After the Fall: The Engineer and the Apocalypse by Gerry Gainford

Author:Gerry Gainford [Gainford, Gerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: yodacat books
Published: 2024-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

We slipped the boat into the water and made for the shore, rowing as hard as we could.

“We should hide it,” Addy said as I pushed the boat back into the lake.

“No, leave it. It will sink, or they’ll find it. Either way they’re looking for us. We don’t have time to hide it properly. Come on, run a little, it will warm us up.”

We couldn’t run much, but we managed a fast walk south a little where I made an effort to leave a trail, walking through the mud and hoping our footprints would last. After a half mile when the ground got firmer, I pulled Addy to the east and then we circled back north.

“That’s back home,” she hissed and followed it up with a sneeze. “They’re there.”

“I hope they’ve already searched there,” I said. “They’ll probably see our trail and hopefully go off the wrong way. There’s no way we can outrun them. We need to get warm. Is there a place we can hide up here?”

She nodded and led me on.

I recognized the place she led me to; it was the shed Jon had made his booze in. I thought it had been well hidden in the trees, but they’d found it. It had been bad when I’d last been here, what felt like an age, but was only two days. Now it was trashed. The booze was gone, the window broken, everything scattered. But it still had the bed, the dirty blankets, and the stench.

I found an old shirt of Jon’s and got Addy into it and she huddled under the bed in a blanket while I threw her clothes around the room, spreading them out to dry a little and hoping they blended in with the rest of the mess. It was the best I could do. I then took off my coat and got under the blanket with her, dragging my coat up to cover our heads. We were children, hiding from the bogeyman under the bed. I hoped it was enough.

When I woke up, it was still dark. We were warm again. Addy was a furnace pressed against me. I put a hand on her forehead and thought she might have a fever. I wasn’t sure. How did that actually work? If I was cold, wouldn’t anyone feel hot?

I felt a little better after sleep and warmth, so I got up carefully, exchanged my coat for pulling a box over to that side of the bed, and left. I skirted the town. There was nothing left. Everything had been burned to ashes. I saw shapes that I couldn’t look at spread on the ground, some burned, an arm, a leg, a face. Too many. Very few had made it out.

I forced myself to go on, to see if a basement was still accessible. Choking on my breath, trying not to gag, I found the doors had all been opened. Every place I thought to search had been found and destroyed. There was nothing left.

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