Chapter One
Sweat dampens my fingers and makes twisting the wires difficult work. I have to hurry. The sky grows lighter, leaving only minutes before sunrise. Gareth paces at the entry of this gutted general store. He doesn’t speak, but his movements are as distracting as if he’s shouting in my ear. If I don’t finish soon, he will shout. For the moment, he does what he always does when he’s anxious; swings both his machetes so violently they whistle in the humid air.
As I twist the last two wires together, Gareth stops his violent display and I hear the pull of his zipper. I keep my back to him, which is ridiculous, but I can’t help myself. We must wait until the very last moment to leave our scent or the heat will evaporate it before it’s useful.
“Britta, I don’t have enough,” Gareth says.
I glance over my shoulder at the small puddle between his feet. The pinkish-gray sky looms behind him. I’ll have to add my own urine to lure as many Dwellers as possible. We’ve sweated too much tonight so even with my contribution, it may not be enough. Finishing the last fuse, I set the timer for thirteen minutes. As Gareth zips his pants, I unzip mine and leave a puddle slightly larger than his. It’ll have to be enough. I barely have time to grab my rucksack before Gareth pulls me outside.
Burrow holes gape like yawning mouths in the cracked earth for as far as I can see. Six months ago there were half as many. We skillfully navigate the pocked landscape, but I’ve taken too long with the fuses and the first stirrings of the Dwellers are heard around us. Their raspy breathing grows rapidly as they rouse in the holes, awakened by the rising sun. But Gareth has his machetes, I am quick, and we are close to safety.
We run hard and fast. I lead the way up to the fenced-in garage, and shove my rucksack through the small opening. When I yank the fence wider for Gareth’s bulkier frame, I see he’s not behind me. Fifty feet away he battles two Dwellers as the sun peeks over the horizon.
“No!” As deadly as Dwellers are, the sun is worse. I scramble back through the fence. Before I can take three steps, Gareth severs the head of the first Dweller, his machete slicing through the dense skin with ease. With a high arcing swing, he decapitates the second.
“Go!” he shouts at me. I turn quickly and crawl back through the gap.
This time, he’s right behind me, shoving me roughly with his duffle. We secure the fence, hooking a few links over a cluster of rusted nails. And then we climb. Wrecked cars and rubble make for a barricade against the Dwellers as well as a makeshift ladder. Avoiding the laser beams of sunlight shooting through the cracks in the foundation becomes a skill in itself. The sun heats the metal, bubbles the paint, and will blister our skin within minutes if we are careless. This place probably isn’t structurally sound, but it’s the best we can do. Fortunately, the tenth level of the garage is stable.
Gareth boosts me up onto the concrete platform. The rucksack and duffle fly over next, and then he pulls himself over. The thirteen minutes set on the fuse go by quickly, and the explosion shakes the garage, sending clouds of dust onto our heads. Gareth glares at me. I’ve used too much explosive for a building so close to where we stay, but he’ll feel differently when we count up the bodies. I might’ve killed as many as fifty. Explosions are my contribution. It’s the one thing Dad left me. The one thing I’m good at.
Gareth heads straight for the ramp he’s trying to construct out of car parts. Ever since I managed to spark the wires in one of the cars, he’s been on a mission. But it does no good to have a working car ten stories above the ground. So he beats and pounds metal together with the hopes that we’ll be able to drive out of here one day. I strap my rucksack to my back, take Gareth’s duffle, and make my way to the metal door with the faded number ten painted in the center.
“Here, take this too.” He tosses one of his machetes at my feet. It clangs loudly against the concrete.
“Don’t you think I have enough to carry?”
“Obviously not.”
He continues to the other side of the garage where the sun doesn’t reach and his pile of metal waits. Gareth is twenty, only three years older than me, but at times he stands in for every man who used to be in my life—father, brother, and occasionally, something all together different.
I manage not to topple onto my head with the weight of the duffle and rucksack as I bend to pick up the machete. Then I begin the climb in the dark stairwell to the fiftieth floor. The abandoned apartment building adjoining the garage has seventy floors, but anything above the sixty-fifth is too hot. It seems we’re losing a floor to the sweltering heat every few months and eventually this place will be uninhabitable. Just the thought of that terrifies me.
By the time I reach level twenty-five, my thigh muscles burn from the night’s searches and squatting to rig the bomb. I drop Gareth’s duffle and leave it on the twenty-fifth floor. He’ll be pissed, but I hardly care. I know he wants to keep me strong. My petite build automatically makes me physically weaker, but I also know he’s lazy sometimes.
I can barely see two steps in front of me, so I travel hesitantly. Darkness doesn’t really scare me. I’ve never lived in the sun. However, my vision isn’t as crisp as it used to be, and with each passing month it gets worse. But there’s something about this stairwell that makes the tiny hairs on my body stand on end. Logically, I know Dwellers can’t climb this high or function in darkness, but I’m more comfortable when Gareth is with me. He makes me feel safe, and as much as I hate my dependence on him, I’m realistic about it.
When I reach the fiftieth floor, I’m out of breath. Sweat drenches my clothes, and I smell like an animal, or what I remember animals smelling like. I haven’t seen one in nearly two years.
I take a moment before I open the stairwell door. If the darkness in here freaks me out, it’s nothing compared to the impossible blackness in the hallway. Gareth would go first if he was here. Perhaps I’ve become too accustomed to following him. The realization makes me feel foolish. It’s not the darkness that gives me pause. It’s the vast aloneness. Too quiet, too empty.
These feelings plague me constantly now. When I walk these stairs alone, walk the hallway, it’s too easy for me to imagine that I am truly alone, that Gareth is gone and I am the last person on earth.
I have to take a few deep breaths before I can move. From inside my rucksack I withdraw a headlamp and fasten it to my forehead. I don’t need it to find my way to our apartment, I know it blind. This artificial light takes away the loneliness, walks with me like a friend, if only for a moment.
Inside, I drop everything and lean against the door. The apartment is spacious, but we’ve filled every closet, every corner, and every available space with supplies, food and things we’ve scavenged. We have a sofa, a kitchen table with four chairs, and two beds in separate rooms. There’s an end-table with a lamp, but since we have no electricity, the lamp serves no purpose. I wish light could flood the tiny apartment, make my heart slow.
If Gareth isn’t up here by the time I’ve showered and eaten, I’ll go back down. The fear of being left alone makes me hover. I hate it, but I can’t do anything about. Even though I’d rather not, I click off the headlamp. We have to conserve the batteries. Several long minutes pass before my eyes adjust. It’s dark inside the apartment, but not as dark as the hall and stairway. We block out the sun as best as we can, but slivers peek through from the corners of the patio doors.
The thick air is nearly unbearable, but I don’t dare open a window. Gareth and I can live with this heat. We live with much worse. We were able to cover the small window completely. Three layers of metal to reflect the heat, a layer of wood to cool, and finally, two layers of black fabric keeps the sun from killing us in our sleep. Gareth found a telescope in the penthouse apartment, before the heat made it too unbearable to go up there. He cut a hole in the patio barrier wide enough for the lens. It serves as our looking glass. Instead of peeping out at the general store to see how many Dwellers I’ve killed with my latest bomb, I undress and head for the bath.
The candle sitting on the sink is little more than a glob of wax, but I light it anyway, and then run water in the tub. We’ve been lucky to have running water—cold only—so we are careful not to waste it. The cool bath feels wonderful. I sink in the shallow water and wet my hair. The cool liquid on my scalp feel like fingers from heaven. Without sitting up, I reach behind me for the bottle of shampoo. Having access to nearly one hundred abandoned apartments gives us an ample stockpile. We conserve and it’s the one thing that Gareth and I completely agree upon. I estimate we have another year’s worth of food and then I don’t know what will happen.
