Another chapter now online from the free-to-read serialized novel, ED Day, on life in Sydney after an apocalyptic bird flu pandemic.
An excerpt from ED Day - Chapter Five :
It’s night outside now. The towers of the city stand tall and dark, shiny black fingers against the deepening sky.
Why did you leave me behind? I want to go, too...
I didn’t believe much in God before ED Day. I don’t believe in God any more now. Hundreds of corpses of little kids scattered all over the city makes you realise fast that there probably isn’t someone who really gives a fuck about what happened to us, or what happens to us now.
I want to go, too.
But I don’t want to go. I did a few weeks back. I stood on the roof, toes over the edge, waiting for a wind, or a muscle spasm, so I didn’t have to decide. I thought about Kat, and how she'd feel when she found out I was gone.
I thought about all those babies that Kat and Matron looked after in the hospital, some of them still fighting for their lives.
I thought about that day, three days after ED Day, when I came down from my rooftop hideout and first met Bookman and Matron and Trader, walking the streets, calling out for other survivors. I thought about how happy I was to still be alive, and to find people like them, so happy to have found me.
And I thought our first barbecue in Hyde Park, when three dozen of us cooked the last of the steaks that were still edible (before we cracked the first tin of Spam), and drank warm champagne, and found a few minutes amongst all the death and misery when we actually forgot what had happened and we were just new friends, having a drink, and eating together. Sharing. Surviving.
I want to go, too...
I want to survive this. I want to live through it, and see what happens next. Tomorrow. Next month. Next year. Two decades from now.
I want to find out if Chrissie is still alive. I want to see the vegetable gardens and rooftop orchards grow big enough to feed all the survivors. I want to see a whole flock of sheep and lambs grazing on the slopes of the Domain and chickens and ducks getting fat for our future dinners in the Gardens and all the streets of our part of the city totally cleared of corpses.
I want to help these people as much as I can, because we all need each other now.
And I want a million more nights like this, when you can see every star in the sky, and you can see the flurry of movement of the owls and other birds making new homes in the apartments next door, where people had left balcony doors open before they died, or ran away, and when you can hear the soft, beautiful songs of the dolphins in the harbour, as they swim and play, coming back to waters their ancestors knew before any of us came down out of the trees.
I want to be here, I want to be a part of it. All of it.
I want to see this city come back to life again.
Go Here To Read Chapter One Of ED Day
Go Here For The Latest Chapter
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