by Sarah Gray
Chapter 10
I’VE BEEN SITTING on my side of the bed for some time now, just watching Liss sleep. The balcony curtains are wide open and moonlight shines in.
Liss is sandwiched between the crisp white sheets, perfectly still. The bed is so good, like sleeping in a warm hug. I was in it before, but I’m so full from all the sugary salty crap we ate for dinner and I just can’t seem to drift off.
Liss wants to stay here, I know. She’s got friends and food, a room of her own and a bed. But she doesn’t understand. These moments of peace are always temporary. Everything is temporary in this world. Eventually we’d run out of food, or make a mistake and attract the infected. Eventually other survivors would want a piece of our serenity and then we’d be challenging for leadership and all sorts of stupid things people do when they get together in mass. And I don’t want to be part of a gang.
I slide off the bed and step onto the balcony. The air is cool and calm, but it’s weird looking out and seeing perfect black. The traffic lights and street lamps were the first to go. People used to say machines were totally superior because they can do amazing things like calculating crazy sums and shooting us into space and allowing us talk to anyone in the world at any time. But they’re all dead now and those luxuries are all gone. It’s like machines have been made extinct, just like dinosaurs. Maybe we’ll be extinct soon too. Not yet, but you never know what’s coming.
I miss the glitter of city lights on the horizon. No matter how dark the night was there’d always be this grey cloud of light and you’d just know people were awake and alive, somewhere out there. At least the moon is glowing bright tonight.
“Hey.” Kean sits on his balcony, facing towards me, with his legs slotted through the wooden beams of the hand railing. His cheek presses against the wood.
I sit facing him, and let my legs dangle in the space between our two balconies. The wood beams remind me of jail cell bars. Not that I’ve been in jail, but you know what I mean.
“What are you doing?” Kean says.
“Can’t sleep. You?”
His skin looks pale and smooth under the moonlight. He smiles. “Henry snores. Do you realise how impractical that is in the apocalypse?”
“I can imagine.” I wiggle my bare toes and look down on the street. I’m not exactly being chatty but Kean is picking up the slack for me.
“I never thought I’d see the end of the world,” he says.
I lean my forehead against the slats. “It’s not really the end.”
“What is it then?”
“Um… I don’t know. Just different.” I shrug. “Some of us are still alive, so it’s not the end.”
“That was deep.” Kean laughs. “Very profound.”
“Shut up.” I try to keep a straight face but I know he sees my smile.
“These are such philosophical times.”
I blink into the darkness. “How old are you?”
He stares at me for a moment then reaches into his pocket. He passes me a little square of plastic.
The image of his face stares out from the shiny card. When I move it, a hologram imprint jumps out in the moonlight. “Really? You carry your learner’s license?”
He shrugs. “I don’t want to die a John Doe.”
I look back at the card. His birthday is ten days before mine. He’s seventeen… probably almost eighteen. But then again I’m probably almost seventeen. “Kean Kinley?”
He grins. “Try saying that ten times fast.”
I hand the card back.
“Can you drive?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I was booked in for my learner’s test though. The Saturday after the outbreak.”
“That’s bad luck.”
I shrug. “It’s not like anyone cares now.”
“I do. I care. And I will take you down for unlicensed driving, perform a citizen’s arrest if I have to.”
I laugh quietly, but I think it sounds like some weird cough. I stare at the moon until I get a huge white spot in my vision. When I look back at Kean the spot makes him look like he’s got no face.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” he asks.
“Stay another night, I guess. Liss likes it here.”
“We’re only missing a restaurant, working showers and room service. That would be paradise.”
“I haven’t had a shower in so long…” I stop myself. “I shouldn’t tell you that.”
Kean laughs. “And you think I bathe regularly? I bet we smell worse than the infected.”
“As long as I can’t smell me I’m happy.” I scratch my nose. “I want to go over to the shopping centre tomorrow morning.”
“Does it have ramps?”
I shake my head. “Just me.”
“Oh, what for?”
“Bookstore.”
Kean nods slowly. “Mind if I come?”
When I don’t say anything Kean adds, “I’m only being polite when I ask. You can’t stop me from following.”
“In that case… sure why not. You can be Liss for a morning.”
“Do we get to hold hands?” Kean grins.
“We’re not as close as you guys are.”
His smile fades. “Could have fooled me.”
“We didn’t even like each other before the outbreak, but then we didn’t really see each other. Our parents divorced and Liss lived with dad mainly. I stayed at mums. Then we swapped for weekends.”
“What were your parents like?”
“I don’t know… they were my parents.” I shrug. “Nice… good people and all, they just used to fight a lot. What about yours?”
Kean’s eyebrows go skyward as he speaks. “My mum? She was amazing. Henry’s so much like her. I think dad was just in awe of her the whole time. I’m more like dad, I guess.” Kean scratches his neck. “Sometimes I forget they didn’t make it, you know? I keep expecting them to turn up at any moment, making sure I’m eating right and wearing clean underwear. Sometimes I wonder how Henry and I made it this far.” He grins for a brief moment. “I know it looks like I’m the one keeping Henry alive but I swear it’s really the other way round. He can’t even walk and he’s still just… cool with it all. He has this unbreakable spirit, always has. I feel like a bad brother sometimes for getting down about everything…”
“I feel like a bad sister all the time,” I say. “Sometimes I wish an adult would just take over and then I wouldn’t have to be responsible for everything anymore. It’s exhausting trying to stay alive.”
“I know, right?”
I rub my eyes. “I should get some sleep. See you at… first light. What’s that like six-ish?”
Kean nods and watches me as I go back inside.