Ben Hoban is a GP in Exeter.
It’s hard to say exactly when the sun rises these days, but there’s an orangey kind of smudge in the dust-clouds that tells her it’s time to start moving before the February heat gets too bad. She drags the others out of a bad night’s sleep and they pack away the shelter, check each other’s seals, and purge their filters before stepping out into the routine of another post-apocalyptic Tuesday. Perhaps it’s a Wednesday; they’re pretty much the same. All things considered, Star tells herself, it’s not a bad routine: they’re all still functional, after all, and if they can reach their destination by nightfall, things should stay that way a little longer. Johnny’s been sick for a while now, as if something bad got inside him despite the routine and the rad suit and respirator. Maybe it’s more like something good leaked out, and maybe, she worries, it will happen to them all. Maybe, she tells herself, she should stop thinking about stuff she can’t fix and bloody well focus on the transit instead.
They make steady progress over the broken ground, paving slabs turned to glass in a nuclear furnace, cracked and dusted with fallout. Every so often they’re forced to detour around partially exposed voids, gateways to an urban underworld of sewers, train tunnels, and bunkers. It’s strange, she thinks, how quickly your whole life can turn to ashes, and strange too how quickly whatever comes next gets to be the new normal. She didn’t use to be called Star, and Brace didn’t use to be called that either, but Johnny’s always just been Johnny. The stubs of skyscrapers left over from the last air-burst remind her that there’s no going back; they’re just navigational markers now. Grass pushes up through the cracks, same as always, persisting in spite of everything.
The stubs of skyscrapers left over from the last air-burst remind her that there’s no going back; they’re just navigational markers now. Grass pushes up through the cracks, same as always, persisting in spite of everything.
A few hours in, therm levels are nudging into the red and they take shelter in the shadow of a lopsided building, anonymous and dead, perhaps some kind of factory or hospital. After a while it starts raining and they push on again, hoods up and heads down; they need water, but not this water. Brace takes lead and Star moves back to keep Johnny between them. He’s weaker than yesterday, slowly becoming a ghost of himself, and when the wind picks up, she catches herself worrying that he will disappear altogether, like smoke. It’s clear that he needs help, and she’s honestly not sure he’ll get it where they’re headed, but they don’t have a lot of options, and nowadays you do what you have to and take what you can.
It’s cooling off again by the time they get there, and the sun looks like it’s finally given up and gone home. The air feels thin, and their exposed skin is tingling from the day’s UV output. There’s not much to see, but Star’s nav unit has picked up a short-range beacon and before long they’re following a path through the local debris field and closing on what looks like a shallow crater, concrete and subsoil gouged out around a buried horizontal blast door. There’s no one around, but for about half a minute, they can make out the whine of a micro-drone somewhere nearby before it goes quiet again; some kind of muffled clanking then, and the blast door inches open to let out a boy of around thirteen wearing a vomit-coloured rad suit several sizes too big, his face streaked with grease. A pair of over-sized goggles does a poor job of covering the nervous look on his face as he sticks his chin in their direction and calls out: “You got an appointment then?” It’s been a long day, but Star smiles as she recognises the kid; she knows they’ve made it. “Hey Maz, go tell your mum to put the kettle on.” His eyes open even wider and he flashes her a grin before ducking back down inside. They follow him underground and Brace re-seals the door behind them.
As bunkers go, it’s not bad: strip lights and air con powered by a hydrogen cell in the corner, and filtered air you can almost breathe without thinking about it. There’s a pre-apocalyptic brown faux leather sofa along one wall which has definitely seen better days. If there were a coffee table and some old magazines, it would feel just like a waiting room; maybe that’s the point. Maz’s head emerges from a tunnel leading back from the opposite wall. He seems more relaxed below ground, his voice a little lower and his smile tempered by the reserve of someone with a job to do. “Doc’ll see you now, come on through.” Johnny follows him into the tunnel while Star and Brace stay on the sofa, hoping that whatever happens next will be worth the journey.
As bunkers go, it’s not bad: strip lights and air con powered by a hydrogen cell in the corner, and filtered air you can almost breathe without thinking about it.
Perhaps you have an idea of what a doctor ought to look like: white coat, straight face and glasses; or maybe pearls, big smile and a family photo on the desk. Doc wasn’t like either of those, but you could tell just by looking at her that she knew things and she meant business. She could see that Johnny was in a bad way as soon as he crawled out of that tunnel and settled into an armchair that must have come with the sofa next door. She sat in hers, taking in the yellow tinge of his sclera and the rounded belly that looked all wrong against the wiriness of his arms and legs, the shallowness of his breathing. He looked her in the eyes, daring her to say something, and as she met his gaze, it became clear to her that he knew already, and that there wasn’t anything she could say. She turned to one side for a moment, quietly making room in her store of griefs and heartaches for one more, and then turned back, persisting in spite of everything, and holding a corroded metal tray on which by some miracle sat a perfect floral pattern Royal Doulton teapot and matching pair of tea cups, complete with saucers. She registered the disbelief on his face and poured, smiling shyly. “It’s just tea, I grow it hydroponically. Drink up while it’s hot.”
They leave again in the morning, better slept and carrying plenty of fresh water and a tincture for Johnny that Doc has made from the sap of opium poppies, hydroponically grown like the tea. He is grateful for both, although it seems to him that of the two, the tea is the more powerful drug, or at least the making and the sharing of it. Without having said a word, he knows he has been heard, and while he has seemed to himself gradually to be fading out of life, he knows now that he has been seen. Johnny starts to walk the long road home with his two friends, grateful that they came here, stumbling every so often, but not falling; persisting, in spite of everything.
