As the World Falls Down

by Katy Nicholas

  My turn.

  I waited silently for the bird to take a break from its frantic flapping, my heartbeat resounding in my ears as I aimed the crowbar and steadied my jittery grip. Somehow, using a blunt object seemed less distasteful than doing it with my bare hands.

  The metal rod came down heavily on the jackdaw’s head with a thump. I swung it twice to be sure. It was definitely dead by the second blow.

  For lack of a shovel, I used the crowbar to carve out a shallow grave in a soft patch of earth and then buried its lifeless body, covering the area with a few rocks to stop it from being unearthed by some wild animal later. Noticing a few smudges of blood on my vest, I suddenly felt very unclean.

  Retrieving my bike from where it lay, I steered it toward the sound of the ocean. Earlier, I’d seen a few signposts at the roadside pointing the way to a beach, and so I made my way down through the narrow streets, eventually coming out onto a crescent of luxurious, new-built, beach-front homes. Mostly unoccupied, only a few had cars parked in the driveways. I ducked into an alley between two villas and followed it until I ended up on a wide concrete promenade. I parked my bike against the seawall and freed my rucksack from the frame.

  Once at the shoreline, I stripped down to my underwear and then pulled a bar of soap and a washcloth from my bag. The bird’s blood didn’t scrub from my vest very easily and left a yellow stain on the white material. It would have to do. I could’ve just thrown it away, but it seemed wasteful to me. With the vest laid out on the pebbles to dry, I took the opportunity to go for a swim and scrub myself clean too. I kept my underwear on—not that there was anyone here to see my naked body should I have chosen to skinny dip.

  Maybe my choice to be modest reflected my hope that I wasn’t alone.

  The sea was incredibly cold despite the day’s heat, but I soon became acclimatized and comfortable enough to float in the water and bask in the sunshine for a while. It wasn’t as relaxing as it should have been; I kept thinking about how I’d bashed the jackdaw’s head in with the crowbar. It made me feel dirty all over again.

  ****

  Against my better judgment, I took the path through the woods instead of attempting to fight my way through the bramble overtaking the adjacent lane. The thick layer of decomposing leaf mold on the copse floor had kept the weeds at bay, making it the preferable route. As soon as I entered the woods, though, my instincts told me it was a bad idea.

  Pushing my bike along as rapidly as possible with my attention fixed firmly on the path ahead, I tried hard to ignore the eerie creaking of the trees as they shifted with the breeze.

  The moment I heard the loud snap of a twig behind me, I instantly wished I’d trusted my instincts. The hairs on the back of my neck rose suddenly and sent a cold chill down my spine as I slowly turned around. My eyes darted about to the shaded areas between the trees, scanning the shadows for any sign of movement, but I struggled to see anything clearly in the fading, late-afternoon light. Just when I thought I’d imagined it, a brief flash of something gray appeared in my peripheral vision.

  As slowly and as quietly as possible, I leaned my bike against the nearest tree trunk and slipped my hand into my rucksack, searching for my crowbar.

  It wasn’t there. Shit. I must’ve left it on the ground next to where I’d buried the bird.

  I attempted to steady my breathing. For all I knew, it was merely a wood pigeon stalking me through the scrub—certainly no reason to panic. Still, as a precaution, I slid my backpack onto my shoulders in case I needed to run. If the ground hadn’t been so uneven and strewn with roots, it would have been faster to ride my bike. As it was, I had no choice but to rely on my own two legs to carry me safely out of the woods.

  Another loud crack to my right made me turn sharply. I strained my ears to listen for further noises, but I could barely hear anything over the sound of my thundering heartbeat. As I backed up, a protruding root caught my ankle, sending me into a backward tumble. My bottom took most of the impact, and I managed to refrain from crying out when I hit the ground, landing in a patch of stinging nettles. Rapidly, I scrabbled back onto my feet, and put my back to a thick oak tree while I caught my breath, hissing from the burning rash forming on my upper thighs.

  My mind spun, trying to rationalize my predicament. What could be out there? A dog, maybe. Or a boar. Either of those creatures, driven by hunger or fear, could quite easily kill me if I couldn’t outrun them.

  I scanned the undergrowth for something I could defend myself with—a heavy branch or a sharp stick. A few meters ahead of me, I spied a rock about the size of my hand. Moving away from the protective shielding of the tree, I inched forward to pick it up, but I instantly stiffened when, out of the corner of my eye, my pursuer made a move. There it was—a large gray shape about twenty meters away, between two giant ferns.

  Blinking, I twisted my head. It was no boar, and certainly not a dog. The bulk of the animal was massive, and it stared directly at me with its bright yellow eyes.

  A wolf.

  Mostly a murky-gray mass of fur, it had a much darker patch of steely, almost black, coloring across its face which only served to bring out its big-eyed, piercing glare.

  Of all the challenges I thought I’d have to face on this journey, never for a moment did I consider falling foul of a wolf. Why would I? They weren’t native to Britain, having been hunted to extinction several hundred years ago, and therefore it—or perhaps its wolf parents—must’ve escaped from a zoo at some point during the apocalypse. Probably when the power went off for good, rendering useless the electrified fences keeping it captive.

  As the wolf ran its pink tongue over its sharp teeth, I began side-stepping carefully through the wood to put as much distance between myself and the wolf as possible. But, for every step away I took, it padded closer toward me.

  Maybe it was just curious because it didn’t look particularly malnourished, although hard to tell under all its fur.

  I continued to creep away, hoping to find the road again—and possibly somewhere to hide. Out here in the open, I was too exposed.

  The wolf matched my pace, putting one enormous paw in front of the other, slinking over the ground with ease while I struggled to keep my footing.

  Our ominous dance was suddenly interrupted by the sound of birds taking flight from a tree to my right. The wolf paused and looked up, watching the startled pigeons flap skyward.

  Impulsively, I wheeled around and ran as fast as I’d ever run in my life, leaping over any obstacle in my path and using my forearms to shield me from the overhanging branches that tried to smack me in the face.

  As I tore through the underbrush, my ankle became hooked on a coiling thread of bramble, and I pitched forward, sliding across the ground on my stomach. For a second, I lay there dazed until a low guttural snarl caused my blood to run cold. I dug my fingernails into the mud, scraping up a mixture of stones and leaf mold into my fist, and with one vigorous movement, I rolled onto my back, launching the dirt in the direction of the wolf. Its gray bulk drew back, giving me a fleeting moment to get back on my feet.

  It snarled again, a dribble of saliva seeping down from its lower jaw. I slowly lifted my foot free of the bramble that tripped me and shuffled back.

  On the ground beside me lay a fallen branch, discolored and dying but still appended to other thinner branches, making its form somewhat fork-like. In seconds, my hand wrapped around the wood, knuckles white with compression as I thrust it back and forth at my pursuer.

  The wolf balked, reversing a few paces back into a thicket. With all the strength I could muster, I threw the branch like a javelin at the creature and ran again, faster than ever, fuelled by another surge of adrenaline.

  Finally, the trees became much sparser, giving way to a sizeable playing field. I bolted immediately for a wooden castle structure in the center of a large playground. It was raised off the ground by a few meters, the inside of its highest tower only accessible by ladder.

  The grass around
the asphalt section of the park was long and slippery, but I managed to cut across it rapidly without skidding over. Upon reaching the wooden ladder, I scrabbled upwards, skipping over every other rung until I could pull myself up into the tower. I didn’t know if wolves could climb ladders, but I probably stood a better chance in here than I did outside.

  Gasping for breath and shaking uncontrollably, I crawled to the other side of the hexagonal room to one of the little porthole windows facing out to the direction I’d come from. My eyes searched the surrounding area up to the tree line.

  The wolf was nowhere to be seen.

  Sweating and panting, I slumped down to the floor, feeling relieved. Still, to be sure the creature hadn’t followed me, I repeatedly peered out of the porthole and scanned the park until it was too dark to see any more. The castle turret would have to serve as my shelter for the night now because there was no way in hell I was climbing down until daylight. Pulling my sleeping bag from my rucksack, I wrapped myself up in it and curled up on the floor, resting my head uncomfortably on the hardwood planks.

  That night, residual adrenaline and an overstimulated flight or fight response kept me awake. From the direction of the woods, I heard the distant howl of wolves—more than one—as a full moon rose to its zenith. They sounded far enough away from me not to pose an imminent threat, and so I relaxed a little.

  Oddly, the sound of the baying wolves comforted me. The wolf wasn’t alone. He—or she—had a family. A pack.

  Human or otherwise, no one should have to be alone forever.

  ****

  Before…

  I remembered the funeral with painful clarity.

  The wake took place in our small, two-bedroom flat, which now contained hardly any evidence of my mother ever having lived here at all. Only one small, framed picture of her remained—a photo taken of her on the day she’d married Andrew, two years previous. She looked beautiful, her dark hair curled and pinned atop her head, intertwined with various little flowers and jewels. She was smiling too—something she did less and less of in the years that followed.

  Not many people attended the funeral. My mother had slowly lost contact with her close friends after marrying Andrew, as he hadn’t liked them. Her only friends were Andrew’s friends, and they came and went like the tide. Our family was small, just my Aunt Rebecca and me now.

  Some of our neighbors from the flats below came with offerings of home-baked cakes and casseroles lest we starve now my mother wasn’t around to cook anymore.

  My stepfather told everyone she’d died from an undiagnosed heart condition. He’d googled a more satisfactory cause of death so he wouldn’t have to tell people his wife had slit her wrists in the bathtub.

  After a while, he seemed to believe his version of events over the truth, which was preferable to thinking too deeply about why she’d done it.

  Why? I thought about it all the time. Was it because of him? Or something I’d done?

  Maybe it was better to believe she’d suffered a heart attack.

  Andrew had been quick to donate everything she’d ever owned to charity and purge our home of any painful reminders of her. It seemed a strange way to deal with grief, but later, I would come to understand why.

  He was angry at her.

  She’d abandoned him. She’d taken control from him. She’d made a decision without him and rendered him powerless. It was a feeling he was both unfamiliar with and infuriated by. He wasn’t the only one feeling angry. For making her life so miserable, my hatred of Andrew grew exponentially. But, of course, I said nothing and kept my emotions locked firmly away.

  My aunt Rebecca had arranged mostly everything while Andrew relished the role of the devastated widower, crying when it seemed appropriate to do so and pretending to be comforted by the sorrowful reassurances of people he couldn’t care less about. As the day wore on, his narcissistic attention-seeking turned to irritability, and everyone soon left, telling themselves he was just sad and tired.

  Poor Andrew.

  Rebecca poured him a whiskey and sat with him at the kitchen table, as close as she could manage to be next to a man she loathed. As usual, I stayed out of his way, in my room with the door ajar so I could still eavesdrop on their conversation.

  My aunt and my mother were so alike they could have been twins, though my Aunt was almost a decade older than my mother.

  Rebecca was tall and slim with long, curly, brown hair that fell effortlessly to her elbows and swished around when she walked. My mother had preferred her own hair a little shorter and usually tied it up in a ponytail because Andrew liked it that way.

  The irate look on his face suggested to me that he found Rebecca’s presence unsettling—probably, at least in part, because of the close sisterly resemblance—and he only made eye contact with her when absolutely necessary.

  My aunt exchanged pleasantries with him first, asking him how he was coping, asking him when he planned on going back to work. She touched his hand in a gesture of tender affection, but I knew she would rather not be anywhere near him.

  Rebecca made no secret of her disapproval of Andrew, although she only shared such views with my mother and I. Around Andrew, she maintained an air of politeness, not wanting to become one of the people he slyly exiled from my mother’s life.

  “Why don’t you let me take Halley home with me?”

  He swallowed down the caramel-colored liquid in the glass he nursed and then poured himself another.

  He wasn’t a particularly handsome man, although he seemed to attract a lot of female attention. His features were dark, making him look almost Mediterranean with his raven hair and thick, black eyebrows. He wasn’t overly tall either, barely reaching Rebecca’s shoulder when they stood side by side. For such an unremarkable man, he still somehow managed to maintain an air of intimidation and superiority.

  To Andrew, everyone constituted a value. If he deemed a person as an asset, he became their best friend, but if he found them to be a liability or a threat, he would cast them aside without a second thought. Every move he made was a calculated effort to get whatever he could from people, be it adoration or financial gain. It was no coincidence this flat had belonged, unmortgaged, to my mother.

  Andrew took another drink, swilling the whiskey around in his mouth before swallowing it.

  “Take Halley with you, huh?”

  My aunt forced another sympathetic smile. “It’s what Natalie would have wanted.”

  Andrew chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “No, I don’t think so. Thank you for the offer, Rebecca, but you aren’t needed.”

  He’d phrased it to be deliberately unkind because he’d been insulted by the insinuation he might need help.

  Rebecca glowered at him, clenching her jaw in angry frustration. “It would give you some space.”

  Andrew shook his head. “I said I didn’t need your help.”

  He finished his drink and stood, forcefully kicking the chair back against the wall. He picked up the whiskey, drinking the last few dregs straight from the bottle and, when empty, slammed it down on the worktop, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Andrew licked his thin lips. “You should leave now.”

  As I peered at Rebecca through the narrow gap between my door and the frame, her expression turned from frustration to fear, clearly rattled by his sudden display of authority. Her breath grew quick, but she kept her composure as she stood and started toward my bedroom.

  Andrew quickly stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

  “I just want to say goodbye,” Rebecca said, her voice a little strained.

  My stepfather didn’t move. “I’ll pass the message on. The door’s behind you.”

  My aunt blinked and glared at him. He met her gaze like a predator guarding his territory. She continued to stare him down, her jaw twitching as she ground her teeth together. Eventually, though, she turned away from him. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”

  He sneered. “It is.”
>
  My heart sank. Placing my hands together like we’d done at primary school during the Christmas church services, I muttered a quick prayer.

  Please, God, make Andrew let me go. Please let me live with Rebecca.

  I couldn’t understand why he wanted to keep me around anyway—except for the small amount of government assistance he received to help feed and clothe me. Surely, I would be in his way here—a liability.

  Sighing heavily, Rebecca glanced toward my bedroom door and mouthed a silent “Sorry.”

  Moments later, the front door slammed shut, and she was gone.

  After that day, the only contact I had with Rebecca was when we spoke over the phone. She would call me once a week on a Friday evening after Andrew left for work.

  It would be four years before I saw her again.

  Chapter Three

  After…

  The days melted away, indistinct from one another. I walked. I ate. I slept.

  By the seventh day, I utterly missed my bike. The weight of my backpack on my shoulders made my spine ache, and the canvas straps rubbed painfully against my skin.

  Now and then, I imagined my bike, abandoned against the old oak tree in the woods, doomed to a rusty death. It was strange how, in the absence of human beings, I’d become so emotionally attached to an object. Not that I’d ever been particularly attached to many humans.

  I still had about a hundred and sixty kilometers to cover—another four or five days of walking. The heat hadn’t helped, tiring me out quickly and slowing me down. Soon, I would have to veer away from the sea and head north to reach the city, but for now, I still followed the edge of the southwest, which had grown distinctly more perpendicular and hillier as I approached the Jurassic coastline. In the distance, the land tapered up and up, forming craggy, white bluffs that dipped and rose in uneven waves.

  I started climbing in a slow and labored manner, hampered by the long grass underfoot and the intoxicating heat making the ground shimmer. My skin burned despite my regular routine of smothering myself in sun lotion, although it’d probably lost most of its potency over time.