Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

“Are you sure no one…” Vera’s words faded.

Our flashlight was trembling. Just a quiver. I wouldn’t have noticed if the light beam didn’t amplify the movement. Another quake? I thought they’d tapered off by now.

The flashlight’s trembling worsened. It skittered sideways across the table, a gentle rat-rat-rat . Across the room, something fell. A muted sound rumbled in the far distance.

“Are earthquakes this constant?” Vera asked.

“At least we’re holding up okay,” I said. Others seemed to come to the same conclusion; some had rushed to their cots and families, but most were talking in curious tones.

Ginta looked at the ceiling. “I wonder what it’ll look like later. Outside.”

“Did you hear?” Vera said. “The doctor’s boyfriend and two others got special permission to scout outside. They weren’t supposed to tell anyone, but I heard—”

“I heard a hundred different things,” I cut in. The ground was covered in rocks and dirt, no, the ground was cracked all over; not a single building remained upright, no, they were still standing, just broken skeletons; it was pitch dark, no, it was gloomy, no, you could see by the lightning storms and wildfires—

We’d find out in a few hours. That was soon enough.

I went back to scribbling on my container. “Let’s just get ready.”

Forty minutes later, a woman from shelter management climbed atop a table and asked us to gather round. “Nearly fifty minutes ago,” she said, “we had to lock down the central air vents. Because…”

The room was mouse quiet. I sat upright, stretching as though it would let me hear her better.

“Because salt water was coming in via the vents.” She cleared her throat. “The dunes and dikes must have given in. We’re under—”

I couldn’t hear the word “water” in the sudden screams.

But I didn’t need to.

The good part was that we were no longer leaving the shelter that day.

The bad part was everything else.

We huddled together near the sisters’ and their mother Inga’s cots, clutching our few possessions tight as the shelter blurred in panic.

“Please!” someone shouted every few minutes. “Go to your beds and wait !”

“How long will the air last?”

“How much water are we talking about? Can we get to higher ground?”

Inga shook her head in disbelief. “Higher ground? Half this country is below sea level.”

“How long are we staying ? Is there enough food?”

“We’ll have to ration even—”

“Is anyone coming?”

“Is it the entire coastline? My brother’s in—”

“The oxygen!”

“Do the permanent shelters know? Does the government—”

“ Government .” Mum barked a laugh. “As though there still is one.”

“There is,” I said, “in those ships and shelters.”

For all those screaming for answers, there were enough families just like us. Clustered together, quiet, nervous. A teen boy and his little brother leaned into each other. Their mum squeezed the younger boy’s shoulder so tight it had to hurt.

I thought of the rations, barely sufficient to sustain and never enough to satisfy. Of candles shrinking into stubs, of flashlights starting to flicker. Only devices that ran on body heat would last.

We could ration flashlights. We couldn’t ration air.

“Below sea level,” Mum scoffed, “and they build underground shelters? How are we supposed to reach dry land? How far is dry land?”

“Tens of kilometres. A hundred? We don’t know how far the water went.” Dad shook his head. “We knew the risks when we decided to go the Netherlands.”

Given the certainty of debris and earthquakes and the sun disappearing behind dust, we hadn’t worried about the relatively slim chance of a flood—even then, it’d been worth being so far from the impact site and any volcanoes or fault lines. No other country would’ve taken us, besides. France and Switzerland had closed their shelters to refugees, so once we’d realised we couldn’t reach England, it was too late to risk going south.

I supposed being stuck inside with limited food was better than being stuck outside where we’d need to scavenge for any food at all. But at least outside, there was a chance in the long run.

In here, there wasn’t.

From the eyes of those two boys and their mother, I could tell they’d come to the same conclusion.

I abruptly stood. “Let’s get ready.”

My parents looked up.

“To leave?” Vera said.

“Nope.”

Ginta had been talking to her mum in soft tones, but now glanced sideways. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. Vera, where’d you leave those containers?”

Our audience-to-be had the same idea as Ginta.

Not at first. At first, they didn’t even realise what was happening. But by the time we’d shoved a handful of similar-sized tables together to form an impromptu stage, climbed up, and Vera started hitting the containers, “you’re joking” seemed to be the general impression.

Vera led us in, starting with a slow rhythm.

I wished I had a microphone to dramatically grab. Instead, I stepped forwards. My foot came down hard on the table. I raised my voice, kept it harsh and even for the intro, with Ginta providing a background hum.

Three times last night I woke

Three times last week I cried

Three times last month I fought

Three times in life I nearly died

A single slap on a container for emphasis. People were staring, grimacing, disbelieving. “Get off there!” someone called. I called back:

But: one too-short skirt I wear

and you know all there is to know

Nah: two crutches in my hands

and you know there’s nothing left to know

“The hell is wrong with you?”

I missed amplification; an outfit that had been washed at any point in the past weeks; fans’ joyful screams.

Here’s what I had, though: those two boys staring, transfixed; Ginta backing up the next verse; my own screams.

Afterwards, I collapsed onto the nearest chair. “I miss my wheelchair,” I huffed.

“No one’s clapping.” Vera stared at the audience. Most people had started ignoring us halfway through.

Ginta leaned against the table. “That was so cool.”

“You were awesome. Both of…” I trailed off. My parents were elbowing through the still-anxious crowd towards us. Two others did the same: the woman who’d given the announcement earlier, and Ahmed, Samira’s brother-in-law. Neither looked happy.

“Did you like the show?” I asked innocently.

“That was not appropriate,” the woman said.

“I made sure the language was fine for kids. Can’t people use a distraction?”

Ahmed eyed me sharply. “Keeping order in a place like this is difficult enough without”—he gestured at the tables—“ this .”

“Especially after news like today’s!” the woman added. “Any other time would’ve been fine, but this… this was…”

“Don’t do it again,” Ahmed said.

“We’re doing it again, right?” I asked the sisters in line for lunch the next day.

Things had quieted down since the announcement that the water levels had stabilised and our air vents were no longer underwater.

We had air. But we were just as stuck, and just as hungry. The flood had left something tense and restless and scared in the atmosphere. It was one thing to wait—it was another thing to wait without knowing what you were waiting for, without knowing when or if or how it would even come.