Defying Doomsday, page 20
It was our fault, of course. Us humans, who didn’t look after the world the way we should have. We spat in the face of Mother Nature, over and over, and eventually she spat right back.
What’s left of the world now is about what you’d expect after the earth tried to shake itself to bits, the water rose up and claimed back the land, and whatever was left after that caught fire. Or sometimes all three at the same time.
The last thing I ever heard on the radio, before those signals died as well, was that a scientist somewhere in what was left of the United States had found out that air pollution levels had risen to the point that atmospheric oxygen levels had dropped to nineteen percent, and something or other about carbon dioxide levels being at five hundred and something parts per million, which was why she was not going to be coming into work the next day.
What it means for us is that when we go shopping, the roads are cracked and torn so it’s hard to ride along them, and it’s harder to breathe than it used to be. What I think it meant for her is that she doesn’t worry about breathing at all any more.
Anyway, it’s been a year, almost, so who knows, maybe the air’s fixing itself, like the ads used to say people’s lungs started fixing themselves when they stopped smoking. I haven’t seen any scientists to ask. Haven’t seen much of anyone, really. I hear things sometimes, late at night when the air’s so quiet that the smallest sounds echo for kilometres. Voices, yelling, screaming, laughing. But then Chess says she hears voices during the day, so there’s no guarantee that I’m hearing other survivors. It might just be folie à deux. Why not? Might as well share madness as anything else.
* * *
Bingo and I are usually the ones who take turns at shopping. We have lists. They rarely get completed. The Count can’t or won’t talk about what they need, and Chess keeps insisting she doesn’t need anything; she’s fine. If she’s so fine, I don’t know why she won’t sleep in a bed like the rest of us. Everyone else has regular, mostly easy, orders.
It’s my turn to shop today. I check the air in my bike’s tyres and get the hand pump to try to combat the slow leak in the back one. If it gets any worse, I’m going to have to find a new bike, or else a new inner tube that comes with really good instructions, because while I’m sure there were a hundred YouTube videos that showed just how to change an inner tube, YouTube got cancelled when the rest of the world did.
Bingo brings me the shopping list. It looks pretty standard; Valium has been at the top forever, but that’s one of those things that’s really hard to find because other people have already taken it from pretty much everywhere. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics. Exact brand names are not part of the list. Insulin for Bingo. Denture adhesive and some kind of eczema lotion for Nanna. The list goes on.
The bike’s saddlebags are empty, waiting to be filled. I buckle the tops closed so that they don’t flap and distract me. There really isn’t a lot else out here that moves aside from people, which means that small movements could be snakes, and I’ve already stacked this bike once when I thought a snake was coming at me. Since then the front wheel’s been a bit wobbly, but I’m attached to the bike enough that I don’t really feel like going looking for another one. Apart from anything else, most bikes made for adults have a whole mess of gears and stuff on the handlebars to deal with. I can’t cope with all that.
I can cope with this role, though: breadwinner, bacon-bringer, meds-finder.
“Back soon,” I tell Bingo and Chess, who are the only others awake this early. Most people are still in bed. Not that “most” of our little handful of survivors is all that many to speak of; there are nine of us all up now, less than the hospital used to hold for sure, and less than there were when we started out here.
“Keep kicking on,” Bingo says.
The Count is nowhere to be seen. They come and go, especially since we cracked into the arts and crafts cupboard and there are all these lovely bland white walls just waiting to be decorated. I think they’ll be fine; there’s not a lot of damage they can do to themselves with the cheap plastic deckle-edging scissors. I know. I’ve tried. I don’t know what I was expecting; they barely cut paper.
I go out through the garden because I like it, even though the main ward doors have been broken open for a long time. The garden has potatoes and beans and tomatoes at the moment. We’ve been trying to grow lettuce but it turns out snails do pretty well in apocalypses. Still, the bit of fresh green we get is good, and even just pushing my bike around the planter boxes that smell of earth and growing and life makes me feel good too.
A shadow looms up beside me as I’m getting on my bike and I nearly fall.
“We’re coming,” the Count announces, teeth flashing white against dark skin. Sometimes they join me on short jaunts, but this isn’t one. I don’t know what to do if they can’t make it the whole way.
“Oh, hell no. I’m riding at least fifteen kays each way. You’ll slow me down.”
“We’re coming,” the Count says again, and then, “Have you considered yoga?”
“How exactly were you planning on keeping up?”
They’re obviously ready for this question; they step back into the garden and pull up their own bike from behind one of the planter boxes. It’s not Bingo’s bike; it’s one they’ve gone out and found, which simultaneously worries me and sets my mind at rest a little. If they can coordinate long enough to go find a bike, maybe they can coordinate long enough to stay on it for a shopping trip. We could use the extra saddlebag space, which I see is something they’ve thought of, although rather than proper bike bags they’ve tied a Barbie backpack and a large Pokémon lunchbox to the packrack.
“Why not,” I say. “But if we can find proper saddlebags, I’m switching those over.”
The Count cheers—quietly, because we’re just outside someone’s bedroom window here—and gets on their bike. I get on mine, and we head out into the cool early dawn.
* * *
I spent a lot of time having trouble being responsible for me. Bingo’s name for me, Tally, is a reminder that I’m stuck with. But it turns out it’s easier being responsible for other people, even if it’s a scary weight sometimes. Chess might think she’s so grown up, but even if we don’t exactly carry around photo ID any more, I can tell she’s not more than seventeen or eighteen. Bingo says he’s twenty-three. The Count, it depends on which of them you’re asking at the time, but their body’s probably mid-twenties. Me, I’m twenty-nine and, while I wish the reason I know where so many hospitals and doctors’ surgeries and pharmacies are is because I Googled it, the truth is that I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in waiting rooms.
This is nicer than sitting in waiting rooms. The Count chatters at me on and off, sometimes asking which way we’re headed, sometimes asking if I know about the healing power of mindfulness. Bingo and I have never been able to work out whether they’re echoing something their therapist has said or just taking the piss. Maybe it’s a bit of both.
We’ve been riding for over an hour when they slow down, going from riding in a mostly straight line to weaving back and forth across the white line down the middle of the road.
“Hey. Hey, stop that,” I say.
“Thirsty,” they say.
“I was planning on a rest stop in another forty minutes. There’s a café. It’s burnt out, but the tap out back works, and…” I have to stop talking when I realise they’re not listening to me and have stopped riding altogether. I put one foot down on the asphalt, the other staying on the pedal. I hate losing momentum. “Look, if you’re going to come shopping with me, you have to follow my rules.”
“Keep my hands in the trolley? No grabbing?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Now either you can come with me and get a drink in forty minutes, or you can go back and get one at home.”
“It’s not really home.”
“It’s what we’ve got. Are you coming or not?” I don’t wait for them to answer, just kick off and start pedalling again, trying to pick up speed and get my momentum back. I do have a small water bottle in my bag for emergencies, and a protein bar that I know from experience won’t taste at all like the promised chocolate, but I’ve travelled most of this route so many times that I know where and when all the rest stops are. Plus, the point is to have space for shopping, not my own supplies.
I hear raised voices behind me, and then a minute or two later the Count catches up with me, back to riding sedately in a straight line, even if it is up the wrong side of the road. Not that anyone’s going to be coming the other way anytime soon.
* * *
When we get to the café, the Count goes poking around the ruins while I fill my plastic cup from the tap out the back. It splutters a lot and I wonder if whatever source it’s drawing from has almost run dry. It’s not tank water, so it’s not full of mozzie wrigglers or any of the other stuff we boil water to cope with.
Once I’ve drunk the cupful, I call the Count, but they’re distracted by something in the burnt-out building. I’m afraid they’ll fall through. I can’t help them if they do, and how would I be able to tell everyone else that I’d lost the Count?
“Come on. This isn’t a magical mystery tour. We need to keep moving.” I’ve spent nights away from home before, when I had to, sleeping in strangers’ disused beds, but I prefer not to. Sterile as everything at home still smells, despite months of mostly disuse, it’s more alive than any of the empty, dusty houses out this way. I refill the cup and hold it out to them, and that gets their attention.
“Thank you,” they say, and drain the cup. “More, please?”
The tap groans irritably as I turn it on again, and what comes out dribbles reluctantly. I manage to half-fill the cup and pass it to the Count, wondering if this means the water has actually run out here or whether some washer has come unscrewed somewhere and just makes it look that way.
“Here, here, Tally,” the Count says, poking my arm with the cup. I realise they’ve left me half of what I gave them.
“It’s okay, you can finish it.”
They give me a worried look out of big dark eyes and I repeat myself twice before they’ll finish the water. I’m not really fussed about water. I’m looking forward to tea tonight. It may be the one thing I can take for granted, as long as the boxes in the cupboard last. We’re getting to the point where it doesn’t taste quite the way that it used to—we’re on the wrong side of the recommended use by date—but technically so is the whole planet, so the fact that I can have tea at all is still a nice, grounding thing at the end of the day.
I put the plastic cup back in my bike basket beside the torch and the shopping list, and look at the Count. “Are you ready to keep going?”
They nod, getting back on their bike. It’s only then that I realise that although their bike helmet is on their head, the buckle is hanging loose, and has been for who knows how long.
I’m reaching out before I can stop myself. The Count is unpredictable in general, but one thing is consistent: they hate being touched. They flinch when my fingers brush the dangling strap and I pull back fast.
“Oh! Sorry,” they say, and the buckle snaps shut between their fingers. “Buckle up before you go.”
“Right!”
The road safety ad people might not be around anymore, but I’m sure they’d be pleased that their lessons have stuck with those few of us who’re left.
* * *
It takes another hour and a half to get where we’re going, a fairly upscale medical clinic when it was part of the real world, now just another box covered in ash and dust. But it’s there, which is nice; the fact is, I could’ve ridden all this way for nothing. The sign on the front says “dical Gro”, and I don’t bother to repress a snicker.
“What’s funny?” the Count asks.
“A coincidence in homophones,” I say, because just admitting it’s a dick joke seems crass, and for some reason they absolutely crack up, bike wobbling dangerously even though they’re standing still.
I set my bike on its kickstand and the Count follows suit. We both hang our helmets over the handlebars and just leave the bikes there in the half-empty car park. The asphalt is crisscrossed with cracks, but I’ve found that the further out from the city you go, the less damage there is. Except from the fires, of course. But I think the city shook itself apart worse because of all the buildings to smash against each other. Out here there is this medical clinic, and a supermarket across the road, and we passed a church on the way into town, and then another half dozen shops. Nothing to rattle like dice against each other, to smash down like dominoes.
Most of what I saw of the falling house of cards city was in TV broadcasts before TV broadcasts stopped existing. I haven’t had to ride in that direction very far yet to shop, and I hope I don’t have to.
The clinic door opens when I push on it, and I squint into the building, then open my eyes properly when I realise it has a skylight and there’s actual natural sunlight coming through.
“Tally…” The Count sounds nervous behind me.
“What?”
“How’s the light getting in?”
“There’s a skylight.”
“But all the ash…” They step right up behind me and I can hear their teeth chattering. “It should be dark.”
I look up again, carefully this time, and see that the skylight’s been smashed out. There’s no glass on the floor, though. Someone’s been here before us, broken the skylight, and probably looted the place to boot. Great. And the next place on my map, such as it is, is another hour or so’s ride depending on how much of a mess the roads are.
There’s something coming at us out of the dark. A four-legged thing, spindly, tall, shadow stretching out like a lopsided spider. The Count, shrugging off their dislike for physical contact, grabs onto my arm and clings, whimpering.
“Tally, Tally, what is it?”
“It’s okay,” I say, not entirely convinced that it is.
“Help me,” the thing in the shadows says. “Please. I need—” It falters, and one of its legs falls to the ground with a clatter, leaving it with three. It keeps coming forward anyway, now dragging one leg behind itself, its movements even jerkier now that it’s off balance.
The light falls across it and I see the truth: it isn’t an it, but a woman. A tall woman with brown hair cut haphazardly short, eyes rimmed with dark shadows, and a crutch under one arm.
“Help me,” she says again. Now that she isn’t a voice in the dark, she doesn’t sound scary, but scared.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“I’ve been alone so long I’m not sure.” She brushes her hand across her forehead, pushing a few wisps of hair from her eyes. “Are you the ones who’ve been looking for me?”
“We’ve been looking for drugs,” I say, and she flinches.
“There’s nothing here. It’s all been cleared out. Codeine, methadone—”
“Not that sort of drug, psych meds. Is there anything?”
Her face clears and she nods. “Some. Not much. No painkillers.” I think she might be lying about that because she says it so quickly.
“Count.” They’re still clinging to my arm. “Count. Bring the bags inside. We need to shop.” I shake them off and they go outside, still making worried noises.
“Who are you?” she asks, repeating my own question back to me.
“Tally. From East Ward.” I point back the way we came. “The private hospital.”
“I know it.” She hitches forward another two steps. Now I can see the lumpy, misshapen cast on her leg. No doctor put that there. “I’m—I was a nurse.”
I can’t help but laugh. We could’ve used a nurse months ago. “And now?”
“Now I’m just a person looking for other people.” Her eyes stay wary. “The right sort of people.”
“Meaning sane people?”
“Meaning people who aren’t out to hurt me.” She nods down at her leg. “I got this when I was hiding in the supermarket. I fell and landed with enough junk on me that I could play possum until they were gone.”
I can well imagine the sort of people she means, the sort of people who would like to hurt other people, the sort of people who have much better chances of doing so now that laws don’t exist and the prisons are all broken. “Did you set that yourself?”
“Nobody else out here to do it for me.”
The Count comes back inside carrying my saddlebags and goes back out for theirs, still muttering to themselves. Nurse cocks her head and watches as they go. “Interesting,” she says. “Do you know what—”
“We don’t keep charts, Nurse,” I cut her off. “We don’t use the DSM. We have a handful of notes about allergies and prior medications, and that’s it. And if you think we can afford to be picky about that shit, then you can stay right here.”
I was right before about her being scared, because her eyes go wide when I say that, and she says, “No. Of course. Allergies. I see. What do you need?”
The Count comes in with the Barbie backpack in one hand and my shopping list in the other, and I read out the list. Nurse has a torch of her own and she holds it and directs me around the sparsely stocked cabinets. One of the things I find is yellow boxes of generic diazepam. Chess might be able to sleep nightmare-free for a while with those, if I can make them last.
“We can’t just call you Nurse,” I say when she comes out with another handful of boxes.
“Call me Florence,” she says without missing a beat.
“Arrogant!” the Count says, zipping the Barbie backpack shut and opening the Pokémon lunchbox on the waiting room floor.
