The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

After my visit with Sally, I made a point of collaring Masterson and asking him about her. He had come downstairs to go through the medical supplies and I leant him a hand.

He didn’t want to speak to me. At first, I thought he was grumpy about me taking up so much of Sally’s time and energy, but it was more than that. I asked him point-blank what his problem was and he rounded on me. He’s nasty but at least he didn’t shut me out completely.

“You leave us, and then come back and expect everything to be fine. Things aren’t fine. And you want to be into everything, always asking questions like it’s your right. Well, it’s not, you nosy bitch. It’s none of your business. Why don’t you just leave us alone again and we’ll all be happier?”

I hadn’t expected the attack, though I should have – I knew what Masterson was like. Time had softened the memory but he was only too quick to hit me with the reminder.

I won’t lie – it hurt. I’ve taken a lot of knocks lately and for a moment, I didn’t know what to do with it. Hit back or bend under it?

“We were always coming back,” I said, off-kilter.

“Right, right. And what were the chances of that happening, huh? What if that place you found was everything you wanted it to be? You’d have forgotten about us, that’s what would’ve happened. And we’d have been left here to rot alone. Instead, we’re rotting here with you. That’s so much better.”

I haven’t had such a tongue-lashing since Bree tore strips off me at the bookstore, way back in the time Before. It stung, just like it had then. I had taken it from her, swallowed it down and tried not to choke on the bitterness. But I’m a different person now. I wasn’t going to absorb that kind of thing like it didn’t matter.

“We would not have forgotten about you. The reason you didn’t know about Haven is because we were protecting you – we would have called for you if it had been safe. But it wasn’t. And now we’re back and we want to help. We want to find something better.”

“There is nothing better! There’s just this.”

“I don’t believe that. If that’s true, what’s the point?”

“The point is that you’re deluded, and you always have been. Faith and her Seekers, looking for the gold at the end of the rainbow. This is all there is, so get used to it already.”

“How can you say that? Sally’s up there, ready to have your baby any second. That doesn’t give you hope?”

His expression changed as soon as I mentioned Sally and the baby. It turned his fury up a notch and he took a step closer to me. He’s several inches taller than me and wanted me to feel small. It worked. “You stay away from her.”

“She’s my friend!”

“Just stay away! She doesn’t need you, and she doesn’t need your idiotic ideas!”

I opened my mouth to argue but he was already walking away. I turned to watch him and saw Thorpe standing by the door, scowling in our direction. I’m not sure why, but it made me feel worse, knowing we had had an audience. It’s also possible that Masterson only left because the big fireman turned up, in case he got involved too. Thorpe didn’t say anything, just turned and stepped out again, and I was left feeling ashamed of myself.

Masterson had left all the medical supplies on the counter when he stormed out, so I tidied them away. I made him a list of everything in case he wanted it and left it there. A part of me wanted to mend things, and making things right with the supplies seemed like a good place to start. It was the only thing I could do at the time.

That’s where Kostoya found me, quietly packing bandages into a cupboard. He’s a kindly thing and came up with a cautious smile for me. He’d heard the raised voices and seen Masterson thundering off down the corridor; it hadn’t taken him long to put the pieces together. He can be oblivious to a lot of things, but if he puts his mind to it, he understands more than we might expect.

Kostoya patted me on the shoulder, reminding me of my father so sharply that I almost pulled away. It wasn’t his place or his right, and I didn’t want to accept that kind of comfort from anyone else. It was too soon, too fresh. I swallowed back the reaction and tried not to think about Dad. Move on, Faith. It’s not the professor’s fault. He’s trying to be kind.

“He’s just worried about the baby. If it doesn’t come soon, he’ll lose them both.”

I sighed, feeling awful again. Masterson is having a bad time at the moment; I shouldn’t have shouted at him. I’d like to think that he’s more sensitive on the inside than he seems, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe he is. And another part that chirps up to add that it doesn’t excuse him from taking it out on me like that.

“I just wanted to help,” I said.

Kostoya nodded and told me that he knew that about me. “In a good way,” he felt it necessary to add.

He went on to say that they believe the baby is the reason that Sally didn’t get sick. Something about amniotic fluid, gestation, pregnancy, and the baby filtering Sally’s blood. They can’t find a trace of the poison in her system any more – the scar on her arm is the only evidence that she was ever bitten by the rain.

“But we’re not sure what it might have done to the baby,” he said. “Everything seems to be in order, but… well. We won’t know until we see it properly.” He sounded every inch the scientist that wanted to put the baby under a microscope as soon as it was born. At the same time, he was smiling wistfully, as if it was his grandchild that we were talking about bringing into the world.

While we were talking, it occurred to me that I should have asked him in the first place. Kostoya has always been more approachable than Masterson. I gave myself a mental kick and felt sore all the way through. I guess I asked for abuse by going to the doctor. I think he still blames us for the fact that there aren’t any fun drugs around and he can’t get high any more, and he blames me in particular because I lead the group. Coupled with that, he always covers his fear with anger and waspishness.

I’ll keep my distance to keep the peace. We’ll soon find out what the poison might have done to the baby, one way or another. Poor Sally – she didn’t say a thing about it when I talked to her. She must be terrified, not knowing what this thing in her belly is, big enough to crawl out on its own now. I’m scared, too.

She seems to have some hope for it, though. She loves it already and can’t wait to meet it. Somehow, that makes me sadder, knowing all that might go wrong.

I will hope for her. Her and the baby. We all need hope like that right now.

The soldiers are making themselves at home and have started to teach some of the others how to use their weapons. We don’t have much ammunition, but rifles are good clubs too.

They asked me if I wanted to join in and I declined. From the look that Bobby gave me, they think I’m one of those girls who lets the boys do all the fighting. The truth is that I don’t want to hold a rifle again – it just makes me think about Ben, and I don’t want to be in a position to have to make that kind of decision again. Give me a stick and I’ll take on a shambler, but keep guns away from me.

The training is something to keep the others busy and that’s a good thing, too. We all need a distraction at the moment: from hunger; from the pregnancy about to burst overhead; from the lack of a place to go from here.

The supply situation is getting drastic. The group was struggling here when we left, and since then it has descended towards dire. Those we left behind here always found enough to get by, but only just. They’re thinner than I remember.

A foraging group goes out every day, using fuel recklessly in the hope of finding something to keep us alive; there’s no point saving fuel if there’s no-one here to use it. Every building in a ten-mile radius has been scoured for supplies – sometimes, the group of scavengers might be gone for days at a time, braving the shamblers to search further and further afield.

They were glad to see us but now reality is setting in. We brought little with us – enough for the first few meals but that’s all gone now. There’s so many of us. We’re more mouths trying to bite out of the same shrinking pie. Every time I look at it, I know that this isn’t sustainable. We can’t stay here, none of us.

The University seems to be dangerously close to inertia and hopelessness. I think they were dwindling dangerously when we got here; our return energised both halves of the group. That’s a good thing but it isn’t lasting. We’ll settle into a rhythm again, get comfortable – or as comfortable as we can be with little to no food – and then we’ll start to stop. Just stop moving, stop hoping, stop looking for that next scrap of something to eat. The days will turn over and our numbers will shrink and one day there won’t be any of us left.

It’s terrifying when I think about it like that. The walls of this place start to close in on me and I remember why I left in the first place. It wasn’t just Ben, it wasn’t just the awfulness of the days leading up to that terrible incident – it was all of it. The whole thing, piling in on me all at once. I had to get out, get somewhere else.

I want more than this. I have Matt in my life and my heart now, and that only makes the desire stronger than ever. We need a life to live and share. We need a future to build. I don’t want to just fumble in the dark and share scraps with him. I don’t want our lovemaking to be mutual comfort and a place to hide when everything else is awful. I want to have reasons to hope and laugh again.

He makes me smile just by putting his arms around my waist and kissing the side of my neck, and I’m afraid that this life will drive that simple joy out of the gesture. I don’t want the After to spoil this, the way it has spoiled everything else. I want better for him.

After everything we’ve been through to get here, I think we deserve it.

I hear shouting. Have to go.

Can’t stay for long. I’m so tired.

We are one more now. The disturbance last night was Masterson shouting for help – Sally had finally gone into labour. Real, water-breaking, belly-rippling, screaming labour.

The whole building was in chaos. The boys were put on finding cloths – sheets and towels – and boiling water. They were kept out of the room where the birthing was happening, and if their faces were anything to go by, they were fine with that. Except Conroy and Matt – they kept asking if we could see the baby yet and trying to peek in. Conroy got an uncomfortable eyefull and stopped asking, but Matt wasn’t squeamish, it seems. He seemed more excited than anyone else; most of the group looked somewhere between worried and terrified.

They tried to keep me out of the room, too. At least, Masterson did. I almost let him but then Sally cried out and I couldn’t stay away. She’s my friend and she needed help. She needed all the help she could get. She has always been a small thing and pregnancy didn’t change that. Overdue by almost two weeks, the baby was big. She struggled right from the start, and it wasn’t long before she was crying and begging to know if it should hurt that much.

A few of us were there to help. Janice was the solid one through it all – she was at her cousin’s birth, she said, and it was nothing to panic about. Sometimes these things just took a while. Bree was there too, looking pale and uncomfortable. She mostly fussed around Sally’s head, trying to keep her sponged-off and quiet, and avoided looking at the business end as much as possible. Jersey wanted nothing to do with it and Mira fainted in the doorway. Someone carried her off out of the way.

I ran around between people, doing whatever needed to be done and letting Sally squeeze the stuffing out of my hand in between tasks. My time as Simon’s assistant in the infirmary helped – I’m used to taking directions in a hurried situation and my squeamishness has a much higher threshold than it used to.

Masterson bossed everyone about with short, sharp words, until Janice snapped at him about Sally needing some reassurance. He gestured to the rest of us, saying that she had plenty of people to reassure her, and I thought that Janice would actually smack him.

“She needs you, you bloody idiot.”

He stared at her and I could see the arguments queueing up in his head. He’s the doctor, he has to run this whole show and make sure everything happens as it should, blah blah blah. But he didn’t make it that far. He looked at Janice and then at Sally, and I saw him give up.

That was when I remembered about his wife and child, the ones who had been killed at the first rainfall. The ones who had driven him to grief so deep he buried it in drugs, preferring being high to looking at the world. He has been here before, with a struggling woman and a baby trying to come into the world, and he didn’t know whether to be doctor, or husband, or father. He might lose them both, all over again. That’s what I saw when Masterson went to the head of the bed to talk to Sally. The rest of us drew back to give them some space.

She was too exhausted to cry any more and looked so hopeless. He took her hand and leaned over to speak quietly to her. We couldn’t hear him but we could see her nodding. She was listening and whatever he said to her seemed to help. He stroked her hair off her forehead and then another contraction interrupted them. She screamed and he excused himself to carry on with the delivery.

It went downhill from there. I completely lost track of time between running for this and fetching that. Calling encouragement and telling her its all right, rest a bit now, save your strength. I think she ran out of that after the first hour.

We were up all night and through the next day. At one point, Janice started sending us off to eat one at a time. Masterson refused to leave the room and wouldn’t eat what we brought for him even when it was right there. Sally wouldn’t eat either but we did make her drink water.

I don’t know who fought harder: Sally or the baby.

The rain had just started hitting the windows when a cry slapped the inside of the glass. The baby was streaked in blood and fluid and hiccupped before it shrieked again. It didn’t stop until Janice wiped it with a towel and wrapped it up in a blanket. It came out furious, wrinkled and beet red, as if all the struggling had offended it. It was the ugliest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

With the hard part over, Sally deflated, weeping softly. She looked like she might pass out right away, but then the baby was placed on her chest and she had to move her arms to hold it. She was shaking and weak, but she still managed to cradle it against her and place a trembling kiss on its smeared, soft-skulled head.

“It’s a boy,” Janice told the new parents. They took it in numbly. Masterson’s expression closed down when he looked at the baby – one moment, he was barely holding himself together, and the next he was all business. Sally smiled with vague euphoria, just glad that it was over and she had her child in her arms. I’m not too proud to admit that I was teary as I watched them, for the beauty and sadness of it.

I didn’t have time to dwell on it; there was still a lot to do. The sheets were ruined – there was so much blood. I exchanged glances with Janet when we changed the bed and her expression seemed to agree with me: that’s enough blood to cause concern. An awful feeling curdled in my stomach as we folded the bedding over, hoping that Sally wouldn’t see it.

I looked at Masterson, but he was busy sewing her up – something I never hope to see again in my life. It’s the sort of thing you hear about and don’t want to believe is a part of childbirth. Once that was done, he fussed over everything we did and checked on Sally every couple of seconds. She fell asleep eventually and Janice took the baby off to be washed and checked.

He looked normal. Despite all our fears, despite the unknown effects of the poison he helped clear from his mother, he looked like a normal baby, if somewhat raisin-like when he screwed up his little face to cry, all angry red wrinkles. Masterson finally peeled himself away from the mother to check on the little one, and he shrugged at the end, saying he could find nothing obviously wrong with him.

The baby was put down to sleep in the crook of Sally’s arm and we left them all to their exhaustion, Masterson included. I don’t think he left that room after the delivery started and he’s still there now.

Downstairs, things were quietly jovial as everyone waited hopefully for news. They had all heard the baby cry and Bree had disappeared at some point – I think she had told them the sex of the baby before she went to collapse in her bed. She had been strange through that whole ordeal, though I do’nt know Bree very well any more. I was honestly surprised she leant a hand at all – she used to act like that kind of thing was below her.

Janice and I told the others that the baby was healthy and normal and doing well, and the little family upstairs was resting. There was a cheer – quickly shushed in case the sound carried – and a descent into grins and a smattering of claps. Estebar looked puzzled and asked what was going on, and Kostoya was lucky enough to be the closest adult. The professor flushed red and cleared his throat, then straightened his shoulders, drew himself up, and came over all fatherly. He started on the ‘when two people love each other very much’ speech and was drowned out by a round of laughter. Not unkind, just amused and relieved.

I was glad when I finally found Matt. He put his arms around me and said he’d missed me last night, warming a little ball in my chest. It’s strange how much a little thing like that can make such a difference to me, but it does. Sometimes, love sneaks up and surprises me with reminders like that. I kissed him and promised that I hadn’t slept a wink without him. Then I went to curl up and didn’t even know if he was there or not, too deeply asleep. I think he was, though. At least, he was the one who woke me for dinner a couple of hours later.

The mood in the building is convivial now. New life in the After is so rare and it lifts all of us. I see smiles and feel like sharing them. I can see the edges of hope wrapping around people again, warming them. I’d almost say that we’re cheerful.

I think I’m not the only one looking towards tomorrow and hoping, now.

I talked to Kostoya again today. He has relaxed a lot since we left, losing much of his shyness. He’s used to having people around now, used to sharing thoughts with them rather than pottering around on his own. Sometimes he gets effusive and starts talking in technical terms that I don’t understand, but his enthusiasm always makes me smile. Some people will just never be put down.

His water filter works wonderfully, turning poisoned acid into clean, perfect drinking water. The biochemistry building hasn’t been short of water in months. They’ve even started using some to wash things – mostly sheets and bandages, wounds and clothes. We’re starting to splash a little on ourselves now, though that seems like a crazy luxury after all this time. Hot showers are a fable I heard once as a child. I wonder if anyone has suggested that to him yet – he’d probably rig something up while we were sleeping.

I wanted his opinion about how we should move forward, how we might be able to get out of this lean position we’re in now. I asked him what he thought we should – or could – do next. What do we need to do to make a future for ourselves?

“Need to find a way to grow food. Sustainable, hmm?” He rubbed his frizzy bald spot as he started to noodle through the possibilities. We needed sun and soil that hadn’t been tainted by the rain. A way to protect plants from the rain. Water isn’t a problem – that’s a matter of scale more than anything else. Animals – well, they need food too, and protection. Probably harder to find than seeds. Maybe we should start with plants. Soil. Soil was going to be a problem – it wasn’t easy to find some that wasn’t soaked in poison. And of course, we’ll need to find the seeds somewhere.

I watched his ramblings with bemusement and thought that I should have brought a notepad with me. Someone should write it all down so that we knew what we were looking for.

I never thought I’d ever want to be a farmer. But that’s what it came down to – that’s what we needed. A way to grow food for ourselves, and then maybe for livestock. Kostoya had the right word for it: we needed to find a sustainable way of living. Not in a green, planet-hugging way, but in a way that sheltered us from the world’s evils. This wasn’t politics; it was survival.

“Definitely a challenge,” Kostoya said, finally turning from his musings to look directly at me. “It will take some work, but it’s not impossible. We just need to figure out the how. Yes?”

I couldn’t help it: I smiled at him. “Yes.”

I like Kostoya. He can be offhandedly callous if he needs to be – like with the acid barrier around the building, ready to spray on anyone who strays too close – but he means well. He wants things to work and he loves nothing better than figuring out this sort of problem. With a brain like his on it, we’re bound to come up with something.

I’m going to talk to the rest of the group about it as well. Maybe someone has an idea that will fix one of those problems. Conroy has been acting as Kostoya’s right hand and he’s often full of good ideas.

At least now we have a list of smaller problems to solve, rather than one big one. With this kind of thing, you need to break it into pieces before you can start to put it together. Like a jigsaw.

I always liked putting jigsaws together.

Mother and baby are reportedly doing all right. Masterson is keeping everyone away from them, saying that both need time to rest and recover their strength.

Kostoya has spent the day up there, though. I think they’ve been running tests on the little boy, checking on how normal he really is. Now that the stress and danger of the birth is over, I’m not the only one wondering what the poison has done to him. How will they test him? Expose him to sunlight and see if he’s allergic? Wave fresh meat at him and see if he’s hungry?

What if he’s like Ben? What if he seems normal but there’s a beast riding under his skin? How would a child be able to control that? Ben could have killed all of us, but he wasn’t that kind of guy. He didn’t want to be that breed of monster. But a child born that way – what are his chances? What are they really?

There were signs with Ben, though. There were indications that he wasn’t quite normal: the chill of his skin; the painful slowness of his pulse. He couldn’t stomach regular food. So we’d be able to tell with the baby. If that’s what he is. There are things to look for.

I should stop thinking about this. Ben’s gone and it hurts to think about him. Not just because of what happened at the end, but also because he struggled so hard against it. He fought against the demands of his own body, even while his nature had changed under him. He tried to be what he once was. It was brave and hopeless, and an exercise in denial.

Stop, Faith. Stop it. The baby isn’t what he was. Don’t rake all that up again; it does no good at all.

We don’t know how the baby is, other than alive. We’ll find out. The doctor and the professor will figure out what’s going on there. They’ll tell us when they know, so just hold on. Hold on and don’t let your mind run off on you.

This should be a happy time. The euphoria after the birth has faded – I think it escaped while I slept, stolen by dreams I don’t want to remember. There was so much screaming and most of it was mine. I dreamed in particolour: black and white and red. Everyone I cared about was there, even my long-gone sister Chastity, chewed on or chewing. So many hands and teeth, and I couldn’t hold anyone together. Not even myself.

Strangely, some of the hope has lasted. I heard Dale talking with a couple of the others about what we would need to start some kind of farm. Any way to grow food. They’re looking for ways to keep going, to push on towards something better.

I think part of it is because the foragers didn’t find anything today. Not a single bite. We’re almost down to living hand-to-mouth, which is a problem when your hands are empty.

We need to sit down and talk about all this. Work out what we’re going to do. Once we know what the situation with the baby is, we’ll have to do that. I hate this aimless not knowing. The possibilities bristle at us, and most of them are unwelcome. I need to know which of the brighter ones are real. I need to know how to reach for them.

I snuck upstairs this morning. Masterson was downstairs, talking with Kostoya, so I took the opportunity to see how Sally was doing. She’s had plenty of time to rest.

The baby is doing well. He wakes, he eats, he makes a mess, and then he sleeps again. He isn’t any more complicated than that, and I’m hoping that whatever was keeping the boys deep in conversation will bear that out.

His mother isn’t so good. I peeked into her room to see if she was asleep – I’m not cruel enough to wake her – and she was gazing listlessly at the ceiling. That was all the invitation I needed; I let myself in and went over to the bedside.

There’s something about that room that makes you step lightly. A hush, as if the walls might reach out and shush you at any moment. Perhaps it’s the softness of Sally’s breathing or the quiet left by the lack of the baby’s crying. I looked around for him, but the cot was empty and he wasn’t lying with his mother. Janice probably had him somewhere; she seems to have stepped into the role of nanny for now.

When I looked at Sally, I forgot about the baby. My curiosity about him fled as sickened concern rose in the back of my throat. She was grey. Grey and slightly clammy. What the hell had the baby done to her?

I swallowed and forced up a smile when her eyes stumbled sideways to find me. “Hey,” I said softly – no speaking loudly in this room, not now – and took her hand. It was cool and damp, but not in a good way.

She smiled when she saw me and her fingers closed around mine. She seemed glad to see me; that’s the only reason I pulled the chair over and sat down. She was so small and lonely in that bed, deflated and… wrong. She didn’t look good at all. I tried not to think about the Sickness, about poison and creeping undeath.

“How’re you doing?” I had to ask. What else was there to say? Of course I had to ask.

“The baby’s fine,” she said. It seemed important to her that I know that. “I’m all right. David says I lost a lot of blood, that’s all. He found some medicine somewhere, though. It’ll all be fine.” She smiled again, the expression trembling on her lips as if ready to topple off with her next breath.

I didn’t tell her where Masterson got the medical supplies. I knew he’d never thank me for it, or for any of the things I’d stolen from Haven’s infirmary. I was just glad that all the stress and danger was worth it. Helping Sally made it worth it.

“Good,” I said instead. I wanted to ask more, but she seemed so fragile that I turned the conversation elsewhere. I told her about the others asking after her. She said she missed them; she’s very lonely up here, I think. Shy, retiring Sally has grown used to people and misses their company now. I promised to send them up, a few at a time, so she’d always have someone to talk to.

“David looks after me,” she said at one point. She was very insistent about it, as if afraid that I thought he was neglecting her. I did think that sometimes – he makes sure she’s in good health, but he’s clumsy with her heart. His hands are calloused and she needs gentler handling than she’ll ever ask for. I used to wonder why she stayed with him, beyond the need to have someone, but I don’t think she’d know what to do with real tenderness. She’d run away from it and hide. I think there’s a part of her that believes she deserves rough treatment; she knows it and is comfortable with it. Anything else frightens her.

She makes me look at myself in odd ways sometimes, and that’s not something I enjoy doing. Our reflections are not always kind.

Desperate to change the subject, I asked her if she had named the baby yet.

Her whole face changed. Not just her expression – it’s as if the girl behind it brightened several shades. She’s a mother now and that shines through the pallor of her skin; she wants nothing more than to be what that baby needs and loves. Her free hand roamed about the bedcovers restlessly, as if searching for where the tiny body might have got to.

“Not yet. David’s been so busy, with the tests and everything, we haven’t had a chance to talk about it.”

It was touching that she didn’t want to name the baby without him. She wanted the child to be theirs. Masterson might be resistant but I have the feeling that she’ll get him to engage eventually.

“Do you have any ideas yet?”

She went quiet and looked down at our hands. Teeth chewed absently on her lower lip. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’d like… do you think it would be okay if I named him Felix?”

Felix is a cat’s name: that’s the first thought that came to mind and I bit down on the urge to say it. I blinked at her vaguely and shrugged. “Sure, why wouldn’t it be?” The name meant nothing else to me.

“It’s… it’s Sax’s name.”

I blinked at her in surprise. Of course, I knew that Sax had had a real name. What was surprising was that she knew it. I looked down at our hands, processing that and trying to think past the sudden lump in my throat. Sally and Sax had wavered between being friends and completely at odds – I remember that he was hard on her at one point. Then they spent time on the boat together with Masterson, while the rest of us went to Dillon’s house, and came to an understanding. I had no idea they had become that close.

She could see my confusion, because she added, “He was more of a father to me than my dad.”

I looked up at her and was struck by the plea in her expression. She was desperate for some kind of approval, scared that she was doing something wrong or bad. I think she was frightened of it being some kind of mistake that would doom her poor boy.

I smiled at her and squeezed her hand. “I think it’s perfect. You should give him a name that means something to you.” I couldn’t give her much, but reassurance was easy. The wrinkled red baby was nothing like the big black fella, but that didn’t make it inappropriate. It wasn’t about that.

“You don’t think the others will mind?”

“The others will love it.”

She looked relieved and relaxed back on her pillows. I hadn’t realised how tense she was until then. How long had she been worrying over this? “Do you think David will like it?”

“I’m really the wrong person to ask about that. I seldom know what he’s thinking.” I managed to keep my tone light; I didn’t want the awkwardness between me and her man to make things hard for her. “Are you giving him his father’s name as well?”

“As well? You mean, as a middle name?”

I nodded and Sally looked at me blankly.

“I hadn’t thought about it. We could.”

“He might like that.”

She smiled again and we were both relieved.

We talked about unimportant things until she started to look tired, then I excused myself so she could rest. I closed the doors behind me and turned around, and almost walked right into Masterson. He was standing there in the hall, his glare fixed fully upon me. His mouth opened to say something – probably for me to keep away from his girl – but I beat him to it.

“Is she going to be okay?”

He stared at me for a moment and the muscle at the corner of his jaw twitched. He swallowed back whatever he was originally going to say. “Probably.” As answers go, it wasn’t very reassuring.

I had to ask. “Is it just blood loss?”

His gaze flicked away from me. “At the moment.” I couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying.

I had a million other questions for him. I had so much I wanted to say, all those ways I think he’s wrong or needs to change. But he was having a hard time, too. Somewhere deep under his scowls and snapping words, he was struggling with this. I couldn’t pile more on top of him, even if he might deserve it.

“If she needs anything – anything at all – just ask, okay? Any of us. The others are worried. You’re not alone in this.”

He wanted to argue with me but he held it back. I could see it brimming behind his teeth. “Are you done?” he said instead.

I nodded and he pushed past me. I’m not sure what I had hoped for, but I didn’t get it. I hate that dealing with him leaves me feeling so rocked and reeling, like an emotional weeble given a hard shove.

There was a dull ache under my sternum when I went back downstairs, and I went to seek Matt out. I needed a hug and the glow his affection gives me. I needed to remember what love looked and felt and tasted like.

“How do you do that?” I asked after he kissed me. I leaned on him and felt like I could breathe again.

“Do what?”

“Know exactly what I need.”

He smiled and pulled me closer. “Magic. And a little bit of love.”

I couldn’t help it; I smiled back. “Just a little bit?”

It has been a few days since the foragers managed to find any supplies at all and we only had one meal today – over-watered soup eking out the dregs of our supplies. Tomorrow’s looking worse.

This has happened here before. They would send the foragers off for a few hungry days, searching further afield, and survive on whatever they brought back. They always brought something back. But each time they have to go for longer and travel further, in the hopes of finding anything of use. We have decimated areas in several directions now; our options are badly whittled down now.

In between intruding on Sally and annoying Masterson, I’ve been spending my days outside with Thorpe and Dale, fixing up the vehicles. We’re keeping the bikes inside, but the station wagon needed to have the ignition fixed so we didn’t have to push-start it any more. One part of the legacy of our time at Haven is the knowledge of how to make the ignitions work again. We fixed the vehicles used by those we left behind as well, even the ones with fuel tanks a sniff from empty.

It has been nice, working outside with my friends, even with empty stomachs gnawing at us. It was a chance to avoid the dwindling mood inside and the futility of the foraging party. Then the rain would come and we’d all have to go inside, and we couldn’t escape the atmosphere. Even the new baby couldn’t lift us for long, despite him being healthy and unmarred by his pre-natal experiences. Hunger pulls on all of us now; I think Sally is the only one on full rations, and no-one begrudges her that. As un-pragmatic as it might be to feed a sick and possibly dying person, none of us can bring ourselves to abandon a new mother. We aren’t that monstrous.

Something has to be done. We can’t carry on this way and I think everyone can see it now. Cracks are forming in the group; those who stayed here at the University are resentful of those of us who left, mostly because we brought so little back with us. Apart from the medical supplies and bad news, we had nothing of use to give them. We’ve hurried them to this place of empty bellies and blame, and now we’re going to hurry them out of here entirely.

When the rain came down today, we were a disgruntled group in one of the downstairs rooms. For some reason, everyone was there, even Bree and the cutouts, who usually keep to themselves. Poisoned water hammered on the glass and hissed in denial of our sustenance. Grumpy glances were exchanged; with no meal to prepare and eat, there was little else to do. It was only a matter of time before someone said something.

I felt the pressure like a hand between my shoulderblades. Jump in, Faith. Speak first. Break the silence before it breaks you. Take that first step; others will follow. They always do. One of these days, I’m going to end up alone on the end of a plank. I know that every time I step forward and clear my throat, waiting for eyes to turn on me.

Spiders crawled around in my stomach as I suggested to those nearest to me that we should talk about our options. Heads turned towards me as the message rippled back through the room. They all looked at me, waiting for my move and I felt like a butterfly, speared by a pin and spread on a board. All I needed was a frame and a pane of glass.

“We need to figure out what we’re going to do,” I said, loud enough for them all to hear me.

Voices broke in immediately with suggestions, most of them unhelpful and pessimistic. Go to Haven and eat their supplies. Go find some shamblers and roast them. Go further afield to find food. Grow flowers. Curl up and die where we sit. Sell the kids. Go to the country and raise chickens. Kill and eat the next living person we find.

I was too busy staring at them all to put my head in my hands. I didn’t know it had got that bad. I was surprised by some of those who spoke up – even Janice and Dale were making suggestions and they were the most solid, sensible ones in the group. Kostoya looked mortified; he thought they were serious. I tried to stop them, tried to wave and shush them into silence, but they weren’t listening to me any more.

Eventually, Thorpe stood up and shouted at everyone to be quiet. He towers over almost everyone even when they’re not sitting down and he can make himself be heard when he wants to. Silence fell like a surprise, slapping everyone about the ears. Then Thorpe turned to me and asked what I had in mind.

I didn’t thank him for putting me on the spot like that. There was expectation in the room and it weighed on me. I had to scrabble for words and an order to put them in.

“We can’t keep relying on leftovers from Before,” was where I started. Someone grumbled about there not being any anyway and Thorpe sent them a glare as he sat down again. I was perched on a table and kicked my feet, nervous and feeling like a schoolkid all of a sudden. I took a breath and plunged on before anyone else could interrupt.

We had to find a way to sustain ourselves without foraging. We already had a sustainable water supply, thanks to Kostoya; we needed to do the same with food. Grow it ourselves. We had talked about it and knew what we needed to get to make it work, but we had to figure out how and where to get those pieces.

While I was speaking, a scratching started up behind me. I turned around and saw the professor there with a piece of chalk, listing out the components we needed. It made me feel less like I was on the spot and I started to go through them with him. The water wasn’t a problem – we could filter what we needed. A way to protect the plants from the rain but also allow them exposure to sunlight – someone said a greenhouse would do that.

Gradually, others spoke up to add in suggestions and the tone of the room started to turn. We could make a greenhouse easily enough. Seeds – gardening centres should have those. They’re one brand of supplies unlikely to have been raped by looters. Same with tools and probably even fertiliser. Soil – that was a problem. The water filter needed stones and soil to work and had used most of the clean local supply. In order to keep producing unpoisoned water, the soil and stones had to be replaced periodically due to the residue build-up on them. There wasn’t much left in the University now, and finding dirt that hadn’t been pounded by the rain day after day was a struggle.

So where might we find protected soil in the kinds of quantities we needed? Jonah mentioned a farm with a couple of greenhouses that Haven’s foraging party had found, but the bomb’s shockwave had shattered all the glass. If we found something like that outside of the blast’s reach, the soil inside the greenhouses might be untainted.

That’s when I remembered Iona. She was always talking about fields of glass and flowers – perhaps her random images were fragments of a flower farm. I asked her about it and she smiled and told me how pretty it was. Reflecting orange and red, such beautiful colours above and below. So, presumably, it was intact after the bomb went off. Where, I asked her, where was it. Days away, she said. Days and weeks and so much walking, it was like an adventure. Up hill and down dale and around and around. She took my hand and tried to dance around in a circle with me. I could see the eyes rolling around me and felt like joining in. As directions go, it wasn’t useful.

Bobby spoke up and said that he was part of the patrol that had picked her up. She had been with a group who had walked up from the south. That’s all he could remember; if a more detailed debriefing had been done, he hadn’t been part of it. A direction was better than nothing, though. We got out maps and started to look for possible locations, down past the mountains and the empty Emergency Coordination Centre.

“So you think we should leave?” Masterson asked, interrupting the cluster around the maps we had stuck up on the wall.

I was trying to get Iona to point to where her fields of glass were, but never got her answer as we all turned to look at him.

“We can’t stay here,” I said. We were all so hungry.

“Some of us shouldn’t travel. What are you going to do with them? Leave them behind again?”

He knows how to needle me and make me angry. A retort was rising up my throat, but Jersey stepped in to tell him to shut the hell up. Then Dale pointed out that we have the old campervan, and we can get more vehicles to carry them if we need to. We’ll make sure Sally and the baby are okay.

I looked at how many we are and knew that we would need more vehicles. We might be able to cram ourselves into the few we have now but it wasn’t going to be comfortable. But then, our empty stomachs were even less comfortable.

Other protests came up. We have no guarantee that there’s a flower farm there at all, let alone an intact one. What if someone else is already there? What are we going to eat on the way there? (Probably the same as we’re eating now, someone pointed out.) Conroy piped up to say that his mother used to talk about a gardening centre down south that supplied many of the stores up in the city, but he didn’t know where it was.

At the end of the day, we have nothing to lose. We’re starving here, slowly and surely, and foraged supplies are always going to be limited. It’s time to take a chance and move on; at least we have something to aim for. Despite all the protests, the general mood of the group is to go. We hunger. It’s time to make like a shambler and lurch out of here, towards food.

Getting nineteen people moving is harder that you think. I stopped and counted heads today, and that’s how many of us there are now. Nineteen, if you count the baby.

Mother and child are doing all right. Masterson and Kostoya can’t find anything wrong with the baby and fear over that is fading. I check in on Sally when I can, but it’s difficult to get around her over-protective Masterson. I’ve seen Bree and Mira going up there, so hopefully she has company and help with the little one.

As for the rest, most of the group has put their backs to the packing effort. We’ve been getting together gear and clothing, and loading up the vehicles. The atmosphere has been almost cheerful, except for the undertones of hunger. Everyone is painfully aware of how little we have right now. A mouthful each at a mealtime, if we’re lucky. The rest is vitamin supplements and as much water as we can drink. Sometimes it feels like we’re washing ourselves away from the inside out.

Explaining it to the kids is hard. Nugget never complains but Estebar whines whenever he has an audience. He’s just voicing what we’re all feeling right now. We’d give them more if we had it, and I think they get more than the adults anyway, but it’s not enough. It won’t be enough for a while yet.

The main problem we’ve had with packing is with Professor Kostoya and his equipment. He wants to bring everything. We’ve had to devote the back of the station wagon to his gear but it still wasn’t enough room for him. We wound up with components and tools and the great tank of the water filter all laid out on the tarmac in front of the biochemistry building. As much as we tried to play the tetris game from hell, it just wouldn’t all fit. Kostoya fussed around the place, back and forth, wringing his hands and muttering like a mother hen. He needed all of it, had to have everything. Didn’t we understand? It was all vital. Terribly, awfully vital. If we were going to do anything of use, of course. He was already leaving so much behind – this was just the absolute essentials. Bare minimum. And be careful with that!

I’m not sure whether Kostoya’s idea of ‘bare minimum’ is the same as it is for the rest of us. Some of the guys tried to just say no and started taking stuff back inside, but the professor turned an alarming shade of red and flapped around them with such enthusiasm that Thorpe and I were forced to step in. Conroy hurried over to weigh in as well, bouncing up in angry defense of the scientist.

Still healing hands or no, I thought that Thorpe would start hitting people for a little while there. He hasn’t been able to help much so far, thanks to the burns and bandages, and his frustration shows more readily than any other emotion right now. I wound up bouncing like a pinball, asking Kostoya to please calm down, telling Conroy to step back, begging Thorpe to ease off, and instructing the cutouts to put the equipment back down so we could sort it all out.

In the end, it was decided that the water filter tank didn’t need to go inside a vehicle, and it was strapped to the roof of one of the offroaders. It was filled with dirt and stones according to Kostoya’s tense instructions – he was still sore about the whole thing – and left open to catch what rainwater it can. They think the offroader can take the weight. I hope that turns out to be true.

The inside of the old campervan has been made over to accommodate Sally and the baby. The reams of baby supplies have been stacked into every available cupboard – the foragers were thorough in collecting that stuff before the little one was born. Mira and Bree are determined to ride with her, along with Masterson, of course.

I feel like I should talk to Bree, after everything that has happened between us. First Cody, then Ben, and our broken friendship – even with all of that, I can’t think of a single thing to say to her. I don’t trust her. I don’t like the dramas she creates. But she seems to be keeping her head down and that leaves me with nowhere to go with her.

If I’m honest, I can see the place she has made for herself here. While we were gone, she has made friends. She looks after young Mira and even the kids. Estebar and Nugget are always running over to show her something or ask her a question. I would be glad of that, but it’s Bree. It feels like reflex to distrust any good thing she does. She made a place for herself with the Pride, too. I’d like to believe that she has grown into a better person in the After, but I’m not ready yet. There’s too much blood between us, bad or otherwise.

Our injured are mending. Iona never complains, but her wounds are healing all right. She understands about infection and keeping them clean – or at least, she does as she’s told in that respect. She doesn’t seem to feel any pain – I think part of her brokenness blocks that out. She just smiles and tells me how pretty my hair is, focussing on me rather than the injury I’m redressing. She never flinches. She reminds me a little too much of a shambler sometimes, too damaged to feel the world right, but I don’t know how to fix her.

Warren is still restricted to only using one arm, the other slung tightly against his chest. He chafes at it but every time he tries to use his right arm, he grimaces and puts it right back into the sling. Masterson rolls his eyes at the matter and leaves him to it; it’ll take time to come right. There’s a chance that he won’t regain full use of his arm, thanks to the depth and position of the bullet. He’s lucky to have survived being shot in the After at all, but I guess he’s not feeling that right now.

Thorpe’s burned hands are going to take a while, but between Dale and me, we’re keeping them clean and bound. If he’s lucky, they won’t be scarred – the burns weren’t deep. He doesn’t like letting people do things for him but we’ve found that bullying works. If you make him, he’ll do it, and I choose to believe that his scowls are for the pain and inconvenience rather than our care.

Matt grinned and told me yesterday that if he didn’t know about Thorpe and Dale, he’d be jealous of the attention I give the big fella. I think that was his way of telling me that he feels a little jealous anyway, even though he knows there’s nothing in it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fond of Thorpe, but it’s not like that, not on either side. Matt’s words made me stop and wonder if I’ve been neglecting him with everything else that’s been going on. Last night, I stole him away so we could spend some time alone together, and I gave him all of my attention and care. He seemed to appreciate it, if the affection I’ve been receiving is anything to go by.

His leg is doing better; his limp has faded now. He has an impressive scar – he asked me if it made him seem more manly – and I have to try not to think about how sick it made him. Remembering that makes me hold onto him tighter, which he likes more than he wants me to know. Does he know how much he means to me? I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell him without dissolving into tears.

He’s the last one I have left. There was Ben, and Dillon, and Dad. Before then, there was my sister Chastity, and my mother. I loved them and they’re gone. Now it’s just Matt and me, and we’re closer than I ever thought we’d be. When he’s with me, I feel like we can do this, we can find a way to make it out of this place we’re in. The hunger doesn’t hurt so much. When I think about what it would be like without him, it’s hard to breathe, let alone think about doing anything else. He’s not allowed to go anywhere. He has to stay.

I’m getting distracted. The rain rolled in early today, interrupting the last stages of our jigsaw vehicle assembly. It fell heavily on our heels as we hurried to get the remaining gear inside, and it chased us with thunder. Lightning is hard on the eyes – after so many months under an orange sky, white light is painful, even in brief flashes. It’s still working hard out there, rolling out and around us, making the windows shake.

We should be ready to go by tomorrow. The vehicles are fixed and as fuelled up as we can get them at the moment. We’re going to have to stop often to look for supplies but we’re prepared for that. There are still grumbles about this whole course of action but no-one has refused to lend a hand. They’ll all come, piling into the vehicles and allowing themselves to be dragged along with the rest of us. Maybe there’s a spark of hope still glowing under the weight of pessimism and experience.

We’re not done yet. Tomorrow, we set out again. It’s time to start Seeking.

We didn’t get off to a good start this morning. We sorted out the obvious hitches without any problems; it was the unforeseen that tripped us up.

Loading in the last of the gear went just fine – we got it all stowed away and sorted out who was going where. Sally, Masterson, Bree, Mira, and the baby were in the campervan. Warren, Iona, Thorpe and Dale took one offroader, and Janice drove the other one carrying Jersey and the kids. Kostoya rode in the station wagon with Conroy driving. That left Jonah, Bobby, Matt and me on the bikes. Matt insisted on riding behind me, and I didn’t mind in the least. It’s nice to have him leaning on me like that.

We had everyone organised and in or on their vehicles. The biochemistry building was shut up, the doors and windows locked, and I caught a few eyes lifting to its familiar shape as we were about to say goodbye to it. It could have been a reflection on the glass, but I think Kostoya’s eyes were damp. This place has been his home for a long time now. His sanctuary. Even I was sad to be leaving it.

Then the campervan wouldn’t start. Every other engine chugged into life and we pulled away from the building’s entry one by one, stretching our tyres onto the road. Dale was driving the lead vehicle and stopped when he saw the van wasn’t following. We all stuttered to a stop, and a couple of us turned bikes around to see what the problem was. I had to shut off the bike to hear it – the tick tick tick of the starter that couldn’t find anything to catch onto.

I ended up elbow-deep in the engine with Jonah lending a hand, trying to find the problem while everyone else milled about aimlessly. In the end, it was the distributor causing the problem – we had to dig around for replacement parts and wound up rigging something together. It worked – barely – and I caught Masterson’s displeased scowl through the windscreen when the engine started. I don’t blame him. It didn’t sound good.

We encouraged everyone back to their respective vehicles and got them started again. Blessedly, everything sparked to life and the convoy started off again. I waved the campervan on ahead of us, so that Jonah and I could bring up the rear on the bikes. We’d be able to check for anyone falling behind, that way. Unfortunately, it meant driving in the dust from the other vehicles, but we didn’t figure that out until we were on the road and getting facefuls of airborne filth.

Just before we set off, Jonah pulled his bike up next to mine and gave Matt and me a searching look.

“You think that was what it looked like?” he asked.

I glanced at Matt, but we didn’t know what he meant. I shrugged.

“You think it wasn’t?” Matt asked.

“I just think it’s curious that we’re having so many technical issues,” Jonah said.

“You think someone did this on purpose?” I couldn’t help but sound surprised. Who would do that, and why?

Jonah shrugged in that way that means yes, he does, but he can’t give us anything more than that. Then he put his bike into gear and set off after the convoy.

I twisted to look at Matt and found a sour expression on his face.

“We’d better get going,” he said, patting my hip. I sighed and turned around again, gunning the engine to catch up.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to Jonah – or anyone else – about it since then, but there was plenty of time to mull the issue over. He’s right – we have had a few technical difficulties lately, all of which have slowed us down. The bullethole in the bike that didn’t show itself until days after it was supposedly done. The blowout that ruined another bike. Both of those endangered people – Thorpe and Bobby were lucky, considering what could have happened. And now an engine that won’t start, even though we’d checked it just a day or two ago. Fixed it, even, so that it would start.

But who and why? I keep coming back to those questions and I can’t find any answers. It had to be someone who had been with us out of Haven. One of the soldiers? But one of their number was almost killed, one of them can’t use an arm, and the third one warned us. Iona is strange and disturbed, but never violent and I can’t see her being capable of sabotaging a distributor like we found this morning. That leaves the Seekers, and even considering them goes against everything I know about them. The boys wouldn’t do that, and Jersey might be a lot of things but ‘sneaky’ isn’t one of them.

Besides, if they’re trying to slow us down so that Haven can catch up with us, why didn’t they just stay behind? Hell, they could decide they’re going back there and none of us would hold it against them. We’d see them on their way. They know that.

It doesn’t make any sense. It’s making me look at the group differently, weighing up motives and dangers. I hate this. Matt’s arms wrapped around me tighter than usual today; I think he’s feeling it too.

At least we made fairly good headway today, despite our delayed start. We’re setting a guard tonight, sitting up in pairs to keep watch. I’m going to suggest we mix the pairs up and see what happens. I guess that’s as much as we can do right now: wait for the person to make another move and hope we catch them in the act. At the least, we might find it before someone else gets hurt.

As if we don’t have enough to worry about right now.

Despite yesterday’s disappointing start, we’re making fairly good time. Thanks to the foraging party’s forays, they know a clear route to the south, so we haven’t hit any roadblocks yet. Unfortunately, because the foraging party has been this way, it has already been picked clean of supplies.

Nothing untoward has happened. No more signs of sabotage, and the watches all reported a quiet night.

As much as it can in a group this size, things are going pretty smoothly. The mountains are rising against the horizon already – we’ll be skirting around them this time, sticking to more built-up areas and closer to the coast. We need to stay nearer to where there might be supplies to leech, and there isn’t much up in the foothills, let alone higher up the mountain roads.

There’s a part of me that wants to go back up there anyway. There’s sky up there – real sky, blue and clean, above the poisoned cloud layer. Green things are growing and if we don’t look down too far, it’s like Before. Shards of an unbroken world.

Thinking about that reminds me of Dillon. Playing soccer with the others in unfiltered sunlight, smacking the ball around with his crutch. The memory makes me sad and smile at the same time – that’s how I want to remember him. Not how he was those last days, in the back of a campervan in so much pain, but when he was grinning and running around like the kid he was.

I still miss him. Sometimes I still expect him to come up to me out of the blue, with some small gesture to cheer me up. He was so good at that. The little brother I got to have for such a short time.

Anyway. Here we are, heading southwards. Tomorrow we’ll move from suburbia into the outlying areas, passing through small towns with houses scattered between them. The air tastes of the salt already; we’re skirting closer to the coast than we have in a while. It feels cleaner down this way than when we butted up against the sea on our way between Haven and the University, as if there’s less poison weighing down the sea’s effusiveness. Maybe it’s just that the breeze is coming from over the water today.

A part of me wonders if we’ll find more people down this way. So far from the bomb’s blast, shouldn’t there be more survivors? The land is as stripped and barren as everywhere else – the rain still falls here, eating through anything soft and growing – but it feels like people should be holed up in the remote areas. As if the farms and sprawling houses on their huge blankets of bare earth should have been more prepared for the end of the world than the rest of us.

Maybe that’s silly. Maybe it’s dangerous – they’re likely to be armed against invaders alive or undead, if they’ve survived this long. I don’t know. But I hope. We haven’t seen any other living thing in so long that I’d welcome someone with a gun pointed at us right now. Just so we know we’re not the only ones left.

It makes those we have with us more precious. We don’t all get on – some parties actively despise each other. We settle into little groups when we stop for the night, not even coming together for food because there isn’t any to give out. I wish there was a way to mend the divisions in the group, but I can’t see it. Tempers are too short right now, worn thin and sharp by the empty feeling in our bellies. I don’t want to fight those battles right now.

Tomorrow, we’ll get out of the area that the foragers have been through. We’ll stop to look for supplies again. Food, fuel. We’re doing all right for water – the water tank is precarious on top of the offroader, but it’s doing its job and we have enough to drink. But we need food. I don’t know how much further we’re going to get if we don’t find some soon.

There’s that word again: soon. Everything has to be soon, but it never comes soon enough. We can’t ever catch our breath.

I’m so tired of all of this, and we’ve barely got started.