Rob Ewing - The Last of Us

Elizabeth doesn’t bother to reply.

We pluck up our courage to walk between them. Further in the cars are jammed so close that they’re nearly touching. I guessed that they were all empty – but then figure my guess was wrong when Alex calls out and begins to cry and Elizabeth shouts, ‘Don’t look in the windows!’

Too late: he already did.

Once again, Calum Ian comes last. Elizabeth watches him – while he watches us, bending down between cars, ready with his gun and matches and knives.

‘What is wrong with your brother?’ she shouts at Duncan. ‘Why is he being like this?’

Duncan only finds a hole in his jeans to widen. If he does know, he won’t say.

We’re tired out when we get to the second house. I’m ready for it to have a smell – after the last place it seems likely somehow, and I’m ready, even though I never slept one night in a bad house – but the smell is clean.

We don’t find any insulin. We even don’t find the things a person might have along with insulin, which is a mystery nobody supposes on. What we do find, though, is that the bath is plugged, covered, and full of water – so we have enough to drink, after Elizabeth drops in a sterilising tablet. Plus there’s OK food in the kitchen: although microwave popcorn feels like a joke done by the devil.

For dinner we have tinned ham with pineapple juice, which nobody wants much of. After this, we spend ages trying to puff up the popcorn using a lighter, which only makes it go black, even though the smell starts off true.

We make camp in the living room. When Calum Ian joins us, everybody goes quiet. He puts his rucksack, with the weapons inside, by the room’s fireplace.

The petrol smell of it is there: also strong on his clothes, his jacket.

Darkness comes around us. Duncan opens up his own rucksack, and takes out his portable DVD player and battery pack. He puts on Jungle Book , mainly because Alex doesn’t want to see anything that isn’t a cartoon.

It’s good, though these days Mowgli gets on everyone’s nerves: all he had to do was get through a jungle of mostly friendly animals and he was with his people.

By the end of it Alex sighs and says, ‘You forgot my insulin.’

This is a surprise: mainly because Elizabeth never forgets. She will even wake him up, or go looking for him as far as the other side of the village just so he isn’t even five minutes late.

Then I understand better – when she opens up the tub of injection things and says, ‘Possibly we should save… if I had a better idea from someone… I mean it’s difficult, can’t truly tell…’

‘What?’

‘There’s only one shot left.’

We all gather to look at the pen. She clicks out the glass vial to show us: it’s at the end.

Still, Alex looks easiest of all about it. He tells us to wind up our smiles, then says: ‘I can feel a luckier time coming. Seriously! So you might as well just give. See, my home got saved. It’s got lots of cupboards for keeping medicine in. You’ll see.’

But then he looks less sure, and begins to curl a finger in his hair until it snaps. It sounds sore, but he doesn’t seem to notice: and I just know he’s thinking worst-case: about what – and who – we’ll find when we get there.

Then he says, ‘I made Mum a sandwich with jam. Only she didn’t want it. She said to me don’t come too close. Which is hard when you’re only five.’

Elizabeth takes out her swabs, cleaning stuff. She rubs the skin of his stomach, puts the needle in.

‘Done,’ she says.

Done, which here means: there’s none left.

After a long gap of quiet Calum Ian says: ‘Supposing he can do without it for a bit?’

I expect Elizabeth to disagree – instead, she unties her rucksack and takes out one of her mum and dad’s books, and begins to read with her finger.

‘Might not be serious,’ he whispers, trying to keep out Alex. ‘Mean to say, maybe it’s like when you get your jabs? For measles and stuff. In the old days – before? You need them, but it isn’t like you die if you don’t get them. I bet it’s like that.’

Elizabeth writes in her notebook. She reads and reads with her finger. Then says, ‘Don’t know. I’ve read it all. It’s not like it tells you how things go if you don’t give. It just says you have to give. Maybe that’s clear?’

Her voice has gone loud. Calum Ian mumbles something. Then he takes some of the popcorn from the packet. He puts it in a spoon and uses his lighter to try and burn it bigger.

‘For God’s sake,’ Elizabeth says. ‘You’re stinking of petrol. Can’t you just stop using the lighter in here.’

Calum Ian puts his lighter away. He clicks his torch on and off instead.

Out of the silence of many minutes I hear Elizabeth say, ‘So we’re your guinea pigs. True? You’re letting us go ahead of you on the walk. True?’

‘Not true.’

‘Because you’re scared of what we’ll find. You’re scared about the stuff we haven’t seen yet.’

‘Why didn’t you want to go past your house? It’s on the other island road. Not far. Answer me that.’

‘You think you’re a tough boy – actually you don’t help the group. You’re not a team player.’

‘Cos teamwork is the dreamwork ,’ Calum Ian spits, making the last word sound like poison.

Elizabeth answers: ‘Bad-sounding word? You hate it? So you know what I hate? Cowards.’

He bites his lip: an angry bite, the kind that leaves your mouth bleeding after.

‘I’m not a coward,’ he says. ‘That’s never going to be true. Who went inside the gym? Who went into the old man’s house? The same answer. Me.’

‘And who let us walk ahead all day? Holding us up, so we only checked two houses? Same answer.’

‘Who couldn’t help herself for the first month? Who had to be fed with a spoon cos she forgot how to eat? Who heard voices of people that weren’t there? Know what the answer is for that?’

Elizabeth, rather than saying back, just stares at the wall, at the photos of the family who once lived here. Of course it was her. But then she came around, and we need her now.

I shine the torch – at my own face, showing Calum Ian with an ugly look what I think of him.

‘And don’t you think you’re so great,’ he says. ‘Heard you talking to yourself earlier as well.’

When I say that I didn’t, Calum Ian answers that he heard me talking – back at my house this morning.

‘Wasn’t to myself.’

‘Who, then? Tooth fairy? Easter bunny, Santa? Sorry to say, they don’t exist and wouldn’t care if they did.’

‘None of your business.’

‘Who?’

I wait for him to forget about it. But he doesn’t – and instead asks me again and again, until the real answer is too much to keep inside: ‘It was with my mum. All right?’

Calum Ian nearly starts to laugh: then his face changes, becomes more serious. He asks, ‘How do you know it wasn’t your dad?’

I wait until I’m sure he’s being genuine about knowing – that it isn’t just another trap of his – then I say, ‘I know because it was her voice. She comes out with her sayings, that can only be her. And anyway – Mum and Dad didn’t live together. They lived apart. He lived on the mainland.’

‘So they split up. Was it a big fight?’

‘No, come on.’ I’m wanting to sound like it’s easy to speak about. ‘There wasn’t any fight. Mum told me it was because they couldn’t agree on baby names.’

Calum Ian does laugh now. He tries to hold it in, but the sound of this only makes it worse.

‘Shut up!’

‘ Gloic – that’s just what she told you!’