Waiting

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. A sliver of the world – scant hours of hazy half-light, then the suffocation of night, every night bringing the idea of darkness for eternity. When the shaky sun crawled over the broken horizon again, it was always a relief.

Amelia scratched her nails against the chipped plaster of the wall. This had once been a school building, and the walls had once been vibrant with paint-coloured handprints of children. He’d tried to cover those over. When she scratched her nails, flakes of snowy plaster crinkled away. The handprints were there, if she squinted. Relics. She’d heard there was graffiti in Pompeii – maybe it was like this.

Her eyes flicked from the cracking plaster to the fangs of glass in the window. He’d tried to cover it over, but they were on the third floor, looking down on a slice of street beyond the fence. No one would see her at his window.

His room. She crawled in here when he was out. The other rooms were too cold. The air became like film closing over her pores, making her lips crack.

When she sat at the window, picking at the plaster to keep her fingertips from going blotchy and numb, her thoughts slipped to despair. How long had it been? What if he didn’t come back this time? What if he got sick too?

It would be the end. Amelia supposed it should’ve been the end long ago. This was the drawn-out epilogue of the human race: two stubborn idiots hiding from the reaper in a dilapidated school.

The tangy taste coated her tongue, and she hacked up dark red, mustering enough energy to spit out the window. As the sun dragged itself higher, the street beyond the school emerged again. Motes of toxic dust glittered in suspension. Outside, breathing became more like drowning in sand. He forbade her from leaving the school, ever since she got sick.

One of her nails tore free at the root. Amelia didn’t notice at first, until a warm tear of blood ran down the crook of her finger. She stared at the red, entranced. Such colour.

Outside, everything was dusted in beige snow. Even the sunrise was yellowed and pale.

Amelia tried to remember how it had happened. There’d been little warning. In the night, the sky screamed, the ground roared. She sat up in her bed, as the world lurched to one side. A nightmare, she thought. Then people cried out. She ran, and he scooped her into his thick arms. They fled from their apartment building, stumbling blind over tumbled bricks, dislodged furniture, the dead and dying.

So long ago. Everything before had faded into the muted shades of old photos.

Amelia tucked her hands under her layers of fleeces and ragged coats. She tried to think how long he’d been gone this time. Maybe this time he’d find some real food. No, of course not – that’d run out.

Grainy shadows slunk across the street. Amelia leant over the teeth of the window. She’d never tell him, but she’d contemplated slamming her neck down on these teeth many times when he’d left her alone. A lungful of tainted air brought the taste of blood back at her throat.

People. He’d found others? Her insides writhed. She didn’t even think her tongue would obey her around strangers now. It’d been so long with just him and her, and their fractured shards of conversation.

She heard them. Croaking voices. None of them him. No – too long breathing the toxic dust. She drew away from the window, her heart rapping at her ribs. She stifled her breathing. She focused so much on herself she couldn’t discern their words.

From where she sat, she could see three figures ambling along beside the tattered wire fence of the school boundaries. All three huddled under heavy hoods, thick coats, gloves, hats. No skin to see. They might as well not even be human. And Amelia could see the trunk of a mask sticking out from the hood of the middle figure.

The one closest to the fence ran a gloved finger through the wire loops. The three spoke in the choked rasps of the dying, but they laughed, and the sound made Amelia shrink further from the window. It’d been so long since she’d heard laughter. It could be these were three of the children who’d left handprints on the walls before.

The one with the mask stopped. He tilted his head towards the school. Amelia could now see bandoliers across his chest, a length of sheared metal at his waist in a makeshift holster. The bug-like eyes of his mask were impenetrable.

Amelia knew he saw her. He looked very deliberately up the side of the school, up to the third floor, where his gaze rested on the window. She had no energy to flee. Her legs were immovable, inflexible rods under her blankets and coats. She stared back, her face exposed and naked.

The masked man rubbed a thumb over the blunt end of his metal weapon. His two companions traipsed ahead, muttering to each other. Amelia couldn’t swallow. Her heart was straining into her throat. Dim memories of those first few days recurred – the shrieks heard in the nights, rumbling blasts, the frantic hunt for places to hide from whoever else was left. It hadn’t taken long for the world to go silent.

She could scream. She could try. She wasn’t sure her voice would work.

Her stare stayed locked with the mask’s. Then, the man turned, and walked off after his companions. A rattly breath escaped Amelia. She ached to sleep, but her stomach wouldn’t unwind. It wouldn’t until he returned.

It wouldn’t be long now. Her breath came up from her lungs tasting thick and metallic. She tried to close her eyes, will away the pain radiating from inside her, but it became hotter. She toppled over. Her knees thumped against the floor, cushioned by layers of heavy fleece.

As she lay there, gasping, unable to peel the side of her face away from the floor, she longed to drag herself to the window for one last look. Perhaps this time she’d see the world as it had been before. Perhaps she’d see him coming back.