The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

The problem with secrets is explaining them without giving them away.

If Matt and I have been spending more time together lately than usual, no-one has thought much of it. Dillon was puzzled about the new sleeping arrangements but he understands enough about safety in numbers not to question it. Thorpe has looked at us sideways but he won’t say anything. Masterson rolled his eyes once; he thinks we’re overreacting. I wish it was just paranoia.

There hasn’t been a lot of time to focus on it. The two sick Wolverines have been increasingly slowing us down, but we managed to cover some ground over the past couple of days. We reached the car yard just after midday today (we’re getting used to telling the time by the weird orange blob in the sky, tracking its passage behind the low-riding clouds).

The yard itself looks much the way it used to, just with a ruddy orange filter and looking like elves had been industriously scouring the shine off it. Everything looks tired and worn, even the newer cars. The smart convertibles on pedastals by the roadside are hollowed-out skeletons, their leather interiors devoured by the rain. The sign was unlit and rubbed down, switched off for the endless night. I can feel my mental image of the place tarnishing, and my memories feel to bright and clean to be real. As if they were the dreams sent to torture me and this is the reality I should remember.

My heart still lifted at the sight of it. I could feel my steps getting lighter when we passed the lopsided golden arches – they’d always been crooked – and the scorched signs offering last-minute holiday car washes by the gas station. And then there it was and I smiled.

Matt told me to go on ahead. He’s still limping and leans on me sometimes; I slip under his arm when he starts to look white around the mouth. But when we reached the edges of the yard’s skirt, he stood up straighter and nudged me forward. I didn’t need much encouragement: I took off across the lot, weaving around the cars and up to the office. The front door was open and inside still smelt of leather, polish, oil, and new car mats.

The store had been turned over – someone had torn through there. Racks pushed over, wares spilt across the floor. I’ve seen so many stores like that that it seems normal now, though it jarred seeing it there. This is why I never liked the idea of causing such a mess; someone might come home to it. I did my best to ignore it and move on, but it settled down in my chest in a hot knot.

I stuck my head into the garage out back, and it looked like it always did. There was a car up on the big jack, as if our mechanic Mike had just stepped out for a while. It wasn’t until I’d turned away from the door that I wondered if that car would ever come down off that jack. There was no power to work it now.

The office was much like the store, but fewer cans of premium oil and more paper everywhere. It was so white it looked like it had snowed, even in the slant of orange light from the window. I moved through it carefully, nudging this with my toe, standing up a chair. I thought about how Dad hated filing and that he’d go crazy if he ever saw this mess, caught myself starting to pick up strewn invoices, and abruptly wanted to cry.

Conroy was the first to find me. If it had been a Seeker, I probably would have broken down. Instead, I swallowed back the knot that was working its way up into my throat and gave him a smile, telling him I was fine. He came over and put his arm around me anyway, making sympathetic noises. There was something about the way he did it that made my skin want to crawl off my body and hide.

I pulled away from Conroy before I got the urge to chew someone’s arm off. Not far behind him was Dillon, coming to see what I’d found and if I was all right. A shake of my head answered the question that the kid was about to ask – there’s no-one here. My dad’s not here. I patted him on the shoulder for his worried expression.

“There’s no blood,” I told him. Whatever happened here, I don’t think it was a fight. It seemed important to notice it at that moment.

It didn’t really hit me until it started to grow dark. I’ve been here so many times at sunset, when the lights on the yard and in the sign rise up to meet the purple darkening the sky. Mike swearing out the back and my dad avoiding the paperwork with that one last customer who just might make a deal. Locking up the cars and rubbing the scuffs off the tyres where someone just had to kick them. Mrs Kowalski clicking her tongue as she did the filing, trying to make sense of the mess on Dad’s desk. Polishing the fingermarks off windows and bodywork until everyone’s had enough and we can all go home.

Home’s empty now. As empty and hollow as this place with its acid-etched convertibles. Dad’s gone and I don’t know where. So is Ben. We’re walking on eggshells with our own travelling companions and fighting off twisted versions of people.

Sitting at Dad’s crumpled desk, his chair squeaking in the way it always does, I stared at the pen he’s chewed almost in half. I could smell him in here and all of a sudden it all got on top of me. Even putting it here in the blog hasn’t helped.

I’m crying and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I don’t know how we got here.

Last night, it was Matt who came limping in to find me. I didn’t want him to see me so upset – I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. I don’t have much pride left, not since I gave it up when Ben walked out on us – on me – but I do have some left. Some weaknesses I want to keep to myself.

Still, I was glad for the comfort. Matt always knows what I need when I’m upset: sometimes it’s a distraction; sometimes it’s an ear; sometimes it’s just a shoulder and a pair of arms around me. Last night, it was the latter. I don’t even remember stumbling to bed.

When Dillon woke me up for our watch shift, Matt was still wrapped around me, hugging me in his sleep. I didn’t want to get up – I was warm and comfortable right there, and my head felt heavy and burned dry. I wasn’t the most attentive watcher this morning, but nothing happened anyway.

Today has been all about supplies again. We’re going to focus on the vehicles more tomorrow. In truth, we haven’t really told the Wolverines what we’re planning to do with the cars. We’re hoping to not have to take them with us. I don’t even know if they’d come. Rico and Sean are getting worse – if they haven’t fallen into the feverish coma by now, I think they will soon. The sad part is that I don’t know if their companions would stay behind to look after them if the question came up.

I’ve stayed away from the Wolverines today. I can hear them, laughing and messing around with the gear in the store, banging and whooping and running over the tops of the cars. It doesn’t matter – none of that stuff matters any more – but I still hate it. I don’t like seeing my dad’s work destroyed like that. But telling them would only make it worse, and I think if I came up against one of them today, I’ll tear his head off.

I don’t want to cry any more. We all need to get on with what we’ve got, including me. I might want to shout and scream and tell the world how unfair it is, but that isn’t what we need right now.

Pull yourself together, Faith, and try not to uspet the delicate balance here. We’ll be leaving soon, with luck.

Today, I went into Mike’s domain to see about fixing a few cars for us. Each step felt like an apology to him; he never liked anyone in his garage, taking up space and moving his tools so he couldn’t find anything. Even Dad was careful in there, even though it all belonged to him. Mike was a crotchety mechanic, but he could get any machine working and he and Dad were buddies from way back. He might not be here any more but I can still feel him, watching my every move from the guts of someone’s engine.

I think Mike was here, in the time After the bomb. It took me a while to figure it out, but that’s the only explanation. The best set of screwdrivers is gone, along with the one wrench that he swore by – Dad bought him newer, less battered ones, but he only ever used that red-handled wrench, adjusting it to fit every job. A thief would have taken the newer ones. A thief who didn’t know.

It’s possible that it was Dad who took it. If he came here, he would have loaded up with tools before he left again. Maybe he would have taken Mike’s wrench for nostalgic reasons, but I just don’t see it. Maybe that’s me being hopeful, but I think if someone other than Mike had been through here, taking things, it would be more of a mess.

That’s the other thing that it took me a while to notice: the garage wasn’t turned over like the rest of the yard’s buildings. Its barely-controlled chaos made sense to Mike and it was familiar to me. The tools still here lay where he left them, waiting for him to come back and need them again.

So it felt weird helping myself to the tools. At one point I stopped and dug out a pen and a piece of paper so I could write him a little note. I left it skewered on a nail in the wall; that made me feel better, as silly as it sounds. I guess I can’t just assume that he’s dead and past caring about this stuff.

I would have preferred to work alone today. There’s so much buzzing around in my head that I’m distracted most of the time and not great company. I can feel myself being quiet, watching the others talk, my mouth empty of anything to add. I don’t think I’ve got anything left in me right now.

It wasn’t really up to me, though. The others are still on supply-searches and that meant mixed pairs, Seekers and Wolverines. If I stayed behind, that meant a Wolverine had to, and I think they wanted one of their number to keep an eye on me. Of all people I wanted around me today, a Wolverine wasn’t one of them.

I saw Conroy immediately perk up at the idea and went chill all over. I glared at him, almost wanting him to be the one to stay; he’d try something, I just knew it, and then I’d snap and beat him with a spanner. I could feel it, that trembling thread of control that has held me back from so much since we met these guys. All it would take was a word, a smirk, a hand resting somewhere on me, the smell of his breath. I could feel my skin twitching already.

I knew that I would snap and that it would end badly, and while there’s a part of me that wants it, I’m not built that way. I can’t invite that kind of thing.

“Any of you know anything about engines?” I asked. That made them fall quiet. I was sure that Conroy didn’t, not with those soft hands, and I hoped that Kirk didn’t either. That was another encounter bound to wind up with someone in a bad way.

Glances were exchanged and to everyone’s relief, it was Jersey who spoke up. I haven’t had much to do with him – he tends to partner up with Sally and hasn’t caused much trouble. He’s as loud and obnoxious as the rest of his crew, despite being the youngest and leanest of them, but he doesn’t have the hungry look I expected from someone at the bottom of the group like that. I think he makes up for his lack of size with bravado and noise.

Sean had that look when we first met them, before he got too sick to sustain it. I think he’s unconscious now, and probably Rico too. The Wolverines don’t want us ‘messing’ with their boys and won’t even let Masterson check on them. I’d fight harder if I thought there was anything we could really do, but there isn’t. The Sickness hasn’t responded to anything we’ve tried; I don’t think Ben survived it because of anything we did. If it was, we don’t know what that something was.

Conroy was disappointed to have his place here in the garage stolen by his companion, but they all went off to search for supplies anyway. It was interesting watching them leave – Thorpe marched off with Kirk and Masterson shoved Conroy out ahead of him, abandoning Dale to partner up with Sally. The doctor might act like he’s not paying attention or doesn’t care, but he wasn’t going to let that particular Wolverine be alone near his pregnant girl.

That left me and Jersey to go over the off-roaders to see what we could get working. Once the others were out of the way, I asked him where he wanted to start and he shrugged; as it turned out, he didn’t know much about engines at all, but he didn’t fancy traipsing through other people’s homes all day. I have a suspicion that there’s more to it than that, but I wasn’t going to press him. I was mostly glad that it wasn’t Kirk or Conroy here.

Jersey actually turned out to be fairly useful. He wasn’t as boisterous or obnoxious without his friends around, and some of the time he honestly tried to lend a hand. I showed him how to siphon fuel out of the gas station next door and he whined that carrying food was easier than lugging full cans around. Still, by the time the others got back, we had a healthy store piling up.

And I wasn’t tempted to hit him with a spanner once.

They found us just before the rain today. The supply-searchers were on their way back from their searching with a hefty haul when they stumbled across the shamblers – from the way they told it, almost literally.

They hurried back to the yard and shouted for everyone to get armed. I think it was Dale who pointed out the colour of the clouds, a thickening ochre with purple undertones that meant the rain wasn’t far away. We couldn’t risk getting caught outside in a fight.

We couldn’t run either, so that left barricading ourselves inside and hoping that we could hold out. It wasn’t a great option, because the showroom’s front wall is mostly glass, of course. Sturdy enough against the sorts of things that usually throw themselves at it, but what about the heedless hungry that’s stumbling around now? We had no idea, but there were no other options, so we had to give it a try.

While the clouds swirled together to let the acid fall on us, there was a storm inside as we tried to close up all the entrances. The hardest part was getting the garage doors to come down without power – a couple of the lads had to swing on the metal shutters to get them moving. On the plus side, they seem sturdy enough to stand up against a physical assault. Furniture went up against the front doors – I still had my keys and had locked them, but that’s not much protection against the weight of bodies.

I never thought I would pray for the rain to come. Not this rain with its deadly, disfiguring bite. But watching those shamblers stutter across the car yard, that’s what I did. They bumped into and over the cars, intent on their destination and the food that lay inside. The more I watched them, the more my stomach tightened into a small, roiling knot.

One of them was missing an arm. The torn sleeve dangled in a ruddy stain the extended down the shambler’s side. A part of me wondered if the dismembered arm was somewhere in the group too, fingers wearing down their bones in a jagged effort to keep up.

All of them looked scorched, their skin reddened as if they’ve been out in the desert too long. They’re dry and cracked, and some even blackened. The sun is so filtered by the low cloud-cover that we walked through the heat of summer without needing to worry about it, so I don’t know how they got that way. A man with a blowtorch or a flamethrower comes to mind, but their clothes are unaffected. Some of them even look clean, apart from the bloodstains.

I think it’s their faces that bother me most, even more than the inexorable way they just keep coming, despite logical and physical obstacles. Slack mouths and empty eyes, facial muscles that one held lively expressions now have listless hands. Gazes rove around but fix on nothing, as if looking is a habit they can’t make sense of any more. There used to be a person in there. There used to be a soul behind those eyes, but the window has misted over. I can’t tell if there’s anything left inside any of them, except for the hunger and the animal desire to survive.

That’s what they looked like when the rain neared: animals lifting their heads to scent a threat. Like rabbits or deer, but ugly and slow and with the intent to be predator, not prey. Then they moved faster – barely – and our building was the closest one.

We all flinched when the first ones met the glass wall. They thudded into it one at a time, out of rhythm, and fumbled at the glass for an opening. One pair of hands was scraped down to bones, and the sound of bone sliding over glass set my teeth on edge, like nails on a blackboard. Most of them gravitated towards a door, as if they could scent the opening as well as the meat behind it. Rusty streaks were left across the glass in their wake.

We had naturally put the most effort into barricading the main doors, assuming that they would go there first. It was the logical, most obvious entrance. But that’s not how the shamblers work; they go for the most direct route, the first one they come across. The main door is around the side of the showroom, while the smaller side door is down the other end of the front wall. It split the group outside into ragged halves and we were forced to mirror them.

The doors didn’t hold. They creaked and the hinges squealed before they gave way. We could hear the moans outside as the shamblers crushed up against the doors, trying to force their way in. We were putting our shoulders against the barricade, desperately trying to keep them back. An arm with flaking skin snaked in through the gap between the door and the frame, and waved around trying to grab onto something. Dillon tried to beat it back, but that was never going to work – pain wouldn’t deter it, so the best thing we could all do was push. Push, and hope we could hold them off for long enough.

We almost didn’t make it. We were slipping back, strength was failing and arms starting to shake. Pieces of the barricade were breaking under the strain and a shambler was determinedly hauling itself through a pried-open gap, hand over hand towards us across the braced furniture.

The rain took its legs off. It started so suddenly that we cried out in shock, flinching back from our posts. The shamblers outside had no chance at all and I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

I was too busy being horrified as they were devoured in front of us. The downpour was so forceful that they splashed against the windows, reddish-yellow streaks peppered with bits of melting bone. I stared, wishing that I could look away but unable to help myself. It took less than thirty seconds for them to be gone completely and the windows to be washed clean of their remains.

I thought I’d be glad of the rain getting rid of the shamblers for us. There was a karmic rightness about it: our two biggest threats cancelling each other out. It just left me sickened and hollow.

The shambler that had pulled itself inside was dispatched by a couple of the boys. One of them had found a sledgehammer from somewhere and I don’t want to think too deeply about that or the mess it made.

Afterwards, we all gathered around and looked at it, while its fingertips twitched brokenly into stillness. No-one said anything. Matt had an arm around my shoulders – he’d strained his healing leg in the mad barricading effort – and I turned to wrap both arms around his middle. It’s strange how we crave contact at a time like that.

Then we had to sort the supplies out. Luckily, we had managed to get the haul indoors before the doors were closed, but it was still a headache to portion out.

Why does everything have to be a battle?

Everyone remembers now why we’re all together; yesterday was horrific and a stark reminder that we need each other. If there had been any fewer of us, the shamblers would have got in and we might not have fought them off. Either group would have been overwhelmed on their own.

For that brief spate, none of the awkwardness between Seekers and Wolverines mattered. We trusted everyone to protect the group as a whole and that was the only important thing on our minds.

The boys are getting cocky, and I’m starting to worry about that. Last night, some of them were joking about the shamblers, about them being taken by the rain. In a couple of cases, I’m fairly sure that it was just bravado, the lively talk that boys do because boys do. But there was a cruel glint in Kirk’s eyes, and Jersey sounds like he’s looking forward to the next encounter, the next chance to beat their brains in. They’re getting confident because we haven’t screwed up in a while, because we’re doing okay.

I wonder if they’ve forgotten about Dennis. I wonder if they remember his name.

I wonder if, next time, they’re going to be so cock-sure that they decide to throw something else in. A little revenge on someone for a minor slight, a little flourish to show off against our slow opponents. The small things that we’ve been too scared to do yet, things that might be the straw that tips things out of our favour. The sorts of things that can get people hurt, and killed.

Of course, I can’t say anything about it; that’ll only make them worse. I sighed and left them to it, but I spotted something that turned my stomach before I went. Dillon was standing on the edges, watching, with an amused grin. He was absorbing it all, and I wished that he would go back to following the taciturn Thorpe around. Don’t learn from them how to be a man. Not from them.

I worked on the cars again today, trying to make sure that they’re all sealed against the rain, and I had a few helping hands, mostly Seekers. Jersey came to help out, but I didn’t quite know what to do with him after last night’s display, so I sent him on siphoning duty again. Might as well get as many cans of fuel as we can.

With such an exposed journey ahead, I don’t want to take any chances, so we’re making sure that everything is as good as we can get it before we leave. A couple of the vehicles had minor leaks, so I’ve filled the cracks with rubbery sealant. All the tyres have been replaced with new ones, including the spares, and an additional spare has been strapped onto the back of each off-roader.

I’m also ripping out some of the rear fittings and putting on roof-racks, to give us more room to carry tools, fuel and supplies. We can’t risk putting too much on the roof – more spare tryes, perhaps, and the cans of diesel. They’re the only things we carry that won’t be damaged by the rain, and with the cans, we’ll have to be very careful with leakage. Who knows what acid would do to an engine, especially when exploded?

Let’s just hope the seals hold, on the cans and cars.

The rain has pounded on the roof all day today. It slacked off a little during the night, but it didn’t stop like it usually does. Green-tinged rivulets run down the glass walls, with the orange tint of the sun throwing shadow snakes across the floor. Thunder has been circling us like a wolf scenting out its prey, or perhaps it’s just trying to make us nervous.

It’s working. Tensions have been bubbling under every encounter today. I’ve had to pull people out of discussions that were escalating towards violence a couple of times, and a hushed agreement between us Seekers has at least two or three of us watching over the packs all the time. We don’t trust the Wolverines not to steal what we’ve so painfully collected. Stay in pairs, I told them. Don’t go anywhere alone.

So we stayed together and chatted today, just us Seekers. We left the Wolverines to their own devices and I ignored the sounds of them playing some kind of game in the showroom. Things broke. I tried not to care. Our group made up games and talked, huddled in mounds of blankets against the cold. Like turtles fighting off hibernation, not quite ready to pull our heads in and sleep.

Some of us did sleep. I nodded off on Matt’s shoulder at one point, and I caught sight of Sally doing the same, curled up with her head in Masterson’s lap and her arms wrapped around the bundle that had Nugget in it.

As days go, it was better than most we’ve spent recently.

Don’t go anywhere alone.

I should learn to take my own advice. I wasn’t paying attention – too busy making sure that everyone was where they should be and running through mental lists about what we need to do before we can get out of here, keeping busy through another day of continuous rain. Something occurred to me between the garage and the showroom, something I hadn’t thought about before today, and I diverted towards the office.

Suddenly, my way was blocked by Kirk and his grin. He wouldn’t let me past, so I turned to head back the way I came. He grabbed my arm and I stopped, glaring at him. Fingers bit into my arm.

“So, what’ll you give me to keep your secret?” he asked. I hated the way his gaze moved over me, the way he leaned in. I couldn’t help but wonder how long he’s waited for the opportunity to snag one of us alone.

“Secret? Nothing. Tell the world if you want.” I refused to look away from him; I wouldn’t give him even that tiny victory.

“Oh, I will. In detail. And then I’ll take it out on him.” He pulled me slowly towards him. “If you make this difficult. Come on, make it easy on all of us.”

He might be lean, but he has inches on me; I couldn’t hope to match his strength. I turned my head away when I was close enough to smell his breath. He put another hand on me. I knew what he wanted and my whole body was saying ‘no’. I thought my stomach would climb out of my mouth.

But a small part of my mind wondered if it was so much to give. It was just sex. Right? Give him what he wants and he’ll go away. I thought of Sally and the Pride. One sacrifice to save so much. I thought about how badly she moved afterwards. I thought about Masterson’s reaction. I thought about Ben and, for some reason, Matt.

Is it ever ‘just’ sex? I was kidding myself if I thought letting him have it would make him go away. His eyes were laughing at me as he leant in to lick my cheek. He’d never ‘go easy’ on any of us. I squeezed my eyes shut.

No. This wasn’t an answer, and it wasn’t going to happen. No.

I’ve never pulled a blade on someone before. Months ago, I was frightened enough to arm myself with a knife and it has lived in my pack or on my belt since. I’ve never used it. I’ve worn it for so long that I forgot it was there. Today, I remembered. Today, something in me gave way when my hand scrabbled over the wall behind me, looking for something, anything, and bumped against its sheath. My fingers closed around the hilt as if it was begging to be freed.

It’s not a big knife. It’s not even impressively barbed. But it was sharp enough to open up a line across Kirk’s cheek, from his jaw towards his nose. I think I was as shocked as he was, though it hurt me far less than it did him.

He touched his cheek to see if he was really bleeding – he was, a lot – and I took advantage of his stunned moment to pull away. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the awkward way I rearranged the knife in my hand, trying to find an intimidating way to hold it without dropping the damn thing. It’s harder than it looks. It’s difficult when your heart is racing; it felt like my pulse was going to vibrate the hilt right out of my fingers.

He swore at me, spat awful names that I can’t even remember. I was too focussed on the knife and the distance between us. He lunged and I swiped madly, back and forth, back and forth. I missed entirely but he got the message: this wasn’t going to go down easily.

I didn’t want to hurt him. I wasn’t going to attack him, but he didn’t know that. I was going to defend myself and he saw that in my face. He shouted at me, threatened me but I was concentrating on backing up without falling over or dropping the knife. There was blood streaming down his face, down his neck. I couldn’t quite believe I’d caused it.

“Just stay the hell away from me,” I told him. “Stay away from all of us.”

He gritted his teeth and lunged at me. I jerked backwards, slammed a shoulder against the wall, swiped again. He tried to avoid the blade and a foot slipped on the strewn paper leaking out of the office, sending him down to one knee. That was enough of a gap: I turned and ran.

I didn’t stop until I could put my back against the door of the storeroom us Seekers were holed up in. I ran right past the bemused Wolverines and even a few Seekers. None of them tried to stop me. I don’t know what I would have done if they had.

Thorpe was there and came over to frown at me, asking what was going on. I had no breath to tell him and no idea what to say even if I did. He gave me a strange look and I realised that I was still gripping the knife. I wanted to drop it, throw it away, never see it again, but my fingers wouldn’t let go. They trembled, but they wouldn’t unfold.

Matt came over, took one look at me, and asked, “Shamblers?”

I shook my head and fought for control of my tongue. “Kirk.” No point hiding it, not with that cut across his face. Stupid, Faith.

Matt went pale, while Thorpe flushed with anger. He reached to gently but firmly move me out of the way of the door. “I’m gonna shove his head up his ass.”

The notion that he would do that for me made my eyes prickle. I grabbed his arm – remembering to use the hand not holding the knife – and begged him not to. No more trouble, please. Leave it. Don’t make it worse. Please. He growled at me and shook me off, but he relented. Turning to stomp off, he muttered about it needing to be done. I wish I could argue with him.

I looked down at my hands and noticed the wetness on the blade. Blood. My stomach flipped over.

“Did he hurt you?” Matt was still standing there, staring at me with such heavily weighted eyes.

No. It didn’t get that far. He didn’t get the chance.

Then, suddenly, Matt was apologising, stumbling to say how sorry he was. It was my turn to stare and my eyes stung again, filling. He thought it was his fault because of the lie that had protected him. But I wouldn’t let him take the blame, not for this. If not for the lie, Kirk would have found another excuse. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been Conroy. If not me, another of our number.

He asked if I was all right, and I said no. I was a lot of things, but far from all right. He took the knife gently out of my hand and then we just held onto each other.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I know that next time, it’ll be much worse.

Last night was awkward. I didn’t want to talk about what happened and ended up going to bed early.

I think the others talked about it. I’m curious to know what was said, but I’m glad I wasn’t there for it. I huddled in my blankets, trying to warm them up, and told my mind to stop running around on the subject. I was all right. I wasn’t even hurt. But my body was so keyed-up about it that it took forever to unwind. Inside, I was numb; I don’t remember feeling anything at all.

I didn’t fall sleep until after Matt and Dillon came to huddle with me and I finally felt warm. It sounds weird, but there’s nothing sexy about fully-dressed people attempting to share body heat. Everyone was feeling the chill, and by morning we had Nugget and Thorpe buried in with us as well.

When we clambered out of the blankets, pulled on our outer layers and went out to the showroom, we discovered just how bad it had got outside. It had stopped raining sometime in the dark hours, and by the time dawn came around, the world outside was frosted. Ice gleamed fitfully from every surface, coated the vehicles in the yard and the sign out by the road. It spidered in from the edges of the windows and skated over the concrete. The doors broken in the shambler attack had leaked under the recent downpour, and there was a skin of ice across part of the showroom floor.

The weirdest part was the reflected orange light, as if everything had been soiled. I’ve never seen a real frost like that – it doesn’t get that cold here, not ever, not even in the depth of winter. But even to me it didn’t feel right; I wanted it to be white, pristine and shining. Not this dirty, ruddy approximation of how winter’s touch should look.

Our breath steamed in front of our faces as we stopped and looked at each other. I could feel it snapping at my nose and cheeks. I shivered and hugged myself, and we were all wondering what we were supposed to do next. We certainly couldn’t get out of here in that; it’d take us ages just to chip the ice off the vehicles, and I didn’t want to think about starting them in those conditions.

Then the Wolverines stumbled out from where they’re bedded down. They looked particularly drawn and grumpy. At first I wondered if it was because of what happened yesterday, but only Kirk spared me a glare.

His face looks awful. They’ve barely dressed the cut and it makes my stomach twist every time I see it. There’s a part of me that can’t believe that I did that to someone, not even someone who tried to attack me. I’ve been in fights before, I’ve hurt people before, but I’ve never used a knife. And I’ve never had to look at the aftermath of it.

I think it was the cold that was making them snappish. They wouldn’t say and we didn’t care enough to ask outright. Oil and water, that’s us, though I couldn’t say which was which. I supposed we’re the oil; if anyone has acid in them, it’s them. Perhaps that’s just me being mean, though.

No-one really knew what to do today. The ice melted sluggishly as the day wore on and the orange globe in the sky struggled higher. It was hard to think about going out – if things weren’t slick with ice, they were wet with the melt. No-one really wanted to find out how much the acid bit at low temperatures. It was tempting to wonder if it could be clean, but that seems like magic and we weren’t willing to test it.

So we were cooped up for most of another day. The two groups kept to themselves by mutual consent until the ice was all gone and it seemed safe to go out. A small group went in search of blankets and warm clothes; we all know that this winter is only going to get worse. They didn’t find much, but enough to make a difference – we’ll sleep warmer tonight.

It wasn’t until the rain started again that I remembered what I had been looking for when Kirk caught up with me yesterday. The memory made my throat close and my hands shake, but I was determined that he wasn’t going to stop me from doing this. It seems more important than ever now. I’m not foolish enough to try to go on my own again, though.

It’s late enough now; the Wolverines should have settled down for the night. We should try now, I think.

It’s time to tell the boys that I think I know where to find a gun.

I had forgotten about Dad’s rifle until a couple of days ago. I can’t remember what made me think of it, but all of a sudden there it was, pinging at the forefront of my brain. And here we were, within yards of it.

I haven’t seen it in years. Dad used to go shooting with a friend of his on alternate weekends; my mother frowned on it, but he kept it at the house anyway. Then someone tried to rob the car yard, broke into the garage to steal parts and tools while Dad and a couple of salespeople were still in the buildings. They turned on the lights and scared off the would-be thieves, and after that, Dad kept the rifle in his office. Just in case they came back. Just in case someone worse came back. I think it made the girls feel safer, knowing it was there.

I’ve been in his office a thousand times and had never seen it. I don’t know if he was licenced to keep it here, but either way, he hid it well. I told Thorpe and Matt about it and they agreed to help me, flashlights at the ready. One thing we all agreed on without breathing a word: the Wolverines must never know about it. No-one wanted a weapon like that in their hands.

So we snuck down to the office late last night after the groups fell quiet, keeping our beams of light down and subtle. We looked in every cupboard we could find, on top of cabinets and underneath the desk. Every long, narrow space that might house a rifle was checked. Nothing.

Maybe Dad had been here. Maybe he had visited and collected it – that would make sense. If he had come here, he wouldn’t have left it behind. But there was no way for me to know if that was what had happened.

I sighed and looked over the room one last time, and the single foil decoration dangling from the ceiling over the desk caught my eye. Its tether was caught in the gap between ceiling tiles and remembered how Dad hadn’t wanted me to put it up there. Matt pointed his light up to where I was looking and gave me a crooked smile.

“You think he hid it up there?”

“It’d be just like him. Who’d look there?”

Thorpe looked at us, then at the ceiling, and stepped onto the desk. He lifted the ceiling tile easily – I would have struggled to reach, just like I did when I put the little foil tree up there. I had nearly tumbled right off the desk. Thorpe had no such problems, reaching into the dark cavity and feeling around. I tried not to think about what else might be lurking in there.

He coughed in the dust and turned to hand down a long, narrow object in a leather case. I took it and lay it on the desk; I didn’t need to open it to know what was inside. The weight was familiar; Dad taught me how to carry it, how to hold it, even how to fire it once. I remember it seeming bigger and more unwieldy than it is now, but I was only a kid at the time. Couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old, just before my mother decided that I should be doing girlier things. Dad was disappointed, but he knew better than to fight her on stuff like that.

Thorpe fumbled around until he had found a couple of boxes of ammo and was satisfied that we had everything hidden up there. Then he slid the ceiling tile back into place, neat as you like, and hopped down.

We all looked at the weapon in its dusty case and the sad-looking boxes. Do we hide it? Yes. I wasn’t even sure I wanted Masterson to know about it. Who gets to carry it? Whoever has a pack big enough to take it. Thorpe is the obvious choice; everyone’s wary of him and his pack is probably the safest. It’s ironic that our best defence requires the most careful protection. Are we ready to do this? Well, we couldn’t stay there all night and we’d be foolish to leave it behind. We had to adapt to the world we were in, and that meant arming ourselves as best we can.

I couldn’t help but think of the Pride, and of Matt’s leg with the healing bullet-hole in it. I wondered if looking at the rifle made the wound itch. I reached for his hand, just in case, and he gave me a surprised look. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn’t the same as what was on my mind. He smiled anyway and slipped an arm around my shoulders.

So it was decided, and we snuck back to our back room with no-one the wiser. Matt and I packed away the ammo while Thorpe took the rifle itself. It seemed sensible that way. Then we all piled in under the blankets to warm ourselves into sleep.

The ice had snuck over the windows and cars again today, creeping in across the floor until midday. We packed the roofracks of the vehicles with the cans of fuel and spare tyres, lashed them down and covered them with tarp. Getting ready for when we can’t put off the departure any more.

Dad didn’t come here in the time After the bomb. I don’t know what to think about that. He went somewhere when he left the house – all I need to do is figure out where. In the meantime, we have his rifle to keep us safe.

We’ve been keeping largely separate from the Wolverines over the past couple of days. I was afraid of the fallout from the incident with Kirk spilling over onto my friends and we haven’t been able to go out much anyway.

It hasn’t stopped there being glares pointed in our direction, though mostly just from Kirk himself. Jersey joins in sometimes, but I think that’s mostly to stay on Kirk’s good side. Conroy looks wary of me now – which I can’t bring myself to be upset about – and Dale keeps to himself as much as ever.

Today, the Wolverines were more morose and withdrawn than ever. I wondered with a spike of fear if they had decided to do something, to retaliate in some fashion. The only reason there hadn’t been any kind of big fight between us all is that neither group wants to start a fight of that size. There’s no telling who would win.

It wasn’t Kirk that had made the Wolverines quiet, though. When I found out what was going on, I felt sorry for them.

Their friends were gone, slipped away between the Sickness, their injuries, and probably the cold too. Their shells were still here, but they were gone. They had been found this morning, empty.

We offered our sympathies. We knew how that felt. There was a nasty voice in the back of my head that wondered if they cared, these Wolverines. It’s not like me to think like that.

They have talked about their fallen ones before – I remember Jersey mentioning how Rico was always good at fighting off the shamblers. Their best and, from what Jersey said, their leader before he got sick. Sean was good at finding supplies, someone else mentioned. They haven’t said much else about him.

I think they’ll be missed. I wish I had been able to know them. I want to ask for their stories, to record a little of something about them, but now isn’t the best time. They’re still a fresh wound.

After the rain came today and the supply-searchers had returned, I asked for everyone to come together. I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t just brush the bodies under the carpet and walk on. Maybe it was guilt, because I didn’t feel more for their loss than I did and I was largely responsible for the tensions keeping the two groups apart.

Whatever the reason, it was one compromise that I wasn’t willing to make.

I didn’t know the dead men, so there wasn’t anything to say. I didn’t think the Wolverines would say anything even if they wanted to, and I didn’t know how to ask them. Instead, I took inspiration from Sax and sang for them. Amazing Grace, my favourite hymn and the only one I know most of the words for. I told them that this is what we do when we lose someone and just started singing.

I’m no solid-voiced Sax, so it got off to a shaky start. Matt and Sally joined in first, then the rest of the Seekers. Even Nugget’s lips were moving, though I’m not sure if she was making any noise. Dale was the first Wolverine to sing with us, and by the end, only Kirk wasn’t even pretending to join in. He glared at me, refusing mostly because I was the one to start it. I didn’t care; that was his choice.

I thought about Sax as we sang. I wondered where he was now and if there was a scrap of him left inside. I wondered if he would recognise our voices, our song. I thought about Ben and the hole he left when he walked away. I wondered if I’d ever see him again, and if he might be dead already. I don’t know if I’ll ever know what happened to him. I thought about my dad and tried not to wonder too much about where he is now.

It felt good, filling the showroom with our voices, making it brimful of us in a rough harmony. As if our song could chase away the shadows lengthening across the floor and the monsters that lurked in the oncoming dark. It felt like we weren’t hiding any more, like we were shouting to the world, here we are. We remember, we live, we are.

Even after we finished, the sound seemed to hang in the air as if the walls might hold onto it for a while. That felt right, too.