32 Days Later

For a few weeks, life was somewhat normal. They talked a lot, about Henry, and of other things like Jamie and Ivy’s father and Abby and the children. Sharing memories was a way to pass the time, as was walking. But as the days passed, both of them felt that they were waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen – like a helicopter flying by or a UFO crashing in Regent’s Park. Both prospects seemed equally impossible.

Ivy kissed David in the middle of cooking dinner one night, in the small kitchen in the bed shop’s staff room. It wasn’t intentional, it was just something that happened when two people were in a small space and one of them was attracted to the other. And it really wasn’t her fault, because since when did he have to be that close when reaching for the spatula?

He reacted to the kiss by returning it, but broke away after a few seconds looking like a train had just hit him.

“Ivy,” he said, gripping the spatula, “we can’t do this. Post-apocalyptic romances never work out.”

She gave him a doubtful look.
“Is that supposed to be a reason?”

David shook his head, sighing.
“No, I’m just… I’m sorry. It’s just that as much as I want to, we shouldn’t. For numerous reasons, actually. Like the fact that we’re the only people here…”

Ivy looked sceptical as he babbled on, and bit her lip as she looked at the mess overboiling on the stove.

“You’re not much of a cook, did you know that?” she asked, smiling as he hurriedly moved to lift away the saucepan.

The subject slipped away. Maybe for the best, Ivy thought as David grinned and poured the half-burned beans in tomato sauce on to two plates. It wasn’t like he was choosing someone else instead of her.

-

David woke up to the sound of a running engine one Saturday morning. It seemed so far away that he thought he imagined it at first, but as it got stronger, he became sure of the fact that he was still asleep and dreaming.

Ivy was still sleeping next to him after another round of bad dreams, but she opened her eyes groggily as he sat up.
He felt a strange tug at his heart as he looked at her, his Ivy. There really was something about her.

“Listen,” he said before she had the chance to say anything.

“I can’t hear anything,” she said tiredly when a few seconds had gone by, and the sound had died out. Had he imagined it? No, he couldn’t have, and by the coldness that had hit him as the duvet fell from his chest, he could tell that he wasn’t dreaming either.

“No, wait, there it is,” he said, hearing it again. “It’s a car!”

He quickly untangled himself from Ivy’s sheets, and hurried over to his bed to change into his jeans and t-shirt. Ivy looked at him confusedly, and he smiled at her bedhead hair.

“You’re imagining things, Dave.”

“I’m telling you, it’s there!”

Ivy groaned and pushed the sheets off her body. He was already on his way out the door.

The next few hours were a daze.
Ivy didn’t remember running after David as he bolted down the street, nor how far they ran, but she remembered the relief that flooded through her as they saw the car coming towards them. She also remembered seeing Norah smile at them as Ivan stopped the car, and four people greeting them with hugs and happy exclamations.

She remembered crying, and David’s grasp on her fingers, the way he couldn’t stop smiling and the way he hugged her too, just after he had hugged Norah.
She remembered finding out their names and hearing their stories, but it would be days before she actually took it all in.

Norah and Ivan were the oldest, being 50 and 45, and the other two were a teenage girl called Laurie and a younger boy, Jasper. The van was their home, but they were thinking about settling on a farm or in an empty house.
They had been on their way to Wales when they decided to make a detour and see if they could find any more survivors in London.
It had taken them three months just to find each other, as they had been spread out in three different cities.
And just like Ivy and David, they had thought from the start that they were the only ones.

Norah doted on her, telling her that she was too thin and curiously asking if she and David were together, as David and Ivan packed the things they needed from their ‘home’ into the trailer attached to the van.

“Well… now that there are other people around I guess he might reconsider it,” Ivy said, as David smiled at her oblivious to Norah’s question.

Laurie eyed David with different kind of curiosity than Norah had, and Jasper asked David why he had holes in his shoes when it was almost winter.

David put his arm around Ivy as Ivan drove them out of London, making some lame joke about the similarity of their names.

And she felt the kind of peace that only can be brought to you by living in a post-apocalyptic world for almost four months and then realising it was still post-apocalyptic – but that you weren’t alone in it.