“What makes you think I’m passing through?”
“Because I’ve never seen you before. You have that traveller look about you. Where are you from?”
I liked her style. She held her ground with a subtle softness that reeled me in and had me wanting more. I couldn’t tell if she was aware of her power, and I had no intention of revealing that nugget during our first day together. “I lived on the surf coast. I came to the city looking for people interested in setting up somewhere permanently; a property out of town where there's space to expand if others want to join us.”
“Anywhere specific?” she asked, perking up.
"I don't have a particular house in mind or a town picked out yet, no." I stood and rounded the desk, moving closer while still keeping a respectable distance. Going off her energy and interest, it wouldn’t take much to persuade her to join me. “But it has to be somewhere semi-rural where we can grow real food and I can stop eating whatever stale, processed shit I can find.”
She sighed and stared at me for a beat, thinking so hard I could see it on her face. We were still feeling each other out and would be for a while yet, but a sense of closeness had already started developing between us. I knew she could feel it, too. “I have seeds," she finally said, "lots of them. Vacuum sealed in tins. They’re part of my survival kit.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I’d never met a more organised person in my life, and the fact that she was sharing this info with me was another big step in the right direction. “Are you saying you’ll think about coming with me?”
“Do you have a car?” she asked, ignoring my question.
Liv was a woman on her own talking to a man she’d just met. I had no problem letting her set the pace or the rules. She’d taken a chance coming to see me today, and I wouldn’t make her regret her decision. “Having a car these days is a process I won’t get into right now, but yeah, I have one. Does that mean you’re on board?”
She tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. “I think so, but not yet.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “Not until...”
Her friend died.
I nodded in understanding. “Got it.” As she’d mentioned earlier, it could be weeks before he passed, but it was more important to wait for the right person than accept anyone who crossed my path. “Come on,” I said, grabbing her backpack and handing it to her. “Show me your apartment. Let me meet your friend. We’ll get moving before thosependejosstart roaming the streets.”
"Pendejos?"
"The assholes in the gang who make all that noise."
~ * ~
We didn’t go straight back to her apartment.
Liv had a system she followed each morning that she refused to deviate from even with me tagging along. I’d seen parts of it from a distance, but going through it firsthand with her turned out to be an eye-opening experience. We searched a couple of levels in nearby buildings that she hadn’t been through yet and found some more food and pain meds for her friend. When we were done, the two of us completed one of several circuits she’d mapped out for herself around the central business district.
We ran what I figured must have been about five kilometres, and I kept pace with her while she jogged one block and sprinted the next, alternating between the two throughout the entire route. We dodged corpses when we could, stopped to take them out if it was unavoidable, and all the while talked and kept each other aware of our positions. By the time we were done, both of us were breathing hard, and I was fast on my way to developing a crush.
When it came time to head back to her place, going through all the steps she’d devised to keep herself safe had my admiration for her doubling. She pulled up the rope ladder on her balcony and stepped into her apartment, waiting for me to pass through the door before she closed and locked it behind me. Her eyes were filled with excitement as she looked at me, and a beat later, she shifted her attention to the room in general. “Haruto! I’m home—and I have company.”
Her apartment was an open plan design, with a small kitchen overlooking a living and dining area. A two-seater dining table, an L-shaped leather couch, and a mismatched green recliner filled the space. All neatly arranged, everything in its place. There were cushions on the couch, a plush ottoman, and a big, useless TV on the wall. Liv had barricaded the main door to the hall with timber planks at some point, and it sounded like corpses were roaming the hall like demented security guards.
She liked to keep her apartment spotless. The complete opposite of the carnage going on outside her walls.
There was no sign of the man named Haruto.
“He’s probably taking a nap.” We offloaded our backpacks, and she frowned. “But he’s been finding it harder to get around, so he usually sleeps in his recliner during the day.”
She headed for what I guessed was one of two bedrooms, and I waited for her in the lounge room. The apartment had a cold, empty feel to it as if we were the only two people here, and I had a suspicion it wasn’t the lack of heating causing the sensation. Apprehension trickled through me, along with the instinct to check on her and make sure she was okay. I’d already taken a couple of steps in her direction when a long, low wail of pain drifted my way.
“Oh, no!Nononononono!”
Her voice had the same tortured tone I used to hear when I had the shitty job of informing people their loved ones had been killed. I jogged to the room expecting to see the worst and found Liv standing beside the bed with her hands pressed to her mouth and her shoulders hunched forward. The man—Haruto—lay on top of the covers with one of his arms draped over the side and the other hand resting on his stomach.
His skin was pale and lifeless, his eyes closed. He looked peaceful. Content.
Liv froze for a split second, then dropped to her knees and grabbed his hand. She pressed her fingers to his wrist, and when she failed to locate a pulse there, she checked his neck in a pointless attempt to find signs of life. I knew a dead body when I saw one, though, and she was searching for hope where there was none.
I barely knew her. I sure as shit didn’t know him, but a weight settled on my chest anyway.
She looked up at me from her kneeled position, her eyes so distraught that something ripped open inside me. “He’s gone,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I can’t believe it. He’sgone.” A sob tore from her throat, and she closed her eyes, blinking tears free that rolled down her cheeks.
