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Aug. 20th, 2017 07:44 pmMelanie likes to explore the suburbs. Sometimes she looks for food for Miss Justineau; sometimes she looks for books for everyone. And sometimes, she just looks: at the furniture, at the family photos, at all the pieces of the way things used to be.
Clean, mostly. That's how it looks in the pictures. It makes her remember the bunker, and how tidy things were there. Messy is more interesting, but the value of tidiness hasn't been entirely drummed out of her. She thinks it would be good to have a safe, dry place to keep all the books she's been collecting. And though none of the houses are hers, none of them are anyone else's either. There is no one else to claim them.
She likes staying close to Miss Justineau, but maybe later, she should pick a house and make it tidy -- a place to keep the things she needs.
There's no hurry, and these are idle thoughts. Melanie's only half-thinking them when she steps out of someone's house and into their overgrown back garden. That's when everything shifts: the angle of the sun in the sky, the pitch of the droning insects. Melanie goes still as the world resettles around her into something new, and different, and wrong.
She's in a field. There are a few distant houses in one direction. She pivots on unsteady legs, feeling that same dizziness she did when she bolted out of the truck and the whole world was out there, stretching out to distances her eyes had never measured before. But this isn't all new: she knows forest and trees and field. She knows building and skyscraper, though the skyline doesn't look like any part of London she's seen before.
"Greater London has thirty-two boroughs," she reminds herself, "and an area of 1,572 square kilometers." She remembers that from her lessons. It means that London is big, and she might not be as lost as she feels.
... How did she get here, though? Sometimes she loses herself a little when she's hunting, but she's never run so far without realizing it. And if she was hunting, she didn't catch anything. Her chin is clean and dry, and she doesn't feel that sleepy-satisfied way she does after she's eaten.
She looks back to the houses. Houses have carports, and carport have cars, and cars have maps. Maps are important, and Miss Justineau has already taught her how to find where Rosie is parked. If Melanie can find a map, maybe she can figure out which borough she's in, and how to get back. Melanie doesn't see any Hungries, but she starts toward the nearest house slowly, anyway, not wanting to wake any that she might come across.
It's because she's moving carefully that she sees the mask before she steps on it. It's just like hers: elastic straps and plastic buckles clinging to a piece of clear plastic, with holes at eyes, nose, and mouth. Enough to breathe, not enough to bite through. Melanie picks it up, turning it over and wondering how it got out here. It looks the way nothing else really looks anymore: clean. Like it just fell out of a convoy, except those shouldn't be happening anymore.
Melanie frowns, then continues toward the house even more cautiously, the mask clutched in her hands.
Clean, mostly. That's how it looks in the pictures. It makes her remember the bunker, and how tidy things were there. Messy is more interesting, but the value of tidiness hasn't been entirely drummed out of her. She thinks it would be good to have a safe, dry place to keep all the books she's been collecting. And though none of the houses are hers, none of them are anyone else's either. There is no one else to claim them.
She likes staying close to Miss Justineau, but maybe later, she should pick a house and make it tidy -- a place to keep the things she needs.
There's no hurry, and these are idle thoughts. Melanie's only half-thinking them when she steps out of someone's house and into their overgrown back garden. That's when everything shifts: the angle of the sun in the sky, the pitch of the droning insects. Melanie goes still as the world resettles around her into something new, and different, and wrong.
She's in a field. There are a few distant houses in one direction. She pivots on unsteady legs, feeling that same dizziness she did when she bolted out of the truck and the whole world was out there, stretching out to distances her eyes had never measured before. But this isn't all new: she knows forest and trees and field. She knows building and skyscraper, though the skyline doesn't look like any part of London she's seen before.
"Greater London has thirty-two boroughs," she reminds herself, "and an area of 1,572 square kilometers." She remembers that from her lessons. It means that London is big, and she might not be as lost as she feels.
... How did she get here, though? Sometimes she loses herself a little when she's hunting, but she's never run so far without realizing it. And if she was hunting, she didn't catch anything. Her chin is clean and dry, and she doesn't feel that sleepy-satisfied way she does after she's eaten.
She looks back to the houses. Houses have carports, and carport have cars, and cars have maps. Maps are important, and Miss Justineau has already taught her how to find where Rosie is parked. If Melanie can find a map, maybe she can figure out which borough she's in, and how to get back. Melanie doesn't see any Hungries, but she starts toward the nearest house slowly, anyway, not wanting to wake any that she might come across.
It's because she's moving carefully that she sees the mask before she steps on it. It's just like hers: elastic straps and plastic buckles clinging to a piece of clear plastic, with holes at eyes, nose, and mouth. Enough to breathe, not enough to bite through. Melanie picks it up, turning it over and wondering how it got out here. It looks the way nothing else really looks anymore: clean. Like it just fell out of a convoy, except those shouldn't be happening anymore.
Melanie frowns, then continues toward the house even more cautiously, the mask clutched in her hands.
