Survival
9. In The Dark
So they walked home.
It took some time. Tim was carrying three packs of waffles and a bottle of orange juice taken from the church cafeteria, Robbie was carrying the other bits of food- the candy and so on- and Rachel, it turned out, was still carrying the stuffed horse.
"I'm sorry," she said, when she saw Ray looking. "I didn't mean to take it, it's just...I didn't want to leave it."
Which seemed fair enough, to him.
As they walked into their street they saw Anna and Gerald, standing outside the house. They were exchanging words quietly- then they spotted their daughter.
Maryann raced over to them- as best as she could, it was getting harder for her to run- and hugged them both. Anna started crying. Every single one of them got a hug- Ray found himself being crushed by Anna, and he was shocked to say the least. He was almost dragged inside by her- she was clutching his and Robbie's hands.
"We thought you were dead," she said hysterically. "We heard it, even over here- we thought- oh god, we thought-"
She ushered both them and Maryann to chairs. Rachel was still being hugged by her grandfather. "We thought it must have...must be happening again. Maryann, everything's okay, isn't it? We saw people, they told us it was one of them, only one, but they didn't know..."
She reached behind her and found a tissue box. She blew her nose loudly.
"It's fine, Mom- it's fine," Maryann said. She herself looked close to tears, and she moved her hands to her belly absently. "We stayed the night in a church- we were fine."
"And we got some food," Rachel piped up. "Candy, mostly."
Robbie emptied his pockets. Piled up on the table, it didn't look like very much. Ray shrugged.
"We can get food whenever we like." he said perkily.
"Dad, you know that's not true," Robbie said.
The rest of that day passed in a sort of vacuum. No-one did very much. Ray wished the TV was working- what would be on it, if it was on? News reporters interviewing devastated citizens, scenes of devastation, the President addressing the nation- wait, he was probably dead-
It would be nice to know what was going on in the rest of the world, though. Were there still tripods running loose in Britain or Japan? What was happening there? Virtually everyone in the twenty-first century was connected up to the world like no-one had ever been before, they'd taken it for granted...and now they were lost in the dark.
The living room needed dusting. The TV screen for one was covered in a layer of the stuff.
Dust. Hahaha. What if- God, what if- there was still the dust of people in the air? And every time you went out there you were-
God.
If he had followed that train of thought he might well have thrown up on the carpet; but Rachel, still holding her stuffed horse, chose that moment to come in.
"Rachel," he said with relief. "Hiya, baby," He looked at her. "All you alright?"
She didn't look especially alright- not that he expected her to be all light and smiles, but she looked like she was ready to cry. "No, Dad," she said. "Robbie's all..."
"All what?" he asked urgently. She sat next to him.
"He just...he won't talk. Not properly," she said. "He's changed."
"I know, Rachel- we all have." He hugged her. She sniffed.
"He doesn't want to talk, he said-"
"He'll come down soon, Rachel. He's just...he went through a lot."
"But so have I!" she said with sudden fury. "He ran off and left...and...and I thought he was dead and I thought Mom was dead and I...I thought you were gonna die! I thought that man was going to kill you." She buried her head in his t-shirt. "I thought he'd come out of that room instead, and he'd kill me as well..."
Ray realised he had never considered that, back in the cellar. That he might lose. Or had he? There was really very little he remembered about that night, when it came down to it.
"I'm sorry, Rachel."
"It wasn't your fault," she said fiercely.
He didn't have an answer to that.
Rachel shifted slowly off the sofa. "I have a question," she said seriously.
"What's that, Rachel?"
"Will we...get to go home again? It got ruined, didn't it? And your house, as well. Are we...is anyone going to rebuild them?"
Ray shook his head slowly.
"Eventually, Rachel- eventually, I don't see why not."
While sitting around the dinner table- dinner was pizza, small portions- Ray remembered something.
"D'ya remember that girl at the church, Maryann?"
"What girl?" Maryann asked.
"The one who came in with her son."
"The one who kept talking to you?"
"Yeah. Her name was Celeste...she was staying at a camp, she had nowhere to go. So- well, it was a spur of the moment thing- I gave her this address, I said that her and her son could come here, if they wanted."
"What?" Anna snapped from the other end of the table. "This is not your house, Ray Ferrier-"
"So?" he snapped back. "Her daughter was killed, she had almost no-one left. We got talking, I didn't want to just leave her."
"What would you care about that? You're only interested in women if you can get them into bed."
"Mom!"
"Now that's no worse than the things you said yourself, dear," Anna said, in such a dignified old-person voice that it made Ray want to scream. "This house belongs to me and your father."
Ray glanced at Maryann, and found to his surprise that she was looking at him with something not unlike...pride? It was hard to tell. But then she said, in a calm voice, "We have a house here, there's enough room for two more people, and if this woman wants to stay with Ray then I see no reason why not."
And Gerald nodded too.
"There are plenty of abandoned houses," Anna argued. "They're just sitting there, with appliances and beds free for the taking. Why on earth don't the people in camps go to one of those?"
"They're providing food at the camps," Ray said.
"And the soldiers are probably stopping them going anywhere," Robbie supplied. They all looked at him. "It's possible," he muttered. "They...you know...they didn't want people taking food either..."
"It's a mess," Gerald said firmly.
Everyone was quiet. Rachel opened her mouth to say something to Robbie, but then she shut it again. Ray felt like telling her to say whatever she had been about to, to not keep it all inside, but he didn't. And Robbie didn't say anything else, either.
After tea, Ray sat in the living room once more. Rachel played with her toy horse.
"What are you gonna call him?" Ray asked.
"What?"
"What are you gonna call the horse?"
"He's a she. And I don't know," she answered. She seemed very glum- she leaned against the television absentmindedly.
"Rachel? What is it?"
"I was thinking that Amy would probably want a horse like this..."
"Amy?"
"My best friend. At school."
Ray winced. "Rachel, she might not be dead."
"They're all dead, Dad," she said, in a grown-up voice that cracked. She didn't even cry- she just pulled herself onto the sofa, toy in hand. "You...you saw what was going on..."
"Yeah," he said, in a small voice. "But- well, miracles happen, Rachel. We thought Robbie was dead..."
"That's one miracle," she said fiercely. "We need about a thousand. For Uncle Richard and Auntie Jean and Jimmy and Callie- and for Aunt Miriam, and Joe, and all my friends. And all their friends, and all Robbie's friends too- and my teachers, and- you know- even the people I don't like. I just don't like them being dead when I saw them every day."
Ray found all he could do was stare- because she was right, of course. So hideously right. He'd seen his workmates lasered to death before his eyes and his neighbours blown up in their houses- somehow, knowing your acquaintances were dead was a thing almost equal to knowing your friends were dead. Or for him, at least.
"Not all of them will be dead, Rachel," he said firmly. "It just- doesn't really work like that. Someone will have survived."
She said nothing, just sat back and hugged her toy horse. "Amy's not very clever," she said sadly. "She wouldn't have thought of any of the stuff you thought of."
Ray racked his brains: he couldn't think of anything he'd thought of that had been especially clever. The tripod explosion- he didn't even like to think about it too much because the thought of being there, in the belly of the beast, still scared the hell out of him- he figured it was mostly luck, panic, instincts and the quick thinking of strangers, little to do with cleverness when it came down to it.
"And Daphne Lawdry- she's Amy's cousin, she's older- she was sick the last time I went to school so I didn't even see her," Rachel was nearly crying now. "It's not fair."
There was a noise from the direction of the living room door- Ray looked up and saw Maryann there. She walked in and sat on the sofa as well, next to Rachel.
"Don't cry, honey," she said. "Things are going to get better. You'll be able to go back to school, and I'm sure Amy will be there, because I know Amy's mom and Amy's mom will have looked after her. You'll get food every day- proper food, roast chicken and meatballs and pie- and the TV and computers will work, and you won't have to live here any more. Me and you and Robbie and Tim- we'll get a nice new house near here- and your dad-" She shot a look at Ray. "-he'll live next door to us. And everything will be fine."
Ray listened unconviced: this sounded insanely optimistic, but he sure as hell wasn't going to contradict her.
"You hear me, Rachel?" Maryann said.
"Yeah, Mom"
"Good."
The two of them hugged. "I can feel the baby," Rachel said. "When are you going to have it?"
At those words, Ray saw a flicker of anxiety in Maryann's eyes. "I don't know, honey. Sometime...why don't you go play with your brother? I think he needs the company."
Rachel left the room, and Maryann looked at Ray.
"I've told my parents and Tim already...I don't know what to do, Ray." She ran her hands along her stomach. "If any hospitals are still standing, they'll be full. I...you see, there's less than a month left...I was thinking we ought to go to a hospital now. We'd probably be chucked right out, but..."
"You mean, leave you in the hospital until you've had the baby?"
"Yeah."
"There isn't any way we could bring a doctor here, or anything?"
"I don't know. We really ought to..." She shook her head. "I'm not afraid to go out again, you know. But we leave the kids this time."
Ray nodded slowly.
"I'm really worried, Ray." she said quietly.
He nodded.
"We'll go out then- I don't mind coming with you."
