IMPACT (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Tale by Matthew Eliot

something other than getting this fucking disease.”
    “You don’t have to sneak in, Ana,” he said, running a hand through her hair. He did it gently, as if in secret. He wasn’t sure whether she could feel his fingers against her. “Just move in, with me.”
    “Here we go again. I ask you to come with me. You ask me to stay.” She laughed without joy.
    “Ana, this place is safe. The people – most of them – are nice. There’s the Guard to protect the town from–”
    “From us ,” she said, turning around. She now stood face-to-face with him.
    “–from danger ,” he concluded. He tried to hold her hand, but she pulled back. He didn’t insist. “And I’m happy to be near the church. I like Father Claudio and Father Paul. Especially Father Paul. You’d like him too.”
    Ana rolled her eyes. “When you finally do make up your mind and decide to join us, make sure to leave all that religious nonsense behind, please.”
    He smiled. This was something they’d never agree upon.
    “Luke, there are lots of us now. It’s not like in the early days. About fifteen-hundred, I think. We look out for one another, we’re amongst our own. And we’ve all come to terms with the illness.”
    “Have you? What about all the looting? Stealing medicine from innocent people?”
    “We’re only taking what is rightfully ours,” she said, and he could hear anger growing in her voice. “You think some posh old woman deserves painkillers for her headache, when we could be using them to help with the real pain all of the ‘wraiths suffer?”
    “Don’t call us that.”
    “What?” she asked, knowing exactly what he was referring to.
    “‘Wraiths, it makes us sound like monsters.”
    “Ha!” Ana threw her hands in the air. “We are monsters, Luke. Wake up, mate,” she pointed an angry finger out the window, towards the town and jabbed it repeatedly to stress her words. “They all think we are monsters, Luke. They do. And you know what? I’m happy to be one, to them.”
    “Ana–”
    “When I first got here, to England, before the fucking meteorites, they already hated me because I was a bloody Pole. Then they hated me because I was poor. Now they hate me because I’m a disgusting meteorwraith. So fuck them.”
    Luke bit his lip. He saw her eyes were wet with tears, her lips shaking.
    “You don’t mean that, my love,” he said in Polish.
    “I do,” she replied, switching to the language of their childhood. It was sweet to hear it again. “I want them to suffer like we are,” she said, hatred was pouring out of her eyes along with tears, though she let him close his hand around hers.
    He drew her close and kissed her. They slowly moved to the bed, each lost in the other’s desire, and lay on the knotted bedsheets.
    The motions of love that followed were beautiful, despite the decay of their bodies, the sickness of their limbs. Or maybe precisely because of them. The desperate longing for physical love was no less powerful, even with their bodies so weathered and torn.
    “I love you,” she whispered as her legs gently parted.
    * * *
    Later, as Ana stood at the window again, a lit cigarette between her index and middle fingers, Luke wondered whether the sin of love between them, an unmarried couple, might be the reason behind the increase in pain he’d been feeling. But, as he slipped his clothes back on, he couldn’t help but think that God might forgive him, because his love for Ana was pure. Plus, as soon as she joined him in Bately, he’d convince her to marry him. He knew it would take some persuasion, but she would in the end.
    He smiled at the thought of them sharing his little room here in Bately, living what remained of their days in peace and quiet.
    “I understand why you like it here,” she said, blowing out a bluish cloud of smoke that lingered in the air. “It’s peaceful.”
    “It is,” he said. Maybe she’s changing her mind , he thought.
    “But I need time, Luke. Things