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I continued this internal pep talk as I walked down the hill into the valley, scanning the sea of devastation for any homes that might be inhabitable as I tried to ignore the way the brittle, burned grass turned to dust beneath my feet. Other than the distant rumble of explosions, the town was as still and silent as a cemetery.
See? There’s nobody here. Not even the Russians. They’ve pushed through to Dublin. You’re totally safe.
As I got closer to the valley floor, I noticed a few sheep grazing in Mr. Kearney’s field. My heart leaped at the sight of something so normal, so … alive. Until I realized that they weren’t. Their lifeless bodies were scattered across the muddy field like soggy cotton balls, blasted as far and wide as the debris from their barn.
Jesus Christ.
Tears begin to well in my eyes, but I forced them back down and kept walking. I had the rest of my life to cry about this nightmare, but if I didn’t find food and water soon, that life was going to be very, very short.
Once I made it to the bottom of the hill, I decided to cut across the farmland as quickly as possible and head for the townhouses on the other side. Or what was left of them. Not only did I want to spend as little time as possible out in the open, but at the townhouses, I could search more homes at once and hopefully find more supplies in the process.
I kept my eyes on the ground as I squished through the grass, careful not to step on a nail or a sheep or shard of barnwood. I made it about halfway across Mr. Kearney’s field when I first heard the voices.
My heart stopped as I froze and listened. The voices were muffled and distant, but after my last two trips outside of the cave, I wasn’t going to take any chances.
There was a small patch of trees on the edge of Mr. Kearney’s farm, next to the low stone wall separating his land from Mr. McCormick’s, so I sprinted over to it and crouched down beside the wall, hidden behind the cluster of trunks.
I scarcely breathed as I listened for the sound again. I didn’t hear footsteps approaching or drone blades whirring overhead, so that calmed my nerves a bit, and when I finally heard the voices again, they weren’t shouting like angry foreign soldiers. They were laughing.
Lifting my head, I peered over the wall and found that most of Mr. McCormick’s house was still intact. The right side of it was blown off, but the rest remained standing, and there were lights on inside.
Laughter rang out from the direction of the house, and I smiled as if I were in on the joke. I’d always liked the McCormicks. Mr. McCormick was the nicest, funniest man in the town, and his wife had been my music teacher in primary school. They’d never had any children of their own, and I’d often fantasized about running away and living with them whenever things got especially bad with Da.
A figure passed by the kitchen window, and I pictured Mr. McCormick shuffling into the sitting room with a cup of tea, cheerfully defying evacuation orders, as his wife followed on his heels, nagging him about fixing all the broken windows.
Climbing over the wall, I practically sprinted across the mushy meadow, and my heart skipped right along with me. The McCormicks would help us. I knew it. I could hardly wait to get back to the cave and tell … I paused mid-step, realizing that I didn’t even know the man’s name. I put that on my mental to-do list for the day.
Find food, water, shelter, and medical supplies.
Bathe. With soap.
Don’t get killed by a drone.
Find out beautiful Irishman’s name.
Maybe kiss him again without crying or having a panic attack.
My lips tingled as I remembered the way he’d thrown me against the cave wall the night before. I could still feel the scrape of his stubble along my jaw, his teeth on my throat.
The echo of his voice vibrated through me, dampening my knickers as I relived the feeling of him grinding against that very spot. The intensity. The connection. I’d never felt that way in my entire life. My cheeks heated as I imagined what would have come next, but then they flushed even harder, with mortification, when I remembered how it had actually ended.
And how fucked up I actually was.
Straightening my filthy jumper and tossing my matted hair over my shoulders, I lifted my chin, took a deep breath, and knocked. But when the door swung open, it wasn’t a friendly smile or a warm hug that greeted me. It was a nameless, faceless man in a camouflage shirt, his hairy knuckles shooting out and grabbing me before I had the chance to scream.
I reacted immediately, slamming one hand against the doorframe to keep from being pulled inside the house and swinging the only weapon I had—a bag of water—with the other. The flimsy bag connected with the side of the man’s wiry black beard and exploded on contact, surprising him just enough to loosen his grip. And when he did, I was gone.
I’d never run so fast in my life. A pair of deep Russian voices and their heavy, wet footfalls crashed through the silence behind me as my eyes darted left and right, desperately searching for a place to hide. But there was nothing. Other than that single clump of trees, the valley was a flat, grassy quilt, crudely divided into rectangular patches by low, crumbling stone walls. One of which I was rapidly approaching.
I’d gotten a head start, but if I tried to scale the wall, I’d have to slow down, and they’d catch me. If I tried to jump it like a hurdle, I’d fall, and they’d catch me. The only option that left me with was diving over it headfirst. Whether I would tuck and roll when I landed on the other side or slide on my belly, I wasn’t sure, and I never got the chance to find out. Because as soon as I pushed off the ground and sailed halfway over the wall, two rough hands clamped around my ankle, halting my jump in midair. My body slammed down onto the stones like an egg being cracked in half, forcing the air from my lungs as a sharp, crunching pain exploded through my rib cage. Then, I was yanked backward.
I scrambled to grab hold of the wall as it slid out from under me, but the man was too strong. Too fast. Within a second, my body was falling again, this time face-first onto the wet earth.
And then they were on me.
The one who’d caught me by the ankle tried to pin my legs to the ground as I rolled onto my back and kicked at his sneering, bearded face. His friend grasped my thrashing arms, bloodshot blue eyes flaring with excitement just before he flipped me back onto my stomach and pressed his shin across my shoulder blades.
I continued to thrash, but when the other man wrenched my legs apart and knelt between them to keep them open, a bolt of panic sliced through my mind. It threatened to sever me from my thoughts, reduce me to an animal caught in a trap, but I fought against that too. I’d been living in a state of fear my entire life. I knew how to push it down, how to keep my wits about me in the presence of a violent man.
