Chapter 29: Third Floor
Chapter 29: Third Floor
I did not look for another settlement.
Hot food and floodlights still had an appeal, but Eastbridge had changed what walls meant to me. A gate offered safety only when someone else did not control whether I could leave through it.
They gave me a blanket. By breakfast, they owned the debt attached to it.
I would trust people individually from now on. Blind Call selected for compatibility, and compatibility was not obedience. Neither Liora nor Aria had chosen to be manifested, but both had retained complete judgment after arriving. Either could have refused to cooperate. Either could decide I deserved opposition later. The connection measured what grew between us; it did not prevent anyone from choosing to hurt me.
That made every future Call dangerous in a way monsters were not. It also meant every kindness mattered because it had been chosen.
I found the apartment building an hour before moonset.
Reaching it took longer than the distance deserved. I moved through back gardens and service alleys rather than the road, stopping whenever my lungs became loud. Twice I saw Eastbridge lights sweep over distant rooftops. Once an engine passed close enough that I lay beneath a rusted garden table with the rifle pressed to my chest until its vibration faded from the ground.
The city had changed character after midnight. Small scavengers moved openly between piles of refuse. Something called from a roof three streets away, and another answered farther north. I treated every exchange as a boundary line I did not understand.
Three storeys remained standing alone on a corner where the rest of the block had collapsed. Its yard was choked with weeds, yet I found no tracks, droppings, claw marks, or fresh bones outside. Nothing appeared to visit regularly.
I loaded the rifle before entering. The noise might expose me, but if something attacked in a stairwell, secrecy would become a secondary concern.
The smell met me in the hallway.
It was dry, dusty, and faintly sweet. The source waited inside a ground-floor apartment with its door hanging from one hinge.
Human bones lay across the floor.
Something had gnawed them. The long bones were split lengthwise, their ends rounded by teeth. Parallel grooves scored the shafts. Dried hair and skin clung to one corner. A shoe near the wall still held a foot.
I reached the hallway before my stomach emptied, then stood with my forehead against the plaster until I could breathe.
I went back and checked.
Every room on the ground floor. Every room above it. Rifle raised for eight seconds, lowered while my arms recovered, then raised again. I found no warmth or fresh sign. Whatever had fed there had left months ago.
I chose a rear room on the third floor. It had one door, one window, and a view over the yard and two approaches. I dragged a wardrobe across the entrance, added a chest of drawers, and wedged the bed frame against both.
Someone had lived there after the Merge.
A stained blanket had been folded on the mattress. Empty wrappers sat in a neat pile rather than scattered across the floor. Supplies lined one wall. Beside the mattress, groups of five had been scratched into the plaster.
The marks ended abruptly.
There were forty-seven of them. I counted twice.
The final group contained only two scratches. Whoever had slept there had survived at least forty-seven days after the world changed. They had learned to store wrappers, collect medicine, and keep the upper room orderly. A person capable of doing all that had still gone downstairs at the wrong time.
Their caution had failed once. Mine only had to fail once as well. I wrote that beside the forty-seventh mark in my head and kept searching.
Beside the marks, a smaller line had been scratched so faintly that I almost missed it: a name, perhaps, or the beginning of one. Only the first three letters remained clear beneath a water stain.
You lasted longer than I have. I am alive because I arrived after you.
I looked at them, then thought of the shoe downstairs.
You counted your days. One night, you went down.
I took what the survivor had left.
Two battered pots. A frying pan with a taped handle. A metal cup. Gauze, antiseptic, tape, several painkillers, antibiotic cream, two shirts, a jacket, and the blanket. I stripped wire from a dead washing machine and a lamp. The broken chair, drawer, and bed slats would provide dry wood. A small jar held two spoonfuls of salt. Four sealed tins and a packet of rice felt like treasure.
Opening the refrigerator added a permanent entry to my list of mistakes.
My wounds required attention. The dressing on my shoulder blade had dried into the cut, and removing it cost most of my remaining composure. The gash under my ribs had opened again. I cleaned both, spread the last of the cream over the shoulder, then rebound them with too much gauze and uncertain hands.
The sealed tins became dinner. One contained beans suspended in a sauce that had turned into cold jelly. I ate half, covered the rest with the least dirty pan, and forced myself to stop. The food needed to last, and eating until I felt full would only teach my stomach to expect something the next day could not provide.
I washed it down with rainwater collected in the bottom of a bucket by the window. Dust floated on the surface. I strained it through cloth, then added boiling water to the list of problems fire would solve.
Aria did this better while bleeding through her armour.
I prepared a fire and left it unlit.
The window had no glass. At night, even a tiny flame could be seen from far down the street. Daylight would hide the glow, and smoke would thin into a grey sky.
So I sat behind the barricade with the loaded rifle across my knees. Dry wood waited before me. Eleven portions of meat worsened by the hour.
Sleep never came.