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  Title Page

  Copyright

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  Last One To Die

  Are you a Survivor?

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  Last One To Die

  Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Hall

  The rights of Thomas Hall to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are ficticious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  THE LAST MAN ON EARTH HAS COMPANY

  He has been alone since she died. Since they all died.

  He wants to believe that there are other people out there, but the evidence suggests that isn't the case. He comes to accept that he is the only one left, until the morning when he wakes up to find that it has snowed and there are footprints outside his window.

  He follows them in the hope of finally finding other people like him, but the longer the chase goes on, the more he questions what he is seeing and his own sanity.

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  CHAPTER 1

  THE FLOOR SHOOK WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC and raised voices from below. He pulled the covers back and looked at the door as if he expected someone to come in. There was no one there. He could relax, for now.

  There was no light coming through the thin curtains pulled across the tiny window. It was the middle of the night but sleep didn’t seem possible. Tim pulled the remains of his bed sheets off and stood up. The floor was warm on his bare feet, his stripy pyjamas were too small and hung half way up his calves. He walked to the window and opened the curtains enough to see the orange lights from the cigarettes which men were smoking out front.

  A familiar creak behind him and his heart seemed to jump into his throat. He turned around as the door swung open and for a moment he thought they had come back for him.

  ‘You awake kiddo?’ Margaret said. When she closed the door behind her he breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Couldn’t sleep huh?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Me neither.’ She walked across the room in three small steps and joined him by the window. ‘Whatcha looking at?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Tim said. There was nothing outside to look at. The mumbled conversations of the men with cigarettes was just noise. Even when it was light there was nothing to see except the dusty plains stretching into the distance and the small clump of trees where he was sometimes allowed to play.

  He turned away from the window to face Margaret. Despite only being twelve, and her being somewhere nearer thirty, he was taller than her. When it was light he could see the patch of grey hair that had taken root on top of her head.

  She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth when she looked at him and tenderly raised a hand to his face. ‘Does it still hurt?’ she said.

  Tim shook his head. It was a lie but he didn’t want her to know that the pain, as much as the noise, was what kept him awake. He turned away from her hand and it fell back to her side.

  They stood in silence for a moment and listened to the mumble of conversation from below. The music changed to something more upbeat and was joined by drunken voices attempting to sing. Tim looked over her shoulder to the door, partly because he was worried it might open again, but mostly because looking at Margaret in her revealing clothes made him feel strange. She didn’t seem to realise the effect she had on him and was as comfortable walking around in her underwear as she had ever been.

  ‘You know you can talk to me about it if you want,’ she said.

  He shook his head, the bruises on his cheeks ached. ‘It’s fine.’

  Margaret looked at him for a moment longer and then nodded, respecting his wishes and maybe realising that he didn’t need a mother. He’d had one of those once and it hadn’t done him any good. She walked away from the window and sat on the edge of his bed. He wanted to join her but he felt nervous, unsure what to do when he was around her.

  ‘Come here,’ she said.

  He hesitated, didn’t understand what he was feeling. A simple request to join her seemed to have a million possibilities. She folded back the covers and lay down, her night gown shifted up her leg to reveal a smooth thigh, creamy in the dull light.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said.

  Beneath them the song ended and the men cheered for another. Tim’s little bedroom had never felt so big. He lay down beside her, she wrapped an arm around him and he froze. Her body radiated heat like a fire and he felt himself beginning to sweat. Breathing became more difficult and he was afraid he might start to shake.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, pulling herself closer to him. He could feel her chest against his arm. She rested her head on his shoulder and held him tightly.

  CHAPTER 2

  NO TIME AT ALL SEEMED TO PASS BUT when he opened his eyes again it was light and Margaret was gone. The sheets beside him were still warm where she had slept and he felt an unfamiliar pang of loneliness.

  He jumped when he heard a hammering sound on his door. ‘Are you in there, boy?’ He squeezed his eyes closed and wished he was still asleep. The door opened and Gruff walked in, he was as ugly as a troll and as big as a house, he had to stoop to get beneath the door frame. ‘Why are you still in bed?’

  Tim got up, the floor had gone cold. His jeans were more hole than trouser but he pulled them off the chair and quickly got dressed, mumbling his apologies.

  ‘Master wants to see you,’ Gruff said.

  Fear went through him like a bath in ice water. He’d managed to avoid the Master for almost three days and he didn’t want to see him now. ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

  ‘Do I look like your errand boy?’ Gruff said.

  Memories of laying in Margaret’s warm arms returned to him and he wished he could go back to that brief moment before sleep had taken him. He would gladly live in that moment forever, even with its confusing mixture of emotions, rather than face his Master.

  The floorboards creaked and groaned as Gruff stood aside to let him out the room. He managed to give every impression that he was hurrying while dragging his feet and stretching every moment to its fullest. Gruff growled at him as he squeezed past.

  Outside of his room the building stank of spilled beer and tobacco. The other doors on the landing were closed and the bar was empty. Water sloshed from a cleaning bucket and mop, the source unseen but the sound familiar. He could feel Gruff’s eyes on the back of his neck as he made his way downstairs.

  The floor was wet, his bare feet printing his progress towards the bar. Someone whistled a tune he didn’t recognise. He wondered how far he would get if he just turned and ran out the door. Not very far, he guessed, Gruff would probably catch him before he made it to the forest.

  The Master’s door was behind the bar. Tim carefully avoided the broken glass that hadn’t been swept up and the sticky residue he could see drying on the side.

  The door was open, he could hear someone moving around inside. He thought that it must be old Narla, the cleaner, and that he had been granted a temporary reprieve from the Master. He pushed the door, it didn’t make a sound and he saw that he had been mistaken.

  The room smelled of wood polish and ammonia, every surface sh
ined like it was in a different building to the rest of the bar. The Master was alone, standing in the far corner, hunched over something which Tim couldn’t see.

  Realising his mistake Tim took a step backwards, thinking he could get outside and announce himself properly, but he was confused to have found the Master there when he’d expected to find Narla. He got disorientated, lost his balance and knocked into the door.

  The Master stiffened, suddenly stood upright and turned around to see who was there. His sharp pale face was like a mask, dark eyebrows pointed down, signalling an anger that never seemed to pass. He saw that it was Tim and snarled.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

  Light from the open window reflected off the Master’s scalp and Tim had to look away from the glare. He swallowed. ‘You wanted to see me sir.’

  His lips were too red, as if he painted them like one of the women. His mouth was puckered and revealed a long yellow tooth that stuck out at an angle. ‘You don’t know how to knock?’

  ‘I’m sorry sir, the door was open, I didn’t think you were here.’

  The Master turned away from Tim for a moment, returned to his hunched position and made something click. ‘Sit down boy,’ he said.

  The bruises and half-healed cuts on his face ached. He sat on one of the wooden chairs opposite the desk, when he looked up again, the Master was seated on the other side.

  He leaned forwards and seemed to examine Tim with his sunken black eyes. His long yellow fingernails clicked out of time on the desk. ‘Tell me boy...’ he began, the words hung in the air like a bad smell.

  ‘Yes sir?’

  ‘...what did you see when you came into the room just now?’

  ‘See sir?’ Tim said. He was confused by the unusual question, people didn’t care what he saw. ‘I don’t think I saw anything at all.’

  The Master’s smile was almost worse than his scowl. The expression seemed to warp and stretch his face into a painful grimace. Tim wanted to look away but he didn’t dare. ‘How long have we worked together Timothy?’

  Since his mother had gotten sick and hadn’t been able to protect him. Since before they’d come to the forsaken dust bowl of a place and set up shop in an abandoned bar. ‘A while,’ Tim said.

  ‘Yes, quite a while,’ the Master said and nodded. ‘We are a little bit like family you and I, don’t you think?’

  The idea that the two of them could be anything at all like family made Tim want to vomit on the highly polished floor. He kept his mouth shut.

  ‘And families, look out for each other? Yes?’

  Tim nodded. If the Master thought he treated him like family then he obviously didn’t know what family was.

  ‘Good. I’m glad we are in agreement.’

  Tim nodded and waited to be told what he’d actually been called for. This preamble seemed of little consequence.

  ‘Was there something else?’ the Master said. The smile was gone, his usual vicious aspect had returned.

  ‘You asked to see me sir?’ Tim said before he realised that he could have just left the room.

  ‘Did I?’ the Master said and shook his head. ‘I don’t think I did.’ His right eye closed and then opened. It took Tim a moment to realise he was being winked at. ‘Why don’t you take the day off your duties, go outside and play.’

  ‘Sir?’ Tim said. He couldn’t help feeling like he was being tricked.

  ‘That’s what children do isn’t it? They play?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘You’re a child aren’t you?’ the Master said. He sounded unsure.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Well go outside and play then.’

  Tim stood before the offer could be revoked. It wasn’t that he had any real desire to go outside and with no other children to play with there was a limit to what he could do, but a day off was a day off, they didn’t come along very often.

  ‘Oh Timothy?’ the old man said.

  He had made it as far as the door. He stopped and turned around, sure that he was right and that it had been a trick. ‘Yes sir?’

  ‘There’s no need to tell anyone what you saw in here,’ he said. ‘We’ll just keep it a secret, between me and you, yes?’

  As far as Tim was concerned there was no secret, he didn’t think he had seen anything at all. But the strange way the Master was behaving gave him reason to wonder if he actually had seen something. ‘Yes sir,’ he said.

  ‘Good boy, now run along and play, or whatever it is you small people do.’

  He left the door ajar, as he had found it, and almost slipped over as he sprinted through the bar to the front door. He could already see the sun shining, creating a painfully bright haze across the room. It would be hot outside and, by midday, it would be even hotter but he didn’t care; he had no duties for the day and he hadn’t been shouted at by the Master. His face still hurt and the limp might stay with him forever but he didn’t care, he was free.

  CHAPTER 3

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE PLACE TIM EVER WENT to play but, before he went there, he took a detour around the side of the building. He stepped nimbly over the discarded cigarette ends beneath his bedroom window, kept his neck bent to protect his face from the sun and hoped that no one would see him and question what he was doing.

  The kitchen was at the back of the bar, you could get to it without going outside but it seemed safer than going past doors that might open on voices that might call him in. He could hear the two cooks talking to each other around the corner before he saw them.

  ‘Timbo!’

  Tim looked up and saw Braker waving at him. His cook’s whites were held together with dirt and he had a cigarette between his grubby fingers.

  ‘Whatcha doing out here kid?’

  ‘Hi Braker,’ Tim said. The other man looked at him suspiciously for a moment, took a final drag on his cigarette, dropped it on the floor and disappeared back inside.

  ‘You want to make sure old snaggletooth doesn’t catch you out here,’ Braker said. He was about the only person Tim knew that was brave enough to call the Master that, most people, himself included, wouldn’t even dare think it. ‘He’ll make sure you get another one of them black eyes if he finds out you’re not at work.’

  Tim smiled, he liked Braker but there was a pleasure in knowing something someone else didn’t, or at least in getting to tell them so.

  ‘What?’ Braker said with a grin. ‘I got something on my face?’

  He had a big ginger beard and about a year’s worth of accumulated dirt and grease but Tim shook his head.

  ‘What is it then?’ He leaned close and Tim could smell the oil they used for frying on his skin like sweat. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’

  Tim nodded, enjoying the game, trying not to smile was part of it.

  ‘Don’t tell me the old man’s finally kicked the bucket?’ Braker said.

  Tim shook his head.

  Braker pretended to think of what else it could be. Finally he shook his head. ‘You’ve got me, I haven’t got the first idea what it is.’

  ‘He said I could have a day off,’ Tim said. He could no longer suppress a big grin.

  ‘A day...’ Braker started loudly. Then he put a finger to his lips and shh’d Tim even though he hadn’t said anything and never raised his voice. ‘Keep it to yourself,’ Braker said. He comically looking around in an exaggerated manner, ‘or everyone’ll want one.’

  Tim smiled, he couldn’t help himself. It was good to talk to someone who wasn’t ordering him about, it made him feel as if none of it really mattered very much.

  ‘I guess you’ll be going to your forest then?’

  Tim nodded.

  ‘You’ll be wanting some scraps I suppose?’

  Tim nodded again.

  Braker dropped the remains of his cigarette on the floor and squashed it with the heel of his boot. ‘Wait here then and don’t you be telling anyone about this, snaggletooth’ll string me up by the balls if he finds out I’m givi
ng away food.’

  The kitchen door banged closed behind him and Tim leaned against the wall in the shade. He tried lifting his knee, placing his foot against the wall as he’d seen Braker do. Although it looked cool when his friend did it Tim couldn’t help feeling like an idiot. Instead he crouched down and watched the ants running around in the dust.

  A gentle breeze brought cold air to the land and in the shadow he shivered. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually felt cold and didn’t really now. It felt good against his permanently burned skin.

  ‘Here,’ Braker said, appearing silently behind him.

  Tim stood up, looked around, and took the faded blue plastic bag he was holding out. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention it kid,’ Braker said and then his expression became quite serious. ‘I mean it Tim, you don’t tell anyone I gave you that, got it?’

  Tim nodded solemnly.

  ‘Good boy. Now you go off and have fun, don’t waste your day off doing anything useful.’

  CHAPTER 4

  THE COLD WIND HAD STOPPED BUT HE PRODUCED a good approximation of it as he ran across the dusty field towards the forest. He clutched the plastic bag against his chest, his back to the house, so that if anyone looked out the window they wouldn’t see him with it. It took fewer than five minutes to reach the forest, but by the time he did he was panting and sweating, and smiling like an idiot. He pushed past the dry trees and leaned against a rock in the welcome shade.

  Leaves rustled in the canopy above and when he blinked away the sweat he could see easily enough. He rested on the rock for a moment, the plastic bag on the floor in front of him, until he had his breath back.

  Inside the bag were the scraps of things that the kitchen produced. He reached inside and pulled out a handful of something green but otherwise unidentifiable.