How We Survive Read online

  Suddenly, the open felt more like a cage than the inside.

  The streets were silent. There was no noise, as if I had walked into a vacuum. I kept on walking, the sky looming over me. The thin moonlight clung to the sides of buildings, afraid to be seen. I had an impulse to run but I shook it off. There was nothing here, and if I ran, I would be running from nothing. And that would be ridiculous. Logic held.

  I walked down the main high street, slowly glancing from side to side. I had that feeling that as soon as I looked one way, something would scurry past in the shadows in the opposite direction. It felt like something was watching me from behind, something that made my skin crawl.

  But of course, there was nothing there. “There’s nothing here,” I whispered to myself.

  Logic, that was what I needed to focus on, and logically, the next step was to find some supplies, before I left the town once and for all. If I got some supplies, I would be ready to begin my search for my group, my fellow fighters. It may have been idealistic, but it was the beginning of a plan. So instead of checking the shadows for moving forms, I looked for the familiar signs that would tell me where I could find food. If there was any food left.

  Not long after, I wandered into an abandoned supermarket; the door had since vacated its post. The darkness became a problem at this point, as the light from the moon only reached about two metres after the gaping hole of the entrance. My only possession being a jumper, this seemed like an insurmountable barrier. It would have been so easy to have turned round at that point. The uncomplicated option.

  I’m still not sure whether I was following my natural instinct or repressing it when I ventured into the shop. Is it human nature to seek safety or to plunge into the unknown, with only hope for better times to guide you?

  The high windows made the darkness a shade lighter as I walked down the aisles and the further I went in, the more my eyes adjusted to the dim conditions. I could make out the larger signs telling me what was down each aisle.

  I was a little late to the survivalist party. Dust and grime were more abundant than actual edible food. However there were a few tins and packets, in corners, knocked onto the floor by hasty hands, sometimes overlooked at the back of a shelf.

  I grabbed whatever I could. Even though I had no way of opening the tins or cooking the contents, their weight and awkward shapes poking at me felt reassuring as I slung my rucksack back on my shoulders.

  It was a strangely reassuring experience, doing something as mundane as shopping – even if I wasn’t exactly shopping in the conventional way (what I was doing was probably closer to stealing, but in desperate times, you try not to focus on those kinds of thoughts). I closed my eyes and could see the too bright industrial lights beating down on me, and all the hyper colours of packaging, colours that no longer existed in the new world. I could hear the erratic beeping of the tills and crying children and couples arguing in hushed tones over carrots and obnoxious phone conversations. I could smell cleanliness instead of waste, and fresh fruit instead of rotting meat. I pushed my trolley and smiled at all the people too busy to even look at me.

  I think I was smiling for the first time in months when I opened my eyes to the reality. And I think that the smile lasted about five seconds when I heard the squeak and thud of shoes on linoleum and saw the beam of a torch flashing back and forth like a pendulum. This was followed by a crash and a long, low groan.

  The light went out, but I starting walking as quietly as I could towards where it had come from and at the same time, moved away from the noisy shuffling and moaning of the A - I wished so hard that it was just the one. I was creeping along the aisle right at the back of the shop when two people came rushing out from the end of an aisle.

  “Hey!” a tall man with wild curly hair dressed in a grey tweed jacket shout-whispered at me, half in surprise, and half in annoyance. A smaller boy with equally wild but straighter hair was peering out from beside him. Wide eyed, they stared at me. Then, the taller of the two performed a series of gesticulations: he pressed his finger to his lips, pointed in the direction they had just come from, and smiled apologetically, shrugging sheepishly, as if to say, “these things just happen.”

  Slightly taken aback by this bizarre display, I didn’t react when I heard a groaning noise, closer to us than was comfortable. My mind stopped; I looked at the two of them, frozen. The tall one pointed in the opposite direction, towards the exit. I nodded and we ran.

  The A that was following us got lost in the perplexing maze of the dark supermarket, and the noises got fainter and fainter. Unfortunately, outside we were confronted by a further three As. Before I had a chance to digest this though, I was grabbed by the wrist and we were running once more.

  One by one, they came out of their hiding places as we ran down the high street, and soon we had a decent sized mob on our heels. The adrenalin kept me from feeling tired, and the crowd of As, running clumsily, as if their legs had not been properly calibrated with their brains, was almost comical. I say almost, because ultimately they were still out to kill us. The smell of our appendix free bodies was driving them insane.

  My companions led me down a side street, and before long we had reached a residential area, the countryside drawing in around us. The gap between us and them began to increase, even as the size of the mob decreased, as they tired or fell down. We ran through a gate into an unkempt garden, wading through knee high grass and other scratchy limbs of plants. At the bottom of the garden was a line of fir trees that the smaller boy shot into. The branches shook as he climbed higher, and I was amazed that he could find a way up in the dark.

  This pause in our escape allowed me to look around the garden. Near to the French doors of the house I could make out a hutch. The home of some beloved rabbit or guinea pig. But the taller boy had dragged me into the tree before I think too much about what was inside it. It’s funny to think we get so attached to creatures that are indifferent to our existence, but that we often love as though they were humans. And it’s odd that even after the near destruction of our race I still spared a thought for the rodent left to rot in its homely prison. I also wondered whether guinea pigs had appendices.

  “Over the fence,” the man said, his mouth close to my neck and his breathing shallow and fast, as he pushed me in front of him, towards the tree. I grabbed a branch just above me and pulled myself up, feet searching for a hold. When they found one, I climbed up about a metre, the smaller branches trying to push me back every time I advanced. When I was level with the high fence, I reached out with one hand to hold onto the top, but my low level climbing skills meant that that was all I could do. I waited, hoping a solution would present itself, but it did not. Luckily, the man was not going to allow me to stall. As I clung on he forced himself up to stand on the same branch as me, his arms grasping the branch in front of us and holding me in place.

  “I don’t know how I can...” I started, but he interrupted.

  “If you’ve managed to survive this long, don’t let a fucking fence stop you now.” I expected him to sound impatient, even angry, but he sounded as though he was about to laugh and the tension in my stomach that had knotted ever since we had started running dissolved.

  “I’ll help, don’t worry,” he added, and before I could reply he had pushed me straight off the tree, so the only thing I could do was reach out and grab the fence as my chest hit painfully against it. I scrabbled with my legs and in a blur rolled over the top, landing in a rough shrub on the other side. I managed to collect myself in just enough time to avoid being squashed by the man hopping over the fence straight after me.

  We were standing in a field surrounded by a low fence, a paddock, I suppose. The only sound was our heavy breath, every exhalation a sigh of relief and disbelief at our intactness. The small boy had an expression of fear nearing hyperventilation on his face, whereas the man had his arms thrown out, and howled at the sky as if welcoming a challenge. He proceeded to high five the boy before turning to me, grin
ning, his green eyes sparkling, with his hand held out.

  “Peter. Pleasure to narrowly avoid being brutally ripped apart with you.” I shook his hand.

  “Jenna... ” I trailed off. He wrung my hand with more vigour than would be expected under the circumstances.

  “This is Freddie,” he said, and pointed to the other boy, who raised a hand in a wary greeting, “and I suppose you’ll be wondering.” He lifted his shirt to reveal his skinny torso and a crooked, DIY, purple scar, which could not have been more than a few months old, just next to his right hip. Freddie did the same, but his scar was distinctly professional.

  “Umm... okay?” I tried, not recognising the gesture for what it was. Peter looked at me expectantly. I looked back.

  “You haven’t been out in the field before, have you?” he asked, a smile creeping across his lips. Still not really registering what he was saying, I looked round at the field we were standing in. Then I realised that by “the field”, he meant outside of the refugee camps.

  “No, no I haven’t.”

  “It’s fine. Showing scars is like showing ID out here. It’s a friendly way of saying ‘I definitely won’t try to eat you’.” I nodded and lifted up the corner of my shirt. Peter nodded and grinned at me again. “Great, let’s go home.”

  Freddie turned to him with an expression of disbelief that must have been similar to my own. Peter looked from him to me. “What?” he asked.

  “We’re taking her with us?” Freddie inquired scathingly. The distrust in his voice was surprising, considering he couldn’t have been older than fourteen.

  “I can’t come with you...” I interjected quickly, not wanting to cause any upset.

  “Freds!” Peter cried, ruffling the younger boy’s hair. “You are way too responsible for one so young. She’s harmless, clueless.” His eyes flickered over to me, though the apologetic look was somewhat marred by his mischievous grin.

  “Are you sure?” Freddie lowered his voice. It made him sound a lot more vulnerable.

  “Yes.” Peter had put both his hands on his shoulders. “It’ll be fine.”

  “But...”

  “I know. We won’t let it happen, though.” The tenderness in Peter’s voice made me wonder whether they were brothers, despite their vastly different appearances. He then turned and looked at me. “The offer’s there. And if you don’t mind me saying, if this is you first time out, you’re probably going to need a lot of help. And I won’t feel comfortable leaving you on your own.”

  I considered telling him that I was going somewhere, looking for someone, but all my reasoning sounded flimsy even in my own head. And in all honesty, I still didn’t have a solid plan.

  “I don’t want to impose myself on you,” I said, settling on polite refusal, hoping he would try and convince me otherwise and panicking a little in case he didn’t.

  “Are you kidding? We have so much space, don’t we Freddie?” Freddie nodded. “A whole forest. It’ll be like a peaceful getaway, but with the added danger of As.” He skipped over to me, his child like energy spilling out into the night. It was contagious.

  “Well, if it’s okay,” I replied.

  “Of course it is! Also, I did happen to notice your rucksack looks deliciously full.” He grinned again. “We were just out on our last shopping trip before the weather turns cold. We’ve probably got enough stored, but I’ve heard it’s better to be safe than sorry. And you look like you’ve got enough to share.”

  “You don’t happen to have a can opener do you?”

  “We have five.” He was completely serious. I laughed and we began our journey home. Wherever that was.

  CHAPTER 2

  The sunlight woke me up softly. I was warm and dry but stiff from the previous night. As it had been dark when we had arrived “home”, I hadn’t actually been able to look around properly. From where I was lying, I could see we were in the bedroom area in the small clearing in the woods that Peter and Freddie had claimed as their own. A large piece of dark green tarpaulin hung above us, creating a small, three-walled shelter with a sloping roof.

  Being careful not to disturb the others, I shuffled out from where I was lying in between them, feet first, and slowly stood up. Directly in front of me were the charred remains of a fire, surrounded by bench-like pieces of fallen trees. There was a smaller piece of tarpaulin hanging to the left of the bedroom which acted as a store, containing all of their food and the stuff that I had picked up last night. Opposite that was a length of string fixed between two trees, with shirts, trousers, socks and underwear hanging from it. It was small, it was basic, and I found it to be inexplicably delightful.

  I walked away from the camp with the intention to explore until the other two woke up, and hopefully find some kind of stream so I could wash some off the refugee camp filth that I still felt was underneath my skin. I honestly had no idea where we were in relation to the town, or indeed to any other villages or towns. I had really only seen the inside of the refugee camp since arriving in the area, but the feeling of disorientation was actually quite refreshing, like it didn’t matter that everything was unfamiliar.

  I suppose you could say it was exciting, being somewhere I had never been before. A fresh start. Relief that I had decided to get out flooded through me. Here, it was a world away from all the death and misery that sullied other human settlements.

  As I wandered through the trees, I was struck with the clean beauty of the forest. The cool morning light dripped through the canopy of leaves overhead, creating intricate patterns of shade on the floor. The leaves looked luminescent, varied and pure shades of green. A quick breeze shuddered through the branches, as if the trees were taking a collective deep breath of the fresh morning air, just as I was. It all seemed so alive. It’s difficult to describe, trees not being the most dynamic forms of life, but I could feel it after being surrounded by those people barely preserving their will to live.

  I found a trickling stream not far from the camp and tried to wash, but mostly I was too distracted by everything around me to focus on the task, so I found a reasonably comfortable tree stump, sat on it and just watched.

  Last night, after I decided to join Peter and Freddie, we walked for at least a couple of hours over the patchwork fields of the unknown countryside. The ground was hard underfoot, and the hedgerows left me with a masterpiece of tiny scratches on my arms and legs. We were silent and contemplative for the first part of the journey as the adrenalin wore off.

  Freddie and Peter often stopped, almost simultaneously, to check we were heading in the right direction. Every now and then, I caught Peter glancing towards Freddie thoughtfully, as if to check he was still there. Freddie sometimes looked back as well, though something other than concern was in his eyes. Once, he caught my eye, and I perceived a spark of anger. I averted my gaze, instead focusing on the ground beneath me. I kept close, never walked besides them, until Peter spoke.

  “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, looking over his shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled, and I took this as an invitation to speed up so I was level with him. There was a short pause before I built up the courage to say anything.

  “You are looking quite dapper, considering humankind is on the brink of extinction, if you don’t mind me saying.” He chuckled, brushing his hands down his black trousers and pretending to straighten a tie over his considerably dirty white shirt. The sleeves of his were rolled up to his elbows and his arms were as scratched and grubby as my own.

  “I make a point of always making myself presentable, even in a crisis.” He ran a hand through his messy hair, dislodging a few leaves, then nodded in front of us to where Freddie was hiking along in solitude, evidently determined to get back. “Don’t worry about him. He... we had a bit of a rough time coming into this. Actually, it was downright shit, but we’ve managed. I think he’s a bit cautious about letting anyone else in, just in case... well just in case we lose anyone else.”

  “Oh,” I sai
d in response. We continued to walk.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Peter began in a low voice, “you didn’t leave anyone behind, did you?” Despite his reassurance that I didn’t have to answer, I felt the need to, like in some way it may repay him for the extraordinary kindness he had shown to me, a stranger.

  “It was just me,” I said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Living in a place like what I just came from toughens you up soon enough. I may not know how to survive in the open, but I sure do know how to drown out screams during the night.”

  “None of that where we’re going. Well, not much.” I half smiled at the insinuation and our conversation paused.

  “How did you end up here, then?” I asked.

  Peter seemed to be studying Freddie, still marching ahead of us, pushing the pace of our night walk. “We lived in a quiet village, quite a way from where we are now, we’ve travelled a lot since the start. Freddie is my best friend’s younger brother. Simon was his name. We practically lived at each other’s houses, so Freddie might as well be my brother. He’s the only family I have left now, in any case.” He cleared his throat and looked up at the sky.

  “Did Simon...”

  “Yep. First to go on our street. Just before we planned to do the ops ourselves.” He gestured to his side where his crooked scar was. “My dad trusted that girl, the Venezuelan one, as soon as she announced her theory. Said she looked like one of those people who couldn’t tell a lie.” He chuckled shyly at the memory and stopped quite abruptly. Then, with some difficulty, he continued.

  “He, um, Simon... he killed his parents. And my parents. And my older sister. In front of us. We were holed up in their house, and, I don’t know, we didn’t realise how fast it could happen.”