Conrad Williams - One

He got into the kitchen and Becky was saying, 'Oh, Richard.' And Aidan was saying, 'Who's she? Is she dead?'

'Don't let him in here,' Jane snapped as he kicked open the door to the living room. He put the woman next to her baby and covered them both. Could he have done to Cherry and Stan what this woman had managed to do to her family? No. No way. He didn't have it in him. He could kill himself, he reckoned, but not his boy. You survive and you think you're chosen for something special. You can't believe your luck. And then you find yourself envying the dead.

He closed the door and told Becky to wait with Aidan.

'I want to come with you.'

'There's nothing to see. Get dinner ready.' As if he could eat anything now.

Upstairs the man had died. His position had not altered. He stared at Jane but whatever it was that made life so beyond doubt was absent now. A sheen to the eyes. Elasticism.

A memory from childhood. Lying in bed, getting Dad to play his favourite track from the White Album one last time, before lights out. Hey, Bungalow Bill, what did you kill, Bungalow Bill? Such memories had not impinged as much as they might. It was understandable now, he supposed, yet when he had been on the rigs he had often thought of home, when he was a toddler, usually when he was struggling with a job in the gelid deep. The family garden had been large and well tended. Dad was proud of his lawn, trimmed regularly with his Webb mower so that there were pretty stripes patterning the grass. What do you think, Rico? His dad would ask him, sweating over the handles. Wembley or Wimbledon?

They had grown all kinds of fruit and vegetables in that back garden. Carrots he'd eat straight from the ground. Gooseberries. Beetroot they chopped together for pickling.

That's glossy , Jane remembered saying of the succulent slices. Like a magazine . His dad had been impressed with that. Glossy . . . get you.

Memories. Pain. He supposed it was because it might mean a link to Stanley that was too painful to experience. It might also lead him to thinking that Stanley might not remember who he was, or the things they had done together. He thought of photographs stored on hard drives now no more than irretrievable ghosts of code. There was nothing beyond memory. The painful thing was trying to come to terms with the possibility that before too long he'd discover that was all he would ever have.

He pulled the gun from the man's hands. He clicked the safety catch on and checked the breech. One pellet spent, but otherwise fully loaded with .22s. Jane checked the man's pockets and found cigarettes, a lighter, two boxes of ammunition. There was a folded photograph of a woman, topless, reclined on a sofa, her arms outstretched. An inscription. Hi Loz. Waiting for you, babe. x Heartbreaking stories everywhere.

He took the pellets and the lighter. He looked around him. A single bed covered in dust and dead insects. A chest of drawers contained nothing but a few wall hooks and a laminated copy of the Lord's Prayer. There must be more boxes of ammunition somewhere.

He slung the rifle over his shoulder and went downstairs. The smell of curry from the kitchen was good, but it didn't inspire hunger. He doubted he could eat again after the last hour or so.

In the cellar again he took more care over his search. There was an old pine cabinet pushed against a wall where all the white goods were arrayed. Inside were tools, all well cared for, clean, oiled, free of rust. Trays of nails and screws sorted into different sizes. Rawlplugs. Drill bits meticulously cleaned of plaster dust. All useful. All useless.

But then he found a drawer that wasn't meant for the slot into which it was embedded. Instead of a handle, double loops of shoelace had been stapled into the front. Inside was gun oil, barrel brushes and jags, cleaning rods. A screw-in silencer that didn't look as if it had been used. The drawer was only half the length of its neighbours. Jane pulled it all the way out and ignited the lighter. Boxes hidden in the gap at the back. He fished them out. Six boxes of .22 pellets. Six boxes of .177 pellets. He pocketed everything.

They ate in the kitchen but though it was the most flavourful meal he'd eaten in weeks – months, if the dishes scarfed under pressure in the Ceto were included – he didn't taste any of it. He kept gazing at the ceiling, expecting the man's blood to blacken the paint, to come seeping through the boards. Or he'd hear the turning of the doorknob and the woman poking her perforated head around the corner, breathing in stitches with words struggling through it all: My, that smells good.

He put down his fork and pushed back from the table.

'I'm going to reorganise the packs,' he said.

Aidan was playing outside with some toy cars he'd found in a box under the stairs. Becky came to Jane while he was sorting through things they could do without.

'Don't worry,' he said, gesturing at the clothes. 'I'm not going to just bin it. We'll put it to a vote.'

'It's OK,' Becky said. 'It's not that.'

'What, then?'

She squatted next to him. 'All I'm asking, suggesting really, is that you keep us in the loop.'

'I'm trying to protect you.'

She smiled. 'There's nothing you'll see that I need to be protected from. I mean, really. I used to work in a hospital.'

'OK. But Aidan. He doesn't need to see everything.'

'Agreed. But let me in. I can help you. I know guys like you. This alpha-male shit. There's no need for it.'

'All right. So from now on we only check things out if we all agree?'

'Yes.'

'And if we're starving?'

'Yes.'

'Every house, every place we see. There'll be people hiding out, maybe. Maybe not. We'll have to take chances eventually. Because I'm not thinking about just now. I'm thinking ahead. Three years. Five years. Ten. You think we can just waltz into the supermarkets every day and pick out a few cans for supper?'

Becky couldn't reply. He saw it in her face. The future opening up before her like a rotten gourd. Suddenly she seemed to understand the unhealable nature of things, the struggle ahead. He saw her realisation that she was a young woman who might die long before she became old.

She made to say something but nothing came. She walked away. Jane finished packing the rucksacks. Nobody complained about what he had decided to leave behind.

'Can I take these?' Aidan asked, holding up the toy cars.

'Of course you can,' Jane said, trying to swallow the bile, trying to cap a raging voice that wanted to ask if a couple of Matchbox toys meant more than an obliterated family lying under plastic in a room already sweating and stinking with decay.

He moved off at a smart pace, not waiting to see if the others were coming with him. They'd spent far too long at the farmhouse; it sickened him that they'd been preparing fancy food, filling their stomachs while bodies grew cold around them. He thought of all the meals he might eat in the future, however frugal, however pathetic or desperate. And he wondered about all the people who would watch him while they did it, with blank, unblinking eyes.

13. TRACHEOTOMY

Jane woke up reaching for someone who wasn't there. He could feel his slender shoulders beneath his fingers, the fabric of his favourite pyjamas. Words from books they loved to read together fragmented in his mind, falling away as though incapable of being remembered without the vital missing ingredient. Daddy Island. Frog Finds a Friend. Dad Mine. Titles Jane could hardly give voice to without the prickle of tears.

He sat up. His breath came in plumes. The climate was like that of a desert. Hot days. Frozen nights. Thin plaques of ice matted the canvas. He broke a piece off and sucked it. A taste of metal and chemicals. He spat. He wondered if dreams of Stanley had wakened him, or something else. The others were breathing steadily in the tent. He gripped the rifle stock loosely, glad of the weapon, but wary too, worried that it might inspire violence in others. He gazed out over the rooftops and countryside, the swollen, haphazard road. He had suggested finding a big house to stay in, or a hotel, but Aidan had begged them not to, preferring the tent.