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

He shook his head. He was being paranoid, he suspected, but there was no way to tell for sure.

There was only one thing he knew for certain. If anything happened to those bikes they were as good as dead.

Annie gasped and sat up, staring around in the darkness. She couldn’t see anything, but she knew from the atmosphere that she was somewhere unfamiliar.

She could hear the faint squeak of shoes.

“It’s okay. You’re in my flat. Just keep it down. Let Terry sleep as long as he can.”

It all came back to her then.

Clive.

Terry.

Gunshots.

She looked around in the darkness. “Clive. I…” she shook her head and tried to swallow. Her mouth felt like sandpaper. She’d been about to say something, but now it was completely gone. She got up and moved to the window. It was still dark. “How long was I asleep?”

He waited until he was beside her to answer. “Four, maybe five hours.”

“Why didn’t you wake me? You must be exhausted.”

“I’m fine. I’m used to keeping strange hours and I’ll be okay tomorrow with very little sleep. I didn’t know about the rest of you.”

Annie frowned. “You don’t have to do that, you know. Protect us. We’ve all got to pull our weight or else we’ll get nowhere.”

He sucked in a breath. She waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. She returned her attention to the dark ground outside and waited for something to move. When nothing did, she relaxed a little, before reminding herself that she couldn’t afford to relax. Anyone could be out there, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered when he’d said nothing for several minutes. “About your flat. It can’t be easy to walk away.”

“It is what it is.”

She shook her head. “Why don’t you get some sleep? I’m wide awake now. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

By the time it was starting to get light, Annie had spent hours kicking herself for not getting the hell out of there that first morning. Whatever benefit she gained from having company and better equipment was surely outweighed by the increased risk now that people were getting desperate.

Stop it. At least you’re better prepared and you don’t have to go alone.

She swallowed, but nothing could stop the tears from welling up in her eyes.

We’ll manage. Somehow. She couldn’t see how or even why. What was the point? The last three months were a waste now—she’d have been better off staying at the farm with Dan if she’d known.

She shook her head. She knew there was no point in giving herself a hard time, but she couldn’t stop. She moved to the couches, where the two men were panned out asleep.

She bent and shook Clive’s shoulder. When he stirred, she moved to Terry.

“Wake up. It’s getting bright. Clive, should I wake your wife?”

He’d been slow to wake, but his eyes shot open when he heard her question. “No, no. I’ll wake her. You two get everything ready and make sure there’s nothing we need that we’ve forgotten.”

“Okay,” she said, looking around. Now that they were awake, she was itching to get on the road and get as far as they could in daylight. Today was the most critical day of all: they had to get as far away from London as possible. “Let’s try and be out in the next ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” Terry snapped. “It’s alright for you. This is my home. You expect me to just leave like it means nothing?”

Annie shook her head. She was exhausted and hungry. “You need to sort that chip on your shoulder. No-one is making you come. There’s only so much daylight in winter. We need to use it as best we can.”

“Yeah we do,” he said, his face twisting into a scowl. “But you have to understand not everyone has it as easy as you.”

“Easy as me?” Rage surged through her. “What the hell do you know?”

He shrugged. “I know what I see. You waltz in here and piss away more on that flat than a long-term tenant could afford. But people like you don’t care about that. You don’t care about the neighbourhood becoming a ghost town. And now when the shit hits the fan you just leave and think it’s as easy for everyone to do the same.”

“You don’t know a thing about me! All I’m trying to do is get us safely out of London.”

“And all I’m saying,” he said slowly, like she was an idiot, “is that it’s easier for you. Don’t you see that? We’re not all blessed with tons of money and no ties.”

“Tons of money? What the fuck are you talking about? Look around you. Do you really think I’d be staying here if I had tons of money? It was the cheapest place on the website and the owner offered me a good rate for a three-month stay. What part of that makes you think I’m loaded?”

“How much were you paying? I bet it’s still a hell of a lot more than I could afford.”

She clenched her fists—she couldn’t understand the rage swirling inside her. She’d never struggled so hard to control her temper before.

“Does it matter? If you couldn’t afford it, why didn’t you do something about it instead of wallowing in self-pity? You look around at everyone else and moan about how easy they have it. Well, they don’t. Grow up. You’re not going to get very far on a bike with that attitude.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not everyone has the luxury of being able to swan down to London and earn a fortune before skipping back to their farmhouse in the country. And you have the cheek to think you’re better than me. Well I’m not having it.”

“Shut up. Just shut up!”

“Why? You have no right to act like this is hard for you. You’re alright. You have your farm. And by the sounds of it you go on cycles like this all the time. So stop acting the victim.”

“You think I wanted to be two hundred miles away from my husband, stuck in this shitty block with a narrow-minded prick like you? I haven’t seen Dan in weeks. Every penny I earned was supposed to go towards IVF, except now it’s not. How can it? There’s no power to run an A&E ward, never mind a fertility clinic. You think I’ve lost nothing because I haven’t lived here for years? I’m two hundred miles away from home and the world is going to hell. And I’ll never be able to have a baby now, it’s nowhere near—”

Strong hands pulled her back, though she was barely aware of it.

“No, Clive. Let me.”

Annie blinked back unstoppable tears as an older woman she’d never seen before pulled her tight and cooed into her ear.

“It’s okay, love. Let it out. Let it all out.”

Her breath was ragged as her anger and hurt cleared and she realised what she’d said. She pushed away from the woman and looked around, blinking to clear her vision. She shook her head, not knowing what to say. What had made her say all that to complete strangers?

“I didn’t realise,” Terry said sullenly.

She turned away. The flat felt stifling. She couldn’t stand to be in there anymore. “We should go.”

Clive cleared his throat. “Olivia, this is Annie and Terry, the people I told you about. They’re coming with us.”

Annie smiled awkwardly at the woman. She had her own problems. “Sorry. I suppose I lost it a bit just now.”

“Let’s just go,” Clive said. “And you two need to remember you’re on the same team. There are enough people out there who want to hurt us.”

Annie nodded, though the thought sucked away what little hope remained. How the hell were they going to get themselves all the way to York?