Forty-Six

I get into the village with little time to spare before nightfall. It looks in good shape. Most of the neat, two-storey houses have damaged roofs and broken windows, and the roads are a mess of stationary cars, but otherwise it is remarkably intact. I passed a crater about a quarter mile back up the road, but like the others I saw this morning it was overgrown and empty. A good sign, I hope.

I make my way through the silent streets until I come to a small village shop, where I shrug off the harness and let the trailer drop to the ground. The big window at the front of the shop is cracked right across, the door hanging off its hinges. I pause just inside and shout a tentative "Hello", to no response.

The shop has clearly been ransacked, but not too thoroughly. There's still a fair few tins scattered across the floor, bottles and packets stacked on the shelves. I make my way to the back, and into the stockroom. It's a small space, floored with cracked linoleum and smelling of must, but it's windowless, and there's only one door to worry about. With some effort I manage to shove a heavy chest freezer across the doorway, before slumping to the ground and digging in my pack for a blanket.

My heart is racing. I haven't had a night like this in ages. A night when I tried to fall asleep without Lisa beside me, without believing with any certainty that I was safe and that I would see daylight ever again. It makes me feel a little sick inside, and so to calm myself down I turn my thoughts to the reason why I'm doing this. I think of Lisa.

I can picture her exceptionally clearly. She is in the cottage, sitting up in bed in front of a dying fire, maybe reading. I can see the curve of her belly, imagine the new life in there. The rifle is beside her, close at hand. The doors to the cottage and locked and bolted and barricaded. She has food and water and light and warmth. She is safe.

But...

My thoughts turn without permission to the monster of a thing I saw sitting in the crater just hours ago. I picture it waking up, inflating, rising on those protuberant legs, immense, bigger than anything that has ever lived on earth before. And the Creatures too, an army of them, marching before it, unstoppable, unkillable. The Worms, nosing blindly, hungrily, mouths gaping to feed and feed and feed...

And in the face of that, everything I've got suddenly seems weak. As small and unsubstantial as a bubble.

Don't think that way David. Not now. Put it out of your head. Worry later. Worry when you have energy to worry. For now you need to stay strong. You've got a job to do. You've got to get back to Lisa...

And for a moment the two images--of Lisa and of the Creatures--exist in my head in the same moment and I see that awful picture once again of Sharon falling into the jaws of the Worm, and I hear her screams and I feel my heart twist inside me again, and...

No. Not now. Don't think that way now. Be strong for Lisa. You can still save her. You can still...

The night echoes with the distant call of a Creature. In my head I see that huge white armoured monster once again. I cover my ears, shut my eyes, and settle in for a long, long night.