The morning sun felt tepid on their faces. She looked up to if there was hovering in the sky. The sky was blue and clear. She could hear no drones of EyeHawks. The mummer stood silent in a park. Crowding the edge of the small sanctum of green were grey buildings. They cast a shadow that would move with an ache with the sun.
Perhaps we should stay here, she said.
Why?
Until people come.
But I am hungry.
Yes.
You wait here, then, with her.
On my own?
Yes.
I don't want to.
Why not?
I'm scared.
She looked at him. He seemed so small. There is nothing to be scared of. But I won't leave you.
His big eyes brightened. She picked up the little one and placed her in the backpack and tried to pick her up. Her back ached and the child seemed heavier and her stomach emptier. The lad picked up the bag and slung it over his shoulders.
Come on, she said, we'd better be quick.
They walked across the park to the gates that would have been better suited to a crematorium. They walked out of the park and across the road. She told him to stay close to the walls and the shadows, that if the EyeHawks come they might be better hidden. The child on her back was cutting in with the straps. She thought about the house in the country and wondered whether she could walk all that way.
They walked through the blocks of grey concrete. It was early morning and quiet and the apartment blocks with solid composite slabs divided them further from the everyday, making them strangers to the world and the normalities of living. They were shut out from the doors that were locked and the curtains that were drawn. The families that were asleep, the snores, the groans, the grinds, the screams, the dreams. Are we like other people she had once asked her mother? No one person is the same she had said. We are all different. As she kept to the shadows she felt that she was more different than she had been at any time.
They walked in silence over grey pavements, cracked pavements, potholes, dry holes, finding hide holes when an EyeHawk hovered. They heard engines starting up but didn't look up to see who or what. The grey mass waking up, the radios tuning in, small screens, large screens breaking into news and play and propaganda. Cafes smelling of fresh bacon, bagels, bread and breakfast. He wanted to stop at windows to look in but she made him move on.
We have no money.
Why not.
Because she hadn't thought about it in the panic.
There was a big store across the way. As they approached it she told them to walk on. He didn't want to but she made him walk by. Walk to the end and turn right, walk a block and they came upon an alley. She made him walk to the end and down some steps into the doorway of an empty building. The doorway smelled of urine and shit. The door was stuck but she forced it open. She poked her head in. The ceiling was on the floor of the hallway, the paint peeling from the walls. His feet became stuck to the ground but she pushed him on. The little one was quiet. She had been for all the time that they had been awake.
Their breath became cold. The cold found the ice of fear inside them. They crossed the hallway towards the stairs and looked up. The view was deep in decay.
Come on.
I don't want to.
We have to hide here.
Why?
She had no answer but began to walk up the stairs. They climbed to the third floor and she knew that she could make him go no higher.
There was no door to the corridor and when they looked in the smell was satiating. They edged slowly forward, their ears wide open. There were three doorways and one door. She gently pushed on the door. It opened onto a dead apartment. Long dead. The walls were black from mould. She told him to wait there, took the child off her back and crept in.
It was a narrow hall way. There was smashed porcelain on the floor. There was a room to the left that was small and cupboard like. Ahead of that was a larger space with the frame of a sofa, springs wound up in its last throws. There was newspaper all over the floor, torn and contemptible. A table was up side down in the corner. She walked back out to the apartment's corridor that then turned to the right. The first door contained a kitchen. The cooker had been ripped from the wall and the sink was an inch deep in violent hair. There was a hole in the floor crested with the defecation of rodents. The next door was the bathroom. The toilet was now a hole in the floor and the bath was ghosted with all who had bathed there.
There was a final door at the end of the corridor. It was shut. As she approached it she felt her heart scream don't go any further. Behind the door she sensed that the room was occupied by a fiend. But she had to go on. She inched her hand forward, took the nob of the door in her hand and turned it. The door scraped, dragged and slouched open to reveal nothing. Nothing.
Come in.
He didn't move. She picked the little one up and said it again. She put the kid down on the floor and grabbed him. And shut the door.
I think this is safe. She lead them into the room with the old sofa. I want you to wait here.
Why?
Never mind. I'll be back soon.
They stood silent and then she took him in her arms, like her mother used to do to her and told him that he would be safe. She took the little one out of the backpack. Took one last look and walked out of the room. As she opened the front door she looked back to see him standing there, dwarfed by the doorway.
Don't let anyone in, she said.
How will I know it is you?
With a secret knock, and she knocked four times slowly and then three times fast. OK?
OK.