After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set Read online

  “Thank you for everything, Angie,” Donald said.

  Angie only nodded, smiling, refusing to cry, refusing to let the final image of her be anything but the strong lady she was. Right till the end.

  Each member of the commune had gently placed a flower in her hair, forming a beautiful wreath. Flowers they could not eat.

  The rest of the commune stood around them. Most on the ground, some perched high on the walls. Each person looked down at this tiny figure that had been at the center of their lives for so long. Many peered at their shuffling feet, unable to look the old woman in the eye.

  Finally, Angie came to Bernard, her husband. A tall man, he too had to bend forward for her to hug him. His eyes shimmered. He for one could not hold back the tears. He let them spill down his aged cheeks.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  Angie took his hands in hers. “My dear Bernard, I must leave.”

  “Don’t go,” Bernard repeated.

  “It’s okay.” Angie looked him in the eye. “I want to go.”

  “Then let me go with you,” Bernard said. Pleading.

  “We’ve been through this. You need to stay here. There are things you must do.”

  Bernard held his wife’s hand. He couldn’t let go. Then, finally, beneath Angie’s loving but firm eyes, he did. Angie kissed him on the cheek. She turned to address every member of the seven-hundred strong commune.

  “I want to thank you all,” she said. “Everyone. I’ve enjoyed my time here. Hope and pray for change, and it will come to you.”

  She turned to face a small door in the large front gate. A girl called Nester, sixteen, about Jamie’s height, stepped forward and unlocked it. There were dents and scratch marks on the other side of that door. She held it open and placed her hand on Angie’s shoulder as she passed.

  Angie stepped toward the door, then paused a moment, taking a deep breath when she looked out at the white desert that stretched endlessly in every direction. Her leg shook as she lifted her foot over the short ledge and stepped into the world outside.

  Nester closed the small door in the gate and slid the multiple locks firmly in place. She joined Jamie, Fatty and Donny on the battlements overlooking the arid landscape.

  The sun was blazing hot, white, and faded the earth’s colors like an old picture left in the sun too long. A heat haze rose off the baking soil.

  Angie shuffled forward, limping on her left foot, as she headed in a straight line, her form growing smaller with each step.

  The further she went, the smaller the crowd became, those who barely knew her going first, then those who had urgent business to attend to, then those who were distant friends, close friends, then family.

  Finally, only Jamie, Nester, Donny, Bernard, and a kid called Fatty remained.

  Everyone assumed Fatty had a stash of food somewhere that he wasn’t telling anyone about. He firmly denied it. No matter what he ate, how infrequently, his body continued to put on weight.

  Jamie and Nester had even taken it upon themselves to follow him all day for a week to see if he was telling the truth. They only left him alone when he needed to go to the bathroom. The sounds that came from there were very disturbing.

  The sun was low in the sky, the earth turning a deep lavender purple the way it did over arid land. Angie’s tiny figure had long since gone, but Bernard still stood staring at the landscape, eyes exhausted.

  Nester put her hand on Bernard’s back, making him start.

  “Time to go, Bernard,” Nester said.

  “Just one more minute,” Bernard said, turning back to the horizon.

  His eyes moved from one side to another, looking for what he was certain should have been there, but wasn’t. He nodded.

  “All right,” he said.

  He turned to Jamie and the others.

  “Thank you for staying,” he said. “Angie would have liked that you stayed.”

  “Let’s get you home with a nice cup of tea,” Nester said.

  Bernard let himself be led away.

  “This didn’t need to happen,” Jamie said.

  “Jamie. . .” Fatty said with the air of someone who’d heard this a million times before.

  “I’m telling you, this didn’t need to happen,” Jamie said again, more forceful this time.

  He turned and walked away.

  3.

  “I WAS out stargazing with my pop when they began to fall. We were probably in the best place to witness them, come to think of it. We needed to get away from the lights of civilization. We were in the middle of nowhere. There probably wasn’t another soul for a hundred miles. The perfect father-son time, as my dad used to say.

  “So there we were, witnessing the Perseid meteor shower. The green tint of the rocks as they burn upon entry really is the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I tried to think of a different wish for each falling star I saw, but they were coming so thick and fast that it was impossible. I remember thinking they looked like falling kryptonite. I didn’t find out until later that the rocks never even made it to the surface. They exploded just shy of it. That always seemed very sad to me—that these things should travel so far and never quite reach their destination.

  “Some appeared to land not far from where we were, so we packed up our things and headed to go see if we could find them. We searched and found something, but not what we were expecting. When you’re a kid, everything seems exciting. Like if I touched it, I might turn into a superhero or something. Of course, the opposite turned out to be the truth. My pop cut his finger on one of the tiny fragments. He wouldn’t let me touch it after that. It wasn’t more than a few hours later that he began to act funny.”

  It was the part of the story that everyone struggled with. The part where things turned ugly. But that was what they had these meetings for. Theresa sat at the head of the circle, though she preferred to think of herself as the facilitator rather than the leader. She only liked to ask questions to get them talking.

  “Thank you for sharing, Raoul,” Theresa said. “It’s nice that you shared some beautiful moments with your father.”

  “As beautiful as the first ten times we heard it,” Donny said, rolling his eyes. “Why don’t you tell us about what happened after your father got cut? You always leave the best bits out.”

  “Raoul will tell us when he’s good and ready,” Theresa said sternly. “Not before.”

  Donny folded his arms in the way that made his biceps look bigger. Jamie knew he did this because he’d seen him practicing in the mirror at home.

  “When the meteorites fell we were all subjected to terrible and often horrific scenes,” Theresa said. “We should discuss them as often as it takes for us to deal with our issues. We’ve seen and done things we wished we hadn’t needed to. There’s no way to change that. What’s done is done. But what we can do is learn to live with our memories and get over them, use them to turn us into stronger people.”

  Donny raised his hand.

  “Yes?” Theresa said. “Would you like to share with us, Donny?”

  “Yes, I want to share,” Donny said. “I’m too old for this. I don’t have any issues. Can I go?”

  “Not until you turn eighteen, which, according to my records, isn’t for another two weeks,” Theresa said.

  “I’m not old enough to do a lot of things before I’m eighteen, but I do them,” Donny said.

  Theresa smiled despite herself.

  “The judge will be very pleased to hear it,” Theresa said.

  Donny put his head in his hands. Then he straightened up and focused on Theresa.

  “How about you?” he said.

  “What about me?”

  “We sit here every week and you get us to spill our deepest darkest secrets but you never share what you had to do to survive. What’s so terrible in your past that you can’t tell us?”

  “I’ve told you,” Theresa said. “I was one of the lucky ones. I was miles away from any of my loved ones where people were in
fected with Rage. I did see some horrible things, people attacking other people, others screaming and running for cover, but there wasn’t anything terrible I had to do to get away from them. Unlike you guys. That’s what I’m here for. I want to hear your stories so we can share in your pain.”

  “You must be really masochistic,” Donny said. “Do you get off on hearing us tell you these things? Is that what you like? It sounds like you’re the one who needs counselling.”

  “You’re all here by choice,” Theresa said. “You’re here to get help from each other. That’s what these sessions are for.”

  “With all due respect,” Nester said. “I don’t think any of us are going to say anything more than we already have.”

  “In my experience, people share more about themselves after they feel comfortable,” Theresa said.

  “Some of us have been coming here since the commune was setup,” Donny said. “If we don’t feel comfortable with each other now, when will we?”

  A lull in the conversation. Theresa turned to Jamie, who looked miles away.

  “Jamie,” she said. “Is there anything you’d like to share with us today?”

  Jamie shook his head.

  “This is a safe place,” Theresa said. “Anything you say will remain here.”

  Jamie looked from Theresa to Donny on one side, Nester and Fatty on the other. Raoul sat directly opposite him.

  “Why did Angie have to die?” he said.

  It wasn’t exactly the subject of their session today, but Theresa supposed any topic was up for discussion if it got them talking.

  “We didn’t kill her,” she said. “We let her go.”

  “What’s the difference?” Jamie said. “When living or dying is based on whether you live by yourself or with others, when we sent her out there, she’s dead. That’s on our heads.”

  Despite being five years junior to his older brother Donny, Jamie was the more mature and serious of the two. Where Donny turned outwards, always looking forward like this father, Jamie turned inwards. Theresa understood it was how his mother had been built too. The loss of their mother was the real difficult topic for the two brothers.

  “Angie was sick, Jamie,” Theresa said. “She required medicine and care that we couldn’t give her.”

  “So we sent her out there to die,” Jamie said. “It’s a death sentence.”

  “We didn’t force her to leave,” Theresa said. “She chose to go.”

  It was a weak argument, and she knew it.

  “Sometimes we do things to protect the ones we love,” she said. “Even if it means costing us a great deal. Angie loved us enough to want us to eat the food that would have gone into her dying body.”

  It sounded harsh even to her own ears, but there it was. The state of the world they now found themselves in, that had been forced into. After the Fall, when the meteors had showered the human race with an infectious disease, turning them into raging beasts, the world had torn itself apart. These tiny communes were all that remained.

  Theresa put a smile on her face and turned back to the kids.

  “So, who has more to share?” she said.

  4.

  NESTER TOOK a deep drag on the cigarette and handed it back to Jamie. They stood on the north-facing wall looking out at the night sky and empty desert.

  “It’s back again, huh?” Nester said.

  A green light blinked overhead, passing slowly. They saw those strange floating objects from time to time. They seemed to operate on some kind of repeating pattern. No one had yet bothered to study them to find out what the pattern was though. It was more important to have a mouthful of food than a headful of knowledge at this point.

  “Yeah,” Jamie said. “Maybe it just flies overhead all the time.”

  “Keeping an eye on us?” Nester said with a grin. “They’re in for disappointing viewing if that’s the case. All we do is work and eat.”

  “Don’t forget sleeping,” Jamie said. “That’s the most exciting thing I do.”

  Nester turned back to the orbiting object. “What do you think it is?”

  “A satellite,” Jamie said. “That’s what Dad says, anyway.”

  “Satellites haven’t been operational in years,” Nester said.

  “So it could be floating around up there,” Jamie said. “Adrift.”

  “I know how it feels,” Nester said, taking another puff on the cigarette. “We’re here to survive. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Angie won’t survive,” Jamie said. “How does that fit in? There has to be a better way than sending her out to die in the wild like that. At what point did we stop being human and start behaving like Rages?”

  “We’re not exactly like the Rages,” Nester said. “There’s the inability to control your aggression for one. Although maybe the loss of self-control isn’t always a completely bad thing.”

  She puffed the last of the cigarette and flicked it over the wall to the ground below.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  That took Jamie by surprise. “What?”

  “You heard me. Kiss me.”

  She stared at him defiantly, daring him to do it. Jamie took a step toward her, then another back.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  Nester’s expression grew harder.

  “You kissed Charlene that one time,” she said. “So why can’t you kiss me?”

  Jamie held up his hands. He didn’t want to offend her. He liked her. He really did want to kiss her. She could also kick his ass if he didn’t do as she said.

  “You’re my friend,” Jamie said. “It’d be like kissing my sister.”

  “You don’t have a sister,” Nester said. “And you’ve wanted to kiss me for years. Now I give you permission to do it and you won’t?”

  Jamie’s eyes flicked to hers, then away again. He didn’t know where to look. He’d been called out.

  “Yes,” he said. “I mean, no. I mean. . . Where did this come from?”

  “Angie heading into the desert like that, makes you realize you should live your life the way you really want to, not worrying about what other people think,” Nester said. “No wasting time.”

  She could see she was making Jamie uncomfortable.

  “Sorry,” she said, turning away. “It was stupid. Forget it.”

  She faced the endless emptiness of the desert, lost in her own thoughts.

  “The world’s coming to an end,” she said. “You should do everything you want to do.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the world coming to an end’?” Jamie said. “We’re still surviving. We’re doing okay.”

  “We’re surviving, but that’s all,” Nester said. “Every year we’re the same. Nothing is getting better.”

  “We grow more food, get more people here,” Jamie said.

  “Maintaining an even keel,” Nester said. “We never take the time to look up anymore. To reach for the far distance. For the things that seem impossible. That’s what people used to do. Now, we’re living like animals.”

  It was a sad, sombre thought, but it was also right. If they weren’t improving they were on a course to nowhere but destruction.

  Jamie took hold of Nester’s shoulders and turned her to him. He planted a kiss on her lips. She felt good in Jamie’s arms, if a little clumsy and awkward. They pressed their lips together harder, letting their tongues explore one another’s mouth. When they parted, they were out of breath.

  “Huh,” Nester said.

  “What?” Jamie said. “It wasn’t good? I’m sure I can do better.”

  “No, it was nice,” Nester said.

  Jamie had to agree. It was nice, but there was no explosion of excitement the way he’d always been led to believe there would be. Still, it was better than no kissing at all. They kissed again.

  5.

  DONNY STOOD leaning on the railing that wrapped around the spire of the former gas station. It had been the only building present when they’d begun to build out Mo
untain’s Peak, their commune. The steeple was still the tallest part. They could see the entire commune from there.

  If you knew where to look you could make out the forecourt where the gas pumps had been. Now, the school and community center stood there, built from random detritus they’d found in the desert. On the north-facing wall, he could make out Jamie and Nester necking.

  “Nice to see them together, don’t you think?” Theresa said, sidling up to Donny.

  “I guess,” Donny said.

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” Theresa said.

  “Cautious,” Donny said. “Easy to fall with your first love.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?” Theresa said.

  “It is if the love’s only one way,” Donny said.

  “And what makes you think it’s only one way?” Theresa said.

  “I think she likes him more than he likes her,” Donny said.

  “He might be hiding his affections,” Theresa said.

  Donny smiled. Theresa arched her neck to peer up at the sky. A shiver went through Donny, setting his hair on end. The blinking green light passed overhead and shrank into the distance.

  “Do you think we’ll ever return to the way we were?” Theresa said.

  “No,” Donny said. “But we could become something else. Maybe something better.”

  “You certainly think highly of our species,” Theresa said. “What makes you think we could become something better?”

  “Because it’d be hard to become anything worse,” Donny said. “Factions all over the place. Constant wars. Fighting. Egos. If we could pull together somehow and work for the betterment of us all, we could achieve something really incredible. Instead, we’ve always been divided by our differences. This commune, this is what the future should be. All people coming together for one purpose. That’s the way of the future. That’s if we can climb our way out of the gutter.”

  Theresa appraised Donny with the look of someone discovering a secret function on her TV.