Scavengers

      It was almost laughable how quickly I had gotten used to waking up in a five star bed, with five star duvet and five star pillows and Hattie curled up at my feet like a cat. I stretched out, revelling in the high thread count for all of ten seconds before I realised something was wrong. There was no child-sized lump where my feet wanted to be, forcing me to bend my legs at angles they weren’t intended to form. I sat bolt upright, shoving off the duvet and looking around the bedroom. Hattie wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

           The only problem with the penthouse suite was the number of places a seven year old could tuck herself away. I wasn’t in the mood for Hide and Seek, grabbing my penknife from the bedside table and discretely folding it into my palm so only the small blade was sticking out between my fingers. She was probably just in the living room—reading or colouring or trying once again to solve the Rubik’s Cube I’d found her—but being unarmed wasn’t worth the risk. It was rare that Hattie was up before me and until I saw her to confirm she was safe, I wouldn’t be able to stop the fear blooming in my stomach.

           There were only three rooms to the suite. I cleared the bedroom quickly, checking the wardrobe and underneath the bed before scoping out the bathroom and confirming she hadn’t squeezed in the cupboard under the sink. That only left the main room – a lounge and kitchenette that used to serve honeymooners, rich business men and tourists in search of decadence. Now it was mostly a library. Every time I found a book I thought might interest Hattie, I brought it back with me. She’d turned the room into a complicated maze-like fort with hardback foundations and paperback walls. It kept her busy, but it made it all the more difficult to find her.

           “Hattie? You’d better be in here…” I called out, tucking my fear carefully underneath the threatening tone in my voice. It was so easy to imagine the worst.

           Rather than a reply, I heard the sliding glass door to the balcony scraping against the frame as it was opened. I skirted around a stack of comic books to find Hattie standing in the doorway, her eyes full of innocence. It was an act – the guilty way she was chewing on a chunk of her hair gave it all away.

           “What have I told you about the balcony?” I growled, reaching out to drag her further into the room by her arm.

           “I was just looking!” she protested. “No one saw me.”

           We’d had the same argument at least once a week for the four months we’d been in the suite and it always went the same way. I would lecture her about safety, she would pretend to agree to follow the rules next time. Then she’d be right back out there again in a few days. I didn’t have it in me to go through the usual script so soon after waking up, shooing her in the direction of the table in the corner. Looking relieved she’d gotten away with her rule-breaking so lightly, she darted past me and went to the drawer we used as a pantry, in search of breakfast.

           I pushed the door closed. It was so tempting to go out there but I wasn’t going to have any luck convincing Hattie to listen to me if I didn’t follow the rules myself. Besides, I knew what I would see. It would look the same as always – like a diorama rather than a real place. There were no cars, no tourists, no rickshaws or commuters or cyclists. The icons of the skyline still stood but long gone were the black cabs and red buses. It was a strange simulacrum, a reminder of the past. Unlike Hattie, I didn’t like to dwell on it longer than necessary.

           Turning the knob that bolted the door shut, I turned my attention back to the only place I could guarantee our safety. Hattie was rummaging through the food drawer but when she turned around she only had a tin of kidney beans in her hand.

           “We’re out of food,” she said quietly.

           We both knew what that meant. I hurried over to kneel beside her, narrowing missing knocking over part of the latest book fort extension, and appraised the contents of our pantry. One can of kidney beans, one can of Spam, and a collection of glass bottles of herbs and spices. Not much that could constitute a meal. I cursed myself for letting supplies get so low.

           “Okay.” I got to my feet. “I’ll bring us back food.”

           There wasn’t any other option, since food delivery services had gone bust when the apocalypse had happened.

           I swapped my pyjamas for black jeans and a hoodie, pocketing the pen knife and adding a kitchen blade for good measure. My rucksack was empty when I swung it over my shoulders but hopefully it wouldn’t stay that way for long. It was getting harder and harder to fill it when I went out raiding. The obvious places – supermarkets and restaurants – had all been hit months ago and a lot of the food that could still be found was long past its best. I would have to get creative.

           Before I left, I made Hattie recite the rules to me. No balcony, no lights once it was dark outside, nothing to call attention to ourselves. Usually I gave her free run of the hotel but when I had to venture out, she was confined to the suite. I ruffled her hair and gave her a salute, promising to be back soon, before I stepped into the hall. After I’d heard her bolt the door behind me, I made for the stairs.

           The lifts hadn’t been working in months. Once the power had been turned off, we’d been left with thirty three flights of stairs to get down to street level. Most people still around liked to live closer to the ground but that was part of the reason I’d set up camp with Hattie so close to the clouds – no one was going to be looking for anyone up there. As long as she stayed off the balcony and didn’t get herself seen, it was one of the safest places we could be.

           When they’d forcibly evacuated the city, almost everyone had complied. I wasn’t sure why anyone besides us had chosen to stay, but they must all have had their reasons. If you saw someone else, you didn’t stop to chat. You ran or you gave chase, depending on whether you thought you could win the fight. I always ran, not wanting to risk not being able to make it back to Hattie. When I’d found her alone in an abandoned library, I had promised to take care of her. If I wasn’t there to bring back food, she would have to go outside herself and it was too dangerous.

           I pushed my way out a fire door at the bottom of the stairs, carefully wedging it open behind me so I’d be able to get back in. Once upon a time an alarm would have been blaring, but even back-up generators had run out of power now. It made it easier to sneak around.

           London had once been my stomping ground. I had lived, worked and partied on its streets and I liked to think they still remembered me. Even with everyone gone, the city itself hadn’t changed much. The eerie stagnancy at once reminded me both of the memories and of the loss. There were posters up for West End shows that had played final performances long ago, advertisements for films that never opened with dates so far in the past we were soon going to be looping them one year in the future. I didn’t like to look for too long, well aware it would bring stinging tears to my eyes if I was forced to think about my old life.

           As much as the foundations of the city I loved remained, it was being overwritten by something far darker. More and more buildings had become burnt out shells each time I ventured out, set ablaze by those with nothing else to do. Windows were smashed, walls were graffitied. Bins were tipped over, spilling months-old putrid rubbish into the street. I pulled a bandana out of my pocket and tied it over my mouth and nose in an attempt to help with the smell.

           It was getting harder to know where best to look for food. Coffee shops, convenience stores and cinemas had long been picked clean. There was always the option of heading further out to a more residential area to go through empty homes in the hope of finding someone who had kept their cupboards well-stocked with dried pasta and rice, but the journey would keep me away from Hattie longer. Instead I picked an office block, choosing one that looked minimally vandalised, and let myself in through the already smashed glass doors.

With so many offices all practically on top of each other, they tended to go largely unexplored by anyone looking to amuse themselves; the mundane was boring. It was no small task to go through every desk drawer in search of snacks people had kept in them, but it usually resulted in an acceptable harvest. I could expect to find biscuits and instant ramen, crisp packets and Pot Noodles. None of it was ever particularly healthy, but it was food that was safe to eat and that mattered more.

Well-versed in office plundering, I headed to the penultimate floor. Fewer people would have bothered to trek up all the stairs if they were looking to do a similar food raid, but the top floor was an anomaly for people who wanted a good view – whether it be for sight-seeing or surveillance. One floor from the top was the sweet spot.

It seemed like the space had been left largely untouched. There were crude drawings on the whiteboard affixed to the wall and a spray of papers across the floor but it didn’t look like anyone had been through the place once the desperation of survival had set in. I took in the sight for a moment – an entire open plan office of empty desks. Each of them was marked with a fragment of personality. There were framed family photos, long-dead house plants, mugs emblazoned with puns. All left, never to be returned to.

I tried not to think about the people as I rifled through their belongings. Some were probably dead, others sequestered away in the country where Hattie and I were meant to be. After thirty or forty desks, I was beginning to fill up my rucksack. I worked methodically, going from one drawer straight to the next. The food was carefully packed into my bag like a game of Tetris. I wanted to delay my next trip out as long as possible.         

Whenever I found a book, I quickly scanned the blurb. None of them were strictly appropriate for a seven year old but, with precious else to keep her entertained, she was reading far above her age range. I had long run out of middle grade fiction for her. If it didn’t seem too violent or sexual, I gave up space in my bag for it. It would be worth it to see her smile.

It was a relief when my rucksack zip strained as I did it up. There was enough food in there to keep us going for a little while longer. Without Hattie around to see me setting a bad example, I crossed over to the wall of glass that looked out over central London to get a glimpse of home. It was easy to pretend, from all the way up here, that it was still the city I loved. You couldn’t see the broken glass on the floor or the fire-bombed post boxes. I could let myself believe those buildings were still full of people. That things were still the same.

I traced the route I’d taken back through the streets until I found the hotel I called home. It was strange to look at such a huge building and know that it belonged to just the two of us, in the middle of what had once been such an over-populated space. The apocalypse had really crashed property values.

           I was shouldering my bag, now heavy enough to make me grunt, when I noticed the smoke. It was only a thin plume, tracing its way up towards the sky where it dissipated into nothing, but even at the end of the world, some things never changed. Smoke still meant fire. Tracking the column of inky black downwards to the source, my heart stopped. In an instant, I was already running. That smoke was coming from the lobby of our hotel.