Page 19 of Hunted By Fae
It’s mobbed.
The bars are bursting at the seams, the roads are swarmed with wandering people, droves of them in the small carpark of the sorry excuse for a grocery store.
We don’t stop.
We keep scaling the incline of the highway, following the ascension to the woods.
And still, not a blare of a siren, not a helicopter in the sky—and not a bar of reception on my phone.
FOUR
BEE
A tornado of panic rips through the campsite—and the background noise is the radio in the Winnebago, cranked all the way up.
‘Four sources confirmed. Scotland, Northern Ireland, Norway, and Iceland. An incoming report that the blackout is advancing on the coast of the North Americas.’
Tesni is grabbing things at random.
Ramona piles what she can into a laundry basket.
The whole setup of the camp, from chairs and tables to coolers and drying racks lined with socks and underwear, it’s all in shambles.
A stampede came through here, too.
The campervan blocked much of the traffic from barrelling through our things, and on the other side of the camper is a row of two wooden boxed outhouses that at least saved the Winnebago.
But not everything was saved.
‘If you are in an affected area, you are to stay indoors. Take shelter and wait for further instruction.’
The annex is collapsed and shredded.
Ruby and Louise are cutting it away from the campervan door. The screech of serrated blades scraping over coarse fabric, it tenses my shoulders.
‘Do not drive. Do not take the roads. Do not attempt to self-evacuate. Please, stay indoors. The dark cloud at its current travel rate is estimated to touch the west coast of North America in two hours. Please, do not attempt to flee. Seek shelter immediately.’
The frantic radio transmission is the murmur beneath grunts, curses, and the cracking sound of plastic.
I look over my shoulder—and find Ramona sweeping her arms over a foldable table. Everything on it is wiped off. The kettle and gas stove, the metal plates and cups, all rattle into the laundry basket at her feet.
“Careful with that!” Louise shouts. The gas stove is her main concern, the target of her wide, worried gaze. “We might need it!”
Ruby mutters from somewhere under the collapsed annex, “Just focus on this.”
‘Affected areas in blackout are as follows: Britian, Ireland, Iceland, Norway…’
The radio crackles.
My breath pins to my chest, and I stare at the door of the driver seat, willing the transmission back.
‘France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium. The blackout is rapidly spreading…’
“The mainland,” Tesni says, her voice a breathy sound. “It reached the mainland. Did you hear that? France, Spain… It’s over Europe now.”
The annex rips free in pieces.
Louise tackles the metal poles, dragging them out of the path of the van; Ruby hauls the tarp away.
