Twenty-Two

We drive for most of the day. The car has a full tank of fuel. Lisa navigates using the battered old map book we found in the glove, flicking between the pages. Hour after hour I drive along clogged and damaged roads. More than once we have to backtrack, or find alternate routes, trying to avoid the cities.

We pass by a maggot nest, and then another. Worryingly, I can make out the shapes of eggs within the white mesh. Big, translucent shells, filled with twisted shadows.

We come to a place in the road where an electrical pylon has fallen, blocking all six lanes. I park up while Lisa skims through the mapbook, tracing the spaghetti-mess of roads with her finger to find an alternate route. Then I turn the car around and set off again.

Another time we see a flight of Creatures, but they’re in the distance and quickly swoop out of view. We pass more maggot nests–whole forests transformed into sticky white clusters of eggs and sleeping maggots. I tense up as we rumble past in the car, picturing in my head how fast the maggots move. Faster than a car, certainly.

It starts to get towards night. I drive for as long as I can without headlights, but eventually the darkness becomes complete and I cannot see far enough ahead to keep going–I don’t even want to think what would happen if we drove right into a nest. So I pull up by the side of the road.

“We’re close,” says Lisa. “Only an hour more.”

“If I turn on the lights . . .”

“We’re so close, David.”

Just her voice there beside me is enough. The urge for this to be over, for these months of danger and pain and fear to finally end is incredible. In the dark I cannot see her, but I lean over and find her face with my hands and we kiss, once, quietly. I want her to be safe forever.

Then, without another word, I flick on the headlights, start the engine and drive.