“What did you say to me?” Jessie snaps, turning to him.
“You heard,” he replies. “The rest of us are—”
“Go to Hell!” she shouts, rushing at him and trying to pull him from his chair, and then she starts pummeling him with her fists.
He pulls away and stumbles out of her reach, and then Sharon grabs the girl and holds her back.
“How can you all be so calm?” Jessie screams, with tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t stand it anymore! I’d rather die!”
“Don’t say things like that,” Sharon replies, clearly struggling to stay calm. “Jessie, we’re all finding this hard, but we need you to stay strong. We can’t keep arguing like this.”
“We’ve been sitting around here since forever!”
“It’s been just over a week. That’s really not so long.”
“We have to go and get help,” Jessie continues manically. “I’m not going to just sit around and wait to die! We have to go somewhere else. They have to have fixed this somewhere!”
Behind her, Donald hurries into the room carrying a metal box, which he hands to Sharon before stepping past her and grabbing Jessie firmly from behind.
“No!” Jessie screams, suddenly flailing wildly as if she knows what’s about to happen to her. She turns and tries to bite her father, but her mother has already taken a syringe from the box and quickly uses it to inject the girl.
Jessie struggles for a moment longer, before suddenly falling limp. Her father helps her into the nearest chair, where she slumps forward and bumps her forehead against the table.
“We have to do it sometimes,” Sharon says pleadingly, turning to me with tears running down her face. “Please don’t think that we’re bad parents, it’s just that she’s struggling so badly. The injection calms her down for a few days, that’s all.”
“I’m sure you’re doing what’s right,” I reply, although I can’t help feeling sorry for the girl as she remains slouched at the table. “I’ve seen many people who find it hard to deal with the loss of music. Indeed, I would imagine that those of us in this room are in the minority when it comes to surviving. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m certainly finding it very difficult to keep my head straight.”
“I’ll find something for us to eat,” Sharon says, heading over to the counter.
“What were you dreaming about?” Craig asks.
I turn to him and see that he’s eyeing me with a hint of suspicion.
“You were mumbling in your sleep,” he continues. “I could hear you from the next room. I didn’t want to come and disturb you, but it sounded like you were having some kind of nightmare.”
“It was nothing,” I reply, as I glance at the window and see torrential rain falling across the yard. “Nothing at all. Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.”
“We’re going to have to make some decisions today,” Dean says as he sets plates on the table. “I know everyone wants to hope for the best, but Craig’s right when he says that we should be prepared for things to get worse.”
“How could they get worse?” Donald asks. “Look at us, we’re already struggling to keep going. By my reckoning, we’ve got food for about two more weeks.”
“And that’s if we don’t take in more strays,” Adam mutters darkly.
Hearing a clanking sound nearby, I turn and watch as Sharon tries several times to get water from the tap. She turns the handle first one way, then the other, and finally she turns to us with a fearful expression.
“Let me try,” Donald says, hurrying over and grabbing the handle.
He tries several times, before stepping back and staring at the empty sink.
“The water’s gone,” Craig says, looking around the room before turning to me. “I told you. That means things aren’t getting better. No-one’s fixing things. It’s getting worse.”
Sixteen
“We have water in these barrels,” Donald explains, raising his voice to be heard over the rain as we head into the barn. “I’ll put a few extra out while the weather’s bad.”
He stops in front of a set of large plastic barrels, and then he carefully removes the lid of one.
“Damn it,” he mutters suddenly.
Stepping forward, I peer inside and see that there are hundreds of small, wriggling worm-like creatures in the water.
“Mosquito larvae,” Dean says, peering over my shoulder. “Nothing a few drops of soap won’t get rid of.”
“But it means the water isn’t drinkable, doesn’t it?” Adam asks. “Or that it’s contaminated, something like that?”
“It’s drinkable,” Donald says, although he sounds concerned. “I’m going to need to come up with a better system, though. If these things can get in, then other things can too.”
“Without water, we’re really screwed,” Dean adds. “A man can go a week without food, probably longer. But even three days without water is too much.”
For a moment, everyone stands in silence, as if we’re each contemplating this worsening of our situation. I can’t help staring down at the larvae. Mankind might be struggling in the present circumstances, but I suppose the impending collapse of civilization will be a boon for other creatures. These mosquito larvae, for example, certainly seem to be thriving. I suppose they know nothing of music, so to them it’s as if nothing has changed.
“Perhaps music was a curse,” I whisper.
“What was that?” Dean asks.
“Nothing.”
“The power went out a while ago,” Donald says as he starts opening the other barrels, revealing more and more of the larvae. “The gas too, and the internet and TV. Water was the last thing left, the last thing that made it feel like someone somewhere was keeping things ticking over. Now that’s gone, I think we have to assume that there’s nobody at the wheel of this ship. We’re on our own.”
“Which means we have to look after our own,” Adam adds, in what is presumably a dig at my presence.
“I can carry my weight,” I say, turning to him. “And if I’m no longer welcome, I can always—”
“You’re staying, my friend,” Donald says, patting me on the shoulder as he steps past. “We’re all in this together, although Adam has a point. We probably can’t afford to take in anyone else.”
Adam glares at me, and it’s most clear that he’s irked by the fact that I’m here at all. Indeed, after a moment he mumbles something under his breath and storms away, heading back out into the driving rain and then hurrying toward the farmhouse. I should like to go after him and say something that will defend my position, but I suppose there’s not much that I could say. The boy seems set against me.
“We need to find a reliable source of food,” Donald says after a moment. “I went out into the forest the other day, on my own. I thought I could catch some rabbits, something like that, but there was nothing out there. I don’t know if I was looking in the wrong places, or if I was scaring them away.”
“Or something was scaring them away,” Dean suggests.
“When I was a boy,” I interject, “my friends and I used to catch rabbits. We made these little traps using some wire and a few other bits and bobs.”
“And that worked?”
“We were only catching them for fun, to keep as pets,” I explain. “Occasionally the wire would cut a little too deep, and hurt the rabbits, but I suppose that wouldn’t be a problem right now. It’s not the most humane method in the world, but in the present circumstances it would be wise to start building a few of these traps. Then, when the rain ends, we can put them out and hope for the best.”
“You’d better lead the way and show us how to do it,” Donald replies. “Right now, it’s either that or we start coming up with recipes for mosquito larvae soup.”