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

He turned around and opened the second drawer. He rummaged around. He thought he had twine in there though he couldn’t remember why he’d even have that.

There was a deafening bang and the other noise died away for a couple of seconds. Terry gasped and hurried back to the window, though of course he couldn’t see a thing. He backtracked away after a couple of seconds, feeling strangely vulnerable to a danger he couldn’t see.

Was it a gunshot? Maybe fireworks? No. No, he’d never heard fireworks that sounded like that. A car backfiring? But no, all the cars had stalled for some reason no-one had been able to figure out.

There were guns all over London—everyone knew that. He’d never thought much about it before. Out of sight, out of mind. There was the occasional shooting around here, but it was usually gang-related and when you didn’t see it with your own eyes… There was still no sound of sirens. Why was no-one responding?

He thought back to earlier, to what the woman downstairs had said. She’d been so calm and confident when she’d said it was more than a power cut.

But what else could it be?

He laughed to himself. Was he really starting to believe the words of a madwoman?

The noise had picked up again. At least they’d been shocked into silence by the gunshot. That had to count for something, didn’t it? He wasn’t the only normal one left in the whole bloody city.

Whoa, he thought, alarmed at how much he’d hated London at that moment. It was the only home he’d ever known and he loved it—he’d never wanted to live anywhere else.

There was another deafening bang and Terry’s heart began to race. It sounded closer than before. What was to stop anyone just marching into his block and offing them all? Nothing, that was what. He’d frozen up at the thought of tackling a thief with a knife. How was he going to fare against a thug with a gun?

Terry started to pace again. He’d never felt so helpless in his life—and that was saying something.

Annie opened her eyes and jumped out of bed to open the curtains. She had left them open to see if the street lights came back on, but closed them during the night. She hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about intruders prowling around outside. She wasn’t usually so nervous, but the constant shouts and screams had been impossible to ignore. It didn’t help that her flat was on the ground floor. The windows were single-glazed and the wooden panes were rotting in places. It would take very little effort to break them.

She hadn’t slept well.

She clapped her hands. Stop it. Time to move. She’d fought fatigue before; she’d do it again. There was no time to sit around thinking.

Part of her just wanted to get on the road rather than wasting more time hunting for sleeping bags and shelter, but she knew it wasn’t wise to leave unprepared. After the carnage she had seen the day before, she knew it wouldn’t be a case of cycling as hard as she could for three days.

There were going to be obstacles.

She shivered. It didn’t help that she had no way of tracking down what she needed. She had always used the maps app on her phone to find shops and other businesses. She closed her eyes and tried to think.

She moved to the living room, where her backpack still sat, discarded in the middle of the floor. She hadn’t even bothered to repack it. She needed something better; something with support. Because if she’d thought it was heavy the day before, it was going to be a lot heavier once she was done. She’d brought the bike inside too: better than leaving it to chance now that it was her only way out.

Her body buzzed with energy and dread. It had seemed straightforward the day before, but now that the time had come for action…

She wondered again if she should just take her chances. If she left a bit later, she’d get fifty or sixty miles before she had to look for somewhere to sleep. There was bound to be somewhere out of the way. All she needed was a dry corner.

Then she thought of the petrol bomb the day before; the looks in people’s eyes.

No. Better to get there a day later than not at all.

She wished, and not for the first time, that she’d brought her camping gear with her from the farm, even though she’d done nothing but work, sleep and train since she got to London.

She turned to the window, not wanting to think about what had brought her to London. It didn’t seem so ominous out there now that it was bright. It was quieter, like all the people who had been making the racket were home in bed. There were a few men lingering on the green. It shouldn’t have rattled her—the estate had nine three-storey blocks wrapped around a rectangular green, and there were always people clustered on the patchy grass. But there was something different about these men. She’d never seen them before. She shook her head. That didn’t mean anything, of course. She’d never met any of the neighbours until the day before. But she would have remembered these guys. They had trouble written all over them.

She shivered. She’d had no way of washing the cold sweat off her skin the night before, and it still felt clammy. This was the right approach, she knew, even though leaving immediately would feel more constructive. She had thought of even more things she needed, like water purification tablets and heat packs for her hands.

She threw her jacket on and set off. There was an outdoor shop about fifteen minutes away in the opposite direction to the way she’d gone the day before. She’d never been inside, but it would have to do. She didn’t want to risk cycling any further than she had to after what she’d seen the day before. Even now, she worried that the army was around each corner. She’d had a lucky escape. She couldn’t count on that happening again.

There were still lots of people about, but it was less chaotic now. She tried to keep her wits about her. There weren’t a lot of people cycling around—she hadn’t encountered any yet—and she knew how much she stood out.

She moved to the other side of the road when she passed by a metro supermarket with a crowd of people outside. Someone had smashed the big plate glass window in the front and people were teeming inside. There wasn’t a security guard in sight.

What if the outdoor shop has already been looted by the time I get there?

But it hadn’t been. It was all locked up and there was no-one around. It was still too soon, she supposed. People were focusing on supermarkets and corner shops. Soon they’d realise that outdoor shops had a lot more useful stuff than clothing.

She’d be long gone by that stage.

She hoped.

She got off the bike and wheeled it to the door. She tried it. Of course it didn’t budge. It was all locked up. She took a few steps back and looked up at the upstairs windows, feeling awkward. It was part of a chain and she had a loyalty card in one of her bedroom drawers back at the farmhouse. There was a very obvious camera pointed straight down at the door.

She shook her head. It still felt like this was all a big prank, so when she looked around for something heavy to break the window, she half-expected someone to jump out and arrest her.

I’ll deal with that. I’d take prison over the aftermath of an EMP any day.

There was nothing around. She grew impatient. Maybe it was naive, but she hadn’t considered the possibility that she’d need to break in. She’d brought nothing with her that could shatter the glass.

She looked down. It was either the bike or use her foot. She didn’t want to damage either. Then she realised: the bike had an old pump attached to the frame. She propped the bike against the wall and glanced around to see if anyone was nearby. She didn’t want to risk taking her eyes off it for even a moment.