Garrick let Anna rest for twenty minutes. He busied himself scouring the office for any useful supplies and checking their weapons. His mind reeled with what had nearly happened. Anna Ward was awakening feelings in him that had been long buried. Since Tom died, he’d shut down, only interested in killing as many Chittrix as humanly possible without dispatching himself in the process.

Anna was undoing it all. He still wasn’t sure what had happened earlier. He had been trapped by those wild blue eyes, unable to move, overwhelmed by a need to feel her skin and taste that smart mouth. I can still taste her. He licked his lips, trying to dispel distracting images in his brain of Anna soft and naked beneath him.

Get her back to the base Garrick. You can do that. She’s hurt and mixed up. You can’t take advantage.

When they eventually left the tiny office, the moon had hidden behind the clouds. Violet-grey shadows populated the world around them. Garrick set a swift pace. Dark was good while they were trying to evade scavengers, but it was also when the Chittrix did most of their hunting. The sky above them was more dangerous than ever.

He took big lungfuls of the cooling evening air, trying with limited success to clear the maelstrom of thoughts about Anna that were consuming him. The sooner he got her back to the safety of the base, and he was no longer responsible for her, the better.

They left the industrial estate, and the streets around them began to fill up with shops and small businesses. After half an hour of hurried walking and scanning the sky with a craned neck, Garrick stopped in front of a large plate-glass window. Gold lettering offered advice on divorce, separation, and injury compensation. He tried the door.

“Still locked. Not much call for scavengers to ransack a legal office. We can rest here.”

She nodded, but her eyes weren’t on him as she studied the sky and street around them.

He unhooked his machete from the belt at his hip and smashed the handle off the door in two clean swings. Anna winced as the wood split, unnaturally loud in the night air. After a final check over his shoulder, Garrick kicked the door open and hustled her inside.

He pulled the door shut, and stale office air enclosed them. Directly in front was a reception area full of over-stuffed blue seats set in a semi-circle around a low coffee table on which glossy magazines were pale with undisturbed dust. They both stopped, ears pricked, guns cocked and ready. An oppressive blanket of silence lay heavy on their shoulders.

“Hello?” Anna shouted.

Garrick spun and glared at her. “What the hell are you doing?”

She glared indignantly. “Meeting trouble head-on now is better than it jumping out from behind a door later.”

He shook his head in a combination of frustration and admiration, not sure whether he wanted to shake her or congratulate her. They waited side-by-side as the weight of the silence settled again. Nothing, the building was empty and dead. Just like everything else.

Glass access doors at the rear of the reception area led to the main offices of the building. There were three offices and a staff room with a vending machine. Garrick checked the offices, his machete ready. He’d seen too many people dead from assuming situations were safe. He wanted to make sure with his own eyes that the building was truly empty. Then I’ll rest easy.

All three offices contained tiny two-seater sofas with cheap throws, a pretence to make the rooms more comfortable and relaxed for thrashing out a divorce settlement. Garrick sat down on one. The foam cushion was cheap and thin, but adequate. He swung his backpack off his shoulders, grateful to shed the weight. Anna walked over to where he sat and rested her hands on the arm of the chair, as if unsure what to do next. He pulled out his water bottle and handed it to her.

“You must be thirsty. Stay here.”

He left the room without waiting for an answer and did a quick scout for supplies. When he returned within five minutes, Anna had shed her armour and was sat on one of the sofas. Her eyes were unfocused, but she sat upright when he tipped the contents of his search onto the desk. Three chocolate bars and several packets of peanuts. He rummaged in his backpack and topped up his spoils with a couple of green apples. There was an orchard near the base where he liked to go when he needed to escape the underground confines. He offered one to Anna. She took it with a smile and rubbed it against her shirt.

“I’ve not seen one of these in a while. Everything we’ve been eating recently has been out of a tin or a packet.” She took a bite, closing her eyes while she savoured the taste. It made him unexpectedly happy, watching her eat.

She pointed in the direction of her backpack. “I have some delicious long-life survival biscuits in there too.”

He raised an eyebrow. “We’re practically spoiled then,” he said tipping a handful of peanuts into his palm and washing them down with lukewarm water.

They sat eating in amicable silence, for a few minutes.

Anna spoke first. “Tell me more about your base.”

He sighed and scrunched the empty peanut packet into a ball. He cricked his neck from one side to the other, the muscles in his neck crunching as if they’d been dipped in concrete. A headache threatened at his temples.

“CB, or the Command Base. It’s a government bunker in Wiltshire, a relic left over from the Cold War. It was decommissioned and forgotten about and then the access tunnels were blocked by the meteorite damage. Local survivors took two weeks to dig them out. Those locals and a few government officials were the first to set up camp there. I was lucky, I stumbled across them with my sister, Violet. It’s as good a place as any to hunker down. We have supplies, weapons, and technology. Not all of it works, and much of it is thirty or forty years old. It’s far from perfect, but it’s safe and underground where the Chittrix can’t find us.”

She nodded. “Somewhere to start building again?”

He paused. A light of hope burned in her eyes.

“Yes.” He paused, not sure how much to say. There were many good things about the CB. The men he worked with, his sister Violet. But it had its flaws too. Incompetent military running it for a start. “We’re still knocking out some of the kinks. It’s a work in progress.” He shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got.”

“You don’t believe that, though, do you?” Eyes the colour of a summer’s day pinned him down. Nothing escaped her.

He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

Truth was, he didn’t know if he wanted to stay at the base. He was comfortable being alone. He had seen and done terrible things to survive since the invasion. You didn’t just forget all that. And with people came responsibility. Bonds. He wasn’t sure if he wanted that anymore. When Tom died, it had nearly torn him apart. Revenge was the thin thread that pulled him through the madness.

He took another swig of warm water. Changed the subject. “Want to tell me more about what you’ve been doing in that lab for the past six months?”

She hesitated. She wanted more from him; he sensed the exasperation radiating off her body like heat.

“I’ve worked for the Ministry of Defence at Magdon Down for six years. Julia, Blake, and myself were the only remaining survivors. Julia specialises in acoustic weaponry. She doesn’t have anyone left either, like me.”

She worried at a hangnail on her thumb. “I had a foster sister. She’s dead too,” she said, her tone flat. “It’s not even unusual anymore, is it?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, her train of thought compelling her forward.

“Blake is—” She blinked and corrected herself. “Was our linguistics expert. He was vital in negotiations with foreign investment for our projects. The Chittrix killed his family. It really messed him up. I suppose that doesn’t matter now.”

Anna continued when he didn’t speak. “The Weapons Defence Team was my baby. We were at the forefront in synthesising armour. We grew biological body armour using the first principles of insects. The preying mantis shrimp can withstand fifty-thousand high-velocity strikes of its club in its lifetime. That’s the equivalent of fifty-thousand bullet impacts. Can you imagine?” Her face lit up. “We had prototypes when the Chittrix first invaded but their biology provided us with a huge boost. We took highly-organised layers of chitin, then rotated and dispersed them in a mineral composite similar to human bone. The chitin fibres absorb shock waves as they pass through the material in high velocity attacks.”

Garrick smoothed his hand over the armour he wore. Her life’s work, even if he wasn’t sure he understood the science she was narrating. Her face glowed with enthusiasm. When was the last time he’d been excited? Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he was enthusiastic about anything.

She reached over and touched his chest, her fingers pressing gently, making his traitorous heart race. “It’s lightweight, tough and shock-resistant, the first material we devised impenetrable to Chittrix attack, but the world fell apart before it was ready. I thought I was too late, but now,” her eyes were bright in the dim light, “now maybe there’s an opportunity to share the technology and develop it further. Actually use it against the Chittrix.”

Garrick swallowed. Reasons and arguments flew through his mind in all directions. She spoke with such passion and belief. He wanted to believe her, to feel there was hope, something to fight for.

She sat back from him as if suddenly aware of his proximity. His chest still tingled from her touch. He wanted more of that, to share in her hope and optimism.

“A small group of us got marooned at the labs, working day and night to bring the technology up to speed. There were twenty of us in the beginning. People died foraging for supplies, making stupid mistakes. Those the Chittrix didn’t kill, scavengers picked off. We’re our own worst enemy. The three of us were preparing to leave this morning when you arrived with your men. Supplies were low; we needed to move somewhere safe with space to grow fresh food. There’s only so long you can live in a lab.”

There was a sadness in her face as she spoke that made Garrick want to reach out and cup her soft cheek in his hand, pull her to him, and tell her it was all going to work out fine.

Her hands were restless in her lap, fidgeting. “Better late than never.”

Images of his brother Tom fighting the Chittrix flashed through Garrick’s mind. For a moment, the dusty room around him disintegrated into memories, and he heard the echo of the Chittrix battle-cries and felt the leaden weight of Tom in his arms, scarlet blood soaking his hands as his brother grew cold under his touch. That had been the mistake that governments had made. Underestimating their enemy. He pushed the thoughts away. It’s not helping.

“Why don’t you rest. I’m going up to try to make the radio work,” he said, changing the subject.

Garrick approached the window and twitched the blind. Outside was as empty and quiet as it had been when they arrived. Across the street, windows gaped, black maws with God-knew-what lurking inside.

Anna cleared her throat behind him. “I’ll stick with you, if that’s ok.’

He nodded, unexpectedly glad of the company.