The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

I have to make this brief; I don’t have much time.

It did not go well today. My poor Ben, he didn’t deserve what he found. I think these are the worst wounds for him to carry.

I’ll post more when I can. He needs me – I have to go.

Ben’s asleep finally, so I have some time. Everything is quiet except for the pounding in my head. I want to sleep, but I need to get this down first. For me, for Ben, and for those we found yesterday.

We had no problems getting to the building, or getting inside – the door had been forced open before we arrived. There were marks on the doorframe where a knife had pried it open, and Ben’s expression darkened. He led the way to the side of the foyer, ignoring the immoveable lifts and going straight for the stairwell. We went up quickly and quietly, and when I glanced back at the others, I saw a few of them quietly carrying a weapon in hand as they climbed. Just in case.

On the fifth floor, we peeled off into the corridor. It was terribly silent, not a creak of shifting girders nor a whisper of wind caressing the building. There was no sign of anyone inside, which was a relief in one way, but Ben didn’t seem comforted by that thought.

We found the door to apartment 504 locked and unmarked. I think that was the high point of the day; whoever had broken in downstairs had not invaded this home. Ben had a key to it, attached to the keyring buried at the bottom of his pack. I remember the sound of it sliding into the lock, snicking into place more snugly than anything has for us in a long time.

I looked at the others and Matt was at my elbow, murmuring that they would look for somewhere to settle down, maybe look for some supplies. Sax nodded in agreement and the rest of them moved off down the corridor. Dillon hesitated until I reassured him, then went to catch up with the others. Ben was already inside by then, oblivious to what we were doing, but he’s a private person and I don’t think he would have wanted the whole group watching this. I wasn’t going to leave him on his own, of course, and closed the door behind us.

The place didn’t smell good. My stomach dropped a foot and roiled uncomfortably; I’m getting far too familiar with that gagging aroma. From the line of his shoulders, rolling defensively, I knew the Ben recognised it too. I offered to look so that he didn’t have to, but he shook his head and pressed on. The lounge area was neat and tidy, and completely unoccupied, so we peeled off to look in the other rooms.

It was me who found his nephew. I didn’t even know he had a nephew, but he does. He did.

I didn’t need to touch the body to know that it was dead; there was a little blue-grey hand visible and that was all I needed. I just closed the door and tried to stop Ben from going in. He took one look at my face and pushed me out of the way; he had to practically lift me away so he could get to the door. I begged him not to go in there but he wasn’t listening.

He was four years old, just starting to become a little person. Ben said his name was Jamie. There was a pillow over the boy’s head and that somehow made it all worse, bringing with it the awful thought that someone had smothered him. Ben took the pillow off, as if that might undo the terrible act, and I wasn’t fast enough to stop him. I know that the shrunken face we saw didn’t look anything like the child that he had known, and I wish he hadn’t seen it. We couldn’t even pretend that he was sleeping.

I didn’t know what to do; it was too easy to get distracted by the sight of that tiny form in its train-patterned pajamas. I touched Ben’s hand, but he shook me off, then pushed me out of the way so he could storm out. He was shouting for his sister, Kim, as if she might be hiding, as if she might answer him, and burst angrily into the other bedroom.

She was there, lying on the bed, the same colour as her son. The bottle of sleeping pills spilt out of her hand told the story of how she chose to die, curled up on her side and hunched as if wrapped around a great pain.

Ben wouldn’t stop shouting at her, as if she could still hear him. Asking her how the hell she could do that to her own child, how dare she do that, and why, of all things, why. When he looked like he would grab and shake her, I got in the way and pushed him back, but he didn’t stop yelling. He was just a child, she had no right, how could she, how could she.

He didn’t stop until his voice shredded at the edges and ran out of strength. I could feel him shaking and tears were choking up his breathing, and finally he went where I asked him to. I pulled him out of that room and away from the sight of his sister, and then he collapsed on me, clinging and crying.

The others had heard the commotion and came running. They stopped at the door and I waved them away, trying to assure them silently that there was nothing they could do. They didn’t come in, choosing not to intrude while I comforted Ben as best I could. I’m so grateful to them for giving him the space. They didn’t need to ask what was wrong; it was what all of us feared we would find when looking for our families.

It took a while for him to calm down. Eventually I managed to get him sitting on the couch and we talked. He told me about Kim and Jamie, and cried in a small, broken way. I cried too; who wouldn’t, watching him struggle like that and knowing that there isn’t any making it better. Knowing how what we found today has tainted his memories of his family, of a sibling and a nephew.

It was growing dark by the time he felt strong enough to leave the apartment. Before we left, we wiped our faces and I tried to tidy him up a little bit. To preserve his pride in front of the others; he wouldn’t want them to see him in such a mess. They had found us a couple of apartments downstairs that were comfortable and clean; and, more importantly, empty. They let us have one of the bedrooms and some privacy. I stayed with him; I didn’t quite dare leave him alone.

It was a rough night. Neither of us got any sleep, nor managed to make much sense of it. We cried until our heads hurt and forgot to eat. His emotions came in waves: anger and sorrow, frustration and despair. I spent all of today trying to get Ben to eat something or get some rest, and I only just succeeded in the latter of those. We’re going to use the kitchen here to make a hot meal when he wakes up.

I’m so tired now that I hardly know what to think. I feel wrung out, stepped on and sucked dry. I should get some sleep while I can, while he’s quiet. Even when he’s sleeping, I can see the tears on his cheeks.

This morning, everyone wanted to move on. I don’t blame them; that apartment building was a depressing place to be, and I know that Ben is only too aware of what lies on the floor above us. I suggested it to him and he agreed easily enough – a little too easily, perhaps.

When we were packing up, Sally came over and drew me aside. She said that she had gone back up to the apartment to see if there was anything that Ben might want. Photos, knickknacks, old family jewellery. It’s the sort of thing that I should have thought of, so I felt both grateful and as if I had failed him in some way. I want to say that I’ve been too busy sitting with him through his upset, but that feels like an excuse.

Sally gave me a little package and a note. She said that she had found the note in the bedroom next to Kim’s bed. Then she left me alone with it. When I looked at it, I saw why and went to show it to Ben. I knew it would upset him, but he needed to see it, with its shaky handwriting and tenuously offered answers.

I don’t know if there’s anyone left out there to find this. It seems like the whole world is dead or gone crazy.

Hugh has been gone for nearly a week. He was only supposed to be gone for a few hours, a day at the most. At first I thought he was just delayed; it’s been so long now that I don’t think he’s coming back. My husband and best friend is gone; I think he’s is dead. I would have gone after him, but the gangs tore through the streets below. I saw them kill a man in cold blood. I couldn’t take my baby out into that.

Please know that this isn’t what I wanted. I had no choice. My boy was starving and I couldn’t watch his pain any more. He wouldn’t stop crying and looking at me to make it better. I’d do anything for him. I’ve tried everything. I’ve given him my share of what we had, but it still wasn’t enough. I broke into the other apartments to find more food and water, but there was only so much to find and that all ran out too. It’s all gone now.

My baby was dying and the only thing I could do for him was to end his pain. Please forgive me, Jamie. I did it because I love you. God, forgive me for this; I don’t know what else to do. There’s nothing left and everyone is gone. It’s time for me to go too.

I’ll see you in Heaven, baby. I love you.

It made him cry again. The next thing I knew, he was howling in anger and had put a dent in the wall with his fist. He wouldn’t stop – he just kept hitting it until he was leaving bloody smears on the plasterboard and had made a couple of holes. I didn’t want to get in the way; I was going to let him vent until I saw the blood. Then I tried to catch at him, tried to stop him from beating his hands until they were broken.

He almost hit me. I saw it in his face, that wildness that reminded me of Thorpe when he was lost in his rage and pain. Instead, he grabbed me and slammed me against the wall. I looked him in the eye, trying to make a connection with him, trying to reach him.

“I know,” I told him. “I know. But you need to stop this.” It was all I could think of to say.

It was enough. I saw his fury falter, and then he let go of me and crossed the room so that he could slide heavily down to the floor. He put his head in his hands and it was quiet again.

I packed the note and the package that Sally gave me into my bag. I think Ben will want them eventually, so I’ll carry them for him for now. When I was done, I sat down where I was, giving him space.

It was a little while before he seemed calm enough for me to go to. I cleaned his hands up and wrapped his knuckles, wiped his face and helped him up. Then he hugged me so tight I thought one of us would break again. He was stony-faced and blank when we finally went out to join the rest of the group. There was something terribly defeated in the tramp of our boots down the stairs to the ground, and all of us stopped and looked back at it.

I’m not sure what we were looking for. I don’t know how many of us were wondering how many families had ended that way, how many had chosen a quick death over a long fading. I know that I was. And I was trying not to think about my dad.

Abruptly, Ben broke off to head back inside the building. I went to go after him, but he told me not to; he said he needed to do something alone. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stopped and stood with the others. After the door closed behind him, Matt came over to see if I was all right, and I felt like crying all over again. The only answer I could give him was a helpless shrug. I never knew Ben’s sister or her son, but I feel like I’m grieving for them anyway; that hollow ache inside reminds me of when my own sister died.

Ben was gone almost half an hour. We were all getting restless by then and Thorpe looked like he was thinking about going in there to see what was going on. He has been more patient than I had expected through all of this; he understands, I think. He sympathises, in his way.

When Ben finally opened the door, a coil of smoke escaped with him. His face was closed as he told us to move to the other side of the street, and we soon saw why. The smoke multiplied, escaping through any crevice it could find, and then it was backlit by flames. He had turned the whole building into their funeral pyre. The irony of a fireman setting such a blaze didn’t escape me, but I didn’t mention it.

Instead, I asked Sax to sing for us, for Kim and Jamie. And he did, his warm voice rolling out Amazing Grace as the flames ate their way up through the empty homes to where Ben’s family lay sleeping. We watched as it choked the sky with thick, black smoke, and moved further away as the building collapsed in on itself. There were only bones left when we turned our backs on it and left it behind.

• Theme song: Amazing Grace, Amazing Grace

Ben has been very quiet today. I remember what it was like when Chastity died, how much I needed to adjust to thinking of her gone, how hard it was. I remember hating it when people would ask how I was all the time – how did they think I was, really? – even though I knew that it was the only thing they could think of to say to me. I remember dreading that look in their eyes, the pity for such a loss that was expecting to see me break down any moment.

So I tried not to do those things. I tried not to ask, not to watch him for those moments when he faltered. I stayed near him, in case he needed anything, but didn’t expect anything from him. I tried to give him space to do what he needed to. I talked to him about other things, about where we were going and what we needed to do when we got to the mall, the next mark on our map. He didn’t get involved much, but that’s okay.

The rest of the group have been good about this stuff. All of them except Masterson, who made a remark about the fireman starting a fire. Thorpe looked like he was going to smack him and Alice said something nasty, so the doctor subsided. I don’t think Ben even noticed. I would have expected Masterson to understand – he lost his wife and child, after all – but I guess his need to snipe at everyone supercedes any sympathy that might flash past that brain of his.

Dillon has been very attentive, mostly to me; I think he’s a little bit afraid of Ben. I also suspect that he was nudged into coming over to give me water by someone he looks up to, someone who isn’t eager to show his softer side. It was nice to talk to the kid, and to talk about something else. He’s having trouble dealing with Alice; she doesn’t react to things the way she used to, and he struggles to know what to say to her. Reminiscing tends to end with grumpy words about everything being different now and she doesn’t respond well to jokes.

I told him to give her time to get more comfortable with all of us, give her time to relax. I’m not sure she ever truly will again, but what else can the poor kid do? We’re all learning to live by different rules these days.

We didn’t cover much ground yesterday but we managed to make better time today. The lack of talking speeds us up, I think, though I miss it. Sax is coughing more today; I think the singing and the smoke that washed over us made it worse.

We should reach the mall tomorrow morning. I hope that it hasn’t been looted too thoroughly; there are things that we all need. There wasn’t much of anything of use in Kim’s apartment building (she really had used up all the supplies), so we need to find more food and water soon. Hopefully there’s a furniture store, too – I’d love to sleep in a proper bed right now. I need to close my eyes and hope my dreams are kind to me.

The mall is a strange beast. We arrived after a couple of hours’ walking this morning, stepping past the acid-streaked signs welcoming us to Paradise Arms and pointing us to parking.

The car parks still had a lot of cars sitting there, some with the doors standing open; the bomb had gone off in the middle of prime pre-Christmas shopping time and left a lot of people stranded at places like these. It looks like they took whatever they could out of the cars and then abandoned them in favour of walking, leaving their interiors to the untender mercies of the rain. I wonder where they all went. That time feels so long ago now; they could be anywhere.

The outside of the mall was marked with graffiti tags, both faded and fresh. That put us on the alert as we pushed our way inside. It was surprisingly tidy inside the mall; I’m used to finding wares scattered all over the floor, trodden on and discarded in favour of something better. The shops did have that turned-over look, as if everything had been picked up and put back down again, just slightly out of place. Careful thieves came here.

We were looking at the mall map when we heard the first sign of life. It felt so weird, standing in front of a plastic board and trying to work out what shop was where, as if it was any normal shopping day, as if we had come with money to spend. The interruption brought us back into the time After, turned us from shoppers to scavengers, and the world made both more and less sense again. A skitter of movement in the lack of music, the clip of a heel against the hard floor. It’s frightening to know how qiuckly the weapons leapt into our hands, and saddening that I didn’t hesitate over it at all.

My heart was thrumming against my chest as we clumped up, little ones in the middle. Dillon wanted to be up front, but I kept him behind me with a fistful of his shirt in my free hand. Ben lined up with the rest of us, a dark look in his eye, and my worry for him spiked. I was afraid that he would do something stupid and reckless just to dull the pain inside, or perhaps to vent it.

Realising that we were in the middle of the thoroughfare, Thorpe moved us over to the doorway of a bedding store. We shifted just in time; a hail of random missiles peppered the floor we had just vacated and made us shrink further into the store. Ornaments smashed on the floor, metal bowls clanged, even candles thumped down and rolled away. Following the objects were voices shouting at us to get out, leave here, this was their mall, get out.

We looked at each other, temporarily safe behind the glass front of the bedding store. We had no idea how many of them there were, and while they sounded young, there was no knowing what they had managed to get their hands on. They pelted the doorway with household decorations every time we peeked out. We called out for them to stop to give us a chance to leave, but they didn’t seem to hear us.

It was a few minutes before I realised that we were two people short. Matt and Alice were missing, and a quick search of the store didn’t find them. I was terrified that something had happened to them, that they had been stolen away by our unseen enemies. After Ben’s loss, I was determined not to lose anything – or anyone – more.

I was just about to suggest we go confront the ornament-chuckers when Matt reappeared. I smacked him for scaring me like that; he smiled and told me to stop being silly. In that moment, I saw a shard of my old friend, reassuring and confident and never unkind, even when he was telling me to calm down. It was enough to make me relax again and give him the chance to explain.

He and Alice had gone out the back way and circled around behind our attackers – there’s a way if you know how to navigate the back corridors and doors of a mall. Matt had had lots of practice in that when he was stuck with the Sharks. They were just kids, he said. No-one over fifteen or sixteen. Alice was still there, keeping an eye on them.

We decided to split up. A couple of us stayed in the bedding store, shouting answers to the attackers every now and then. The rest followed Matt around to meet up with Alice, to surprise them from behind. Sax stayed with me to keep up the pretence that none of us had moved.

The shouting was our cue to move. I crept out, and when no ornaments came hurtling towards me, ran up the thoroughfare towards the fight. There weren’t many of them and they were facing people a lot bigger than they were, but those kids were fighting hard anyway. I don’t like how hard we had to hit them to make them stop; I don’t like that some of our number hit them more than was necessary and had to be stopped.

By the end of it, we were all bruised and I could taste blood from where a teenager had split my lip. The kids were all sitting on the floor, having been tossed or shoved into a lump there, while we stood in a ring around them. They were all rebellious glares and wishing that they held the weapons we were keeping them at bay with.

Of course, then we had no idea what to do with them. What could we do? We couldn’t let them go free – they would just attack us again. We couldn’t watch them forever – there weren’t enough of us to do that and anything else at the same time. We were in a standoff, and the only hope for a decent resolution was to talk to them. I don’t think any of us was very optimistic about how that would turn out.

It sounds like Masterson is making himself unpopular again. I’d better go make sure they don’t staple him to a wall or anything. When did I turn into everyone’s mother?

Masterson is getting more confident with every passing day, and more reckless along with it. He got himself smacked in the mouth last night; it’s not going to be long before he pushes someone into something serious. He couldn’t have picked a worse time; we’re already tense enough. I can’t worry about him every second; I have enough people to look after right now.

Yesterday, once we had the kids subdued, it fell quiet while we eyed each other. My heart was just starting to come down from the fighting high, though not by much; it wasn’t time to relax yet. But I had to think about what to do next, how to handle the fact that we suddenly had prisoners. What the hell are we supposed to do with prisoners?

One of the teenagers kneeling on the floor spoke first. “So, you gonna kill us?” She was glaring at us angrily, one after another, daring us to try, as if they weren’t so much caught as resting.

“No.” That was Thorpe, I think.

“Of course not,” I said almost at the same time.

“Ain’t that what you do?” the girl asked.

“Maybe they wanna fuck us first,” one of the lads put in, spitting at Matt’s feet.

That they would even think that made my stomach flop over inside me. Sometimes, I despise this world that’s crawling through its own ashes.

Masterson just had to stick his nose in before anyone else could say something. “Why, are you offering?”

“Shut up,” I said even as the boy who had spoken started to swell up with outrage. I turned my attention to him and tried to look him in the eye. “No, we don’t. We don’t do that.”

“Sure you do. You’re the Pride, that’s what you do.”

I was so surprised – and relieved – that I smiled at him as I told him that that’s not who we are. They didn’t believe us at first, but then one of the smaller boys pointed out that we didn’t have any guns. I wasn’t thrilled to know that the big, vicious gang near here was armed with guns, but at least it was proof that we weren’t part of that group. They asked us who we were and we didn’t know what to say. With a shrug, I told them my name and started to go around the group, but the girl that had spoken first interrupted me.

“Oh, you’re the Seekers.”

I blinked at her. “The what?”

“We heard about you, too. You’re their leader, right?” Why does everyone think that? “The Seekers, travellin’ around trying to find families or somethin’.” At the mention of families, I couldn’t help but glance at Ben. He didn’t flinch, didn’t look my way at all. It was like he couldn’t hear them. It took me a moment to realise that the girl had said something else. “You ain’t nothin’ like the Pride.”

“No, no we’re not.”

“So, you gonna let us up now?” She was slick, this kid.

“Not so fast.” I didn’t need to look at the others to know that that was a bad idea. “You know who we are, but we don’t know anything about you.”

I saw the girl’s lips twitch and knew that she had been trying to get one over on us. I had to wonder just what she’d heard about us. In this strong-armed society, was a lack of a violent example a weakness? I suppose that a nasty reputation is a form of protection, but I can’t think about what we’d need to do to get one. We won’t do that. No-one here would do that.

“We’re the Rats,” the girl told us, her chin lifting with pride.

“Never heard of you,” Thorpe said flatly.

The defensive barriers slammed up again. “Yeah, well, we keep to ourselves.”

We tossed words back and forth for a little while longer. The kids had been holed up in the mall since just after the bomb went off, staying when all the adults left to find help, or hope, or someone else. They had never come back, but the kids had stayed. And they were doing all right, thank you very much. They had driven off a few groups before us, and they’d drive off anyone who came after, too; it was only because we’d surprised them that we had been able to get the best of them. That wouldn’t happen again; they were very sure about that.

I have to admire their resolve. They’re determined and strong; they’ve adapted well. They say they’ve got enough supplies to last ‘a while’ but wisely refused to be more specific about it. If anything, they were a little too smart, enough that we didn’t dare to lower our guard with them for a second.

We explained that we were there for supplies. They were quick to let us know that there wasn’t any food or water here, but that wasn’t all we were looking for. We needed to visit a chemist – I tried to ignore Masterson’s eyes lighting up at that notion – and fresh clothes would be nice. They didn’t like the idea, but they weren’t in a position to argue.

Eventually, we agreed to let them go on the condition that they stayed far aaway from us. Thorpe was quick to growl at them that if they tried anything – anything at all – we would hogtie them and take whatever we pleased. I saw some of the kids’ expressions grow angry, but their spokeswoman said that they wouldn’t try anything against us. I don’t entirely trust them, but at least it’s a truce of sorts. At least we didn’t need to tie them up at the outset.

There’s a part of me that wonders if we were too easy on them – I think one day someone we let go will turn around and stab us in the back. Is it okay to distrust everyone on those grounds, or do we keep going as we are until it’s too late and there’s blood on the floor?

We’re still in the mall now. The rain came before we were done yesterday, and there are more stores that we need to check for equipment. The Rats have largely left us alone, though I’m sure that they’ve been watching us. We’re keeping sharp vigils at night, just in case, and I’ve heard them moving around in the dark hours.

I’ve just noticed some blotches on my arm. I don’t think I spilt anything on it. I wonder how long they’ve been there.

We were all set to head out yesterday, just a little after midday, but we didn’t make it outside the mall. I thank the numerous little delays – having to fetch Nugget from the toy store three times, telling Dillon only to take what he could carry, pulling Masterson away from the chemist after he had scoured it repeatedly. All of those things saved us, I think.

We were heading down the stairs towards the exit doors when it happened, when the light on the concrete turned ruddy beyond the threshold, and we stopped in puzzlement. It grew dark very quickly – it felt strange to notice it inside, but there are no bulbs burning to disguise the outdoor conditions. When the sky thickened and turned to red-shot black, it dipped the mall into a gloaming.

The first crack of thunder scared the crap out of us; it sounded like it was directly overhead, splitting the roof in two. We all flinched, some of us ducked, and the gaping silence that followed it was peppered with muttered swearwords. When the second flashbang ripped the air above the mall, we retreated back up the stairs. It didn’t make any difference except to make us feel better.

There were a couple more lightning flashes before the rain fell. It was like someone had turned on a tap: all of a sudden, there was a downpour happening, hissing and spraying up off the concrete at the glass mall doors. I haven’t seen it fall that hard since the bomb went off. Usually, it’s a slithering, melting thing, but this was all about pounding and filling up the streets with its glistening, deadly mass.

If we had been out there, we wouldn’t have had time to get inside before it came.

Knowing that still makes my abdomen contract, shrinking in on itself with fear. The skin between my shoulderblades crawls as if it can already feel the acid trickling over and through it.

We were all quiet as we watched it turn the parking lot outside into a shallow lake. Then I sighed and said we should find somewhere to settle down. We trudged back to the bedding store and unslung our packs again, and set about making ourselves comfortable. We rescued the candles that the Rats had pelted us with and turned the store into a flickering haven.

The Rats came to harry us not long after the storm started, asking what the hell we were still doing in the mall. They wanted us out of there, and they definitely didn’t like seeing us making ourselves at home.

I lost my temper with them. I told them that if we had left, we’d all be dead now, melted into nothing like so many other people. Is that what they want: to wish death on people? Don’t they know how few of us there are left, how many more are lost every day? Hasn’t there been enough of that by now? But anyway, it’s tough; we’re here, and we’re staying, and that’s it. So they can either leave, or be quiet, or both.

I’m not sure what I was channeling in that speech. The closed look on Ben’s face. The desperate huddle in Alice’s shoulders. The rattling cough that’s keeping Sax awake at night. My own fear, twisted into an angry front. All of it was spilt on their heads.

They were surprised enough to be silent while I turned on my heel and walked away. I got as far as one of the beds and then sat down, shaking. The strange thing was that I don’t think it was adrenaline that was making me tremble; it felt like something else. It was hard to catch my breath. The spots are on more than just my arms now.

I think there’s something wrong with me.

The storm has been washing over us for more than a day now. It comes in waves, all wind and the shattering noise of thunder, and the thrashing of the rain. We’re too far inside the building to see much of the lightning, but it still crackles far too close for comfort. Then it’ll circle away from us, spinning out to punish some other district before it comes back around to us again. The drains are audibly thick with it, something which makes most of us nervous.

We relocated to a furniture store on the upper floor, further towards the centre of the mall. No-one wants to wake up to a flood that’ll eat us before we can get out of bed. The Rats are unhappy and have a tendency to linger within eyeshot, sometimes within earshot too.

I don’t dare to post while they might be around; I don’t want them to know that the laptop works. I had a pink vest yesterday and this morning it had disappeared, and it’s just not something that anyone else in my group would wear. That’s not the only thing that has gone missing; I’ve heard a couple of the others asking if anyone has seen something – a piece of clothing, a pocketknife, a broken watch.

We’re running short of food and water. We haven’t found any in the stores we’ve been in, and we don’t want to push our luck with the Rats – there are a couple of sports stores here and several household shops, all of which used to hold things that would make good weapons. The kids are wary but they’re not intimidated by us, and I think they’ve been around long enough to have a reason for that confidence. I would rather not find out what that reason is. This truce is so fragile.

We’re hoping for a break in the storm soon, so we can go out and check the other places around here for supplies.

This morning, Ben and I wound up sitting alone while the others were off checking out other parts of the mall. I didn’t feel up to trudging about and he was only too happy to stay behind and mope. I was tired, so I didn’t push him for a conversation, and I was surprised when he started one.

“Do you ever get frustrated with all the delays, Faith?”

I was lying on a couch and pulled my feet up so he could sit down. He didn’t mind when I stretched my legs across his lap. “Yeah, of course. But we can only do what we can do.”

He looked at me searchingly, and there was such darkness in his look. It crouched on his expression, heavy and pressing. “We’re always too late.”

It does seem that way. Sax’s daughter missing, Dillon’s parents moved on, Ben’s sister giving up. Something in his voice made me hesitate before I could agree and the words changed on my tongue. “It wasn’t your fault, Ben. We got there as quick as we could.”

He didn’t answer, just looked down at the hems of my jeans, streaked with dirt and grease and black rubber from my own bootsoles.

“You can’t blame yourself. Don’t torture yourself that way, please. We did what we had to at the time. You know that.” I reached over for his hand.

“I could have gone alone. I could have tried.” He took my hand, even though he was accepting my words.

“And you might not have made it at all. You might have walked into the Pride, into anything.” I know he was right. There’s more we all could have done to get there sooner. There always is. Is any of it enough? Are we trying as hard as we should be, as much as we can? But he needed something different from me right then, so I disagreed with him.

At least he wasn’t getting angry any more; he wasn’t shouting. He was quiet and concentrated about it; he was more like the Ben I had come to know. “I just don’t understand,” he said after a moment, a bleak puzzlement in his voice. “I don’t understand how it happened.”

All this time, the past few days, he’s been trying to make sense of this and just can’t. All he’s been able to feel is the hole in his life, like a blind man trying to figure out where a cup has gone from the ring it left on a table. There was an ache in my chest for him then and I shifted around to curl against his side.

“She did the best thing she could see to do, I guess.”

I can understand it, and that scares me a little. It piqued Ben’s attention, too; he looked at me again. “Could you ever do something like that?”

I didn’t know what to tell him. My throat closed up just at the thought of it, at how Kim must have felt when she walked into that baby-blue bedroom and picked up the pillow. At the thought of ever having to make that decision. “I don’t think I’m that brave,” I told him finally.

I saw his eyes shining brightly when he turned his head away, and sat quietly with him until the others came back. When I got up to see what they were fussing over, he squeezed my hand and came with me. He was the presence behind my right shoulder again, my steely support that was more silent than ever. It’s a step in the right direction, I suppose.

Last night, Ben drew me into the back room of the store and told me that he needed me. It was so dark that I could barely see him, but I caught the look in his eyes. I’m right here, I told him, I’m right here. A dam broke in him and what followed was the most intense sex I’ve ever had. He wasn’t rough – he’s never rough – but it was a lot about letting something give way, about not holding back. We hadn’t been together since we got to his sister’s building, and I think we both needed it.

It wasn’t until he got up this morning that I saw the splotches on his back, just like the ones on my arms. Neither of us had noticed them in the dark; even if the lights had been on, we wouldn’t have seen them during that. I asked him about them, and he got touchy until I showed him mine. He’d had them for a few days, he said.

I was sore and drained, far more than I should have been, even after such a bright bout of activity like last night’s. I didn’t like it, or the way the fear scuttled around in my stomach. A part of me knows that I was probably being over-sensitive and over-reacting, but what if I wasn’t?

Ben fetched Masterson over to us and made him check the marks. The doctor sighed and asked a couple of questions, and said that we’d all just changed our clothes. There was probably something in them that we’re allergic to. It’s also possible that the Rats booby-trapped the garments – maybe they made their own version of itching powder – and that could be causing it.

An allergy. I’ve never been allergic to anything in my life, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. It’s a relief to know that’s all it is. I’ll just switch to my old (yuck) clothes for a couple of days and wait for it to calm down.

Now, if only it would stop raining.

Courage has been swelling in the Rats; they are getting used to having us around. I’ve seen a few of them talking to Dillon and Alice. They don’t trust us adults and go quiet whenever we stray too close, but they chat with the youngsters easily enough. I wonder if they’re trying to tempt them to stay here.

I’ve even seen a couple of the girls fussing over Nugget; one of them managed to get her to sit still long enough to brush her hair out. She looks like a different girl with her pale hair all smooth and neat, though she was quick to rough it up with her hands when she was free of the attention. She did allow them to pat Jones, who I suspect has been visiting the enemy camp to beg for food. He hasn’t been getting much from us lately; we’re running too short.

I caught up with Dillon earlier and he told me about the tales the Rats spun. He had asked them how often the Pride come here – he’s scared of meeting them, I think, as are the Rats. I had wondered the same thing myself; I think we all have. It’s another reason why we’re eager to get out of here.

The Pride has never come here. I hadn’t seen any of their tags around here, but that’s because there aren’t any; it’s a relief to know that we hadn’t missed the signs. The kids were acting on rumours when they accused us of being from that gang. Rumours and accumulated fear.

The Rats leave the mall often, Dillon said, especially if they get visited. They like to sneak about and spy on the other groups, creeping close enough to listen to their conversations. That’s how they heard so much about the Pride, about their habits of killing and raping. I can just imagine the shell-shocked escapees exchanging trembling words and the hidden kids filling in the details for themselves. It’s hard to know whether to believe that they’re as bad as they sound, but can we risk believing anything less?

That’s also how they heard about us. The Seekers. As names go, it’s not bad, I suppose. I can live with that. I wonder who was talking about us. This is a long way from those we’ve encountered directly, but maybe there is still a gossip network in place even after everything ended. That would be typical; human nature exists in friend-of-a-friend told me and did you hear about and you’ll never guess what I heard.

The Rats picked up other things from the grapevine, too. Like the sickness that struck Alice’s group; they picked up word of a couple of groups falling ill, mostly from people fleeing from it in the hopes of staying healthy. They also caught word of mindless attackers harrying travellers and settled groups alike. They said that more people than usual had been passing through this area over the past couple of weeks, hurrying away from scenes of awful violence. One couple had been chased out of their home, and another gang had run for a week from an attack so bad that none of them said much about it.

And now the rain won’t stop falling. It hiccups every now and then, pausing for an hour or two – just long enough for us to start to think about heading out in it – and then it’ll be back, hammering our hopes into the ground and melting them away. The lightning is becoming rarer, so we’re hoping that this storm will blow itself out soon. We’re all on half-rations to try to make our supplies last long enough.

I wish the Rats had had some good news to give us. I suppose the fact that they’ve seen a lot of people lately is good; it means that there are more survivors out there. Knowing that people are still alive makes this all seem less terrible, less final, less like we’re the dregs of a species that has killed itself. It gives me hope that others I know might still be alive.

I don’t want to find what Ben did when I get home. My dad is a sensible guy; he used to teach me how to fix things and tell me to remember to take my little army knife with me everywhere, because you never know, Faithy, you never know. That little fold-out screwdriver might come in useful someday. You were right, Dad, it has. Someday came for me, and it came for you, too. It came for all of us. I hope you took your own advice.

Crap. I must have cut myself. Better go.