Alex Knightly - Sudden Darkness - A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller

He nodded as she walked into the shop, relieved that he could get on with his work. He was too cold and busy to think too much about what she’d said. She’s probably on something , he concluded.

An hour later, the queue was longer than it had been all day and people were becoming even more restless. People were buying up everything they could carry and it only heightened the impatience of those still waiting to get in.

Terry had had enough. He still wasn’t sure if he believed what that woman staying downstairs had said about the power, but it had been playing on his mind ever since. She had made it sound like the end of the world and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop dwelling on it. Because it was weird. He’d thought that even before she said anything. It wasn’t just the power—nothing worked.

Which begged the question: did Terry want to be the guy who blocked people from getting the food they desperately needed?

He sighed as he allowed an elderly couple inside and a young mum wearing a baby carrier stepped forward to take their place at the head of the queue. Her cheeks were sunken and her hair hung limply down her face—it obviously hadn’t been washed for a good deal longer than the power had been out. His heart sank.

“It’s cash only today, I’m afraid,” he said, as cheerily as he could.

She stared at him without saying anything.

“I need to make sure you have cash before I can let you in. Can you show me please? The machines are down and nobody’s being served without cash.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have any.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t—”

He was cut off by the baby, which began to cry in awful jagged yelps as if something terrible had happened. Which it had, Terry supposed. Nothing was working and no-one had come to tell them when the power was coming back on.

It was an unpleasant noise at the best of times, but now it sent people right over the edge. The people behind her sighed and huffed, and the girl herself was close to tears. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen and the baby was very young—Terry knew nothing about kids, but it was no bigger than a doll.

“I just want some milk and bread,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t know the power was going off, did I?”

Terry stared at her, feeling ashamed. If he’d had cash himself he’d have given it to her. He didn’t. He looked past her at the crowd of people, hoping someone would step up and give her a couple of pounds.

No-one did.

“Please,” she hissed. “It’s freezing in the flat and we have nothing. The gas is off too.”

“Maybe your mum could help?”

“She’s on holiday. And my phone’s dead.”

“Oh come on,” someone shouted over the noise of the baby’s cries. “The same rules apply to you as the rest of us! Get back to your free flat, why don’t you? Do you want us to pay for your food as well?”

The girl’s face crumpled. She turned to walk away and Terry’s heart felt like it had just shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. His mum had been young when she had him—and she’d had her fair share of people treating her like dirt because of it.

“Wait!” he called.

She turned, eyes widening.

“Wait here.”

He turned and walked back into the shop. He’d had enough of this. He was barely through the door before people started pushing in behind him.

He felt bad for the women on the tills, but surely they wouldn’t resent helping someone who was at her wit’s end. He went straight to the bakery section on the other side of the shop. What he saw on the way shocked him. He’d been outside for hours and in that time a lot of the ready-to-eat foods had been picked clean. There was no bread left—not even the more expensive brands people usually left unless they had no other option. He was at a loss for a few moments until he told himself to hurry up. He ended up with a few cans of an unpopular tuna flavour, some rye crackers and a few tins of baby formula. It wasn’t much, but it would keep her going for a few days. He was about to go by the tills and get some chocolate bars, but the huge queues put him off trying to weave his way through. He backtracked and got some biscuits instead.

He hurried back towards the door and was dismayed to find Charlie standing there beside a man in a grey sports jacket.

“Yes, that’s him,” the man said.

Terry looked from his manager to the stranger and back. He forgot he’d been about to carry an armful of goods he hadn’t paid for out of the shop. “What?”

“You. You’re the one who left your post. It was obvious that you were going to get stuff for that girl.”

“Why don’t you go and buy your own groceries instead of worrying about what others are doing?”

“Terry!” Charlie snapped. “That is no way to speak to a customer. I apologise, sir. Rest assured Terry here will be sent on customer care training just as soon as everything is back to normal.”

“I should think so,” the man said. “I brought cash and queued like I was supposed to. I don’t see why others should get preferential treatment.”

Terry knew the best thing to do would have been to stay quiet, but he couldn’t. “She waited in the queue just like you did.”

“Yes, but she had no money. And you walked away. It was a free-for-all then. People just skipped the queue and there was nobody to stop them.”

Terry suddenly felt very tired and his shift wasn’t even close to being over. Charlie had already told them they were staying on until someone came to relieve them—not that they believed anyone else was coming. “Okay… well, I have to get these to the young lady with the baby. And can I just say, if you’d had any decency at all, you might have put your hand up to help her.”

He marched past them, carefully balancing the items in his hands. He hoped she had pockets, because she’d struggle to carry them otherwise. The baskets were gone and… he spotted a plastic bucket and gratefully dumped the items he was carrying inside.

“Terry, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

He spun around. He didn’t care anymore. “She’s a young mum. With a tiny baby. Do you want me to send her away to starve in a cold flat?” He shook his head and turned to the customer. “Make sure you buy some of the frozen chicken. I’m sure it’s still safe. You’re just the kind of person who deserves it.”

He turned away.

“Get the hell out of here, Terry. You’re fired. And don’t even think about claiming unfair dismissal. I have a witness here who I’m sure will be more than happy to testify that you were rude and abusive to customers.”

“Yes, yes I will. I’ve never seen such—”

“You know what, Charlie? You can shove your job. It makes me sick that you’re doing your best to profit from this.”

“It’s basic economics, you idiot, but that’s beside the point. Just get out. The rest of us have work to do.”

Terry turned to go again, but then he thought of something. “Everyone listen up,” he said at the top of his voice. “The manager has very generously agreed that if you can get out of the shop in the next minute, your shopping is on him. The exit is this way.”

He hurried on ahead and pressed the bucket into the young woman’s hands before the crowd surged out and carried her away from him.

“Might as well go out on a high,” he muttered, though all he could think was who the hell was going to hire him now.

Pete was restless. He’d been that way ever since he got back to the house and actually listened to what his brother had been trying to tell him.