Chapter Ten

After…

Leaving the cabin behind, even for a short time, was more problematic than I’d initially considered.

Firstly, we’d have to eat the chickens because we’d be gone too long and there’d be no one here to feed or water them. Secondly, the vast majority of the plants—and thus our source of fresh vegetables—would most likely dry out with no one to tend to them.

Guilt quickly to assailed me. “Maybe going alone would be easier. I wouldn’t be gone for more than a few weeks. It’s so much upheaval otherwise.”

“There’s no way I’m letting you go alone. We’ll just have to live off tinned food until we can re-plant,” Nate said in a stern tone.

The discussion ended there.

I still felt bad about the chickens though, no matter how succulent and tasty they were.

Nate decided we would leave in a few days, and I agreed, even though a part of me didn’t want to leave at all.

Trouble was, I felt very conflicted. Not only was my mind on Rebecca, but I also thought about the other people that’d survived the virus. Where were they? From the news, I knew they existed, but were they still alive now? Were there others we hadn’t heard about?

As I helped Nate pack our clothes into a large camping rucksack, I said, “Maybe we could go to Bristol on the way back to Rebecca’s?”

He stopped and glared at me. “It’s not on the way. And why Bristol?”

I shrugged. “It’s what I planned originally. To see if anyone was there.”

Nate rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s no one there.” It was a flat, definitive response.

“Further north then? Or London?”

He tensed. “You said you needed to get back to Rebecca.”

“I know but—”

He cut me off. “It's awful out there near the cities, Halley.”

“But, if there were people out there, that’s where they’d be?”

“I don’t know!” he snapped, his tone catching me off guard, causing me to shrink back a little.

He immediately noted my uneasiness and took me in his arms. “Sorry.”

“Shouldn’t we, at least, try?”

He clenched his jaw. “Halley, I want to find others as much as you do, but you don’t know what it’s like out there.”

I couldn’t disagree with him, knowing he’d seen the worst of it, before and after. The thought of facing all that death again clearly unsettled him.

With a heavy sigh, he stepped away from me and went over to his chest of drawers. Opening the bottom drawer, he pushed a bunch of t-shirts aside and pulled out a collection of papers. As he unfolded them, I realized it was a large map. He spread it out on the bed, smoothing down the creases until it resembled the lower half of England. It was covered in hand-written notes, with large areas circled red and marked with hundreds of X’s.

I kneeled on the mattress to inspect it more closely. “What is this?”

Nate sat next to me. “This is a map of everywhere I went.”

“What are the X’s?” I ran a finger over one of the little black criss-cross markings.

“The X’s are where I left messages—I spray painted instructions on where to find me, on bridges and roads, anywhere people would see. The main roads toward London were a nightmare by car, so I covered the southwest first and then headed a bit further North. That’s when the fuel went bad, and my car wouldn’t run anymore. I’d intended to go to London, but it was too far to walk with things already set up here. It was difficult to leave for more than a few days at a time,” he explained.

With my index finger, I traced the coastal route I’d taken to get here, realizing I’d only just missed a few of his messages. “So close.”

My finger drifted further right toward Exeter and then on to Plymouth—Nate had marked X’s by these places too.

My aunt had been to both cities for supplies, more than once. Had could she have not seen the signs? How could other people have not seen them?

The truth was obvious. Either Nate’s messages had gone unseen—or ignored—by people passing by them, or, no people were passing by at all.

The thought of it all made me nauseous.

Nate took hold of my hand. “What’s wrong with it just being us?”

My stomach churned. I needed air, or I was going to throw up. I moved away from him and told him I was going for a walk. He looked completely dejected but said nothing, letting me slip from his grasp.

****

The peaceful motion of the waves slinking back and forth down the beach did nothing to ease the deep, unsettling feeling in my chest, although I managed to suppress the urge to vomit.

My mind was addled. What if there were no other people? Not just here, but everywhere. What if the human race now only consisted of three people?

No. We couldn’t be all that was left.

There were other survivors in the beginning. There had to be others out there somewhere. But what if they were so far away from us that they were beyond our reach? Across the sea even? Sailing large distances was problematic without diesel to run an engine, and finding a boat intact was another issue entirely.

I.D.R.I.S had ordered the army to burn or sink most of the ocean-going vehicles in an attempt to stop people from spreading the virus to other countries. Not that it’d done any good.

What’s wrong with it just being us? Nate’s words came back to me as I considered the reality of us being together.

What was wrong with that exactly?

Nothing. There was nothing wrong with that. I’d be perfectly content to grow old here with Nate and let the memory of humanity die with us. But first, I had to at least try to find other survivors. If I didn’t, I’d always wonder if there was someone else out there, alone and desperate, like Nate, that we could’ve helped. Someone we could’ve saved but didn’t.

The awful thing was, I knew Nate felt the same way. He’d tried so hard to find people after the apocalypse because that’s who he was. He saved people. He helped people.

So, why didn’t he want to look for people anymore?

The answer was simple. All the while he didn’t go out there looking, he could hold onto the hope there were still people alive out there. What if we searched and found no one? Would it be better to have hope than to know we truly were the only ones left?

He’d already lost all hope once, and maybe he knew how easy it’d be to slip back into the darkness again.

But things were different now—he had me by his side to help him through it, to keep him from doing something stupid again.

Perhaps, though, I wasn’t enough for him. I certainly hadn’t been enough to stop my mother from slitting her wrists in the bathtub, so why on Earth would I think I’d be a good enough reason to stop Nate from going over the edge again? I hadn’t magically fixed him. He’d never be fixed. Neither would I. It was selfish of me to have pushed him, and then I’d just walked out without a thought as to how he felt.

I hated that he was in so much pain, and I hated that, this time, I was the cause of it.

I hated that I’d lacked the courage to leave my aunt’s sooner.

I hated that she’d stopped me every time I’d tried to leave.

I hated knowing she’d clearly not been looking for other survivors all this time, for whatever reason.

I hated my mother for leaving me. I hated Andrew. I hated the apocalypse.

The anger and resentment bubbled away inside me until I let out an ear-shattering scream at the sea. I picked up a piece of driftwood and threw it furiously into the water. Finding some other bits of flotsam, I did the same until the muscles in my arm began to pinch. It made me feel slightly better and distracted me long enough for my wraith to dissipate to a level where it was safe to be around another human again.

Of course, that human had been watching me the whole time. In the distance, I saw him, leaning against a tree on the edge of the beach, arms and legs crossed casually.

He was still afraid I’d disappear.

I started to walk back to him but quickened my pace until I broke into a run. As soon as I reached him, I jumped up and wrapped my legs around his waist, kissing him in short, urgent bursts.

“It’s okay if it’s just us,” I said, stroking his face.

He looked at me. “Yes, it is. But, you’re right.”

“Am I?”

He exhaled deeply and kissed my forehead. “We need to know. We need to do this.”

“What if we don’t find anyone?”

“Then, we don’t.”

Despite the determined expression on his face, I still felt unsure. “But—”

He touched his finger to my lips. “You are the only thing I need. As long as I have you, nothing else matters.”

More than anything, I hoped that was true.

****

Before…

Three months had passed since the outbreak.

The power had been off now for several days, leaving us nothing to listen to for information other than a battery-powered radio which only picked up two stations—the emergency broadcast frequency and some foreign station that played jazz music on a loop.

I’d always loathed jazz music; this really was hell on Earth.

Rebecca had taken to going to bed early with the assistance of sleeping pills and diazepam for her anxiety, wiping her out for twelve hours straight, sometimes longer.

I envied her ability to slumber her way through the end of the world because I hardly slept.

Morning saw me get up early to boil some water on the camping stove for my breakfast sachet of artificially flavored porridge. Hovering close to it, I warmed my hands on the fire.

We’d been blessed with a mild winter so far, although early mornings still brought a bitter frost. The cottage had an open fire, but we only lit it when absolutely necessary, so we wouldn’t use too much of the wood we’d chopped and stockpiled.

I’d just finished stirring the dry porridge flakes into the pot when I heard a car pull up outside the front. The sound of an unfamiliar engine surprised me. I.D.R.I.S had warned people to stay home and to avoid the major roads as they were gridlocked or closed. The army now manned roadblocks on every motorway in an effort to slow the spread of the virus, checking the passengers of each vehicle for signs of illness before being allowed through the barriers.

Not many people made it past. Instead, they were escorted off to make-shift roadside hospitals. Some people refused and quickly had their keys confiscated—often by force—while their vehicles got towed to the nearest embankment. A few desperate souls had tried their luck on the hard shoulder, building up speed to ram the barriers. It never ended well. Either their tires got shot out, or the driver’s brains were blown out over the dashboard, depending on how close they got to the barricade.

The media was fairly critical of these incidents, imploring the prime minister to take back control of the army from I.D.R.I.S, but it never happened. They were the ones in charge now, and they took no prisoners.

Curious, I turned off the stove and went out the side door, making my way down the iced-over path leading out to our driveway.

The sight of Andrew’s car in front of our garage instantly rendered me paralyzed, sending a cold sweat over my body.

How dare he come here! Why would he come here?

As he squared up on the driveway, his fingers lifted from the steering wheel in a gesture of acknowledgment when he saw me watching.

I steadied myself and tried to think calmly. Should I run back inside and lock all the doors? Or would he smash his way inside anyway? Calling the police wasn’t an option either because no one would come. Shit. What the hell did he want?

“I just want to talk,” Andrew said as he flicked the engine off and got out the car.

He didn’t look too good. His skin was white and gleaming with perspiration, his voice gruff when he spoke. “Please, Halley. I’m sick.”

I swallowed hard. “How did you get past the roadblocks?”

He shrugged. “The army left. It’s pointless. Everyone’s sick. We just have to be with the people we love now.”

I glared at him. It was almost funny. “Why the hell did you come here then?”

Andrew gave me a pleading look. “I was devastated when you left. You’re the only family I have, Halley.”

A laugh left my lips. “I am not your family. You need to go.”

He sighed. “Go where?”

“I don’t care!” I spat.

“Don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”

“Go away, Andrew. You aren’t welcome here.”

His expression turned indignant. “After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?”

“Yes,” I said hotly, anger matching my fear. “This is exactly what you deserve.”

He shook his head solemnly and started toward me with his hand out. “Please.”

As he edged closer, panic set in, and it was enough to get my body moving again. I quickly bolted past him and down the lane, away from the cottage. With Andrew, the only thing I’d ever been able to do was run away.

Once I made it to the crossroads leading to the main road, I stopped to catch my breath, my eyes searching for somewhere to hide. When I heard his car approaching, I started sprinting again, as fast as I could.

Of course, he quickly caught up, his car screeching to a halt just meters in front of me.

“Halley, love. Please,” he pleaded again as he slid from the driver’s seat. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m sick.”

For a second, one tiny second, I felt bad for him. But then, I remembered. My mind went back to that day in the car when he…

“Then hurry up and die!” I cried.

“Don’t be like this! I—” he whimpered, but a coughing fit stopped him from saying anything else.

A large splatter of blood quickly formed on his shirt, and he began to wheeze. He bent over with his hands on his knees and retched until a dark red, clotted mass spilled out of his mouth and showered down onto the asphalt.

I recoiled, horrified.

He managed to stand upright again and stumble toward me, gargling each time he sucked in a breath of air.

“Please,” he begged. “Help me!”

He unexpectedly lunged forward to grab my hand before his knees buckled and he fell face down on the ground with a heavy thud. I quickly yanked my hand from his sweaty, bloody grasp, and then backed away until the hedgerow swallowed me up.

I knew Andrew was dead when a thick pool of blood mushroomed out from his head and spread out across the road. A few streams of crimson oozed over to where I stood, stopping only inches from my trainers.

Still, I waited to see if he got up again. For a long while, all I could do was stand immobile, shivering as the blood puddle frosted over.

Eventually, when the cold wind was too much to bear any longer, I turned and hurried back to the cottage.

My aunt was up and making her breakfast in the kitchen when I returned.

“What have you done to yourself?” she asked, motioning to my hand.

I looked down to see Andrew’s blood on my skin. “I…slipped,” I stammered, trying to keep my voice even despite the tightness in my chest.

I quickly went into the bathroom and poured bleach over my hand, scrubbing off the dried blood with a nail brush until my skin stung. After tipping a pitcher of cold water over my arm, I examined my flesh closely for any traces of blood I might’ve missed.

“Be more careful,” Rebecca said when I reappeared.

I nodded. “I might go back to bed for a bit.”

“Still not sleeping?”

“No,” I replied and headed to my bedroom.

I wasn’t feeling well. Perhaps it was just the shock of coming face to face with Andrew and then watching him suffer a horrible death. But, a few hours later, my skin dripped in sweat, and a painful ache gnawed at my bones. When my ribcage burned with every breath I took, I began to cry, knowing I’d finally caught the virus. And from Andrew of all people.

Because of him, in less than twelve hours, I’d be dead.