With a sigh, I push up from my little nook by the shelves and wander down the closest aisle, if only to escape Lee’s leery gaze. He’s got women on his mind all the time. But no one in this group is stupid enough to find sex with him, the pig. Hell, I bet he’d even take Maureen if she was up for it. She’s not.
I follow the darkness down the aisle, letting it get thicker and bleaker all around me, like a blanket of night. I don’t have a torch to light the way, so I feel my way down between the shelves. Glossy covers of magazines glaze over my fingertips for a beat. Then, the smooth surfaces are replaced by the wrinkle of packaging—chocolate bars, crisps, sweets.
I grab some at random and stuff them in my cardigan pocket. It’s deep enough to carry quite a few. I take some more against my better judgement. Junk food isn’t all that great to carry with you these days. The sugar highs help for a small while, but then come the crashes. Surviving on just sugar—chocolates, sweets, juices—is a certain way to crash your energy before you’ve made half the trek to the next village.
Canned food is the way to go, and fresh water when you can get it.
I find some bottles of spring water down the end of the aisle, tucked at the back of the bottom shelf. It takes some digging around to reach them. Most of them have been looted already, leaving me with three bottles and two empty ones. I leave the empty ones behind and scoop the rest in my arm.
My voyage around the grocery store brings up more than I expected. Some tins find their way into my pockets—though it’s too dark to see the labels—and I’ve managed to scrape up some power bars (their texture is a dead giveaway when you’ve been chasing and eating them for a year). I grab a glass jar of something before I head back to my nook.
There, I get a better look at what I gathered. I make a face at the glass jar, then set it aside. Marmite. Not my thing. No wonder it was left behind in the countless raids this grocery store has faced. The tins aren’t much better. Corn in one, and the other is straight-up dog food. I stuff the corn into my bag, along with the sugary treats and water bottles, then zip it closed.
Didn’t find any batteries. Might get lucky when we start scavenging through the village tomorrow, though. Those raids usually come up with something good here and there, because of the evacuations.
Before the dark fae came to finish us off, major evacs swept through Europe. There was nothing to stay for in the villages dotted around the countryside. So they were all moved to the towns and cities. That was, before the wars and plagues that swept the world. At least, with the fall of technology, none of the bomber planes would work. It was neighbour-country against neighbour-country. Pure old fashioned bloodbaths on a battlefield.
I was lucky enough to avoid them altogether.
I tuck my bag away before I unroll my sleeping bag. It’s cold and sweaty inside of it. What I wouldn’t do for a warm fire to cosy up to. Feel the light and heat on my face.
I rest easier knowing that Lee has nodded off. Must have fallen asleep sometime while I was scouring the shelves in the dark. Won’t be awake to glare and leer through the darkness.
I don’t find much sleep myself. But I never slept very well in the dark. And as the last of the lanterns is turned off, the dark is as thick and black as it is outside.
Sleep is hard to come by.
2
Sometimes I’m foolish enough to think—even for just a moment—that when I wake, the darkness will have all been just a dream, that the sun will rise and I will see clouds for the first time in over a year.
The darkness never leaves. It makes waking up all the harder, knowing that there’s no time anymore. There is no morning, midday, afternoon, or even night. Time is gone, like the world I once knew.
Still, when I wake on the cold linoleum floor, I know it’s not time to wake up and move on. Everyone is asleep, unmoving in their sleeping bags. No one stirs.
Carefully, I peel off my sleeping bag. Don’t want to wake anyone. Legs free, I roll into a crouch and slowly rise. All the lanterns are out, but one. Someone must have gotten up before me and left it on.
We’re not supposed to take each other’s stuff, even borrow things from each other, but I need the lantern. Without a torch, I have no way of seeing, and I’m bursting to find a toilet somewhere in this dank shop.
The lantern’s glow is faint, but it’s enough to cast light over the bags strewn about the floor. I’m careful to side-step the mess, tread softly, and make my way over to the lantern. As I close in, I glance at the face of the one who sleeps beside it. Adam, a young guy maybe still in his teens, who looks even younger asleep. He won’t mind if
