Rob Ewing - The Last of Us

I turn around to look at Calum Ian. He’s like a drawing where the eyes don’t want to be angry or sad but both. I watch him, only because I’m nervous, and not for being sympathetic.

‘Stop looking at me, Gloic ,’ he says.

I turn back away.

Calum Ian’s chair scrapes. He stomps to the front. Now he’s glaring at me.

‘Had a camera,’ he says. ‘With the last pictures ever of Mum and my sister Flora in it. Some of my best memories were there. Only now I’ve lost them.’

He’s looking at me. My hands have gone cold, but my face feels red hot.

‘Sorry,’ Elizabeth says. ‘I don’t understand. Where did you leave the camera?’

‘Left it in the sea.’

‘You left it… how in the sea?’

‘I threw it in the sea.’

‘Why?’

Calum Ian keeps looking very definitely at me. Then he clicks his fingers at Duncan.

‘Out of here, Sidekick. A-mach à seo! ’

But Duncan doesn’t want to go. He stays in his seat, until Calum Ian has to grab the neck of his jumper to pull him up and away.

When they’re gone we decide school’s over. We go to the library for a bit, but the darkness today is too spooky, so we go back outside.

Alex goes to the playpark, but none of us can find the fun in it. It starts to rain, so we hide under the chute. Elizabeth has made packed lunches for us: crackers, dried apricots and custard pots to drink. We get to eat the portions she made for Calum Ian and Duncan.

‘Why’d he throw his camera in the sea?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘If he cared that much about the pictures? It’s senseless. He can be too angry sometimes.’

To answer would be admitting guilt. I drink custard instead, though with only half my appetite.

We realise Alex is still thinking about Calum Ian’s uncle and the dog Mo when he says, ‘Dogs are as dangerous as wolves, for true this time.’

Elizabeth: ‘I hope you can just forget about it. Anyway, dogs were bred for being tame. They don’t just go back to being wolves.’

Alex: ‘What about a hungry dog?’

Elizabeth: ‘I think we should change topic.’

We don’t want to go home, not just yet, so it’s up for a vote. Alex doesn’t want to send messages; and I don’t want to go shopping, Old or New. In the end Elizabeth takes charge and says that, because we’re close by, we should go and pay our respects to the Last Adult.

She’s in the Community Centre. This has the Cròileagan, where we went to nursery, but also has the soft-play room and the café, where you can buy the best fish and chips in town.

The Last Adult is in the soft-play room.

The main door went stiff. Inside the hall are lots of Christmas decorations. There’s a silver tree with baubles and tinsel on. Some of the red tinsel has fallen off. A reindeer and a sugar-plum fairy are on the floor.

There’s a blue face-mask on the mat, with spots of blood on it, gone black long ago. Heaped along one wall are lots of boxes, orange bags. We opened a bag once: inside were plastic sheets and aprons and cartons of gloves, old and used. Some of the bags smelt very bad.

We go in on tiptoes. Elizabeth opens the soft-play door. There’s a smell, though only faint. There’s the ball-pool, in the far corner, heaped with dirty blankets and towels.

We found her on a sleeping mat, beside the pool.

Back then none of us understood about bodies. You just leave them alone – apart from flowers – and close the door so dogs don’t get in. We wanted to bury her, but nobody could pluck up the courage to touch her. So we found a pile of stones outside, which the adults were using to build a not-ready car park.

With plastic buckets and trolleys from the Co-op, we carried in the stones, and covered her up.

Now all we can see of her is this pile of stones. Our cards and presents are there on top, with our old flowers. I notice that the last of the flowers are already dry, and I feel a bit sorry for her. It’s been weeks since we came.

The room has orange curtains, nearly shut. A sharp line of sunlight finding the pile of stones, like God keeping an eye on her.

Alex: ‘Tell me how you knew she was the last adult again.’

Elizabeth: ‘Because she was still breathing.’

Alex: ‘Did she say anything?’

Elizabeth: ‘No. Like I said before, no. She was just breathing. It sounded… bubbly. She was the woman who looked after the last of us. I knew her face. It was her.’

Alex: ‘How did you help her?’

Elizabeth: ‘I left her some juice, crisps. And water. Because that’s what she did for us.’

We stand around the pile of stones. I wonder again who the Last Adult was. Elizabeth just says she doesn’t know.

Alex goes back to the Christmas tree. He returns with the sugar-plum fairy and lays it on top of the stones.

‘Wasn’t she my mum?’ he asks.

‘No, she wasn’t. I’ve seen your mum. I mean, I’d know her. It wasn’t her.’

When we pay respects we have to stand and say nothing. During the time this takes my eyes get used to the dark. There’s things left by the Last Adult: Bible, photos, dirty plastic cups, scrunched tissues, a water bottle. The water inside went brown. Plus a packet of tablets, the same type we keep seeing in people’s houses.

There’s also a pad of paper with all the last-alive kids’ names on it. Our names are there. The other kids’ names have been scored off. There’s numbers next to the scorings-off. I ask Elizabeth what the numbers mean.

‘The dates that they fell asleep,’ she says.

There are other rooms in the Community Centre. But nobody wants to go there. That’s where we were sick. Where we nearly died. Where the others died. And what if the thing that made us sick is still there? No way.

It’s a relief to get back outside. As we cross the not-ready car park I ask Elizabeth about her afterwards memories. She’s told us before, but still I ask: just like when I used to ask Mum about being born, over and over, just to hear about things that happened and I didn’t know.

‘It was very cold,’ she says, ‘so then… so I woke up, it was dark. All the lights were not working.’

‘After that?’

‘Then nothing. Maybe I fell asleep… I woke again and it was light. I remember having crusty eyes, not being able to see. I remember going from room to room. And then I heard someone crying.’

‘Who was that?’

‘That was Alex. He had on his Cròileagan orange vest, the ones the little kids used for crossing the road. There was a label on it with his name. Alex. He was beside Duncan. Duncan had a label too, though not a vest. Duncan was very sick. But he got better, so that’s great. Calum Ian was in another room. He woke up as soon as I talked to him. He said he was extremely thirsty.’

‘Then?’

‘We found a torch. We found some food. We got boxes from the cupboard, they used to be full of paper towels. We got inside them. They kept us perfectly warm. That’s why I never ever throw away cardboard boxes.’

‘You found me.’

‘Yes. We looked around the rooms. You were in the last one. You were hiding under a table. Didn’t see me. Or you looked right through me, I don’t know. We gave you some biscuits, juice. You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have a label or a vest, so I had to find your name on the list of kids that the Last Adult had beside her.’

‘I remember dogs barking.’

‘For true. There were dogs and cats trapped in houses. We let out as many as we could.’

‘And I remember the cows, from way over at the farm. They were making a racket.’

‘Because nobody had milked them.’

‘The only thing I don’t remember is when Mum said goodbye. Don’t remember her telling me to wait. Is it just going to be a test of patience?’