IMPACT (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (14 page)

The evening ritual demanded that each of them quietly found a spot for their private activities before bed. Adrian waited for Alice to grab her toothbrush and head over to a corner of the copse, behind the trunk of the largest tree she could find. Once she was gone, he did the same, walking towards the opposite end of the group of trees.

He brushed his teeth by rubbing the dry toothbrush against them, its bristles curved, worn, and unpleasant in his mouth.

Making sure Alice couldn’t see him, Adrian unzipped his trousers. He always hoped that Alice couldn’t hear the noise of his pee. The thought made him uncomfortable.

As his urine painted a dark arc against the tree trunk in front of him, Adrian thought that perhaps things might be easier in the morning. Maybe the mist would clear away, and he’d recognize a street or a detail, something that would lead them to Bately. Chances were the town was only an hour’s walk away if they hadn’t veered too far off course.

A ray of light suddenly beamed through the trees, startling him. His first instinct was to cover his private parts. His second was to duck down as quickly as he could.

It was a car, or a vehicle of some kind. With the headlights blinding him he couldn’t be sure. He hid behind the tree trunk, feeling his urine dampening his jacket.

“
Alice!
” he cried, trying to whisper and shout at the same time.

She had seen the lights too. He saw her crouching behind another trunk, her pale skin made whiter by the car’s lights. She looked at him, worried, then slipped behind her tree, hiding like he was.

Adrian held his breath, and waited for the light to go past. It didn’t. The vehicle had stopped.

He heard one of its doors open, and then slam shut.

* * *

“I saw you. I know you’re there,” cried a deep, harsh voice beyond the trees. “Come out
now
!”

Adrian froze. Had this man seen both of them or just him? He flung a glance in Alice’s direction. She was well hidden.

It makes no difference, stupid
, he thought.
If he does take you away, you can’t leave her here, on her own.

Then the man spoke again and Adrian felt the blood in his veins turn cold.

“I have a rifle,” the voice continued. “I’ll shoot on the count of three unless you come out.”

Then all he could hear was the low hum of an engine. He wished the man had somehow changed his mind.

But then it came.

“One!” cried the voice.

“
Alice, stay there
,” he said, as low as he could. She was still hiding behind the tree. He wished she were closer. He wished he could hold her tight.

“Two!”

Adrian desperately tried to picture a way to get them out of this situation. But he simply couldn’t.

“Three!”

As the man uttered that last word, Adrian heard the soft whimper of Alice’s fear, coming from her tree.

He closed his eyes and clutched his knees. All this was because he hadn’t been able to find Bately. This was all his fault.

“Wait!” a different voice cried. Another door opened and Adrian heard steps in the grass.

“Don’t get close, Father,” the first voice said. It sounded angry. “He might be dangerous.”

“I-I think I saw a child, Neeson,” this voice was gentle, kind. “Please, just one second.”

“Just don’t stand in the line of fire, Father. I’ve got him in my sights.”

The steps moved closer. Again, there was silence. Perhaps if he could stay low and creep towards Alice, they might be able to make a run for it.

He turned, and to his absolute horror, he saw Alice standing there, clearly visible in the vehicle’s headlights. She was shivering, tears trickling down her face.

“Stop it!”

It was Alice. She was shouting. Adrian was left speechless.

“No more threats, no more, PLEASE,” her voice was loud and high-pitched. She looked frightening.

“Just go away and leave us alone. GO AWAY OR I’LL KILL YOU MYSELF.”

“Alice, no! Get
down
!” he called. But she didn’t move. She looked like she really could have killed someone.

He scrambled to his feet, almost slipping on the earth beneath him. He wanted to get in front of her, between her and the rifle, protect her from these people.

The car was some sort of off-road vehicle. Two black figures where silhouetted against the blinding beams of the headlights, the larger figure really
was
holding a rifle and aiming it at them, and the smaller, gentle figure who was walking towards them. Adrian noticed how the light seemed to bounce off his shoulders and the contours of his body, creating a surreal halo around him.

Behind these two figures, others stepped out of the vehicle, but he couldn’t quite make them out.

He inched backwards, afraid, not knowing what to do. He needed to reach Alice. He could hear her fast, broken breathing behind him.

Then the closer figure exited the light, his features finally visible.

It was a handsome young man with sad eyes and black hair. His palms open in front of him, as to reassure them, to show them there was no threat. Adrian noticed he was a priest.

The man stopped and looked at them, and Adrian was somehow certain that, after all the worry and danger and horrid people they’d come across, here was someone
good
. Someone who would understand what they’d been through. Already he saw the concern growing on this man’s face, as if he could read their minds and knew about their misfortunes.

“Put down the weapon, put down the weapon!” the man said hastily to his companion. The sense of urgency in his voice convinced him to immediately.

The man turned to them again, and spoke kindly. “It’s all okay, children. It’s all okay.” He was coming closer, and Adrian was surprised by the fact he didn’t feel the impulse to run or hide or draw his knife. There was something about this man that made him believe there really was nothing to fear.

“You’re safe with us,” he said. “Please, come – we’re going to Bately, a town nearby. You’ll be safe–”

But the man was unable finish the sentence, because Alice suddenly ran up to him, throwing her arms around him. She was crying. For once, they weren’t tears of fear or anger, but of relief.

Before he knew what he was doing, Adrian too was tied in that embrace with Alice by his side. He was crying too. He cried because they were finally with someone they felt they could trust. He cried because they were headed for Bately after so long. He cried because he was
tired
of fearing the people they came across, of constantly doubting whether he’d manage to protect Alice.

As the man’s large, warm hands comforted them and softly patted them on their backs, he realised he was just a child.

And children – even brave ones – have the right to cry.

“What’s it say?” asked Jeff.

Walscombe squinted. The security camera’s resolution wasn’t excellent and, coupled with the dust blowing outside, it was pretty difficult to make out what the sign said.

It was a woman and she’d come prepared. At first, her black and white image had waved tirelessly at the exterior camera, until they had figured out a way to let her know they were aware of her presence.

“Pan,” Jeff had said.

“What?”

“Let’s pan, move the camera, so she knows we’re here.”

It had taken them a minute or two to figure out how to access the camera on the control deck, an apparently easy task for a nuclear physicist and a skilled technician. The plethora of keys and dials had baffled them. When they had finally succeeded in getting the exterior surveillance camera to respond to the arrow keys, the image in the monitor veered from side to side, executing their commands. The woman’s image shifted to the right, then to the left in a mildly comic fashion.

She had paused, leaning forward to observe the camera, making sure she had actually seen it move.

“Yes, lady, we can see you,” Jeff said, the pressure of his fingers alternating on the two arrow keys.

The woman had buried her face in her hands. She was crying.

Walscombe surprised himself. An unusual feeling of sympathy was slowly creeping in a crack that had opened somewhere in his chest at the image of this woman alone against the desolate horizon.

But her crying fit hadn’t lasted long. They watched as she fumbled with something off-screen, a bag or carrier of some sort.

“What’s she doing?” asked Jeff.

She fished something out, then stepped closer to the camera, raising it in front of the lens. It was a piece of cardboard with big letters scrawled over it with a marker.

“I… I think it says N-A-M… no, not ‘M’… it’s an ‘
N
’,” said Walscombe, his eyes glued to the monitor, trying his best to make out the letters, “
Nancy
…
Clark
. Yes, Nancy Clark.”

Jeff suddenly turned pale. “I
know
her,” he said, as if to himself.

Walscombe looked at him, quizzically.

“She used to work in IT – Mass Storage Maintenance,” Jeff said, turning towards him. “We weren’t close friends or anything, but I definitely know her, Walscombe.”

The woman lowered the cardboard sign, her face now right up against the camera lens.

“What the fuck is wrong with her skin?” asked Walscombe.

Her face was riddled with rashes and what looked like huge blisters, one of them swelling her left eyelid to the point where she could hardly keep it open. A pair of large, swollen lips hung open, revealing a set of almost toothless gums.

“My god.” Jeff was speechless. This woman, it was clear even now, had once been pretty. “What could possibly have done that to her?”

“Hang on–” Walscombe was reminded of the stories Ivan had told him, about the sickness the meteorites had carried with them; a highly contagious pathogen that had decimated the population. Some of those affected died within hours. Others saw their body deteriorate, dying only after months of suffering and decay. Meteorwraiths, Ivan had called them. For those in the outside world, it was very common to come across them.

“It’s an illness. Very contagious. Something to do with the meteorites,” said Walscombe.

He observed the woman, who was now waving at the camera again, her expression increasingly worried.

“Let her know we’re still here,” he said. Jeff moved the camera back and forth.

“We can’t leave her out there,” said Jeff, although his words tentative echo of a question, rather than a statement.

“I’m not sure…” Walscombe wished he had more information about the disease. But Ivan had said little was known about it. Most of those who could have conducted research were either dead or unable to communicate their findings. Especially to those living inside top-secret underground military installations.

“If we let her in, we might catch, well, whatever it is she has,” Walscombe said. “Not sure I want to risk that.”

“But Walscombe,” began Jeff, a deep frown drawing lines across his forehead, “she’s
alone
out there.” It was like that simple argument could trump any logical reasoning against it. Walscombe shook his head, unconvinced. And yet, he found it hard to ignore the image of that sick woman. Indifference had been easy when the world was swarming with multitudes of jerks, each one another faceless human roaming around outside of his personal radar. But now, it was as if some primary instinct, something to do with species survival, rather than mere self-preservation, had awakened inside of him, shaken out of its life-long slumber by that minute figure in the CCTV screen.

You’ve gone soft, you dumbfuck
, he told himself.

“Here’s what we do,” he said, turning towards Jeff’s begging eyes. “We open the north entrance and let her in. If she knows her way around, she’ll know we're in S and S, and how to get down here–” Jeff nodded, listening carefully. “We close all the blast hatches, isolate her. I really don’t want my good looks spoiled by whatever the fuck it is she’s caught. But we get her inside, give her some food etcetera.”

“Once she’s in, we can talk to her through the PA system.”

“Okay.”

Walscombe swallowed. Y
ou’ll regret this
, a voice inside of him said. He ignored it. Both men concentrated on locating the buttons that would open the doors and let the woman in.

When they finally found them, they watched her head, as it jolted sideways, peering to the entrance, off-screen. She looked back into the camera, and brought her two palms together, fingers outstretched, in front of her lips.

“She’s thanking us,” said Jeff, with what sounded like a slight quiver in his voice.

The woman darted off to the right of the image towards the entrance to the base.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

The voice froze the blood in their veins. It was Don. Walscombe rotated the chair he was sitting in, and saw him standing by the door, just outside of S and S. He noticed the scaly traces of the dried shaving cream on his face, and the insane, fixed quality of his stare.

“All good here?” he asked.

“Umm, yes – all good here, sir,” said Walscombe without moving. “Just, ahm, just making sure the perimeter is safe, sir.”

“Excellent,” replied Don.

The Major just stood there, apparently incapable of deciding what to do next.

Was he listening? Does he know about the woman?
Walscombe asked himself. He tried to read the man’s expression, to interpret the look in those deranged eyes.

Don laced his hands behind his back, momentarily raising himself on the tips of his toes and back down. He finally bobbed his head, and said, “Back to work, gentlemen.”

They watched, speechless, as Don wandered off to some unknown destination. The sound of his footsteps reverberated against the cold walls of the corridor, until it gradually faded away.

“Does he know?” asked Jeff, echoing his own thoughts from moments ago.

“I don’t know. But he
will
if we use the PA.”

Jeff sighed, his gaze lingering on the now empty image inside the monitor.

The sound of the sleeping children’s breathing was soft and deep.