“I guess we’ve got no choice,” she said.

  Dan nodded. “Good. Then it’s about time we figured out a plan of action.”

  He smiled. They all looked at one another.

  And as much as Bethany tried to convince herself that everything was going to be okay, she couldn’t help but think about that final conversation she’d had with her parents.

  And she couldn’t help but wonder if that angry voice of her dad was the last time she’d ever hear him.

  She hoped not.

  She prayed not.

  TEN

  LILY

  DAY ONE: 10:00 A.M

  An hour into the beginning of a new world and it was safe to say that already things weren’t going exactly as Lily had planned.

  And it wasn’t as if she’d done an awful load of planning, was it?

  It was mid-morning, and the sun was shining down heavily on Terrance’s car. Not that it mattered—Terrance had the air con on full blast, so intense that Lily was actually shivering. She hated air con. She hated being warm, sure. Didn’t help her anxiety. But air con… it dried out her mouth and her nostrils. It made her sneeze. Triggered her allergies. And she felt cold. Cold to the god damned bone.

  But it was weird. This sudden heatwave outside, it seemed like it’d come from absolutely nowhere. Not that it hadn’t been decent weather. Quite the opposite, in fact—it’d been a decent summer so far.

  It’s just this was something else entirely.

  Heat on a whole new level.

  And she was pretty sure it hadn’t been forecast, either. She would’ve seen a forecast like this. She definitely would have noticed.

  Could it be to do with the CME?

  It had to be. It couldn’t just be coincidence. Lily was realising the severity of the situation, slowly but surely, as much as she didn’t want to admit it. Before she was on the fence a bit. But the more she saw, the more she witnessed, the more she started to realise that perhaps Terrance had a point after all.

  She looked outside the car window. Terrance’s car window. Every house they passed by, there was some sign of life, whether it was somebody getting into their car, someone coming in from work early, neighbours chatting to one another, phones in hand. The roads didn’t seem all that busy, which went against what Terrance had said. Maybe a little more hectic than usual at ten a.m. on a Wednesday, but nothing like the mass of stacked vehicles you see on the movies.

  Then again, this wasn’t a movie, was it? Movies were very much an exaggeration of real life.

  This was real life.

  Maybe it really was just a routine occurrence. Maybe the right thing to do was to stay inside and wait for further instruction. The government had sent out those emergency messages for a reason. Was she an idiot for refusing to heed it and following a—with all due respect—old man with not much excitement in his life? Sweet as he was… was she really following her better judgement right now?

  She wasn’t sure. But she was here now, so what else exactly could she do about it?

  “Trust me, dear. It’s more important we go to a shop while we still can and stock up on essential supplies. Your son will thank you for it in the long run.”

  Lily’s stomach sank when Terrance said those words. She kind of wished he hadn’t brought Alex into things. She was worrying about him enough.

  And Terrance… he’d mentioned going to a supermarket and finding some supplies already, but Lily had been hoping they could do that after she’d found Alex and got him back. But Terrance was speaking with increased urgency about the need to get stocked up before, in his words, “chaos unfolded.” He sure seemed excited about all this. Then again, it probably beat daytime TV and borrowing milk off neighbours. When she was as old as him, she could see herself enjoying a bit of spice in her life like this, too.

  “I just want to get Alex back, Terrance. I just want to get my son back. That’s more important to me than anything. Anything at all. You have to understand that.”

  “I do understand that, dear. And I’m going to help you get him back, believe me. And it’s your call. I trust your call, even if we are in my car. If it’s what you want to do, then that’s what we’ll do. I’m not a bloody kidnapper, love. But believe me. As soon as some people start realising the urgency of what’s happening, the supermarkets are going to be flooded. The essential supplies are going to be gone in no time. And you’ll wish you’d got your home stocked up for Alex when you get back. I know it sounds a bit dramatic now. A bit far-fetched. But you’ll see. Seriously. You’ll see. The people who don’t know, they’ll already be too late when it’s time for them to do anything about it. The people who do know… they’ll already be on it.”

  Lily didn’t know what to say or how to argue. She knew Terrance had a point. She also knew he had hers and her son’s best interests at heart. But the thought of delaying reuniting with her son—no matter how urgent the need for supplies was—just seemed inconceivable.

  But this old bugger was speaking with such an assuredness that she was finding it hard to go against what he was saying.

  “This is what I say we do,” Terrance said, patting Beast on his head as he stuck his drooling face through from the back seats. He seemed chilled. Seemed to be enjoying things. “We take a right here and we’re on the motorway towards the Lakes. There’s a big supermarket a few junctions up. We can stop off there, and then move straight on to get your Alex. Okay?”

  It made Lily feel uneasy. In fact, all of this made Lily feel terrible. Completely bloody terrible. And feeling uneasy and terrible definitely wasn’t the thing to help with her anxiety—an anxiety that was already gripping hard.

  But she trusted Terrance. She knew he had a point. So what else could she do other than agree, even if it wasn’t something she was at all comfortable about doing?

  “Go on then,” she said. She couldn’t actually believe she was agreeing with him. It felt mad. It shouldn’t be her priority right now. Alex should be. She felt guilty for even considering something that didn’t involve him.

  But… what the hell was she supposed to do? The way Terrance was talking suggested this was so important.

  Terrance smiled. “That’s the spirit. Now we should be able to just take a right and…”

  He stopped. Suddenly slammed on the brakes.

  It took Lily a few seconds to realise why.

  There was a sudden queue of cars up ahead. Not many, but the queue was steadily building from both sides. Already. Which lined up with what he said. At least the car was working. That was something. Small victories, right?

  But that queue.

  That line of cars.

  Appearing out of nowhere.

  And it was because there was something in the road.

  It was an electrical pylon. Its wires were sparking. It looked like it’d been blown off the ground and across the road. There was a car underneath it. Lily didn’t expect the people inside were in a good shape at all. Especially not with the state of the car. How smashed the windows were. How twisted and contorted the metal of the car was.

  It made her feel a bit sick, just looking at that car.

  Uneasy.

  Deeply uneasy.

  It made everything so…

  Real.

  When Lily looked up, she noticed something else. The rest of the electrical wires… they were all fizzing with electricity, letting off smoke. There was a weird smell in the air. A smell, from those burning wires. As she stared at them, her heart beating faster, practically bursting out of her chest at this stage, she felt like she was watching herself in a dystopian, end of the world movie. For the first time, the abnormality of this situation really felt like sci-fi territory.

  Except it wasn’t a movie.

  It wasn’t a sci-fi.

  It was real life.

  And she was bang in the middle of it.

  She watched that electricity crackle above her as cars started to approach from behind, the queue on the verge of intensifying.

  Horns honking.

  People growing audibly more irate.

  Which wasn’t helping with her anxiety.

  “What do we do?” she asked, feeling rather pathetic that she was the one asking someone else for help. Especially Terrance. She was supposed to be the one helping him. Looking after her elders. And yet here she was, like a lost little puppy. She owed him after all this. Big time.

  Terrance stared intently at the pylons above. “We scrap the supermarket plan,” he said. “We take a left. We go to the other shop. It’s big. But not as big as this one. We stock up. And then we go get your son.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me, Lily,” he said, reversing and taking an earlier left than planned. “It’s happening quicker than I expected. We have to get supplies as a matter of urgency. We have to get them right now. Before it’s too late.”

  ELEVEN

  LILY

  DAY ONE: 10:30 A.M

  Lily looked at the supermarket she and Terrance had pulled up at, and her stomach turned.

  The searing morning sun that had beat down on Terrance’s car throughout their journey had receded behind a thick patch of cloud. Which was something. It’d been a scorcher of a morning. A break from the sun was pretty welcome right now.

  But it was still there, stronger than ever, no doubt about it. Even though there was a layer of cloud in front of it, Lily could still feel it burning against her skin. It was humid, sure. Stuffy. But the fact that she could still feel the sun burning away at her, from behind those clouds, that struck her as odd.

  She was never a science-y type. She didn’t know how to explain this phenomenon. Or anything that was happening. She only knew—and only had to know—one thing.

  It was bloody strange.

  And it had to have something to do with the CME.

  The supermarket was already buzzing with more people than was surely normal at ten-thirty on a Wednesday morning. Sure, it was the school holidays, but it hadn’t even been this busy when Lily attempted to do her shop yesterday. She was glad it wasn’t this busy yesterday. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she’d even have been able to step inside the store if it was this rough.

  News of the CME must be spreading. Panic must be building, slowly but surely. Everyone was getting that same message, presumably. And as much as it seemed to try and instil people with a bit of calmness and quash any panic, it didn’t really look like that was happening. If anything, it looked to have made people seem even more panicked.

  Maybe they hadn’t made such a bad call coming here before going off in search of Alex after all.

  She took a deep breath of the humid air. A sickly taste lingered at the back of her mouth. She realised she was shaking as she held on to Beast’s lead. Held on as tight as she could. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally let go of it right now.

  “Are you okay there, Lily?”

  Lily looked to her right. Terrance was standing there, smiling at her. That sweet, innocent smile, always present on his face. He had a big black rucksack over his shoulder, like he’d had it in his car ready for this kind of situation all along. Wouldn’t surprise her. He already knew more about what was going on than she could ever have imagined. It felt like he had been waiting his whole life for this moment to occur.

  “How’re we going to pay for everything we’re going to get?” Lily asked. If the card readers were down, affected by the disruption, then it was a very real problem. And she didn’t really carry cash anymore, either.

  Terrance smirked. “Trust me. Having the money to pay for things is the least of our concerns right now.”

  He walked off in the direction of the shop. Lily didn’t know what Terrance was suggesting. Was he implying they would steal what they needed? Because that wasn’t going to end well for them in the long run. Hell, what was she doing trusting Terrance anyway? He was clearly an over-excited old man who didn’t value his life anywhere near as much as Lily did. What was she doing trusting him at all? She must be crazy. Absolutely crazy.

  He stopped and turned to look at her as she stood frozen by the side of his car.

  “You coming, love?”

  Lily looked around. She swallowed a lump in her dry throat. “I… I can’t.”

  Terrance sighed. He walked slowly back to her. “You can, dear. You can.”

  Her face heated up. Her heart thumped harder. An old fear, rising to the surface once more. “I… I’m not good around crowds of people.”

  “Hell, nobody’s good around crowds of people. We all have our fears and our insecurities. But there’s survival at stake here, Lily. Your son’s future’s at stake.”

  Lily gulped. Hard. She could barely speak. Her throat was so damned dry. “I’m just not sure how serious this is. Or whether… whether to believe it’s as serious as you say it is. Sorry. I don’t mean to be like that. To doubt you. I just… All this. You’ve got to understand. It seems crazy.”

  Terrance raised his arms. “Look around you. Look at the rush beginning already. It’s serious, Lily. I wouldn’t scare you if it wasn’t. Believe me, I’d much rather be back at home watching the races right now. With a nice cuppa and a couple of digestive biscuits. But it is what it is. I know you think I’m just a daft old bloke. But you have to believe me.”

  Lily looked at the cars building up in the car park. She looked at the people rushing into the shop and out of the shop with over-filled bags. And she had to admit that Terrance was right. This was for real. It was serious. And she had to buck up her ideas and do something about it. This panic wasn’t false. It was all around her. And if she didn’t hurry up, she was going to get left behind.

  She took a deep breath and pictured Alex’s smiling little face in her mind.

  “I’ll find you, my boy,” she whispered.

  Then, she began to walk in the direction of the supermarket.

  Lily hated supermarket visits.

  So visiting twice over the space of two days was something that surprised even her.

  Stepping inside the supermarket felt like walking into an alternate reality.

  People always rushed in supermarkets. It was just the nature of the world they lived in.

  But this was different.

  People were actually running down aisles stuffing their trollies with everything they could see. When they turned to grab other items, other people were stealing from their trollies to add to their own haul. In the distance, around a corner, Lily heard shouting, and she knew that some sort of food-based altercation was going down. This was nightmarish. It was like everyone had gone crazy already. And the solar storm, it hadn’t even peaked yet. Taken all power out yet.

  Just how much worse could things get?

  “Where do we start?” Lily asked, trying to focus on the task ahead in order to stave off her anxiety. Beast was trying to pull in every direction, clearly tempted by the array of food on offer. He loved his food. Ate for two of them a lot of the time, when she wasn’t feeling at her best.

  Terrance rushed forward. “Most people will go for the fresh stuff. Which is all fair and well, but it’s short-term thinking, especially when freezers are going to go down when the solar storm gets worse.”

  “If the solar storm gets worse,” Lily said. Still amazed by Terrance’s sudden knowledge.

  Terrance ignored her. “First thing we need to be thinking about is rice. And a hell of a lot of it. When the power goes, we can still boil rice over fire stoves. And it’s dense in calories. I hope you like rice. You’re going to be eating a lot of it.”

  Lily shook her head as they made their way down the rice and pasta aisle. “I… A fire stove? Am I actually dreaming?”

  Again, Terrance ignored her. “Also, beans. Kidney beans, borlotti beans, whatever you prefer. Same reason as rice. Add up to make a nutritious meal. Carbs and protein—and plenty of it.”

  He threw a batch of kidney beans, of which loads remained, into his rucksack.

  It didn’t look like he was bracing himself to pay for it.

  And it still seemed mad. She never expected the words “borlotti beans” to come out of Terrance’s mouth. She’d underestimated the old fella, that was for sure.

  They kept on going like this, mostly avoiding the more crowded aisles. They grabbed some canned vegetables and fruit. Then some disgusting canned meat, which Lily wasn’t too keen on the idea of. Again though, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and right now they were very much beggars, if Terrance was to be believed. After that, some porridge oats, and some peanut butter—which Terrance insisted would come in extra handy.

  There were other things, too. Things that Lily wouldn’t have thought of herself. Instead of fresh milk, powdered milk. Water filtration tablets and vitamin C capsules. Pasta. Oil. Food for Beast—okay, she remembered that part. Terrance insisted there would be nothing wrong with them eating it too, if needs be. She didn’t imagine Beast would be so keen on that.

  In the end, they had a real mix of basic foods that Terrance seemed pretty certain were going to take them a long way.

  They made their way back towards the car. Lily was relatively surprised how well that had gone. It wasn’t easy. Her heart must’ve been racing at a million miles an hour. And people already seemed to be turning so… hostile.

  But she’d done it. She’d pushed herself out of her comfort zone and she’d actually achieved something.

  “Now that should do us for food, mostly,” Terrance said, emptying the items into the back of his car. “Well. For now at least.”

  It only then dawned on Lily what’d just happened—again. “Wait. We didn’t pay for those things.”

  Terrance shrugged. “Did you see anyone standing there asking for us to pay?”

  “Fair point.”

  “Indeed.” He slammed his boot shut. “Now we head back in there and pick up some other stuff. There’s more to this new world than food.”