Reprieve

I have to bury them before the storm. To see them pinned down, grown over... that would be too much. I couldn't come back from that.

Hell, I'm barely sane as is.

Lightning sparks like fairy lights in the oncoming dark, the thunderous grumbling so ever-present it barely registers as sound. The storms have been worse since the last land fell. Something about the water content in the air, they said. Throws off the humidity. Of course, they haven't been heard from in months. Maybe one day the atmosphere will normalise. Maybe.

A solitary blowfly hums aimlessly above her left eye. I'm glad I closed them before rigor mortis set in. If anyone's been lucky in all of this it's the flies. So many new places for them to live.

That's us, in case that wasn't clear.

It's been almost sixteen months now. Sixteen months since we left. We got lucky, in this place. Sanctuary, she called it. The farthest place we could find from the growth points. Once we knew what was happening we left as fast as we could. Leaving the house we were almost overrun. Took too long to pack. Brady, my eldest, was grabbed by a growth point. It was close, but we hacked him free and got out of dodge. I broke every speed limit, and I was fine with that. The cops were too, they were busy fighting with the rest of the armed forces, trying to hold back the tide. We slowed to get through a checkpoint but the officer didn't even bother to wave us down. He knew as well as we did, nothing was going to stop this. They were fighting a bush fire with a water balloon.

But we have to try, don't we? We have to do our best to survive even when we know it's hopeless. It's in our nature. If we didn't try we'd be letting ourselves down, going against our program, against everything that's kept the human race running since the dawn of time. We're at the end now. The timer's stopped. A photo finish. I doubt there'll be a medal.

That survival drive, that's why we ran. That's why we left instead of choosing to fight. My neighbours glared as we packed the car, judging us. Hating. But honour's no good if you're dead.

We couldn't find Mandy for close to an hour. You could hear the growth front over the rain, that's how close it was. She was hiding in the roof; didn't want to leave our home. She didn't know what was at stake. I don't think any of us did, really.

The radio cracked as we drove; I wanted to get a heads up on new fronts as they were known. We'd have to change our route if it got too close. There was nothing useful, just a list of fallen suburbs and cities and a bunch of people blaming each other for the outbreaks. That's just like politicians; argue over who left the stove on while the whole damn house is burning down.

It was admirable, the plan. One the whole world got behind. We could end starvation, end it for good.

My stomach grumbles. The irony is laughable.

I start to dig, chipped shovel scraping dead earth. The dirt is so hard I have to jump on the shovel with both feet just to make a dent. This is going to be harder than I thought. The wind has picked up now, whipping up red dust eddies that skitter and twist across the desert.

It's stunning here. That's why she picked it. She always said if she went, this is where she'd want to stay. I don't have time to take it in, but that's ok. I've seen it many times before. We'd sit up here when the rain fronts came, waiting, watching for a hint of growth to creep toward us on the horizon. For a while, nothing did. We'd sit together, all of us, huddled under a dripping blanket, watching the sun trace patterns in the clouds. We'd get cold and light a fire, maybe even heat up a can of something from the stash. The sky would clear and the stars come out, and we'd realise just how little we were, how tiny and minute and small amongst that sea of sparkling souls. Mandy called them souls, but that was my fault. I'd told her that the stars were souls, lifted up from the cities and the highways and the towns, glittering forever and watching over us. It was the only way she could deal with what she'd seen. Brady played along, he knew what I was doing and he knew she desperately needed to believe it. I was proud of him. I always will be.