The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

We’ve been keeping largely separate from the Wolverines over the past couple of days. I was afraid of the fallout from the incident with Kirk spilling over onto my friends and we haven’t been able to go out much anyway.

It hasn’t stopped there being glares pointed in our direction, though mostly just from Kirk himself. Jersey joins in sometimes, but I think that’s mostly to stay on Kirk’s good side. Conroy looks wary of me now – which I can’t bring myself to be upset about – and Dale keeps to himself as much as ever.

 

Today, the Wolverines were more morose and withdrawn than ever. I wondered with a spike of fear if they had decided to do something, to retaliate in some fashion. The only reason there hadn’t been any kind of big fight between us all is that neither group wants to start a fight of that size. There’s no telling who would win.

It wasn’t Kirk that had made the Wolverines quiet, though. When I found out what was going on, I felt sorry for them.

Their friends were gone, slipped away between the Sickness, their injuries, and probably the cold too. Their shells were still here, but they were gone. They had been found this morning, empty.

We offered our sympathies. We knew how that felt. There was a nasty voice in the back of my head that wondered if they cared, these Wolverines. It’s not like me to think like that.

They have talked about their fallen ones before – I remember Jersey mentioning how Rico was always good at fighting off the shamblers. Their best and, from what Jersey said, their leader before he got sick. Sean was good at finding supplies, someone else mentioned. They haven’t said much else about him.

I think they’ll be missed. I wish I had been able to know them. I want to ask for their stories, to record a little of something about them, but now isn’t the best time. They’re still a fresh wound.

 

After the rain came today and the supply-searchers had returned, I asked for everyone to come together. I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t just brush the bodies under the carpet and walk on. Maybe it was guilt, because I didn’t feel more for their loss than I did and I was largely responsible for the tensions keeping the two groups apart.

Whatever the reason, it was one compromise that I wasn’t willing to make.

I didn’t know the dead men, so there wasn’t anything to say. I didn’t think the Wolverines would say anything even if they wanted to, and I didn’t know how to ask them. Instead, I took inspiration from Sax and sang for them. Amazing Grace, my favourite hymn and the only one I know most of the words for. I told them that this is what we do when we lose someone and just started singing.

I’m no solid-voiced Sax, so it got off to a shaky start. Matt and Sally joined in first, then the rest of the Seekers. Even Nugget’s lips were moving, though I’m not sure if she was making any noise. Dale was the first Wolverine to sing with us, and by the end, only Kirk wasn’t even pretending to join in. He glared at me, refusing mostly because I was the one to start it. I didn’t care; that was his choice.

I thought about Sax as we sang. I wondered where he was now and if there was a scrap of him left inside. I wondered if he would recognise our voices, our song. I thought about Ben and the hole he left when he walked away. I wondered if I’d ever see him again, and if he might be dead already. I don’t know if I’ll ever know what happened to him. I thought about my dad and tried not to wonder too much about where he is now.

It felt good, filling the showroom with our voices, making it brimful of us in a rough harmony. As if our song could chase away the shadows lengthening across the floor and the monsters that lurked in the oncoming dark. It felt like we weren’t hiding any more, like we were shouting to the world, here we are. We remember, we live, we are.

Even after we finished, the sound seemed to hang in the air as if the walls might hold onto it for a while. That felt right, too.