Terrance walked back in the direction of the shop. And as Lily looked back at the supermarket, she actually felt strong. She felt like she could handle this world, whatever it threw at her.

  “You ready?” Terrance asked.

  Lily smiled. “Yeah,” she said, Beast’s lead in hand. And, surprisingly, despite everything, she found herself feeling… strangely confident.

  As if this new, panicked world was changing her, already.

  She took a deep breath.

  Gulped.

  And nodded.

  “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  TWELVE

  MARVIN

  DAY ONE: 10:30 A.M

  Marvin Harvard watched the old dude and the younger woman with the Rottweiler load their shit into the back of the car and he started to feel a twinge of jealousy and rage.

  Jealousy he couldn’t shake.

  Rage he couldn’t hide.

  It was stifling in this van. Frigging stifling. Humid. Stuffy. And it reeked, too. It didn’t help that his workmate, Phil, had messed up the air con system in here. Or that the fuel was running out. They really needed a new ride, and soon.

  Maybe they’d get a chance to find one.

  Maybe.

  Seemed like everyone was helping themselves to as much shit as they could. So maybe it was a case of, if they couldn’t beat them, join them?

  Nah. This shit was wild. People were losing their shit unnecessarily. It was like COVID all over again. Panic buying. People stocking up on fucking toilet roll and rice. Everyone was guilty of it. Even he’d ended up buying a load of tinned potatoes. Tinned fucking potatoes. Hysteria, that’s what it was. Total hysteria.

  Never again was he falling for some government, societal control bollocks like that again.

  But then there was that doubt, too.

  That questioning.

  What if this shit wasn’t hysteria?

  What if this shit was serious?

  He wafted his sweaty T-shirt from his chest and bit down on a cold pasty, sitting in the car park of the supermarket, watching as the chaos unfolded. Things really were heating up. He’d seen five scraps already. And this was a pretty decent area of town, too. Nicer than the area he lived in.

  He used to want to live round here when he was younger. Dad used to tell him he could achieve anything if he put his mind to it. Unfortunately, his mind was never all that interested in the right things. Drugs, drink and women were what interested him, mostly. So, it’s caught up with him. Ended up in prison a few times. Burglaries. Assaults. The usual petty shite.

  So seeing these ungrateful posh pricks scrambling around right now like this… honestly, it made him feel sick.

  They didn’t know how good they had it.

  It’d started with a message. That notification. Beeping. Flashing away. Different to his normal notification tone. Phil’s phone, too. Bleeping away. Group chat? That was his first thought. That boring group chat he was in with the rest of Phil’s neanderthal lot. The sooner he left that ambitionless, dead-end group, the better. Because he was ready for something different. Something better.

  He was gonna move to Spain. Finally make a life for himself. Start a bar. He was good with people—gift of the gab, when he wanted to turn it on—so it was gonna be a hit.

  He just needed to get enough money in the bank to start it up, and he was off.

  Leaving this life behind.

  At last.

  Leaving all these pricks, and that group chat, behind, too.

  But he soon realised it wasn’t a group chat.

  Something was actually going down.

  But right now, after that emergency message, that emergency broadcast, it was simple. Now was his moment. Now was the time.

  But old fools like that bloke opposite were milking the last of the supplies for all they were worth. It was unfair, that’s what it was.

  That old prick.

  That younger girl. The one with the dog. Fidgety type. Looked like she needed a good session under a sunbed. Get some colour in her face.

  Both of them were bugging him.

  Both of them were pissing him off.

  Take, take, take.

  That’s all people round here ever did, wasn’t it?

  Greedy bastards. That’s what they were.

  And it wasn’t right.

  Wasn’t fair.

  “What you reckon?” Phil asked. “We go in there and grab what we can? Weather’s nice. Reckon a barbie and a few beers tonight would be a decent way to spend it, right? Like you say. This shit won’t last too long anyway.”

  “Maybe. But I’m starting to think there’s a better way than going into the shop.”

  Phil frowned as he chewed on a donut, crumbs falling everywhere. “What d’you mean?”

  Marvin watched the man and woman disappear back inside the supermarket, getting ready to load their bag with another batch of supplies. He thought of little Justin back home and how he needed to provide for him, especially since he was off school ill being looked after by his sister, Sarah. Sure, there was a chance this shit wasn’t serious.

  But if it was…

  “Maybe we don’t have to go into the supermarket at all,” Marvin said.

  “Then what do we do?”

  Marvin looked at the black Toyota that the man and woman had left behind and he knew it was full of supplies. Good, decent supplies that showed a real knowledge of planning for the long term.

  Then he looked back at the supermarket and thought about the man with the bag.

  “We negotiate,” he said.

  Penknife between his fingers.

  He wasn’t gonna have to use it.

  He wasn’t ever gonna use it.

  It was just gonna be there to scare ’em.

  It’d do the trick.

  Right?

  THIRTEEN

  BETHANY

  DAY ONE: 10:15 A.M

  Bethany knew damned well it was time to leave, but she still couldn’t fight the urge to call her parents one final time.

  Or… well. Okay. Maybe two final times. Or three final times.

  As many times as it took to finally get through to them.

  The morning was flying past her and that 48-hour mark that supposedly changed everything was approaching quicker than she’d been expecting. Which was a problem. A real problem. There was nothing they could do to stop it approaching. To stop time moving. Other than hope for another message, telling them all that everything was okay now, and it would soon be something they laughed about: “Remember that day where we all got that weird message and Dan lost his mind?”

  But somehow… somehow, she got the feeling that there was more to this than she wanted to admit.

  Outside, the skies had gone more overcast, the threat of a storm looming. Real dark. Real grey. Real intense. Bethany didn’t mind the thought of a thunderstorm. She’d always enjoyed them right from being a young kid. She remembered one absolute beauty of a storm when she was camping with her parents in France when she was ten or eleven. She spent the whole night just peeking out of the front of her tent, watching the lightning flash like a camera snapping photos of the earth below. Stayed up far later than she should’ve done. Actually fell asleep with her head poking out of the tent, something Dad teased her about the next day.

  She felt so small when she’d watched that storm. It was probably the first time in her life that she’d realised the whole world didn’t revolve around her. Not in a selfish way. But every kid reaches an age where that sinks in, don’t they? Everyone thinks the world revolves around them, up until a certain point.

  And when they realise it doesn’t… that’s a scary new world to live in, all over again.

  Like the tightly wound wool was being pulled away from her eyes and for the very first time, she was seeing the truth.

  She clenched her phone to her ear and held her breath. She was upstairs, locked in the bathroom. She just needed some time. Time away from them. Time away from everything. Her head was aching. Throbbing. And it didn’t seem to be getting any better, either. She always got a bad headache when she was stressed. Made exam season especially hard. Barely got herself through Media Studies. Something Stephen teased her about at the time. He said he could do that Media Studies exam without a head, let alone with a headache. He really could be a prick at times. But she still missed him.

  She could hear the others chatting downstairs, all ready to get a move on and go get some supplies. That’s what they’d decided was the best approach, anyway—stock up as well as they could and… well, hope for the best. Dan seemed to have a decent knowledge of the kind of supplies they needed. So who was she to argue with him? Fair play to him. He seemed to know his stuff. Which was handy. If it wasn’t for him, they’d all be completely in the dark right now—maybe literally.

  So she had to be thankful for that. They all did.

  Bethany wasn’t sure how comfortable she was with the approach they were taking. But then again, it didn’t seem like there were many better options right now. Did she have any better ideas? Nope. And following that message—the stuff about staying home and staying calm—that didn’t seem to be the best option at this point.

  No. They had to do what Dan suggested. It really was that simple. And it really was that difficult.

  It was all they had. They had to make the most of it.

  A dialling tone sparked to life for one split second.

  Out of nowhere.

  Her phone.

  Ringing.

  Then, it went dead.

  Just like that.

  Bethany pulled her phone from her ear. Was that in her head? Was she imagining things? No. She’d heard a dialling tone, no doubt about it. If she heard a dialling tone then it meant there was still a chance she could speak to her parents, ask them what the best course of action was. Because she needed them. She needed them, now more than ever.

  She tapped on Dad’s name in her contacts list once again and clenched her teeth together in hope of a fragment of luck.

  “Please,” she gasped. “Please, please, please.”

  As she waited, perched on the toilet, eyes closed, phone pressed to her ear, Bethany thought about how different things would’ve been if she’d stayed at home. She lived close to Preston city centre, so there would’ve been plenty of people around. There’d probably be police officers and government officials to tell her what to do. Instead, she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of getting away from here, especially not since her sat nav was ruined. And her car had been bumped, too.

  She could try driving back home. But she had to face up to reality—she didn’t know where the hell to go. And it probably wasn’t safe, driving that car after having a bump. And the last thing she wanted right now was to risk losing the few people she actually did have with her.

  She should have listened to Dad.

  She’d been silly.

  A silly, silly girl who needed to grow up, just like Dad said.

  If she’d just listened to Mum and Dad. If, just this one time, she’d listened to Dad, and stayed at home, and taken some responsibility, then⁠—

  “Bethany?”

  Bethany heard the voice and her body froze.

  “Bethany?” A crackly voice. But it was Dad. No doubt about it. “Are you there?”

  “Dad!” she said.

  “Bethany? I can’t hear you.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m here. I’m here. There’s been⁠—”

  “Bethany, dear.” Mum, now. It sounded like she was on loudspeaker. “There’s been a horrible event. The power, it’s all over the place.”

  “Same here, Mum. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I can’t hear you, love. But wherever you are… I don’t know how long this is going to last. The people here say it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

  “Mum,” Bethany said, her throat starting to wobble and tears starting to build in her eyes. “Mum, please.”

  “We just want you to know that we love you, Bethy,” Dad said. “We love you so, so mu⁠—”

  The line went dead.

  The call ended.

  Bethany sat there for a few minutes, maybe longer, totally silent. She felt herself shaking. Mum. Dad. They were in trouble. They were worried about something. Whatever had happened here, it looked like it was happening in Santorini, too.

  The CME. Was is possible that it’d affected somewhere as far away as Greece? It didn’t seem possible. But then Dan had suggested it might do, hadn’t he? That in a worst-case scenario, there was a very real chance this might be more widespread than they could possibly imagine.

  Everything felt like some kind of alternate reality, like it couldn’t possibly be happening. She wondered if she was overreacting. But then, wouldn’t anybody lose their shit in a situation like this?

  She did the only thing she knew she could.

  She tried to call her parents again.

  She held her breath as she listened to her friends chattering downstairs. She hoped they’d answer and just give her some kind of reassurance that she was going to be okay, and that everything was going to be okay.

  But the line went dead.

  She was on her own.

  Completely on her own.

  She let out a long, defeated sigh.

  Imagined Dad’s voice again.

  Telling her he loved her.

  Then she stood up and walked to the bathroom mirror.

  She looked into it at her dark hair, her thin face. She saw the tears in her eyes.

  She couldn’t let those tears hold her back.

  She couldn’t let her fears define her.

  “I’m going to be okay,” she said. “I’m going to do this. I’m⁠—”

  She heard a bang, and then a crackle.

  She looked up. It’d come from above somewhere. It’d unnerved her so much that she had no choice but to head out of the bathroom and down the stairs to join her friends.

  When she was outside, she saw Dan, Olly and Susan all looking up at the top of the house.

  When Bethany looked up, she saw exactly what it was.

  The satellite for the television had exploded. Smoke was drifting away from it. It’d been fried. Completely fried.

  Bethany looked at Dan and saw the pale expression on his ever serious face.

  He looked back at her, and he managed a half-smile. “We’d better get going,” he said. “It’s happening.”

  FOURTEEN

  BETHANY

  DAY ONE: 11:00 A.M

  Nearly an hour of walking and already Bethany was growing ever more uncertain about this developing situation.

  The sun had resurfaced from behind the stormy clouds of earlier. Bethany could feel it beaming down on the top of her head as she walked towards the nearest supermarket with Dan, Susan and Olly. She was sweating like mad. She didn’t feel like she had slept well, either. And even though they had only been walking for about an hour, she felt exhausted, as if she’d walked ten times that distance. The nerves couldn’t be helping. Neither could that last conversation with her parents she’d had.

  She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since it happened. Mum’s panic. The sadness in Dad’s voice.

  They sounded scared.

  And that’s what bothered her more than anything.

  She didn’t always get on with Mum and Dad. What eighteen-year-old did?

  But she could always rely on them for help. For advice. They were always there for her.

  And they were always so calm. They were never afraid.

  But on that phone call, when Bethany needed them most… they were afraid.

  If the people who guided her most were afraid, then what did that mean about what was happening?

  And if it was happening as far away as Santorini, just how big was all this?

  Could Dan actually be right about what he’d said?

  Decades…

  They were on a long country lane, which was a pretty typical place to be when you were in the middle of the Lake District. It certainly didn’t seem like anywhere that’d have a supermarket nearby, but Dan was pretty insistent that they were heading towards one. This was his parents’ cottage, and it was an area he’d been visiting with them ever since he was a little kid. At the end of the day, he knew best.

  Bethany just found it difficult believing in anyone right now.

  She wished she’d stayed at home.

  But at the same time… she was glad she had company, in a way.

  There would be no one at home to help her.

  She took deep breaths as she paced down the road. Her feet were already sore. Blistered. That’d teach her for wearing new Stan Smiths that she hadn’t even broken in just yet, especially without socks. But she was managing, just about. And as long as she kept on managing, she was sure she was going to be okay. At least for as long as this blackout lasted.

  She couldn’t complain. Couldn’t whine. She’d already caused a bit of a scene last night. She didn’t want to go getting a reputation as a whiner. Didn’t want to hand any more ammunition to anyone to dislike her presence.

  It couldn’t last as long as Dan had teased it might. All this power stuff. It just couldn’t. The world didn’t work in those kind of ways anymore. There were measures in place to prepare for things like this. Maybe years ago, it might’ve caused a problem. But not anymore. Especially not after COVID, too. The world was in a better state to deal with big problems—big, unexpected problems.

  Right?

  The group hadn’t spoken much on their walk so far. Not about anything with real substance, anyway. There was a delayed shock amidst the group, like they were all just coming to terms with the reality in their own different ways. No one wanted to talk about what time it was. How long there was left. It was like that time she’d been on a plane on Friday the 13th. Everyone knew it was Friday the 13th. But as they came in to land, and as the plane started rocking, bringing it up was the last thing anyone wanted to do—even though they were all thinking the exact same thing.