The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

Today we stumbled into farmland. It was the strangest thing – one minute we were passing over rolling hills, winding our way between one tiny town and the next, and then we fell out onto open land. It was probably once a pretty green tablecloth, flicked out at the edges and decorated with trees and flowers. Now it’s a patch of bare, abused earth, naked and stripped, stretched out like not enough skin over old bones. The world has had a bad facelift and looks anything but young. Old, dry, overdone, and not at all graceful.

We came to a stop to look at it. It was about lunchtime anyway, and we’ve had a little bit of luck lately so we stopped to eat. We’re short on fuel but we have food for now – it looks like the shamblers ploughed through this area and ate all the people, leaving us their supplies still in the cupboards, gathering dust.

We found bones in one house. They had been gnawed on – I’m no great detective or hunter, but even I could tell that teeth had made those marks on the bones. I couldn’t tell if they were human teeth or not; it could have been animals, I guess. Maybe that’s what we’ll hope. Like the crows at the prison, feeding off those who fall and aren’t taken by the rain.

In a car, we found the remains of a couple of people. They were a mess – the acid hadn’t been able to get to them and the shamblers had missed them. The car had crashed into a pole and the windscreen had been cracked by the impact of a skull, so they probably died when the bomb went off. We didn’t open the car for fear of the smell and what we would find pooled in the footwell. Perhaps they were too decomposed to be interesting by the time the shamblers crawled out of the Sickness.

It’s sad, thinking that there’s something in the world that not even a shambler would bother to eat.

 

We talked about where we should go next, and decided to stick to the road, following it through the open land to the next spatter of buildings. We don’t want to stray too far from shelter out here – there’s too many of us to fit comfortably into the vehicles and four of us riding motorbikes. We don’t want to end up crammed together for hours, waiting for the rain to stop. Also, we don’t have any way to protect the bikes.

I keep talking to Iona in the hopes that she’ll give us some guidance about where we should look for this flower farm of hers. I hope, more than anything, that I’m not wrong about the interpretation of her babblings. She seems to think we’re on the right path and she’s getting both brighter and more erratic by the day. I saw her lose her smile completely for the first time yesterday. We’re definitely getting close to something. With how disturbed she’s getting, I’m starting to get nervous about what we might find.

We haven’t seen any signs of glass yet, though. Not even a glint on the horizon. There’s a lot of open ground to explore, though; we’re bound to find it soon.

 

Matt keeps looking at me like he wants to talk to me. He tried last night, but I didn’t know what to tell him, so I shrugged him off. I don’t have any answers, just possibilities and fear. The snake in my belly has abandoned me; there isn’t room for it any more. It’s too full of an uncertain clenching. I’d like to think it’s just underriding hunger – we have food, but not a lot and we’re trying to be careful with it – but I don’t think that’s it.

I should tell him what’s going on. I don’t know how. Every time I think about it, the words run away from me and I’m left gaping at myself. I want to tell him, I want to ease that expression of his, but I can’t. Instead, I end up avoiding him and that only makes me feel worse.

I feel bad, talking about this here when I haven’t managed to tell him yet. But it’s on my mind and I think I need it. I had to look at this blog; it’s the best way to work out the dates. I had to figure out when Matt and I were together for the first time in the After, back at Haven. We were so caught up in each other, passion and love and such a desperate need to be together, that we didn’t think about anything else. It’s the only time we forgot to use protection.

That was about six, maybe seven weeks ago. With everything that was going on, I didn’t realise how late I was. I didn’t notice what hadn’t happened until Mira asked for sanitary pads and I had far too many. And now… well. Now I know I’ve missed periods.

Yesterday, I went to a little pharmacy with the girls. I got a couple of small boxes that promise to answer the question buzzing around in my head. Maybe they’ll help me sort this out. They’re not what I really need, though, but I’m scared of that, too.

The only person I can get a straight answer from is Masterson. I have to approach him and ask a favour, ask for discretion. I’m not looking forward to it. He’ll say something awful and I’ll want to slap him. Or he’ll reduce me to tears like he nearly has so many times. Or he’ll just refuse to deal with me at all and send me on my way, empty-handed and empty-headed.

Matt’s coming – I should go. I’m terrified to tell him. I’m terrified of everything.