After

The End, The End, The End... For Now At Least

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Well everyone, the first thing I want to say is a big thank you to everyone who has read, followed, commented and donated. I couldn't possibly have finished this thing without you. You've been the best audience a writer could wish for, and I just hope that you've enjoyed the story.

I'm going to be taking a little break from writing for a while, since the day job is currently eating up a lot of my attention. But I'll be back--I've got so many projects I want to work on, including a follow on to After that takes place a few years after the end of this tale.Watch this space.

In the meantime, I'd like to ask a favour. I put my work online for free, for everyone to enjoy because I want it to be read. But, like any writer, I do need to make a living. If you can afford to, and you have enjoyed reading After, please consider donating using the little button on the right. Every donation is appreciated, no matter how small. If you can't afford to donate, you can still help support After by telling your friends, or sharing a link to the site. Thanks once again.

Love you all. Until we meet again...

Kitt

Seventy-Five

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:00:00 +0000

An hour later we beach the little boat at the foot of the cliffs and splash through the shallows up to the sand, Lisa cradling baby London the whole while. It's cold on the beach, and I'm reluctant to leave behind the boat which carried us here. Somehow it feels like a place of safety, the only known quantity in this new world. But we set off along the beach anyway, heading for a path that leads up the cliffs. It's early still, and there are no signs of life. We walk in peaceful silence, wary and tired.

When we reach it we see that the path is cut with steps, many of which have collapsed or slid. The baby sleeps as we toil upwards, stopping frequently to rest. Seagulls coast past, cawing forlornly as we climb higher and higher. And then we're there, at the top of the cliffs at last. A short footpath leads to a road that stretches off in either direction. To our left a small cluster of whitewashed houses forms a settlement, and it is for this that we aim.

I expected to feel afraid, walking like this into the unknown. But I don't. Somehow now I'm sure that things will be okay. I feel good, strong. I have fought and lived, and I will fight again if I need to. I'll do whatever is necessary to protect Lisa and London. I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not alone.

I take Lisa's elbow as we enter the little hamlet. I can hear voices, coming from up ahead, where the road widens out into a little square. We slow a little, and move to the edge of the road so that we'll be shielded from view by the corner of a nearby house. I creep forward just far enough to see the source of the voices.

Three men and two women are standing in the centre of the square. A couple of them are smoking, and the way they're standing at ease makes me sure that they're some kind of watch. Perhaps they've just spent the night on duty and are having a quick chat before heading home to bed. I notice that each of them has a rifle slung about their shoulders, but they hold the weapons at ease, and for some reason I'm not too worried. They don't seem dangerous, these people. Something about them, as with Sven, just makes me want to trust. Perhaps it's the fact that one of the women looks to be in her sixties, and is leaning on a walking stick. Or perhaps it's the easy way they're laughing and talking with each other.

I beckon to Lisa, and she comes forward and I take her by the arm and step out into the open, free hand raised. "Hello there," I call.

They all turn at once, but not one of them reaches for a weapon. Smiles cross their faces. One by one they raise their hands and return my wave.

I clear my throat. "My name is David," I say. "And this is Lisa. We came here on invitation from a man called Sven, who I met on the mainland." At Sven's name the group look to one another, expressions of delight crossing their faces. "He told me this was a safe place for humans," I say. "He told me I'd be welcome here, that you were looking for other survivors."

We stand and wait, the unasked question hovering in the air between us. One of the men separates from the group and strides forward. He looks about forty, grey just beginning to show in his hair, a long scar on his cheek. He extends his hand and we shake.

"David and Lisa," he says, as if memorising our names. His eyes search me for a moment, and then he smiles. He looks down at baby London, and his eyebrows shoot up into his hair. "Something tells me you've had quite a journey getting here."

I smile back. I can't help it. I squeeze Lisa against me. Happiness is flourishing inside me like a tree in blossom. "Yeah," I say. "It was definitely quite a journey."

"Well," says the man, "you can tell us all about it later on. For now though, you look like you could use some breakfast, both of you. Come on, we'll fix something up for you. Oh, and before I forget, welcome. Welcome to Holme."

Seventy-Four

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 08:00:00 +0000

We wake, me and Lisa both, to the sound of the baby crying. I'm stiff and cold, tiredness heavy in all my limbs. But it's light, and the water's gentle, slapping against the hull in a slow and patient rhythm. Lisa sits up a little and hushes the baby, pulling aside the blankets and bringing the little mouth to her breast. The baby girl starts suckling at once, as if she knew what to do all along.

"Look at that," says Lisa. "Clever little girl. Good little girl."

I stand and stretch and poke my head out of the cabin to find out where we are. We've drifted a little in the night, but there's the buoy with its pulsing green light, and there--my heart leaps with excitement--there is the island, unmistakeable, closer than ever. I can make out tall chalky cliffs and a beach of white sand. Narrow paths cut their way up the cliffs, and there at the top are a jumble of houses and cottages, trees and fences. It must be very early morning still. I can't make out any people.

"We're close," I tell Lisa, ducking back inside. She smiles. We both watch the baby as she suckles. When she's finishes, Lisa holds her out to me.

"Will you take her for a while? I just want to get cleaned up."

"Of course."

I can't remember the last time I held a baby. At one time, just months ago, it's not something I could ever have imagined myself doing again. She's so small. I take her out onto the deck to show her the island, but she's asleep, and so I just sit with her, marvelling at her. Her softness. Her fragility. All the horror that she's been through to get here without even knowing it...

"I'm going to name her London," says Lisa, emerging from the cabin, looking refreshed but still tired. She looks out towards the island.

"London," I say to myself. I like it. Keeping the old names alive. "That's a good name for a girl."

I stand, and Lisa comes to my side, and we kiss once more, and then simply stand, holding London, holding our baby and looking towards Holme.

Seventy-Three

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 08:00:00 +0000

And then after what feels like an eternity, the little girl fills her lungs and lets out a squeaky wail of a cry. I see a short arm pull free of the towel and clutch at the air, little fingers finding the material of Lisa's clothes. Something seems to unclench inside me, and I breathe again, relief crashing over me like a wave.

Lisa gives a little laugh, and in that quiet sound there's more exhaustion than I thought possible. She cradles the baby against her breast, shushing it as it wails. So much noise from something so new, so young. I don't know what to do, and so I just kneel there on the floor, a slow, warm, soft feeling spreading through my body.

Lisa glances up and sees me hovering there, at a loss. She smiles, her face still covered by a sheen of sweat. In the pale green light she almost seems to glow. Her mouth moves.

"What?" I say.

"We need to cut the cord."

"Oh. Of course." I find string and scissors. This at least I know how to do. Gently and firmly I tie off the cord, trying not to look at the slimy mass of the afterbirth as I do so. Then I fetch the scissors. Lisa holds the little girl still and I grip the cord, place the blades against it. Somehow it is both flimsy and thicker than I thought it would be. It is slippery, hard to find purchase. Part of me really doesn't want to cut. I'm worried, terribly worried that it might somehow hurt the baby.

"Go on," says Lisa gently, seeming to understand my reluctance. "It's okay. It's got to be done."

I cut. There is a moment of resistance, and then the blades of the scissors bite through the cord, and it's done. I wrap the afterbirth in a spare towel, and step out onto the deck to throw it overboard. I pause there a moment, in the wan green light, feeling the salt spray fleck against my face and body, smelling the wide open water of the sea.

It's happened. The baby's here, alive, well. And yet there's still work to be done...still a few more steps before the journey is complete.

But I allow myself a moment there in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean. I shut my eyes and breathe out. And I let myself believe that the past--all the darkness and the fear and loneliness and the loss--I let myself believe that is behind us now, and that ahead the future is warm and good and safe for me and Lisa and the baby girl whose newborn wails are the sweetest sound I've ever heard.

I duck back into the little cabin and settle myself next to Lisa, pull her tired body against mine. She rests her head on my shoulder, and her breath becomes steady, the baby's cries calming to quiet gurgles.

Everything that matters to me in the world, just then, is in that cabin with me. I look down at the little girl's face, just visible among the blankets.

"Hello," I say. And just like that, we're asleep, all three.

Seventy-Two

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 30 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Lisa struggles onto all fours again. With one hand she pulls clumsily at her clothes. After a moment I push her hands aside and help her pull her skirt out of the way. Embarrassment only lasts a moment--there's no time for any of that now. I hold her hand and pull her around so that she's leaning back against me. I can feel her whole body tighten with each contraction.

"It's coming," she says. "I can feel it."

And sure enough when I check a few minutes later the head is visible. The sight sends a thrill of horror through me. The dim green light from the top of the buoy reflects brightly off something that might be blood. Lisa screams at the top of her lungs, the sound of it tearing the night.

"It's okay," I say. And I'm strangely calm, even here in the midst of everything. Nothing's quite gone to plan, but it's happening now, after months of waiting, and what will be will be. "You have to push," I say.

Lisa slumps back against me, nodding weakly, panting. "It really hurts," she says. I feed her a small sip of juice from the tin, and then another contraction comes and she's screaming again, screaming so loud I'm sure her throat must tear. The green light pulses steadily through her pain, and I hold her, trying somehow, vainly to take some of that pain into myself, to do whatever I can to bring her through her agony.

And then suddenly, the head is out. I seize one of the towels and support the fragile little thing as gently as I can. In the dim light I can't make out anything but the shape of a head. I wonder vaguely, terribly, why it isn't making any noise...

"You're almost there," I say. "Just one more push. Just a little more..."

"I can't," gasps Lisa, sounding exhausted. "I can't do it." But then a look of pain crosses her face and she grits her teeth once more and with the next contraction the body slips quickly out. I scoop it up in the towel, astonished by how small and light it is. But something's wrong: it's barely moving, silent. I thought babies cried when they were born?

Lisa is lying back with her eyes shut, shaking. "Do...do you..." she manages.

"I've got--" I take a moment to check in the next dim pulse of light. "I've got her."

Lisa holds out her hands, and I pass over the small, silent bundle. Each moment seems terribly long, filled with nothing but the noise of the ocean slapping against the hull, a tide of dread rising rapidly in me like bile.

No. Not this. Not after all this time.

Lisa takes the baby girl and holds her against her chest. And I wait. I wait, breathless, uncertain. And everything, for a moment hangs suspended.

Seventy-One

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 27 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Experimentally, I let go of the wheel, and it remains in place. I turn and kneel down beside Lisa.

"Not long now," I say.

She groans and shakes her head. "Thirsty," she says. Quickly, I fish out one of the tins of fruit from the bag and open it.

"Here," I say. "Don't drink too much." She sips a little and then hands it back, and I set the tin down beside her. I pull out some of the blankets as well and then just sit there holding her hand, helpless, useless. If only there was something I could do...

And so it goes on for the next hour. I move back and forth between Lisa and the wheel every few minutes, checking our course as best I can. Although the marina and the coast become more distant the island itself hardly seems to move closer at all, and then quite suddenly it is swallowed by the night and I find that whichever way I look all I can see is water, and a blinking green light up ahead that I assume must be a buoy. With nothing else to navigate by, I steer towards it and hope. Meanwhile Lisa's condition has hardly changed. She's uncomfortable constantly, shifting position and groaning, barely opening her eyes. And occasionally a contraction will come, and she will scream, grip my hand, the sound of her pain going through me like a knife.

Out here the sea is rougher as well. Flecks of saltwater finding their way in through the door to the cabin. Lisa wraps a blanket over her shoulders against the cold. Beneath us the little boat rolls and tips on top of the waves. I'm hoping, desperately hoping each moment to see the looming shape of the island against the dark. I strain my eyes for it, fingers tight on the wheel. But all I see is that blinking green light, getting slowly, slowly closer.

"I'm scared," says Lisa once, after a particularly painful contraction. "It hurts so much I feel like I'm going to die from it."

Her words sent a jolt of sick fear through me, but I try not to show it. "You'll be fine," I say. "I promise you'll be fine. You and the baby."

And then we're alongside that blinking green light, and I see that it is indeed a buoy, bobbing there in the water like the only human thing in the world. It casts a pale light over our little boat, over me and Lisa, and in its glow I see how her face is shiny with sweat, how she looks as though she's aged ten years in just the last hour.

Another contraction seizes her and she doubles over in pain. And then her screaming changes pitch. She gulps air, eyes widening in fear before clamping shut once more. She holds out a hand. I kill the engine and the boat coasts to a halt as hold her on the cold metal floor of that tiny vessel, rising and falling on cruel waters in the middle of nowhere and nothing.

"This is it," she says. "I... I can feel it coming..." She grips my hand so tight it feels as though it breaks bones. "David," she moans. "Help me."

Seventy

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 25 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

A row of pastel-coloured houses front the marina. The door of the furthest one stands ajar and I push my way inside. Ignoring the smell of rot that hangs heavily on the air I flit through the rooms, searching. I find a holdall lying on the floor in the kitchen, and into it I stuff towels and sheets from the airing cupboard, tinned fruit from the larder. A dead body lies fossilised on one of the upstairs beds, and I recoil in disgust from that room, searching the others for the things I need instead. Scissors and disinfectant from the bathroom. A ball of string from a desk drawer. I rack my brains, trying to gather all the scattered information I've read about how to deliver a baby, but I'm so anxious that I'm sure I must have missed something.

I head back towards the marina, nervously checking the sky as I go. It's getting uncomfortably dark, and with the night the old fears are returning full force. Doubts creeping out of the woodwork. I've brought Lisa all this way on the word of a man who I have no reason whatsoever to trust. What guarantee do I have that I'm not taking Lisa and the baby into a trap just at a time when they're at their most vulnerable?

Options sprint through my head, and I picture each one with terrible clarity. We stay put until the baby comes, in the middle of the night, and its crying draws the Creatures right to us... We try to reach Holme, but darkness falls before we're halfway there and we become lost, run into rocks in the dark, sink, drowning together in the cold depths of the sea... Or we make it to Holme and are met on the beach by ragged men with guns and knives... Or else we reach the island in time and I go running up to the town in search of help only to find a monstrous crater pulsing with life...

But I brush these fears aside. I know what I've got to do.

I arrive back at the boat where I left Lisa and climb down into it. She's in the cabin still, now on all fours, breathing heavily, her face set against the pain. I drop the bag and kneel down beside her.

"Lisa," I say. "I'm back."

She glances at me, and then shuts her eyes again. "David..."

"I've got everything we need," I say. "We're going to be okay whatever happens. How do you feel?"

"Hurts," she mutters.

I squeeze her arm. "I'm going to cast off now. Get us away from the coast. Okay? We'll be safer out on the water where they can't reach us."

"Holme?" she says, her voice strained.

"I'm going to try," I say. "It'll be dark soon, but it doesn't look like far. I think we can make it."

I try not to let her groans and grunts and noises of pain distract me as I untie the boat and start the engine. The deck beneath my feet throbs with the power of the motor. The controls are simple enough, a lever that seems to act like a throttle and a small metal wheel with which to steer. There's a whole array of buttons as well, but I leave them alone, unsure of their purpose. Easing the throttle up I see the jetty start to slide out of view on my left. We're moving. We're on our way.

The little launch ploughs its way cleanly through the junk that floats on the water all around the marina. I can't make out much of what's down there in the dark, but I hear things bounce dully of the hull. Then we're clear and the rolling motion of the sea becomes more pronounced. I turn the wheel, aiming the boat towards the distant, dark line that is our destination. It's barely discernible now against the lowering sky, and I know that within half an hour or so it will be lost. I can only hope the journey will be a quick one.

Real Life Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 23 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Just wanted to apologise for the missed updates, especially at such a crucial point in the story. Been having a few issues with the day job, but it's all sorted now and the story will recommence momentarily. Thank you for your patience :)

Sixty-Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 13 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I just stare at her. "It can't be. It's too early..."

She shakes her head, face screwed up against the pain. I'm standing there, a hundred thoughts whirling through my head, every possible reason for why this cannot be happening cancelling itself out in a moment that stretches out further than I would have thought possible.

It's too early. It's not.

We're not ready. It doesn't matter if you're ready or not.

I don't know what to do. Do something...

And I'm just standing there as Lisa's legs buckle and she falls to her knees, clutching her stomach. I'd been so certain of us reaching Holme before the baby came that I'd not even considered what I might do if it arrived early. And now my body is paralysed, feet rooted to the spot, mind spinning.

"David..." groans Lisa.

And suddenly I'm back there. Back THERE. The place I thought even my dreams had finally left behind. I'm crouching in the wreckage of a newly burned city watching Sharon, my Sharon, the woman I love, watching as she dangles from the claw of a blood-smeared alien, dangles over the gaping pit-mouth of a monster...

Crying out my name. Needing me to rescue her.

And all I do is watch. I can't move. I'm so scared. Terror, bright and electric, jacked into every nerve of my body.

And Sharon falls. And Lisa doubles over in pain.

If I was any kind of hero...

And then I'm moving.

I jump up out of the boat and kneel down by Lisa, find her hands, pull her into a half crouch. "Come on," I hear myself say. "This way. Get in here, quick."

Step by agonising step I help her down into the boat and into the tiny cabin. She sits against the wall, turning this way and that, arching her back as she tries to find a comfortable position. The cabin is pretty bare, wood-floored and with rusting metal walls. Not the ideal place, but we have to make do with what we have.

"Listen," I say. Lisa's eyes are still squeezed shut, her teeth gritted, but she nods. "I'm going to go and find some things," I say. "Water, blankets. I won't be long." She nods again, but as I rise she grabs my arm.

"You will come back, won't you?" she says, her voice tight and urgent.

"Of course."

"Promise. Promise you'll come back to me."

"I promise," I say. And more than ever before, I mean it.

Sixty-Eight

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 11 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

"Us?"

"You and me?" she says. "We'll stay together, won't we?"

I keep looking out at the distant island. The sky between us and it is darkening quickly and I know that we should be getting on, but there are things that need to be said here, now.

"How do you mean together?"

"I mean..." But she doesn't seem to know what she means. When I look at her she's wiping roughly at her eyes. "I mean...I want us to stay like this. I don't want things to change between us just because..."

It's strange. For months I've slept beside this woman, lived my life on top of hers, been through the strangest and more terrifying of things with her. And now, suddenly I'm finding it hard to look at her.

"Of course," I say. "Of course we will."

There is a silence that stretches out so long and thin and fragile. The waves wash up and down the beach, slow and endless as breath. I turn to Lisa. She turns to me. Easily, naturally, we kiss. It lasts a long time. I can feel her bump pressing against me. At last we part, and she smiles up at me.

"Together," she says, and holds out her hand. I take it, and once again we start to walk. I feel lighter now, quicker. Like I've just found the answer to a question which had been bothering me for ages.

Strange how normal and right it feels. A week ago you'd never have known...

Half an hour down the main road and the marina comes clearly into view. We climb down a set of wooden steps onto the jetties. All around the boats rise and fall on the swell of the water. Time and a lack of attention has not been kind to them. I see several that have sunk low in the water, or gotten lines and masts entangled with their neighbours. I start to check any that look seaworthy, and on the fifth time I get lucky. A small motor launch at the end of one jetty still has the keys lying on the floor of its single cabin. I hold my breath as I slot them into the ignition and turn, but the engine stutters keenly to life.

It's getting very dark now, and really we should wait until morning, but the prospect of reaching our destination is too much to put off for another night. I duck back out of the cabin and find Lisa standing on the jetty clutching her stomach.

"Come on," I say. "If we..." But my words die in my throat. There's a look of terrible pain on Lisa's face, and when she looks up at me her mouth forms into the words I've only ever heard her say in my nightmares before.

"David, it's coming."

Sixty-Seven

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The little town is further away than it looks. By the time we reach the outskirts the sky is getting uncomfortably dim, and I can't help but wonder if we might need to spend a night here before attempting the crossing to Holme. It's not a possibility I want to raise, somehow. Even though it's just one more night the thought of yet another delay, yet another night spent in fear and in danger is almost unbearable.

Porturaik is a peaceful-looking town, and one that seems to have escaped much of the destruction. Weeds and roots force their way up through cracks in the pavement, and some of the houses have succumbed to the elements, but here and there are whole streets of almost-intact buildings. We pass a cafe inside which tables still stand upright and a peeling menu is tacked against the damaged window. We pass a row of neatly parked cars, their shiny paintwork now filthy with dust. We seem to be walking down the main street, which curves gently along the seafront. A way further on I can see a forest of masts and sails that must indicate the marina.

"Look at the sea," says Lisa. We pause in our weary journey for a moment to lean against the railing and watch the waves washing inwards. It's weird to think how those same waves have been rolling peaceably up this same beach ever since all this trouble began.

"David?" says Lisa.

"Yeah?"

"What'll we do...when...if..." She seems to be struggling to find her words. "Do you think it's true? Do you think we'll be safe when we get to Holme?"

I bite my lip. It's a questioned I've thought over myself for many long nights. And it's not one that I'm sure of the answer. How terrible would it be to come all this way and find an island just as dead as the rest of the world? Or worse, to walk into some kind of trap? The doubts are there, strong as ever, but I know that for Lisa's sake I can't let them show.

"Of course," I say. "Sven told me all about it. They've got doctors there. They've got a leader. It's the next best thing to how things were before."

Lisa stares out at the endless ocean. She raises an arm and points. "There," she says faintly.

It takes me a while to figure out what she's pointing at, but eventually I see it. There on the horizon is a thin grey line of land. My heart leaps. It's there. It's real. I'm looking at Holme. I wonder if anyone is out there looking back?

Slowly, feeling a little silly, I raise my arm and wave at the distant island. Lisa does the same. I suddenly feel incredibly tired, as though the weight of the journey we've made is suddenly sitting squarely on my shoulders.

"And what about us?" says Lisa, still not quite looking at me. "What'll happen to us?"

Sixty-Six

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 06 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I don't believe it at first. Surely it can't be that near. But the more I look the more I'm sure that it's right. Just six miles away lies the last stop before Holme. All we have to do is get there, find a boat, and sail out to the island. It's so close. We're so close. It's almost over.

"But," says Lisa slowly, "this says we're almost there. Is that right? Are we, David?"

I scramble to my feet and check the mile marker again, sure that I must have made a mistake. Sixty miles to go, perhaps. Or six hundred. But no, there it is, our penultimate destination within a day's easy walk.

"It's right," I say. "I'm sure of it."

For a moment we stare at each other, unsure of how to react. And then laughter bubbles up in my stomach. And we're both laughing, sitting there in the middle of the road at the end of the world and laughing like idiots. It's the first time I've felt really, truly optimistic in ages.

"They must have carried us north," says Lisa eventually, when the laughter begins to subside. "We've been so lucky."

"Come on," I say, helping her to her feet. The mood of elation is swiftly being replaced by an urgent sense of purpose. Now that our goal is so close I want it more keenly than ever. "Let's get moving."

We walk intently, stopping to rest only when Lisa stomach twinges in pain. Somehow now the cold doesn't matter, my hunger and my thirst don't matter. Even the confession about which I was so anxious a few hours ago seems like nothing. As we crest a long rise we come to within sight of the sea. The smell of it hits us on the breeze, full of salt and openness and sand. We stop for a moment and breathe it in, stare as if stunned at the wide open expanse of blue that now crosses the horizon. That's when I turn to Lisa and say "Listen," and tell her simply and without any preliminaries what happened on my way back from meeting Sven.

"I've been so worried about telling you," I finish. "But, well, there it is. I should have been honest with you from the start."

Lisa looks at me oddly for a minute and then steps forward and hugs me tight. "It's okay," she says. "It's nobody's fault, any of this. Don't be guilty. You did what you needed to do."

Hand in hand we set off downhill. We lose sight of the sea behind a hill, and then before we know it we've emerged onto a wide, flat road that runs alongside a chalk cliff. Down below the sea pounds itself against white rocks, and there ahead of us, a mile or two downhill is a small, untidy town that can only be Porturaik.

Sixty-Five

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 04 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

We do keep moving. After an hour or so of stumbling through the pitch-dark forest we come to an old barn, where we hole up among spidery hay-bales until the sky starts to lighten. All the while, the night is punctuated by the distant mourning calls of the Creatures, wild and furious and lost. We're too exhausted to talk, but the noise and the shuddery aftermath of adrenaline keeps us from sleeping. As soon as the light is high enough we set off again, this time along a forest path that curves gently downhill. As we walk, steadily and in silence, I try to order the mess of thoughts in my head.

I killed a Feeder. A while ago I would be happy at that. But now, looking at what it has cost me and Lisa all I can feel is a sick kind of horror. The image of the Feeder's open mouth, and the memory of the noise the Creatures made when it died...it all keeps rising again in my head. Worse is the knowledge that Lisa must be remembering the same things. And it's all my fault...

I was talking in my sleep. Of course. How stupid. How utterly stupid. After all the months of being careful, of living in fear, of creeping and hiding. To almost lose everything over such a tiny, careless mistake.

But I know the cause of it. And I know what I have to do. What I should have done days ago. I have to tell Lisa what happened on my way back from my encounter with Sven. I have to tell her about the crazy. I have to tell her that I'm a murderer.

Decision made, I try at least a dozen times over the next few hours to simply come out and tell Lisa the truth. But every time, I find myself unable to break the silence between us. I can bear to break this fragile thing we have, to tell her what I did, maybe to see fear or hurt or anger in her eyes when she looks at me. And so we simply walk on through the forest, in silence.

We've lost everything. No weapons, no food, no water. Only the clothes on our backs and, by a stroke of luck, the maps and instructions Sven gave us, which were folded up and tucked securely into my pocket when the Creatures came and took us. If only we knew where we were...

At last, when the sun is well and truly up we stumble across a small ravine. Lisa drinks first, kneeling beside the thin trickle and scooping up the liquid with her hands while I keep watch. Then I take my turn, the water wonderfully cool and refreshing. It feels like the first thing I've ever drunk in my life, quenching the burning dryness in my throat and loosening the knot in my gut. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

"You okay?" Lisa asks. She stands a little way off, cradling her belly.

"Yeah," I say. And then I try to add, "but there's something we need to talk about," but the words don't come out, and after a short break we set to walking again.

By the time we emerge from the narrow forest path onto an open road it must be close to midday. A little way up the road a mile marker protrudes from the verge, partially covered by the rampant undergrowth. I go to it and pull away the stands of vegetation, hoping for some insight as to where the Creatures have carried us.

"Porturaik," I read off the mile marker. The sound of the word is oddly familiar. "Six miles that way," I point down the road.

"Let's check the maps," says Lisa. And so we do, sitting down in the middle of the road to rest while I unfold the crumpled sheets of paper. We put our heads together, scanning the miniscule detail of the landscape until Lisa catches her breath and says, "Look, there!"

She points, and there it is. The tiny writing on the map matches that engraved on the mile marker. And what is more, the town of Porturaik sits on the coast, just a short hop by boat from the island of Holme.

Sixty-Four

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 02 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The ground rushes up and slams into me. It's like being hit by a car. Red hot, twisted pain shoots through my ankle. Above my head I can hear the Creatures all bellowing their croaking, hissing noise at the sky. I try to stand, but my leg crumples underneath me. And then...

And then comes the explosion.

It's so close I feel heat wash over me, and then red hot bits of debris are tumbling to the ground on every side. The noise of the Creatures intensifies to a scream. I roll over. I'm lying on the very edge of the crater, an inch from dropping down into that dark pit. And above me the Feeder has split in two, its vast armoured shell now cracked like an egg, smoke and ichors spurting from within. I watch in horror as it twitches once, twice, what was once the mouth lolling open to emit a stream of smoke and a stench of burned meat.

For a second that's everything. Is it dead? Have I killed it?

And then the Creatures start to call in earnest. If I thought their noise was loud before it's nothing to how it is now. It's like a jet engine, a billion sirens. Like being inside a tornado of hideous sound. And above me in the dark I can just see the Creatures stumbling around like lost mad giants, mouths wide open, howling, howling, howling at the sky. A clawed foot slams into the earth not ten inches from where I lay, and I curl up, dig desperate fingers into the earth and wait for the chaos to end.

But then there's a hand on me. A human hand. I open my eyes and for a second I don't recognise Lisa, she's that covered in blood and sweat, her face unrecognisable behind the mask of terror.

"We've got to move," she shouts. "David, come on, we've got to go, they've gone mad."

Somehow she manages to haul me to my feet. With every step it feels as if a hot knife is being jabbed into my leg, but I run all the same. The Creatures are falling about like drunks. Lisa pulls me to the side just in time as one stampedes past. Nearby another is tearing at the ground itself, gouging out great chunks of rock. And all the while screaming their rage.

"This way!" We lose ourselves in the dark. No talk but the panting of our breath as we run, the thin noises of Lisa's restrained sobs. We're stumbling uphill and then suddenly we're amongst trees. We don't stop. I can still hear the Creatures, still smell burned meat and blood.

We keep running, scurrying through the night. When at last those awful noises are far behind us, I pull Lisa into the shelter of the undergrowth and we huddle there, wait, listen for noises of pursuit. None come. We're alone. For now at least we're alone. We breathe again.

"What...what happened?" asks Lisa in a trembling voice. She's swallowing furiously, burying her sobs.

"The Feeder," I say. "I threw...I think I killed it. Without the Feeder they can't think for themselves. You saw..." I'm shaking so much I can barely talk. The shock is catching up with me, the pain in my leg suddenly much harsher than it was before. Without warning bile rises in my throat. I turn away and vomit into the bushes.

"Oh, David." Lisa holds me around the shoulders. Slowly, slowly, the shaking subsides.

You're alive. Somehow, you're alive.

Lisa's saying, "It's okay, it's okay," over and over again. I wish it was.

"Come on," I say, when at last I feel able to stand again. I pull myself to my feet using a tree for support. "We have to keep moving."

Sixty-Three

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The Creature that carries me comes to a halt at the very edge of the crater. I find myself looking across the broad back of the feeder, a vast armoured dome studded with spines and riven with cracks. And even as I watch the largest crack of all splits open, wide open, and I find myself looking down into a throat, a great black throat with teeth on every side. The teeth are moving, the wide gaping pit of the mouth pulsating. The stench of blood and rotting flesh almost overwhelms me. I gag, stomach empty.

This is what Sharon saw, I think. This is what it must have felt like. And all I did was watch. All I did was watch her die.

I turn my head painfully and catch sight of Lisa. She's dangling from the arm of a Creature that stands, like mine, on the very lip of the pit, only a few metres away. She's struggling weakly, tiny human hands pawing at the great armoured claw of the Creature.

"Lisa!" I yell. She stops struggling and tries to turn and look at me, but the way the monster's holding her makes it impossible.

"David?"

"I'm here," I shout back. "I'm here." It's all I can think to say.

That's all you can give her, David. The chance not to die alone.

A Creature on the far side of Lisa steps forward and throws something into the throat of the feeder. I just catch its shape as it flies through the air: some kind of animal, a deer perhaps. Whatever it is disappears into the mouth, which snaps shut. I feel hot fluid spray across my face and body. I wish I could shut my ears to the sounds of grinding, of tearing flesh.

Just then I slip a little in the Creature's grip. The claw tightens about me again, choking, crushing. I feel for a moment as though no air is entering my lungs, as though I'm about to pass out. But I don't, and I realise in that moment that one of my arms has come free of the Creature's grasp.

I raise it and hammer my fist against the armoured shoulder of the monster. It's like hitting a brick wall. Pain flares and I stop.

The mouth gapes open once more. And this time something is thrown from the other side. Another deer, I think, though I can't bring myself to look close enough to make sure. Again the awful tearing noises. How long before that's me? Or Lisa? Oh, God, don't let her be first. I don't think I could stand to see that.

My heart's hammering, my breath catching. My body straining to live, desperate to live. I become aware of something pressing into my neck. I put my free hand to it and find a thick strap caught around my shoulders. I look down. Dangling around my neck is the belt of grenades I picked up so long ago in the ruins of the city.

The mouth gapes open again. And I feel the Creature holding me begin to move. As it does, my brain shuts down. I don't think. I don't feel. I don't hear Lisa scream my name. I don't feel the claw crushing me, the blood pounding in my brain, the white hot air screaming in my lungs.

I seize the belt and yank it towards my mouth. My teeth encounter metal, I feel the blunt pain of a broken tooth, but I bite down, pull back, find the pin between my lips, pull, spit. And then I rip the belt away from me and throw it towards that gaping pit of a mouth.

The next second I'm falling. And then all the world is noise, and pain.

Sixty-Two

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I don't think I've ever been so still in my life before. I hold my breath. I freeze. If I could I would still my heartbeat. Lisa too is so quiet that if I couldn't feel her hands I wouldn't know she was there. And in that terrible silence I hear the scrape of claws, the last dying echoes of the Creature's call.

My mind races. I was talking in my sleep. They hunt by sound. It's all my fault. I haven't saved Lisa after all. I've killed her. Her and the baby. I was talking in my sleep. How could I have been so careless? We came all this way...

And one thought above all: don't let it have heard me.

As my eyes accustom themselves to the dark I can make out Lisa's terrified face frozen above mine. I can feel her hands trembling, see the tears glistening in her eyes. I feel in that moment a rush of such painful affection for her, such love, and such shame at how badly I've failed her.

Claws scrape just outside the door to the office. And then in an instant the door bursts inwards and I see the dull gleam of bone white armour as the Creature thrusts itself through the gap. There's no time for thought anymore. Both of us move, scrambling to our feet in the dark. In the dark I can't find the rifle. My hands seize on something that I think is the strap, but as I pull it over my shoulder I realise that I've found the belt of grenades instead. Useless.

And then Lisa screams, and a second later a giant claw as hard as stone seizes me around my middle and lifts me from the ground. My head hits something, and lights explode behind my eyes. I think I lose consciousness for a second or two. The next thing I know I can feel the cold, crisp night air on my skin. The claw is squeezing me so hard I can barely breathe. Fire burns in my head, in my chest. I'm being carried. Like a toy in the hand of a giant I'm being carried away.

Terror like I've never known before floods through me. I fight. Pointlessly, madly, I scratch and punch and kick, but I might as well be trying to hurt a block of solid concrete. Pain flares in my knuckles. I taste blood.

Oh, no. No, no, no. This is it. This is what you've feared all those months. It's real. It's happening. There's no escape.

I hear Lisa screaming nearby. She must be being carried by another of the Creatures.

"Lisa! Lisa! Are you hurt?" I can hear the desperation in my voice.

"David!" She's crying. She keeps saying my name over and over. I don't think she can manage anything else.

"Don't be scared," I yell. "I'm going to..." But I can't say it. I know it's not true. There's no escaping this, no surviving, no rescue.

You should have died the day the meteors came, David. You should never have let yourself believe.

The claw tightens about my middle, crushing my ribs. The thing that's carrying me gives out another, croaking, hissing call, the sound like nails on a blackboard to me. This time the cry is echoed a dozen times over. Creatures all around me in the night. Surrounded. Trapped.

And then I see it come looming into view. There ahead of me, enormous and bloated and alien. The thing that Sven called a Feeder. It towers over me.

And I know then how I'm going to die.

Sixty-One

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

We rest that night in a hotel that stands alongside the road. The rooms themselves are all mildewed and stinking, and so we make a bed on the floor of the office out of what dry blankets and covers we can find. A quick search of the kitchens yields some industrial-sized cans of fruit and tins of vegetables, which make a decent meal. A while before dark falls we wrap ourselves in blankets against the cold and settle down for the night.

Exhausted from walking, Lisa drops quickly off to sleep. I find myself once again lying awake, staring at the ceiling, waiting and hoping that sleep will come. For long hours it does not, and as the darkness deepens and I hear the first few Creature calls in the night outside, the doubts begin to emerge.

I picture us arriving at Holme, wandering through the empty streets of an island village. We look through windows, call into the silence. There's nothing, nobody. And then we crest a hill and there below us is a massive crater, pulsating with hideous life.

I picture us still on the road one day soon when Lisa grabs my hand, bending double, her face turning to mine. The baby's coming, she mouths, and then there's blood on the ground and she is screaming and...

And as ever it turns back to the crazy I shot. And to Sharon, somehow. They're standing there, both of them. Sharon's body is horribly broken, flesh tattered, limbs splayed, blood dripping. The crazy has a bullet hole in his neck, still weeping blood. They're looking at me. They're at the head of a crowd of a thousand men and women, an army of the dead, and they're watching everything I do. You have to do the right thing, says Sharon. The crazy opens his mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a wild, yammering noise.

And then I'm back hiding underneath the car, gun in hand, listening to the footsteps approach. Only this time when I crawl out the crazy is quicker, and it's me who is hit by a bullet. Me who falls. My body that lies lifeless of the weed-strewn concrete.

I don't realise that I've been dreaming until I come awake. I come awake because there's a hand over my mouth, and another on my shoulder, pushing me down. Panic floods me, ice cold, and I start to struggle, but stop a moment later when I hear Lisa's voice.

"David, stop, it's me," she whispers, her mouth so close to my ear that I feel her breath. She sounds terrified. "You were talking in your sleep. You were..."

But she stops mid-sentence, and in the same moment I realise why she sounds so scared. From the other side of the office door comes a sound I know only too well: the hissing, croaking bellow of a Creature on the hunt.

Sixty

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

But I barely sleep that night, or the next, or the night after that. We make it to the motorway and start heading north, crawling along at a snail's pace, each step bringing us closer to Holme. On the third day we see a group of people a way behind us on the road, moving in our direction. We speed up until we lose sight of them, then hide ourselves at the side of the road and wait for them to pass us by, but they never do. Eventually we get back on the road and keep moving, with many a nervous glance back the way we came.

We find food and water at a small village that we pass through. We see more craters, most of them overgrown and dead, but two or three that are horrifyingly alive. The first time Lisa sees one of the outsized monsters that squat in the living craters she stands and stares for almost ten minutes, mouth open in horror.

"Come on," I say eventually. "Let's get moving. Best to put some distance between us and it, yeah?"

I count the miles as they pass. We're making less than ten a day, but even that is a struggle. For a few days the cold weather deepens and we wake each morning to frost on the ground. We wrap up warmer and forge on. Lisa is never comfortable anymore, the baby kicking all night to keep her awake. We talk little, all our energy spent on walking.

I try to guess how much longer the journey will take. Ten days, I think at first. But ten days come and go and we're barely halfway. Twenty then, or maybe a month. We wander past ghost towns, through frozen traffic jams, clamber over trees that have fallen across the road, skirt around great cracks and craters in the ground.

Still I struggle to sleep. The exhaustion is all way through me now, in my very bones. Lisa, and the thought of getting her to Holme is the only thing that keeps me going.

Which is why I'm surprised when one morning when we sit down to rest she says, "I'm sorry, David."

"What?"

Lisa's looking at the ground, her face pink with cold and exhaustion. "I'm slowing you down," she says. "You would be there already if it weren't for me."

"Lisa..." It takes me by such surprise that I don't know what to say to her. I almost laugh, but I can see that she's really upset. "Lisa, there wouldn't be any point without you. You're the reason...if it weren't for you..."

"But what if something happens?" she says. "What if you get hurt or killed because of me?"

"If it weren't for you," I say, "I wouldn't even be alive right now."

She wipes quickly at her eyes. "What do you mean?"

I hesitate for a moment, but only for a moment. It seems so long ago now that it's really not that hard to tell her. It's as if I'm talking about something that happened to somebody else. "Back then, before I met you--when it was just me on my own--I'd wake up every morning and try to kill myself. I just...I'd lost everything. I just wanted it to end. And then...well, then I met you. You gave me a reason to keep living."

Lisa blinks at me, looking astonished. The she starts to cry. I hold her until the tears dry up. And then she stands, and we move on together down the road, hand in hand.

Fifty-Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Progress is slow. Lisa's pregnancy is telling now, and we have to stop for rests every hour. Even with me carrying her pack for her, she has constant back pain. Not that she complains--in fact she keeps resolutely silent about it, her suffering only given away by her face. On our third rest I find a fallen road sign and wipe away the crust of dirt to reveal that we have twelve miles to go to the motorway.

Already I'm wondering if this is a good idea. Travelling now, like this, with Lisa so heavily pregnant means that we're vulnerable. And what if the stresses of travelling hurt the child? But then the alternatives are just as grim: delivering the baby alone and without the help of a doctor could be a disaster.

Either way we're lost.

I can't think clearly anymore. Every so often the image of the crazy falling to the ground will pop back into my head and send my thoughts scattering.

"Okay," says Lisa, standing once more. "Let's go on." We set off again, labouring silently. It's cold enough for our breath to come as vapour, but walking and our layers of warm clothing keep us from feeling it too badly. At midday we pause and eat a small meal, and then we set to walking again, already on the lookout for a place to spend the night. In the end we come to a layby where half a dozen eighteen-wheelers are parked. One has toppled over on its side, spilling its cargo of metal piping out across the road. We check the cabs until we find one with a small compartment in the back, where the driver would have slept. It's as safe and secure as anywhere would be, and me and Lisa climb inside. The cramped little space is decorated with all sorts of charms: brightly-coloured prayer flags cover the walls and a dreamcatcher dangles from the ceiling. Once we've spread out our blankets it's actually quite cosy.

"I wonder what happened to him," says Lisa.

"To who?"

"The driver." She's looking at the prayer flags as she speaks, a small frown creasing her forehead. She's cradling her bump, as she often does these days.

We eat and drink and then settle down to sleep a little before it gets dark. Mindful of what Sven told me about how the Creatures hunt I make sure that we cannot be seen from outside and remind Lisa that we have to be as quiet as we possibly can.

Before long, Lisa has dropped off, but I cannot sleep. It has nothing to do with our surroundings either. Apart from a single Creature call that comes at just past midnight things are silent, at peace. I can feel Lisa's calm and quiet presence beside me, lost in sleep. But each time I come close to drifting off I jerk back awake, the noise of a gunshot replaying in my head, a sour taste filling my mouth.

Sleep, I tell myself furiously the fifth time this happens. You need your rest. There's still a long, long way to go.

Fifty-Eight

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

We set off the next morning. The preparations don't take long; we're leaving most of our things behind, taking only what we know we'll need. As we pack our bags full of food and supplies I wish briefly that I had brought the trailer back with me. I hadn't realised how little we had left, and I know that we can only last a few days on the stuff we'll be able to carry.

"Don't worry," Lisa says. "We'll find food and water on the way. We did before."

I dropped the pistol right after shooting the crazy, and so we're down to only the rifle and the grenades. Neither are ideal. The rifle is long and unwieldy, and I'm sure requires cocking between shots (something I have no idea how to do), and I'm worried that if I try and use the grenades I'll end up hurting myself or Lisa by accident.

"What happened to the pistol?" asks Lisa.

I hesitate just a little too long before answering, and I can feel my face redden at the lie, the familiar sick feeling of shame and fear and horror returning to my gut. "I dropped it," I say. "I'm not sure when. It was in my belt. I only noticed it was gone when I got back here."

"Oh," says Lisa. She looks at me strangely for a moment, and I know that she knows that I'm always far too careful with the guns to ever have just dropped it. But she doesn't ask, returning instead to the packing of her bag. I'm grateful. Right at the moment I want to think about anything but what happened yesterday.

It's just past dawn when we step out of the farmhouse, wrapped in layers and laden down with our packs. The first part of our journey is simple enough. We have to follow the road we're on until it meets up with a motorway, then follow that motorway north for almost seventy miles. We set off down towards the road, but Lisa pauses at the edge of the trees and turns to look back at the farmhouse.

"You okay?" I say. "Forgotten something?"

Lisa shakes her head. "No. Just...just saying goodbye."

I look back at the house too, and to my surprise feel a quiet wave of affection for it. It sheltered us and kept us safe for two long months. It was warm and comfortable and good, somehow walled off from the horror of the world that surrounds it. And now here we are leaving it behind. I watch as one of the chickens, which we set loose last night, pecks its way across the yard.

"Goodbye house," says Lisa.

"Goodbye house," I say. And then we turn and trek down through the trees to the road, to begin the long journey towards Holme.

Fifty-Seven

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

After a short walk through the trees the farmhouse comes into view. The familiar sight of it sends a wave of calm sweeping through me. I wonder where Lisa is. Part of me was picturing her waiting for me at the door, but I know that's not realistic. Seven months pregnant, she needs her rest. She'll be in bed.

Not wanting to scare her, I knock loudly on the door and call her name. "Lisa! It's me! It's David, I'm back." I wait. When there's no answer, I try the door and find it locked. I knock again, wait, shout again. I'm starting to get anxious when the door unlocks and there she is, blinking exhaustedly at me, but smiling too. Her bump is more prominent than ever. It makes her look somehow vulnerable, small.

"David," she says. And then we're hugging, and this more than anything feels like coming home. The warmth and gentleness of her, her breath bouncing off my neck. So human.

"I was so worried about you," she says into my shoulder. "It's been horrible. Let's not do this again. Let's not split up. I've hardly slept since you left."

"It's okay," I say. "It's okay, I'm back."

I flash back to the crazy again, the feel of the gun kicking in my hands, seeing him fall, hearing him die. She doesn't know. She can't know. You have to protect her.
We go inside, where there's a fire burning. I dump the backpack and we sit down on our bed in the middle of the floor, then lie down beside each other. For ten or twenty minutes there is silence but for the crackle and spit of the fire, silence as we get used once more to each others' presence, as we enjoy not being alone again.

Then Lisa says, "Tell me. Is it bad out there?"

I don't know what to say to her. So much has happened in such a short space of time. It's hard to know where to begin. In the end I fish in my pocket for the fold of papers Sven gave me and hand them to her. She unfolds them slowly, cautiously, frowning at the map.

"What is this?" she asks. "Where did you get it?"

And so I tell her everything, from the moment I left her to the moment I watched Sven walk away down the road. Lisa listens, rapt, frowning occasionally but not stopping me. I don't mention my encounter with the crazy on the way back to the farmhouse, even though the secret feels like it's burning a hole in my stomach.

When I've finished Lisa looks at the map again, tracing a finger along a road with a strange, distant frown on her face. Then she turns to me.

"Well," she says simply. "When are we going to go?"

Fifty-Six

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The crazy falls, a red rosette opening at his neck. I see everything, hear everything, take in every minute detail. The spray of blood, the sudden looseness of the body. The scream cut short with a gurgle. Pain shoots through my arm: the gun has kicked so violently that my fingers feel bruised. The sound of the shot has faded already, but I can hear it clear enough in my head. I'm sure I'll be hearing it for a while.

I wait, frozen, not moving a muscle. The crazy stays down on the ground. A minute passes, then two, then three. Most of the body is hidden from me by the car, but I can see the curled fingers of an outflung hand. I stare at them, waiting for them to twitch, to show some sign of life. I'm not sure whether that twitch is something I'm waiting for or something I'm dreading.

But there's no movement. I drop the gun, turn my back and walk away. Quick, furious strides. After a minute I start to run. I feel like there's something pursuing me, right on my heels, and that if I don't run as fast as I can it'll catch me, drag me down, swallow me whole.

You killed him. You killed another human being.

I see the face of the crazy again, frozen in shock at the sight of the gun. I run faster, harder, feet pounding into the road so hard it sends sharp bolts of pain through my knees.

Killer.

There's a sour taste in my mouth. I stop running. No good anymore. Crouching with my hands on my knees at the side of the road I spit.

Killer. You coward, David. Clumsy, frightened, useless, coward.

I start to walk again, but more steadily this time. After a few minutes the shaking stops and my breathing levels out. The sour taste is still there in my mouth, and the memory of the crazy's dying cry is still fresh in my head. But...

I had to. This isn't the world that used to be. I had to do it. I had to survive.

Murderer...

I had to survive for Lisa.

In the end it's that thought which centres me, which reins in the panic. What would have happened to Lisa if that crazy killed me out in the middle of nowhere? What would have happened to the baby?

I had to.

Quite suddenly I recognise the stretch of road along which I'm walking. I'm back. The farmhouse is just a few hundred metres away through the trees. And waiting there for me is Lisa, and the baby. And I have the news of Holme to give her. The best news I could possibly give. I should feel happy, but somehow it's all messed up. It's not an hour since I murdered another human being. How can I just march back to Lisa and pretend that everything's normal.

But you have to, says my brain. You can't tell her. You can't let her know. Not now. Not yet. Maybe one day, when you get to Holme. Maybe one day when this is all over. But not yet. You've got to protect her.

I move from the road into the cover of the trees, and sit down. Leaning back against a trunk I shut my eyes and take a long deep breath. I think of Lisa, and nothing else.

In an hour, I feel as close to normal as I'm going to get. I stand, and start to make my way up to the house, hoping that Lisa won't notice that I've been crying.

Fifty-Five

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I try to roll out from under the body of the car, but with the pack still strapped to my back the best I can manage is a kind of awkward sideways shuffle. I hit my head on the underside of the body as I struggle to bring myself into a half crouch. The crazy is on the other side of the car from me. By sheer luck I've timed it just right. I emerge as he bends down to look into the crawl space where I was hiding. My heart leaps, a sickening jolt of adrenaline firing through my body.

The gun is in my hand. Without even really thinking about it I'm aiming. The crazy bobs back into sight, and then freezes at the sight of the gun, a yammering half-sound dying in his throat.

Shoot it! Kill it before it kills you!

But I can't. The expression of surprise on it's--on his--face is too real, too human. The thought of that look of puzzlement and fear being broken by a bullet makes me shrivel inside. The thing is filthy, his long brown hair matted and tangled and thick with dirt. A knotted beard dangles to his chest, ropes of drool hanging from his slack mouth.

For a second, two seconds, we stare each other down.

"Drop your gun," I say, my voice shaking. "Drop it!"

But the crazy doesn't drop it. He comes to life again with a screech like a monkey's. The rifle he carries comes up to point right at me and I feel my legs go weak.

"No!" I yell, as if it'll do any good. But the thing, the mad pathetic thing pointing a weapon at me is beyond that, beyond reason, beyond words. There's only one thing that can stop him, and my body knows what to do even if my brain is still in denial.

I grip the pistol as tight as I can.

I pull the trigger.

Fifty-Four

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I cannot make sense of the noise at first. It's so loud that it strikes me with a physical force, leaves me numb. And I'm looking down at the hole that's suddenly appeared in the bodywork of the car not six inches from my hand and I cannot for the life of me understand what has happened.

The echoes of the bang begin to fade. And only then do I realise. As I drop to the ground a second gunshot rolls like thunder through the emptiness and the already-cracked windscreen of the car explodes into a mess of glass cubes.

Oh, hell. I'm being shot at and I don't even know who by. They could be anywhere...

A shiver runs through me. I feel so exposed, so vulnerable. I imagine the force of a bullet smashing into my body, shattering it, breaking bones and drilling through flesh. I'm shaking as I crawl underneath the body of the car, as I fumble to pull the pistol from my belt.

Not now, I think. Not now, just as I've been given hope. If I die here then it all stops. Nobody to look after Lisa. Nobody to help with the baby. It'll all be over. And we were so close...

I'm tensed, waiting for the next gunshot. It doesn't come. I've managed to get hold of the pistol and I grip it in both my sweating hands. I flick the safety off. The adrenaline is coursing through me, making every movement shuddery and quick.

There's still a chance, I tell myself. You can still survive. If you handle this right you can still go home.

And even as I think this there's another, louder voice whispering its truth to me: you're going to die here David. This is it, after all those months. You're no hero. No fighter. You'll let down Lisa like you let down Sharon.

I hear footfalls. Someone is running full pelt towards my hiding place.

Another horrible thought flashes through my head: it's Sven. It was a trap after all. There is no Holme, no safe haven. Just a quick and violent and lonely death.

But it can't be Sven. I can hear them laughing and jabbering now, whoever it is. They're close. I twist awkwardly onto my front, the straps of the backpack cutting into my arms. Through a gap between the forest of wheels I catch sight of a pair of feet. No shoes. And there's something off about the way they're moving. Not running like a regular person, but hopping and leaping and loping. And the sound of their voice...there's not even any words, just a constant yammering whine of noise. Like an animal.

Oh, god, it's a crazy. A crazy with a gun. If anything that's worse. At least a sane human being you could bargain with...

The thing comes loping closer. There's this tension in my chest, like a wound spring. Any second now it's going to unwind. I can feel it. It's unbearable. I want to scream. Any moment now. Any moment.

And then the feet are right there, not a metre away from me, and they stop.

It knows you're here, David. Move!

I think of Lisa.

I move.

Fifty-Three

noreply@blogger.com (Kitt Moss) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I leave the trailer. It's a decision that I agonise over for almost twenty minutes, and I know that it's one I might end up sorely regretting. But I can move faster without it, and if me and Lisa are to travel to this island then we'll be able to find food and water on the route. After what I've been through to get here and get this food and water it seems like a waste to only take back what I can carry in the backpack, but I know that time is a commodity that's far more important right now. Not only is there the birth to think about, but the onset of winter as well. The quicker we get to Holme the better.

As I set off back up the road my mind is whirling. Suddenly the world is alive again, there is society again. A small and distant society, but a real one. After two months holed up in the farmhouse with Lisa I'd started to feel like the whole world was dead, like we were the only two survivors left on the face of the planet.

I'm nervous and excited and impossibly happy all at once. It's a feeling I haven't felt in so long; one that belongs in the old world, before the meteors fell. The kind of fluttery, eager sensation I felt when starting a new job, or on my first day of school all those many, many years ago.

I make good time back up the road. The day is cool, crisp, the sun barely managing to shoulder its way through the clouds. I can almost smell winter on the breeze.

I wonder what Lisa will say when I tell her? Will she believe me? And what will happen to us when there are other humans around? Will we still be as close as we are now? When the baby comes, who will look after it?

I catch myself, and wipe those thoughts away. I've learned already not to think too far ahead. To be happy to be alive and well from moment to moment. I pour all my energy into walking, eager to see and hold and talk to Lisa again.

The road is flat for the most part, maybe a little downhill. I pass by the dead craters I saw on my way out, but this time they don't worry me quite so much. I can't help but flash back to the giant, malformed thing I saw in the crater in the middle of town, but then every step I take is a step away from that, a step closer to Lisa.

After an hour or two I come to a part of the road where the rusting hulks of cars form a kind of stationary traffic jam. I remember coming through this on the way out, only three or four hours after I left the farmhouse. I pause to rest, leaning against the bonnet of one of the cars to regain my breath.

For a moment it is peaceful, almost silent. And then that silence explodes.