Surviving The EMP (Book 6): Final Stand Read online

  Final Stand

  Surviving the EMP, Book 6

  Ryan Casey

  Contents

  Bonus Content

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

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  Chapter One

  One month after the fall…

  Jeff raced through the apartment complex, family by his side.

  He didn’t want to look over his shoulder.

  He didn’t want to accept what he already knew was coming.

  It was late. The sun had set hours ago. Usually, nights were monotonous. The group he was in, thirty-strong, gathered around to eat whatever food was available. Sometimes, it was the remaining rations from the warehouse store across town that they’d secured for themselves in the early days. Others, it was freshly cooked deer, hunted by Simon or Earl from the woods. That was the way things were going, really. As nice as it was to have a warehouse store on their doorstep, hunting was the future. Especially if this blackout was as serious as it seemed.

  But tonight wasn’t monotonous.

  Tonight was very different.

  Jeff peeked around the corner of the floor he was on, into the corridor. This building was spread over five storeys; one of those modern types of places that used to be specifically for the over 55s. A community type home, with easy access, nice gardens, that sort of thing.

  And it had served him and his family well, for a time.

  Until everything started falling apart all over again.

  He looked down the narrow corridor, and he didn’t see anyone. He felt a glimmer of relief at that. He’d heard the footsteps when he was locked away in his apartment. Heard the gunshots firing; the people screaming. People he knew. People he was friends with.

  All of them falling, one by one.

  He felt a hand tightening around his.

  When he looked around, he saw Cally staring back at him.

  Cally was his wife. They’d married two weeks before the power went out. Just their luck, really. They always joked that they didn’t do anything ordinary, and this certainly wasn’t any ordinary way of living. They were supposed to be going on their honeymoon a couple of weeks after the wedding. Not the traditional way of doing things, taking a break between the wedding and the honeymoon like that, sure. But honestly, they were so exhausted after the rigmarole of the wedding that the pair of them just wanted a rest before shooting off to Reykjavik.

  And they had some other news to process, too.

  The way Cally rested her hand on her belly.

  The way she covered it, protective. Because something precious was in there.

  Their child.

  “I’m scared, Jeff,” she said.

  Jeff felt a lump in his throat. He moved closer to Cally, put his hands on her soft cheeks. He stroked her blonde hair out from her tearful eyes, then leaned right in towards her. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to get out of here. I promise.”

  He saw the way Cally’s eyes twinkled back at him, and he remembered the first time he’d met her. He’d just come out of a long-term relationship with a woman called Charli. Everyone told him she wasn’t good for him—she was controlling, unfaithful, and she wanted to tear him away from his friends—but he just didn’t see it.

  The penny only dropped when he’d found text messages. Texts between her and another guy, Sam.

  And he knew he shouldn’t look at her texts. He knew he shouldn’t be paranoid.

  But his paranoia had led somewhere.

  It’d led to his discovery of Charli’s unfaithfulness.

  The discovery that ended their relationship, once and for all.

  He’d spent the months after that drinking away his problems. Yeah, he’d become one of those pub loners you see every weekend; the kind who blend in with the furniture, so ever-present you barely notice them at all.

  Until one day, a woman at the bar spilled a pint of Wainwrights all over him.

  He’d looked up at her, fuming.

  And something happened, right at that moment.

  Their eyes met.

  They held.

  And as much as a cynic as Jeff was … he fell in love with her, right then.

  He heard more footsteps on the floor above, and he jolted back into the present.

  He looked up at the ceiling. Listened to those muffled footsteps banging their way across the floor, making the paint on the ceiling crumble away. He heard more shouts and more cries, and he felt nothing but pure fear. As much as he wanted to hide from it. As much as he wanted to pretend he was handling this, like he had his emotions in check and under control for Cally more than anyone.

  He was afraid.

  Because he had so much to lose.

  He tightened his grip around Cally’s hand.

  “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

  He turned around, then. Kept holding on to her hand. They rushed down this corridor together, apartment doors either side of them. Most of them were closed, but some of them were open.

  Jeff didn’t want to look inside the open ones.

  Because he didn’t want to find what he already knew was there.

  The bodies.

  Bodies of people he knew.

  Blood smeared all over the walls of the place they called home.

  He could smell the tang of it in his nostrils already. Metallic. Coppery.

  So strong it made him want to vomit.

  He heard Cally gasp, and he knew she’d looked.

  He tightened his grip around her cold hand again as he kept on rushing down this narrow corridor, closer and closer towards the fire exit at the end of it. “Come on. Don’t look, love. Don’t look. We need to keep going.”

  He raced further down that corridor, but he couldn’t ignore the footsteps pounding above. And he couldn’t ignore Cally’s muffled attempts to stifle her cries, either. And the worst thing of all?

  The people committing the massacre.

  They were supposed to be his people, too.

  They were supposed to be protecting his people.

  He thought about when it started. The dwindling rations. The overcrowding of this place.

  The people with the weapons, who w
ere once from the army, initially bringing with them a sense of peace and order.

  But then growing desperate themselves.

  He’d heard whispers, for a while, and talks that things were spiralling out of control. Hell, he’d seen it. He’d seen the looks the army gave the rest of the residents. He’d seen the way they’d glanced at his people, whispering to one another every time they walked past.

  But he never thought things would get to this point.

  A massacre.

  That’s what it was.

  One final, desperate attempt to cling on to control.

  He smacked a hand against the fire exit, pushed the door open.

  And then he heard something that made his stomach sink.

  A voice behind him. Shouting. “The fire escape. Quick!”

  He didn’t look around. He couldn’t.

  All he could do was squeeze Cally’s hand tighter.

  Drag her through that door, into the dusty darkness.

  But then he heard something else.

  Another thing that made his whole world stand still.

  Gunfire.

  One sole blast piercing the air.

  He heard a yelp.

  Felt a thud.

  And then he felt Cally’s hand go weak.

  He didn’t want to look around as he stood there. Heart racing.

  He didn’t want to see what he already feared.

  But he had no choice.

  He looked around. Slowly. Tears already building. Teeth chattering.

  And when he saw her lying there on the ground, clinging limply to his hand with the last of the life she had left, his whole world caved in.

  Cally was on the floor in the doorway of the fire escape.

  Her body was intact, as he remembered it.

  But her face wasn’t recognisable anymore.

  Because half of it had been blasted to pieces.

  He fell down to her side. Lifted what remained of her shattered skull, looked into her protruding blue eye staring back at him as blood and brains oozed into his hands, between his fingers.

  “Cally,” Jeff said, shaking, in denial, in disbelief. “P… please, Cally. Please.”

  She didn’t move.

  She just fell limply, further to the floor.

  “Cally,” he said. “Don’t leave me. Please. Please.”

  He looked up, then. Up the corridor. Towards the man who’d fired.

  He saw the man standing there. A man he recognised. Wide-eyed. Ginger.

  Barry.

  He saw that look of guilt on his face as he stood at the opposite end of the corridor, rifle in his hand. And Jeff felt something. Through the pain, he felt total hatred. And he felt a longing.

  A longing for revenge.

  For punishment.

  But he knew it would never be satiated.

  He knew nothing would ever make him feel better again.

  Barry shook his head. Pale-faced. “I’m—I’m sorry. I had to. I had to.”

  Jeff tightened his fists.

  He wanted to stand up.

  He wanted to race after Barry.

  He wanted to make him pay.

  But all he could do was kneel there.

  All he could do was cry.

  “No,” he muttered. “No. No. No.”

  He saw something else, then.

  Barry.

  He lifted his rifle.

  Looked like he was going to fire.

  And then he lowered it.

  Turned around, started to walk away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, mate. Really.”

  And then he disappeared into the building.

  Jeff crouched there by Cally’s side.

  He held on to her limp hand, tightly, as she bled out all around him.

  He felt the coldness of her ring touching his palm.

  And he felt the warmth of their baby, right there in her belly.

  He listened to the footsteps disappear, listened to the last of the gunshots, the last of the screams.

  And he cried.

  Five months later…

  He looked down at the group around him, bags on their heads, crouching in the snow.

  The two men fighting back. The girl with one hand.

  And then the other girl. Lying there. Eyes closed. Gripping on to her stabbed torso.

  He looked up. Saw those helicopters in the distance. Those walls. Those people. Armed people.

  And he felt his skin crawl.

  He looked around at his people. All of them standing around. All of them silent.

  And then he nodded, and he smiled.

  It was time to take their new friends home.

  Chapter Two

  Jack stared into the darkness of the crate.

  He had no idea what time it was. Day or night, it didn’t matter in here. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, either. Only that he’d fallen unconscious with a bag on his head, and he’d woken up without one.

  He wrapped his hands around his cold body. His feet were like ice blocks.

  He didn’t know who these people were. He didn’t know what their motive or endgame was.

  Only that he needed to get the hell away from this place.

  Not least because he’d been so close to reaching the place with the helicopters.

  The place that looked like some kind of safe haven.

  He peered into the darkness. He could faintly make out Candice standing there too, searching the structure of this crate for weaknesses. A metal crate, that’s all he knew. Seemed like one of those big shipping containers. Which didn’t bode well because these things were usually air and watertight. It was cold as shit. Stunk of piss and rotten fish. He tried to listen outside, but he couldn’t hear a thing. Only the echoing of his footsteps against the metal.

  “So, Jack. What’s your grand plan?”

  Jack sighed when he heard Candice speak. He knew she was sceptical about their chances of getting out of here. But what was he supposed to do? Give up? Accept defeat?

  That was out of the equation.

  He walked further around this crate. Studied the edges of it, desperately trying to find a weakness. Something they could use. Something they could exploit.

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “I don’t mean to be a cynic, but what makes you so sure we’re going to get out of here?”

  Jack gritted his teeth. “One minute you’re telling me to find some hope and faith. The next, you’re criticising me for it. What do you want?”

  Candice shook her head. “I don’t know. I just… Susan. I can’t stop thinking about what happened to her.”

  Jack’s stomach sank when he thought of Susan. He remembered the look on her face. A smile. Like she was really beginning to hope. Really starting to believe in that potential safe zone, right on the horizon.

  Because Martin’s group had been defeated.

  Differences had been resolved.

  And then just as they’d started their final journey… those freaks attacked.

  Susan.

  The knife splitting through her stomach, again and again.

  Falling to the ground in a pool of blood.

  “I know,” Jack said. “I can’t stop thinking about her, either.”

  It wasn’t just Susan’s death that haunted him, though. He couldn’t stop thinking about the others, too. Hazel. The way she’d stared back at him as she lay on the ground, reaching out for his hand. Trent falling to his knees. Emma, trying to fight back, trying to resist.

  And Villain…

  He tried to remember the last time he’d seen his best friend. Had he seen him run away? Had he seen the smiling freaks kill him?

  He didn’t know what to believe. He didn’t know what were memories or what were constructs of his imagination.

  He didn’t know a thing.

  Just that he was trapped.

  Candice was trapped.

  And he had to focus on getting out of here.

&nb
sp; He couldn’t afford to sit back. Couldn’t afford to mope.

  The time for moping was over.

  It was time to be proactive.

  He scanned the narrow wall of this shipping container when he felt something, right at the front.

  In the middle of one of the shorter sides of the shipping container, he felt something. Air. Cold air whooshing in between a gap in the doorway.

  He crouched down. Tried to peer through it to see if there was an opening. Something he could use.

  Candice walked over to him. “Found something?”

  Jack banged at the shipping container door. “These things. They’re usually watertight, never mind airtight.”

  “And?”

  “And I can feel air coming through it. If I can feel air… maybe there’s a weakness in it. Something we could work with. That spanner you found. Pass it me.”

  He heard a shuffling as Candice handed him the spanner. “Yes, boss.”

  He ignored her and stuck the spanner into the narrow gap. Forced it in, as far as he could.

  And when he got it in there with his cold, shaking hands, he smiled.

  “We’ve got this,” he said.

  He pushed against that spanner with all his weight. Candice came to his side, too, joining him, pushing against it, banging against it.

  And all this time, Jack couldn’t even consider the consequences if there was someone waiting outside.

  He couldn’t think about what might happen if someone caught him in the act.

  He just had to focus on getting out of here.

  Finding out what happened to his people, once and for all.