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

Who’d just leave their Beemer sitting on the road here? he wondered. Bloody idiot.

He moved back onto the footpath on the other side of the road and listened. He couldn’t hear anything except birds. There were no trucks roaring past on the nearby motorway. No sirens. Nothing. He might as well have been in the middle of the countryside.

He walked on, looking all around him. It seemed like any other day—the sky was grey and it was drizzling on and off—but there was something so surreal about the quiet. He’d never seen anything like it—not even during England matches when everyone was inside watching the match or down at the pub. Traffic didn’t just stop when there was a match on.

Now it was dead.

He got to the shops. Not the main shops—they were a mile or so away—but the row of five shops with flats overhead that they’d probably built to make the place feel like a community. Not that it had worked. The only ones open were the chip shop and the mini-mart. A couple of the shops had been burnt out and nobody had bothered boarding up the charred windows upstairs.

He walked into the minimart, amazed to find it packed. It was never packed—not even when the few people on the road with jobs were coming home from work. People didn’t shop there for groceries, they went to the big discount supermarket on the other side of the motorway.

“Hello, Peter.”

“Mr Gill.” He nodded. He’d had a Saturday job there years ago, before he’d quit school. Mr Gill was a decent bloke who was normally unfazed by anything. You’d have to be, to run a shop in a place like this. Despite the bars and CCTV cameras, he still got broken into a few times a year. Today, though, he looked rattled. “Everything alright?”

The old man didn’t answer. Instead, he waved his hand around the shop, taking in all the shoppers frantically filling their baskets. Pete frowned. He’d never seen anyone use a basket in there. There was a reason why people didn’t do their grocery shopping at Gill’s: it was overpriced and the stock was usually close to its expiry date, if not past it—his mum said that all the time. He shook his head. “What’s going on?”

“You tell me. It’s been like this since I opened early this morning. At first I thought it was a bad day since the freezers were off and all the ice-cream was melting. But they haven’t stopped coming in since I opened. It’s very strange. Your brother too! Bought more than he could even carry. Why? He never usually shops here.”

Pete recalled the bags his brother had hefted into the house. Josh had been struggling under the weight. He was still as skinny as he’d been as a boy, but he was tall now. Strong. “What did he buy?”

“What didn’t he buy. Tins of beans, tuna, spam. Cereal. Evaporated milk. Flour.”

He wasn’t surprised by the detail. Mr Gill had a good memory. “Why? He’s big into his salads and boiled chicken. What’s he want with canned shite?”

Mr Gill made a face.

“Sorry.”

“That’s alright, Peter. No offence taken. But there’s a lady behind you trying to get through.”

Pete turned and came face-to-face with a woman he recognised from a few streets over. She was practically buckling under the weight of her basket, which was so full the stuff on top looked like it might topple out.

It was the same with everyone else in the shop. Baskets full of stuff, like they’d never be able to buy anything ever again.

Josh’s voice floated back into his head again. We’re in real trouble here . He stopped. You could say a lot of things about Josh, but you couldn’t deny he was clever. And calm. He worked with traders of something-or-other and according to him, keeping your wits about you was the most important part of the job.

Pete pushed his way through the throng of people to the door and stopped dead. To the left was Harry’s gym, the front he used to run all his businesses; to the right his mother’s house. A crazy thought came into his head. What if all this was true? What if it really was the end of the world? He hadn’t heard a siren all morning. Where were the police?

He’d been trying to get into the inner circle for months; to make the older blokes like Zane see he was serious and not just a kid. Was this his chance?

He shook his head. Harry couldn’t stand being bullshitted, but he’d want to know this. And if Pete was the one to tell him…

He turned right and started to run. He had to find out the truth. And he had to get it to Harry before any of the other lads did.

Clive Staunton hurried up the steps of the smart Victorian townhouse. It was only a few miles from his own flat, though it almost felt like a different city. Clive wasn’t thinking about that. He was still mulling over his actions of the previous day. And cursing the tubes for being down. The last thing he needed was to be late after what had happened the day before. Everyone had smartphones these days. In fact, he was probably already splashed all over the internet… He rapped hard on the door. Poor judgement aside, he liked to be early for his shifts, but he hadn’t counted on the delay when he’d left the flat at six and found the whole city stalled. There had been a time when he’d have shrugged and sprinted all the way there—not anymore.

Which was probably why he’d been assigned to protect a former prime minister more or less exclusively for the past year.

He swallowed.

Was that the reason?

Or was it more to do with everything that had been happening at home? He hadn’t thought it was affecting his performance, but maybe it was… Especially in light of what had happened. Even a year ago, he’d never have just pulled his weapon like that. It was reckless. Clive was a lot of things, but reckless wasn’t one of them.

“Morning mate,” he grunted as the door opened. “Sorry I’m late. Problems with the underground.”

“Are you late? I didn’t realise. My watch stopped. Not to mention my phone and the radio.”

Clive stopped and frowned. “Mine too. Watch. And phone.”

“Yeah, well,” Mark said, closing the door behind him. “That’s only the beginning.”

“How do you mean?”

The other man shook his head and Clive didn’t like what he saw in his eyes.

Mark Barnes was the most level-headed man he’d ever encountered.

Usually.

“What’s going on, Mark? You don’t seem yourself.”

“I’m surprised anyone seems like themselves.” He rubbed his cheeks. “Clive, how’d you do it? How can you just walk in here like it’s a regular day when the world is going crazy.”

“What are you talking about?” He tried to think. Had he heard anything mentioned on the news? It had only been about an hour since he left the flat, having woken early as usual without the need for an alarm. That was how he had known he was late—he always woke at the same time each morning and he allowed half an hour to get from door to door, which was plenty of time when the trains were working. He couldn’t remember hearing anything. If he had, he would have remembered—especially something severe enough to rattle Mark Barnes.

“You really don’t know, do you?”

Clive shrugged. The truth was, he’d had more on his mind than work—not that he was planning on admitting that. All of a sudden, he felt tired. “Not unless you decide to tell me. Now, come on. I have a job to do.” He tried not to feel resentful. As much as his pride had suffered from what he saw as being sidelined, there were benefits to this assignment—like not travelling halfway around the world every second week, like he might have done if he’d been guarding more high-profile politicians.

“Everything’s buggered, mate. Everything . I’ve been on since last night, and it’s been one thing after another. I went to check the fuse board when the power cut. I didn’t even get as far as the door when the cars started crashing. I thought it was an attack.” He jerked his head towards the stairs. “The old man was beside himself. I didn’t have the heart to tell him no terrorist in their right mind would bother with him when they could go after someone more interesting.”