The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

I finally got a chance to talk to Matt this morning. His swollen lip forces him to mumble and he can only see me out of one eye right now, but he seems to be doing all right.

I filled him in on what happened after Simon put him out, let him know that the others are okay. He and Thorpe took the worst of it and the Sharks came off badly. I didn’t mention the General’s appearance or the questions about the fight; there’s no point worrying him just yet. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time to worry about repercussions once he’s back on his feet or at least able to form audible sentences.

I had to ask him about what happened. The subject stood like an elephant between us; we both knew that it needed to be aired.

“Did they go after Terry?” There wasn’t any point beating around the bush on this.

His visible eye went hard and unhappy – not a look I’ve seen on my friend before. He nodded stiffly. I held his hand loosely, unable to grip him because of the wrappings around his bruised, torn knuckles. “Couldn’t get to me,” he said.

I looked at him and saw what he meant, saw the cogs turning under his skin. My stomach went cold and I shook my head. “Matt, it wasn’t your fault.”

His glance away disagreed with me. He believed that because they couldn’t get to him, they went after his weaker friend instead. To punish him, to prove that he wasn’t as untouchable as he’d like to make out. Poor Terry never knew to protect himself from that.

“You didn’t do this,” I told him. “They did. You did nothing wrong, nothing at all. It’s not your fault.”

He didn’t answer. I couldn’t stand seeing him like that, beaten and still punishing himself. He hardly looks like the boy I grew up with, the one I’ve known forever.

“You stopped them.” I kept speaking because I hated the silence between us. “Before they– I mean, Terry, they didn’t hurt him badly.” I hoped I was right. Terry hadn’t seemed badly hurt when I checked him over – he’d been hit and his hands were the least damaged of everyone involved, but that was it. I didn’t want to put the possibility of rape into words, but luckily I didn’t need to. Neither of us wanted that spelled out, as if hearing it made it more real, more tangible.

“Yeah,” he mumbled to me, sighing. We were both relieved.

“So, you saved him.”

He glanced at me, unwilling to unbend from his guilt, but his fingers wiggled at my hand lightly. That was enough on that. “Was coming to see you.” It sounded like a change of subject but I wasn’t sure.

“Who was? You?”

He nodded. That was the only reason he came across Terry and the Sharks; he was on his way here. I don’t like to think about luck like that.

“Well, for future reference, you don’t have to go getting yourself stabbed just to see me. Next time, fake a sniffle, okay?”

He blinked at me, and then he groaned. I’m not sure if he said ‘ow’ or ‘cow’, but I am sure that he was laughing, at least a little bit. I was close enough for him to ruffle my hair with his fingertips and I grinned at him. That was better. That was more like my Matt.

Next thing I knew, he was grappling at my hand, awkwardly because of his bound knuckles. “Wanted to tell you somethin’,” he said.

He sounded so intent that my smile faded. I remembered him trying to talk to me yesterday when he had just got here, and I watched him struggling to get the words out with a growing sense of dread. “What is it? I’m here, Matt. What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and I think he tried to smile, but it was hard to tell with his fat lip. “Not wrong. S’good. Promise. You gotta come with me somewhere.”

“What, now? You’re not going anywhere, mister.”

“Soon.” He looked so proud of himself, but he was tapping the back of my hand with his fingertips the way I like, so I couldn’t hold it against him.

“Simon says you’ll be in bed for a few days.”

He gave a little whine. “Stop makin’ me laugh. Hurts.”

“What?”

“Simon says? You five?”

“It’s the medic’s name!” I couldn’t help it; by then, I was giggling too.

I poked fun at him until he begged me to stop – it really did hurt – and then I went and did my rounds for the day. I avoided the Shark’s room; he was awake and I didn’t want to have to suppress the urge to smack him.

The other Seekers came back for fresh dressings, fresh from a grilling by the cutouts. They have soldiers in the dorms, making sure the peace is nailed down, but somehow that’s not a great reassurance. No-one has come to talk to Matt yet, but I think Simon had something to do with that. I’m hoping that the General comes down to do it; I haven’t forgotten my list and he won’t get away from me so easily again.

In the meantime, I’m keeping my best friend company and trying to help him forget how much pain he’s in. If I have to sleep in that chair again, I’m going to wake up cricked.

Simon warned me that scuffles happen a lot around here, but I had no idea it would be this often. At least the latest one had nothing to do with the Sharks, though it had everything to do with someone getting screwed.

I feel like I’m on the fringes of a war zone. I’m unable to see the action; all I get are second-hand accounts and graphic images of the aftermath. I’m frustrated with all of it – I’d rather be out there trying to fix it than in here patching up afterwards. I don’t know if I could fix any of it, but at least I’d feel less useless in the face of all the hurt I’m seeing.

They came in in the early hours of the morning. Luckily, I was dozing next to Matt’s bed and if I’m honest, I was glad of the distraction. Watching him sleep is painful; when he’s awake, I can forget what happened in my attempts to keep his spirits up, but when he’s asleep, all I can see is the damage. His discoloured, swollen face that doesn’t look like him at all. It’s starting to go down now, but it still tugs at me to see him like that.

I had to send one of the escorts to get Simon and Peter up. It was more than I was comfortable handling on my own – bumps and bruises are fine, but I worry about the injuries that aren’t so easy to see. Internal bleeding, concussion, cracked bones – the boys are better at spotting those than I am.

There were three beaten boys this time – one army cutout and two civilians. Their injuries told me the story of what happened; sometimes it bothers me that I’m so used to reading these things. The youngest fella had a bust nose that had bled everywhere but his hands were unmarred – he hadn’t thrown a single punch and was probably an unlucky bystander that got smacked in the confusion. The other civilian seems to have taken the worst of it – it looked like someone used a bar to hit him. He was conscious but had several long, nasty bruises across his arms and shoulders from trying to defend his head.

At the time, I didn’t think it was the cutout that did it – the three exchanged looks a couple of times, and there was no enmity in any of it. From what I can tell, the cutout stepped in to pull the attacker off the civilian.

I didn’t ask who that fourth party was; it was more interesting listening to their mutterings. They didn’t say much, but the cutout did spit out something about a ‘bitch’. I tried not to be amused at their grumpiness that a girl could do something like this. It was funny because even after nine months of scrabbling and scraping to survive, they still had no idea what people were really capable of. They’ve been in Haven for too long.

It was a short while later that the culprit turned up, marched in by a pair of soldiers. Her face was marred by blood but I knew that defiant glare. My stomach clenched as I went to relieve the cutouts of their burden and eased her onto a bed. Jersey.

None of the injuries were serious, though there were a couple of head wounds that bled impressively. Lumps and vivid bruises painted pictures of exchanged aggression. No-one said anything, not even the Seeker when I asked her. She just glared at me, her anger aimed at the whole world while her jaw clenched down on the pain. She hunched over awkwardly but wouldn’t let anyone check her out. I had to wait until morning and a chance to get her alone before she’d let me help her.

After the midnight flurry of activity, the infirmary settled down into an uneasy rest. Not long after breakfast, a couple of cutouts – higher-ranking ones, from the stripes on their arms – came to question the latest combatants. The fellas had short interviews and were released back into the wild. Jersey was the last one they went to talk to, and they got a whole lot of nothing out of her. She does a good impression of a baleful rock when she wants to.

It was a little before lunch when the General came in. He spoke with the interviewers, looking grave. He tried to talk to Jersey as well but her lips were not parting for anyone. I went over to try to snag the General before he left, and he rounded on me with a scowl to outdo the ex-Wolverine.

“Why is it always your people causing trouble? If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

“It’s my people being attacked by everyone else here!”

“If you would just stick to the rules–”

“What rules! The ones no-one tells us about?”

“Yeah, tell her about the ‘rule’ that got your boy in trouble. Go on,” Jersey said, getting up to limp over to us. “Tell her about how you’re whoring us out to the men.”

I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak. I stared at the General, waiting for him to deny it. At the edges of the room, the officers and medics looked on.

“It is not that simple,” he said with weighty calm.

“Then explain it to us,” I said.

He huffed, but he sent the others out of the room so that he could speak to us alone. He explained shortly that there were five men to every one woman here, and if there wasn’t some provision for physical pleasure, then they would make their own. So they have a system. It was expected of the women to keep the men quiet. It would be worse for everyone if they didn’t.

I felt sick as he explained it. I remembered that night I saw a group of men crossing the courtyard towards the girls’ dorms. I remembered the General’s comment when I arrived about how he hoped to have more kids for the school soon. I hadn’t realised that he intended to make them.

I asked him what would happen if we refused. He said that the whole point was to avoid rape. It was for the greater good. I saw then what he had done; he had made the girls responsible for sending some of their number to entertain the troops. Those who didn’t want to would be pressured from both sides. It made my head spin to think about.

“But it doesn’t work,” Jersey said. The marks on her were testament to that.

“It works better than the alternative. Without it, this place would tear itself apart at the seams.” That was all the General had to say on the matter. He said that he would consider suitable punishments for those involved; then he said goodbye and walked out, ignoring my pleas for him to wait.

I told Jersey that I was sorry, feeling awful just thinking about what happened, but she shook her head at me. “Wasn’t me he tried it on.”

I didn’t need her to say any more; I knew her well enough to read the truth. She had heard the commotion and found a girl in trouble, and she’d stepped in, as blunt and straightforward as always. She had spent months running with the Wolverines; she knew how to handle herself in a brawl. The girl ran off during the fight and Jersey won’t say who it was. All I could get out of her was that it wasn’t Tia.

I don’t know what to do with myself now. I’m glad Matt’s here – he means that I don’t have to go back to the dorms. I don’t want to go back – I don’t want to look at those women and wonder whose turn it is tonight. I don’t want them to ask me when I’m stepping up to take part. I don’t want to do it. Not like that.

All I can think about is footsteps crossing the courtyard outside, furtive movements in a dark building next to the girls’ dorms. We’re making so many compromises to be here, siphoning pieces of ourselves off here and there to fit into this mould.

How will we know if we’ve compromised away everything that makes us who we are?

Last night, I was numb when I went to settle down with Matt. He asked me what was going on for the fourth time that day, and I finally felt able to tell him.

As I spoke, there was something in his expression that made me pause. He already knew about the deal, about the nightly visitations. I felt oddly betrayed because he hadn’t told me, but he was surprised that I didn’t know. He said he thought the women would have told me.

I feel more out of touch than ever. I’m playing a perpetual game of catchup, only I don’t know what I’m chasing most of the time. I feel like everyone is watching me rush around, wondering what all the fuss is about.

His expression was guarded when he asked me if I would ever do it. If I’d take part in this man-feeding. Then he took my hand and said I didn’t need to answer; my face said enough. I wished that we could pick up the pretence that protected us when the Wolverines joined us, in case a relationship between us would fend off all of these issues. He said it might be worth a try.

The thing is, I’m not sure if a pretence is enough any more.

Today, even Simon commented on how quiet I was. He seemed more relieved than anything else, so I didn’t bother trying to talk to him. I kept catching Peter grinning at me; each time, my stomach flopped over on itself and I had to go do something else.

I found Matt a crutch and he got up to pole himself around the room. His face is better today, with the swelling easing slowly and the bruises losing the vivid purple edge. While he was up and moving around, I asked him about what else I should know. How much of my confusion has already been answered for my friends?

He shrugged and kept going, tap-hop tap-hopping between the furniture. We started to pool what we knew.

The rules are pretty much what I already knew. Stay to your assigned areas, don’t go wandering around on your own. It’s especially important for the girls. I asked him why, when there are so many cutouts around, and he said that that’s part of the problem. “They’re fellas too, y’know,” was how he put it. Stupidly, I hadn’t even considered that; I saw the uniforms and thought of discipline, obedience, and order. I hadn’t realised that they’d crack open their collars and be men underneath. I guess some habits of the time Before haven’t completely left me, even after everything.

The water filtration system that turned our own waste into necessary drink. The mechanic section that was keeping the vehicles going – they have a way to get the ignitions working, so they don’t have to push-start the damned things. The machine that’s being constructed in the warehouse – some vital piece of equipment that will help secure a lasting future for all of us. It’s stalled at the moment, missing some vital parts that the machine shop is trying to build out of scraps. They call it the Converter.

It felt good, churning these things over with Matt. He makes me feel more solid and it seemed to make more sense when we were done. By then, he was flushed and I made him sit down and drink some water for a while.

I still need to talk to the General. There are answers that we don’t have between us and the bigger issues are still beyond our reach. At least I’ll feel less foolish now. It’s not just me with these questions; I’m just the one that’s going to step forward and ask them, as usual. After that, well, I don’t know what will happen. But at least we’ll be able to make informed choices; no more following the herd like we’re forced to now.

I didn’t want to bother the General again so soon, but I don’t want this to drag on much longer. I can feel us all slipping and I’m afraid of what our own inertia will do. Tomorrow I’ll visit the General and see if we can sort this out.

I almost didn’t make it to see the General today. Matt insisted that I go, and though I didn’t want to leave him, I went anyway.

Last night, Matt wasn’t just flushed after his exercise around the room with the crutch: he was shaky too, though he tried to hide it. He keeps waving away my concern, saying that his leg hurts and he’s just recovering. He slept most of today and didn’t get up to move around again. I hope that’s not a bad sign.

I was going to stay with him this afternoon too, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. If he could, he would have got up and shooed me out. Instead, he just batted my hands away and said, “I’ll be here when you get back.”

I asked Peter to keep an eye on him on my way out. It might have raised some eyebrows, but I wasn’t going to leave him completely unattended. I slipped out before I could be questioned about where I was going.

The sky was darkening the way it does before the rain when I let myself into the admin building. I didn’t want to be turned away from the front and I didn’t know where the back door was, but it was a safe assumption that it had one. Unfortunately, it was locked, but there was a loose window – a brief scramble and a frantic attempt to avoid landing on my head, and then I was inside. I paused to listen, but the cutouts hadn’t heard me hit the floor. Small mercies, I suppose.

I waited for the rain to start before I tried to get to the office. The tap of acid water hitting the windows and the faint hiss as it slithered down the walls filled the building, and the eerie orange light dimmed even further. Elsewhere in the compound, a generator started up, sputtering a bare few bulbs into life.

I’m used to making my way around in half-light, so it wasn’t much trouble to sneak up to the floor where the General’s office lived. Standing in front of the panel, pale light painted my toes, sneaking out from under the door. I took a breath and knocked, and entered when permission came from the other side.

He was expecting a cutout and half-rose out of his chair in surprise when he saw me. He glanced at his window and demanded to know how I had got there. I just smiled and told him that my timing was good. I needed to talk to him and he’s a hard man to get to see – I kept being told that he was too busy. He gestured to the stack of papers on his desk as he sat down again and said that he was always busy.

“So now is as good a time as any,” I said, taking the chair opposite him. I hoped that he couldn’t tell how fast my heart was beating while I waited for him to decide whether or not to throw me out.

“If this is about what happened the other day, I really have nothing more to say on the matter.” As starts go, it wasn’t the best.

“I think you said enough. You made your position quite clear.” I didn’t like it, not one bit, but he’d had his reasons. I might not agree but I also didn’t think arguing with him would get me anywhere.

“So, what do you want?”

Now that I had finally come to it, it was hard to know where to start. I opened my mouth a couple of times as my brain kept trying to find the right question. Eventually, I wound up asking, “What’s the purpose of this place?”

He was surprised again and leaned back in his chair as he scowled at me. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.” I think he expected me to attack him somehow. That wasn’t what I was there for. Do I really come across like that to him?

“This place. What are its aims? What is it we’re all working so hard for?”

“Well, survival, of course. It’s not easy out there, but we’ve made a safe place here.”

It was tempting to argue with him on that point – ‘safety’ is a sensitive issue for us right now – but I decided not to interrupt him. I just listened while he told me about how they’re building a new future here. Getting all the basics sorted out before they move on to the real rebuilding. Food, water, power. School, skills. Children to replace the numbers we’ve lost. I asked him about the resources problem, and he said that they have enough stocked up to get past this setup period. That’s what he called it: a setup period. Months after the bomb and they’re still just starting.

It was disheartening. Of course it’ll take time, but I had hoped they were further along than that. My hope of it getting better soon is dribbling away from me; this place isn’t going to get better for some time yet.

I asked him about the Converter they’re building, and he said that it will produce power and water when it’s finished. It’s at the centre of most of the work going on here, and at the centre of the future they’re building. It’s the key to Haven’s hope and future.

When I asked him why they weren’t out looking for survivors, he said that it was a resources issue. They have enough to sustain Haven, but not frequent trips out into the wild. It wasn’t worth the expense or the risk. I started to argue with him, but even while I vented my outrage at that idea – that saving lives wasn’t worth risking something – I knew there was no point. He was a rock that had already made up its mind.

He has a way of making me feel small and stupid. Everything he said made so much sense, even while my innards rebelled and I wanted to spew my thoughts all over him. We could both feel the pressure building; it was palpable in the air between us. His answers got shorter and sharper, more defensive.

“Is there anything else you’d like to criticise?” he asked eventually, bringing his hands down on the desk with a bang.

I jumped, then frowned at him. “Yes. Why can’t I see my friends? Not everyone is a bastard that needs to be watched.”

“If I start making concessions for you, I have to start making them for everyone, now don’t I?”

“That’s so backwards.” I hadn’t realised I had said it out loud. I hadn’t actually meant to; it’s the sort of thing I usually stew on silently, like most of my objections.

Then he started shouting at me. About how my group thought they were special and didn’t know how to get along with other people. I thought I knew everything and did nothing but try to tear down everything they’d built. We were lucky that they didn’t exile people as a punishment. We should toe the line or get the hell out, because he was sick of having to justify himself all the time.

I felt awful. I hadn’t meant to do that. I was a naughty schoolkid, a child in his eyes. As far as he was concerned, I knew nothing and was shitting on everything he’d built.

Once upon a time, a dressing-down like that would made me break down in tears. I felt it coming, rising in my chest and filling up my eyes. But I’m not a kid any more. Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my feet and shouting right back at him. They took everything we had and brought us here. We didn’t ask for any of this, and we didn’t agree to it. We were just dumped here and expected to toe the line. And we deserve to know what’s going on.

It was too much. I spilled myself, then I was empty couldn’t stand there any more. The door slammed behind me on the way out but there was nowhere to go. The rain was still dribbling down outside, so I couldn’t escape. I pushed past a couple of bemused cutouts and found an empty office on another floor to shut myself in. Then I was true to form and collapsed in tears.

I can’t tell if I’m just being stubborn any more. Everything I learn about this place makes my insides turn over, and every time I think I’ve come to terms with it, something else flops them back the other way. Every instinct I have resists. But we’re fed, and we’re defended, and there’s a future being built here. I’m twisting up into knots.

They haven’t bothered me since I left the General’s office. The rain is finally stopping; I’ll be able to go soon. Back to the infirmary, back to my best friend. I’d like to say that I’d be going back to somewhere I belong, but I don’t know if that’s true. If Matt wasn’t there, I don’t know where I’d go.

I feel like I’m slipping, but it’s so dark I can’t tell if I’m falling up or down.

When I got back last night, I was still trying to figure out what I had learned from the General and what use it might be. I forgot most of it when I saw Matt.

His face was flushed again, but he hadn’t been up this time. He kept saying that he was fine but he was definitely too hot. I ignored his protests and did my job.

I called Simon in and the medic agreed about the fever. He checked the stab wound and found it angrier than it had been when I changed the dressings yesterday. Violent red lines lead away from it, poisoning Matt’s whole body with the infection.

It’s not really a surprise, we were told, considering the rusty blade that made the hole. I stared at my friend and asked why he didn’t mention it earlier, but he just shrugged. He didn’t want to worry anyone. I told him that he’s an idiot but I kept a tight hold on his hand.

Simon has given him antibiotics and said we’ll see how it goes. He was tight-lipped about it; he’s more guarded than usual, so it must be bad. This kind of infection is nothing to be casual about at the best of times, and this isn’t one of those.

I sat with Matt all day, even when he slept. I snuck in a bowl of water to ease the fever with, trying to make him more comfortable. The antibiotics need some time to work. A couple of days, the medic thinks, then we might see some improvement; in the meantime, he’ll probably get worse.

Matt’s more scared by this than he’s letting on. He’s keeping so much inside these days – he jokes and chats with me well enough, but he doesn’t say what’s really going on with him. I don’t know if it’s the Sharks or the space between the dorms, but something is making him clam up. He’s usually so open and honest, especially with me, and the notion that something has interfered with him that much scares me.

I’m trying my best at just being here anyway. Trying to keep him going with whatever trivialities I can think of. We talked a bit about the General and the situation here.

He squeezed my hand and said, “I know, Faithy. I know. It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

The other injured Seekers came in today to get checked over. I had to pull Thorpe into another room to check on his ribs – he still won’t let any of the others know about it. From the looks Dale was giving us, I think he knows, so at least someone is looking out for the big lug day to day. They’re all healing okay, though.

We exchanged news. I told them what happened with Jersey – she’s back on sanitation duty, along with the fella she attacked – and that Matt was sick. They all went in to talk to him, and that cheered him up a bit.

Terry asked about Tia, but I haven’t seen her in days. I told him I’d find her and make sure she’s all right. Dale filled me in on the latest activities of the Sharks – in short, they’re keeping their heads down, both in regards to the cutouts and the Seekers. They’re not well-liked, so at least this might not blow up into something larger. I can only hope that it’s actually finished now.

Dan is the only one of the Seekers who wasn’t involved in the altercation, and word is that he’s doing okay. As quiet and unobtrusive as he is, I think Dan would fit in anywhere. He knows when to keep his mouth shut and do as he’s told. Maybe I should see if he’s got any advice for me in that regard.

I must have looked stressed, because each of my visiting friends asked me if I was okay. Even Thorpe – when he asked, I almost crumpled into tears again, because he doesn’t usually do that. I just miss my friends, I told him. I’m worried about all of them and Matt’s sick, and nothing here is what we were looking for. He patted my shoulder and I took a shuddering, steadying breath, trying not to lose control of my emotions all over him.

“We’ll work it out,” he said. We. That was exactly what I needed to hear.

He’s a rock. I never realised before how valuable that is, though a part of me always knew it. I don’t think I’ve needed it more than I do now. I was sad when he had to leave.

They went just before the rain came, and I returned to sit by Matt’s side. Sick of trying to sleep on a chair, I pulled a gurney into the room and crammed it against the wall. Most of my gear is here anyway. Simon tried to argue with me when I brought it over from the dorms, but I find that just not listening to him and doing what I need to works fine. I’m not leaving; it’s that simple.

Matt is still feverish and dozing. At the last check, his temperature had risen another couple of notches. There’s not a lot that we can do about it, though I’m still dampening him when I can. We just need to wait for the antibiotics to kick in. I think it’s going to be another long night.

He’s going to be all right, though. He has to be.

Today, my heart has been pulled a hundred different ways. I have seesawed so much – despair, euphoria, pain – and now I’m wrung out and don’t know what to do next. A part of me can hardly believe that all of this is true.

It’s so muddled. I don’t know where to start. I want to skip to the end but I don’t want to forget the beginning. My heart remembers the beginning and aches.

I was up most of last night. Matt’s fever was still high. Simon had given him what drugs he could but they weren’t doing much. He said that if Matt wasn’t better by the next afternoon, we would have to look at more extreme alternatives. When I asked him what that meant, he looked grave and gestured towards the injured leg.

“Remove the source of the problem,” is how he put it. I went cold all over and suddenly couldn’t speak at all. The idea made me sick.

“What?” I said eventually.

He looked at me sadly and sighed. “If it comes to that, it’s the leg or his life.”

I told him to get out. He couldn’t have either. He just couldn’t.

I couldn’t sleep, my head full of Simon’s ultimatum. Matt drifted in and out all through the dark hours. I talked to him, even sang a bit, though he probably didn’t hear most of it. I’m not sure if it was more for him or me. I had to keep him from slipping any further away, and they say that people can hear even when they’re asleep. Even in comas, they hear the voices around them. It was a slender thread between us, trembling on the air. I can’t even remember what I said to him – stories from when we were kids mostly, as if the weight of memories might be enough to hold him down.

He was awake long enough to drink something earlier. He smiled at me and asked how I was doing. I said I was sick of looking after his lazy ass and he laughed weakly. We knew it wasn’t true but pretending seemed better for both of us.

He fell asleep again a little while later. When I was sure he was out, I left the room to get some air and have a little break down. It’s so hard, doing this again. It was like this with Dillon. I kept telling him that it would be okay, just hold on, it’ll be all right. I talked to him about nothing and tried to keep his spirits up. He smiled and squeezed my hand and thanked me. And then he went away.

I don’t know if I can face that again. I don’t have a choice, not really; I can’t hide from this. I won’t. He’s my best friend and he’s always there for me when I need him. I won’t leave him alone, and I won’t let him leave me either. He’s not allowed.

When I got back to his room, Simon was there with his grim face and regretful expression. I told him no. I didn’t care if it was time or if it was his best chance. They’re not taking any pieces of him, and the infection was most likely too entrenched in the rest of his system by now anyway. The Sharks have taken so much from him and they’re damn well not getting a limb too. He’s going to be fine, if only to spite them and because I said so.

It was the perfect time for Matt to wake up. I’m not sure how much he heard. He asked me quietly what was going on. I didn’t want to tell him, but his expression asked for the truth and I didn’t have the heart to deny it. When I told him what Simon wanted to do, the horror that crossed his face was enough for me.

“He doesn’t want it,” I told the medic. “And he doesn’t need it. He’s gonna be fine.”

Simon knows how stubborn I can be and it wasn’t a battle he wanted to fight. He told me that it was my choice, heaped the responsibility on my head, and then left us to it. I think he knew that putting it that way would make me waver, but I can’t believe that I might be wrong. I’ve lost so much lately that I’m not losing any more, not even a part of a friend.

I sat down with Matt and he tangled his hand up with mine. His hands are still bandaged – I told him that he knows how to fight, and that he needs to keep doing that for just a little while longer, until this thing it out of his system. I wanted to tell him that he’s not allowed to go but the words wouldn’t come out of my throat. He thanked me and I kissed him instead.

“I have a confession to make,” he said suddenly. I looked puzzled, so he went on, “You remember that person you saw, when we first got here?”

I nodded. Sometimes, I couldn’t get that image out of my head: the incomplete one from the day we arrived here. The face I didn’t quite see, the body I don’t quite remember, the reason I shouted out.

“I think I know who it was. There’s someone here you need to see. Should’ve told you days ago, but he made me promise not to. Wanted to tell you himself.”

I stared at him, trying to think of who it might be and failing to come up with anything. My head has been too full of Matt and the General for there to be room for anyone else.

“He was s’posed to come see you.” He squeezed my hand. “Guess he got a little held up.” He nodded towards the door and I slid off the bed.

When I turned around, everything stopped. The world tilted and I thought I was falling, but I hadn’t moved. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

I was five years old and my sister was telling me that Santa Claus didn’t exist. I was eighteen, watching her being lowered into the ground. I was nineteen, watching my mother back out of the driveway for the last time. I was twenty-two and my boyfriend was screwing my closest girlfriend. My heart was breaking and, every time, there was that same hand on my shoulder, the same wordless hug.

“Daddy?”

I have only ever seen my dad cry once before. It was right after my sister died. I couldn’t sleep and came downstairs to get a drink. He was sitting in the dark, weeping quietly with his head in his hands, his whole body shaking. I almost went to him, but he was so private about it that I didn’t want to intrude. He didn’t want to show that to us and I respected his desire, retreating back to my room as unobtrusively as I could. I always wondered if maybe I could have comforted him that night.

Yesterday was the the second time I’ve seen my dad cry. There was no attempt at privacy. When I saw him, I couldn’t move – he had to come over and put his arms around me, and I collapsed into him. I clung and spilled, sobbing so hard I thought everything inside me would fall onto the floor with the stains and the footprints. It didn’t ease until I was exhausted by it, and then I realised that he was crying too. His face was buried in my shoulder and he was hugging me as if he was afraid that I might dissolve in his grasp like sand.

I have no idea how we stayed standing. My legs wanted to fold up and Dad was just as shaky as I was when we finally peeled off each other. We looked at each other and had one of those embarrassed, ‘oh look how silly we’re being’ laughs. He ducked his head and swiped at his cheeks as if that might remove the evidence, and I let him. He has never been a demonstrative kind of person; with Dad, it’s all in the little things. It’s the breakfast he makes when I’m feeling down or hungover, it’s the way he winds my scarf around my neck three times when it’s cold out. It’s the holiday he books when I need to get away from everything for a while.

My mother used to get so frustrated with him. The little things were never enough for her, not in the end. He tried, but balloons screaming ‘I love you’ were never his style and he always seemed to get the big gestures wrong. Or at least not right enough for my mother. She accused him of not caring once, but that has never been his problem.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. It was a while before we were each able to believe that the other wasn’t going to evaporate in a moment’s inattention. It hadn’t sunk in – he was here, really here, alive and in one piece. I couldn’t bring myself to break contact; after I grew brave enough to look away, one hand rested on his arm, connecting us.

I looked around at Matt and found him gazing at us vaguely. He was smiling, almost, and slipping back into sleep. I said his name and stepped to his side, taking his hand in my free one. He roused enough to answer me.

“It’s all right, Faithy,” he said. “Just need to rest now. Hello, Mr MacIntyre.”

“Hello again. Get some sleep, son.”

The wrenching euphoria of seeing Dad plunged into the familiar despair as I stroked Matt’s hair and watched him fall asleep. There was a hard lump in my throat as I counted his breaths and felt them slow and steady. They didn’t stop. I was so scared, but they didn’t stop. He was just sleeping, and by the time I realised that, I was crying again.

Dad drew me off to the gurney on the side of the room, where we could sit and talk without disturbing my sick friend. The stumbling explanations fell out as we tried to fill in the gap between us. We talked about Matt first, about the fever and how frightened I was. He said that he was glad Matt and I had found each other, and that we had been looking after each other all this time. Been doing it most of our lives, so it’s good we kept on with it.

His voice thickened when he started to apologise to me for not being able to look after me and I had to stop him. No. It wasn’t his fault. He kept himself alive and well, and that’s the best he could be expected to do for me. So many have been lost. So many killed in so many different ways. We were so far apart – the bomb stretched a once-small city into a sprawl of hazards and challenges. It’s amazing that we’ve both made it this far. It’s even luckier that we found each other, after so much time and miles. No apologies, or I would have to start saying sorry for taking so long to get here.

I still couldn’t let go of him or his big, familiar, grease-marked hand. I told him about the Seekers, about the journey we’ve taken, about my friends. I left some parts out for both our sakes. Some of it would only hurt us both if hung naked on the air. I told him that we stripped the car yard and he laughed and said he did the same.

He had waited at home for a long time. Over a month, until he stopped being able to scrounge food from the neighbourhood. Jim and Natalie from next door were with him for a while, until he put them in a car and sent them off in search of their kids up north. Then he went to the yard and lingered there for a while. He met people too, formed his own group. They heard the signal and came to Greenberry for the same reason we did; they just made it months before we did.

He stopped at one point and cupped my face in his hand. “I wanted to looked for you,” he told me. I’ve never seen him so earnest before, as if he was afraid that I wouldn’t believe him. Of course I believed him. “I didn’t know where to start. We heard that the CBD came down under the bomb, that there weren’t any survivors….”

I stopped him before he wound himself up too much. There weren’t many survivors. We had moved around so much that he couldn’t have hoped to find us. I was lucky, that was all. Just like now: lucky.

It didn’t occur to me until now why his words rang so wrong with me. When we sent the survivors out of the central business district of the city, they went to the hospital. When we got to the hospital, they had been sent on elsewhere; it wasn’t until we got to the Emergency Coordination Centre that we found out where they’d gone. Here. They were supposed to come here.

Had none of them made it? Or is it just that no-one talks about it? Is there any information passed around here at all?

That thought makes me so angry. How many hopes have they killed by not saying anything about this stuff?

Dad says he never gave up hoping I was still alive, just like I clung to the possibility that he was out here somewhere. I guess we’re alike in that way.

We talked all the way through the rainfall. I finally grew strong enough to let go of him, but only so that I could go check on Matt. The sick fella took some water but he didn’t wake again until much later in the night.

Dad is working with the mechanics. I should have known. He’s the one who helped them fix the ignitions. I told him that he has to show me how to do that and he laughed. I always did like getting dirty; used to drive my mother crazy. I think it pleased him that I took an interest in his work. Now, I’ll use any excuse to spend time with him.

But not yet. I have to get Matt well and back on his feet first. It’s not going well – he was moaning half the night, sliding in and out of delirium. He had quietened by morning, which was a relief because Simon would have used it as an excuse to try to cut his leg off.

Dad left at first light. “You take care of that boy,” he said. “I’ll see you both soon.” Then he kissed my forehead and hurried off before he changed his mind.

So now, here I am again, sitting by the bedside as the darkness thickens outside behind a veil of acid. Matt is pale and clammy, but he’s still here. Dad is out there. He’s definitely out there, just a short distance away. He’s alive. There’s still a part of me that reels whenever I try to believe that. Another part of me wants to get up and dance, wheel about the room out of sheer emotion. The rest of me is terrified I’m going to lose something precious very soon, because there can’t be this much goodness in the world any more. I can’t have everything I want; it just doesn’t work that way any more.

Luck is a fickle friend, and I don’t know if she’s smiling my way or pondering when to stick the knife in.

In the hopes of getting Matt to take something more than just water, I went to the kitchens this morning and tried to get something soup-like.

It feels like forever since I was working in there with the girls. They greeted me with nods and sidelong glances; I’m not sure what they’ve heard, but there has definitely been talk about me. Perhaps it’s paranoia, but it felt like they were all sizing me up, weighing me against the latest rumour. I can’t begin to know what it is they’ve heard; it could be about Dad, or my last meeting with the General, or my friend in the grip of a fever. Or maybe something completely different, something that’s happened while I’ve been busy.

I didn’t ask. I don’t want to worry about it right now; I have enough crawling around in my head, begging to be heard. I took the can of soup they gave me and the instructions that it was for us to share, and I left. I could feel their eyes on me as I went.

He didn’t eat any of it. I’ll try again later.

Dad came by to see me again today. He brought dinner with him, slipping in just before the rain came. He would usually sit and talk with the boys, he said, so he might as well come and talk with me.

I can see how this might be habit-forming. Sitting down to eat with him feels so normal, even though we’re perching on hard chairs and using a gurney as a table. We talked about nothing, exchanged stories about our travels – harmless stuff mostly, nothing too weighed with emotion or meaning. It was like comparing our days after we had been working, me at the bookstore and him at that car yard. An off-kilter, time After version.

We stumbled over ourselves, because we’re not used to each other any more. A couple of times, Dad looked at me, completely lost for what to say next. The third time it happened, he grimaced and shook his head.

“Faithy, you went and grew up while I wasn’t looking.”

I stared and him and asked what he meant by that, unsure about how to take it.

“You led your group, when before you spent so long following your sister, or that friend of yours.” He meant Bree. “Then you gave the General a grilling, and no-one has dared to do that.” His smile was secretly pleased that someone had given the General a hard time.

I told him how I ended up in charge and he smiled at me. I was sheepish when I admitted how I had pinned the General in his office for that talking-to and he laughed. It felt like the first time in forever that I had honestly smiled.

“Good for you,” he said. Then he added something that made my stomach flip-flop on itself. He said he was proud of me.

Abruptly, I felt like crying. “Don’t say that, Dad.” It was out before I could stop it. He looked puzzled and I struggled to know how to explain it. “You’ve only had the highlights – it wasn’t all like that. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

I killed a man. That’s what I wanted to tell him. My mouth wouldn’t form the words and my heart didn’t want to see his face fall. I wanted to say how awful I was, but it wasn’t fair to burden him with all that.

He covered my hands and I realised that they had curled into fists in front of me. “I know you, Faith. That’s enough for me.”

I bit my lip so that I wouldn’t say any more and just nodded. He was kind enough to change the subject, though he chose to talk about Matt and that isn’t guaranteed to make me feel better right now. We went to check on him and found him the same as before – hot, clammy, and lying quietly. At least he hasn’t been restless today.

Dad said that Matt will be all right. It was a jolt to realise that he was the first one to do that. I’ve said it plenty of times. I’ve been told that he’s in danger, he’s slipping, he needs more help. I’ve been told to hang in there, keep trying, don’t give up. But no-one else has said that he’ll be okay.

Words have a strange power. It doesn’t make it any more true to hear it, but it helps. I guess that’s why I write this blog – to try to make it more real and permanent by putting it into words.

Something’s going on. I have to go.

Matt got worse last night. He was writhing and making wordless, painful noises – that’s what dragged me away from yesterday’s post. For a while, all I could do was hold him down so he didn’t hurt himself.

I begged him to stop. My heart was thrashing in denial because my head kept whirling with ‘this is it, this is the end’. Dread crept over me like clammy ice. I can’t have them both. It’s not allowed, and so he was being taken away.

He was fighting so hard and I couldn’t help but think he would lose. This was the last of his strength, spinning itself out in a last-ditch attempt to shake off the infection.

When he started to calm, it was out of exhaustion rather than victory. He was shaking and gasping, snatching at the air while his limbs settled down on the bed again. Don’t go, I said to him. Don’t leave me. Stay. Stay here. I can’t lose you like I lost Dillon. I just can’t. You mean too much to me.

We went around like that twice more last night. Each time, he was weaker when he finished struggling. Each time, I was convinced that we were done, that he’d finally had enough.

Shortly before dawn, it was the fever that broke. Matt drifted down into a quiet slumber and the catch left his breathing. I didn’t know whether to trust it or not, so I sat up watching him, tracking the rise and fall of his chest, sponging off his face and neck. Looking for any sign that he was still in trouble.

The orange sunlight had crept over most of the room by the time he woke. He groaned and blinked up at me, then he said that I looked terrible. That wasn’t the phrase he used, but it was enough to make me laugh the kind of laugh that is all sharp edges and desperate relief. I cut it short before I slid into weeping. I feel like I’ve done little other than cry lately.

I managed to get him to eat something. I wanted to keep him awake, keep him talking and looking at me, but I let him fall asleep again. It’s good sleep now – it’s the rest he needs. He’s weak and pale, but his temperature is coming down and he’s over the worst of it. I’m too nervous to say that he’s on the mend, but that’s what it looks like.

I was so tired that I fell asleep not long after he did this morning. Simon woke me up, asking what I was doing. A small, mean part of me thinks he knew that I had been up for the past three nights and had only just gone to sleep, but I’m trying not to listen to it. He said there was work to do and I rolled over and went back to sleep. If it was an emergency, he would have woken me again, but he didn’t.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired or because of the draining events of the past few days, but I’m finding it hard to believe that Matt is going to be okay now. I want to be relieved but something is coiled too tightly inside me. It’s poised, holding its breath. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and I have no idea what colour it is.

Sometimes, I tell myself I’m being paranoid and silly; it is what it looks like. I just can’t feel that right now. I want to curl up on his shoulder and sleep, and know that he’ll be all right when I wake up. But there’s no room for me on the bed and I can’t bring myself to have that much faith.

Also, something is bothering me about the soup that I gave him. Not the soup itself – that was fine, I made sure – but the can it was in. I just can’t put my finger on what’s bothering me.

Hopefully things will make more sense in the morning.

I figured out what’s wrong with the soup can. It’s the brand. The logo on the label is the same as the one hanging over the supermarket depot that we saw being emptied, not that far from here.

We saw men with guns and a big truck. No uniforms, not like the cutouts here. They shot at us, they shot down people asking for help. They took the food and scattered everyone else before them with blood and fear.

I flushed cold and then hot when I realised. I paced around the little room, weighing the can in my hand as if I wanted to pitch it at someone. If the General had appeared at that moment, I would have.

When we saw the truck at the depot, I wondered how they could have got it started. The bevy of mechanics here figured it out, with my dad’s help. I wonder if he knows what they’re doing out there.

I’m angry that I didn’t notice before. I worked in the kitchens for days, but never had to fetch supplies out of the storerooms. I don’t think the other Seekers did, either. I wasn’t really paying attention to labels or packets – I was too glad to see food and know I’d be fed.

Now I remember my first conversation with the General in his office. I traced our route on the map for him, twice. He knew we’d been in the vicinity of the depot, and they had our vehicles with their decoration of bulletholes, so he knew that we had been shot at. The next day, I was moved out of the kitchens to the infirmary and Jersey and Tia were shifted into other jobs. There’s no coincidence in that; he knew we’d notice.

He told me that they had enough supplies to last for months. He never said where they got them from. I didn’t think to ask – I assumed the army had stocks for emergencies and calamities. Apparently, that wasn’t enough.

It’s not the food that makes me angry. It’s not the supplies they stripped out of the depot and stockpiled here. It’s not that they left nothing for any other survivors, because let’s face it, there aren’t many out there any more. It’s not even that they tried to hide where they got it all from.

It’s those people they gunned down in the street. It’s the bullets that chased us as we fled. They attacked and killed when they didn’t need to. How can they claim to want to help people and rebuild civilisation, if they’re going to do that? It doesn’t make any sense. Worse than that: it’s wrong.

It’s not the sort of group I want to be a part of.

Matt woke up while I was pacing and asked what was going on. I tried to tell him it was nothing; I didn’t want to upset him. But he knows me and my expressions, and he pressed for the not-nothing that was bothering me. So I sat down and told him, as calmly as I could.

“There must be an explanation,” he said.

I took a deep breath and nodded. There has to be something; I might not like all of the General’s choices, but he does have reasons for them. “I’ll ask him.”

Trust Matt to settle me down when I’m running in angry circles. He’s feeling better, he said. His temperature is almost back to normal but he still has some recovering to do.

Yesterday, I was so sure that this wasn’t real. I was afraid to believe that he would be okay. Today, that fear pales in the orange sunlight, when he smiles and looks like himself again. The swelling had drained from his face and the bruises are fading. I can see both of his eyes. I’ve missed their clarity.

I want to believe that it’s going to be all right and I won’t lose another person I love to this broken world. It feels good to want to believe in something again.

It also feels good to have something to strive for, even if it’s just the explanation of something awful.