p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"strongemspan style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Bird Box:/span/em/strongstrongspan style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;" Nineteen Thousand Steps/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Every step in darkness./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"1/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I wasn't always this way. It wasn't always this way./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"This is how my day goes. I get up, I prepare food and eat. I turn on the television, although the broadcasts, even the automated emergency ones, stopped a few weeks ago. I used to hope that it would come back but now I realise it is not going to happen. Same with the phone: I try to make calls to the people I know. Knew. No response, just static like the dead tv. Nevertheless, I do it because I need the routine. I expect the power will fail soon./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Yesterday the water stopped coming out of the faucet. I had expected it and had taken the precaution of filling every bottle and container I could find. So I won't die of thirst, not for a while anyway. The problem is food. Aside from some apples there isn't anything left, despite my careful rationing. So now my choices are to die here, slowly, or go out./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Which is no choice at all, really. I tell myself I can do it. I had gone to the convenience store on the corner before, before all this happened, and made it back without much trouble. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"So I put what was left into my backpack and started off. From the apartment door to the stairs was twenty-two steps. Then left. Two flights, ten stairs each./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I had my portable radar to warn me of any obstructions with its little beep-beeps, and a few other devices, as well as my trusty cane, and I made it to the bottom of the stairs. It suddenly occurred to me that the automatic door might not open for me, but it did. So I was out. There was a hideous smell. I guessed what it was. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Turn right. Eighty-seven steps, Lyn had once told me. My radar warned me of things on the pavement that I had to step around. There was a lot of them./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I reached the store. The doors were open. I felt around on the shelves nearest the door. Nothing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a noise: a grunt followed by some mumbled swearing. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Should I freeze right here or try to make contact? The final television broadcasts had warned about people going crazy, gangs fighting over scraps and killing other people for no reason at all./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Come on, open, you stupid fucking thing!" said the voice. It sounded like a young woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I thought about it. Eventually, I made the decision./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hi, I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a gasp and then a clunk. The woman had dropped whatever she was holding. It rolled over to me and came to rest against my foot. I reached down and picked it up, examined it./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""What … who … what the fuck?" said the woman. "Hey, where did my tin of stuff go?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I walked over to her. I could hear her breathing. I felt for her hand, pulled it up. I gave her the can./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Here you are," I said. "But if you're thinking you can eat it, I should probably tell you that you can't. It's paint."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh," she said. "Well, that's a bummer. Is there anything else in this place?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Don't know yet."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But … you can see, right? That's how you knew about the can."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I reached out and felt her face. She was wearing a blindfold. I put her hand up so she could feel my face./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Why are you wearing a blindfold when we are inside?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Big glass windows, duh," she said. "They can get you through glass. How come you're not?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I told her. "Happened seven years ago," I said. "I've learned to live with things. I had my own little place. My parents lived two blocks away but I'm pretty sure they're gone."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took an apple and a bottle of water from my pack and gave them to her. She tore into them./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"After that we did a careful search of the store. Not much left. Two jars of raspberry jelly, a bottle of ketchup, and a jar of cocktail onions. It wasn't much of a meal but it was better than nothing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a little hardware section in the store. I took a hammer, a large screwdriver, a coil of nylon rope, and a kitchen knife. Might be useful./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"An idea occurred to me. "Do you think there might be a storage room in the back?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We managed to locate it. We went in and closed the door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The young woman took off her blindfold and found a light switch. "Fuck, that's a relief," she said. "If you want to know, there's two bodies in here, looks like they killed each other. Over this. A can of peaches. Nothing else here. I guess someone else had the same idea."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We should save the peaches," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a pause. "Oh, I forgot," she said. "I was nodding. You're right." She put it into my backpack./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I started to search the bodies. I found something I couldn't identify./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Now that," said the woman, "is a useful item. A Swiss Army Knife thing. It's got all these tools that come out. A little knife, a corkscrew, a can opener, a scissor thing." She added it to my pack./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""How come you survived?" I said. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I was at work when things started to fall apart," she said. "I was a waitress. Shit job, and a long bus ride from where I lived. The other staff left, tried to get home, but I stayed. There was enough stuff in the storeroom to last for a while. I had a little radio and I locked myself in. Heard some crazy things going on outside. Then the food ran out. I remembered this place, my bus stop was just along the road a bit. Managed to get here. And then you arrived." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We were both silent for a while./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hey," she said. "Do you think we should, you know, stick together? Maybe we can help each other. You might be better outside, since you have, uh, experience, and I might be better inside."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I considered my options. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Yeah, maybe," I said. "I suppose our first priority should be food and water. What we have won't last long. Do you know if there is a shopping mall around here?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I visited one a while ago, a big one, it was called Grandview. But I don't think I could find my way there."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took out one of my devices. The battery was fully charged: twenty hours at the most. After that, I would need a power source to recharge./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Lyn," I said. "Can you tell me the location of Grandview shopping mall, relative to my current location."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hullo," said Lyn. "I can do that. It is slightly over eleven kilometres away, in a southerly direction. Would you like me to tell you about available bus routes, or call a taxi service?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""You may as well scrub the bus routes and taxis, Lyn," I said. "Which direction are you pointing in now?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""North-west."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Tell me when it's south," I said. With Lyn in my hand I turned slowly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""There," she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Eleven kilometres," I said. "What is that in steps?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately nineteen thousand."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Wow, that thing is cool!" said the young woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Who is that?" said Lyn./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""A friend," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Should I add her to the voice-recognition Friends list?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe later."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We were both quiet again./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Eleven kilometres," said the woman eventually./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Long way," I said. "With no certainty that there will be anything to find if we get there."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But you can make it, right? Because you know how to, er, be blind."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I've never done anything like that before. Always stayed in my own neighbourhood. If I had to go further I depended on someone else. My parents, my helper from the Institute, something like that."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But you've got your clever gizmos."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Which run on batteries. Special batteries, yes, but they won't last forever. If they conk out half-way we're screwed."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I again considered going back to my apartment. It was safe, it was known. But no food. Staying here, in the husk of a convenience store, was also a non-option. But nineteen thousand steps? One wrong turn, one obstacle to bring me down … /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Part of me wanted to tell the woman that I was scared. Terrified. The fear that I would starve to death not knowing there was a plate of food six inches away. My hands were shaking, there was a constant trickle of sweat running down my back./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Okay," I said. "Let's go. South."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"2/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was slow going. I held my cane in front of me and the woman held onto my belt, at the back. I showed her how to get around obstacles without changing style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanTwo steps left. Three steps forward. Two steps right. Proceed./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I told her about Lyn, the AI designed to assist blind people. Yes, I told her, she is very useful. She can read signs and provide warnings. But she has her limitations. She is under the impression that the world has not changed. She still believes that buses run./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We had gone about a kilometre. I stopped./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Do you hear that?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hear what?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That sound. Like wind in trees. Behind us."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh. Now you mention it, I do. Your hearing must be better than mine."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""At the Institute, where I did my training, they told me that when you lose your sight your other senses get better to compensate."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took out Lyn and connected her to the radar. I pointed her in the general direction of the sound. Then the sound stopped./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""What is there?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Lyn took a long time to answer. "I do not know," she said eventually. "Maybe nothing. The radar provides only a blur."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I considered. "I'm going to try something," I said to the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I clapped my hands, a single sharp clap. I waited for the echo./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It came back … strange. A dull sort of reverberation, like what happens in rain./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"And there was something else. A smell. Like rancid honey./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Is it … is it … one of them?" whispered the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Probably not much point in whispering," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Oh, right. Is it one of them? An alien? Or a demon, or whatever the damn things are."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I think so."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But if we don't see it, it can't hurt us, right? Can't make us crazy."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I wondered why this woman thought I could possibly know that./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She went another two hundred metres and stopped. I listened. And then clapped. Damp echo./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was no doubt. It was following us./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Son of a bitch!" said the woman. "Can they do that!?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Apparently so," I said. "Perhaps it is hoping that we will lead it to other people. Well, I don't see much that we can do about it. We have got a long way to go, so maybe it will simply lose interest."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We continued on. Another four hours. Our travelling companion was still with us. It began to get cold. Night. I noticed that the surface of the ground had changed from concrete footpath to cobblestones./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I think we are in a little roadside shopping area," I said. "We should check these buildings out, see if there is any food, find a place to stay for the night."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The woman agreed. I took Lyn out. "Identify any signs and read them, please," I said to her. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Chloe's Hair and Nail Salon," said Lyn. "Top Smile Dentistry. Pool Supplies. Everyday Fresh Bakery and Café. That is all that I can see."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Directions for the Bakery."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She told me. We went to it, found a closed glass door. I took the hammer from my backpack and smashed it open. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I started to say: "Watch out for broken – "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"And then someone grabbed my wrist and pushed me down. I dropped the hammer. The woman let go of my belt./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was a man. I could feel his sour breath on me. He was still holding my wrist, and he hauled me to my feet./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That's an interesting thing you've got there," he said. "Now it's mine."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""It wouldn't be any use to you," I said. "It's keyed to my voice."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh," he said. "But I've got you." He squeezed my wrist. "Which means I've got myself a seeing-eye dog, girlie."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hey," said the woman. "You don't need one. You can take the blindfold off. There's no monsters around here. Or anywhere. They've gone."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I got it. "Touch my face if you don't believe it," I said. "No blindfold."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"With his free hand, he did./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh," he said again. There was a rustle of fabric./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Silence. He let go of my wrist./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I heard him kneel down. It sounded as if he was picking up something from the ground. The hammer. There was a thud, then another, and another, and another. Then a larger thud as he hit the ground. I knelt down and felt his head. It was covered in blood. He was dead, or would be soon. I retrieved my hammer, wiped it off as best I could on his clothes./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Let's call our friend Charley," said the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""If you want," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Should we just leave this guy here?" she said. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""No, we should dig a six-foot hole and give him a Christian ceremony."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""What!?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Joke."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Oh. That's pretty dark humour."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We live in dark times."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Silence./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I am nodding in agreement," said the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We went into the bakery. The place had been picked pretty clean, but in the back, away from the big window, the woman found a rubbish bin with a half-loaf of bread, hard and mouldy but edible – just. We got a couple of cups of rusty-tasting water from a toilet. My last apple would be breakfast./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Dark times indeed. We settled down to sleep, together. It had been a long day./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"3/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"In the morning, Lyn told us that we had five kilometres to go. We set off, still moving south. Charley continued to follow./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I wondered about the aliens, if that is what they were. The final television broadcasts had said that they seemed to do nothing at all except wander. There was a lot of them, millions, more, everywhere. There was large ones, four metres tall or more, and others that were almost person-sized. Not that it mattered. If you saw them you died, one way or another, most often by suicide. Did they mean for this to happen? Was this some sort of invasion? Not a very efficient way to take a planet over, really, but I guess it got the job done./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"They were invisible, except for when you saw them, according to some tests that had been done. Photographs showed nothing but anyone looking at a digital video image went crazy. They had some sort of form: they could push objects aside. They did not seem to consume anything or communicate with us or each other. I had never heard of one of them following people but Charley continued to trail us./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We had gone four kilometres when we heard it. A bell. Dong-de-dong. Then silence. Then again: dong-de-dong. Deliberate. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was coming from the south./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Do you think it is coming from the mall?" said the woman. "Does it mean there are people there? Survivors? "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe," I said. I turned and directed the radar, with Lyn connected, towards Charley. "How close is the disturbance?" I asked./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately eight metres," she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""And how close was it this morning, when we checked to see if it was still there?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately twelve metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Closer," said the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We continued to move towards the mall. I tried to work out what was going on. Why was Charley following us? It – or he or whatever – must know by now that we were not going to look at him. So … what?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Eventually we got there, according to Lyn. Hard to believe we had made it. Nineteen thousand steps, give or take./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We examined the glass doors at the entrance. They had been painted over, you could feel the rough texture. So someone was here, or at least had been./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The doors would not open. I whacked them with my hammer but they were some kind of extra-tough plastic. I took the screwdriver from my pack and started to prise them open. After an hour I had them an inch apart. The woman took a turn at it, and then me again, and then her, and in a while the gap was large enough for us to fit through./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Before we go in, since we don't know what's there, there's something we should do," I said. I took the rope from my pack. It was about six metres, as far as I could tell. I tied one end to my belt and the other around the woman's waist. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We went in. I was shaking, not knowing what we would find. I was as afraid of people – people who had gone insane, nutcases who had taken too many ruthlessness pills, people who would want to grab what little we had – as I was of the aliens outside./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I asked Lyn to read whatever signs she could see. Newspapers. Fashion sunglasses. Shirts and slacks, special sale prices. An Apple store. Cupcake Station. Sporting goods./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That last one," I said. "Give me directions." She did. We headed for it. When we were inside the woman took off her blindfold, gratefully. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I am looking out the door at the mall," she said. "There's a glass ceiling thing so there's light. All the exterior windows are painted or covered, I think, but not the ceiling. There's a sort of hole thing over there, we're on a balcony level where you can see down to the level below. No-one around. Now, why are we in a sporting goods store?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I told her what I was hoping to find. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Good idea," she said. "Ah, here they are. They're behind a grill-type thing. It's locked."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I handed her the hammer. "Unlock it," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Yuk," she said. "Oh, I mean the hammer. It's got something on it. Brains, I think."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was hard not to laugh./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She began to whack at the lock, and with a few blows it came off. She took one out and handed it to me. "You know how to use this?" she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""My dad showed me, years ago, when I could see. Don't know how much use it will be now. At least with a shotgun you just have to point it in the general direction and pull the trigger. What gauge is it?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""No idea. Big one, though."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We need shells. Look for a locked cabinet."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She found one, and opened it with the hammer. She took out several boxes of shells. "These are different sizes, I think," she said. "We'll just have to try them all. There are some tables at the Cupcake Station place, that will be easier. Here, take my hand."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I did. Funny, now she was leading me. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We put the gun and the boxes of shells on a table. I put Lyn down and opened the boxes with the kitchen knife./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That's odd," she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I stiffened. "Tell me," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Well, we opened the door just enough for us to get through. But now it's wide open."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Charley. He was inside. So that was what he had wanted. For us to open the goddamn fucking door. And we had./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Close your eyes!" I said to the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was no answer./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Put on your blindfold!" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Nothing. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt the rope at my belt began to tighten. The woman was moving … where?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Towards the balcony edge./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Yes, yes," she was mumbling. "Yes, I will."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was the smell of rancid honey in my nostrils./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I fumbled for the shells. I pulled the shotgun bolt back and tried to get the shell in. Too big. I threw it aside, tried to find another box, feeling desperately around the tabletop. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The rope was growing tighter. I grasped it and with all my strength and pulled the woman back. There was a moment of slackness, and then it began to grow tense again./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Lyn!" I said. "Locate the disturbance! How far is it from here?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Five metres. Four metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I pulled the rope back again. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Three metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I was feeling around, trying to find shells. I knocked over a box. I located a shell, tried to fit it. Too small./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Two metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a sudden sharp pain in my hand. I had grasped the blade of the knife./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt around, located the handle, picked it up./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"That choking, sickly odour. Close./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately one metre."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I stabbed out, aiming for the source of the smell./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The blade sank into something that felt like sponge. I felt it shudder and pull back. The blade was yanked out of my hand. There was an odd sound: emhnnn/em … emhnn/em …/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The rope was very tight now. I took hold of it and heaved. There was a grunt as the woman fell to the floor. Immediately, she began to get up. She must have been at the railing by now./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I still had the shotgun in my hand. I felt for shells, found one. I struggled to insert it./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"This … emhad/em … to … be … it …/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was in. Charley was coming at me again. That sound, the smell …/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""One metre," said Lyn./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt for the safety catch, flipped it. I fired into the darkness./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"A noise: emhnnnn! /emThere was a thump./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt for another shell, found two. I got them in./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took my cane from my pocket, extended it, and cast it around. It touched something. Charley was on the floor, moving, trying to get up./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I put the barrel of the shotgun on Charley's sponge-like surface. I pulled the trigger, once, and again./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Charley stopped moving. There was a sudden surge in the honey smell, and then nothing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I sank to my knees./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The rope had gone slack. There was the sound of running footsteps./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The woman threw her arms around me. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Good to see you," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She laughed. "You too," she said. "Is … he … dead?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Guess so. It is not affecting you now?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""No. There must be some sort of mental link, there was a sort of voice in my head. It stopped when you shot him. He's still invisible, though. Mainly. Sort of a hazy shadow, now. Hey, there's a knife sticking in him. You want it back?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""He can keep it."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We struggled to our feet./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"From somewhere deeper in the mall we heard voices. Coming towards us. The woman located some more shells and I re-loaded the gun. "Maybe you should take it," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I wouldn't know how. And I think you've done well enough."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Three people, two men and a woman, appeared. They were not wearing blindfolds./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; tab-stops: 174.0pt;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That's close enough," I said, lifting the shotgun./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Fuck," said one of the men. "It looks as if you've killed one."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Looks that way," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Are you looking for sanctuary?" said the other man./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We are," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I am what passes for the leader here," said the survivor woman. "We can offer food and water and company. There is a big supermarket here, enough stuff to last for a while. We have rigged up a basic power source. There's fifteen of us. We know that eventually we will have to move somewhere but we're safe at the moment."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""And now we know they can be killed," said one of the men. "That's a hell of an achievement. Maybe you can show us how."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The woman, my friend, gave them a brief accounting of how we had got here./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Eleven kilometres, wow," said the other man. "This calls for a celebration."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""It does," I said. "And I have just the thing." I took my Swiss Army device from my pack. And then I took out the can of peaches./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"END/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; tab-stops: 375.75pt;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanspan style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Every step in darkness./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"1/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I wasn't always this way. It wasn't always this way./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"This is how my day goes. I get up, I prepare food and eat. I turn on the television, although the broadcasts, even the automated emergency ones, stopped a few weeks ago. I used to hope that it would come back but now I realise it is not going to happen. Same with the phone: I try to make calls to the people I know. Knew. No response, just static like the dead tv. Nevertheless, I do it because I need the routine. I expect the power will fail soon./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Yesterday the water stopped coming out of the faucet. I had expected it and had taken the precaution of filling every bottle and container I could find. So I won't die of thirst, not for a while anyway. The problem is food. Aside from some apples there isn't anything left, despite my careful rationing. So now my choices are to die here, slowly, or go out./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Which is no choice at all, really. I tell myself I can do it. I had gone to the convenience store on the corner before, before all this happened, and made it back without much trouble. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"So I put what was left into my backpack and started off. From the apartment door to the stairs was twenty-two steps. Then left. Two flights, ten stairs each./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I had my portable radar to warn me of any obstructions with its little beep-beeps, and a few other devices, as well as my trusty cane, and I made it to the bottom of the stairs. It suddenly occurred to me that the automatic door might not open for me, but it did. So I was out. There was a hideous smell. I guessed what it was. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Turn right. Eighty-seven steps, Lyn had once told me. My radar warned me of things on the pavement that I had to step around. There was a lot of them./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I reached the store. The doors were open. I felt around on the shelves nearest the door. Nothing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a noise: a grunt followed by some mumbled swearing. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Should I freeze right here or try to make contact? The final television broadcasts had warned about people going crazy, gangs fighting over scraps and killing other people for no reason at all./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Come on, open, you stupid fucking thing!" said the voice. It sounded like a young woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I thought about it. Eventually, I made the decision./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hi, I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a gasp and then a clunk. The woman had dropped whatever she was holding. It rolled over to me and came to rest against my foot. I reached down and picked it up, examined it./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""What … who … what the fuck?" said the woman. "Hey, where did my tin of stuff go?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I walked over to her. I could hear her breathing. I felt for her hand, pulled it up. I gave her the can./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Here you are," I said. "But if you're thinking you can eat it, I should probably tell you that you can't. It's paint."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh," she said. "Well, that's a bummer. Is there anything else in this place?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Don't know yet."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But … you can see, right? That's how you knew about the can."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I reached out and felt her face. She was wearing a blindfold. I put her hand up so she could feel my face./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Why are you wearing a blindfold when we are inside?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Big glass windows, duh," she said. "They can get you through glass. How come you're not?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I told her. "Happened seven years ago," I said. "I've learned to live with things. I had my own little place. My parents lived two blocks away but I'm pretty sure they're gone."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took an apple and a bottle of water from my pack and gave them to her. She tore into them./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"After that we did a careful search of the store. Not much left. Two jars of raspberry jelly, a bottle of ketchup, and a jar of cocktail onions. It wasn't much of a meal but it was better than nothing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a little hardware section in the store. I took a hammer, a large screwdriver, a coil of nylon rope, and a kitchen knife. Might be useful./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"An idea occurred to me. "Do you think there might be a storage room in the back?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We managed to locate it. We went in and closed the door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The young woman took off her blindfold and found a light switch. "Fuck, that's a relief," she said. "If you want to know, there's two bodies in here, looks like they killed each other. Over this. A can of peaches. Nothing else here. I guess someone else had the same idea."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We should save the peaches," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a pause. "Oh, I forgot," she said. "I was nodding. You're right." She put it into my backpack./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I started to search the bodies. I found something I couldn't identify./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Now that," said the woman, "is a useful item. A Swiss Army Knife thing. It's got all these tools that come out. A little knife, a corkscrew, a can opener, a scissor thing." She added it to my pack./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""How come you survived?" I said. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I was at work when things started to fall apart," she said. "I was a waitress. Shit job, and a long bus ride from where I lived. The other staff left, tried to get home, but I stayed. There was enough stuff in the storeroom to last for a while. I had a little radio and I locked myself in. Heard some crazy things going on outside. Then the food ran out. I remembered this place, my bus stop was just along the road a bit. Managed to get here. And then you arrived." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We were both silent for a while./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hey," she said. "Do you think we should, you know, stick together? Maybe we can help each other. You might be better outside, since you have, uh, experience, and I might be better inside."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I considered my options. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Yeah, maybe," I said. "I suppose our first priority should be food and water. What we have won't last long. Do you know if there is a shopping mall around here?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I visited one a while ago, a big one, it was called Grandview. But I don't think I could find my way there."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took out one of my devices. The battery was fully charged: twenty hours at the most. After that, I would need a power source to recharge./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Lyn," I said. "Can you tell me the location of Grandview shopping mall, relative to my current location."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hullo," said Lyn. "I can do that. It is slightly over eleven kilometres away, in a southerly direction. Would you like me to tell you about available bus routes, or call a taxi service?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""You may as well scrub the bus routes and taxis, Lyn," I said. "Which direction are you pointing in now?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""North-west."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Tell me when it's south," I said. With Lyn in my hand I turned slowly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""There," she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Eleven kilometres," I said. "What is that in steps?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately nineteen thousand."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Wow, that thing is cool!" said the young woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Who is that?" said Lyn./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""A friend," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Should I add her to the voice-recognition Friends list?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe later."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We were both quiet again./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Eleven kilometres," said the woman eventually./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Long way," I said. "With no certainty that there will be anything to find if we get there."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But you can make it, right? Because you know how to, er, be blind."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I've never done anything like that before. Always stayed in my own neighbourhood. If I had to go further I depended on someone else. My parents, my helper from the Institute, something like that."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But you've got your clever gizmos."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Which run on batteries. Special batteries, yes, but they won't last forever. If they conk out half-way we're screwed."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I again considered going back to my apartment. It was safe, it was known. But no food. Staying here, in the husk of a convenience store, was also a non-option. But nineteen thousand steps? One wrong turn, one obstacle to bring me down … /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Part of me wanted to tell the woman that I was scared. Terrified. The fear that I would starve to death not knowing there was a plate of food six inches away. My hands were shaking, there was a constant trickle of sweat running down my back./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Okay," I said. "Let's go. South."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"2/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was slow going. I held my cane in front of me and the woman held onto my belt, at the back. I showed her how to get around obstacles without changing style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanTwo steps left. Three steps forward. Two steps right. Proceed./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I told her about Lyn, the AI designed to assist blind people. Yes, I told her, she is very useful. She can read signs and provide warnings. But she has her limitations. She is under the impression that the world has not changed. She still believes that buses run./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We had gone about a kilometre. I stopped./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Do you hear that?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hear what?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That sound. Like wind in trees. Behind us."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh. Now you mention it, I do. Your hearing must be better than mine."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""At the Institute, where I did my training, they told me that when you lose your sight your other senses get better to compensate."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took out Lyn and connected her to the radar. I pointed her in the general direction of the sound. Then the sound stopped./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""What is there?" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Lyn took a long time to answer. "I do not know," she said eventually. "Maybe nothing. The radar provides only a blur."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I considered. "I'm going to try something," I said to the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I clapped my hands, a single sharp clap. I waited for the echo./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It came back … strange. A dull sort of reverberation, like what happens in rain./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"And there was something else. A smell. Like rancid honey./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Is it … is it … one of them?" whispered the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Probably not much point in whispering," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Oh, right. Is it one of them? An alien? Or a demon, or whatever the damn things are."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I think so."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""But if we don't see it, it can't hurt us, right? Can't make us crazy."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I wondered why this woman thought I could possibly know that./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She went another two hundred metres and stopped. I listened. And then clapped. Damp echo./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was no doubt. It was following us./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Son of a bitch!" said the woman. "Can they do that!?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Apparently so," I said. "Perhaps it is hoping that we will lead it to other people. Well, I don't see much that we can do about it. We have got a long way to go, so maybe it will simply lose interest."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We continued on. Another four hours. Our travelling companion was still with us. It began to get cold. Night. I noticed that the surface of the ground had changed from concrete footpath to cobblestones./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I think we are in a little roadside shopping area," I said. "We should check these buildings out, see if there is any food, find a place to stay for the night."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The woman agreed. I took Lyn out. "Identify any signs and read them, please," I said to her. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Chloe's Hair and Nail Salon," said Lyn. "Top Smile Dentistry. Pool Supplies. Everyday Fresh Bakery and Café. That is all that I can see."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Directions for the Bakery."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She told me. We went to it, found a closed glass door. I took the hammer from my backpack and smashed it open. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I started to say: "Watch out for broken – "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"And then someone grabbed my wrist and pushed me down. I dropped the hammer. The woman let go of my belt./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was a man. I could feel his sour breath on me. He was still holding my wrist, and he hauled me to my feet./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That's an interesting thing you've got there," he said. "Now it's mine."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""It wouldn't be any use to you," I said. "It's keyed to my voice."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh," he said. "But I've got you." He squeezed my wrist. "Which means I've got myself a seeing-eye dog, girlie."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Hey," said the woman. "You don't need one. You can take the blindfold off. There's no monsters around here. Or anywhere. They've gone."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I got it. "Touch my face if you don't believe it," I said. "No blindfold."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"With his free hand, he did./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Huh," he said again. There was a rustle of fabric./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Silence. He let go of my wrist./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I heard him kneel down. It sounded as if he was picking up something from the ground. The hammer. There was a thud, then another, and another, and another. Then a larger thud as he hit the ground. I knelt down and felt his head. It was covered in blood. He was dead, or would be soon. I retrieved my hammer, wiped it off as best I could on his clothes./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Let's call our friend Charley," said the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""If you want," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Should we just leave this guy here?" she said. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""No, we should dig a six-foot hole and give him a Christian ceremony."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""What!?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Joke."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Oh. That's pretty dark humour."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We live in dark times."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Silence./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I am nodding in agreement," said the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We went into the bakery. The place had been picked pretty clean, but in the back, away from the big window, the woman found a rubbish bin with a half-loaf of bread, hard and mouldy but edible – just. We got a couple of cups of rusty-tasting water from a toilet. My last apple would be breakfast./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Dark times indeed. We settled down to sleep, together. It had been a long day./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"3/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"In the morning, Lyn told us that we had five kilometres to go. We set off, still moving south. Charley continued to follow./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I wondered about the aliens, if that is what they were. The final television broadcasts had said that they seemed to do nothing at all except wander. There was a lot of them, millions, more, everywhere. There was large ones, four metres tall or more, and others that were almost person-sized. Not that it mattered. If you saw them you died, one way or another, most often by suicide. Did they mean for this to happen? Was this some sort of invasion? Not a very efficient way to take a planet over, really, but I guess it got the job done./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"They were invisible, except for when you saw them, according to some tests that had been done. Photographs showed nothing but anyone looking at a digital video image went crazy. They had some sort of form: they could push objects aside. They did not seem to consume anything or communicate with us or each other. I had never heard of one of them following people but Charley continued to trail us./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We had gone four kilometres when we heard it. A bell. Dong-de-dong. Then silence. Then again: dong-de-dong. Deliberate. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was coming from the south./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Do you think it is coming from the mall?" said the woman. "Does it mean there are people there? Survivors? "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe," I said. I turned and directed the radar, with Lyn connected, towards Charley. "How close is the disturbance?" I asked./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately eight metres," she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""And how close was it this morning, when we checked to see if it was still there?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately twelve metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Closer," said the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We continued to move towards the mall. I tried to work out what was going on. Why was Charley following us? It – or he or whatever – must know by now that we were not going to look at him. So … what?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Eventually we got there, according to Lyn. Hard to believe we had made it. Nineteen thousand steps, give or take./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We examined the glass doors at the entrance. They had been painted over, you could feel the rough texture. So someone was here, or at least had been./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The doors would not open. I whacked them with my hammer but they were some kind of extra-tough plastic. I took the screwdriver from my pack and started to prise them open. After an hour I had them an inch apart. The woman took a turn at it, and then me again, and then her, and in a while the gap was large enough for us to fit through./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Before we go in, since we don't know what's there, there's something we should do," I said. I took the rope from my pack. It was about six metres, as far as I could tell. I tied one end to my belt and the other around the woman's waist. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We went in. I was shaking, not knowing what we would find. I was as afraid of people – people who had gone insane, nutcases who had taken too many ruthlessness pills, people who would want to grab what little we had – as I was of the aliens outside./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I asked Lyn to read whatever signs she could see. Newspapers. Fashion sunglasses. Shirts and slacks, special sale prices. An Apple store. Cupcake Station. Sporting goods./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That last one," I said. "Give me directions." She did. We headed for it. When we were inside the woman took off her blindfold, gratefully. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I am looking out the door at the mall," she said. "There's a glass ceiling thing so there's light. All the exterior windows are painted or covered, I think, but not the ceiling. There's a sort of hole thing over there, we're on a balcony level where you can see down to the level below. No-one around. Now, why are we in a sporting goods store?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I told her what I was hoping to find. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Good idea," she said. "Ah, here they are. They're behind a grill-type thing. It's locked."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I handed her the hammer. "Unlock it," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Yuk," she said. "Oh, I mean the hammer. It's got something on it. Brains, I think."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was hard not to laugh./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She began to whack at the lock, and with a few blows it came off. She took one out and handed it to me. "You know how to use this?" she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""My dad showed me, years ago, when I could see. Don't know how much use it will be now. At least with a shotgun you just have to point it in the general direction and pull the trigger. What gauge is it?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""No idea. Big one, though."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We need shells. Look for a locked cabinet."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She found one, and opened it with the hammer. She took out several boxes of shells. "These are different sizes, I think," she said. "We'll just have to try them all. There are some tables at the Cupcake Station place, that will be easier. Here, take my hand."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I did. Funny, now she was leading me. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We put the gun and the boxes of shells on a table. I put Lyn down and opened the boxes with the kitchen knife./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That's odd," she said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I stiffened. "Tell me," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Well, we opened the door just enough for us to get through. But now it's wide open."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Charley. He was inside. So that was what he had wanted. For us to open the goddamn fucking door. And we had./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Close your eyes!" I said to the woman./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was no answer./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Put on your blindfold!" I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Nothing. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt the rope at my belt began to tighten. The woman was moving … where?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Towards the balcony edge./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Yes, yes," she was mumbling. "Yes, I will."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was the smell of rancid honey in my nostrils./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I fumbled for the shells. I pulled the shotgun bolt back and tried to get the shell in. Too big. I threw it aside, tried to find another box, feeling desperately around the tabletop. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The rope was growing tighter. I grasped it and with all my strength and pulled the woman back. There was a moment of slackness, and then it began to grow tense again./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Lyn!" I said. "Locate the disturbance! How far is it from here?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Five metres. Four metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I pulled the rope back again. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Three metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I was feeling around, trying to find shells. I knocked over a box. I located a shell, tried to fit it. Too small./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Two metres."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"There was a sudden sharp pain in my hand. I had grasped the blade of the knife./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt around, located the handle, picked it up./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"That choking, sickly odour. Close./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Approximately one metre."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I stabbed out, aiming for the source of the smell./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The blade sank into something that felt like sponge. I felt it shudder and pull back. The blade was yanked out of my hand. There was an odd sound: emhnnn/em … emhnn/em …/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The rope was very tight now. I took hold of it and heaved. There was a grunt as the woman fell to the floor. Immediately, she began to get up. She must have been at the railing by now./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I still had the shotgun in my hand. I felt for shells, found one. I struggled to insert it./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"This … emhad/em … to … be … it …/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"It was in. Charley was coming at me again. That sound, the smell …/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""One metre," said Lyn./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt for the safety catch, flipped it. I fired into the darkness./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"A noise: emhnnnn! /emThere was a thump./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I felt for another shell, found two. I got them in./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I took my cane from my pocket, extended it, and cast it around. It touched something. Charley was on the floor, moving, trying to get up./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I put the barrel of the shotgun on Charley's sponge-like surface. I pulled the trigger, once, and again./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Charley stopped moving. There was a sudden surge in the honey smell, and then nothing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I sank to my knees./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The rope had gone slack. There was the sound of running footsteps./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The woman threw her arms around me. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Good to see you," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"She laughed. "You too," she said. "Is … he … dead?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Guess so. It is not affecting you now?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""No. There must be some sort of mental link, there was a sort of voice in my head. It stopped when you shot him. He's still invisible, though. Mainly. Sort of a hazy shadow, now. Hey, there's a knife sticking in him. You want it back?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""He can keep it."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"We struggled to our feet./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"From somewhere deeper in the mall we heard voices. Coming towards us. The woman located some more shells and I re-loaded the gun. "Maybe you should take it," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I wouldn't know how. And I think you've done well enough."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Three people, two men and a woman, appeared. They were not wearing blindfolds./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; tab-stops: 174.0pt;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""That's close enough," I said, lifting the shotgun./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Fuck," said one of the men. "It looks as if you've killed one."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Looks that way," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Are you looking for sanctuary?" said the other man./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""We are," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""I am what passes for the leader here," said the survivor woman. "We can offer food and water and company. There is a big supermarket here, enough stuff to last for a while. We have rigged up a basic power source. There's fifteen of us. We know that eventually we will have to move somewhere but we're safe at the moment."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""And now we know they can be killed," said one of the men. "That's a hell of an achievement. Maybe you can show us how."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Maybe," I said./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The woman, my friend, gave them a brief accounting of how we had got here./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""Eleven kilometres, wow," said the other man. "This calls for a celebration."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""It does," I said. "And I have just the thing." I took my Swiss Army device from my pack. And then I took out the can of peaches./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"END/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; tab-stops: 375.75pt;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanspan style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span/span/p