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

  And then getting to this place with the helicopters, away from the clutches of these lunatics—

  He felt something.

  The door to the shipping container gave way.

  Bright light filled his eyes.

  He squinted. Leaned back, covering his eyes. For a moment, he felt a surge of relief. He’d done it. He’d made it. Now he just had to get out of here. Now, he just had to…

  He saw someone standing above him, and his stomach sank.

  The man standing in front of him was big. Well built.

  He was wearing a brown leather jacket.

  Holding on to that spanner Jack had used to try and wedge the doors open.

  Smiling.

  Jack backed up, out of instinct. Tried to get his footing. Braced himself for a fight.

  But before he could take a swing, the man cracked the spanner against his face.

  He fell back. Hit the cold metal floor. Tasted blood. Specks filled his vision. He felt lightheaded. A few of his teeth were loose.

  He tried to clamber his way back up when he felt another crack against his face.

  Fell back to the metal floor of the container.

  He felt more kicks, then. Heavy kicks in his ribs. In his face. One after the other.

  Somewhere behind him, he could hear Candice shouting, crying.

  And as much as Jack wanted to get up, as much as he wanted to fight, all he could do was lie there.

  All he could do was take his beating.

  He felt a foot crack against his face. Felt his nose snap with an agonising crunch.

  And then the beating stopped.

  That’s when the pain really kicked in.

  The man grabbed Jack by his tender, swollen cheeks. He lifted his limp body, looked right into his eyes.

  “Don’t try anything again.”

  And then he slammed him down to the metal floor.

  Candice rushed to Jack’s side. She asked him if he was okay. Put her hands on him, which made him hurt even more.

  All Jack could do was watch as that man walked over to the shipping container doors.

  All he could do was watch as he looked back and smiled.

  And all he could do was watch as those doors slammed shut, and darkness closed in once again.

  Chapter Three

  Emma opened her eyes, and for a moment, she had no idea where she was or how she’d got here.

  Light shone in through a narrow window on her right. She couldn’t see much outside because the glass was frosted. Just the snow battering against it. The sound of the wind howling.

  She wondered if this was somewhere she was camping with Jack and his group. She often woke up confused and lost. Sometimes, she even called out for her mum and dad, or her old best friend, Jade.

  But they were never there.

  And the worst thing?

  Sometimes she woke up and forgot she was missing her right hand.

  She looked down at the space where it had been. Saw the stump. And she felt disgusted. Not just because of how it looked, but because of how other people looked at her when they saw it. How they thought she was weaker because of it. How they thought she couldn’t do things for herself because of it.

  She felt her cheeks flushing as she stared at that stump, then looked away. She didn’t like to look at it too long. Because sometimes, she started to believe she was weak, too.

  She looked up and around her. Looked at that window above her. Looked at the room she was in. It was some kind of portable cabin office type place. There was a desk at the far side of the room, dusty documents lying beside it on the floor. A smell of smoke hung in the air like someone had smoked cigarettes here a long time ago. A calendar hung loosely from the wall, some woman with large breasts staring back at her from it. The date still at April 2nd.

  But it wasn’t the contents of this office that caught her attention most.

  It was the people by her side.

  To her right, she saw Hazel. Sitting back against the wall, staring into space. She had a small cut just under her right eye. A little bruised lump on her forehead.

  But she was alive.

  She was alive, and Emma had to feel happy about that.

  Because not everyone had been so lucky.

  She thought of Susan, and her stomach sank.

  Hazel looked around at her, then. Her brown eyes widened. She smiled. “Emma. You’re awake.”

  Hazel moved towards her. Wiped something from her head. It was only when Hazel moved her hand away that Emma saw the blood and realised she must be bleeding, too.

  But there was something else that caught Emma’s attention.

  It wasn’t just Hazel in this room with her.

  There were other people, too.

  Other women. Three of them.

  Women she didn’t recognise.

  One in her twenties with jet black hair and tattoos all over her arms. A smirk on her face like she found everything funny.

  Another older woman with long grey hair, patchy and thin.

  And then a final one. Just a little older than her. Blonde. Skinny. Had a constant, pale-faced look of terror on her face.

  Emma recoiled immediately. “Who are they?”

  Hazel looked around at them like she’d forgotten they were even there. “Them? Oh. They… they’re trapped. Just like us.”

  Emma looked at Hazel. Then at these three women. And something bothered her about them. The way they looked so defeated. The way they looked so… weak.

  “I don’t care who they are,” Emma said, standing. She felt a little dizzy and very sick. She didn’t know the last time she’d eaten or drank. “I just… I just want to get out of here. All of us need to get out of here.”

  She walked over towards a grey door on the other side of this office room.

  Tensed her fist.

  She wasn’t weak.

  She was getting out of here.

  She was fighting.

  She felt a hand grab her arm.

  When she looked around, the pale, weak looking girl stared back at her. Terror in her wide, blue eyes.

  “You don’t want to do that,” she said.

  Emma narrowed her eyes. She had no idea why this girl was trying to stop her.

  But she dragged her arm away. “Why would you not want to get out of here?”

  The girl stared back at her. Held her gaze. That fear didn’t lift.

  She just kept on staring into Emma’s eyes, rubbing her arms.

  “We’ve—we’ve seen what happens.”

  A little sickness built in Emma’s mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “To the others.”

  It was one of the women behind this girl who spoke. The older one.

  She walked up to Emma. Held out a hand. Smiled. “I’m Mary. This here is Lydia. And that quiet one back there, that’s Hannah. And Lydia’s right, dear. There’s no getting out of here. There’s only… well, waiting. Because we’ve seen what happens when people try to get out. We’ve seen the repercussions.”

  Emma saw it, then. The way this woman, Mary, looked down at her missing hand. The way she lowered her own hand, nervously, then lifted the other.

  She saw the way she smiled at her, almost patronisingly, like she was her mother or her carer or something.

  And then Emma took a deep breath and turned around. “I don’t care what you say. I’m—I’m not just giving up.”

  She walked over to that door. Tried the handle.

  Locked.

  To be expected.

  She struggled against it. Tried to twist and turn it.

  And behind, she heard Lydia growing more hysterical.

  When she looked back, she saw her rubbing the sides of her face, shaking her head.

  Mary held her. “Stop this, kid. Stop it.”

  Hannah looked on from the far corner, quiet. Still smirking like this was all just some kind of joke. Hazel didn’t say much herself.

  But Emma couldn’t stand this.

&n
bsp; She couldn’t just sit here and wait while she didn’t know the fate of her people.

  She wasn’t just lying down and waiting to die.

  She turned to that door again. Pulled the handle. Then she banged it, kicked it, doing all she could to try and make it shift, to make it budge.

  And then the door smacked open in her face.

  She fell back. Hit the hard carpeted floor of this portacabin office.

  A cold breeze blew in through that door. Made her shiver, right away.

  And in that light, she saw a figure standing over her.

  At first, Emma thought it was a man. They had short hair, a buzz cut, and big muscles. A mean face, smiling, so calm.

  But it was a woman.

  She walked into the room. Walked over to Emma. Her short hair was dark. She wasn’t wearing big clothes, her bare arms on show. Emma saw cuts right down them. Things that looked like burns.

  But this woman looked tough.

  She stood there, silent. Looked at Emma lying on the floor, nose bleeding.

  And then she looked up at the rest of the room. All of them still. All of them quiet.

  When she finally spoke, her voice sent shivers down Emma’s spine.

  “Nobody told her the punishment for insolence?”

  Emma heard something else, then. Lydia. She was crying. Scratching her arms. Shaking her head.

  Mary tightened her arms around her. Kissed her. Told her she was going to be okay.

  Hannah stayed in that corner by Hazel’s side. Stared on.

  This woman leaned down, then. Looked right into Emma’s eyes. Emma could smell the sourness on her breath. And she could see the meanness in her green eyes.

  “Maybe you’re a slow learner,” she said. “But don’t worry. You’ll learn quick with us.”

  “Renae, please—”

  “Shut up,” the woman—Renae—said.

  She looked back at Emma, then.

  “Everyone needs disciplining. Everyone just has… different breaking points.”

  Emma stared back up at this woman, and she wanted to back down. She wanted to resist.

  But at the same time, she wanted to fight.

  “What have you done with my people?” she said.

  Renae smiled. Her blackened teeth stared back at her like coals in a fire. “Don’t you worry about your people. We’re taking good care of them.”

  Emma couldn’t hold herself back.

  She spat in Renae’s face.

  And then she head-butted her. Hard.

  Renae edged back. Clutched her nose, which was bleeding.

  She looked surprised. Just for a second.

  But then a smile stretched across her face.

  She moved her hand from her nose.

  Let the blood trickle down over her lips, dripping on to Emma.

  “Yes. You are going to be a fun student to teach, aren’t you?”

  She stood up, then. Walked across the room.

  And Emma didn’t see what was happening.

  All she heard was the screams.

  The protestations.

  The cries.

  She spun around, and she saw Renae holding Lydia.

  Lydia trying to pull away.

  Trying to get to her knees to beg.

  “Please, Renae,” she squealed, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Please. Please!”

  But Renae just held on to Lydia.

  And in her other hand… Emma saw something else, now.

  A knife.

  Renae looked back at Emma, and a smile stretched across her face.

  “Everyone must learn,” she said. “And this is your lesson.”

  She lifted the knife and stabbed Lydia in her stomach.

  Lydia peered down at her stomach. Blood oozed out. Her eyes widened, and she cried.

  And then Renae stabbed her again.

  Again.

  Again.

  All of them just standing there.

  All of them just watching.

  All of them in fear.

  Lydia’s cries died down. Her pale cheeks grew even paler. And it wasn’t long before she fell to the floor. Bled out all over the carpet.

  Twitching.

  Renae stood over her.

  Blood dripping from her knife.

  And from her nose.

  She walked over Lydia’s body. Crouched down, looked into Emma’s eyes.

  And then she lifted her bloody hand and smeared it across Emma’s face.

  She pulled her hand away.

  And then she smiled.

  “You did this,” she said. “You.”

  She stood up.

  And then she walked out of the room.

  Closed the door.

  Locked it.

  All Emma could do was stare at Lydia’s twitching body as it lay in the middle of this room.

  And all she could do was feel guilty.

  You did this. You.

  Chapter Four

  Susan opened her eyes.

  Snow poured down from above. Icy wind blew against her, sending shivers down her spine. Her vision was filled with bright lights. She felt lightheaded. Tasted blood in her mouth.

  And the pain.

  She looked down. She was in the middle of a road. Buildings stood around her. In the distance, she saw that place. The place with the helicopters.

  The place they were heading to before they were attacked.

  She saw the bodies around her, and she threw up in the road.

  But as she threw up, she felt a stifling, sharp pain right through the right side of her body. She looked down as sick and spit drooled from her mouth, and she saw it.

  The source of the pain.

  And then the full memory came back.

  The memory of someone grabbing her.

  Burying that knife into her.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  She put her hand against the wound in her belly. Blood still pooled out of it. She’d survived; somehow, she’d survived.

  But the blood was still flowing. Which meant she didn’t have long left.

  She looked back up at those helicopters and that tall metal wall in the distance. She wanted to get there. Even if she was distrustful of the people there, even if she was doubtful of them… that was where her people were heading, before the attack.

  Then she remembered the last thing she’d seen.

  Before her eyes closed. Before she passed out.

  The people led by that smiling bastard.

  Bags over the heads of her people.

  All of them being dragged down the road on the left, away from that place with the helicopters, towards somewhere else.

  She tightened her fists. Whoever those attackers were, she knew one thing for sure.

  She wanted to get to her friends more than she wanted to get to that safe haven, or whatever that place was.

  Because her people were the only ones she really trusted.

  She went to stand up, to walk to somewhere she could rest, stitch herself up.

  But she fell back to the road right away.

  Cold snow punched her in the face. Iciness covered her already shivering body.

  She lay there, blood seeping from the wound on the right side of her torso.

  As she lay there, she started to face up to the very real possibility that she might die here.

  So she had to do everything she could to fight.

  To make sure that didn’t happen.

  She got to her knees. Stuck her hands into the snow. Dragged herself along. Her body shook. She had no energy. She was weak, really weak.

  But she had to keep fighting.

  She couldn’t just give up.

  She pulled herself even further along the road. Her people. She didn’t know what’d happened to them. She didn’t even know if they were still alive or not.

  But she had to hope.

  And she had to know.

  She reached the side of the road. Rolled pain
fully onto her back. She lay there against the brickwork at the side of the building, and she studied her wounds some more.

  Three stab wounds. Slices in her flesh.

  Thick, dark red blood pooling out of those cuts.

  She closed her eyes. She had to do something about them. If she didn’t close them up, she was going to bleed out, and she’d be dead before dark.

  She reached into her rucksack. Searched it with shaky hands for something. Anything.

  She could try using the dental floss to stitch herself up. But her hands were far too shaky.

  She wasn’t even sure she had the composure to wrap any bandages around herself.

  She felt the large stapler, and adrenaline surged through her body.

  Sweat trickled down her cold face. Her heart raced.

  She knew what she had to do.

  She lifted the stapler out of the rucksack. She knew it was going to be painful. She knew it was a nightmare when it came to sanitation.

  But she had no other choice.

  It was this, or bleed out.

  And she didn’t want to bleed out.

  She lifted her stapler with her shaky hand. Rested it on her skin, just by the side of the cut.

  Just touching the area near the wound made her wince and clench her teeth together.

  She took a few breaths as more colours filled her eyes. Braced herself.

  And then she moved that stapler closer towards the cuts.

  One swift move. That’s what she had to do.

  Wrap the stapler around her wounds.

  Snap them together a few times.

  Close the wounds up.

  It was that simple.

  It was that difficult.

  She took a shaky breath again. Moved that stapler closer to the wound. Felt the urgency building as warm blood continued to pour from her body.

  And as she sat there in the cold and the snow, she looked down at this wound, and she knew she had to act.

  She snapped the stapler around the first of her wounds.

  Tightened it together.

  And she heard a snap.

  She screamed.

  The agony took over her.

  It felt like she was being stabbed all over again.

  She couldn’t see a thing.

  Even sounds and sensations were muffled.

  But as she looked down at her wound, she saw something.

  The staple.

  She’d missed the wound.

  The staple was only dangling out of one side of it.