The Apocalypse Blog Book 2: Rising

By Melanie Edmonds

"The world is broken. It's broken and it wants to kill us. All of us. I think it might succeed."

The bomb went off nearly four months ago and things are only getting harder for the survivors. Acid rain falls every day, dissolving anything - and anyone - caught in it. Sickness is just starting to creep across the landscape. The dead are stirring. Other groups of survivors battle for food and supremacy.

Faith and her group of Seekers have tried not to fall into the trap of dog-eat-dog. They're trying to hold on to what makes them human, but that might get them killed. How many compromises will they have to make to survive?

This is Faith's story, blogged to a laptop in the hopes that someday, someone will know what really happened when the world ended.

Contains violence, occasional swearing and adult themes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melanie Edmonds
• Release date: Mar 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466108790

Melanie Edmonds

Melanie Edmonds is a technical writer by trade and fiction writer by love. She has a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing, and has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pen. She writes primarily science and speculative fiction, and her published work includes web serials such as the Apocalypse Blog and Starwalker.

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A real page-turner... Post-apocalyptic stories usually focus on the horror and trauma, but [this one] also offers a look at how a person can reinvent themselves and their lives. It's a fascinating read.

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I consider myself a connoisseur of post-apocalyptic literature and [this] work is some of the best I have ever read. [It] captures the despair and anguish of a post-apocalyptic world in a way few authors can.

-Tony

Zombies, post-nuclear urban wastelands, ragtag bunches of survivors trying their hands at survivalism... [this] story is pretty damned awesome in all three respects.

-Typhoid

The Apocalypse Blog

Book 2: Rising

By Melanie Edmonds

Copyright 2012 Melanie Edmonds

Original cover by MoeJoe, adapted by Beth Harvey

Smashwords Edition

Discover the rest of the Apocalypse Blog saga at Smashwords:

Book 0: Before the End

Book 1: End of the Old

Book 3: Into the After

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Thank you for downloading this ebook. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to another person. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Sickness

Bed-bound

Like flies

Boats and drunken sailors

Pirates are we

Preservation

What's best

Grace

Distant voices

Stay

Scooting

Crossroads

Wake

What's been said

Cracks

Shouting

Scapegoat

Sax

Cheers

The right direction

Consequences

Home sweet home

Strange goodbyes

Talking in circles

Banging on our door

White rabbits

Down the rabbit hole

Shaken

Dead man walking

Part 2: ZOMBIES!

The 'z' word

Guest post: Paige (by Gillian Fraser)

Storm clouds gathering

Shamblers

Missing

The back room

Gun

Toll

The wait

Sacrifice

Patches

Tearing down decorations

Someone to save

Fever fighting

Need for real

That wet crunch

Scavenging

Tapping in the dark

Platitudes

Exposure

The sweaty weasel

Bereft

Keep swinging

Wolverines

Part 3: Compromises

Rearguard

Lemonade

The pretence

MacIntyre's Car Yard

Luck be a lady

Drawn straws

Glass walls

Bravado

Turtle talk

The prey's claws

Iced

Concealed weapon

The Seeker way

Inertia

Talk back

Aspirations

Payback

Pain

Bitter vindication

Marshmallows in the dark

Confrontation

A different celebration

Births

The Seekers' mouth

For all of us

Extravaganza's leftovers

Rat run

Idealism

Begging

Part 4: Familiar Faces

The Pride's fall

Stray Seeker

Convoy rolling

Circle the wagons

Mercy

Standing up

The water truck

Mine

Guest post: Gotta have Faith (by Rissa Watkins)

Rising words

Flotsam

Missing heads

Frozen in place

Light in the darkness

Waterfall

Part 5: Truth

Trust

Defence

Rising tide

Changes wrought

Filtered water

Poison

Savaged

Snow

Three little words

Words on the waves

Gutted

Hunger

Once was blind

Doctor's orders

No-one else matters

A normal day

Girl talk

Look to the road

Fresh meat

Dizzy

Unmasking

Unloading

Part 6: Redefinition

Killer

Hand on my head

Goodbyes

A different voice

Slow-bump

One foot forward

Tumbledown

Touching sky

Coordination

Horizons

Our own saviours

Slippery

Landslide

Dillon

Attrition

Soap

Hungry magpies

To fight for

Flavour

Erosion

Bar's closed

Previously, in the Apocalypse Blog:

On Christmas Eve, Faith was in the Central Business District of the city when a bomb went off overhead and changed everything. She found herself with a group of fire-fighters and other survivors, struggling to get to safety while the city fell down around them.

The bomb had scorched the sky, creating a layer of orange cloud that settled over the city like a death shroud. A week after the explosion, those orange clouds let loose rain laced with acid that ate through anything organic in its path: plants; pets; people.

Since then, the rain has come every day, chasing the survivors into shelter where they huddle for the night and wait for the acid water to stop falling. Faith and her group of Seekers hurry across the city's ruins in the dry hours, using vehicles if they can, going from one spot to the next on their map, always searching for the next sign of hope, lost family, or the help that never came.

Other groups plague the wasteland and mark their territories with graffiti. The worst of these is The Pride: the biggest and most vicious gang to have risen from the city's ashes.

Lately, the Seekers have been trapped in a mall by a storm. The mall is inhabited by a gang of children calling themselves the Rats. The Rats haven't welcomed the intrusion at all. But just as the storm seems to be abating, another threat rears its head at them: an unknown sickness.

This is Faith's story, blogged every day on the laptop she was carrying when the bomb went off in the hope that someday, somewhere, someone will read it and know what happened when the world came down.

Part 1: Sickness

Bed-bound

7 April - 11:08am

I thought I'd cut myself yesterday, but I hadn't: my fingernails were bleeding. Just bleeding, little red rims around the nail beds. It was the strangest thing; it didn't even hurt. I was leaking, like I was broken in some deep and fundamental way. It scared me all the way through and I freaked out, though I'm not sure what I actually did. I didn't even realise I'd made a noise until a couple of the others came running over. All I remember is seeing the blood and knowing how wrong it was. I couldn't get enough air, couldn't catch my breath; I stared, unable to make any kind of sense of it.

It wasn't until Sally covered my hands with a towel that I managed to calm down. Then I fainted.

I've never fainted before. Ever. I've never felt my head swim and then plunge into darkness like that. For an awful moment, I thought I was suffocating, or tumbling off the edge of a cliff with nothing to catch me. Then I woke up in the middle of being lifted onto a bed in the furniture store, still in the mall. Embarrassment was the first thing that flooded through me, followed by the sneaking footprints of fear. I've never lost control of myself like that before. Never been weak in that way. I don't even know how long I was out.

My fingertips are all bound up now: I look like I tried to pick up a porcupine. I'm afraid to look under the wrappings in case I'm still leaking.

The rest of the group has been really good about it. I'm not allowed to get up until we figure out what's going on, and Ben and Matt keep bringing me things. Food, water, sometimes a conversation, though the latter not so much from Ben. He looks scared, though it's hard to tell with him. I haven't told him how shaky I get when I try to stand up. I feel like all the strength has been drained out of me. Is that what this is? Is all of my strength dripping out of my fingertips, running away from me like water?

Getting harder to concentrate; I can't post much. It's a struggle to focus on the screen.

Sax's cough is worse, and I think he's laid up now as well. Could have sworn I heard someone else coughing too.

Need to rest. Post more later.

* * * *

Like Flies

8 April - 3:10pm

Whatever this sickness is, it's affecting more of us every day.

Now that we've stopped and thought about it, we suspect that it hit us some time ago, but we've all been ignoring it in favour of pushing on. The little shaky moments, blemishes on the skin, a random nosebleed: all easily discarded and worked through. But now these little things are piling up; now, it's too much to ignore.

There are six of us laid up now. Six. A part of me feels guilty, as if by being the first to fall I somehow brought this on us. I don't know if that's true. I hope it's not. But what if it is? What if I'm the one who picked this up and brought it home to this strange little family of mine?

What if I've done something irreparable to us all?

Right now, Ben is lying on one side of me; Dillon on the other. They're both asleep and I keep glancing at them to make sure they're still breathing. I don't even know if that's in danger but I can't help it.

Ben came to sleep next to me looking stressed and close-lipped last night. I asked him if he was all right and he shook his head, but he wouldn't talk about it. This morning, he woke up, rolled over, and spat out blood; his gums were bleeding. I haven't seen him so pale before. I told him that he mustn't get up, all-but begged him to stay and rest. He didn't argue with me, so he must be feeling as bad as he looks.

A little while later, Dillon snuck up to my side and touched my arm. Tears had been roughly rubbed off his cheeks and he said he didn't feel good. He had blotches on his legs and stomach, and he said his nose had been bleeding too. So I moved over and he climbed onto the bed with us. When I felt him trembling, I put an arm around him and he snuggled into my side like a little kid. He's trying so hard not to be scared, as we all are. I don't have any answers for him, any hope to offer, but at least the cuddle made us both feel a bit better.

Sometime after I fainted, Sally and Thorpe also fell sick. Sax was already immovable on the couch he had claimed for a bed. All of us are blotchy and weak, and all of us leak blood from time to time, though Sax is the only one coughing so far.

I keep trying not to think about Ben's bleeding mouth but my gums feel strange to me now. A nightmare is trying to step out of my head and into my mouth: when I'm stressed about something, my dream-self always loses teeth, helpless to stop it as they loosen and fall out.

Masterson is keeping his thoughts to himself. He looked at all of us, with fewer and fewer comments as he went around the group. I think he lingered the longest over Sally, even though she was the last one to go down. He hasn't said anything encouraging, not even to the kids, but at least he has stopped sniping at everyone.

He disappeared for a while earlier and returned with an armful of thick books. He doesn't know what this is, but he's looking for us. He's trying.

Ben and I managed to snag Alice and ask her about her group's sickness, but she says that it was nothing like this; it was more like 'flu. She seems coiled, like she's freaking out within the confines of her own skull. Fear skittered over her face when I asked her if this was what she had seen, as if we were going to accuse her of bringing it here. Which is reasonable, I suppose, but luckily unnecessary.

Poor Matt has been run off his feet. He has taken it on himself to look after everyone, distributing food and water and to hell with the rationing. He's frazzled and I think he'd like the chance to talk, but I'm braced by a boy on either side right now. He came and sat with us a little while ago; we talked about nothing over Dillon dozing on my shoulder. I tried to tell him that we'd be okay, but it's hard to be convincing when I feel like something is drawing the strength out of me, rubbing me thinner and thinner.

The atmosphere in here is heavy and silent. Everyone is speaking in undertones, afraid to ruffle the air in case it turns on us, too. I wish Sax was able to sing; his warm voice would be good for all of us, but it has been torn to shreds by his cough. I feel so useless just lying here.

Sometimes, it feels like I can hear our hope dying, and I remember what my dad told me when I had the 'flu once: There are two kinds of people, Faithy. Those who accept that they're sick and those who fight it until they're well again. It's not just about medicine; letting it win on the inside lets it take the rest of you, too.

Our insides are losing. I don't know what to do. Focussing on the others usually helps distract me from my own feelings, but the bleakness is inescapable.

Maybe I can get us singing. I wonder if we're still strong enough for that.

* * * *

Boats and drunken sailors

9 April - 11:49am

It was strange, listening to the others sing last night. I got us going on a round of Row Your Boat (that was about as creative and complicated as I could manage). We were wheezy and thin, but our voices were there, pushing the silence away from us. Little things matter more than you think.

It was the rendition of What Do We Do With A Drunken Sailor that got everyone laughing. Matt started it, and when he saw us smiling, he hammed it up until we were all grins and giggles. He even got a glimmer out of Nugget and made her dance about with him. It made me tired just watching him, but I'd watch him in my sleep if I could, waving those sequinned pillowcases and turning a curtain into a cape. It made us forget for a while, and we all needed that.

It was quieter than usual when we woke up today. We had to send Alice out to check before we knew what it was: the rain had stopped. At last, the storm has blown itself away and the rain has stopped. That seems like a good sign.

Nugget had a nosebleed this morning. Masterson found splotches on her legs and has confined her to bed. She went quietly, hugging in next to Sally. I suspect her grip is tighter than her solemn face shows.

Coughs are tickling at Ben. He's trying to hide it - or suppress it so that Dillon and I aren't disturbed by it - but I know they're there. He holds my hand a lot at the moment, gently because my fingers are taped but tightly when he's not paying attention. I lean on him to let him know I'm here.

The Rats have poked their noses in here a few times since I fainted and we started becoming bed-bound. They didn't come closer than the doorway, and when they realised what was happening, they threatened us, in case we pass this sickness on to them. I don't blame them; I'd be scared too, in their position.

I'm scared enough in my own position. I'm so tired of thinking of everyone else. Is it someone else's turn yet? I think I need to sleep for a week.

Masterson's getting all excited. I should go find out what's going on but I can't get up. Hopefully Matt will come and tell us what it is.

* * * *

Pirates are we

10 April - 11:25am

Scurvy. We have scurvy.

I can't believe it. It's so simple but so debilitating. It isn't something I've ever had to worry about before; all I know about it is that it happens when you don't eat enough oranges and sailors used to get it.

It's the sailors that tipped Masterson off. Or, more precisely, us singing about them. It bothered him half the night, he said, and it came to him suddenly yesterday morning while I was writing the post. That's why he was running around like a little kid. He sent Matt and Alice off to the chemist to get vitamin pills and then bounced around the room to tell us the good news.

I haven't seen Masterson so animated since we left the hospital. He smiled at us: real smiles, not the sardonic lip-stretches that he usually tosses in our direction, or the drug-fuzzed approximations he wore when there were still drugs to take. He'd found the answer to the riddle and the cure to what ails us is right here, in this building. He can make us better.

This is why he became a doctor, he said. This purpose, this feeling. He had forgotten what it was like. And I think that some of us had forgotten why he was with us at all, even me, though times like this was the reason I had been so determined to let him stay. This is why we all put up with his unpleasantness and drag his sorry ass around after us even when spite rolls off his tongue.

He's a doctor; he heals people. That is so precious, now more than ever. One of the few things I know about scurvy is that it killed a lot of sailors before they figured it out. It didn't get that far for us, but it was getting close.

Yesterday, Dr Masterson saved our lives.

We'll be perfectly fine, he says. We just need to crunch down these pills and it'll all come right again. I can't express how much lighter I felt when he said that. I'd have kissed Ben if my mouth had felt better (my gums still feel weird, but I'm trying not to think about that). There were hugs, though, lots of hugs and tired laughter, for everyone.

Today, Matt and Alice have gone outside to see if they can find us some supplies. The Rats have been reassured. Things are looking up. I'd dance if I could - and I plan to once we're all better.

I'm a feather with its down smooshed right now. I just need some time to fluff up again.

* * * *

Preservation

11 April - 8:14pm

Everyone is feeling better today. An archaic issue might have come back to bite us, but we're still here and we're okay. Our bodies reminded us that they have needs and now we're doing what we can to meet them. We're survivors.

The kids bounced back first and brightest, of course. Dillon has been eager to go out with Matt and Alice in search of supplies - he's pushing himself too hard, but Matt promised to keep an eye on him for me. For Nugget, the search for Jones is much more important. No-one has seen the cat in a couple of days and now that she's better, she's determined to rectify that. I've never known such a stern little girl before.

The rest of us have been up and around today. A few of us went to the chemist and looked over things we might need. We had already refilled our first aid supplies, but we turned our attention to the supplements this time. We took enough to last the group for a few months: multivitamins mostly, along with some of the fish and plant oils.

It has been a long time since any of us had fresh food. After the bomb went off, there wasn't much fruit or vegetables to be found in the city. By the time we had left the carcass of the business district behind, the fresh produce abandoned in the stores had started to go off. With no refrigerators or freezers, everything turned to rot and putrid liquid before we could get to it. The rain made sure that there was nothing to pick in the fields, not even an orange on a tree in someone's back yard. Fresh food is receding into fond memory, along with television shows and the ease of the internet.

All we have now is what was preserved without any ongoing mechanical means. Canned, dried, smoked, salted, pickled. Quality and expense mean nothing anymore; we just eat what we can get our hands on, ruled only by the stamp of the expiry date and the smell coiling off those items past the safety zone. I shudder at some of the tastes and textures that have crossed my tongue over the past three months, but better a shudder than the hungry cramp in my middle. It's just another compromise that we make in order to keep living.

It's no surprise that we developed scurvy. We were all thinking about food but none of us were thinking about nutrition. Today, we know better and we won't make that mistake again. There'll be pills for us every morning from now on, making sure that our bodies are fed what they need as well as our stomachs.

Is there anything else that we have been overlooking? Nothing that I can think of. We're all running a little dehydrated, I think, but that's because there's never much water to be had. We'd fix that one if we could.

It's such a relief to be on my feet again that it's difficult to think of anything else. I never realised how precious energy was; now that there is no chronic deficiency sucking the vitality out of me, I feel alive again. I even got a smile and a kiss out of Ben earlier. He's perking up now that the crisis is over.

Our supply scouts managed to find us some unspoiled oats earlier and that has lifted the mood here in the mall. Right now, some of the others are arguing over the best way to make porridge. I'd go over and join in, but I'm too busy enjoying the sound of them bantering over something so unimportant. Thorpe is frownily insistent; Ben is exasperated in his earnestness; Matt keeps making suggestions just to see what happens; Sally is fiddling with a wooden spoon as if she can't decide which one of them to smack first (if only she had the courage); and Masterson is making fun of all of them. The kids are wisely staying well out of it, watching with interest and impatience, while Sax is smiling quietly to himself over on his couch.

We're not healed yet, but we're getting there.

* * * *

What's best

12 April - 4:25pm

Since the cause of our malaise was discovered, the Rats have been regaining their courage around us. They visit us in twos and threes, siphoning themselves off to speak with Dillon and Alice. Some of them talk to me, but for some reason I intimidate them more than the men do. They speak to Thorpe more readily than they do to me and he's the scariest one of us.

Maybe it's something to do with what they've heard about us. I couldn't get much out of them about that, just shrugs and offhand comments about how we weren't mean or cruel, and how we would give people supplies if they needed something. It's not all true - we've never given supplies away, not willingly - but it's better than the tales of murder and violence that are circulating about other groups: the Stripers; the Pride; the Sharks.

Now that the Rats are visiting us more often, we have to be extra careful about our gear. Pieces have been growing legs and sneaking away - with some Rat-like help, of course. I don't know if I've been careful enough with the laptop to prevent them knowing about it, but it's always within my reach now. They might be growing comfortable with us, but that doesn't mean I trust them.

Dillon and Alice seem to be getting on with them better every day. One of the Rats heaved Jones into the store and gave him to a suddenly perky Nugget. I watch our youngsters and I can't help but worry that they're becoming closer to these kids, these peers of theirs. I'm afraid that they'll want to stay here, that they'll leave us.

It's selfish of me to hate that idea. I know that. But that sad, sick feeling gnarls in my stomach when I see them laughing with a couple of Rats. It's a ghost of how I felt when I found out about Bree and Cody, a pale twist of jealousy. Someone I thought was mine wants to be with someone else.

Maybe it would be better for them. Maybe they could have something good with these kids. Maybe they'd be safer here. These thoughts try to move in with the rest of what's chasing around in my head, but right now it's hard to make them mean anything. I don't want them to go; I don't want to leave them behind. And besides, would it really be safer?

More than anything else, I know it's not my choice, and I think I hate that the most. There's always something else that wants to take people away from me, something that I can't do anything about.

We're staying for another day or so, gathering strength and supplies. More time for the kids to make themselves at home here.

I want to do what's best for them. But I'm not sure what that is; I just know what I want it to be.

* * * *

Grace

13 April - 6:32pm

Sax reminded us what yesterday was. I hadn't realised, not even looking at this blog every day and seeing the dates roll by. In truth, I haven't wanted to know just how much time has been passing; it means more days between me and the people I care about, more time for them to be lost in. I panicked a little when Ben asked me if I was afraid of being too late, because of course I am. It's just that panicking about it doesn't get me anywhere. It certainly doesn't make the time any shorter, or make us able to move any faster.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. I'm not a terribly religious person: I don't go to church and I haven't thought about God lately. Not even with all that has happened over the past four months. I've seen people ask why this happened and how it could have happened, their eyes cast to the heavens. I've heard people cursing God in the darkness.

Here and now, we can't know why. We don't even know who let the bomb off or how it burnt the sky, let alone any celestial influences that might have been at play. There has been too much surviving to do for ethereal distractions.

I often thought that my name was ironic, considering my apathy towards religion. At least I didn't completely rebel against it like my sister did with her name, but everyone knows that calling a girl 'Chastity' is asking for trouble. I never went to the lengths that she did to get away from the expectations.

It's not that I don't believe there's a God; it's just that He's not a big part of my life. Yesterday wouldn't normally hold a lot of significance for me. I know what it celebrates (the Christian reason, not just the choolate and chicks), but it's not a holiday that held any meaning for me before. Thinking about it now, I can feel a little catch in my chest. I look at it differently after last night.

Sax is one of those private, strong Christians, the sort of person that you never think of in terms of religion until he suddenly comes out with something beautiful and profound. That's what he did. He sat down with us at dinner and asked if we would mind if he said Grace, out of the blue.

No-one has ever said Grace over our meals before. No objections surfaced, not even from the bowels of Masterson's displeasure, so Sax nodded and began. I know I can't do his speech justice, but I will try to capture a little of the magic he gave us.

Today, two millennia ago, a promise to us was fulfilled.

Even after a terrible thing - the worst that anyone could imagine - had happened, proof that healing was possible showed itself. Life returned to a body that was supposed to be dead. Hope returned to walk among us. Grace was within reach of our eyes and ears again.

Now, so many years later, that example still speaks to us. Life continues where death reigns. Hope drives us forwards. Grace is there for those who are looking for it.

It is this knowledge that keeps us strong in the dark times. It is this story that helps us believe that healing will come. Each of us will find our own form of resurrection and salvation, even if it seems far too late.

None of us is alone, and none of us is truly lost.

Each of us will find our own grace.

As prayers go, it's a strange one, but it touched us. It left a hush in its wake, the words hanging in the air and seeping into all of us. It sank into our heads, greeted our memories, and made itself at home. I wasn't the only one blinking back the urge to cry.

Masterson broke the reverence. He didn't say anything; he just stood up and walked out. The words touched too close to his loss and drove him away.

His departure brought my head up and made me notice my new family again. Sax sat with his eyes closed, adding private words to those he shared with us. For his daughter. Ben was tight-lipped, holding back the storm in his head and the pain in his chest. Thorpe had his head tilted in such a way that his face was unreadable, but I knew that Trevor was on his mind. Alice touched the bandage covering the missing half of her face until she realised that it betrayed her thoughts, and then reached for her plate. Matt was staring at his food, his jaw taut and his arms wrapped around himself. Nugget looked at me for permission and took her plate up when I nodded, as solemn as always. Sally slipped away from the group to go after Masterson, and I realised what her bracelet was as she passed me: the wrap of beads around her wrist had a tiny cross suspended from the end, caught up between her fingers. I didn't realise she was Catholic until then. Dillon gazed around with eyes that didn't know what to think of it all; I think we shared the same expression until we saw each other.

One by one, we picked up our food and ate. No-one said anything. Masterson and Sally came back after a while and joined us. He was a palpably boiling presence but he held his tongue. It wasn't until the plates were cleared that we began to sit back and murmur to one another again.

Our world ended on the day that a certain man was born. Now, we find comfort in the day he came back to life. It makes a graceful sense.

* * * *

Distant voices

14 April - 7:55pm

I had hoped to be back on the road again today. Obstacles keep rising before us, tripping us up and leaving us sprawling here on the mall floor. The Rats are muttering about us making ourselves at home permanently and I can't blame them. The truth is that the mall is the most comfortable place for us to be for now, even when they somehow manage to steal most of the blankets.

Those of us who were afflicted with scurvy are better now - no more bleeding, no more light-headed wobbliness. I feel like I could walk all day carrying a heavy pack again. My legs itch for it; we've been in one place for so long and I can feel the days chipping off me like a thin coat of nail polish. I want to get moving again. I want to get to the next dot on our map, and the one after that.

I want to know if my dad is alive.

But not all of us are well. Sax is still coughing, worse and worse now, hacking up awful rasps from his chest. His hands shake when he thinks I'm not looking, and he's constantly sweating. He waves away concern, but I'm sure he has a fever. He looks pale, faded under his dark skin.

I don't dare get on the road with him like that. I tried to get Masterson to look at him, but Sax keeps sending the doctor away, claiming that he's all right. Everyone knows he's not. He gets so breathless from a bout of coughing that I think he's going to pass out. All we can do is offer him some water, and we've got precious little of that.

Ben suggested that we bundle the sick man up into the back of a car and drive towards the next dot. Matt and Thorpe reported hearing engines on the supply runs over the past couple of days - we don't know whose engines, and we're not sure that we want to find out. Starting up a couple of cars might bring them down on us. Could we get away before they caught up with us? There's no way for us to know. It depends on the state of the roads (usually clogged with abandoned or wrecked vehicles) and what kind of car we can get our hands on.

We spent so long discussing the issue that we ran out of clear skies to escape under and rain sealed us in here. So today slipped away from us like snot down a drainpipe and now we're settling down in an increasingly familiar darkness.

I'm so tired of letting fear dictate our every move. I don't know the last time I felt truly secure and safe, when I didn't wonder if someone would die tomorrow. We've got supplies to last us a little while and those distant engines aren't going to stop us doing what we have to.

Tomorrow, no-one's going to die. It's time for the Seekers to start seeking again.

* * * *

Stay

15 April - 7:44pm

I had almost forgotten about the kids' attachment to the mall's inhabitants. Our youngsters have made friends, swapped names, braided each other's hair. A couple of the girls have been fluttering around Dillon, who liked the attention without a clue about why it was so nice. Alice is more comfortable talking with people her own age, too. Nugget doesn't talk to anyone, but she has let them fuss over her. She's cleaner now than I've ever seen her and her hair is untangled; as it turns out, there's a pretty little girl in there.

It wasn't until we were packing up that I remembered what those attachments might mean. I looked up and saw Dillon talking with the girls, grinning and waggling his fingers expressively, and my heart lurched. He should have been packing with the rest of us but he wasn't preparing to leave. I wasn't prepared for him to stay.

Ben saw my face and asked me what was wrong. So I told him. He looked surprised; it hadn't occurred to him that the kids might want to be somewhere else. A little clump of us adults grew around