The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

Hi, me again. Mopey McGloomgloom still isn’t feeling like talking, not even to a battered little laptop, so you’re stuck with me. Can’t let the laptop feel all lonely and neglected, now can we?

Today wasn’t very eventful, but I’ll tell you about it anyway. It took us forever to get into the fuel tanks under the gas station we found, thanks to the ice. We don’t dare melt it – not that we can – and chipping it off is hard work. After what Kostoya told us about the rain, we’re all especially paranoid about getting any of it on us. There was some squealing and jumping around, but no-one got burned.

Then Tia asked what would happen if the rain got into the tanks and we all stared at the gaping hole in the ground we’d made. As if the stupid thing would grow teeth and start biting people. She just had to wait until after we’d got all sweaty opening the damned thing – couldn’t have mentioned it before we’d gone to all that trouble, huh?

Thorpe wasn’t going to listen to that kind of hysteria – he just grabbed the hose and sucked the siphon into motion. He’s good like that. It didn’t melt his mouth – thank god – so I guess it’s okay. The big loon.

A few of us got restless while the tanks were filling, so we went off to look for supplies. More looking through other people’s drawers and cupboards, talking about how on earth any of them found anything and how long has this been here and how the hell are all these spiders were surviving. Well, we found more webs than actual spiders, but why are there always webs? I hate spiders. Faith likes to make fun of me about that. Cow.

I wish she’d made fun of me today.

Most of the day was over before we’d got everything piled back into and on top of the vehicles. Hardly got anywhere before the rain came. We’re snails without the slime.

Still, we were on the road long enough to encounter a single shambler. Haven’t seen any in a while, and there he was, all on his own. Weird. Maybe they’re dying off.

Thorpe hit it with his car, knocked it under his wheels. It was pushing itself up again, so damned persistent, so I went over it too. Not that there was anywhere else to drive. It made the worst noise. Tia said she was going to throw up, but when I asked her if she really wanted to get out of the car, she decided not to.

“Not so much a speedbump as a slowbump,” I told the siblings. They laughed and Terry smacked me on the arm. We all felt better after that. Well, except for my arm.

We’re holed up in a little house for the night and I just saw the cutest thing. It’s my turn on watch, so I’m doing patrols in between bits of blog. Anyway, I was upstairs and stuck my head into one of the bedrooms. Dillon is lying with his healing leg sticking out at an angle, all cuddled in on Faith’s chest with her arms wrapped around him. He’s going to remember that fondly when he’s older. She’s fast asleep, more relaxed than I’ve seen her for so long now – weeks, maybe.

I didn’t check in on the others too closely. Some things I just don’t need to see. Not sure where Dan’s got to – I think he’s upstairs somewhere.

Time to turn the watch over to Terry. Better go kick him.

~Matt

I knew that letting Matt write posts was dangerous. Trust him to start calling me names. Feels like the first time I’ve smiled in weeks. Bastard.

It was nice to have a break from trying to put the mess in my head into words. I found myself staring at a blank screen, cursor blinking expectantly, keys wearing themselves faceless under my fingertips. There was too much stretched thin in me to be able to unravel any of it without breaking. Taking some time away from posting helped.

I thought it would be harder to go forward than it was. But after all the farewells, I got into the campervan, put it into gear and then we were moving. I followed the car in front and left the university behind. Put my shoulder to obstacles when I needed to. Moving onward feels like it should be harder than just walking, one foot in front of the other. But it’s not.

I’d be lying if I said that it was easy. Parts of the things I’m trying to leave behind are following me. I wake up and look over, expecting to see one face next me and finding another. The worst part is that it’s a relief to realise it’s Dillon. I’m relieved that the nightmare with Ben isn’t still happening, and that makes me feel wretched. I’m not glad he’s dead, or that I had to make him that way. But it’s over. At least it’s over.

So. Moving onward. Our little group feels strange, and not only because of what happened at the university. It’s hard to look them all in the eye, especially those who have been with me for months. Those who know me, those who might have thought I’d never do something like that. Like the girl in the mirror. She doesn’t know what to think of me, and I have no idea what anyone else thinks, either.

It’s also strange because there are strangers with us – so many people to get to know. I hadn’t realised how comfortable I had become with the old group. The siblings are a funny pair, and Dale is speaking up more now that he’s one of the group. Dan is keeping to himself as much as ever, but we’re hearing his voice more often too. He has an accent that I can’t place.

There’s no talk of Wolverines, or Runners, or outsiders any more. Just Seekers and where we’re heading next. That’s good, I think.

Speaking of which, that looks like it’s not going to be as easy as we thought. The Emergency Coordination Centre is on a mountain, up a winding series of roads that used to be crowded over by trees and bushes. Now, the slopes are scorched, the trees worn down to nubs by so many months of acid, and the twist-back roads will be slick with ice.

There won’t be any shelter up there, apart from a few rare houses and the ECC itself. For safety, we’ll have to take the vehicles all the way up (and down again). For safety, we’ll have to take as much food and water as possible.

We reached the foothills today, where the suburbs dribble out into farmlands. Nothing grows in the fields any more, no crops or grass or grazers. There’s just dirt, hard and dark under the rime of ice. We’ve paused here by a convenience store to take stock and gather whatever we can get our hands on. The store itself was looted – fairly recently, judging by the disturbed dust – which is both good and bad. On one hand, it’s a sign of other survivors; on the other, it means less supplies for us.

Tomorrow, we’ll scour the nearby houses for anything we can get. Then we’ll set off up those winding roads and see where they take us.

There’s a snake in my belly, stirring. I’m afraid of what we’ll find up there, and hopeful too. A part of me thinks that the hope is what scares me most.

We won’t turn back, though. There’s too much to move forward for, and too little left behind. One step after another, one painstaking mile under our tyres after another.

We’re on our way.

Of the new Seekers, only half of us have strayed away from shelter before. The last time we ventured out into the open, we wound up spending time in prison. None of us remembers that fondly.

By lunchtime, we had searched all the nearby houses for the last dregs of supplies. We shouldered the vehicles into life and stood looking at the swathes of bare ground before us. I tried to think of it as scraped clean, but it just didn’t feel that way. It was waiting for us, stained orange as the tainted sunlight glinted off scraps of frost.

No-one wanted to take the first step. I could feel the others’ minds drifting back to the university, to a place where we might be safe. To the ones we’d left behind.

There’s no going back for me. I don’t want to look at that place again; maybe someday I will, but not now, not yet. So I got into the campervan and told Dillon to strap himself in. Just like before, when the group was waiting for someone to jump first, I was the one who gave in and ended up leading. I guess some things don’t change.

The first curves over hills went smoothly. The suburbs fell away behind us, a line of rooftops that shrunk in our rearview mirrors. I felt bared despite the tin can wrapped around me with its engine growling steadily. Normally the sound of it fills up the space, but here there are no walls nearby to bounce it back at us – it just keeps going and going, running away from us. The clouds drift low and thick, unbroken except for where the mountains poke at it. Now I wonder what might lie above the cloud cover. Is the sky above still blue? Are there scraps of real green left up there?

We didn’t have any trouble until the road started to climb steeply up the side of the mountain. I wished suddenly that I was in one of the offroaders – the campervan slithered around on icey roads more than I liked. A couple of times, I thought it wouldn’t make it up the incline; the engine whined and the tyres screamed, and I could feel Dillon holding his breath until the power bit enough to push us up the slope.

Even as far out from the city as we were, there were vehicles abandoned on the roads, left where they stopped when the bomb went off. It’s hard to believe that a single bomb could reach this far. Maybe it didn’t; maybe there was more than one. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.

On the skinny roads clinging to the side of the mountain, each car was yet another obstacle to get around and sometimes there was barely enough room. Then, about mid-afternoon, we came across a bus. There wasn’t any way we were going to get past it, so we decided to release the brakes and let it roll out of the way.

It was a good idea, though easier said than done. We got on board easily enough – the doors had been left open – and the keys were still in the ignition. It took three of us to muddle out the controls and figure out how to do it – none of us had ever driven a bus before – while the siblings checked over the rest of the bus for anything that might be of use.

That’s when we found the body. Tia gave a shocked little cry and the rest of us hurried to see what was up. It was shrivelled and discoloured and barely human any more. I don’t know how long it had been there. Parts of it looked gnawed on, though by teeth too small to be shambler or the more vampiric alternative. I looked close enough to make sure while my stomach threatened to expel the scraps we’d had for breakfast. I couldn’t look away until I was sure. Then I ran off the bus and gulped in great lungfuls of air, as if I’d been drowning.

I don’t know why, but I had to know what had been eating that body. It’s not like Ben could have got up here. I just had to know. I had to see for myself. Maybe I just wanted that awful sight burned into my memory to block out the pictures that float in my dreams. It’s like trying to wash a wound clean with sewer water.

We weren’t so eager to shove the bus down the mountain after that. It seemed terribly wrong to throw away someone’s resting-place like that. But it was still in our way and we had to push on. The day was growing darker as the clouds cluttered up overhead, preparing to share their heavy burden of tainted water with us.

In the end, pragmatism won. Whoever that was there in the bus, they were well past caring about what we did or didn’t do. We moved our vehicles out of the way, I shut Dillon up in the campervan where he’d be safe, and we lashed the bus’s controls so that it would run straight. Then we released the brakes and stood back, watching it roll away on its own.

None of us expected it to gain so much speed so quickly. The road switched back on itself, but the bus kept on going, its wheels spinning free of the ground as it left the tarmac and nosedived into the slope below. We all felt the impact when it hit, and then it spun and rolled, like a child’s toy, down the expanse of scoured earth. There were no bushes to slow it, no trees for it to fetch up against. It wiped out an outbuilding and kept on going, crunching and smashing. It left pieces of itself behind and didn’t stop until it reached a dip in the landscape.

We all stood and watched as it rocked itself to sleep in the dip. There were no doubts left about what would happen if we lost our grip on these roads, if we let ourselves slide off just a little. There’s nothing left to catch us but the bottom of the mountain, and every inch we travel adds to how far we can fall. I don’t think I was the only one with my heart beating in my throat.

We didn’t go much further before we decided to stop for the night. No-one said much. We just found a level nook of the road and pulled the vehicles together, and huddled inside the campervan while the rain came down. I haven’t felt so exposed in a long time, just a few inches from death, or poison, or becoming something awful.

I didn’t realise that my knuckles had gone white until Dillon asked if I was all right. He has been so good lately, checking that I’m okay and trying to keep my spirits up. I know I haven’t been easy on him. He had a pack of cards from somewhere, and the whole group played games until it was too dark to see. Just listening to them laugh loosened something inside me, something I didn’t even realise was tight, and that felt good. Better.

Tonight, our thoughts are turning towards what we might find at the top of the mountain. I hope we don’t have to turn over many more vehicles – or bodies – to get there. But for a nice change, I do hope.

Today, we stood on top of the world. It took us most of the day to get there, between waiting for the ice to unstick and getting around obstacles on increasingly steep and hairpinning roads, but it was worth it. All the terror of trying not to look down the sheer faces of rock and dirt, and having one of the offroaders shunt the campervan up a couple of stretches… even that was worth it.

We all stopped and clambered out of the vehicles when we broke through the cloudbank and the warmth washed over us. I had forgotten how bright the sun can be. Suddenly, there was white in the world again, painfully pure to eyes used to stains. We squinted and shaded our faces, as if we’d been living in caves all these months.

The clouds were too close for comfort, so we didn’t linger there on the roadside for long – condensation was a worry. Dale mentioned the idea of seeing what it looked like from the very top and we were all quickly infected with it. Those last treacherous stretches went by at a reckless pace as we strained for the top, to see more and more of the world above the bomb’s mark. More of the old world, where it’s holding its head above water.

I don’t know how long we stood up there. It was off our path but no-one cared. We should have pushed on to the ECC, but instead we lingered and looked. For a little while, some of us cried.

The clouds aren’t orange on top. They’re pale – not quite white, somewhere between yellow and green perhaps. And above them, the sky… I don’t have the words. I’ve been compressed under the cloudbank for so long, I had forgotten how good it felt to be able to breathe. To look up and feel like there was room to stretch and stretch, room to run as far and as fast as I liked, room for as many possibilities as the human brain could conceive. I have missed that fearless expanse and its freedom.

And colours, so many colours. Delicate eggshell, dipping into violet and and the blush of midnight blue on the horizon; beautiful, beautiful blues while red and gold fall under on the other side. Below them, cluttering up our sight, there’s green here too. Thick and rare and living. We couldn’t see the dirt for the fallen leaves, or west for the trunks of trees. None of us minded. It’s been so long since nature got in our way that it makes a nice change.

We all wound up standing in a huddle when the sun went down. So painful to look at directly but still a wonderful sight. I had my faithful Dillon under my arm, leaning on me, and Matt beside me, fingers linked through mine. The siblings hung onto each other on his other side, and Thorpe and Dale stood behind, tall enough to see past us. Dan stood beside Dillon and placed his hand over mine where it rested on the kid’s shoulder. I looked at him and he nodded at me solemnly, as if he approved of all this and it was somehow my doing. I don’t know why, but that little gesture lifted me.

I wish that Ben could have seen this. It would have burned him, so badly, but I think he would have liked it. I think it might have lifted him, too.

My feet were tired by the time twilight was making it difficult to see, but when I turned around, I couldn’t move. I looked up and up and my throat closed over.

It’s not just the sky I’ve missed, or the sun: it’s the stars, too. And there they were, pricking out their tiny holes in the oncoming dark. Stars. So far away, but not too far to reach us here. I wanted to reach back, I wanted to let them know that we’re still here. We’re still a part of that vast universe, even with our scars and struggles, even hidden away below the cloudbank.

I think part of the tears was relief. Knowing that all of this was still up here, that not all of the world is broken, sullied, poisoned and dying. Ours isn’t the only mountaintop breathing above the clouds – there are others, tiny islands in the sea of acid water. Pockets of clean rock and plants clinging to life. There might even be birds and animals up here.

There was no rain for us today. There was no hiding. It’s warmer here but there’s still a nip of winter chill; we didn’t care. We’re sleeping outside tonight, bundled in our blankets with the stars for a cover over our heads. It’s strange, like living in a memory but without the sepia tones.

I don’t think any of us will sleep much tonight. I can’t stop gazing up, counting the stars and wishing that I knew their names. I want to see the dawn and the sun rising again, just to know that it does.

Now I know why the birds sing when the sun comes up; I feel as though I might burst if I don’t.

• Theme song: Never saw blue like that - Shawn Colvin

I wasn’t the only one watching the sunrise this morning. It was freezing so high up, but we stood and stamped in it, watching the stars wink out while the beauty of blue flushed over them. I think that night under the open sky will carry us all for a while.

We were all quiet as we packed up and prepared to leave. We can’t stay up there, as much as we all love it. We have places to go, people to find, answers to seek out.

We set our wheels on the road again, pointing downwards towards the ruffled sea of clouds. None of us wanted to put so much as a bumper into that searing mass. Even Dillon was quiet beside me, solemn and unhappy as the fog lifted around us and the campervan started to waver on the slick surface.

We had forgotten about the ice; the lack of it up above had set us on our way earlier than usual. I had a couple of terrifying moments when I knew that the tyres weren’t connecting with the tarmac at all, separated by the sheen of frozen acid. One wheel nearly slipped off the road altogether: I hauled the van back the other way, heart thumping out through my sternum. We skidded sideways before the van shuddered straight.

Luckily, it wasn’t far to the ECC from the top of the mountain. I’ve never been so glad to shut off the engine before, and I spent a couple of minutes just sitting and waiting for the shaking to stop.

The ECC is high enough to be within the wrap of the cloudbank, so we weren’t eager to get out. Condensation beaded on the windscreen and we exchanged glances and gestures with those in the other vehicles. We wound up waiting for the sun to climb higher, hoping that it would burn off at least some of the moisture, or lift it away from us. I don’t really know how that stuff works – I wished that Conroy was with us; he was always full of that kind of information.

After an hour, we were all bored and impatient. Sitting and staring at the doors of the ECC wasn’t fun, and I couldn’t help but note the details hinting that it wasn’t all we had hoped it would be. There were no lights on and the external surfaces were all badly scarred from the acid. It crouched on the bare ground looking boxy and small. A spiderweb of aerials and dishes teetered on the roof, almost bigger than the building itself. We beeped a few times, but no-one came out. For a moment, I hoped to see a new face there, a smile or even a wary frown would have been welcome. Any sign of life would have been good.

Finally, a couple of the boys threw blankets over themselves and sprang for the doors. They wound up putting their shoulders against the panels and battering their way in. After disappearing inside for a heartstopping minute, they held the doors open and waved us inside. We covered ourselves and ran from the vehicles into the building, barely daring to breathe in case we inhaled the moisture in the air.

Everyone made it okay. I waited for Dillon to hobble in on his crutches before we closed the doors up behind us. It wasn’t damp enough outside to damage our blankets, despite our fears. I wasn’t the only one wondering about the poison in the air, though. At least it seemed sealed enough inside that we would be safe, once we were away from those forced doors.

So here we are in the ECC, finally. After all these months, all those winding roads, distractions, obstacles, detours. We have reached that place where we finally get to see if our hopes are justified. We might find out where everyone from the hospital evacuated to, where the help went.

What we found inside was, at first, darkness. Thick walls with a lack of windows protect this place, and it took some fumbling around with the one flashlight that someone thought to bring before we could figure out where we were.

Offices. It all looks like offices, which makes sense if this is supposed to be about coordination. Empty desks thick with paper, maps tacked onto walls, computer screens dull and listless. I’m not sure what I had expected to find here, but an office that looked like the back rooms of my dad’s car yard wasn’t it. It was familiar and a let-down at the same time.

It took some searching but we found the generators in the basement, drained completely dry. We argued over what to do for a while – some of us wanted to see what we could find lying around, while a few of us preferred to try to get the generators up and running again. We finally agreed to sacrifice one can of fuel to see what we could find out.

Now, we have lights. We’re using as little as possible, but we’ve managed to get some of the computers working. This building must be shielded somehow for them to have survived the blast. There’s even a working radio – Dale has been trying to raise the university on it, but I think it’s too late for anyone to be on the roof now. He is picking up that repeating broadcast, though.

So far, we haven’t found enough to put the pieces together, but we’re going to keep looking. It feels like there’s a lot here – we just need to work out how to pick out what we need from the mess. We’re not ready to give up.

It looks like whoever was here left in a hurry. It’s not a comforting sign. I’m trying not to think about that too much.

Time to bed down. Hopefully tomorrow will be more illuminating.

A storm rose around us today, lashing the walls of the Emergency Coordination Centre while we huddled inside. It rolled and thrashed at us, filling our heads with the pound and rush of water, as if it had lost the race to get here and now it was punishing us.

The walls are thick and sturdy here and we’re secure enough behind them. Even so, the acid is beginning to eat its way in. There are places where it has started to ooze inside, rivulets etched down walls. It’s not serious yet, but I don’t think it’ll be too much longer before there’ll be nothing left here worth visiting. We got here in time. Whatever we manage to take away from this place, we got here before it was erased.

We have made progress on deciphering the ECC’s secrets. It took another can of diesel to power the generator, but as stuck here as we are, we didn’t have a lot of choice. We’re running chronically short of batteries for the flashlights.

Thorpe has been on the radio for most of the day. He got hold of the guys at the university – they’re all doing okay. A few more shambler sightings; nothing serious. I listened in but I didn’t talk to them.

Conroy helped us get into the computer systems over the radio. For some reason, everyone expected me to be able to do it, but typing out a blog is nothing like trying to get into a government system. I don’t know what all those buttons and icons do!

Dale and Matt managed to figure it out, with Conroy’s instructions and Dillon lending a helping hand. They went through the files, chattering away while Thorpe glowered and tried to listen in on the radio. He checked all the official channels, but the only transmission he picked up was the repeating one we found at the university. The one calling us on towards our next destination.

The computers gave us a little information. The officials holed up here after the bomb went off and coordinated what they could over the radios. They only had rescue services for those first few days, before the extent of the devastation became apparent. They had a problem with rescue workers running off to find their families. I don’t blame them; I can only be grateful that the good ones stayed with us. The only one of them left now is Thorpe, our faithful fireman. I’d hug him if it wouldn’t make him frown at me.

We think the ECC sent the evacuees from the hospital to an army base out to the west. Then they ran out of fuel for the generators, and food, and water, and were forced to flee for somewhere that might be able to support them. From what we can tell, they struck out for the army base, too.

There are many maps on the walls, some of them scarred by the leaking acid but mostly readable. Different views, different scales, different areas. It wasn’t until I found a handwritten key that I realised what the markings on them meant.

There’s a red pin in the centre of the major cities on the map, but only the ones nearest to us. Circles have been drawn around each pin, concentric and widening to cover more and more of the city. Most of the country is bare – I guess they didn’t hear about the distant ones. Radios only reach and relay so far.

I looked at our markings, at the pin where I stood when it all came down. The first circle covers the central business district, the part of the city that tore itself to pieces and burned until the acid came to wash it away. I’m afraid to think about what might be left there now. The second circle covers the parts of the city where the buildings were ruined, but not as badly as in the CBD. I’m not sure what the third circle represents – the damage all seemed the same to me that far out. I guess I was used to it by the time we got there.

The pattern is the same in each marked city. In a way, it was a comfort: we haven’t just been left here to fend for ourselves. We weren’t alone because no-one out there didn’t want to come for us; we were alone because they couldn’t. Because there wasn’t anyone left to come for us. The more I thought about it, the less of a comfort it turned out to be.

A part of me went dark as I stared at those maps. It wasn’t just us. There isn’t somewhere we can escape to that wasn’t reached by the bombs. There isn’t a part of this country that stands in the sunshine, as free as our mountaintop. Did they bomb everywhere? Is everyone struggling as badly as we are? Did they cover the whole world with their pain and poison?

I can’t begin to fathom who might do this. I can’t begin to figure out why. How can this possibly make sense? How could someone intend to do something like this?

I remember the CBD. I remember the bodies, the dead, the cries from under the rubble that faded a little more each day. I remember the broken people, and the way we have all hardened into survivors. All those steps and slips that brought us here, and now there’s just more of it ahead. More steps, more chances to fall. More ways we need to redefine who we are just so we keep on breathing.

I checked the maps for an army base that wasn’t on our maps. It sitting in the blank area out by the junction that the looping signal is calling us towards, near Greenberry.

All the signs are pointing us in the same direction – to Greenberry, to thatsignal. There’s something comforting about that. But then I can see those concentric circles marking out impacts and deathtolls and it’s suddenly so hard to put my foot out for that next step. I’m starting to feel carried along by all of this. Shepherded.

I keep thinking about the nubs of mountains, heads held just above the surface of the stained water. Stepping-stones across the nightmare. I want to see them again. I want to have more of a horizon than the walls I can reach out and touch.

The ECC went dark today. I think we’ve got as much from it as we’re going to get. We didn’t want to waste any more fuel on keeping it alive; we don’t know when we’ll get to another gas station and be able to fill our cans up.

We have answered the burning questions we had: where everyone went; what happened to the organisation and official channels that were supposed to help us. We know where they went, but we don’t know if they made it. What happened to them is the same that happened to all of us – the rain, the lack of supplies, and most likely the Sickness and shamblers too.

We know now that there’s no-one coming. No-one is looking for survivors, because that’s all that’s left now and the mirror is close enough. Maybe there’s a government tucked away somewhere, buried in a bunker with three years’ worth of supplies. With no sign of them, they might as well not be there at all.

There’s still the army base. There’s a hope there, growing slimmer by the second. Why aren’t they scanning the air waves? Why haven’t they answered any of our transmissions? Every establishment we have hoped on has turned out to be empty: first the hospital and now here. I think I’m too tired to rest my hopes on that any more. I can’t take any more disappointments.

We’re on our own. Life, death, what little is left of morality – it’s all up to us now. We’re our own higher authority; we’re our own saviours. We’re all each other has got.

That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to see what’s at the base, though. We talked about it while we waited for the storm to blow itself out and all of us want to continue on to Greenberry. If nothing else, there is the signal. There’s power to send it and that has to come from somewhere. There must be something there.

I asked if we could go back up before we head down the mountain again. I wanted to see the sky, to imprint it on my brain before we were cut off completely again. There was a note of relief in the group; after the bleakness of the revelations here, we all need that comfort.

The storm cleared about midday – it’s hard to tell with all this fog, but it felt like midday – and we took whatever we could find that might be of use to us. There wasn’t much; the ECC workers did a good job of evacuating the supplies when they left.

Before we closed the doors behind us, we tacked a note just inside so that whoever came here after us would know where we’ve gone. So they wouldn’t have to search and wonder.

We have spent the rest of the day on the mountaintop, stunned by all the space after spending a couple of days inside windowless walls. We can see the storm circling off to the west, the thunderheads reaching up much higher than we are. It looks like it’s trying to scrub the stained clouds away, but it’s not having much luck.

As focussed as we have been on finding official organisation, we haven’t forgotten what our next destination is. We have to go south a short way to the place where Dillon’s family fled to. To look for them and hope they’re still there. I don’t think any of us can bear the thought of another empty building telling tales of people long gone.

I spent most of the day sitting with the kid; he’s quiet with nerves now that we’re close to his aunt’s house. He’s afraid to hope they’re there and excited at the same time. It’s worse than when we went to his home – I think the wait has made this carrot seem even more precious and distant than the last one.

The boys kicked his ball around on the mountaintop under the setting sun, and he joined in. He’s still slow and relying on his crutches, but the fellas were kind with him. He hobbled back to me with a grin, flushed and needing a rest. It’s good to see him that way. But that grin faded when he sat down, so abruptly that I asked him what was wrong.

“I’m gonna miss you if I stay with my folks,” he said, then stammered to correct himself. “All of you. Everyone. It’s gonna be strange.”

I wrapped both arms around his shoulders and told him that we’ll miss him too. It made me feel heavy inside; of all of these strangers I’ve grown to like and love, he has been with me the longest. I don’t want to think about him not being in the group.

He was quiet for a little while, then he asked, “What if I don’t want to stay with them?”

It wasn’t something that had occurred to me as a possibility. “That’s up to you,” I told him. “No-one’s going to make you stay there.”

“My dad might. And you guys’ll be able to move faster without me.” He tapped a crutch on the split that bound his healing leg.

I know that kind of doubt and fear; I’ve had those thoughts myself, eating away at me while no-one’s looking. I made him look at me, right in the eye so he would know I was telling the truth. “You’ll always have a place with us. We’re not looking to dump you.”

He nodded and looked glum, so I’m not sure if he believed me. Then the boys called him away to play soccer with them and I joined in too, running and shoving with the rest of them. It felt good to get breathless and laugh with them. Even silent Dan joined in, and I know I saw Thorpe grinning like a kid.

The moon has come up tonight, so bright that we don’t need flashlights at all. The sun is watching us from the other side of the world through that great, waning mirror. It’s a comforting thought. We need all we can get of those as we move towards tomorrow.

We said our farewells to the sky this morning, quietly and with much gazing. We waited a while for the ice to clear down below, we checked and re-checked the doors and windows on the way down, in case the seals weren’t keeping all the moisture out. The acid encroached on the ECC and is wearing it down, and we don’t know how much tougher these vehicles are. Then we all took a deep breath and dove into the cloudbank

The way down the mountain was painfully slow. First, there were icy roads to contend with – either we didn’t give it enough time to melt or it has been colder lately, I’m not sure. My hands ache from spending so long clutching the steering wheel and trying to feel whether the tyres were gripping or sliding. Then there were the obstacles to deal with, more vehicles to push out of our path or edge around. I cursed them until the campervan went into a slide and an abandoned car was all that saved us from a drop right over the edge. We bumped off the other car and back on course, and I swore words Dillon hasn’t heard before. The bumped vehicle slid sideways off the road and clattered a few times. I didn’t look back.

My heart was thrashing all the way. Thorpe offered to drive the campervan a couple of times, to give me a rest, and the second time I agreed. The offroaders are so much more solid on the road. Even so, my arms are sore from the tension and hauling vehicles around, especially my bandaged one. The one with the healing cuts carved into it.

The van looks like it’s been through the wars, bumped and dented and scraped. There haven’t been any wars for our vehicles, just the end of the world and acid ice that’s slowly polishing the tyres. I feel like we made it to the bottom in one piece after leaving swathes of skin behind on the rocky mountainside. I’m not eager to have a journey like that again.

But we made it; here we are, sitting underneath a low orange sky and listening to the rain. It’s too dark to see the clouds there but I know they’re there, hovering just a short way above us and heavy with poison.

We found a small town – a handful of buildings clustered together around a junction. They’ve been thoroughly pillaged, but at least the roofs are solid and not leaking yet. There aren’t any signs of anyone alive here, but we’re used to that. It feels like so long since we saw someone who wasn’t in our group, or on our side. Someone who wasn’t a shambler.

I wonder if they’re truly dead. Ben had a pulse, albeit a very slow one. Doesn’t that technically mean life? But it’s not living. Being a shambler is being dead in so many other ways. Ben was some halfway thing – maybe that’s what made him snap in the end. Maybe that’s what made me snap. I try to imagine what it was like for him and something in me fails.

I don’t want to think about him. There’s too much there and I’m so tired. The boys are talking about changing the cars around tomorrow, letting other people drive. I look at Dillon and I can’t put him in a car with someone else; the two of us will stay together, at least. He needs the support. But a break from driving will be nice.

It’s later than I thought. No wonder I started pondering the true definition of ‘life’. Sometimes I wonder if this laptop keeps proper time – the hours seem to slip away from me in the dark.

Time to turn in, before something else slips away from me in the dark.

We shouldn’t have stopped today. It seemed so harmless. Another gathering of buildings by the roadside, our supplies running low; just a quick stop, that was all. Just a quick stop.

I don’t know where they came from. We were spread out, everyone checking the buildings for anything of value to us. I think Dan saw them first; he was the first one I heard shouting. They were stumbling over the slope above the little town, tripping over rocks and falling down. Dirt skittered down around them – that should have been our first warning.

I counted heads as the group emerged into the street to see what was happening. The shamblers were still a way off, so we decided to complete our search before we left. They’re slow and we were sure we’d have time.

Once upon a time, there were trees on these hills, and grass with its tiny roots, binding it all together. The rain scoured all of that away. There are no trees, or grass, or roots. Nothing to hold it all together. The messy weight of the shamblers was enough to bring it all down.

My first thought was that another storm was coming. Then I realised the rumbling was under my feet and shivering up the walls. I looked up and the whole world was sliding.

I think I screamed. Then there was running, everyone running away. Except Thorpe – he ran back towards the rolling hillside that was coming down to meet us. I shouted at him and looked back. Dale was behind us, just in front of the first building the dirt swept over. I saw him go under, dragged into the wave feet-first.

I ran harder. I couldn’t help it – I just had to get away. Everything was pounding so hard I didn’t even notice the rocks pinging on my back. Then I was thrown down and everything washed over me. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to curl up into a ball, but I couldn’t do that, either.

Then it was over. I pushed myself up and spat out foul grit, and couldn’t believe there was air. My eyes were streaming; I had to scrub them before they’d work properly. Then I saw an arm near me and went to pull it up. It was Terry, coughing and struggling to get up. We stumbled around, trying to find everyone. I ticked names off in my head – Matt, Dan, Tia. Thorpe struggling out of the press of dirt and rocks, shouting so desperately. Dillon fought with the door to a store to get it open, hobbling out on one crutch and looking so worried. He was the only one of us inside when it happened; the rest of us got caught in the tail-end of the landslide.

Except Dale. I haven’t seen Thorpe so frantic since the diner when the rain first came down. It took us minutes to find where the ex-Wolverine was buried, and longer to dig him out. He was unconscious, unmoving. I had to push the fireman out of the way so I could check his pulse and his breathing. His mouth was full of dirt.

I’ve never actually done CPR before except on the training dummies. My hands shook and I had no idea if I was doing it right. The breaths made me dizzy. I kept counting and counting to get the ratios right – breaths and compressions, breaths and compressions. I’m not sure when he came around. Someone pulled me back and I landed on my backside, blinking away spots. Someone was crying; I think it was Tia.

Dillon was the only one of us not mud-coloured. Head to foot, we were long brown smears. He was so bright in his orange jacket, hobbling over the fallen hillside on his splinted leg and one crutch. I think we all heard him shout at the same time and turned to look. He had almost made it over to us.

We weren’t the only dirty bodies pulling ourselves out of the ground: inexorable and hungry, the shamblers were dragging themselves free. There was one just a few feet away from me, almost completely emerged. I hadn’t even noticed the movement. Dillon smacked it in the head with his crutch before I could finish scrambling to my feet. Once, twice, and once more to make sure it wasn’t going to move again. Then he grinned at me.

The flush of relief was sliced off by the movement behind him. More of them were crawling free and he was too close. He tried to hit them, but he couldn’t turn and his leg– He went down. He screamed and then I couldn’t see him any more..

We got to him as fast as we could. No-one had any weapons – it was just bare hands and desperation. We pulled him free and got him into the campervan. There was so much blood. I did what I could for him, but… there was just so much. He kept telling me that it was all right, it’s all right, Faith, don’t worry, it’s all going to be fine. I managed not to start crying until he fell asleep.

I can’t sleep. I keep watching him breathing, terrified every time it catches. I don’t know what to do. Masterson is so far away. The vehicles are stuck in the landslide.

Hold on, Dillon. We have to make it. We have to.

Please don’t go.

Hi, it’s Matt again. Faith finally cried herself to sleep. I opened up the laptop to see what she’d written, but all she had today was the title. I guess the rest is up to me.

I wish it wasn’t bad news.

We knew it was bad when Faith came out of the van this morning. We were digging out the vehicles – one of them was wrecked, but it had protected the others from the worst of the landslide. She looked so strange that we all turned and stared at her. I’ve never seen her so calm before; it was the kind of calm that made me want to go over and shake her, just to see if my Faith was still in there.

“We need to go Dillon’s aunt’s house,” she said. Last night, we had agreed to head back to the university, get the kid to the doctor. We all knew she wouldn’t make such a reversal lightly. “He should be with his family.” She didn’t need to tell us that there wasn’t much time left.

She went back into the van and closed the door, and the rest of us finished up. It wasn’t long before we were on the road.

I haven’t had such a horrible journey before. Thorpe insisted on driving the van and Dale went with him. I wanted to ride with Faith, but there wasn’t room in the back with her and the kid. I couldn’t have done anything anyway, but I wanted to be there. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left her alone with him.

Something happened about halfway to the house – I’ve never seen Thorpe drive so crazily before. At first I thought it was the ice, or the tyres on the van going. Then I saw Faith moving in the back of the van, rocking back and forth, and I knew. I knew. I have no idea how Thorpe and Dan did it, but somehow they kept going.

We didn’t get a warm welcome when we got to the highset house. We pulled up and piled out, and suddenly there were guns aimed at us. We held our hands out and denied coming to take anything – the people in the house seemed to believe we had come to steal all their food. They wouldn’t listen to us. I heard the guns cocking and thought that, apparently, things can always get worse.

Then the van’s door opened. Faith stepped out with Dillon in her arms, and we all forgot about the guns and the paranoia that might kill us. I don’t know if it was the fall of his arm, or the way his head fell back, or the look on her face, but everyone could see that he was gone. Even those in the house.

I don’t know where she gets her strength from. She’s so thin these days, and I could have sworn I saw her shaking as she walked up to the front of the group, step after heavy step. We moved aside for her and she didn’t falter once. She carried the kid and raised her voice, and I know that he must have been so heavy.

“Mr and Mrs Holt?” I had no idea what Dillon’s last name was until she asked for his parents. I didn’t even know that she knew it. It got their attention. “We were bringing him home. He was protecting us, and… he was so brave. I’m sorry.”

They came out of the house, down the steps and close enough to see his face. There were four or five of them, all carrying rifles. A couple of them started shouting and making demands and threats. His mother howled and buried herself in her husband’s chest. But Faith, she carried on like she couldn’t even hear them.

She told them that Dillon had been with her when the bomb went off. I didn’t know that. They found each other in the rubble and they haven’t been apart since. They’ve looked after each other through this whole nightmare. They went to his home and found the note left for him. That led us here, after all these months. We wanted to bring him home. And we almost made it. He almost got to see them again.

I think the thing that got to me most was the smudge of blood on her jaw. Looking at it, I knew that she had hugged him when she realised he was gone. She had held onto him like that all the way here, I just know it. It’s just the way she is.

When she was finished speaking, she stood there, holding him and waiting. I thought they might let her stay like that until the rain came, but finally one of them stepped forward and took him off her. I think it was Dillon’s father. He took the kid away, back to where his family could cry over him.

Without Dillon, Faith was so lost. I touched her arm and she shrank in, so I wrapped her up. All her strength went with him.

“We have to sing for him,” she said, looking at me to fix it. I glanced at the others, at the new Seekers who haven’t been through this before and didn’t know. Dan looked solemn, standing with his head bowed. The siblings were holding onto each other, Terry trying not to cry as obviously as his sister. Dale had tears streaming down his face and his arms wrapped around himself. Thorpe nodded at me, stony-faced; he’s a stoic bastard, but he got it. Even he wanted to sing for the kid.

So we did. The lyrics were garbled and thick, but we got through it. The Holts stared at us, but a couple of them joined in. It was like they couldn’t help themselves.

When it was done, we went back to the vehicles. No-one wanted us to stay. What were we supposed to say to these people? There wasn’t anything left. They had Dillon and we had nothing but empty hands.

Inside the van, Faith finally broke down and sobbed like she was trying to choke up her whole heart. That time, I wasn’t going to leave her alone back there. I’m not too proud to admit that I cried right along with her. I loved the damn kid too.

Now we’re a few miles down the road, stopped wherever we were when the rain hit. I guess Thorpe and Dan drove; they were the only ones capable, I think.

It’s hard to think about tomorrow. My head is full of Faith standing there, carrying the kid and telling his family how good he was and how much we’re going to miss him. She wasn’t wrong.

She’s sleeping now. I think I’m going to curl up with her; we both need the company right now. Whatever comfort we can get, though it won’t be enough to forget the one we’ve lost.

Good night, kid. I wish it wasn’t goodbye.

• Theme song: Amazing Grace