As the World Falls Down

by Katy Nicholas

  “So, it’s only you here?” I asked but regretted it immediately.

  He looked at me sadly. “Yes. Just me,” he mumbled, “For the last four and a half years.”

  Alone, for all that time. What must that have been like? I wanted to console him, but I didn’t know how. What could I possibly say?

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  He nodded and shied away from me, raising his trembling hands to cover his face. His shoulders began to shake, his breathing fast and sharp as he sobbed again.

  I slid off the stool and tentatively put my hand on his back, my heart breaking for him. It took me by surprise when he turned and put his arms around me in an almost crushing embrace, his chin burying into the side of my neck as he wept while his fingertips dug into my shoulder blades. He held me so close that I could hear the rapid thuds of his heartbeat, racing to a rhythm matching my own. Neither of us spoke for what felt like an age, but eventually, I pulled away from him and took several steps back.

  This was…intense.

  “I need some air,” I stammered.

  Nate blinked and cleared his throat. “Me too.”

  The storm had moved away from the bay, so we went outside.

  The air was clearer, although the clouds still hung gray and heavy in the sky. We leaned over the balustrade and looked out across the beach to the ocean, the waves crashing onto the sand with a resounding roar, leaving puddles of seafoam in their wake. Seagulls padded along the wet sand, squawking loudly while foraging for washed-up sea creatures.

  A mixture of different emotions welled uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach. I was relieved to have found someone, but unsure of what to make of him—this forsaken man who’d spent nearly half a decade alone like some castaway, waiting for someone to come.

  I thanked my lucky stars Rebecca hadn’t caught the virus and died, leaving me alone. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what struggles Nate had faced here with no one to help him or encourage him. It wasn’t so hard to see why he’d lost hope after so long.

  Breaking the silence, I sighed longingly and then turned to face him. “It’s so beautiful here.”

  Trying to read him proved difficult because his somber expression gave very little away. He stayed close to me though, his hand lightly brushing against mine as I gripped the top beam of the banister.

  “Yes, it is,” he replied. “But it isn’t enough.”

  As selfish as it made me feel to admit it, my existence back at the cottage hadn’t been enough for me either, each day passing the same as the next, with little deviation. Rebecca appeared content to carry on this way, but I certainly wasn’t.

  He sighed and faced me squarely. “I looked for people,” he said. “I drove from place to place until the fuel went bad. I left messages on walls and bridges for people to see, to tell them where I was. No one came.”

  My mouth dropped open to speak, but no words came out.

  “Still,” he mumbled, “I shouldn’t have done what I did. With the pills.”

  With a nervous gulp, I began to gnaw on my bottom lip again. “I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, here on your own.”

  Nate looked straight into my eyes then. “No,” he said miserably. “I wouldn’t want you to imagine it at all.”

  His eyes pierced mine with an intensity unfamiliar to me. No one had ever looked at me this way before. Part of me desperately wanted to turn away, but at the same time, I found myself transfixed.

  “Will you stay here the night?” he asked, after a while, finally shifting his gaze from me, “I can make up the bed in the spare room for you?”

  In all honesty, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “There’s a rainwater tank out the back, and there’s more than enough water for a hot shower if you want one,” he added.

  He had me at ‘hot shower.’ The words almost made me giddy.

  Nate’s appearance might’ve resembled a vagabond, but I certainly wasn’t looking my best either. Sore and filthy, my hair was a matted, greasy mess, and my clothes were dirty and wet, chafing painfully against my flesh.

  “I would love a shower,” I blurted out. In the back of my mind, however, I wondered if I should be accepting such an offer from a man I’d just met. But what choice did I have? Plus, I really wanted a hot shower.

  He beckoned for me to follow him to a large bathroom located next to one of the bedrooms. The shower cubicle was separate from the bathtub— which was being used to store clear plastic boxes stacked on top of one another, marked with labels like ‘shampoo’ and ‘soap.’ The walls were half wood-paneled and half-papered in a cream, floral design. Despite the clutter, it was clean and smelled of lavender.

  “Use anything you need.” He retrieved my backpack from where I’d thrown it under the awning and dropped it down just inside the door, before closing it shut.

  I shrank at the sight of my reflection when it appeared suddenly in the full-length, brass mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door. The past few days of sleeping rough combined with the changeable weather had left my eyes bloodshot and my eyelids sore and swollen. My hair had knotted itself into several nests and somehow ensnared multiple clumps of foliage, now twisted up in my wayward curls.

  After pulling out the looser bits of leaf and twig, my eyes flicked quickly over the rest of my body. The sight of my mud-smeared legs and bramble-scratched shins made me grimace. Embarrassingly, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shaved my legs, either—not that anyone could see the hair under the layers of grime and dried blood.

  With a huff, I peeled off my clothes and discarded them onto the checkered black-and-white lino. I then rifled through the plastic boxes in the bathtub for some soap and shampoo, discovering some shaving foam and a razor in my search.

  The shower was blissfully hot, and I languished in it for several minutes, semi-comatose from sheer ecstasy. Eventually, I started scrubbing, hissing through my teeth whenever I passed the washcloth over a raw blister where the rucksack straps had rubbed.

  By the time I’d finished making myself respectable for civilized society, the shower tray looked like someone had hosed off a muddy dog. I did my best to clean up and then dried myself with the towel Nate left for me.

  A few minutes later, I changed into my last clean pair of shorts and a thin-strapped vest top, and rather than putting my malodorous trainers back on, I went barefoot.

  Nate was in the small bedroom opposite, changing the sheets on a single divan bed. The lingering cloud of dust in the air gave me the impression this room hadn’t been occupied in a long time. He looked up when I entered the room, his eyes scanning me from head to toe.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said.

  As I looked down, a thin dribble of fresh blood trickled from an angry welt on my collarbone.

  “That looks sore.” He disappeared into the bathroom for a minute and then reappeared with a first-aid kit. He opened it up and took out several bits and pieces, then dabbed at the blood on my chest with cotton wool before gently applying antiseptic cream and a plaster. Flutters of exhilaration rose in my chest as he brushed my damp hair aside to tend to another one of my sores. Every time his fingertips touched my bare skin, I felt a slight buzz from the contact.

  After applying the final dressing, he smiled. “Are you hungry? I can make us something to eat?”

  “Starving.”

  He nodded but looked a little embarrassed. “Just let me clean up first. You can rest in here awhile if you like?”

  Before I could reply, he turned away and headed back down the corridor.

  There was no denying how exhausted I felt. The freshly made bed looked divinely inviting, and despite the soothing warmth of the shower, my thigh and calf muscles still ached. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to lay down for a moment or two?

  I crawled onto the mattress and curled up on my side. The cotton sheets were cool against my skin and smelled of the same sweet lavender scent as the bathroom. After the last week of sleepin
g on the hard ground or laying across the back seats of cars, this was pure nirvana.

  My eyes closed momentarily, and it took a lot of effort to force them open again. I didn’t think it was a good idea to fall asleep and leave myself so…vulnerable. Before the virus, I’d never have done anything like this—accept an invitation to sleep in a strange place by a man I hardly knew. But the world was a very different place now.

  Needs must when the devil drives, as my aunt often said.

  And anyway, finding a survivor who also happened to be a depraved pervert would be terribly bad luck.

  My eyelids dropped again, and this time, it was enough to pull me down into a deep sleep.

  ****

  Before…

  In my mother’s absence, I took on all the chores she’d been responsible for. For the last three years, I’d no other option than to get out of bed just after six AM and make a start on the housework. Now I attended college, my homework had doubled, but I still managed to stay on top of it by studying while Andrew was at work. He left the flat at five PM and didn’t usually come home until just after midnight, which meant I’d seven blissful hours to myself.

  While I’d rather have walked alone to college, Andrew insisted I wake him in the morning so he could drive me—even though, at eight-thirty AM, he grumbled about it and thundered about like a bear with a sore head.

  To anyone looking at us from the outside, he was the dedicated, hardworking stepfather, but behind closed doors, he was an aggressive, controlling, drunk. Lately, however, he’d been a little easier to live with, but only because he’d found himself a shiny new girlfriend to focus on.

  Her name was Lisa, and she was twenty-three. For the last few months, whenever Andrew took an evening off work, Lisa would drop by our flat. They couldn’t be seen out in public together because she was married. In fact, three of Andrew’s most recent relationships had been with married women. He seemed to enjoy the challenge of obtaining the unobtainable. The trouble was, once he got what he wanted, the allure waned, and he quickly lost interest.

  With Lisa around, Andrew acted like the caring, considerate, sympathetic human being he always claimed to be. While it nauseated me to my core, life became a little more bearable for me. So convincing was this show of congeniality, I almost believed it myself, thinking maybe Andrew had changed because of his feelings for Lisa. Of course, it was an illusion. As the weeks passed, he struggled to keep up the pretense, and little slivers of his true personality began to slough out.

  They started to argue about Lisa leaving her husband—Andrew wanted her to end the marriage as soon as possible and move in with us, but Lisa thought it far too soon.

  Fast losing his control of the situation, Andrew resorted to more desperate measures.

  It began small. He’d send Lisa anonymous flowers and gifts, knowing her husband would be home to see them delivered. Andrew phoned her late at night, and if she didn’t pick up, he’d sent her a hundred texts about how much he loved her and wanted them to be together—again, when her husband would be home to hear her mobile buzz continuously, well into the early hours of the morning.

  Lisa, like me, wasn’t allowed to switch her phone off either. To ignore Andrew was one of the worst things a person could do because then he’d rant on about how inconsiderate and disrespectful it was and how worried he’d been. The arguments always ended the same way—with Lisa apologizing. Then I’d have to listen to them ‘make up.’

  Sometimes, Lisa would sleep over when her husband was away for work. A few times, I’d gotten out of bed during the night to get a drink of water, only to find Lisa in the kitchen with an ice pack pressed to her backside, or sometimes, to her wrists. We never spoke to each other on those occasions, just exchanged awkward glances, both of us pretending everything was peachy.

  One morning, however, Andrew’s misdeeds finally caught up with him.

  It was his enraged hollering that woke me from a rare Sunday morning lie-in.

  Out of concern for Lisa, I got up quickly and went into the lounge. She stood by the window, her gaze directed down at our driveway, lines of glistening tears spilling down her red cheeks. Out in the hall, a door slammed, and the sound of Andrew’s heavy footsteps echoed on the communal staircase.

  Not wanting to make my presence known, I crept into the kitchen and leaned over the sink to peer out the window.

  Andrew’s car was in the driveway, the front windscreen shattered with both wing mirrors dangling limply against the chassis. But this wasn’t the worst of it. A thick layer of white paint covered the car, obscuring most of the shiny red paintwork he’d painstakingly cleaned and polished yesterday.

  Andrew only stayed outside long enough to utter a string of profanities and kick the front bumper before storming back into the building.

  “Have you seen what your fucking husband has done to my car?”

  Lisa, not used to seeing her perfect boyfriend quite so livid, flattened herself against the wall. “What did you expect?”

  Andrew stiffened and flared his nostrils. “What did you say?”

  When Lisa didn’t reply, he lunged forward and forcefully grabbed hold of her arms. “This is your fault! You should have been honest with him.”

  “Well,” she muttered, sadly, “He knows now.”

  Andrew’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Who’s going to pay for my fucking car?”

  Lisa glared at him for a few seconds before pulling herself free from his grip. She rushed into the kitchen and reached into her handbag, which hung on the back of one of the dining chairs, and retrieved a cigarette and lighter. An uneasy feeling gnawed at my stomach as I watched her struggle to light the thin white stick with trembling fingers.

  “Did you hear me?” Andrew yelled as he strode into the kitchen and slapped the lighter out of her hand.

  A look of disbelief registered on her face. “I’ll pay for the repairs to your shitty car, okay?”

  But it wasn’t okay because Lisa didn’t know the real Andrew.

  She wasn’t expecting the hard crack of his knuckles against her cheek or to hear her hair splitting as he grabbed her ponytail and yanked her head back.

  “Don’t ever speak to me like that again!”

  Impulsively, I jumped forward and tried to wedge myself between them—if I didn’t, Lisa would end up with more than a black eye.

  “Dad!” I managed to choke out.

  He’d made me call him ‘dad’ as part of his doting stepfather act, but the word sat like acid on my tongue.

  “She’s not worth it! She’ll call the police and get you into trouble. You don’t want that, do you?”

  My mother used to try and pacify him in the same way. “She’s not worth it,” I repeated softly.

  Andrew’s eyes flickered between us for a minute before he let go of Lisa and let her drop to the floor. “Get out!” he spat.

  Lisa wheezed as she got to her feet, using the dining chair to help her stand. She slung her handbag over her shoulder and scurried, head down, to the hall.

  “Oh, and Lisa?” Andrew called after her. “You forget about this, and I’ll forget about my car, yeh?”

  Lisa only stopped for a moment to give an emphatic nod before charging toward the front door.

  Andrew pulled up a chair and slumped down onto it, examining his red knuckles with a hiss. “Get me some ice, would you?”

  With an obedient nod, I fetched him an ice pack, wrapping it in a towel and placing it gently onto his hand.

  “I’ll do that. Get me a smoke. And a whiskey.”

  With any luck, he’d drink himself into a stupor and pass out for the next few hours. Rather than pour him a glass, I handed him the entire bottle and a tumbler of ice cubes, along with a cigarette, which I lit for him, his right hand too swollen to use.

  “You’re right,” Andrew said, a wisp of smoke fanning out from the corner of his mouth. “She wasn’t worth it.”

  He seemed to be calming down. “You’re smart for seventeen, Ha
lley. Your mother wasn’t smart. I guess you must have got it from your real dad, huh?”

  An unusual statement for him to make, I was used to him putting my mother down, trying to bait me into an argument, but this insult began with a compliment. He gestured for me to sit and took another drag on his cigarette before offering it to me.

  “No, thanks.”

  He chuckled. “You can’t be a good girl all the time.”

  Reluctantly, to appease him, I drew in a sort breath of nicotine and handed the cigarette back to him, stifling the urge to cough.

  “You called me dad earlier. Don’t call me that anymore,” he said. “I’m not your father. Call me Andrew from now on.”

  He quickly knocked back three shots of whiskey in succession and then stubbed his cigarette out in the empty glass.

  “Always such a good girl.” He leaned across the table and pinched my chin in between his thumb and forefinger. My stomach knotted as his eyes darkened. A false smile spread across his lips. “Not like your mother.”

  Another dig at her memory.

  After a few more seconds of unpleasant eye contact, Andrew stood up, clutching the whiskey bottle in his left hand and dragging it across the table. “I’m going to lie down.”

  When he’d gone, I let out a relieved breath and rushed to the kitchen sink. I let the water run until it was scorching hot and then splashed my face, eager to wash away the taint from Andrew’s touch.

  Whatever new game he’d started playing, I wanted no part of it.

  Chapter Four

  After…

  By the time I woke up, the sun had almost set, the last rays of a golden and pink sundown streaming in through the window.

  Several hours must’ve passed while I slept.

  Disorientated, I sat up. The bedroom door was closed, and a fleece blanket covered me. I hadn’t heard Nate come in at all, but my backpack had been placed down beside the bed, and a bottle of water now sat on the bedside table.

  My tongue felt like sandpaper as it rolled over my dry lips. I reached eagerly for the bottle, gulping down every last drop of water.

  As I slid off the bed and opened the door, I heard the shower running. For a moment, I hesitated, not knowing if I should stay in the room or venture out. Would Nate think I’d been snooping around if he came out of the bathroom and found me in the lounge? Would he be angry?