The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

This morning, I was pulling on some clothes when Nugget appeared by my elbow. She’s good at that – suddenly being there without anyone seeing her arrive. She’s a pair of big eyes looking up through a tangled nest of dirty-blonde hair. Not even Bree and Mira’s influence has been able to convince her to keep her hair brushed and neat. She still doesn’t speak but she had something to tell me this morning. Her own way.

She tugged on my sleeve, making me hurry awkwardly because I was still getting my pants on. She was very insistent, pulling and pulling until I followed her out of the little room Matt and I share, still stamping my boots on. It’s rare to see her so eager to share something, so I didn’t mind entertaining her. Matt was off finding out if there was anything for breakfast, so it was just me.

She led me outside and pointed at the diesel-soaked car. It sits in the middle of the yard, looking lonely with all the other vehicles parked a little way from it, shunning its fuel-soaked presence. Then the little girl tugged me onwards and over towards where the water filter tank was sitting. Everything looked normal until we came around the tank and I saw someone fiddling with the pipes. At first, I thought it must be Conroy, but then I remembered about the injury and bedrest. It couldn’t be Conroy. My feet stuttered to a stop. He stood up and turned around.

“Warren?” I was so surprised that it took me a moment to notice the gun. I yanked Nugget behind me and gave her a shove without looking around. “Go get Thorpe,” I told her. “Now.”

She ran off in a patter of slapping footsteps and I stepped sideways so he couldn’t get an angle on her. Warren’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me and he wetted his lips nervously. His jaw tensed and I could see him counting up his options. They were sadly few.

Warren. The one cutout we never thought capable of the sabotage because he was so badly injured. He’s only had one usable arm since we escaped from Haven, thanks to the bullet in his back. Since Masterson removed the bullet, his arm has been in a sling. We’re not even sure he’ll ever be able to use it fully again. Possible nerve damage, the doctor said. Now I think Warren let us believe that to hide what he was doing.

We were stupid. It only takes one arm to knock someone out. It only takes one hand to point a handgun at someone, too, but he wasn’t even pretending anymore. The sling hung limp and empty around his neck, his left hand propped against the side of the tank by its fingertips while the right pointed the gun at me. I stared at him and swallowed, and suddenly regretted sending Nugget off. I was alone with him and that made both of us vulnerable. He was the only one of us with a weapon. I knew his secret. I looked him in the eye and there wasn’t any doubt any more: we both knew he had been behind the sabotage. There wasn’t any point in questioning it.

“Why?” I asked him. I didn’t really have much to lose by that point and I wanted to get him talking. Anything but focussing on the gun. Any delay would do.

“Because you had no right.” That was apparently the wrong question, because it made him lift the handgun higher, pointing at me more intently.

“No right to do what?” I didn’t want to ask, but we were in the subject now and I wasn’t sure how to get out of it.

“To leave. To take from Haven. We helped you, we gave you everything you needed.”

“Not everything. And Haven took from us, too.” It occurred to me a little bit late that it might not be smart to argue with the guy holding the gun. Maybe I should appease him, agree with him, perhaps even apologise. Maybe that would have been the smart thing to do. The problem was, the threat of the weapon was making my heart beat too fast and loosened my tongue.

“What did Haven take from you?” His tone didn’t believe me at all. This wasn’t going well. I wondered just how long it was going to take Nugget to get Thorpe. I needed the big fella to come and fix this. I wondered if he would think to come armed.

“Our vehicles, our tools, all our supplies. Our personal gear. Everything we had when we arrived.” Well, he did ask.

“Not everything. You kept your secrets. You conspired against Haven the whole time you were there.”

“We did not. The whole place is a lie, and we wanted something better. Why shouldn’t we go and find that?”

“It’s not up to you. It’s not your right. The General knows what he’s doing.”

“Yeah, I think he does. And that’s the saddest part about it.” I was getting angry, and a part of me was aware that it was a reaction to the fear. I wanted to be smarter about it. But I couldn’t stop my mouth – it was running away on its own.

“It’s what?”

There was a little metallic click and for a moment I thought he’d fired. I thought that was the trigger and I was shot. I was waiting for the bang and the pain, and the flare from the barrel, but it didn’t come. There was no bullet punching through me. My heart felt like it was trying to beat me into submission, stop, stop. No more.

“You ungrateful bitch!”

I had to rein it back. I had to do something, even though I couldn’t move.

I saw his gaze flick over my shoulder and knew there was someone coming. There was a surge of hope in my chest that almost broke painfully free. I didn’t dare look around, couldn’t take my eyes off the man in front of me in case I missed it. In case I missed when he shot me. I couldn’t lose my grip on this moment. I had to say something, anything.

“So, what were you doing? Messing with our water? Not happy with hurting people, you want to have a go at killing us all?”

“Love to know, wouldn’t you?”

I heard footsteps and the light changed around us. Shadows stretched over the scene, darkening and softening it at the same time. More than two pairs of feet approached – who had Nugget fetched? I saw Warren look even more nervous and hoped that it wouldn’t tip him over into something stupid. A tiny part of my brain wondered how many bullets the handgun’s clip could hold. How many of us could he do away with if he needed to?

“Put it down,” a voice said from behind me. Thorpe. I couldn’t see a little shadow, so I didn’t know where Nugget was.

“Get away from her.” That was Matt, with a tremor in his voice sounding like he was barely holding onto his self-control. I hoped silently that he wouldn’t lose it; that wouldn’t help anything right now and I think we all knew it. But he was there; I was surprised by how much that mattered.

“Warren, stand down.” Jonah. He sounded furious and firm, giving the order in that way that makes you want to snap to attention and obey. Maybe it would appeal to Warren’s military training. I could only hope.

“I don’t take orders from you,” Warren said. I suppressed a sigh; the military angle wasn’t going to work, then.

“Warren, there’s no way out of this,” I said before any more men could growl at each other. “Put it down. It’s over.”

“So you can kill me?”

“We don’t do that.”

“Really? And I’m supposed to just believe you?”

“You know us. You’ve seen us. We don’t do that.”

Warren was quiet, belligerently moving his gaze between us.

“Put it down,” Jonah said.

Then something moved behind him. I had to make an effort not to look at it – someone was creeping up there, aiming to catch him off-guard. I didn’t want to alert him. I didn’t dare move and was nearly vibrating with the tension.

I could see it rising in him: a wave of frustration and anger, covering the desperation caused by the situation. It was coming, any second – that moment when he made the final decision. Fire or give up. Fight or submit. Die now or later. Some part of me was peripherally aware that there were weapons behind me – I was in the middle, sure to be caught by one side or the other. The ground was looking like the perfect place to be, but I still didn’t dare to move.

“Warren, please.” It took me a moment to realise that the words were mine. I wasn’t above begging. “Please don’t do this.”

His glances roved around the group behind me, but his aim hadn’t moved an inch. His gun was pointed at the centre of my chest, as if there was a wire stretched between me and the weapon, pulled taut. It felt like every breath tugged it closer to firing. He focussed on me and I stopped. I had no more moves to take. It was his turn.

Where did I get to? There are so many demands fighting for attention right now, and people still come to me to fulfil them. Warren is one of those demands: Warren and what we decided to do with him. I wish there had been a better answer.

Warren didn’t get to take his final turn. It was stolen from him. I pleaded for him not to do it and he hesitated.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Bobby was on him. He grabbed Warren’s arm and yanked the gun up to a safer angle. It punctured the air, once, twice, and everyone behind me was moving. Someone snagged my arm and tugged me away from the tussle. It was Matt, of course, getting me out of range of flailing limbs, out of danger.

People were grabbing at the saboteur, the gun was pulled out of his hands, and they bore him to the ground. He shouted in pain, the sound lost in all the raised voices.

Matt put me behind him, keeping a hand latched around my arm, wanting to stay in contact. I curled fingers in the back of his shirt, needing to hold onto him too. I was only too glad to be out of the middle of the situation, peeking out from behind his shoulder.

I suppressed a wave of tremors as I watched the boys subduing Warren, and swallowed back a sudden urge to throw up. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress or the unfortunately-timed start of morning sickness. They were rough. Someone kicked him, making him cough for air, and I flinched.

The stillness was abrupt and balanced delicately on a line drawn across the air. It was time to decide if we were Seekers, or if we would kill him.

We were all furious and scared, and that’s never a good combination. It swirled around us like a smell that made our eyes smart.

Warren was whimpering with pain when they hauled him back to his feet, out in the dust of the yard. His shoulder wasn’t as seriously injured as he had led us to believe, but it was still barely healed and painful. We tried to feel bad about that, but I don’t think any of us succeeded. He spat blood onto the ground and cried out when someone yanked on his injured arm, almost falling back to his knees. I think that’s what saved him in the end: a show of pain and the moment when someone might use a gun in anger passed.

We weren’t sure what to do with him, but we had some plastic ties from the supplies of the flower farm and that was enough to lash his hands together behind his back. For the time being, we put him in one of the small storage sheds, where he wouldn’t be able to do any damage while we assessed the damage and figured out what we’re going to do with him.

Kostoya said that there wasn’t any damage to the water system. The pipes had been fiddled with, but some tightening was all it took to make it right. Whatever he was going to do, he didn’t have time to do it before I got there. That was a relief, though there wasn’t any sweetness in it.

We don’t have a policy for this kind of thing. The smart thing to do would be a kill him, just like he assumed we would. But we don’t want to be that kind of group. I’m not the only one who thinks so – Kostoya was openly horrified by the notion, as was most of the group. Of course, certain voices called for it: Jersey, Masterson, even Thorpe. Estebar and Nugget hovered around the edge of the gathering as we discussed it, watching the exchanges with wide eyes to see if we would betray their trust and innocence. I wasn’t the only one who felt the weight of their attention.

We don’t want to be murderers. We subdued him without fatality and we’re past an excusable death now. Hot blood has drained, pooled and cooled. Cold blood isn’t something we like the taste of.

So what choices do we have? We don’t have enough food to go around as it is, so should we continue to keep him alive by feeding him? Letting him starve is murder, too. We could let him go, but he knows where we are – he’d run back to Haven and tell them. Bring them down on us, if he hasn’t already. We can’t trust him again; he’s very set on our evil and the righteousness of his own actions. Even if he made apologetic noises and promised he’d seen our light, we can’t ever take a chance on him again. There are too many lives at stake. Out on the road, he almost killed Thorpe and Bobby, and the former is still healing from his encounter with the bike’s burst fuel tank. Here, Bree and Conroy are healing too, and we don’t know the extent of the damage there yet.

There are no easy answers. It’s either going to cost us a lot to keep him locked up and alive, or we have to kill him. When it comes to him or us, we choose us; there’s no contest there. But we’re not killers. We won’t become killers.

Except for the soldiers. Jonah and Bobby – they’ve killed people before. They admitted as much, and I’m not counting shamblers. They’d do it, they said. Even though they knew him. They had trusted him enough to let him in on the secret of the escape and brought him along, and he had betrayed them. It was their error of judgement, theirs to fix. Many thought it and a couple even said it, putting the onus on them.

But all of us took him in. If we let this happen, cold-blooded murder by soldiers’ hands, then it taints all of us. Jonah and Bobby are Seekers now. We won’t be unsullied by making them do it for us. It’s an easy option for most of us, but it’s not a clean one. And so we circled again.

We kept coming back to the same place. There was only one other idea that came up: slavery. We couldn’t let him go and we couldn’t let him be a drain on our supplies, but we could make him work for his keep. Indentured servitude. It meant he would have to be guarded at all times, and we’d need to find a way to bind him so that he couldn’t sneak off and do any more damage.

It feels like a step backwards, but the After has put us back so far that perhaps it’s suitable. It’s certainly more humane than taking him out the back and shooting him. Or worse, if we wanted to save the bullet.

We’re going to try it. We’re going to be slave-keepers, and prison guards, and whip-crackers, though we don’t have any actual whips. I don’t know how Warren will react to this yet. I don’t know if it’s going to work.

It’s a small step towards becoming one of the lean, hungry dogs prowling in the After. Just a small step in a long scale of grey. Let’s see how it tastes, if we can swallow it and if it’s enough. It has to at least be enough.

I just hope we can stay Seekers.

It has been a year since I started this blog. A year to the day exactly.

A year ago, I was shuffling books into alphabetical order and smiling at the faces of rude customers. Today, I found a copy of The Little White Horse tucked away on a shelf among the flower farm’s records. It was my favourite book when I was a kid – I read it so many times that I could quote it, could picture the strange house in my head in perfect detail. When I found it, the surprise was sharp, like knives in my chest. I hadn’t expected to see it again, this shard of who I used to be.

I’m twenty-three now. Three months ago, I missed my own birthday. I feel older. I feel like the time between me and that girl is a gulf too wide to step across. I look back and I can’t see the path from her to me.

I should be wiser, but I don’t think I am. I still kid myself about a lot of things. I still want to believe that things are better than they are. I’m scarred, and my left arm is weaker than my right because I cracked the bone once. I try not to learn too much from my scars. Sometimes, I’m scared that I’ll stop caring about people because we lose so many.

I think I’m grieving for the girl I was once, the one who loved that book and went looking for a little white horse hiding in the trees. The one who made a new blog a year ago today.

They say there are five phases of grief, but I don’t know what they are. I’ve probably been through all of them, in the wrong order or all at once. All I know is that it hurts when I think about that girl and all the changes in between.

I look back at those first posts and it feels like someone else’s life. Was it really me, whining about how unfair everything was, how hard it had become? I read those words, those thoughts formed on the screen, and I can barely remember what was so important.

I remember the morning of that day, even though I didn’t write about it. I stumbled downstairs still brushing my hair because I was running late. Dad had made me pancakes. He had that look about him: the vague, helpless one he got when he wanted to do something but he didn’t know what the right something was. He’d had that look since Cody broke my heart, and I had been too upset to look him in the eye. I had been avoiding him and his sympathy for a month. That morning, he made me pancakes, and there was dismay when he saw me rushing.

So I sat down and ate them. I should have left, but I was already late and the pancakes smelled so good. We made jokes about how they were all misshapen and we agreed that he would have to work on his pancake artistry, but only if I promised to eat them. By the time I got to work, I didn’t care about being late. When I got home, I created this blog and tried to start a new phase of my life.

Now, I feel like I’m at the beginning of the last new phase of my life. We’re at the last place we can think of to go, with one last thread of hope for a future left. This is our last chance to get it right.

And my dad, he’s a gold ring that I wear on my right thumb now.

Back then, I was struggling out from under a broken heart and trying to find new friends to make connections with, because the old ones had betrayed me. A week later, I was struggling out from under falling buildings and trying to find anyone who was still alive. I was thrown together with strangers who are now my friends. Some I’d even call family. We don’t have a good time together – we keep each other safe and alive, and occasionally manage some support. Somehow, that’s enough.

In that long-ago week, I had slightly drunken, ill-advised sex with my best friend. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had sex with him again – a lot – and it is anything but ill-advised. Then, I was terrified that I had ruined everything. Now, I’m carrying his baby and looking forward to making a family with him.

The girl I was back then would have laughed if anyone told her that she’d bear Matt’s baby and be anything other than mortified about it. She would shake her head and say that it was ludricrous. Neither of us want that. Neither of us are capable of it. But here we are and I’m not laughing.

I don’t really know how it happened. I mean, I know how I got pregnant: my mother gave me a cursory explanation when I turned twelve, and Dad offered me an awkward talk the first time I came home late after a night out with a boy. I don’t know which one of us was more embarrassed.

It’s the love that’s the surprise. Sometimes I think it snuck up on me and squeezed my heart while I wasn’t paying attention. Other times, I realise that it has been building for a long time.

In a way, I guess I’ve always loved him; the kernels of it have been there since he first tugged and braided my ponytail. When we were teenagers and he was going through a really bad time with his family, we were always together. He all-but lived with us, and sometimes it felt like it was him and me against the world. In that way, we could do anything we wanted. We knew everything about each other, even the things we never wanted our girlfriends or boyfriends to know.

Back then, we never strayed into being a couple, didn’t even mess around with kissing. Now, I’m reminded of that time: the two of us against the world, taking refuge in each other’s company. But this time there are promises and intimacy. This time, we’re not going to let new friends distract us. Now we know more clearly what we mean to each other, what our loves feels and tastes like, and we wouldn’t exchange it for anything.

Over the past year, we finally took those last few steps and tripped into being in love. It sounds sappy and silly to put it that way, but that’s how it feels. He makes me feel loved. He makes me want to love. And we do, despite our scars.

A year ago, I was floating free and searching for a direction. Now, I am anchored and I know where I’m going. I don’t know if it’s progress, but there’s no going back.

Matt here again. Faith’s off fetching dinner and said I could do this today. I need to feel like talking.

I did a bad thing today. I can’t tell her about it – she’d be mortified, and if I’m honest, so am I. It’s not like me. I hope it’s not like me.

It happened when I went to find some breakfast. I passed the room that we’ve been keeping Warren in and heard something move behind the door. I couldn’t tell what it was, that tiny shuffle, so I paused to listen. It didn’t come again. As if someone was holding their breath, hoping to not be noticed, hoping I’d pass on by and fail to check.

I wasn’t going to let anyone get away with that. I yanked the door open, my fingers strangling the doorhandle, tensed and ready for anything. If he was trying to escape, I was going to stop him. I’d make sure he didn’t hurt anyone again.

He wasn’t escaping. He lifted his arms towards me from his position on the floor and the metal bands around his wrists caught the orange light from the window; someone had got handcuffs from somewhere. A chain snaked around to lash his handcuffs to a pipe anchored solidly into the floor and wall. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Warren. Until that moment, I hadn’t realised how much I hated him. It surged up my gullet and made my teeth clench.

Yesterday, Faith told me off for giving her my food. We’re still on short rations. I can’t remember the last time we had a full meal. Faith’s eating for two now, but she doesn’t want everyone to know, so she’s only getting one person’s portion. Someone has to make sure she’s getting enough to eat and I want to take care of her. Of course I gave her my share.

It’s true that I haven’t been feeling great for the past couple of days. She says I’ve lost weight and not in a good way. I told her why I was doing it, but that didn’t help. She was too caught up in the damage it was doing to me – that’s how she put it: damage.

She was trying so hard not to be angry with me. She failed, but the effort made her crumble at the edges, so upset she barely made sense. Then she did make sense and I felt worse. As if I had let her down in some fundamental way.

“You can’t do that, Matt,” she said. “We need you. We need you here. I can’t do this by myself. We’ll make sure there’s enough. There has to be. Don’t make yourself sick, please don’t. I can’t lose you. I love you, and there’s the baby, and… I need you.”

It’s not like I was trying to kill myself or anything. Of course I want to be around. But she has to come first. She always comes first. That’s how this stuff works, right? What else am I supposed to do?

“I want to take care of you, too,” she said. There isn’t any stopping her when she gets upset, so I just let her keep going. Her hands plucked at mine, restless in her agitation, and tears made clean streaks on a face smudged with dirt from the troughs. “Please, let me. We’re supposed to look after each other. Can’t we just take care of each other?”

That’s when I started crying, too. I’m not too proud to admit it. It’s been a long time since anyone took care of me in any way I wanted, and I’m not just talking about the After. I love Faith – I want to take care of her and the baby. But I wasn’t prepared for her to want to do the same. Which is silly, now that I think about it. I know her, I know what she’s like.

It’s not like when I was sick. That’s different. It’s okay to need looking after when you’re sick or hurt. But I’m all right now – not even limping any more. I can look after myself.

She doesn’t want me to have to. She wants me to lean on her, the way she leans on me. I don’t think she understands what she’s asking.

It’s not because I think I should be the man of the relationship. I’ve never been one of those macho assholes who think that the women need to stay in their place with the kitchen and children. It’s not like that. It’s because… it’s hard. I want to put her first, but she won’t let me. She just keeps telling me that she needs me here.

“I can’t do this without you,” she said. I almost argued with her. She can do all of this without me. She’s strong like that.

I’m not. I’ve never had that kind of strength.

I couldn’t do any of this without her. Not now, not with how much I love her. I saw Warren pointing a gun at her and I knew that he’d kill us both if he fired. I saw it, I saw her lying there, covered in blood, staring sightlessly at the sky. She was going to die, our baby with her. And there was nothing I could do. If I jumped in, he would have shot her. When I spoke, I said the wrong thing, only made things worse. I was standing there, looking at her about to die right in front of me, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

I almost snapped right there under the pressure. It felt like I was bursting with it, but I knew we’d end up in a bloody mess on the ground if I let it go. All I could do was hang on until my knuckles went white.

If she dies, that’s it for me. I don’t think there’s any way back from that.

She tried to tell me that she feels the same about me today. At least, I think that’s what she was getting at. I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve been very good at avoiding that kind of thing – letting someone get this close, needing and being needed; they’re not what I wanted. Now here I am, and it hurts. I’m terrified of losing her and the baby, and one of them hasn’t even been born yet. I feel that black hole opening up behind my heart every time I think about it.

Today, standing in that little room with Warren, that was all I could see. Blood and a black hole. I don’t even remember starting to hit him.

Next thing I knew, Dale was grabbing my upper arms and hauling me backwards. I stumbled but didn’t fight him. Warren was curled up on the floor, his arms over his head to protect it. My hands hurt and my pulse filled my ears.

“What the hell are you doing?” He had me outside of the room by then and shook me to make me look at him. It worked.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t have enough in me to lie. I looked at my hands, at the blood dripping down my fingers. My knuckles were split; I didn’t know if the blood was Warren’s or mine. Probably both.

I felt sick. I guess Dale saw that.

“Go clean yourself up.”

I nodded and walked out. I was halfway to the water filter when I threw up.

After I had washed the blood off my hands, I went to Masterson for something to bind them with. I had to put gloves on so Faith wouldn’t know. No-one has mentioned it, not even the snarky doctor. I guess no-one cares that much about Warren any more, except me.

That kind of thing, it’s not like me. Every time I remember why my hands hurt, I wonder what kind of person I really am. It scares me that I’m capable of something like that.

I wish I didn’t love her so much. I wish this didn’t mean everything to me. But it does.

Now that the saboteur has been found and dealt with, attention in the group is turning outwards. The foraging party is going out armed. Of those who stay behind, we have to spare a couple of bodies from the work to keep watch on the roads.

Everyone is wired tight. It doesn’t help that we have a constant reminder of the threats around us, as one of the men strong-arms Warren around the greenhouses. The ex-soldiers aren’t trusted to watch him; there’s an under-riding suspicion that he didn’t act alone.

The saboteur is unhappy and resistant, but he works when he’s instructed to. He has bruises today that he didn’t have yesterday. I haven’t asked where they came from, and if I’m honest, I don’t want to know.

He pulled a gun on me. I thought he’d do it, I really thought he’d kill me. The intention was right there in his face. Warren would have killed three of us with one bullet – me and the baby, and the part of Matt he had allowed to love us.

I heard the tremor in Matt’s voice: he was scared, truly terrified that I was about to be shot in front of him. I’ve seen him hurt before, I’ve seen the roughness of his scars and how he armours himself. This will be worse. This is so much more than that. He talks about family like it’s something he wants, and he hates his own. He always has.

It hurts every time I think about that. All the damage that might have been done piles up and tries to suffocate me. Even though it didn’t happen, the weight of maybes is there, waiting for me.

I don’t think I’m dealing very well with what happened.

Whenever I look at Warren now, there’s an odd flutter in my chest. There’s a memory caught inside that wakes up in the face of the reminder. When he looks at me, it pounds and I can’t move. Someone has to come along and pull me out of it.

The first time I froze, Thorpe shook me by the shoulder and asked if I was all right. Then he saw who I was staring at and scowled as he manhandled me out of the greenhouse.

“You all right?” he asked. He looked honestly worried, beneath the frown and the grip on my arm. He let go when he realised he might be leaving marks.

“Yeah. Yeah,” I said. I don’t think he believed me; I barely convinced myself.

I gave him a little smile, then stepped in and squeezed him around the ribs. He wrapped a big arm around my back and I felt safe. Better. I breathed out and something inside relaxed. There was awkwardness in the way he patted my shoulder and that peeled me off him in the end; he doesn’t handle this stuff well. It pleases me no end that he lets me do it, though. Even Dale doesn’t get hugs in public.

“You’re the best big brother,” I told him. He blinked at me, startled, but it’s true. He is like a big brother to me. I’ve never had one of those before.

Poor Thorpe didn’t know what to say to me, so I thanked him and went on my way. I couldn’t think about work; instead, I went to find Matt and surprised him with a kiss. He asked me what was wrong and I didn’t know what to tell him.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” I said finally. He gathered me up and I held on tight.

“We’re all right,” he said into my hair. “We’re both all right.” It was something more than mere bodies to hold onto.

We’re still waiting for more maybes. We caught our saboteur, but now what? We don’t know if Haven’s coming after us or not; Warren was prevented from sending any signals, but we can’t be sure that’s enough. We’re still waiting for Iona’s nebulous threat to turn up as well – we haven’t forgotten about them. Between moments of comfort and levity, the waiting presses on all of us in heavy silences. In a way, we wish they would get here already, so that we can get it over and done with, one way or the other.

I guess there’s nothing we can do to hurry it along, though. We could let Warren go, but we don’t want Haven here, so that would be crazy. All we can do is wait and watch. Watch and wait.

And hope that somehow, we escape everyone’s notice.

Despite all the tensions and intrigue, things at the farm are coming along well. We have most of one of the long greenhouses dug out and rigged up to the water system, and the first seeds were planted a few days ago. We’re getting them in as quickly as we can and patching the rest up as we go, because we don’t know how long we’ll have supplies to last us.

There’s plenty of work to keep us all busy. The foraging party goes out every day to search for food, and it’s a chance for tense parties to spend time apart. The rest of us delve into the greenhouses and blot out worries and fears with mind-numbing exhaustion.

The problem is that Warren has been put to work in the greenhouses. Matt and I don’t want to be anywhere near him, so we opted to head out with the foragers today. It was good to get away from the farm for a while. Away from the familiar clutter of buildings and the endless troughs of the greenhouses. Open roads, clearer air. I felt like I could breathe deep for once.

Matt asked to write a post the other day but made me promise not to read it. “It’s just venting,” he told me. I’m respecting his wishes because we feel fragile right now. He hasn’t been right since Warren and the gun, but he won’t tell me what’s bothering him. He’s not usually secretive with me, so it’s either bad or something too deeply buried for him to know what it really is.

I keep wondering if the baby is freaking him out, but he was so happy about that. When I told him, my heart brimming in my mouth, his face lit up and he grabbed me in the biggest hug. He couldn’t have faked a reaction like that, even if he’d wanted to. He was bouncing on his toes, touching my belly with wondering fingertips; he had no idea how much he looked like a big kid.

No, I don’t think the baby is what’s bothering him. He won’t tell me, though. All I can do is hope that he comes out of wherever he is, comes back to me. I wish I could help him, but I can’t reach him in there.

The others are doing all right. Iona won’t come out of the house, but she takes care of everything in there. She even started doing laundry, by hand. I had to stop her the first time – she was scrubbing so hard that the shirt and her hands were being torn to shreds. I made her put everything down and drew her dripping hands out of the sink. They were raw and bleeding, but she hadn’t noticed. She just looked at me with wide green eyes.

“Need to make it clean,” she said. “Tomorrow the flowers must grow. Make it pretty like the flowers.”

“We can make it clean without hurting ourselves,” I told her, leading her gently to our makeshift infirmary. It’s just a room with a bench we can use as a bed to treat people and cupboards we’ve cleared out to keep the medical supplies in.

“I don’t think so.”

Her reply made me look at her face sharply. She sounded sad and her head had drooped. I started to say something, but she interrupted me.

“Hurts, always hurts. Have to make it clean.”

I asked her what hurt, but she wouldn’t answer me. She stood where I put her and let me bind her hands up. I was afraid she had hurt herself somewhere else, and she let me check her over. She didn’t flinch, not once, and I found myself overcome with awkwardness and embarrassment for her. My cheeks were burning by the time I was satisfied that ‘always hurts’ didn’t mean that she had another injury.

I think her hurts are a lot deeper than that.

I took her by the upper arms and tried to make her look at me. The third time I said her name, she finally lifted her gaze to my face.

“You need to look after yourself,” I said. “Don’t hurt yourself, not even to make things clean. All right?”

“It always hurts.”

“It doesn’t have to.” I didn’t feel like I was getting through, but I had to try.

She frowned and studied my face as if she’d never seen it before. Then she nodded with a trace of hopefulness; I’m not sure if she hoped I was right, or if she hoped that was the answer I was looking for. Either way, I let her go.

She has since soaked her bandages through while doing more laundry, but I don’t think she’s hurt herself again.

After I dealt with Iona, I went to see Bree and Mira. They take turns looking after the baby and helping out in the greenhouses. Bree’s head wound is healing – it’s a nasty red mark on her forehead now, just above her temple, stopping just an inch from her eye. The lump beneath it is fading slowly. She has been keeping out of Warren’s presence as well – we share that urge, her and I.

Things are still complicated between us. I tried to talk to the two girls about Iona, asked them to keep an eye on her. Mira started complaining immediately about having enough to do without babysitting yet another body, but Bree cut her off with a quiet agreement.

“We’ll check in on her,” she said. “We didn’t know she was hurting herself.”

Mira stared at Bree, but she didn’t argue.

I’m not used to having Bree agree with me. It felt wrong. It made me second-guess myself. It has been a long time since she betrayed me and set about destroying every part of my social life, but my defenses still come up every time I’m around her. I keep looking for the knife in her hands coming at my back, but it’s not there. I don’t know where she’s keeping it or when she’ll decide to get it out again. I have accepted that I can’t read her at all.

“Okay, thanks,” I said. “How are things up here?”

I haven’t been up to the room where Masterson has Sally esconced. He’s always prowling around up there, always ready to growl at me, and I haven’t wanted to face him. I hoped that Sally would forgive me. At the same time, I wanted to tell her about the pregnancy. I wanted to talk to someone who understands what it’s like to carry a baby in the After.

At first, the two of them fobbed me off, telling me that things were fine. I asked about Sally specifically, how she was and if we were likely to see her any time soon. Bree and Mira exchanged a glance, weighing up how much to tell me.

“David says she’s depressed,” Bree said.

I restrained the reflex to bridle at her use of the familiar name; no-one except Sally calls him that. Most of the group doesn’t even know his full name – he’s just Masterson or the doctor. I wanted to ask her if she was screwing him too, but the words didn’t quite make it to my teeth.

“He says it’s hormones,” Mira added. “And the infection.”

“Infection?”

“She had an infection, after Felix was born,” Bree said. So, the name had stuck to the baby. I was glad about that, but worried by the rest. “David says it’s not uncommon. She was really sick for a while, but she’s over that now. He says she’s recovering, but now there’s post-natal depression to deal with.” She hesitated for a beat. “I don’t think we have any drugs for that.”

There wasn’t much for me to say. I told them to let me know if they needed anything, for her or the baby. They nodded and agreed in that offhand way that says they don’t expect to ever take me up on that. I left with empty hands and empty offers.

Bree has recovered from Warren’s attack, but Conroy hasn’t been so lucky. The lump on his head is shrinking slowly and his eyes are no longer uneven and out of focus, but there’s damage we can’t see. He doesn’t remember the incident at all, and he lost a few days before that, too. He has trouble recalling things now – if you ask him to do something, he’ll go off to do it, but when he’s finished, he sometimes forgets who asked him. Sometimes he forgets what he was supposd to do when he gets to his destination.

As far as I know, the doctor hasn’t put a label on it. Conroy is keeping to himself about it; I think he forgets more than he lets on. He’s scared to admit what’s really going on inside that skull of his and I don’t blame him: he’s lost something fundamental and he doesn’t know if he’ll get it back.

I don’t know anything about this kind of thing: all I know is that it’s complicated and no-one really understands it fully. Maybe it’s possible for him to heal. Maybe all he needs is time. Hopefully we can give him that much.

In the meantime, Kostoya is keeping a close eye on him. The biochemist is always nearby, chivvying Conroy on in his work, asking questions and wondering if he’s done yet. His questions are layered with reminders about what they’re doing; I’m not sure, but I think he’s doing it on purpose. If Conroy has noticed, he hasn’t said anything.

Maybe if no-one mentions it, they can carry on as if nothing has truly changed. As solutions go, that one’s pretty painless for everyone involved.

I wish there were more solutions like that for us. ‘Painless’ isn’t a word that I have had much chance to throw around. We make it work whatever way we can, and I guess that’s what matters.

I think I like going out with the foraging party better than staying at the farm. I don’t know if it’s the movement, the purpose in our searching that makes me feel like a Seeker, or if it’s just being away from somewhere where everyone looks to me for answers. Out on the road, things are simpler. We all know what we’re doing and where we’re going – we get the maps out every morning and plan a circuit that brings us back to the farm each night.

It’s not that I dislike the farm – I don’t. I am glad we’re here and I’m always pleased when I hear about the progress we’re making. Conroy is damaged but there’s nothing wrong with his cognitive abilities: he’s getting the water system hooked up with extra tanks so that we have enough for us and the plants.

Janice found worms in one of the troughs and got everyone excited about them. It’s the first non-human life we’ve seen in such a long time, and it’ll make growing food easier. Nugget and Estebar were running around with them today, chasing each other with little wiggly creatures and laughing. I don’t think I’ve heard Nugget laugh like that before.

The buildings are gradually becoming more functional and more like a home; every morning while we’re pouring over the maps, we get at least one request to keep an eye out for something in our travels. Something not food or tools, not essential. But nice. Pillows and blankets. Extra shirts. Cleaning supplies – cloths, sponges, bleach.

The farm means hope for us. It’s only just starting, but right now I don’t have any reason to think it won’t work. Things are falling into place. Even things with our slave Warren are calming down.

When I was heading back towards the kitchens to return a pile of dishes tonight, I heard a noise from one of the storerooms we haven’t had much use for. I wasn’t sure what to do – my hands were full, but I wanted to know what it was. It could be someone in trouble. It could be a couple of someones making out. It could be rats.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t think that it was a good noise. It was sharp and angry, a punch against a wall made by something hard. Not a fist, I was sure about that – whatever it was had edges not softened by flesh. I paused and listened, but it didn’t repeat. After a couple of heartbeats, there was a softer sliding noise and something padded thudded onto the floor.

I didn’t like it. It sounded like a body – a person – and it was too quiet. I put the stack of plates down on the floor and rapped on the door before I opened it. What I found inside was far from anything I might have expected.

It smelled sharply of fresh urine in the little storeroom. There were no windows; instead, it was lit by a hurricane lamp. The flame bounced calmly in its glass case, oblivious to the mess in the room. Little cardboard boxes littered the floor, each one with an end torn open, each one scrunched in the middle as if caught in a closed fist. They were gathered up towards one end of the room after being thrown at the wall there. In amongst them were little white plastic shards.

I didn’t have time to take in what they were – I was distracted by the shape huddled at the other end of the room. Sitting on the floor, booted feet planted solidly, head bowed behind bent knees, she didn’t notice me enter at first. Then her head lifted and I saw that it was, in fact, Jersey. Only she could look so angry, and hurt, and pissed off, and as if she might punch anyone who asked if she was crying.

“What the fuck do you want.” She didn’t even pitch it as a question.

“I came to make sure everything was all right.”

“I’m fine. Get lost.”

It’s not like we’ve ever been the best of friends, but it still isn’t fun to be rebuffed like that. I cast around for something else to say and my gaze fell to the floor again. The floor and those little plastic sticks. Then a scrap of crumpled packet caught my eye – …Test – and I put the pieces together. I blinked, then quietly closed the door behind me. No wonder she was hiding.

“Jersey, are you pregnant?” There was a little part of me that soared at the idea. If someone else was pregnant, maybe it would be a little less weird for me to be carrying a baby too. I could have someone to share the journey with.

She huffed and shoved herself to her feet. She moves in short, hard bursts, with more effort than grace, and she stamped as she stood up. She’s about my height, but always seems bigger.

“No, I’m not.”

She seemed furious in a way that didn’t fit the words. The Jersey I had grown to know would despise being pregnant; she isn’t that kind of girl. Until recently, when she started latching onto Jonah, I wasn’t even sure that she liked men.

Then I looked at the mess on the floor again. There were a lot of them, twenty maybe, all torn open and used. How long has she been doing this, coming in here and checking? Because she was afraid she was pregnant, or to see if it had happened yet?

She was trying to push past me to get to the door, but I caught her arm. It was there when I looked into her face: the fear, buried deep under the angry barriers she keeps up.

“Are you trying to get pregnant?”

She tore her arm out of my hand hard enough to make my fingers smart. “It’s none of your business.”

“Jersey–”

“It’s the only thing that works! Okay? Are you happy? The only thing.”

I stared at her, at a loss for what she meant for the longest time. Then I remembered the Sickness. Jersey was burned by the rain weeks ago – months now? – and must be due to get Sick soon. The only person to survive it – to get burned and never get Sick – was Sally. The baby was blamed, and now here was our punch-happy tomboy trying to get pregnant. To save her own life.

It made perfect sense, but it still made me feel ill. She must be so scared; the negative tests on the floor were testament to that. She saw my expression change and hated it. She isn’t close to anyone, isn’t used to sharing this kind of stuff.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Not to be funny, Faith, but you don’t exactly have the equipment I need. So unless you want to lend Matt to me, the best thing you can do is stay out of it.”

Hell no. “Have you talked to Masterson?”

“Are you kidding?”

I didn’t blame her – I wouldn’t wish that examination on anyone, not from him and his cold hands. “You might want to think about it. I–” I looked at her and knew there wasn’t anything I could give her. Helplessness blossomed in my chest in a lukewarm seeping. “Good luck,” I wished her instead. It was the best I could offer.

Her shoulders slumped a tiny bit – this weighed on her more than she could hide. I tried not to think about how pale she looked, or about how she didn’t look well. I stepped aside and she stamped past me. The door bounced off the wall, wavering like it was sorry it got in her way, and she was gone.

It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised she had no idea that I was pregnant. I’m glad of it now. I don’t need another person throwing resentment at me, and I wouldn’t blame her for it. I’m terrified to have this baby and she’s terrified not to have one. Luck isn’t fair.

I can’t give her what she’s looking for, but I hope she finds it.

I have grown used to the stillness of the After. I didn’t realise that until today.

Out with the foraging crew, it’s hard to avoid the quiet. We drive until we find somewhere we haven’t already picked clean and pile out of the vehicles to scour the buildings. We break up into pairs, each of us bearing a weapon of some description. When the engines shut off and the group whittles down into just two pairs of feet each, the silence creeps in. It presses against us, like heavy dust on the air choking off speech.

We move quickly, partly because of the need to cover as much ground as possible, but also to get out of the quiet. It’s easier to ignore when we’re together – the automatic sounds of half a dozen people drive the soundlessness back. Our ears latch onto each other’s presence eagerly. I’m not the only one who has noticed the relief in exchanged glances when we come back into a group. I wonder if I’m the only one who smiles when the engines catch onto life again and slap the silence back past the acid-scorched walls around us.

Sound wraps around us like a blanket, chasing away the reality of the After. In its protection, we can do anything, even drive away if we want. We are a loud, noisy piece of the world Before.

Matt and I usually forage together; I don’t think either of us is willing to let the other out of their sight. Every time he goes where I can’t see him, I wonder what he’s doing, what might happen to him. I wonder if he’ll come back to me. Not because I think he’d ever leave, but because of all the dangerous things around us right now. I’ve already nearly lost him once; I’m not eager to go through that again. I think he feels the same about me, especially since the incident with Warren.

Today, we came across a couple of offroaders that hadn’t been ploughed into the scenery. With one vehicle we don’t dare to use because it’s soaked in diesel, we decided to try for a replacement. Thorpe and I did that while Matt teamed up with Bobby. We wanted to break the pattern; loosen our grip on our fear. Jersey went with Jonah and I wondered if she would find what she was looking for.

I don’t know what it is about the big vehicles, but most of the ones we see were crashed into poles, or through walls, or onto other cars. The shockwave didn’t reach this far, but the devastation on the roads is the same as it is closer to the city. I guess the EMP had a longer reach, or people panicked when they heard what had happened and crashed anyway.

I still wonder where they all went. That’s part of this place’s weirdness; it’s not just silence: it’s the absence of sound. It’s all the things that are missing. A child’s laughter from down the street. The slap of a ball against concrete. Voices muffled by walls. Music blaring too loudly three blocks away. Seagulls screaming. Dogs barking at the birds. Something unseen poking through the trash behind a dumpster. An empty shopping bag being rustled by the wind. Footsteps around the corner, not quite seen yet. All of it is missing.

I feel like I’m in a movie and someone pressed the pause button. Everything is here, even the toys and balls, everything except the living. It’s all waiting for something to come and bring it to life. To give it sound again. To press play so it can carry on with what it was doing when the end came. It doesn’t know that it’s too late for that.

Maybe it does know. Maybe it’s desperate for us to be what it needs, what it misses. That’s why it sucks on us, stealing our scraps of sound and movement as soon as we make them. This place sucks on us like we’re mints, little flavoured people it draws and draws on until we’re thin and afraid to show ourselves.

It’s not the most comfortable place to wonder where all the people out here went. Sometimes I think the buildings ate them.

Somewhere in the middle of my musing, I got a lungful of fumes off the engine I was working on. It filled my head and darkened the edges of my world, and I thought, this is it. This is when this little town sucks me into it, a slice of mint on its tongue before it swallows.

My legs buckled and I wound up crumpled over the offroader’s bumper. Thorpe must have heard me stumble, because when my sight cleared, he was holding me up awkwardly. I blinked up at him, bewildered, and then hurriedly pulled my feet under myself again. I had fainted. Or almost fainted. Which is ridiculous; I don’t faint. I’ve never done anything like that before.

I came over all embarrassed and apologised to him in mumbles. Of all the silly things to do. I’m fine, I told him. Nothing to worry about.

“Are you sick?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he meant to ask that with a capital or not, but I shook my head quickly anyway.

“No, no. Definitely not.”

That seemed to appease him. He made me drink some water anyway. When he was sure I wasn’t going to crumple again, he came to work with me on the offroader I had fallen on. He didn’t say anything but I think he was keeping an eye on me. He so seldom says anything. He’s just there, a solid presence that helps to weigh the situation down.

Thorpe’s quiet is comforting in its own way, but it was still a relief when the others got back, bringing their noise with them. Matt slipped his arms around my waist from behind and kissed the side of my neck, and I leaned back into him. They had found a few boxes of supplies, so they felt good; it was enough to bring a smile to my lips as well.

We packed the boxes into the vehicles and started the engines, chasing the silence away. I sat in the passenger seat and watched it go. Then we were off down the road, taking our roaring bubble of sound with us. We are not done yet, it shouts. We are not gone, we are not going. We’re alive.

We will not be silent.

It has been months since we faced shamblers. We saw some on the way to the University, but they were easy to avoid. That was a month ago – since then, we have only seen the signs of their passing in broken windows and bashed-in doors. Blood stains on the floor tell of the taste of hunger.

When we saw that group of shamblers, the ex-soldiers with us asked us why we ran. Why we didn’t just stand and fight them. Today, we answered that question. We had no choice.

It was another regular foraging day. Yet another small town, another huddle of buildings on the side of a dirty road, the roadsigns so eaten by the acid that we couldn’t make out its name. There were no vehicles suitable for stealing, so we split into our pairs – and one threesome, as Mira decided to join us today – and scoured empty homes and businesses for food. We’ve found tools and equipment enough to keep us going, but food is still our biggest problem.

I don’t know which of us saw them first. If someone shouted a warning, I didn’t hear them.

Matt and I were in a sprawling house, set back from the road a little. It probably used to have a pretty garden out front; now it was just heavy dirt to wade across to get to the front door. We’re settling into a routine with these things. He stopped in the kitchen and started on the cupboards there, and I went further back to check for a pantry or laundry. There wasn’t much, but I did find a shelf of mason jars full of preserved fruit. My stomach growled at the sight of them: apricots and apples, and more I couldn’t quite see. I lifted myself onto tip-toes to try to take a count of them.

There was a shuffle against the floor. I turned towards it with a ready smile, so pleased with myself, thinking it was Matt.

Its skin was like burnt leather, blackened and cracked. Something had torn its mouth wider than it should have been – I could see teeth through its cheek. Clothes hung off it in rips and shreds. Its eyes were wrong. And it was right there, right beside me, close enough to smell the scorched, stale, bitter copper of it.

I screamed and did the worst thing I could have: I lifted a hand to fend it off as I stumbled backwards. A broken hand closed around my wrist. I felt the bones moving against each other as I tried to yank myself free, hard things shifting beneath the flesh, tearing at it from the inside. But it just kept pulling me, pulling and pulling towards its stretched mouth. Terrifyingly inexorable.

I tried to keep it away from me. I braced my other hand against its skull, pushing to keep those teeth away. I have no idea, but I think I was shouting at it, as if battering it with sound might make a difference. It was stronger than me. It didn’t care if I damaged it, but I shied away from breaking my own wrist to get free. Every instinct told me not to, even when its teeth were opening and closing just an inch from my forearm. Even when it moved itself closer and closer, backing me up against the counter and bearing down on me.

There was a rush of movement – Matt. Matt was coming. I just had to hold on a little longer, but it was so strong. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t stop its mouth from closing on my arm. The pain was sharp and hot, and wet when teeth tore the skin. I screamed all my fear and hurt at it. I could feel its teeth scraping against bone as it clamped down and down..

Then Matt was shouting something at me – let go, let go of its head. I yanked my free hand back and there was a flash and a deafening crack. The shambler was suddenly a dead weight on me, gravity pulling it down and my arm with it. I fought, trying to get free. Matt had to grab its head and lift the teeth out of the imprint on my arm. He still had the gun in his hand.

I was free. I gulped in air, staggering away from the crumpled body until my back hit a wall. My whole arm was molten fire and I was afraid to look at it – I just clamped my hand over it, aware I was bleeding. Matt got a clean shirt from somewhere and wound it around my arm, while I just stood there, staring at the damned dead thing on the floor and shaking. I couldn’t stop shaking.

When Matt was done tending my arm, he looked into my face, his expression all torn up with earnest pain. “There was another one,” he said, gesturing towards the kitchen where he had been. I jerked around to look and saw a crumpled arm lying across the doorway. It took me a moment to realise that he was trying to explain why it took him so long to get to me.

I lifted my hand to touch his cheek. “We’re all right,” I said. “We’re okay.” He’d saved me, saved my life – I knew it, but I had no idea how to put it into words.

A sharp crack from outside interrupted us. The others. There were more. Matt and I grabbed our weapons and ran outside, following the shouts and shots to our friends.

They were clustered near a store front: a straggle of hungry dead and five friends. Mira had been scavenging with Dale and Bobby; the three of them were tackling the loose shamblers at the edges of the group. Jonah and Jersey were inside the store, fending off front of the group through the shattered front window. The rest of the Seekers were back at the Farm. Every now and then, a shot punctured a skull and a body fell bonelessly to the ground.

Matt and I ran up and got to work. One immediately turned and reached for my arm. I realised with a lurch that it could smell the blood and wanted it. Matt shouted at me to get back, but I had a bat in my hands and our friends were trapped. I could feel the fear of the first one rising in my throat, trying to choke me the way it had grabbed my wrist. No. I struck out. No.

It still frightens and disturbs me to know just how easily a human skull can be caved in. I’ll never forget that sound.

There were so many of them. Matt’s gun cracked beside me. Our footing was treacherous; I couldn’t think about it too hard, or I’d know we were stepping on bodies. I got grabbed again and he peeled it off me. A shambler latched onto his shoulder and I smacked it in the head until it let go. The air was full of gunfire and shouts, and the sound of desperate bodies hitting the ground. The shamblers didn’t make any more noise than they always do, straining and moaning, and falling down.

The five of us outside managed to get to the window and regroup with the pair inside. Jonah was in a bad way – one of his legs was a mess. We finished off another couple inside, and I managed to get enough space to look at the injury. Jersey looked fit to murder another wave of the hungry bastards if they should happen to appear.

They had literally torn chunks off Jonah’s lower leg. I knew it was bad when I dabbed blood away and could see bone. He clenched his teeth and couldn’t keep still under the pain. There wasn’t much I could do, so I used my belt as a tourniquet just below his knee and told the others that we had to get back to the Farm, right now.

Bobby picked Jonah up and dragged him towards the vehicles while the rest of us ran in a group around them, watching for any more shamblers. Nothing was moving anywhere any more; the silence was as heavy and complete as always, with only our huffed breaths and hurried instructions interrupting it. Car doors slammed and we kicked the engines into a roar, tearing away from that awful, bloody town.

I don’t think we’ve driven that frantically in a long time. I was crouching in the back, trying to keep Jonah’s bleeding under control while I was being thrown against the seats and doors. He clung to consciousness, though I’m sure he wished otherwise.

The others knew there was something wrong when we got back so early. A few came out to meet us and there were plenty of hands to carry the injured man inside. Masterson descended from his rooms on high to take over; I was only too glad to see him. He snapped at everyone, but in that professional way that we all obeyed because he’s the doctor. We wanted him to save Jonah.

He banned me from helping when he saw the blood leaking from my arm. He didn’t want me contaminating everything. Then I heard him asking for a saw and went back, because he couldn’t possibly be about to do what I thought he was going to do.

“Has to come off,” he said.

I felt like throwing up. Jonah was shouting, begging him not to, his pride as shredded as his leg. No, please, anything but that. I wanted to join in, but I’d seen the mangled mess. It was horrible. There was so much missing.

Masterson pinned him to the bench by his shoulders and leaned over him. “If I don’t, you’re going to bleed to death. Do you understand?” He stood up and looked around. “Hold him down.”

No-one moved. We were all too shocked. Then I asked Jersey for her belt. She unthreaded it and handed it over without asking why. I stepped to Jonah’s head, folded the belt over, and said, “You’d better bite down on this.”

Jersey started to swear at me but the others moved to help. Thorpe held Jonah’s shoulders down and Bobby took hold of his legs. Janice was at his feet, ready to assist. I stroked Jonah’s hair apologetically. He knew that it had to be done, that Masterson wouldn’t demand this if he didn’t have to. Knowing didn’t make it any better.

I wish I hadn’t stayed. I wish I hadn’t heard the sound of a saw on bone, or Jonah screaming around the leather in his mouth. Masterson’s calm, sharp demands undercut the scene in an oddly comforting way, but it was a relief when the patient finally passed out. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t help, so once he was still, I escaped. I ran to Matt and clung onto him, trying to forget the rasp of the saw. I tried not to think about what was going on in that room, or how close the man I was holding onto came to the same fate, back in Haven.

It took a long time. It was hours before Masterson finally showed himself. Jonah is still sleeping; he’s lost a lot of blood, but the doctor seems to think he has a chance.

Dinner is nearly finished. I should ask Masterson to look at my arm. I wish today was over.

I wonder if tomorrow is too soon to send someone back for the fruit I found.

I didn’t realise what today was until midday. Something felt off – I couldn’t put my finger on it, not until I thought back to last night. Before I had my arm tended by Masterson, when I was writing my post, something had struck me. It took me a few minutes of puzzled musing to realise that it was the date.

A year ago today, the world was rocked and torn by a bomb that went off over our heads. We didn’t know what had happened, just that everything was broken and falling. We were too busy struggling to survive to examine anything. Lives fell away like dominos.

It took us months to find out how bad things really were. All the infrastructure is gone, the whole country hit at the same time. Pieces were left, warped to fit into the holes left for them. Acid and poison taint each day for us, stealing every living thing they touch.

Through it all, we haven’t had an enemy to fight. There are lots of options for who might have been responsible for this, but none of them are here. The only people we have to fight are each other. Living and dead. And we have – we’ve fought everyone we’ve had to, for survival. Some have fought for other reasons, but living has always been the Seekers’ motive. Living and not forgetting who we used to be.

That day, a whole year ago, I was terrified and lost. A young boy found me and latched on, the first of a group that grew up out of the rubble. So many were found and lost. I grew to love that young boy like a little brother. Of the group that walked out of the epicentre, only Thorpe, Sally, and I remain. It’s a sobering thought.

My arm was almost broken when the bomb went off. It took months to heal. Now, I have an injured forearm again, caused by a different part of the bomb’s fallout: our unsacred, hungry dead. It’s all connected, circles of causality and returns. I don’t like to think about it; I have to believe that we can break out of this. One day, we’ll be free of what the bomb did to us.

After the rain huddled us inside, I called everyone together. This blog has made me the group’s historian and timekeeper, and I knew that none of the others would know what today is. What it means.

I had to wait a while for everyone to assemble. Masterson came down, with Sally floating oddly behind him. She looked vague, spreading shy smiles around the room and seeming free of the depression that has been weighing on her lately. She settled down next to the doctor while Bree cradled baby Felix. Even Warren was brought to sit with us, his chains clinking uncomfortably.

Finally, only Jonah was missing, because he couldn’t be moved. I stood up and cleared my throat, and the whole room focussed on me. From adult to the kids, everyone was looking at me, everyone except tiny Felix. I tried not to think of Sax. I tried not to think of everyone who had been there in the city with me and hadn’t made it this far.

This was important; I wanted to do it right. I wished I’d made notes, because I didn’t know where to start. Under so many stares, my throat wanted to close up and hide.

“Thank you all for coming,” I said. It seemed like a good place to start. “I don’t think many of us know what the date is any more. The days seem to run together now and it’s so easy to lose track.” I paused and took a breath. It was harder than I had been expecting; my voice trembled. “Today is Christmas Eve.”

I stopped to let the group digest that, to let them realise what it meant. All around the group, expressions became shocked, and bleak, and brimfull of grief. People reached out for each other. I saw Dale put his hand on Thorpe’s wrist, and for once, the big fella didn’t shake him off. Matt’s fingers slipped into my hand and I squeezed them, grateful for the contact. We remember. We remember all of it.

“We all made it this far,” I said, to fill in the silence that sat on all of us. “A whole year. The world fell down around us, and we’ve survived for a whole year. That’s pretty amazing, and I’m grateful for each day, and every one of you.”

I caught sight of Iona’s face and hesitated. She was smiling at me, so brightly, but there were tears streaming down her face. She wasn’t the only one crying, but hers was the only smile shining through it. I had to swallow mine back; I had more to say, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to once the tears started.

I went on to speak about how none of the past year has been easy for us. We’ve had to struggle and fight for everything, from food, to life, to the freedom to make our own choices. We’ve had to work hard to stay true to the people we want to be, and not turn into one of the vicious groups we’ve had to fend off. We’ve sought a way to build our lives again – and it looks like we might have finally found it. On the way, we’ve found friends, and fallen in love, and built a family.

But we lost a lot along the way, too. Pieces of ourselves, left behind in our wake as we made concessions to the After. We lost all those things we thought were essential to our lives: jobs, homes, comfort. And more than any of that: people. Families, friends, enemies. Everyone sitting there with me today had lost someone dear to them.

I’ve been keeping this blog as a record of everything that has passed. This is our history, so that it might not be forgotten. But we still had to remember. We should remember them, even though it hurts. We should honour them and remember what they meant to us.

So we did. The whole group stood and sang through throats thick with tears. We’ve sung Amazing Grace so many times – we all know the words now. It’s still a beautiful sound, laden with our sadness, love, and hope for them.

When it was over, we all sat down. I was still holding Matt’s hand, gripping it tightly. I was afraid to look at him, because I knew that the emotions churning in my chest would break free if I did. I can break down with him, but I didn’t want to just then.

Luckily, Estebar stood up and came over to me. He was wringing his hands, more nervous than I’ve seen him before; he’s usually a quiet, self-possessed little boy.

“Nugget wants to know if we can sing carols,” he said.

It was the silliest question, and it was completely perfect. I laughed and said yes, of course we can. It was the strangest carolling I’ve ever been to, laced with sadness and reflection, and a mix of voices sliding all over the lyrics. Half of us forgot the words to Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer and were giggling by the end of it. Thorpe and Dale missed it – at first, I thought they were off somewhere enjoying themselves, but then they came back with a couple of crates. I don’t know where they got the beer; the foragers must have stashed it one day. I’m pretty sure I know where it all went, though.

Last Christmas Eve, there weren’t any carols. It was all cracked concrete, smoke and dust. It was voices crying out in the darkness, for help and mercy, and for a morning we weren’t sure would come.

One year on, we put those memories in their place. We sang. Out in the greenhouses, the first green shoots are poking up through the earth.

One year on, the damage that was done that day is finally starting to heal.