As the World Falls Down

by Katy Nicholas

  I shimmied over to hug him and watched the embers shoot up out of the fire as the carcass roasted. Once the rabbit was cooked, I wolfed down my share and then licked each one of my fingers, thoroughly satisfied.

  “Good?” Nate asked.

  “Amazing.”

  Nate insisted on cleaning up by himself. He took the rabbit bones down the road and buried them, in case the smell attracted predators to the camp. He then set out our water canisters ready to catch any rain that fell. I could already feel moisture in the air, and the fire began to sizzle periodically as the raindrops hit the hot kindling.

  Nate was far better at this survival lark than me. Thinking back, I’d been extremely lucky the wolf hadn’t killed me. Or that I hadn’t died of thirst. And, of course, finding Nate was pretty miraculous too. Maybe someone—or something—had been looking out for me. For us.

  And what about the irresistible magnetism that drew us together? Had I felt the pull that morning I went down to the highway? Why that day? Especially when I’d avoided it so zealously since the day Andrew died. Had Nate felt something too? Had he taken that particular highway on that particular day for a reason?

  These kinds of burning questions were enough to drive a person mad. The answer was unknowable, like most questions of a spiritual nature. It came down to faith and what a person chose to believe. Honestly, I didn’t know what to believe—my mind was too addled by a million other things to start pondering life, the universe, and everything else.

  It was what it was.

  When Nate returned, yawning, he motioned for us to go into the tent. We kissed and fooled around for a while until he reluctantly admitted defeat and let himself fall asleep. I stayed awake a little longer, listening to the raindrops hitting the tent fabric, but it wasn’t long before the sound lulled me to sleep as well.

  I’d only been asleep a few hours when I sat up, startled, my head still pounding. A noise outside the tent must’ve woken me, but now there was only the sound of rustling branches and the distant hoot of an owl.

  I shimmied out of Nate’s arms and unzipped the tent. The air was decidedly chilly, but refreshing, nonetheless. The rain was light, so I clambered outside and took some deep, shaky breaths. I was incredibly thirsty. I downed one of the canisters of rainwater that had refilled in the downpour. The clouds had dispersed enough to see the moon, and it was bright enough to illuminate the field and the surrounding trees.

  Every now and then, a flash of movement caught my eye, until a fox darted out from between two clumps of wild rye near the roadside. His eyes glinted as he edged a little closer, meandering across the field. When he was no more than a few meters away, he sniffed the air and crept further forward.

  Without thinking, I held my hand out to him. He took another cautious step toward me, stretched his body out, and touched his dewy nose to my fingertips. After a brief threat assessment, he turned away and then bolted. Perhaps, he’d remembered that humans weren’t to be trusted. Or maybe, he’d never seen a human before at all.

  Sighing, I crawled back into the tent and snuggled up to Nate.

  ****

  We’d manage to avoid any major scenes of mass-mortality until we reached the main road that led to Brighton. We passed a sign for a ferry terminal about eight kilometers back, but it wasn’t until we got closer that we came across an army barricade and a few thousand cars queuing in every lane of the motorway, headed to the port turn-off.

  Nate grew increasingly agitated, and I found myself overcome with dread. This was what my Aunt had described to me, the very scenes she’d tried so hard to keep me from witnessing. Now, I knew why.

  On the sloping embankment, an army truck was parked askew, its olive-green soft-top covering flapping about in the wind, intermittently revealing a pile of plastic-wrapped bodies with bright yellow biohazard stickers stuck to them. I averted my eyes as we hurried along the hard shoulder, Nate pulling me a little faster than I could comfortably walk. Out of morbid curiosity though, I occasionally glanced inside the vehicles we passed, although most of the windows were whited-out with paint and marked with huge red X’s. It was how the army identified the dead—the people who’d never made it to their intended destinations, back to their family, or wherever home was. Or anywhere but here.

  “Nate!” I called out, stumbling to keep up with him.

  He stopped and waited for me to catch my breath.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  I reached into the side pocket of my rucksack for my water bottle and took a swig. “Are you…all right?”

  Nate frowned and gestured to our surroundings. “Not really.”

  Instantly, the gnawing feeling of guilt returned, coupled with my qualms about suggesting we do this in the first place. Just the look on Nate’s face was enough to wrench my gut and insist we turn back. However, I knew that he’d refuse such a notion. The only thing I could do was distract him. Pulling him close to me, I leaned in and pushed my lips onto his in a hungry and frenzied kiss.

  After a few minutes, he pulled away and raised an eyebrow, smirking. “You’re not the kind of person that finds horror and gore erotic, are you?”

  The scowl I gave him in response wiped the grin from his face.

  The exit was thankfully only a few kilometers further, and I was more than happy to be off the motorway. The plan was to spend the night just outside of Brighton before heading north to London the next day.

  A slow build-up of wind during the day had turned into a gale by sunset, making it impossible to put the tent up, so I reluctantly picked a house at random for us to take shelter in.

  Although the idea of sleeping on a nice comfy mattress was extremely appealing, neither of us liked the idea of sharing a house with corpses. Since most people had died in their own homes, the chances of finding bodies inside were high. Needs must when the devil drives—this saying was becoming my go-to catchphrase these days.

  The front door was unlocked. Nate went in first, brandishing a torch, and slowly edged down the hall to the living room, giving it a quick scan. Nothing there, aside from a community of silverfish inhabiting the moldy baseboard under the bay window. The room smelled strongly of mildew and dust, having been shut up for so many years.

  I whimpered when a large, hairy wolf-spider scurried up the side of the flat-screen television and disappeared into a mass of cobwebs. I shuddered and promptly backed out, shutting the door. We headed further along the hall into the kitchen, also devoid of any human remains.

  “I’ll go check upstairs,” Nate mumbled, his expression ill at ease.

  If there were any corpses in here, the bedrooms were the most likely location—sick people stayed in bed, after all.

  While Nate headed to the stairs, I slipped my rucksack off, setting it down on the countertop. Nate had packed some tealight candles in my bag to save the torch batteries. I pulled a few out of their cardboard box and lit them with a matchstick.

  It wasn’t late enough to be completely dark yet, but the cloud cover had hastened the onset of night.

  Using candlelight, I began to search through the kitchen cupboards for edible food, finding a couple of tins of beans, fruit salad, spaghetti, and a half-dozen bottles of water. I also came across a half-opened packet of rice infested with weevils and something green and ominous in a clear jam jar, which I quickly chucked into an empty pedal bin.

  I stacked the rest of my finds on the counter and listened to the creaking of the floorboards above my head as Nate moved about upstairs. No shrieks of horror as yet.

  Just then, some movement in the kitchen window drew my eye into the garden. It strained my vision to separate objects from their shadows, but I managed to make out a large tree at the end of the garden. For a moment, I thought it was the swaying of a loose branch in the wind that’d caught my attention, but as my sight adjusted, I saw it wasn’t a branch at all.

  A partial skeleton hung from a rope lashed to one of the thickest and highest boughs. In the strong wind, it blew from side t
o side, its singular remaining arm and leg swinging in harmonious union.

  As Nate came back downstairs, I closed the blinds.

  “There’s no one here,” he said, visibly relieved.

  I cleared my throat. “Great.”

  We ate in the kitchen before heading upstairs with the candles and the water. As Nate went into the master bedroom at the front of the house, I quickly darted into the box room at the back to close the curtains on the window overlooking the back garden, shutting out the unpleasant view in case he came in here.

  The master bedroom was dusty and smelled stale, so I cracked open a window ever-so-slightly and hunted down some fresh bed sheets, finally finding them stowed away in an ottoman at the foot of the king-sized, leather, sleigh bed. On the dresser, I sniffed at a dozen bottles of expensive perfume until I found one I liked and then sprayed it around for good measure. It didn’t take long to make the room cozy, and it distracted my mind from conjuring up the image of the former occupant hanging outside from their tree.

  During my impromptu spring clean, Nate went into the en-suite bathroom to freshen up. He managed to shave and wash himself with one of the bottles of water and then suggested I do the same, although it seemed like a waste of fresh water to me. But, since we’d had no trouble finding supplies on our route so far, I decided to take his suggestion, not knowing when I’d get another opportunity.

  Of course, the fact that so many of the shops were un-plundered meant only one thing; nobody else was around to loot them. Even though most of them had been securely locked up, it was nothing a bit of perseverance and a crowbar—or a bullet—couldn’t remedy. If someone wanted to get inside, it wasn’t particularly difficult to do so. Despite all the signs, though, I hadn’t given up hope of finding someone. Our journey wasn’t over yet.

  In the bathroom, I washed thoroughly and even shaved my legs and armpits before shampooing my hair. I used the toilet after filling it with bleach and then rummaged through the bathroom cabinet, hoping to find a band to tie my wet hair up with. All I found were a box of tampons and a pregnancy test, none of which were of any use to me, not having had a period since catching the virus. I supposed it was something to do with the infertility issue, but I.D.R.I.S hadn’t ever discussed it, in any detail, on television.

  It’d never really bothered me before—not having children—but, ever since Nate had told me about wanting to be a dad and have a family, I’d felt a little down about it. Probably because, for the first time in a long time, I could picture a future for myself. One that I never thought possible—a content existence spent with the man I loved.

  That said, even if we could’ve had children together, was this really the kind of world we wanted to bring a child into? Especially when it would probably suffer the same fate as the rest of humanity and die of the virus.

  Eurgh. Talk about depressing. What the hell was wrong with me? What good did it do to let such dark—and completely redundant—thoughts enter my mind?

  Crossly shutting the mirrored cabinet doors, I glared staunchly at my reflection. “C’mon Halley. Buck up. Don’t let it get to you.”

  In truth, everything I’d witnessed today left me feeling quite disturbed and melancholic, the scene in the garden troubling me the most. It made me think of my mother and how miserable she must’ve been to take her own life. And, of course, I thought of Nate.

  “Halley?”

  I jumped.

  He leaned casually on the bathroom door frame and shot me a concerned frown. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  He exhaled deeply and took hold of my hand, leading me out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. Motioning for me to sit down on the bed, he kneeled between my legs and sat up so that we were eye level with each other.

  “It’s okay not to be okay, Halley,” he said. “Do you understand now why your aunt didn’t want you to see it?”

  Yes, I understood. But it still wasn’t right to keep me secreted away at the cottage for the rest of my life either.

  As I huffed and let out an obstinate growl, he reached out and twirled a strand of my hair between his fingers. “Believe me, it used to be much worse out there. Back when the people still looked like people and not just piles of bones. For a long time, I thought I was actually in hell. All the death and despair finally got to me.”

  Not a topic I particularly wanted to discuss before bed, but it seemed to be something he needed to get off his chest. Perhaps he wanted me to know what’d truly impelled him to swallow all those pills.

  Facing the demise of humanity up close had somehow opened a door in my mind that hadn’t been there before, an opening which allowed the really bad thoughts to slip inside. The kind of despairing notions that, if left unchecked, were powerful enough to push a person over the edge.

  “It eats away at you until you’re consumed by it,” he added sorrowfully, his eyes boring into mine. “But I won’t let that happen to you, Halley.”

  “How do you stop them?”

  He smiled. “You brought me back. You reminded me of what it’s like to be alive. Even amongst so much death.”

  Giving him a warm smile, I took the opportunity to lighten the mood with my usual retort of mockery. “You found vodka, didn’t you?”

  “No,” he sniggered. “But there is a copy of Monopoly downstairs.”

  I groaned and flopped back onto the mattress. “And I thought things couldn’t get any worse.”

  He laughed and climbed onto the bed, positioning himself over me. He leaned down and started kissing my neck, the tip of his tongue lightly connecting with my skin each time his lips parted. My fingers fumbled with the towel wrapped around his waist, untwisting the knot until it slid from his hips and fell to the floor. In response, he yanked off my towel in one expertly coordinated maneuver, leaving me with a slight friction burn on my bottom.

  “Ouch!”

  He mumbled an apology but carried on exploring my naked body with his mouth, causing a static wave to ripple pleasantly over my body. In these moments, I could only think of Nate and nothing else.

  No guilt.

  No darkness.

  No death.

  No wonder I was so addicted to him.

  ****

  Before…

  Rebecca had been gone for almost a week—the longest she’d ever been away looting. The car had broken down a few weeks ago, kangarooing to a stop just outside the village as she’d set off. At first, she thought it was the engine, but after trying a dozen other vehicles, she realized it was the fuel. We searched every garage and shed in the village for petrol, hoping to find some in a sealed container that hadn’t been exposed to the air, but only managed to scavenge up a few jerry cans’ worth, not enough to be of use.

  Reduced to cycling with a small trailer in tow, Rebecca stuck to her planned route anyway, leaving me behind as usual. This time, however, she wasn’t in search of food supplies.

  Mindful of our need to survive another winter, she decided to scour the caravan parks of North Cornwall for butane canisters—any the army hadn’t seized. In the weeks leading up to the beginning of the end, they’d come knocking on every door with a compulsory surrender order for cooking and heating fuels to keep the army fed and warm on the wintry motorway battlefields. No more BBQ’s for us this summer.

  “I’ll be back soon, my darling. We’ll grill a few carrots to celebrate,” she’d laughed, bidding me farewell as she rode away from the cottage.

  Sometimes, I think she saw her little excursions as holidays; breaks from reality. I imagined her cycling around the holiday parks, down to the beaches, like the apocalypse never happened.

  More than anything right now, I wanted to be with her, not confined to this small village, walking the same roads, past the same houses and shops, over and over, like a hamster in a wheel.

  Lonely and bored, I jogged down to the children’s playground and sat down on one of the narrow, rubber swing seats. I dug my feet firmly into t
he mulchy wood chips to push back on the swing as hard as possible, going as high as the chains would let me, and leaning back, so the only thing I saw was the endless blue-gray sky.

  Eventually, making myself feel rather dizzy, I skidded to an abrupt stop and hopped off, heading across the road to the village shop.

  This was one of the first places my aunt and I had looted for food. We’d smashed the glass entry door with Will’s hammer to get inside and then made several trips back and forth to the cottage until everything of use was safely packed away in Rebecca’s garage. It was like she thought someone else would steal it if we didn’t grab it first.

  Now, the racks were completely empty.

  I stepped inside the shop and picked up one of the wire hand baskets stacked by the door. I looped it around my arm and began wandering down aisle one, trying to remember what’d been kept on these shelves—cereals, biscuits, and hot drinks if memory served. After a few moments of indecision, I picked up an invisible box of sugary flakes and placed it in the basket along with an imaginary jar of coffee and a packet of non-existent chocolate biscuits. Drifting up and down each aisle, I continued doing my intangible shopping until it was time to pay. Making my way to the till, I stared at the empty space where the cashier would sit before lifting the basket onto the motionless conveyer belt.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” I said to the ghost of server Karen—the check-out girl who never smiled and always looked hungover.

  Karen didn’t answer. Not unusual for her.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Karen,” I said. “You think I’ve gone mad, don’t you?”

  Again, no response.

  “Well,” I huffed. “I haven’t. I know you’re not real. So, I can’t possibly be crazy, can I?”

  Not yet, anyway. Bored, definitely, but not crazy. Karen could bugger off with her baseless allegations.

  I batted the wire basket off the checkout, sending it spinning to the floor, and then laughed out loud, my voice echoing down the aisles of the barren shop.