One

In the night he turned and saw the face at the window, its lower half concealed by a dirty white mask. The eyes were as black as to not be there, shadows, sockets punched out of coke. Hair lashed the forehead. A hand left a greasy imprint on the glass. Then the face was gone. A lull. It woke him, spooked him. He lay in the darkness feeling certain that if he moved he would tumble into a chasm so deep that it would have no end. He would die of thirst before impact. He reached out and Becky was next to him. She made no sound while she breathed. She responded to his touch, though, rolling over and slipping her hand into the waistband of his boxer shorts. He stiffened immediately, felt the blood leave his head so quickly that an ache took its place as if he had swallowed an iced drink too swiftly. But he was too distracted by the face at the glass to be able to think of anything else. He turned to look at Becky but the darkness wouldn't soften. He edged away and swung his feet to the floor. The motorhome creaked as he picked his way to the door. He opened it and stepped outside. The wheelbarrow carrying their provisions was where he had left it. He wondered if he should have rooted around for his mask and goggles before leaving the vehicle. The sight before him wiped the thought immediately from his mind.

The clouds had parted. There was a patch of the universe visible through it, about the size of a football field. The stars seemed packed within, as though so desperate to be seen they'd shifted their positions. He watched until the cloud knitted itself together again. It was as if it had never happened. The wind stirred his fringe. Soon it might be howling around them again. What was this? Eye of a storm? He could hear thunder coming up from the south. The familiar pulses of silver. It was warmer outside than in. He knelt and placed his hand against the tarmac. Residual heat. He wondered if it was from the event itself. He thought of his parents in their tiny garden, sitting together doing the crossword and drinking gin and tonics before dinner. He hoped that oblivion had reached them as quickly as it had those in Hiroshima. He couldn't cope with the thought of them surviving and struggling.

Black, burned bushes at the side of the road. Scars in the embankment where cars had collided and rolled. He looked at all the dead vehicles, dozens of them, and wondered if they could ever be fixed. If something electrical made now by someone with know-how would work, or whether there was some atmospheric gremlin in the air that would not allow it.

He walked around the motorhome to the off side. He peered into the dark. Another four hours until light, or its approximation. In the centre of the road was a diagram, scratched into the tacky skin of filth with a chunk of rock. It was a picture of a hand with six fingers and, within it, a stick figure.

He remembered the bowl of meat. How he had scooped up the hot, greasy contents, chewing the skin which crackled under his teeth. The flavour of it rose in his throat now and he was sick, a thin gruel of whisky and soup. The tattoo. What had they given him?

He looked up at the motorhome. On the window above the kitchen sink was a handprint.

12. BREAKING AND ENTERING

In the morning Jane broke into a barn and found a keeve filled with broken bottles and jars of fermenting pickle. There was a wooden chest filled with junk. He sorted through it but there was nothing worth taking although he did see a toy boat, painted blue and white, with a broken mast, no sail. He put it in his coat pocket. He emptied the keeve, wiped it clean with his gloved hand, and lugged it back to the motorhome. He used a pan to scoop up dirty water from a nearby brook, filtered it with a sieve and heated it on the burner. It took a while but the promise of a hot bath was worth it.

'Go ahead,' he told Becky when she'd risen. She was standing at the door in her underwear, her hair tousled, looking down at the grey, steaming bathwater. 'A gift from me to you. A thank-you.'

He took Aidan's arm and guided him away. They walked along the carriageway and Jane showed him the cats' eyes set into the middle of the road. He wanted to show him how the fixed rubber dome they were set into wiped the glass clean when it was depressed, but all of the rubber had melted. He picked one of the eyes out with his knife and handed it to Aidan. The mist wouldn't allow them a view south further than two hundred feet. It looked like something from a war photographer's portfolio.