The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

Hello! Matt here again, but I promise that it’s not bad news this time. I told Faith about my unfortunate pattern with this fun little blog of hers and she told me to do something more regular.

Between you and me, I think she was glad for the excuse to take a break from this. She’s still kinda strung-out after all the stuff with Dillon, though she won’t admit it, and now there’s something going on with Tia. The girls won’t say what it is, but it’s bad enough to make them both unhappy. Faith has that worried face she gets when something’s eating at her.

I hope the kid isn’t getting Sick. Maybe she’s got a burn. I can’t imagine staring at that future rolling up the road towards me, waiting for the cough and the fever and knowing just how hungry I’ll become.

Dammit, I gave myself goosebumps.

Anyway. So there was a bit of excitement today. We’re searching everywhere we can find for supplies, but we haven’t had any luck in days. Not since we hit the mountains, really. Now that we’re out of that area, we had hoped to find stuff again.

We stopped at this little town on the way towards the suburbs. Everything was fine, just as it always is – we shut off the engines and piled out of the vehicles, stiff from sitting. I slipped on the ice and nearly ended up on my ass; grappling onto the big tree that is Thorpe is all that saved me. The less said about that, the better.

The open doors were our first clue that we weren’t going to find much. We wanted to look anyway, just in case whoever was here before us wasn’t as desperate or thorough as they could have been. Who are we kidding – is there anyone around that isn’t desperate and hungry?

Hungry. That brings me to what happened as we moved towards the nearest doors. Terry and Dale were calling to each other, making bets and taunts, and I joined in for the hell of it. Then we heard something down the road.

That thumping. It’s unmistakable. I think my heart was trying to beat a warning, matching their rhythm as they finally figured out how to get onto the street. They fell out of doorways like grains of puffed rice. Or like roasted coffee beans, scorched and tumbling more than walking.

Then Faith was shouting and pushing me back towards the vehicles. I ran along with everyone else, scrabbling to get them ready to move again. What I wouldn’t do for an ignition that worked. Half of us had to grab weapons to deal with the shamblers closest to us, while the others bumped the engines started.

Dan is a demon with a bat. I’ve never noticed it before – hasn’t exactly been high on my list of things to check out – but he stepped right in front of me when I was pushing the offroader. I saw it perfectly: whap whap, and then he was moving on, cool as you like. It’d be scary if he wasn’t on our side.

To my surprise, Faith was one of the fighters, too. She usually deals with the vehicles. Today, she picked up a bat and went to town. More determination than finesse, but she got the job done. I didn’t start worrying about her until we were ready to go and she wasn’t answering us. I had to grab her arm to get her attention, and nearly got smacked for my trouble.

I didn’t like the expression on her face or the way she looked at the sticky end of her bat. Then we were busy cramming ourselves into the vehicles and getting the hell out of there. She said she was okay but I didn’t believe her. She’ll talk to me when she’s ready.

We were much more cautious when we selected a house to hole up in for the night, further down the road. We checked every room, every cupboard, and not just for food. We didn’t find anything, good or bad, but at least we had a place to bed down.

Pickings are slim and spirits are down, but I can report that dog biscuits are actually quite filling, if hard on the teeth. I have no idea how Shaggy ate Scooby Snacks on a regular basis. They really suck the moisture out of you. Cat food is much easier to get down, though it does spark some arguments. I prefer the beef, if you please; fishy ones make me gag.

You know the world has ended when you have a favourite flavour of cat food.

Suburbs. I never thought I’d be so glad to see the suburbs.

I used to chafe at having to live in one. I wanted something cooler – an apartment in the city, a houseboat, a fifty-foot yacht to while away my time on. My dad’s house always seemed so… ordinary.

What I wouldn’t give for ordinary.

The suburbs don’t look like they used to, like the one I grew up in. They’re the same houses, squeezed together on too-narrow plots, but the walls are acid-etched in slowly-dissolving streaks. The yards are stripped, all dirt and concrete. The paint on the cars is dull and wearing thin, showing the underskin metal in places.

We passed a tricycle with plastic ribbons reduced to tatters, its wheels iced into the mud that had seeped up around it. Further along the same street, a roof had caved in completely, the house a collapsed pudding. The acid is deconstructing everything.

The world isn’t just broken. It’s still breaking.

Even with the erosion around us, we were glad to be back within the city’s sprawl. The pickings were no better than out towards the mountains, but at least we have more options now. More places to take shelter.

We’re moving with more caution after yesterday’s attack. I’m trying not to think about all of that too deeply.

Thorpe smacked one down right next to me while I was still trying to grab for a weapon. I glanced at him and I remembered how Dillon looked in that moment, those few days ago. He had smiled at me, it’s all right, Faith. And then they had grabbed him. So I started hitting them. They were too close, so many, too close to everyone. My arms hurt and my chest felt stretched until it couldn’t fit any air in it, but there were so many of them. I had to keep going, keep them away.

It wasn’t until Matt grabbed me that I realised how far I had gone. The middle part is all a blur now, one I don’t ever want to resolve.

We’re all safe. That’s the important thing. A few bites and scratches, but nothing serious. I ache in more places than I care to count.

There’s a warehouse district a little way to the west of here. We spent an hour arguing about it tonight: it’s out of our way, but there might be stores there. Other survivors might not have pillaged all of it yet. Tia is sure that there’s a depot for one of the supermarkets there – she used to work for the chain. If nothing else, maybe we can stock up on cat food.

I have to try not to think about Jones and Nugget when I pick up a can with a ginger cat on it. Why does everything feel so connected?

I just remembered who Tia reminds me of. Ben’s sister, the one we found asleep forever with her son. That changes things. That changes everything.

The rain is eroding everything, including us. Outside in, inside out, we’re all wearing away, down to guts and blood and bone. Our skeletons are showing. The ones it doesn’t kill, it turns into monsters.

Even me. I can feel it seeping in, wearing me down. I’m a grain of rice in the monsoon. I’m the whole damned paddy field, overflowing until I’m empty. How do I fight the weather? How do I fight what’s happening to the whole world? To the people that I care about?

How much is enough?

I just read over the post I wrote yesterday. I don’t usually do that. I don’t usually go back, because there’s too much moving elsewhere to do. But it’s been bothering me.

I read yesterday’s post, and then I read over the first one I put up on this blog. The one I made when my life had shifted and I didn’t know which way to turn, when I couldn’t tell forward from back and struck out in whatever direction I could find. More determination than wisdom.

The things that happen to you crawl in and make themselves at home. That has been bothering me, too.

We got to the warehouse district about midday. The rumbling of our engines reflected back off fences and walls at us, blanketing us in sound until we couldn’t tell where we stopped and the silence began.

When we shut off the engines, the gulf rushed in and swallowed us. Hairs lifted on the back of my neck. It felt like there were things skittering on the edge of hearing, or just out of sight, gone when I turned my head. Then we hopped out of the vehicles and stamped our feet into life, and the feeling shattered.

We were gearing up, taking essential equipment with us, when I noticed that Dale was frowning. He’s one of the more relaxed members of the group, usually lighter than the rest of us, but he has been tense for the past few days. Last night, I saw him talking to Thorpe and not getting the answers he was looking for. Their expressions were enough to tell me that.

I don’t know what’s going on between those two, but I know that Thorpe won’t talk about it with the rest of us here. He’s so private, so protected, and we live on top of each other. We stay within sight for safety, and what we don’t see, we hear.

So I went to Thorpe and suggested that he stay behind to guard the vehicles. Something felt off, so why didn’t he make sure that what supplies we did have were safe? But not alone: Dale should stay behind with him. I wanted to tell him to talk to the poor fella – do something to sort this out – but you can’t approach Thorpe that way. You can’t put it into something as solid as words. All I could do was give them the excuse to be apart from the rest of us long enough to do whatever it was they needed to do.

He tried to say that it wasn’t necessary and I lost patience with him. There’s protected and then there’s isolation. I considered having a go at him, but butting heads wouldn’t have helped anything. Instead, I told the others that Thorpe and Dale were staying behind to guard the vehicles and it was done. The rest of us trudged off without them. I didn’t look back but he was probably glaring at me.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Matt asked me as we worked our way through the first warehouse. Trust him to be aware of the relationships of others, even ones as subtle as Thorpe’s. He’d spotted it long before I did.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re both big boys.”

He couldn’t help himself: he grinned and started making comments about the boys and sizes. I had to smack him before he’d stop, but he made me laugh.

“It really doesn’t bother you?” I asked him when he had restrained himself. He looked puzzled until I admitted that I knew about him and Thorpe, about that one night they’d spent together.

Matt was sheepish about it. They’d been drunk – we were all drunk that night – and it wasn’t more than that. Just one night. “Besides, he’s not my type.”

“You have a type?”

He gave me a playful shove. “Yeah, I do.”

I teased him about all the evidence to the contrary until he told me that the big fireman is a keeper. Not so much into the casual coupling.

“Ah, I see,” I said. “That kind of not your type.”

Matt’s been a casual kinda guy for most of the time I’ve known him. He’s had a few semi-serious partners, but he always goes back to unseriousness in the end. Until the world ended, that is; I think his time with the Sharks altered him. There hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for that kind of thing anyway.

Our foray into the warehouses wasn’t very fruitful. We found lots of useless stuff – toys, baby supplies (I snagged a few bits to bring back to Sally), gardening equipment, furniture. Some clothes, some pet supplies. A lot of the crates had already been broken open and the more useful items taken. We didn’t find any perishables, no food or drink. We have a lot more warehouses to go through, so we haven’t given up yet.

It was hard to tell what had happened while we were gone. Things were definitely less frosty when we got back. Thorpe is never going to say, but Dale wasn’t wearing a frown any more. I don’t think it’s solved, but the work is definitely in progress. That must be a good thing.

Progress. Moving on. Making something new and good despite the mess the world is in. I had forgotten what that was like, but all around me it’s still going on. Even Thorpe is managing to do it, as reluctant as he is.

The things that happen to you put their feet up on your mental couch and ask for another drink.

Well, this bar is closed. This is the old Faith, one who’s done crying and feeling sorry for herself, one who’s done listening to the lies and the poison. I’m not worn down yet. I haven’t been washed away.

I’m still here, and I’m staying.

We had more luck with the warehouses today. Our search for something edible turned up nuts. Boxes and boxes of foil packs of nuts. Peanuts, cashew nuts, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, walnuts.

What is it about Christmas and nuts? They have shiny red and green packets, desperate to remind us of that time of year. Poor things have been sitting here since then, waiting for someone to come along and celebrate with them. Well, we obliged, so happy to find a fresh source of food – and one meant for human consumption – that there was even some dancing.

We rushed back to the vehicles with them. Matt couldn’t wait to ask the two convoy guards if they wanted to eat some nuts, which made Dale laugh and Thorpe look unimpressed. After we had crammed as many boxes as possible into the campervan, we had ourselves a little feast.

Terry was the first one to make himself sick. We all laughed when he rushed off to throw up, but it’s hardly surprising. Too many nuts aren’t good for you; my stomach isn’t entirely happy, and I didn’t stuff myself as much as some of the others.

We think that someone stashed them. They were on the upper floor of a stockroom, tucked away at the back behind a row of action figure boxes. If we hadn’t been desperately checking everything we could, we would have missed them. And I think Terry and Tia were messing around with the action figures.

It all led to a tense debate. As Dan pointed out, if someone stashed them, then they meant to come back. They’re organised and mobile. They sought to hide them from other survivors, which means they’re protecting themselves. Understandable, but it means they probably won’t be friendly if we come across them, even if they never find out that we stole their nuts.

There’s no way to know when this group came through here or if they might still be alive. We’re fairly sure that the Pride never made it this far south – they were spreading eastwards before they were overtaken by the Sickness – so it probably wasn’t them. We could be worrying over nothing, over people long dead or twisted into shamblers. Or they could be on their way back here right now to pick up their stashed food.

If there’s one stash, there’s bound to be another. We don’t dare turn away from that possibility. We need more than nuts to live on – despite them being packed with all kinds of good things for the body – and we haven’t found the supermarket depot yet. There’s too much to do here to let ghosts chase us away.

Nevertheless, we have another reason to guard the vehicles now. And to stick closer together.

Gotta go – time for dinner. Nuts, with a side order of dog biscuits. Who said the end of the world couldn’t be tasty?

That might have been me.

Don’t have a lot of time to post today. We’re not sure we dare show any light, and in the thick undercloud darkness, any glimmer is too much. I have turned the brightness on the screen down so much I can barely make out what I’m typing.

We found the supermarket depot today. Clearly, we’re not the only ones who know about it. There was activity inside, but we didn’t get close enough to see what.

More importantly, there were guards on the gate. Armed guards, with guns. They looked well-equipped – cleaner and less cobbled-together than the rest of us. Clearly, they haven’t had to wear whatever clothes they came across that happened to be the right size. They looked so official – so normal – that we almost didn’t see them at all. We stopped far too late and stared at them. They looked as startled as we did, staring back at us.

Then they grabbed for their weapons and shouted. They weren’t friendly shouts and guards on the gate wouldn’t intimidate away shamblers. They had to be there to defend the store from other survivors. We didn’t even think about it; our instincts told us to run, so that’s what we did.

It’s not a good sign that they chased us. It’s probably worse that we led them straight back to our vehicles – in our panic, we went back to Thorpe and Dale and our fastest ticket out of there. We forgot that it’s not a quick job to get the vehicles started.

There was so much shouting, lost in the frantic effort to get to safety. Get away, anywhere, where the men with guns can’t find us. Push, come on, release the clutch, come on.

The pair that chased us didn’t attack, not right away. They stopped and radioed someone – there’s no mistaking that tilt of the head towards the shoulder. They held their guns ready a short distance away, and when our engines roared and we were scrambling inside, they opened fire.

No-one was hurt. I’m sure about that. But they punctured the vehicles, both of them – the offroader’s rear windscreen is peppered with holes. How they didn’t hit someone, I don’t know.

We drove hell-for-leather in any direction but towards the depot. Tia was behind the wheel of the campervan – she’s small, but crazy. It was her idea to dive right into a warehouse and close up the doors, huddling down while we listened for our pursuit.

It came. Eventually, we heard the engines grumbling slowly along the warehouse district roads. So loud, so obvious – we were right to stop, or they could have just followed our noise right to us. I think that’s what they were looking for, because they didn’t check inside the quiet buildings. They were looking for noisy runners, not rabbits.

They’ve been circling ever since, even through the rain. We don’t dare move or light a fire – back to huddling in blankets and hoping that no-one notices us. I don’t like the look of these people. They’re too organised.

I’m not sure what we’ll do in the morning. What if they’re still out there?

Have to go – time to put the light out.

After a tense night in which none of us slept much, we weren’t sure whether to welcome the leak of orange light back into our world. The sound of distant engines still floated to us and no-one wanted to draw attention to our position by starting our vehicles.

Which left us with a dilemma. Do we abandon the vehicles and sneak away, or take the chance that they’ve given up looking for us? We’ve spent so long gathering supplies that we’re reluctant to leave any of it behind, but we can’t possibly carry it all. There’s just too much.

I spent a little time going over what was packed into the campervan, to see how much we might be able to take and what we could afford to leave behind. Beyond the stacks of nut boxes, I found Dillon’s pack. I stopped then. There’s no way I could leave it behind and I can’t carry it as well as all my own gear. We had to find another way to get out of this.

“Maybe they’re reasonable,” someone said when we gathered together to talk about our options. The group was a morass of hope, doubt, and bruised cynicism. No-one wanted to take that first step into the firing line, just in case.

It’s always me. Faced with a reluctant situation in which someone needed to step forward, I always blink first. This particular choice was more perilous than most we’ve faced, but I didn’t see any reason to break the pattern this time. I’m not completely stupid – I suggested we watch them for a while before introducing ourselves. Matt tensed up and Thorpe managed to look even more closed and unhappy than usual, but they didn’t argue.

So off we went. Sneaking through the streets, creeping up towards the depot, we were like ninja in cracked boots and rainbow scarves. We were less ninja-like when we fumbled around inside a warehouse, trying to find somewhere to watch the depot from without being seen. It was more like a comedy of shushes and thumps and muttered swearing.

We didn’t have to wait long for one of those distant engines to turn up – a big truck rumbled in to turn its empty back end to the depot. Seems like they’re emptying the place, taking the supplies elsewhere. Which means that there are a lot more of them somewhere.

I’d love to know how they got a truck that big started – I have a mental image of people lined up on either side like ants, all hauling the great thing into motion so the engine can stutter into life. Somehow, I think they’ve got a better solution than that. I’m a little jealous.

It all seemed so normal. Ordered, ordinary. One of the guards smoked a cigarette like it was a treat, blowing curls into the air. It seemed safe. I was about to get up and go out there when Thorpe clamped a hand on my shoulder and held me down.

That’s when we heard the flap of feet approaching, the kind of patter that panic brings up an empty street along with the rasp of air over teeth. There were three of them, one of them white-haired, running for all they were worth. From the direction they came from, it looked like they followed the truck in. When they drew close, they started waving their hands, calling out. We didn’t need to hear them to know what they were saying. Help us, help us. The shamblers are coming.

The guards didn’t listen. They lifted their weapons and we ducked down, closing our eyes and ears. There was nothing else we could do. We might have been able to avoid the sight, but we couldn’t escape the sound that bounced off the walls at us. The burning rattle, the screams. The too-soft thuds. Our own hearts thrashing in our chests.

I saw Terry holding his sister tightly. Thorpe still had a hand on my shoulder and I had a grip on Matt on my other side. We barely dared to breathe as the silence fell down around us; I think Dan was the only one of us still looking out of the window.

“We should go now,” he said.

We slunk away like bad dogs. I glanced back once and saw the guards calling for help from within the depot. The stumble of shamblers was already pulling itself into sight up the street and the recently dead wouldn’t distract them for long.

We ran back to the vehicles, detouring wildly around the long tail of the shambler chain. Some of them broke off to follow us; we just kept moving, not daring to stop even to fight. e’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, just keep going.

At least it’s easy to outrun the shamblers. I was terrified for all of us and suddenly aware that we might get lost here. Melted by the rain, the buildings all looked the same. Luckily, Tia has a good sense of direction and led us back.

The fear was notching up in my stomach while we got the vehicles going. We could hear distant gunfire and faint shuffles. We had to get out of there, get away. We shouldered the big doors open and drove out in the direction that would take us far from all of this. Then it was all about scrambling and getting away from that area. We put the warehouses in our rearview mirrors and hoped that the shamblers peppering the streets would keep the men with guns too busy to come after us.

They just tore those people down. They didn’t need to. Just shot them and left them there to be devoured. A nice little delay while they prepared themselves. And we almost went up and offered ourselves to them. I almost did.

I feel like things are falling away from us. We’re short of water, the fuel cans are empty, and the tanks are running dry. We had to find somewhere undercover for the vehicles before the rain came because of the damage to the rear windows. I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be able to use those vehicles. We need to find new ones, and a fresh source of fuel to run them.

We didn’t lose anyone today. I feel like we might at any moment, and the others feel it too. We sat closer together around our sad little fire tonight. But for today, we’re all here.

We’re grateful for small mercies, but we’re not looking forward to tomorrow.

We are an even number again. There’s a part of me that wants to fight that one little fact, as if Dillon’s place with us could ever be filled. It can’t. It’s just our number that’s even, not our hearts.

Still, I can’t begrudge the one who has joined us. In fact, I was pleased; after the past few days, we needed something to pick us up again.

We were trying to fix the vehicles. Plastic sheeting over the rear windows and pock-marked panels, secured with the fabulous wrap of ductape. We switched to our last spare set of tyres, too; with all the acid on the roads, in ice or puddles, the treads have been wearing down far too quickly. It might be pointless unless we find more fuel to keep them running, but at least they’ll last a little while longer.

The sound of an engine approaching set us all on edge. We downed tools and ducked out of sight, taut as harpstrings. It wasn’t a big engine – in fact, it sounded thin and rattly – but you never know. These days, you just never know.

It almost went past us without comment. A single person on a motorcycle, anonymously helmeted, drifting slowly down the street. My first thought was that the guards were sending out scouts. Then Terry scowled and Dale leaned forward, staring at the back of the rider’s jacket. A design had been roughly painted on, one I found familiar but couldn’t make out.

Dale had no such problem. He ran out into the street, ignoring hissing and grabbing from the rest of us. With two fingers in his mouth, he whistled, brazen and piercing. We winced at the recklessness of it, while the rider heard and turned back. The rest of us quickly hurried out onto the road, forming up around Dale in case he needed our support.

As it turned out, he didn’t need us or any kind of protection. The rider stopped and shut off the engine, unworried by the mob of us standing there. When the helmet came off, we saw why. One of us, come back to the group, come back to the road.

The first thing I thought was that her hair’s grown and she looks more like a girl now.

Jersey. Most of us were pleased to see her. Dale was grinning and went to slap her on the shoulder; he has apparently forgiven her for the months of lying while they were running as the Wolverines. There were no hugs – she’s not really into that – but plenty of friendly buffets and what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here.

“Got sick of sitting on my ass at the university,” she told us, wheeling the bike towards where our vehicles were stashed. “So I thought I’d come see if you guys needed a hand out here. Heard where you were over the radio.” I know Dale and Dan have been talking to the ones we left behind fairly often, when we can get a signal.

There’s obviously more to it than that but none of us pressed her on it. She has her secrets; the difference now is that we all know they’re there, and that makes it okay. Almost. But a few cans of soup and beans soothe a lot of ruffled feathers. We ate well tonight because of her.

The only one who hung back from the greetings was Terry. He’s still bruised over believing that she was a guy and has been brooding since she turned up. It’s not like him and even Tia is worried. It’s putting bluster into Jersey’s attitude – no-one wants a fight right now, least of all her, so she’s trying to breeze right on past the unpleasantness. I can’t blame her for that.

Eight’s lucky, according to the Chinese. I don’t know if it’s lucky for us. My mind keeps wandering back to the eighth we lost; he’s never far away these days.

I miss the ones we left at the university. I miss the clutter and chatter of them, their faces around the fire. Their stories and the sussurrus of their voices. It’s good to see even just one of them again.

But eight will do. Eight feels right. Welcome back, Jersey.

We’re stumbling a bit today. Last night, we came across a crate of vodka bottles hidden in the back of the old bar we were bedding down in.

There was silliness and stories, and Jersey gave us news about what has been happening back at the university. We had heard from them over the radio, but only shards, and we were all eager to catch up with them. I think we’re all glad to know that our friends are still there, that they didn’t disappear as soon as they were out of sight. That the shamblers haven’t risen up and swallowed them.

Sally is huge now. From everything the two doctors can tell, she’s doing fine and so is the baby. They think she’s due in about ten weeks, and Masterson is getting snappier each time that number goes down.

Dr Kostoya has adopted everyone who will listen to his chemical babblings. Conroy is straining his braincells trying to keep up – though completely in his element – and even the kids are playing with the ridiculously long words. The little ones don’t get it, but the chemist only requires that an audience entertain him, not understand. That will come with time, he says.

Kostoya’s work is coming along well, they think. They’ve set up a water filtration system and he’s still tracking down the exact nature of the poison. From the little shudder that Jersey gave when she mentioned the acid, I think part of that ‘tracking down’ involved her and her recently-tainted bloodstream. Another reason why she wound up here with us.

Bree and her little friends are still there, becoming a more integral part of the group now that we’ve gone. Now I’ve gone.

Food is becoming an issue for them, too. They have the water situation sorted out, but all the filtering in the world won’t turn it into something to sustain the human body on its own. Their scavenging parties are ranging further and further afield, stretching themselves thin over the threat of shamblers and other survivors. They’ve been attacked a few times by both the living and the broken.

She didn’t say much about Janice and Tom. Someone did ask – Tia, I think. They were good to her, especially when she wasn’t well. Tom’s not well now, but not from injury or starvation. Jersey said something about testing, and I think that’s why she’s here. If Tom has the Sickness, she doesn’t want to watch what’s happening to him. She doesn’t want to see her own future.

She won’t talk about it, breezes right past it all, but it’s there in between her words. It hangs over her like her lie and her secret. Instead she came to us, spent days searching for us in a way that might have got her killed in so many ways. All on her own. I don’t know if I could have done that.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel isolated. I’m never alone – there’s always the others here with me, crammed in close – but outside of our circle is the gulf of our empty world. Even with the radio, voices carrying over the distance, it’s not the same. Gossiping with Jersey felt like a family reunion, with word of cousins and aunts and a crazy old uncle.

It was good. There’s not enough to eat: my stomach is rumbling and we just got done with dinner. We’re all hungover after last night, headsore and drawn. But it was nice, talking about distant friends. Talking about the world out of our reach as if it’s still there. At some point, I fell asleep with my head in Matt’s lap.

A little news goes a long way.

It seems that spring is coming in very slow steps. There’s less ice around now. What little forms overnight is usually gone by the time we’re all up and ready to go. It’s not warm enough to dry up all of the water, though, so we still have to be careful with our footing – no-one wants to put a boot in a puddle, let alone fall down in one.

Jersey is still with us – we’ve strapped her bike to the back of the campervan. Terry isn’t talking to her, but everyone else is getting along with her just fine. Even Tia – I think she’s spending time with the ex-Wolverine just to spite her brother.

I catch Jersey looking at Terry sometimes and the look on her face is familiar. It’s how she used to look when she talked about Rico, the fella who ran the Wolverines until he got Sick. Pained and slightly sad. I wonder if she ever told Rico how she felt. Probably not – how could it have ever worked, while she was pretending to be a boy? And now Terry knows the truth but is so angry over the deception that he’s ignoring her. That’s probably her worst fear when it comes to him.

Much as I might like to, I can’t tell her that I sympathise; she hates pity. That’s part of why she created the lie in the first place: she wanted to protect herself, on her own terms. I can’t believe she kept up the pretence for so long – months, it had to be. I know I couldn’t do it.

The tangled nature of it all is giving me a headache. This is why I prefer not to lie – it’s too complicated and fraught with hurt when it all comes down. At least it’s taking my mind off how hungry I am.

Greenberry is directly west of us now; if we head any further north, we’re going to just make this whole trip longer. We’ve decided to strike out for it, just run there as fast as we can.

Our progress hasn’t been great. We’ve been limping along, stopping periodically to check for supplies – food and fuel mostly. We’ve managed to scrape enough fuel together to last us for a while, but every source we’ve come across had already been broken into and sucked almost dry. Even the vehicles abandoned on the road.

I keep thinking about that truck and how much it must guzzle in order to keep moving. I think we all know who has been through here ahead of us, scouring the landscape like locusts. Thinking about it makes me nervous – they might come back at any time, they might pass through here again. I catch myself listening for distant engines and gunfire when it grows quiet.

The shortage is pressing on all of us. It’s not just that we’re hungry and cold; those are just symptoms of a bigger problem. As much as we’ve all tried to pretend it doesn’t exist, the problem is becoming the elephant in our room.

There’s nothing new coming into the world. Everything we find, everything we scavenge, is all that’s left. There are no farms growing fresh food, no factories making new products, no refineries producing diesel. We’ve known this since the bomb went off, but now we’re running out. We’re burning through what little we’ve got and, one day soon, we won’t find anything to live on.

The world’s not done breaking yet: it won’t be over until we’re all dead. It’s doing its best to make that happen. And it might not take that long.

We stand on a threshold now. The rain is battering outside and night has fallen, but we know it’s there, just outside the walls of this little salon.

Once again, we have run up against the edge of what used to be civilisation. I don’t really know what to call it now. Shelter, perhaps. All that’s left of what people built in the world. And beyond it is the bare open ground.

With two vehicles held together by ductape, plastic, and oil, we can only hope that they’ll last long enough to carry us across the gulf. The rain still comes every day, even though the earth is so thoroughly soaked that it doesn’t seem to be able to take any more of it. The earlier the ice melts, the bigger and more persistent the puddles seem to be.

Somewhere out there in the open space is Greenberry. The source of the radio signal, that one that still loops over and over. There’s a chance that it’s just a machine out there, mindlessly talking to the empty air. We’ve tried, but there hasn’t been any answer from whoever set up that signal. We don’t know if there’s anyone left watching over it.

It could be nothing. But it’s the last place we’ve got left to go. We’re Seekers, and this is the only thing left to seek.

After this, I don’t know what we’ll do. I don’t want to think about it but it’s hanging over us as huge and dark as the gaping bare earth outside.

We’re all quiet tonight, all thinking the same thing. The map shows a small cluster of buildings at Greenberry, just inside a wide sprawl of what was once green, rolling hills. Barring obstacles, we should be able to get there tomorrow. One quick jump across the gulf and there’s shelter waiting for us on the other side.

I wonder how many other people have sat here like this, looking at the last step and churning over what they’ll find. I wonder what they found, and if it’ll be the same as what we’ll find tomorrow.

I can’t stand this. The quiet, the waiting. None of us will sleep tonight. Even Jersey has lost the shine of her determined bounce.

There must be something else to do in this place. Something else to find. I’m going to find it. If nothing else, the search is something to do.

I guess that’s why they call us Seekers.