As the World Falls Down

by Katy Nicholas

  I stared at him in disbelief, but in the back of my mind, it made perfect sense. We’d all been promised a vaccine was only days away from being distributed, but then…nothing. Was it a lie to placate the people? Or had something gone wrong?

  I shook my head. “If a cure existed, they’d have given it to us.”

  Nate shrugged. “Not if the cost was too high.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Infecting everyone with a different strain of the virus isn’t exactly a cure. There would still be fatalities in people who weren’t physically able to survive the effects of having the virus—same as those people who die from the flu. And what about the side effects? Like making everyone infertile? No way would the government let I.D.R.I.S distribute such a vaccine.”

  “But, even so, more people would be alive now if they had,” I growled.

  Nate gave a solemn nod. “I did wonder, when it got really bad, why they didn’t use it anyway. Like you said, at least people would’ve lived.”

  I sighed. “Maybe it was too late by then.”

  “Or maybe there was another reason.”

  “Like?”

  Nate scratched his head. “No idea. I guess we’ll never know.”

  “Guess not,” I mumbled, puffing as the slope inclined.

  We soon reached the cliff-top and headed over to the group of vehicles I’d seen parked here when I first arrived. Nate had mentioned earlier needing to get something from his car, although he didn’t say what, and I couldn’t imagine where he’d put it, given how jam-packed our rucksacks were.

  Nate turned to me with a grin as he approached the cars. “Only one of these is mine. The rest I stole from a dealership in the village. It was easier to drive cars with full tanks of fuel, rather than filling up at petrol stations. Plus, when the power went off, the fuel pumps locked off too. And who knew fuel had such a short use-by date?”

  Indeed, there was a long list of things that would’ve been useful to know before the world ended.

  Our previous conversation suddenly got me wondering, had the media lied to us about the virus? Or had they been lied to by I.D.R.I.S?

  When people started getting sick, we were told it was nothing to panic over. Everyone carried on with life as if none of it was really happening. They kept on going to work, and they did their Christmas shopping as they did every year, stocking up on the champagne for New Year’s too. They did everything the television and the news had told them to do—keep calm and carry on. Only when a few thousand deaths turned into one billion, did people start to panic. Until that point, we’d all just waited around for the cure, eyes glued to our televisions for a good news announcement.

  I still couldn’t quite let go of my anger, even though none of this stuff mattered anymore. Dwelling on the past would do me no good, especially when the present was so much more appealing.

  Here I was, walking hand in hand with the man I loved. Ironic as it was, taking an apocalypse for me to find true happiness.

  “You okay?” Nate asked.

  Turning my attention back to him, I leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I’m good.”

  Nate flashed me a smile and then went around to the rear of an expensive-looking silver hatchback and lifted the boot. He rummaged around for a bit while I drew a smiley face in the dirt on the passenger window. Like all the other vehicles, the paintwork had begun to peel and crack from the constant battering of the elements up here, and the sea air was slowly rusting the metal on the door creases. Despite the heavy rain over the last few weeks, the years of grime build-up remained ingrained on the windows and around the lower half of the car. I continued drawing little patterns with my index finger until I saw Nate throw a small rifle over his shoulder.

  “A gun?” I shot him an unsure look.

  “It’s mostly for shooting rabbits,” he said.

  Mostly. I thought about the wolf I’d encountered on the way here, and despite my dislike of guns, it seemed sensible to carry a weapon capable of packing more punch than a crowbar.

  Nate continued rummaging in the boot, eventually pulling out a box of bullets which he slipped into the side pocket of his rucksack, and then he produced a hunting knife which got clipped onto the belt of his jeans. Oddly, I found it a little bit sexy.

  Wandering round to the rear of the car to where he stood, I peeked into the boot, shocked to see it contained a neatly organized collection of weaponry and hunting accessories.

  “Is that a crossbow?” I asked, leaning forward to examine a weapon wrapped partially in a small blanket.

  “Yes,” he said. “Overkill for hunting bunnies, though. I’m also an appalling shot.”

  I frowned. “It’s quite an arsenal you have here.”

  “Well, when I looted all this stuff, I had no idea what to use and how to use it,” he explained.

  “So, you’re a self-taught serial killer?” I chuckled, but he shot me an intensely disapproving glare.

  “Actually, I hate it. It’s why I don’t keep any of it in the cabin.”

  I put an arm around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder. “I understand.”

  He kissed the top of my head and then shut the boot down. That’s when I caught sight of the number plate, my eyes flicking repeatedly over the last three letters—NMR.

  Silver car. NMR.

  No, it couldn’t be.

  “NMR,” I whispered.

  Nate looked at me. “Personalized plate. Bit ostentatious, I know. Nathanial Mark Reynolds.”

  I’d never asked his full name before. I swallowed hard and leaned back against the car, my head swimming.

  Nate frowned. He put his hands up to my face and tilted my chin up to look at him. “What? What’s wrong?”

  Dazed, I finally managed to speak. “I’m…so sorry.”

  He paled a little. “For what?”

  I blinked. “I saw you.”

  “When?”

  My voice grew hoarse, my heart thumping in anguish. “In Cornwall. Near Liskeard. You were there, weren’t you?”

  In my mind, the image of his map flashed before me. All of those little marks he’d made had been so near to us at the cottage.

  “Uh, I don’t know. Early on, I guess. But it’s pretty rural there, and I just passed through,” Nate answered.

  Nodding soberly, I buried my head in his chest, gripping his t-shirt in my hands. “I saw you.”

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  “I saw you,” I whispered again. “And I let you go.”

  ****

  Before…

  Somehow, I survived.

  Rebecca, unlike me, didn’t contract the virus, despite staying by my bedside while the infection seared through my body.

  I couldn’t recall very much after the fever started; other than the moments I woke up in pain. A searing heat in my veins so excruciating that I wished for death. Thankfully, after a minute or two of anguish, I passed out.

  As the pain inside my body eased, my skin burned instead, like I’d caught on fire. I remembered screaming, and Rebecca holding me down—nothing like what I’d seen happen to Andrew, who’d perished quickly after developing the fever.

  Five months had passed since the outbreak, and our supplies began to dwindle again. Rebecca and I argued for days over who should be the one to go into town, but she hid her car keys and refused point-blank to let me go alone or to accompany her, claiming it’d be safer for me to stay here.

  “Safer than what?” I snapped.

  “We don’t know who, or what, is out there!” she snapped back.

  “What are you afraid of? Flesh-eating zombies?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s the human monsters that I worry about.”

  Like Andrew, I thought.

  The night before she left, I struggled to sleep, alternating between a fear of being alone and worrying something terrible would happen to her while she was gone. It amounted to the same thing really.

  I got up just after sunrise and walked throu
gh the empty village until I reached the edge of the A390, which was about as far as I’d ventured recently.

  Andrew had died here. This was the exact spot where I’d left his body to rot, and I didn’t care to see what remained of him. This time, however, I plucked up enough courage to go beyond the invisible barrier I’d created and out onto the highway.

  His body wasn’t there, although a faint bloodstain still discolored the asphalt. For one horrible second, I panicked, thinking he might not really be dead, but his car was still in the same place on the hard shoulder. It was far more likely that some hungry animal had dragged his carcass away somewhere and dined on it. The notion of him being eaten up brought a smile to my lips, followed by a pang of remorse for even thinking such a horrid thing. Still, a fitting end to such a vile human, in my opinion.

  Standing on the grassy curb, I looked up and down the road, my eyes sweeping over the fields and out to the horizon. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I lingered there for a long while before heading back.

  The lane back to the cottage was long and narrow, lined by an ancient, hawthorn hedgerow obscuring anything beyond it. At first, I thought I was hearing things, but as it came closer, I recognized the sound of a car engine and the whir of tires on asphalt. I spun around and ran back up to the main road, my heart beating hard against my ribcage. Before I managed to reach the end of the little country lane, the vehicle passed by in a flash of silver. I darted out onto the highway about ten seconds later and sprinted after the car as it sped along, oblivious to my presence. All I could make out were the bold, black letters on the yellow number plate, shrinking as the car moved further and further away.

  Something…7…2…NMR.

  I raced down the middle of the road, screaming until my throat was sore and waving like a castaway on a desert island upon seeing a ship.

  It was no use, though, because the car was out of sight in a matter of seconds.

  Undeterred, I ran back to the cottage and roused my aunt from sleep by shaking her awake.

  “I saw someone!” I panted. “In a car. Just now. If we hurry, we might catch them!”

  Rebecca simply glared at me.

  “I tried to stop them, but they didn’t see me,” I added.

  “That was stupid!” she barked. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  I was taken back by her anger. “What?”

  She huffed and swung her legs out of her bed. “Halley, I told you, it isn’t safe! We don’t know who those people are or what they might do!”

  Her statement left me gobsmacked. “But, we…”

  She raised her palm to silence me. “I mean it! It’s not safe.”

  My blood boiled. If she’d wanted to protect me from harm, it was a little too fucking late. Frustrated, I left her bedroom with clenched fists and an overwhelming urge to punch something.

  I thought about the silver car for the rest of the day, lingering around by the highway in the hope they’d come back.

  Each morning, I walked down to where I’d seen it. Sometimes, I’d go in the evenings too.

  Every day. For six months.

  In the end, I told myself they were probably dead now.

  Whoever it was, they were long gone and out of my reach.

  Chapter Twelve

  After…

  Nate said nothing; he simply held me. The tears came anyway, despite trying hard not to cry.

  But the tears weren’t for me. They were for him.

  If I’d fought harder, maybe Rebecca would’ve gone after him, and then he wouldn’t have spent the last four-and-a-half years alone. But, no, instead of standing up to my aunt, I’d kept my mouth shut and behaved. Like a good girl.

  Okay, maybe some of these tears were for me too—the ones that fell out of self-loathing. Because of my weakness, Nate had suffered, alone and despairing.

  I stepped back away from him, sure he’d be angry once he realized what I’d done—or rather, what I’d not done. After drawing in a long breath, I told him everything, unable to look him in the eye as I spoke. I simply stared down at the dusty ground, thumbing away the tears from my eyes before they fell.

  “She wouldn’t go after the car. After you. I could’ve done something. You were alone all this time, and you didn’t have to be. I knew you were out here, and I did nothing.”

  After an awkward moment of silence, I forced myself to look at him again. There was a sorrowful look in his dark eyes, but it wasn’t angry like I expected.

  He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Halley,” he said, unpeeling a strand of my hair from my tear-drenched cheek. “It’s not your fault. It’s not Rebecca’s fault either. She was just trying to protect you.”

  “First time for everything!” I spat, crossly, kicking at the dirt in frustration. “You know that she ignored your messages, right? She must have! There’s no way she couldn’t have seen them.”

  Nate clenched his jaw and breathed deeply. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Why aren’t you angry?” I shouted.

  His refusal to acknowledge my failings—and Rebecca’s—made me want to scream. Without thinking, I rushed forward and pushed him hard. “You should be angry!”

  He caught hold of my wrists tightly as I was about to do it again and shoved me back onto the boot of the car.

  “Stop it!” he snapped at me.

  His sudden shift startled me, but I didn’t back off.

  “You want me to be angry at you?” he snarled.

  “Yes!”

  Nate glared at me for a few seconds before his expression turned to one of pure exasperation. “For Christ's sake, Halley. Stop. None of this is your fault. I’m not angry. I won’t be angry at you, no matter how much you think you deserve it.”

  “But I should’ve—”

  He let go of my wrists and put his hands gently around my face. “People do what they need to survive. They might steal, or kill, if they have to…or…” He let his words trail off. “Two women alone? Your aunt was right to be cautious.”

  I took a moment to consider what he’d said. Maybe I’d judged myself—and Rebecca—a little too harshly.

  My fury faded a little. “We still should’ve come after you. At some point, you just have to trust in basic human goodness.”

  “I agree, but your aunt was trying to keep you safe the best way she knew how.”

  “You’re too fucking nice!” I growled.

  He raised his brow with a smirk. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you use the f-word, Halley. It’s kind of sexy.”

  A smirk crossed my lips. “Well, what can I say? You’re rubbing off on me.”

  Nate swore so often it was like he used cuss words as sentence enhancers. And, yes, it was kind of sexy.

  We really were both so incredibly messed up.

  ****

  Nate’s planned route sent us down the coast, apart from a few diversions through nearby towns he’d visited before. We made it to the first of them within a few hours.

  Though a fairly large town, it still had a quaint quality to it. The main high street housed less of the well-known chain stores and more of the craft-artisan-new-age-type of shops. The entire long and winding road was lined both sides with the remnants of bunting and streamers, strung up along the lampposts and weaved into the metal railings.

  A few needle-less dried-out pine trees dotted the pavement and jutted out of the shopfronts, most of which were adorned with all manner of Christmas décor. Faded, dusty Santa’s sat in nearly every window, giving us rosy-cheeked smiles as we walked by.

  A little unnerved, I stayed close to Nate. When we passed by a bakery displaying an array of moldy piles of greenish slop, a wave of nausea caught me by surprise, and I puked violently over a storm drain for a good few minutes.

  After my stomach was finally empty, I swilled my mouth out with water and toothpaste while Nate put his palm to my forehead and told me I was a little too warm for his liking.

  “I’m fine!” I told him, fighting the u
rge to retch again.

  “You’re really hot.”

  “Thanks,” I joked.

  Nate screwed up his face. “I can’t help it if I worry about you.”

  “I know.”

  We carried on walking until late afternoon when we reached the open countryside. It came as a relief when Nate suggested we call it a day and pitch the tent. He found a patch of grass on the edge of some woodland and set up camp while I slumped down cross-legged onto the ground and pulled off my trainers. I peeled my socks from my red, sweaty feet to let the open air soothe my skin, and then I lay back in the cool grass.

  “Need any help?” My tone was unenthusiastic, and I made no attempt to hide it, knowing it was going to be a while before I’d summoned enough energy to move again.

  “Nah,” he said. “You should rest anyway.”

  “Yes, Doctor Reynolds.”

  He chuckled. “You know, I don’t know your full name? Considering I know everything else about you.”

  The smile fell from my face briefly before I forced it to return. Truth was, he didn’t know everything. Not yet. I still hadn’t spoken about how my mother really died.

  “Halley Clarke,” I answered quickly. “I went by my mum’s maiden name.”

  “What was your mother’s name?” he asked.

  “Natalie. Let’s not talk about her though,” I said flatly.

  Nate nodded, giving me one of his concerned smiles. After putting the tent up, he muttered something about looking for sticks to make a fire and then disappeared into the woods. I closed my eyes and tried to zen-away the headache gnawing at my temples since I vomited. At some point, I drifted off. When I woke up, Nate had lit a fire and was slowly turning a skinned rabbit around on a stick over the flames.

  “Feel better?” he asked me as I stretched out lazily.

  I sat up and ruffled my hair, certain that a few creepy crawlies had taken up residence while I slumbered. My stomach lurched with a ravenous hunger.

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “I managed to shoot a rabbit as it came out of its burrow.” The pride in his voice was obvious.

  My nose wrinkled in distaste. Given the choice, I would not have eaten anything I’d once owned as a pet. But I was hungry, and it smelled so good.