The air in the Scrap Box was a heavy, stagnant weight, pressing down on the six survivors huddled in the corner booth. The blue flame of the camping stove had long been extinguished, leaving the room in a thick, suffocating darkness. The only light came from the narrow, flickering beams of their torches, cutting through the gloom like weak, yellow fingers.
"What now?" Christine asked. Her voice was a fragile thread in the silence, stripped of the iron resolve she had carried in the car park.
"Suppose we head for Beverley now," Sam said, her voice small but steady. She clutched the portable radio to her chest like a talisman.
"We could find that source. If they're broadcasting, they have power. They might have a perimeter"
****
The A1079 had transformed into a choked, stuttering artery of a dying world. As the Hiluxes turned eastward toward the coast, the clear run they had prayed for vanished behind a wall of twisted metal and environmental decay. The road was a jagged mosaic of interrupted lives; families who had tried to flee the chaos were now reduced to the metallic carcasses they had left behind. The dual carriageway was a gauntlet of geometric chaos. Cars were wedged nose-deep into the stagnant drainage dykes, their wheels suspended in the air like the legs of dying insects. Others sat flipped in the center of the lanes, scorched black by fires that had long since died out, leaving only the acrid, lingering scent of burnt rubber and upholstery.
The asphalt was no longer grey. Huge, fan-like spatters of iridescent brown goo-the molecular signature of the things from the city-stained the road every few hundred yards. In the jaundiced light of the sky, the sludge shimmered with a sick, oily sheen. Where the tires rolled over it, the substance hissed and bubbled, a sound like wet fabric being torn apart, throwing a foul, chemical spray against the wheel arches.
The trek was a rhythmic, mechanical war. The trucks didn't just drive; they fought. The lead vehicle used its heavy steel bull-bar to nudge stalled estates out of the way, the screech of metal-on-metal sounding like a scream in the heavy silence. When the road became too cluttered, the men would jump out, tethering a winch cable to the frame of a flipped van and dragging it just far enough into the ditch to clear a path.The darkness at Market Weighton was absolute, a thick, suffocating velvet that the torch beams could barely pierce. What should have been a brief transit across the East Riding had stretched into a grueling, twenty-four-hour marathon of sweat and straining metal. By the time the town's silhouette rose against the jaundiced horizon, the survivors were operating on nothing but adrenaline and the jagged edges of their nerves.
The town of Market Weighton was a hollow shell. Shop fronts stood open like gaping mouths, and the silence was so heavy it felt as though the air itself had solidified. The Hiluxes crept through the high street, their engines muffled by the thick layer of yellow ash that had begun to settle over everything like a soft, toxic snow.
***
The forecourt of Smax Motors sat on the edge of Market Weighton like a skeletal monument to a world that had stopped turning. In the jittery beams of the Hiluxes' headlights, the car dealership appeared more like a glass cage than a place of business. The showroom windows were mostly intact, though a fine, chalky layer of yellow ash had settled over the glass, turning the interior into a blurred, ghostly aquarium. Inside, a row of polished hatchbacks sat in frozen formation, their metallic paint gleaming under the torchlight with a mockery of their former showroom glory. The prices painted on the windscreens-bold, white decals promising Low Mileage and Great Value-now seemed like jokes from a forgotten language.
Outside, the tarmac was a mess of shadows and oily puddles. A few older models were parked in the exterior lot, their tires flat and their bonnets coated in that same iridescent brown grime they had seen on the A1079. The large Smax Motors sign hung crookedly from its moorings, creaking with every sluggish breath of wind, a rhythmic clack-groan that was the only sound in the dead night. The office area was a dark void behind the sales desk. A calendar still hung on the wall, its page turned to a month that no longer mattered, and a half-empty mug of coffee sat on a desk next to a stack of registration papers, now just fuel for a fire that would never be lit.
"Pull the trucks behind the main workshop," Cairn directed, his voice a low rumble.
"The glass at the front makes us too visible. We use the service bays for cover."
The heavy corrugated doors of the workshop stood half-open, like a waiting mouth. Inside, the air smelled of old grease, rubber, and a sharp, metallic tang that didn't belong to any engine-the smell of the sky beginning to seep into the rafters.
****
The morning did not bring the clear, gold light of a summer dawn. Instead, the sun rose as a pale, sickly disc, struggling to pierce the thick shroud of the atmospheric debris. The sky was no longer blue; it had curdled into a bruised shade of ochre, heavy with the dust of the impact and the strange, shimmering particulates that followed the yellow fire. As the light hit the forecourt of Smax Motors, it didn't illuminate so much as it exposed. The sun crawled over the jagged glass of the showroom windows, casting long, distorted shadows across the tarmac. The light felt filtered and weak, like the glow from an old, dying bulb, turning the world into a monochromatic landscape of rust and ash.
Cairn leaned against the rusted frame of a service lift, his silhouette framed by the sickly amber glow of the morning. He took a long, grimacing sip of the coffee, the ceramic Smax Motors mug chipped at the rim. It was cold, oily, and tasted of the metal dust hanging in the air, but it was the only thing keeping the fog of a twenty-four-hour drive at bay.
"We should hit Beverley Holiday Park today," he said.
He didn't look at the others; his eyes were fixed on the A1079, which sat like a bruised vein under the sulfurous sky. Christine looked up from where she was checking the seals on the Hilux's fuel cans.
"And if the park is just more of this?" she asked, gesturing to the silent, ash-covered forecourt.
"If it's just another graveyard with a loudspeaker?"
Cairn set the mug down on a workbench, the clink of porcelain against steel sounding like a gunshot in the stillness.
"Then we keep driving until we hit the sea"
***
The road was a repetitive, grueling grind. While the debris wasn't as dense as the day before, the sheer monotony of the ruined landscape began to erode their sanity. The jaundiced sky cast everything in a sickly, unchanging amber, making time feel like it was standing still as they bypassed the silent white cottages of Bishop Burton. In the backseat of the trailing Hilux, Zach was hunched over, his fingers tracing the frantic ink lines of a road atlas. The paper crinkled loudly in the tense silence of the cab.
"After Bishop Burton, we turn right, keeping to the A1079," he muttered, his voice thin and nervous.
"Then we need to turn left onto the A164, then right again onto the B-road that cuts toward the park-"
"Shut up, Zach," Sam snapped, her voice cutting through his frantic narration like a blade.
She didn't turn around; she just kept her eyes fixed on the horizon, her hand hovering near the radio dial. The constant recitation of coordinates was doing nothing but highlighting how little the maps actually mattered in a world where the roads were rotting.
*****
Beverley Holiday Park was a forty-four-acre sanctuary of woodland and water that had been hollowed out into a silent gallery of abandoned leisure. Under the bruised, amber light of the 2026 sky, the park felt less like a retreat and more like a staged exhibit of a life interrupted mid-breath.
The wide, hardstanding pitches-designed to support the weight of modern touring caravans-were mostly empty, their grey gravel surfaces punctuated by the skeletal remains of a few white trailers. These caravans sat at drunken angles, their leveling jacks sinking into the soft East Yorkshire earth as if the ground itself were trying to swallow them. Nearby, the luxury static lodges stood in rigid, uniform rows; their dark timber cladding was coated in a fine, sulfurous dust that robbed the wood of its polished luster, making them look like oversized coffins waiting for a burial.
The central lakes, once the pride of the development, were preternaturally still. The emerald eelgrass and stocked carp remained hidden beneath a surface that refused to ripple, reflecting only the jaundiced fire of the clouds above. The woodland setting, meant to provide a tranquil canopy for holidaymakers, now cast long, skeletal shadows across the manicured lawns. The trees stood as silent sentinels, their leaves beginning to curl and blacken from the chemical shift in the atmosphere.
At the heart of the park, the modern facilities block-a structure of clean lines and functional glass-was a hollow shell. The children's playground was a frozen tableau; a single red swing swayed in the rhythmic, low-level wind, its chain letting out a sharp, metallic protest that echoed across the empty basin.
There was no scent of woodsmoke or the salt-tang of the nearby coast-only the sterile, stagnant smell of recycled air and the faint, ozone-heavy drift from the southern horizon. Beyond the perimeter fence, the A164 was a dead vein, and the distant, Gothic silhouette of the Beverley Minster rose against the sky like a jagged tooth, watching over a park where the only residents were the ghosts of a summer that never arrived. The two Hiluxes rolled through the open gates of the Beverley Holiday Park, their tires crunching on gravel that hadn't seen a visitor in weeks. The entrance, once a welcoming portal to a forty-four-acre sanctuary of woodland and water, now felt like the mouth of a tomb. Under the bruised, amber light of the sky, the park was a silent gallery of abandoned leisure.
"Nobody's here," Cairn said, his voice flat and hollow as he looked out the passenger window.
He watched the torchlight from the dash flicker over the wide, hardstanding pitches. They were mostly empty, save for a few white touring caravans sitting at drunken angles, their leveling jacks sinking into the soft East Yorkshire earth.
"There has to be, Cairn," Sam insisted, her voice tight with a hope that sounded increasingly fragile.
She steered the truck toward a cluster of luxury timber cabins, their dark cladding coated in a fine, sulfurous dust that robbed the wood of its luster. She cut the engine, and the world collapsed into a vacuum.
Christine pulled the second Hilux up alongside them, the low rumble of its diesel engine dying out to leave a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight.
The woodland setting, designed for tranquility, now cast long, skeletal shadows across the manicured lawns. The central lakes were preternaturally still, reflecting the jaundiced fire of the clouds above like sheets of black glass. Cairn stepped out, his boots hitting the grit with a sharp, exposed resonance. A few yards away, a deflated football lay in the middle of a vacant pitch. He gave it a sharp kick, and the flat piece of leather skittered across the gravel with a wet, heavy thud, coming to rest against a discarded deckchair. It didn't bounce; it just stayed there, a reminder of a life interrupted mid-breath.
"Look," Sam whispered, pointing her torch toward the main welcome sign.
The pristine white signage was defaced by shimmering, iridescent fans of brown goo. The residue seemed to pulse with a faint, sickly light, creeping up the timber posts of the cabins.
"Fucks sake!" Rachael screamed from the second truck, her voice echoing off the silent lodges.
She kicked a decorative planter, sending soil and dead marigolds across the path.
"All that way! We lost Grant for a car park with better scenery!"
"Rachael, quiet," Christine warned, her eyes darting toward the stagnant woods.
But Sam wasn't looking at the trees. She was staring at the cabin directly in front of them.
"The broadcast... it's coming from inside there." Sam said pointing towards the closest cabin.