She needed help. Terrance needed help. Maybe there was still something they could do. They needed to catch the blokes who’d did this. They couldn’t just get away with it. They had to pay.

  But…

  Terrance was gone.

  The blokes who had attacked him. They were gone, too.

  In his car.

  There was nothing she could do for Terrance.

  Nothing.

  And then… instinctively, she thought about ringing Mum and Dad. But her parents were both long gone. Her exes before Sam… well that just wasn’t appropriate. There were various friends she’d made over the years, but they were mostly just memories from her past, too.

  Now Terrance was gone, there was only really one person left in her life.

  Alex.

  She tried ringing his teacher, Mr Rawlinson, once again. She told herself that things could be different. This situation might not be as widespread as Terrance had feared it was. Mr Rawlinson might have signal after all.

  But there were two problems.

  Her phone battery was running dangerously low. Without her phone—even a phone that didn’t have any kind of reception—she’d be thrown into a whole new world of loneliness.

 

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