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Our protagonist finds a shelter from the storm, and something else entirely.

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“’Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood,

When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud,

I came in from the wilderness a creature void of form,

“Come in”, she said, “I’ll give ya shelter from the storm”.”

 

Bob Dylan �"Shelter from the Storm

 

A solitary candle lit the room.

 

He could see that whilst the basement was once a much larger space, debris falling in from the collapsing building above had blocked off the greater part of the room.

 

What remained was about thirty square feet of concrete floor under a low ceiling. A shotgun caught his eye, leaning against the wall next to a rotting wooden chair. A box of shotgun shells, a few water bottles and some tins of food littered the top of a poker table, the green felt mouldy and coated with dust.

 

He slumped to the floor opposite her as she slowly perched on the edge of the chair, and, finally, setting his aching spine against the mercifully cold stone wall.

 

He reached into his pockets and retrieved an almost empty pouch of tobacco and his liquorice-flavoured rolling papers. As he flicked a skin out of the pack another thin slip, this one brown and bearing a simple message, fell out and onto his lap. He looked down to where it had stuck to his jean leg. It said:

 

“Five Leaves Left”

Ignoring it for the moment he rolled himself a shaky, skinny cigarette. He patted his pockets for his lighter, but it wasn’t there. He pictured it on the arm of his now vaporised sofa, back at home.

 

He sighed loudly, but she was already moving towards him, skulking through the shadow. Wordlessly, she held her hand close enough that he could make it out in the gloom, her palm outstretched and flat.

 

He gave her the rollie, and she took it to the alcove by the table. She put the cigarette between her dry, cracked lips and lit it from the candle, inhaling gently, and replaced the shade to keep a draught from extinguishing their only light source. She held the single drag deep in her lungs as she stepped back over to him and returned what she had taken.

 

He mumbled a thank you, and offered her his rolling supplies. She shook her head and sat back on the edge of the chair, taking the shotgun barrel in one fist and staring at the door.

 

He scanned the dim room for details, too shy now to find words for the benevolent stranger sat across from him.

 

From the pile of rubble, a few loose rocks had been gathered to form a circle. The remnant of a fire sat in the centre, and he guessed that the door had been opened as he passed in order to clear the previous night’s smoke. He could still smell the remnants of it in the air.

 

He wondered which was, in reality, more dangerous; the smoke from the fire, or the radioactive air outside.

 

That thought going unanswered, he gazed toward the shotgun. It made him wonder, but he wanted to avoid questioning her, for now. The girl looked tense, and was now cradling the gun on her lap. He had a habit of getting on the wrong side of people, and decided not to give himself chance this time.

 

He toked hard on his rollie, bringing it back to life. This was the first ‘stop’ of his frantic exodus, so this was the first nicotine he had absorbed in days. His nerves were shattered.

 

Suddenly, he remembered the slip of paper stuck to the damp leg of his jeans.  The idea of only having five cigarettes left terrified him when he thought of it. How long would they last, and how long would they be needed to?

 

He knew from his journey that the bombs were - as of this morning - still falling. He had heard the long shrill whistles from high above come rumbling and shuddering into the cities, their blasts rippling the earth beneath him.

 

(Once he had turned and stared deep into the mushroom, seconds after the blast. His vision had not been the same since, nor ever would be.)

 

The fact that the war still raged on held two possibilities for his future. Either he would not be able to escape the holocaust and would die soon, or he might remain hidden and survive long enough for the genocidal ammo to run out.

 

In the selfish mind of the individual, these thoughts combined to create a brutal yet outstanding expression of what it is to be survivor, trying to outrace the reaper. Which was the more terrifying thought to a man; carrying on and saving what he had (which could be calming his ragged little soul) only to die with tobacco to spare; or to smoke what he had whenever the chemical call came and risk running out before all this was over?

 

He smoked the rollie down to its cardboard roach, and put the end in his pocket. He would ration what he had, and make it last as long as possible, the sole practical sign of his reiterated determination to live.

 

If he could go two full days without, then he could do the same again. He knew that fear’s roar of adrenalin and the chemical back-up to the instinct of self-preservation had erased his everyday need to top himself up with extra chemicals at regular intervals. These chemicals and reactions were still happening now, here in the momentary calm in the centre of the storm. His body would be okay.

 

Five cigarettes could equal ten days.

 

5 f**s x 2 days = 10 days

5 f**s x 2 days = 10 days

 

If he made it that long.

 

He let his body slip a little and rested the flat part of his skull against the wall. As he did, his gaze met hers, again.

 

She was pretty, in an ordinary way he decided. There was something in the way she held herself, a noble jut to her chin that belied a quiet confidence. Her pale blue eyes shone out through the darkness which surrounded them. She seemed to catch his thought, and he dropped his gaze again. He could only hope that she would allow him to stay.

 

He spotted a first-aid kit on the wall and looked back at her. She slumped down further into the chair and waved him on, silently assenting.

 

He swabbed a few of his cuts, burns and bruises, of which there were many. She rolled a bottle of water across the floor to him, and he took a few painkillers, forgetting his early disavowal of the need for additional chemical input. When he was done he tided the kit away, and set it back on the wall where he had found it.

 

Sliding down the wall back into a seated position, he looked towards her. Her eyes were half-closed now.

 

She cleared her throat uncomfortably announcing her first words.

 

“I’m Alison.”

 

She looked very pale and tired. He was unsure if she was even fully-awake, but seized the opportunity as quickly as he could muster the words.

 

“Paul.”