As I dried the tears with the cuff of my sleeve, I made a silent promise to myself in that moment. When that time came, when the weight that Nate carried became too much, when I saw him finally buckle under that strain, I would be the one to stand beside him when the demons came knocking at his door. No matter what it cost, no matter how it might break me, I’d do it.
Because that’s what you do for family.
OCTOBER 4th, 2010
DARK PURPOSE
So, yesterday I nearly died of fright.
Obviously, I didn’t, because here I am, writing about my weird moment of stark terror, but I think I’ve ruined one pair of pants for all time. Scared the shit near clean out of my arse.
With the rain having cleared out for more than a day, Nate decided that a run out beyond the gate would do us good. It was just the two of us, old school style, and I was glad of it. There’s a comfortable familiarity when it’s just me and Nate, and as much as Mark and Alicia need time in the field, I was glad that this day was just ours. With it just being the two of us, I didn’t have to worry about putting on a mask for the others, and it was a chance to find our old rhythm again without any distraction. After all, this was the first sortie out of the lodge I’d had since that dark day a couple of weeks back.
Start simple again, we said. We’ll just hit a small out-of-the-way convenience store, quick to clear, with potential for fat loot, and that’s what we did. There’s a little village about three or four miles from where we are, so we decided to go somewhere new. We’re lucky in that there’s so many places like this around us, out in the greenery of this northern county, that have such small stores.
There are two main towns in easy range from our country lodge. One has a population of around ten thousand, and the larger one around twenty thousand. Each town is about three or four miles from where we are in opposite directions, but scattered through the countryside are numerous singular farms, clusters of rural housing, and tiny country villages with populations in the low hundreds, which is why we’re probably able to survive as we are. Shit, I can’t even imagine living somewhere like Manchester or Liverpool, which are both around thirty miles from our location. Even our main county towns of Warrington, and the city of Chester, would be bad enough, as their populations run into six figures. I guess I should count my blessings, if there are any to be found in this end-of-the-world bullshit.
Anyway, heading to one of those nearby villages, this little row of shops is on what passes for a main road through the place, just before a pub on a crossroads that leads to a main road out.
They run in a row of five shops in a single terrace, with single bedroom flats above each of them. There’s a small local butcher, a tiny pharmacy, a hair salon, a coffee shop café, and the afore mentioned convenience store. There are houses all along the road before arriving at the small row of shops as well, most of which were bare of cars in their driveways.
As a quick side note, I always come back to this question; where the fuck did all these people go? What location did they have in mind when they threw shit in their cars and headed for the proverbial hills? I mean, we’re pretty rural anyway as England goes, so what did they think were the better options? The Welsh countryside isn’t a long drive, as Chester is right on the border of North Wales, but the roads to get there would be chaos if they headed on to the motorways. Main highways are just a big fat no. Lots of traffic, plus apocalypse panic, equals bad.
Ha, like I can talk. I went straight for the local bloody high school, and we all know what a genius decision that particular brand of fuckery got me into.
You know, one day, when I feel like it and it’s a slow day, I’ll write about “that” particular day, and the strange, detached experience it was. Escaping from my apartment building, the sights I saw as everything fell apart, and the fraught-with-peril run for the school are things I haven’t talked about. I probably should.
I’ve never actually written about it because my opening to these journals was a hyperactive, maddened stream of words as I tried to make sense of my new reality and survive high school for the second time. I’ve established that particular day was definitely June 23rd after… well… after Nate straight up told me what day it all went to shit. He’s all about the deets, Freya.
Back to my near-death experience.
The convenience store was locked up tight as we pulled into the small layby in front of the shop row, the steel shutter rolled down and sealed by a heavy padlock. Unsurprisingly, the space in front of the shops was devoid of any vehicles. A quick visual scan didn’t reveal any shambling undead in our immediate vicinity, so we slipped out of the pickup and did a sweep of the immediate area to be sure, and we were good to go.
The pharmacy had already been looted quite heavily. We peered in through the glass front to see shelves swept clean at the back where all the prescription medicines were located. We could also see a figure idly shuffling in the rear, and there was zero doubt that the unfortunate woman was anything but dead. Her head lolled to one side at an unnatural angle, the clear sign of a broken neck. There didn’t seem to be any other
