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

What’s Gaz doing? he wondered as he got to the door and caught his first glimpse of the chaos inside. He’s supposed to stop this.

When he pushed his way through the crowd and entered the shop, he saw there were no staff members in sight. He was glad for them: yesterday had been bad enough and they didn’t get paid enough to deal with the kind of abuse they’d been getting from frustrated shoppers. Not that he blamed people. They’d been desperate.

It was chaos inside. Someone had managed to tip over the checkout counters. Terry sniffed. He was sure he could smell burning plastic over the stink of gone-off milk and fish. It was too gloomy to see where it was coming from.

The torches they’d hung from the ceiling were long gone. It was just as busy as it had been the day before, with people scurrying around in all directions, carrying anything they could find.

He took a step further and paused. The smell was overpowering. He caught the earthy scent of past-best vegetables along with the toxic dairy and fish smells that had hit him as soon as he’d come in the door. He held his hand over his mouth and made straight for the aisle where they stocked bottled water, stepping over discarded boxes and broken jars as he went.

There was no water left. Not even the flavoured waters that were really just sugary drinks under a different name. He looked around. He wasn’t all that surprised.

There were no soft drinks left either, not even the home brand flavours that took the longest to shift. People weren’t so picky now.

He walked slowly back down the aisle looking all around him for anything that might be of use. Nothing had been spared, not even the jars of cocktail onions or olives they usually struggled to get rid of. The tinned tuna and salmon was gone—only the cardboard trays they’d come in remained on the shelves and tossed around the floor. The smell here almost made him miss the stench he had smelled when he first entered the shop—there was an evil acidic odour wafting from the jars that had fallen to the floor and smashed, leaking their pickled contents everywhere.

The medicine aisle had been cleaned out. Pools of unnaturally coloured liquids seeped slowly towards each other on the floor where they’d been knocked off their shelves, and for a moment he had a strong urge to go get a mop and clean it up. Was it even safe for that stuff to mix together?

Not my problem , he told himself. He drummed his fingers on his lips, agitated now. He’d felt confident thanks to his stash of tinned food, but seeing everything that had been taken made him realise there was a lot he was lacking. Like medicine. Like water. Like… it was hurting his head to try and think of the essentials.

He saw some familiar packaging poking out under the shelf and bent to pick it up. He scowled. It was a popular aspirin brand. Someone had taken out the blister packs from inside and dumped the empty box on the ground.

He wanted to push off the few things that remained on the shelves around him. What the hell was happening? He’d never seen anything like it. He moved away, trying to swallow his frustration. He’d taken pride in his work. He might not have seen eye-to-eye with the manager, but he’d probably spent whole years of his life in each of those aisles stacking shelves. Did people not think of that when they destroyed places? It was normal people who were going to have to tidy up.

He couldn’t bear to look at the mess. How was this better than being stuck in his flat? At least there he had peace. He decided to check upstairs to see if the water dispensers were still there.

On the way to the offices, he saw even more proof that this was serious. It was one thing selling out of portable barbecues and food that didn’t need much preparing. He could understand that. This was something else.

People were having full-on arguments over the last few cans of cat food. There must have been five or six of them, mostly older and well-dressed.

He was almost bowled over by a middle-aged man beelining for the dry dog feed. He looked around, not wanting to judge, but desperately hoping all of those people were stocking up for their pets. Because surely it hadn’t gotten to the point where people were now willing to eat dog food.

He shook his head and hurried towards the back. He’d seen enough. He couldn’t take anymore. It felt like his head was going to explode.

He pushed through the door marked ’staff only’ in forbidding red letters. It was usually enough to stop customers from wandering into the stock and delivery areas, but it was no deterrent now. It was just as messy in the back as it was on the shop floor. He knew from the day before that most of the remaining food supplies had been put out on the shelves before he left, but he supposed people had wanted to check for themselves.

He hurried up the stairs to where the offices and training rooms were with a sinking feeling in his chest. He didn’t feel safe anymore. People were acting more like animals than humans. A man in a hoodie came barrelling down the stairs in the opposite direction, not even looking where he was going. Terry got out of his way just in time.

He ran up the rest of the stairs telling himself there was no sense in bothering. There’d be nothing useful left.

The chairs and tables in the training rooms had been thrown around the place and the whiteboard was torn off the wall. There were markers and piles of paper spread out on the floors. He popped his head in the open door of the break room and found it in an even worse state. The cupboard doors above the counter were all open and boxes and jars were smashed all over the counter below. He shook his head.

The door of the manager’s office was closed. He tried the handle. It was locked. Hope rose inside him. It was shared by all the managers: not just the store manager, but the assistant managers who were in charge when he wasn’t around as well as the district managers when they were visiting the shop.

Terry shook his head. It had never been locked before Charlie took over. It wasn’t surprising. Charlie liked to swan around like he owned the place and it would be just like him to put a lock on the door so no-one else could access ‘his’ space.

He checked behind him and tried again. It didn’t budge. He took a deep breath and stepped back a few paces. Then he lunged at the door.

Terry groaned. The door hadn’t moved. All he’d succeeded in doing was winding himself. He stood back and waited until he got his breath back. Then he paused to take a closer look at the door. He smiled. He’d approached it all wrong. The lock might have been new and strong, but the door itself was old and worn.

He stepped back and then aimed all his weight at a point about halfway between the lock and the top of the door. He was reassured by the amount it bowed in. The thin door creaked and groaned from the pressure. He checked behind him again before hunkering down and doing the same thing to the bottom of the door. It had the same effect.

Terry took a breath and checked behind him one last time before launching at the door, aiming for the hinge side this time. It hurt like hell, but it was enough. The door broke away at the hinges. The lock stayed where it was, broken apart from the rest and still attached to the frame.

He looked around. There it was. A full bottle of water still in the dispenser and another one on the ground beside it. He shook his head. Now he had even less respect for Charlie. Why hadn’t he taken it? He moved quickly across the room after pausing to look warily at the camera in the corner. It took him a moment or two to remember that the power was down and so was the backup. He wouldn’t be seen by anyone. Even so, it felt wrong.

But what did it matter now? He didn’t want to die of thirst and he wasn’t sure he could face drinking more of that fruit syrup.