Hugh Howey

If Lukas were standing there with her, if he could see what she was about to do, would he try to talk her out of it? She thought he might. How well did they really know each other? They had had what, two, three encounters in person?

The familiar patter of gunfire came next, the pop pop pop of the good guys followed by the ratatatat of the bad.

Images flashed through her mind of some of the scenes she’d found while scrounging for materials, like the two men who had committed suicide in the head office of Supply, their hands interlocked, opposite wrists slit, a rust-coloured stain all around them.

He felt like curling up into a ball and crying, just closing his eyes and making the world go away.

He didn’t want to puzzle it out, he just wanted to be told.

She fought to remain calm, not to succumb to the nausea of kids having kids.

He pictured Bernard’s hand swinging down and to the right, slamming the plug home into number seventeen, then turning and confronting Lukas about his favourite pastime, his secret crush …

Juliette had promised herself never to love in secret again, never to love at all. And somehow this time was worse: she had kept it a secret even from him. Even from herself.

But Lukas would wait. Lukas was locked up and safe. She had all the time in the world to call him.

Lukas now knew why people were put out. He was the virus. If he sneezed the wrong words, it would kill everyone he knew.