None the wiser, with my mind still spinning, I headed back to the cabin. Nate would likely be up by now, and probably wondering where the hell I’d gone.
In the distance, the wooden building shimmered in the morning’s rising heat. Though still too far away to see him, I knew instantly that Nate was there watching me. As I got closer, I spied him standing on the veranda, leaning over the balustrade. He didn’t take his eyes off me as I approached, and there was an odd expression on his face I couldn’t quite place. It was something like concern, only angrier.
“Morning,” I said quickly.
“Where did you go?” His voice was gruff, irate.
Something in his tone made me feel cornered. “For a walk. I couldn’t sleep,” I stammered.
His expression softened a little. “I thought you’d left.”
My heart dropped. Giving him a reassuring smile, I joined Nate on the veranda and took hold of his hand. He just looked at me, downcast and miserable.
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t sleep at all, actually. When I got up, and you weren’t here—” he swallowed and glanced away, breaking the intense stare he’d been giving me. “I thought I’d frightened you away. Or that you were never really here in the first place. I know how crazy that sounds.”
It wasn’t crazy at all. “Still real.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, and squeezed my hand. “About last night.”
I wasn’t sorry, but I wouldn’t tell him that. “What do you mean? It was fun.”
“I shouldn’t have done that. Kissed you, I mean. Not after—”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I laughed, cutting him off. It broke the tension a little.
He gave me a sheepish grin. “Thanks.”
I motioned for us to go inside, and then I headed straight to the kitchen. “I’ll make breakfast.”
“Go for it.” With that, he stretched out his arms and plonked himself down on the couch, swinging his feet up to rest on the table.
Through no fault of my own, breakfast ended up a disaster. Mid-omelet, the entire cabin lost power. Nate spent the next few hours with his head in a metal box attached to the back of the cabin, under the veranda. With intermittent use of swear words, he explained that one of the solar grid batteries had fried and he didn’t have a replacement.
“I’ll have to walk to the industrial estate just outside of Bridport. It’s about twenty kilometers. I should’ve gotten another one last time I went, but the batteries are so bloody heavy,” Nate said, unhappily.
“Can I come with you?” Not that I’d any desire to walk a forty-kilometer round trip in this heat, but I didn’t want to be alone, or away from him.
“Was hoping you would,” he grinned.
We quickly ate some cold, tinned beans and then packed a rucksack with some provisions, which Nate insisted he carried. I wore an empty rucksack, which we’d later use for the battery. We set off mid-afternoon, which wasn’t ideal because the sun shone in the sky at full strength and I knew my pale skin would burn quickly. Before leaving, I located a bottle of factor fifty suntan lotion from the bathroom and smothered myself in it, and then slipped it into the pocket of my denim shorts so I could reapply it later. Still, Nate noticed a few spots I’d missed on my back where my flesh was turning red. After watching me attempt to bend my arm into the required angle to cover a strip of skin just above my bra strap, he took the bottle from me and rubbed the lotion into my skin himself. The feeling of his hands on my skin left me exhilarated. Nate, however, looked downright uncomfortable.
“Thank you, doctor,” I said.
He smiled wryly. “It’s been a long time since someone called me that.”
As we walked, he began to tell me more about his life before the virus and how much he loved being able to help people. He’d planned to specialize in neurology.
“You’re really smart, aren’t you?” I said.
He laughed. “Yep.”
I shot him an exaggerated eye roll. “And so humble.”
I now understood that his darkest moment had been born from more than loneliness and despair—he’d lost his purpose. There were still things I wanted to know about him that he hadn’t divulged—he’d never mentioned a wife or any kids. In case it brought up bad memories, I’d not asked for fear of upsetting him. He’d spoken openly so far about his life before the apocalypse, and it didn’t appear to bother him when he talked about his parents. If anything, he seemed to enjoy speaking about them as though it kept his memories alive.
Conversely, I preferred not to talk about my past, having no desire to freshen my recollection of certain memories. Although, not talking about those events hadn’t made me forget about them either, and I still remembered all the bad things with a persistent vividness.
I decided to throw caution to the wind. “So, before, were you married or—”
Not only was he very attractive but also clever and resourceful. And a doctor. He was exactly the kind of man my aunt would approve of. Surely someone had snapped him up.
Nate shook his head. “No.”
For some reason, his answer made me feel relieved.
“How comes?” I pressed him, as we made our way into a large asphalt car park.
The tarmac was devoid of vehicles aside from a battened-down burger van and a corroded, forklift truck piled high with timbers. There were a few overturned shipping trolleys dotted about among the parking bays, having broken away from their orderly queues outside the storefront.
“I was in a few long-term relationships, but they didn’t work out,” he answered in a flat tone.
“Why not?”
Nate turned to me with a shrug. “My career was always my first priority.” After a few seconds of reflection, he sighed. “I wish I’d done things a little differently.”
He led us around the store to the back, down a road marked ‘Deliveries Only.’ Having looted from here before, he’d already broken the lock and left a crowbar behind a group of large, recycling bins. He stopped in front of a loading bay secured by a massive metal shutter and used the crowbar to lever it up from the floor. Once there was a gap big enough for us to duck under, we went inside. Much cooler in here, it was a relief to be out of the oppressive heat.
Nate stopped, leaning against another discarded forklift while he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He slid the backpack off his shoulders and took a swig of water out of one of the bottles we’d brought.
I continued to pry. “What would you change if you could go back?”
He took a deep breath. “Had a family.”
I sighed heavily. It wasn’t something I’d thought much about before the virus. At nineteen, I’d only just started to live my life without being under Andrew’s overbearing shadow. Having my own family had been the last thing on my mind. Now, even if I wanted children, it was impossible.
In their quest to find a cure, the first known survivors were studied by I.D.R.I.S. From those investigations, they’d learned the virus had made the survivors infertile.
The men. The women. All of us.
Not that I needed any confirmation, but after recovering from the virus, my periods stopped coming. Even if there were more survivors somewhere on planet Earth, there’d be no repopulation of the species. This was our swan song.
Nate cleared his throat, jarring me from my depressive reverie. “A few years before the virus, I met someone. She worked at the hospital with me. It got pretty serious. I asked her to marry me. She turned me down.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh?”
He made his way into the main store and gestured for me to follow him. “We started arguing all the time. She said I was always at the hospital, and I never put her first. She was right,” he said. “Truth was, I didn’t love her. Not the way she wanted me to.”
He gave me a downcast look. “We separated, but then she found out she was pregnant.”
His last statement hit me like a punch in the gut.
I followed him as he meandered down an aisle dedicated to self-sufficiency. Among an array of solar panels, he located the correct battery and hauled it down from a dusty shelf above his head. It was slightly larger than a car battery and just about fit into the backpack.
“What happened?” I asked when it seemed like he wasn’t going to finish telling me his story.
He hauled the bag up and slid the straps onto his shoulders. “She told me she wasn’t ready to be a parent. Not with me, anyway.” His eyes darkened. “If I’d just reassured her—” he broke off, shaking his head. “I didn’t even try to stop her.”
Seeing his miserable expression, I instantly felt bad for making him talk about it.
He cast me a deflated look. “Anyway, such things are impossible now. The virus saw to that,” he said. “Well, that and the fact my online dating profile hasn’t seen much activity recently.”
My mouth fell open and a laugh tumbled out before I managed to squeeze my lips together, hiding a smile.
He sighed deeply, rubbing at the fresh stubble on his jawline. “Not much point in dwelling on it, it’s not like they’d be here now, is it? Probably saved me a lot of heartache in the long run.”
“That’s really depressing, Nate.”
He half-grinned. “You think?”
I went and stood next to him in the aisle and gave him a reassuring nudge. He nudged me back, his smile a little more visible. He then handed me the rucksack of supplies, much lighter now we’d drunk half the water.
“What about you?” Nate asked. “Anyone special in your life?”
“Christ, no! I’ve never even had a proper boyfriend,” I blurted, instantly wishing I could turn back time and not say it. There’d be questions I didn’t want to answer.
He raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Feeling my cheeks burn with embarrassment, I looked away. “After I went to live with Rebecca, I dated this guy at work-—well, it was two dates—we kissed twice and that was it. He died a few weeks later of the virus.”
His mouth dropped open, and he shook his head. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay.”
It took him a few seconds longer than I expected for the truth to dawn on him. “Let me get this straight. You’ve never—"
I cut him off. “No, I’ve never.”
“Never?”
The glare I shot him was distinctly irate. “No!”
His expression stayed blank until he finally chuckled, and a smirk spread across his lips. “And I thought my story was bloody depressing.”
Half-amused, half-mortified, I punched him playfully in the arm a few times.
“Halley,” he said, after feigning injury from my attack, his voice adopting a more serious tone. “It’s not something you should feel emb—”
Groaning, I threw my head back. “Do not finish that sentence!” I’d heard it all before from my friend Lizzie.
He laughed again and held his hands up. “Fine. It’s just a bit…surprising.”
My response was a little sharp. “I’ve just never trusted anyone enough to be close with them… in that way.”
He stopped abruptly in front of the loading bay shutters and turned to face me. “Why not?”
If I’d learned anything about Nate in our short time together, it was that he wasn’t the sort of person to let such a statement go over his head. Because he cared. Because he fixed people—or, at least, he used to.
Perhaps it was time someone else knew what Andrew had done to me.
“I just—” I stopped, not knowing how to say it.
This was why I’d never told another soul before. Not my best friend. Not my aunt, Rebecca. No one. My silence allowed me to pretend it never happened, but it was always there, under the surface and waiting to be remembered.
“My step-father. His name was Andrew,” I began, my voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “He didn’t like my friends, and he rarely let me go out by myself. He certainly wouldn’t have approved of me having a boyfriend. I just stayed out of his way, kept my head down, and tried not to make him angry. I hated him. As soon as I turned eighteen, I planned to move out, so I just waited.”
Nate gave me one of his intense stares, but I found it impossible to look him in the eye as I spoke.
“I think Andrew knew I was going to leave. He needed to find some new way to control me,” I said, taking a steadying breath.
Nate’s expression became grave. “What happened? Did he hit you?”
“Once or twice, when he was drunk,” I replied solemnly. “But, that’s not the worst thing he ever did.”
A lump caught in my throat, and I ground my teeth together in an attempt to remain composed. When I finally managed to lift my eyes and look at Nate, a shadow of revulsion crossed his face.
“Oh, Halley.” He lifted his hand to touch my arm but withdrew it almost immediately.
This was exactly what I didn’t want. He’d probably treat me differently from now on, afraid to go anywhere near me for fear of frightening away the damaged little virgin. But I wanted to be close to him. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to be intimate with him, even though I’d always dreaded such things. I just couldn’t work out why being with Nate had made me feel so differently. And why now?
When I spoke again, my tone was as emotionless as I could make it, pretending like it didn’t affect me anymore. “I managed to get away from him before—” The thought of what might’ve happened put an abrupt stop to my narrative.
As we stood there in silence, the space between us suddenly became a vast chasm. Almost involuntarily, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around Nate. He stiffened briefly, but then his hands gently brushed against my spine.
“I won’t ever do anything to hurt you, Halley. Ever.”
“I know, Nate.” I leaned back to smile at him. “And, I’m okay. Really, I am.”
It was mostly the truth.
****
Before…
By December, the stir-craziness set in.
Rebecca busied herself in the garage, repainting the walls and organizing the food and sundries she’d stockpiled over the last few days.
After noticing she’d been to the supermarket three times in one day, I questioned her intentions. “Do you think it’ll get worse?”
Rebecca hadn’t ever been one to sugar-coat the truth, but her troubled expression told me she doubted her own words. “No, I’m sure it’ll be fine, Halley. Better safe than sorry, though?”
Not the first time I’d heard those words since this all began.
Knowing she’d be preoccupied for most of the day, I decided to venture into town.
The buses were still running, albeit a reduced service, so I donned my government-issue flu mask and slipped on a pair of sterile gloves. Without these articles, I wouldn’t be allowed to travel on public transport or enter any stores that sold food. The government was adamant that we carry on with business as usual—they had it all under control.
The bus driver barely acknowledged me as I stepped onto the bus. A sudden spritz of moisture hissed from a small device above the driver’s compartment and showered me with droplets of anti-bacterial cleanser. It smelled of chlorine veiled by a sweet vanilla aroma.
There were only five other people on the bus, all hiding behind their masks and huddling into their winter coats, staring blankly out of the windows like long-forgotten ghosts, yearning to be seen.
When the bus pulled into the station, everyone hurried off without saying a word. I got off last and thanked the driver, who gave me a quick nod in response.
Over half the shops in the high-street were closed, but the bigger chain stores were still open for business. A long queue had formed outside of the post office, and an even lengthier snake of people had lined up outside the local coffee shop. I supposed in times of crisis people desperately needed their pumpkin spiced lattes. My chosen destination, however, was Tomlin’s books.
Alth
ough only a small, second-hand bookseller, I knew Mr. Tomlin’s doors would be open because the man hardly ever went home. The shop was his life, open from early morning till late evening, seven days a week, hosting poetry readings and open mic nights at the weekends.
A bell rang above the door as I entered, and Mr. Tomlin appeared immediately to give me a wave.
He was a man in his mid-sixties with a wild mass of silvery-gray hair and a fondness for brightly colored tunics. There was usually an e-cigarette vaporizer in his hand and a thick cloud of smoke trailing in his wake. He wasn’t wearing a mask.
“Morning. Or is it afternoon?” he said. Before I could answer his question, he disappeared into the back room.
After half an hour of perusing the shelves for a new book to read, I settled on a classic by one of my favorite horror authors and took it to the counter, ringing the brass service bell beside the till.
“Mr. Tomlin?” I called when he failed to re-appear.
I made my way over to the backroom, assuming he hadn’t heard me and poked my head around the door.
Mr. Tomlin was kneeled on the floor, doubled over and gasping for breath.
“Don’t come any closer!” he snapped. “Call an ambulance.”
I pulled my mobile phone from my jacket pocket and dialed 999.
“Hello. We are currently experiencing a high volume of calls—” The line cut out and left a low continuous tone resounding in my ear.
“I’ll get help,” I promised him, and ran from the shop, out into the street.
A few stores down, I spotted two men in green camouflage uniforms—an army patrol. They were everywhere now, mostly to keep the peace and stop looters.
“Hey!” I yelled, sprinting toward them. “Please, you have to help me! There’s a man in the bookstore, and he’s sick. I tried to ring for an ambul—”
“Where?” One of the men demanded.
“Tomlin’s,” I responded, flustered.
“Anyone else in there?”
I shook my head.
He pulled a walkie-talkie from one of the pockets of his cargo trousers. “Need a secure closure at Tomlin’s bookshop. Over.”
As the World Falls Down Page 9
