The day the world ended, Alix and Jase had run for the Old Tower.
It was part of the college, now, but it had been part of the town's defenses back in the middle ages. There were still regular, daily ceremonies about opening and closing the gates, once in the morning and once in the evening. So, it had gates. More importantly, it had a good, high wall.
They had joined a crowd, some with the same idea, some trying to run in other directions. Alix still remembered the crushing weight of hundreds of people pushed together, trying to find safety. She remembered seeing the tower gates and struggling to get to them. They were so close, but she could barely move towards them. She thought she was going to be crushed and killed.
Through all of that, she had held onto Jase. And he had held onto her.
They made it in just before the gates were slammed closed.
Alix had breathed a sigh of relief, sure they were safe at last.
Jase hadn't. He'd pulled her into the tower itself and up the old, stone steps to one of the professor's studies. It was one of those odd shaped rooms that turned up in buildings that had had their insides torn out and put back together piecemeal over the centuries by people who obviously didn't stop to consult with anyone else in the building, one of those spaces that hadn't been planned so much as leftover. And then had a door stuck in front of it to make it look as though it was supposed to be there.
The ceiling had had a funny, downward slant on one side, as if it were meant to be part of a gable. Maybe there had been one. Or maybe there was some other story behind it. Knowing Jase, he probably knew, but Alix had never asked him.
On the far side near the window, if you pulled yourself up in just the right way, you could see that there was a space there, a triangular sort of shelf or cupboard that had no reason to exist. The professor who used the room had stashed some of his books and papers there.
"Come on," Jase said. "Get in here."
He'd pulled some of the books out, helped her climb in, then handed the books back to her. "Hold these, and squeeze back." He'd climbed in after, then piled the books back in front of the opening. It was a tight squeeze – Alix was practically sitting on top of Jase – but it hid them from anyone who came looking.
She'd wanted to protest that this was crazy, they didn't need to hide like this. The gates were closed. They were safe.
Only, she'd seen the look in his eyes and known he wouldn't believe it.
She didn't believe it either.
He'd kept back a couple books – thick ones that looked like they were in Latin – giving them just enough space to see out the study window to what was happening below.
So, they had a good view when they came rushing against the gate.
There must have been hundreds of them. Thousands. The human crowd of minutes before, for all its madness and fear, hadn't been like them. The panic, the confusion, desperation and hope, none of it was there.
Alix remembered how they crushed against the gate, not caring – incapable of caring – that they were crushing their own, the infected closest to the gate as they pounded against it, a nightmare wave of living souls.
Or soulless, she supposed.
To be honest, remembering their faces, she didn't think the ones of them being crushed against the gate had cared either.
The gate had broken.
Jase had hastily put the books in place. They hadn't seen anything else, not then.
Alix still remembered the screaming.
They waited till the screaming stopped.
Then, they waited some more.
She remembered what they found when they finally crawled out.
They didn't see anyone else, not anyone alive.
But, before crawling out, when they thought it finally might be safe, Alix had risked pulling out her phone and calling Nana and Grampa. She'd been living with them since she started at university, to save money. They couldn't text, or she might have risked a message while she and Jase hid in the dark. Or maybe not. Looking back on it, now, she couldn't imagine risking the small bit of light from the phone or any noise it might make. She was surprised she'd had the courage to call them at all.
She'd called them before, when the chaos began, told them to run, told them to hide, told them she loved them.
This time, when she called them and told them she was still alive, they told her they were at the Skinners, how they'd done their best to barricade the house, to put out any lights, how they had food and water enough to last at least for a little while.
There was safety there, a little safety, if she could just get there.
It was the last call she'd been able to make before the phones stopped working.
Five miles. It was only five miles from the college to the Skinners' house. She and Jase had covered it in the night, terrified each moment of what they might see – or not see. Till it was too late.
And they hadn't seen them. Twice.
Alix still went cold inside thinking of those meetings.
Yet, they'd made it.
Flynn was already there, another student from the professor's classes. He hadn't wanted to believe what Jase and Alix told him about what they'd seen. Just hearing it made him angry. Like them, he must have had friends there, maybe even family.
But, what seemed to make him angriest was hearing how she and Jase had gotten out, how Jase had found the hiding place for him. Jase had done work for Professor Grey, the one the office had belonged to, which was how he knew where the professor's secret book cubby (Jase's name for it) was.
She thought she understood what was getting to him. He was terrified, like the rest of them. But, he couldn't get rid of the feeling he should fight, he should do something, even while knowing there was nothing he could do.
But, Jase had done something, even if all he'd done was find a place to hide and help Alix hide there with him.
To Flynn, it probably sounded like Jase had done the complete, swashbuckling hero thing, saving the damsel in distress and all that.
Which he had, Alix admitted. She knew, if he hadn't run for that room and taken her with him, she would have died with everyone else.
She'd told Jase later, when they had begun to feel safe and think they might actually find a way out of this, that she was amazed how he'd kept his head.
Jase had laughed. "I didn't keep my head. I panicked. I just ran for the first bolt hole I could think of."
She'd laughed too, half-believing him, half-not. She seemed to remember reading once that, nine times out of ten, heroism was just panicking at the right time in the right direction.
She'd wished Flynn could have heard Jase say that, though. She'd tried to tell him later, but Flynn had only scowled. He seemed to think Alix was just making it up to help him feel better, condescending to him. But, he might have believed it – might have understood – if he'd heard Jase.
When Nana and Grampa's medicine began to run out, Jase was the one who offered to try and get more.
A mile. It had been only a mile to the local chemist's.
That had been three days before Alix began to get sick.
When Gold and Jefferson found them, he still hadn't come back.
