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

They were coming for the garage and the parts. Or they’d found out about her.

She felt sick to her stomach as she told herself it didn’t matter. They’d find more than they bargained for, regardless of why they were coming.

She ran for the back door. She checked it quickly before climbing up the drainpipe to the roof. She’d never been good at gymnastics, but this was different. This wasn’t like messing around on the monkey bars in the park. Her life—and Max’s—depended on her pushing herself to the limit.

She walked tentatively along the corrugated iron roof. She wasn’t sure how stable it was and the last thing she needed was to fall through it and send sheets of metal crashing down onto the petrol-soaked concrete below and causing a spark.

She was fully reliant on her ears now. The roof of the main workshop was pitched, but the part that covered the office at the back was flat, so she was standing on a small natural terrace that gave her a good view over the scrapyard and the side of the building. But in order to be able to see down, she’d have to risk making herself visible. She wasn’t prepared to do that.

She looked around. Everything was ready to go and she was confident she couldn’t be seen from the ground.

She slid the grimy window open, second-guessing herself again. Was it better to leave it closed and kick it through when they were inside? No, this way was better.

I’ve tested all of this. Calm down.

But she couldn’t. Her heart was racing, making it difficult for her to hear anything.

Then she froze. She thought she’d heard something crunch a few seconds earlier, but had told herself it was just leaves blowing in the wind.

There it was again. It sounded like voices. But it couldn’t be. She could still hear the car engine.

Unless…

Unless there were two cars and the first had been quieter. She hadn’t thought of that.

Si tried to get control of her breathing. It couldn’t be. She must have imagined it. There couldn’t be a second car. It would ruin everything.

“Come on,” someone hissed below her.

Her forehead prickled with sweat despite the chill in the air.

This was it. Her plan was up in the air, but she didn’t even consider abandoning it. Max needed her and she wasn’t going to let him down.

That’s it, she thought, poised to strike. Come on. Let’s get started, fuckers.

The door handle creaked.

It was time.

Clive looked around at the others. They’d been stopped for at least half an hour as they all tucked into cheese and juice as if they were at a party. It was as if they had forgotten reality. He sighed. There was limited light and they could probably still see the warehouse they’d slept in if they craned their necks.

“It’ll be dark in six hours. Let’s go.”

The others stood. Olivia stayed where she was.

“Are you ready, darling?”

He was worried about her. She’d seemed fine the previous evening, but he put that down to exhaustion. He was beginning to think of the future now. What if he couldn’t find more pills? Even if they achieved the impossible and got to York in four days, she wasn’t going to be cured by stepping foot on that farm. Perhaps it was already too late—wouldn’t pharmacies be one of the first places people hit? He’d seen it in London before they left. As things got worse, people would look for any way to escape reality. Booze and pills were going to be heavily in demand.

He had to find some.

Olivia nodded, her eyes vacant thanks to the pill he’d given her. It was a balancing act between calming her anxiety and leaving her sharp enough to react if she needed to. He had to find a pharmacy soon. But where?

They threw their bags on their backs and took off down the road. They quickly lost momentum. Clive felt heavy, and he could tell from Terry and Annie’s faces they were in a similar position to him.

“We should probably have stopped after the first pack of cheese,” Annie muttered.

They were riding four abreast. Cars were fewer now, so they only had to fall in behind each other every so often. He didn’t want to think how much more difficult it would have been if everything had stopped working at rush hour. “Yes, well,” he said with a sigh. “Who knows when we’ll next be able to have cheese.”

“Not that long, I hope. We have cattle and sheep. We’ll sort something out.”

“Danish blue?” he replied with a wistful smile. “And port?”

“How about homemade cheddar. And apple cider.” She groaned and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know about the rest of you but I feel like I’m coming down with…”

Her words were drowned out by a supersonic roar overhead.

Terry gasped and slammed on the brakes to look up at the sky. “Jets!”

A tight formation of three tiny black aeroplanes flashed past far above them. Relief flooded through him. Maybe all wasn’t lost after all.

“Who do you reckon it is? RAF planes back from abroad or Americans?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Annie sighed. “They’ll surely send aid and engineers to rebuild and…” she trailed off.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. There’s no quick fix, is there? It’s likely to take years. Just think of all the circuits and wiring that’ll need to be replaced. Even if they send a fleet of ships, it’ll still take years to get Britain running again.”

“Assuming it’s Americans.”

“What does that mean?”

“It could be anyone. It could even be whoever attacked us coming back to view their handiwork.”

Clive glanced at his wife. She hadn’t said anything, but her hands were gripping the handlebars so tightly that her knuckles were turning blue. “Let’s stay positive, eh?”

“I don’t see how,” Terry said. “If those are enemy jets there’s a good chance they have bombs on board. Maybe they’ve come to finish us off.”

Olivia let out a startled cry and her bike wobbled. Clive threw a hand out to grab her handlebars. “Steady there. It’s okay, love.”

He was alarmed. The pill should have calmed her. Or had it? Was she so terrified now that the drugs could only do so much?

“It’s not! I don’t want to get blown to pieces, Clive! I wish we’d stayed in the flat now.”

“Terry,” he hissed, trying to keep his temper under control. It wasn’t fair to expect them to walk on eggshells for his wife’s sake, but staying calm was easier said than done. “It doesn’t do any of us any good to talk that way. Let’s just stay positive and keep moving. I wish we’d never stopped at that truck. We’d just eaten.”

“We had, but we got the juices there,” Annie said, sounding strangely flat. “So we won’t need to stop again for a while.”

He started to explain how they would need to stop; that he’d need to stock up on pills before nightfall if possible, but he stopped. Later. He’d do it later. Maybe they’d find a small town with a place to bed down for the night. If they went fast then they’d be well into the countryside by nightfall, where it was safer and less populated.

Yes , he thought. There’s no need to panic.

Yet.

No-one spoke again after that. They all focused on the road ahead. There were fewer distractions now and no pedestrians to be seen.

Clive was happy with that. Olivia certainly seemed calmer now she was concentrating on cycling rather than thinking about all the things that could go wrong for them.