Author's Preface
Excerpt: Diary Entry 1 - Rachael Malone
We've been here for two weeks now. The docks were a disaster. The ships had been blended together into some kind of sickening city for those things; a twisted monument of steel and slime. I really thought we would find hope there, that Operation Blue would actually mean something, but there was no rescue. Just those fucking aliens. We drove away from the coast until we found this Sainsbury's. It hasn't been touched by local scavengers, though I doubt there are many of them left anyway. Now we're just sitting here among the tinned veg and stagnant air, waiting for the sky to finish turning.
It's late November now. We found two local survivors, Katie and Mark. They're ex-PE teachers, and I actually like them, even though they're already getting on my nerves. They made me do eight laps of the mouldy bread aisle today for cardio.
Last night, though, the mood shifted. There was this scraping on the outer layer of the metal shutters. It took Cairn and Thomas twenty minutes just to figure out how to manually close the damn things-they had to find the manual release, which was a comedy of errors that actually cheered me up for a second. But as soon as the tapping and scraping started on the other side of that metal, the dread came rushing back like a tidal wave.
Excerpt Diary Entry 2 - Rachael Malone
A month has gone by since the Hull docks, since our "ticket out" turned into some sick, biological joke. Cairn has been disappearing lately. He's been taking one of the trucks on nightly scavenging runs, but he never comes back with anything useful.
Well, I take that back. One night he brought us candles. I had to remind him-loudly-that we already have 100,000 of the damn things in stock, but he insisted. He just stood there with that blank, soldier stare, clutching those wax pillars like they were made of gold. Something is off with him. He's out there in the yellow dark, and whatever he's looking for, it isn't food.I confronted him last night. I caught him on the loading ramp just as he was cranking up that damn roller shutter.
"Why are you going out?" I asked. I didn't even try to hide the edge in my voice.
He looked at me with that stare-the one where he's physically standing in front of you, but his mind is miles away, lost in the soot and the fire.
"I need space, Rachael," he told me. His voice was flat, like a dead battery.
"If you want space, then take the drinks aisle," I snapped back.
"At least that way you'd be here. And you'd be safe."
He didn't even argue. He just finished raising the shutter, the metal teeth shrieking in the silence, and disappeared into the cab of the truck. He didn't even look back.After the shutter jarred shut with that sickening, metallic crunch, I did it. I cried. I actually stood there on the cold concrete of the loading bay and let it out.
I feel lost. I feel completely, hollowly alone. Cairn thinks he's the only one who needs "space," but what about the rest of us? What wouldn't I give for just five minutes of real space-not the drinks aisle, not a "Staff Only" room, but actual distance from this fucking apocalypse? I want a world where the sky is blue, the air doesn't taste like copper, and I'm not counting the days until the food runs out or the things outside finally find a way in.
Excerpt: Diary Entry 3 - Rachael Malone
Thomas sat with me last night. His big bulk made me feel grounded, like an anchor holding me down in the dark so I wouldn't just float away into the soot. We built a fort. Yes, a fort-made out of sheets and pillows we scavenged from the Home and Leisure aisle. Those white, flowing tents blocked out the yellow hue from the windows and made the sickly world disappear for a while.
"You know, Rach, I was on course to be head chef at Legacy in York," Thomas told me, his voice low as he shot dried peas at a dartboard we'd hung on a stack of crates.
"What happened?" I asked.
I already knew the answer, of course, but it's an automatic response, isn't it? In this world, the "what happened" is always the same, but we ask anyway just to hear the sound of the life someone used to have.
I think I'm in love. It's that stomach-churning sickness you get when you look at someone and realize they've completely ruined your composure. My cheeks flush red every time he's near, a heat I haven't felt since... well, since before the world ended. My body just reacts whenever I look at him. He's got this massive frame that looks so welcoming, especially in that New York tee he found. He's this big, solid thing in a world that's melting away, and for the first time in a month, the churning in my gut isn't from fear.
Note Recovered - Christine Bush
Day.....god only knows.
Ever since we lost Foss Bank in York, the air in this group has turned sour. It's been hardest on Cairn. Watching Grant go down in that rubble it wasn't just a soldier losing a man. I saw it in his eyes; it brought Francesca and Oscar back to the surface. He's chasing ghosts now. He's out there in that truck until the early hours, reckless and shivering, but he won't let me mother him.
He doesn't see what it's doing to the kids. Zach is retreating into himself, and Rachael... poor Rachael. She's got that clipboard gripped so tight her knuckles are white, trying to count every tin of beans as if a balanced ledger could stop the world from ending. She snaps at everyone because she's terrified, and she doesn't realize I can see right through that bitch act of hers. They need a captain, but all they've got is a man drowning on dry land
Christmas is nearly here, but there's no joy in it. It doesn't feel like a celebration; it feels like the slow hand of death encircling our necks. I look at the tinsel we pulled from the seasonal aisle cheap, silver stuff that's already coated in a layer of black ash and it looks more like a noose than a decoration.
We're waiting for a miracle, but we all know Santa isn't coming down the chimney this year. Not when the chimneys are belching out that yellow smoke and the reindeer are probably long gone, or changed into something we wouldn't want to meet in the dark. I try to hum a carol while I'm sorting the medicine, but the notes catch in my throat. It's hard to sing about Peace On Earth when you can hear the metal shutters groaning under the weight of whatever is scraping to get in.