Wherever he was, he hoped he hadn’t had to go through any of the horrors that this world was already forcing upon people.

  Wherever he was… she hoped he was ready for her.

  FORTY-FIVE

  LILY

  DAY TWO: 4:30 P.M

  Half four and Lily knew she was getting close to exactly where she needed to be.

  The afternoon was drawing in. The rain had stopped, which was something at least. They’d been on the same mostly empty country roads for hours now, barely bumping into anybody. After all, most people would be confined to the cities, sticking around their homes. That’s what the message had told them to do. Lily couldn’t blame them for complying.

  But screw that. There was only one thing that she could do, and that was find her son.

  She saw the signs for Ambleside and she knew they were getting nearer. But she was concerned about Steve. He seemed to be slowing down, which was a worry after his collapse earlier. She didn’t want to push him too hard, but at the same time she knew now that she couldn’t just stop walking. She was in too much of a zone. If she stopped at all, she might just collapse under the force of exhaustion.

  She had to keep on going. There could be no compromise.

  But as much as she noted that Steve was struggling, she too was struggling. Becky looked tired. The kids were getting hungry. Even Beast was slowing down, something uncharacteristic for him. Walking wasn’t easy. Losing the van had made their journey nigh-on impossible. Steve didn’t want to leave the van at first. The motorhome. Said it’d be better to stay with it. ’Cause there were lots of supplies in there. And he saw it as his home, too. A home away from home. The plan for him was to escape somewhere, to get away, before the power cut out completely—the engines, too. And then once they’d found somewhere good to camp, everything was going to work out, or something along those lines, anyway. He knew a friend who had a caravan up towards Ambleside, and apparently it was in the perfect location for an “event” like this.

  Lily must’ve been living under a rock all her life, because she hadn’t even had the time to consider an “event” like this might even be a possibility, let alone prepare for one.

  It was never going to be that easy, though. And in the end, staying anywhere near the van was just daft.

  Steve wanted to stay. But logic had won out.

  They’d had to get moving.

  And the family still seemed dead set on helping Lily find her son.

  She loved them to bits for the level of support they were showing her. The sacrifices they were making to help her find her Alex. She had never known anything like it. It was kindness on another level entirely.

  She hoped that their kids were going to be okay. Both of them. It was a dangerous journey for them both. She was realising that now already. The world had changed. And it hadn’t even changed yet, if that made sense. People were growing selfish already. Doing awful things. Even she had done some awful things herself.

  And sure. She wanted to believe that when the shock receded, people would realise just how horribly they had acted in those initial, panicked moments, and that they would pull together again.

  But honestly, she was worried.

  She was unsure.

  She feared things were only going to get worse.

  That they weren’t going to be getting better any time soon.

  “Hold on in there, boy,” she said to Beast. “You hold on in there.”

  There was also the mental baggage of what she’d done to Eric. She was doing her best to keep it from the forefront of her consciousness. But the only thing keeping it on the sidelines was her search for her son.

  She knew that if somehow it didn’t work out, the stitches of her sanity would come apart, and the guilt over what she’d done would hit her with an unmatched force…

  She looked up and she saw Sam in the forefront of her consciousness again. He was looking at her, smiling at her.

  You’re almost there now, love. You just have to go a little further and you’ll be there.

  She couldn’t picture Sam on demand. But whenever she did see him in her exhausted mind, he spoke to her on a profound level. He reminded her of all she’d been through, of all she still had to go through. And that gave her strength, like her batteries were being recharged and an energy she didn’t even know she had was filling her body.

  You can do this.

  You can make this.

  You can…

  She felt pride. Just for a moment, total overwhelming pride at how far she’d managed to come.

  And then she saw it.

  The campsite.

  West Haven.

  The one Alex was staying at.

  She stopped and her pride was overshadowed by total fear. Her heart raced. Her mind spun. Her breathing became laboured. Everything seemed to catch up with her—every bit of pain that she’d been doing so well to repress for so long.

  She felt a hand on her back and jumped. It was Becky.

  She looked at Lily and she smiled. “Come on. We’re here. We made it.”

  Lily took a deep belly breath and nodded.

  Then she made her way into the campsite.

  The campsite was a beautiful place. There was a big fishing lake filled with rafts and boats. There was a climbing wall. There were archery areas. And there was even a little farm.

  Lily pictured all the things Alex must’ve done here; all the fun he’d had.

  But there was something wrong.

  Something missing.

  And that something was… life.

  She looked around the tents. She looked around the bathrooms. She looked around everywhere, her thoughts getting racy, her body getting tense.

  “Alex!” She called. But the more she searched and the more she felt herself falling apart, the more the reality of her situation began to rear its head.

  She searched again. Checked the places she’d already investigated. Searched others that she wasn’t sure she had.

  But in the end, she kept up ending up right back at the start.

  She stood opposite Steve, Becky, Aubrey and Clarissa, and she saw the look of pity in their eyes. That’s when she knew. That’s when she knew for real.

  Alex was gone.

  He’d already left.

  Her son was gone.

  FORTY-SIX

  BETHANY

  BETHANY

  Bethany watched the flames creep up the walls of the cottage, the entire side of it blown to bits by the exploding oil tank, and she knew time was running out.

  She couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. That this was actually happening at all. Just two days ago, she had been travelling up this way. Her biggest worries were Dad and Mum finding out that she had taken the car and driven somewhere they wouldn’t approve of her going, and the grilling the pair of them might give her when they finally returned home from Santorini. It was absurd just how quickly disorder had infected people. Really though, she was ever more grateful for getting away from the city and into the wilderness—or relative wilderness, anyway. If this was the state out in the sticks, then just imagine how chaotic and lawless things were going to be in the cities right now.

  Of course, there would be more police presence in the cities. Maybe even the military. Keeping things in order. Perhaps they were in communication with the government, too, and things like that.

  But she didn’t imagine things were good right now. Back home.

  She thought of Olly, in a momentary flash. A flash that made her stomach sink to deep, deep depths. Wherever he was right now, she just hoped he was okay. She didn’t care about her car. Really, something like that was just irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. She just hoped he was okay.

  Maybe they should have gone after him. Maybe they should have tried harder to help him. Maybe he’d crashed, and he was out there now, all alone, stranded, without a phone.

  A million horrible, haunting possibilities circled her mind.

  And the weird thing?

  The scary thing?

  They weren’t even the most pressing, worrying thing right now.

  The most pressing, worrying thing?

  The flames.

  Spreading their way around the cottage.

  From that group of people, who had arrived out of nowhere and then set this place on fire.

  Dan’s parents’ cottage.

  It just didn’t seem real.

  And for what? They’d destroyed everything they had even hoped to gain. What was the point of any of it? What was their plan? Who were those people, really?

  Their leader. Jacob. He seemed like a fucking psycho. Will… he was quieter. But still allowed that shit to go down.

  Who were they? What was their deal?

  She wished she had the time to answer.

  Smoke was rising faster than she’d ever believed possible. She’d heard the stories about how it was the smoke that killed you when fire struck, but it was one of those things that was hard to believe until you were actually in a situation like this. Her lungs felt rough already, like they were being scraped repeatedly with razors. She felt nauseous, the urge to vomit building up as the supplies they’d gathered went up in flames.

  And the worst thing of all?

  Dan was down.

  Dan was lying in the middle of the garage, blood seeping from his head, outright unconscious.

  “We need to get out,” Susan said, her voice hoarse and raspy. “We—we can’t stay around here, Bethany.”

  Bethany knew Susan was right. The longer they stayed here, the more risk they put themselves in. Besides, Dan was down and Susan was making the call that they got out of here. She should take that advice—take the word of somebody else.

  But no…

  There was something else inside Bethany, now. Something that had been growing for a long time. It was an urge. An urge that had first kicked off when she’d lashed out and escaped the men back at the shop. It’d lit a fire in her belly and made her realise that she could stand up for herself. She could do the right thing.

  She didn’t have to live her life defined by what happened to her younger brother, Jason.

  “We need to get Dan,” Bethany said.

  She didn’t even think, then. She just walked into the garage, which was already full of flames.

  Susan’s eyes widened. She was shaking. “There’s no time.”

  “There is time,” Bethany said, her voice starting to crack and give way. “But only if you help me.”

  She looked into Susan’s eyes and saw her uncertainty as the cottage around them started to crumble under the force of the flames. And in her eyes, she saw a mirror image of herself, or the girl she used to be.

  She wasn’t that girl anymore. She was strong now.

  They were running out of time. Every second was a second wasted.

  Susan wasn’t going to help her.

  She wasn’t…

  Then, something remarkable happened.

  Susan walked into the garage and joined Bethany.

  “Good,” Bethany said, nodding, still struggling to deal with the fact that she was actually taking some responsibility for once in her life. But now the reality was hitting: she might be taking the lead, but what the hell was she supposed to do now?

  She looked around at the supplies. The Faraday cages, partly stuffed with electronics. The food. All of it surrounded by flames. All of it on the verge of being completely engulfed.

  “We’re going to have to pass on the supplies,” Bethany said, as coldly and cooly as she could.

  Then she looked down at Dan.

  “He’s our priority right now.”

  She reached down and grabbed under his arms.

  Susan was still standing there, hands wrapped around her front, paralysed.

  “Susan, quick.”

  Susan crouched down to the floor and joined Bethany in trying to pull Dan along.

  But it wasn’t easy. An unconscious body was far more difficult to drag than Bethany had been expecting—and she’d expected it to be tough.

  “It’s not gonna work,” Susan said.

  Bethany tightened her grip. “Don’t say that. We have to keep going. We have to try.”

  “But—”

  A crash, then. It sounded like it came from above.

  “What was that?” Susan asked.

  Bethany felt total fear. She wanted to get out of here just as much as Susan, if not more.

  But Dan…

  They couldn’t just give up on him.

  They couldn’t leave him behind.

  Bethany took a deep breath and regretted it right away, the smoke becoming too intense to manage. She closed her eyes tightly shut and thought of Mum and Dad, of how many times they’d told her to show some initiative, of how many times she’d let them down.

  She wasn’t going to let them down again.

  She wasn’t going to let anyone down again.

  Even if the heat in here was getting more intense.

  Even if the oxygen was getting low.

  “On three,” Bethany said. “We’re going to give him the biggest pull we’re capable of. You with me?”

  No response.

  “Su…”

  She stopped when she realised Susan wasn’t inside anymore.

  She’d done a runner.

  Bethany was on her own.

  Her heart pounded. Fear took a hold of her. She couldn’t drag Dan out of here alone. But she didn’t want to leave him behind either.

  She was going to have to do something.

  She looked around. There was still time to get out of the supply room.

  She felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she looked down at Dan. She stroked the hair out of his face and thought of the whole reason she’d come here in the first place. Dan made her feel special. He was nice to her. She wanted to start spending more time with him.

  And this was how it worked out.

  This was how it always worked out.

  She took a deep breath through her nostrils and then she began to stand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  She turned around and started to walk.

  Then, she heard a cough.

  She froze.

  It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be…

  She turned around.

  Dan was awake.

  “Dan!”

  She rushed to his side and helped him sit up. He looked around, his eyes glazed and fearful.

  “Our stuff…” he said. “Our… our stuff.”

  “Never mind our stuff,” she said, trying to help him to his feet. “We need to get out of here.”

  She walked with Dan’s arm over her shoulder. She felt the wall of flames closing in as she made her way to the front door, the smoke suffocating her lungs even more.

  But shit. The front door.

  Not only was it covered in flames, but they’d blocked it.

  The smoke was already thick down here. She didn’t want to waste any more valuable time. So she needed to go back upstairs. Rather than risk being engulfed down here.

  They were going to have to take the upstairs window.

  She clambered her way up the stairs, Dan by her side. The higher she got, the more intense the smoke got. She was struggling to put one foot in front of the other, eagerly trying not to cough her guts out.

  But still she kept on going.

  Still she held on to Dan.

  She wasn’t taking the back seat. Not anymore.

  She got upstairs and went into the bedroom as the cottage slowly collapsed beneath her.

  She was a few steps from the window when she went dizzy and began to topple over.

  She felt herself falling to the ground and all she wanted was for someone to catch her, to break her fall.

  But no.

  She steadied herself.

  She balanced herself.

  She broke her own fall.

  “You okay?” Dan asked.

  Bethany nodded. “I’ll live.”

  She smiled at him. And he smiled back.

  They looked out of the window, out at the drop.

  Bethany took a deep breath.

  Then, together, they took a leap of faith out of the cottage, onto the lawn.

  Susan was there waiting for them.

  Her eyes were wide, both with a mixture of shock and guilt.

  “Dan,” she said. “Bethany, I⁠—”

  “It’s okay,” Bethany said. “You did the right thing. The sensible thing.”

  “Not like this nutter,” Dan said. “Should’ve left me to go down with the sinking ship.”

  “That was never going to happen.”

  He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

  They interlinked fingers and looked at the burning mass of the cottage, all of them silent.

  “Well,” Dan said. “I had some good times here. Something tells me I won’t be coming back anytime soon.”

  Bethany felt bad for Dan. She tightened her fingers around his hand. He squeezed back, gently.

  “Well,” Dan said. “No point moping. We’re supply-less. We’re homeless. But we’re still alive and the clock’s ticking. What next?”

  He looked at Bethany.

  And for the first time, Bethany felt like the reins of leadership were being handed over to her.

  “I think it’s time we found ourselves a new home,” she said.

  And as the flames engulfed the cottage, the three of them took one final look, then they walked.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  OLLY

  DAY TWO: 2:00 P.M

  Olly wanted nothing more than to go back home.

  But that was proving more difficult than he’d ever imagined.

  It was afternoon now, and honestly he was no closer to home than he’d been when he'd first set off from the cottage last night.

  He’d run out of fuel. Bethany’s car. Typical. She’d had problems with it, too.

  And he was so out of the way that nobody had even passed by to help.

  Not until this group of four lads walked by.

  And they weren’t so helpful, either.

  They asked him who he was. Where he came from. Seemed okay at first. He told them he had some friends staying in a log cabin up the road. That comment alone sparked whispers.