The rest of the rooms were clear.
Five had made it inside. All five were on the floor behind us now, and that was the whole of it. The quiet that followed felt heavier than the fighting had.
One of the rooms held a small bed. Venna and I lay on it back to back, both of us awake, both of us pretending otherwise. The mattress was thin. The sheet smelled of old soap and dust. Outside the walls of that building the apocalypse that had started a hundred years ago finally got around to reaching the last safe place anyone had built. Somewhere far off a sound rose and fell and neither of us named it.
My mind was on Sherry.
I didn't call her. I turned it over for a long time and kept arriving at the same place. I had no idea where she was. If she was hiding, if she was pressed into a cupboard somewhere with her hand over her own mouth, a ringing comms would end her. The thought of that single sound in the wrong silence was enough to keep my hand still.
