There wasn't much room under the bed and it scraped along my back as I pressed forwards, my hand sweeping from side to side ahead of me.
I felt something brush my fingertips as I squinted into the shadows. I reached out again, grasping towards the source of the movement.
Whatever it who was still out of reach so I scrambled backwards and regained my feet, grabbed hold of the bed and wrenched it upwards.
It was much heavier than I'd expected. I managed to get it about a foot off the ground before I realised it wasn't going to fold against the wall and let it fall back to the floor with a thud.
Something was knocked out from under it and collided with my boot, I yelled out in surprise and stumbled backwards. The thing didn't move again, so I stepped forward cautiously and nudged it with my toe. It was a little black bear with a faded red label hanging from its ear.
I reached out to pick it up.
The bear looked happy, his string mouth turned up at the corners. I brushed some of the dust from him and inspected the label. It opened to reveal a message. 'I love you to the moon and back.' It made me smile. That was something my mom always used to say to me. I clutched him to my chest and turned to continue the search.
The other two rooms were both large sleeping areas too. They seemed to be designed with no real purpose other than sleep and clothes storage. All of the rooms had been left in a state of disarray with drawers turned out and a variety of possessions cluttering the floor. They each held single beds which brought my count up to four. Nowhere near our estimate of fifteen residents.
The second room was clearly filled with the belongings of the teenage girl. A large dressing table took up most of the space beside the bed and it was crammed with her things. Pictures of her with various friends were stuck all around the edge of a big mirror alongside ticket stubs for movies and bands. The table was cluttered with lipsticks, nail varnishes and bottles of perfume. Things that must have been far more widely available when she was alive.
I lifted the lid of a large wooden box which occupied the middle of the table. Inside was a horde of jewellery: rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets. They had been preserved from the dust by the box and they sparkled in the faint light.
Even when I lived with my parents we’d never had the money for jewellery though my mom had a few pieces. She had promised me something for my sixteenth birthday but she didn't live to see it. The forgotten trinkets called to me in a way I couldn't resist and I thumbed through them greedily.
Sighing, I let the lid close on the box and started to turn away from the table. Something caught on my boot and I looked down to see a piece of paper on the floor. I scooped it up and unfolded it. The writing looked hurried and was blurred in places and it took me a moment to decipher it.
Kaitlyn. Your father and I have been selected, they've come to take us to the city. There's isn't much time and they won't let us wait for you. Find Reese and get to the waiting zone. We'll be able to get you accepted too, but you have to be there.
The hordes are heading towards the city and they'll be here soon. If you can't get there before they have to close it, stay together and find somewhere defendable. They say the phones should start working again soon.
I love you. Please hurry.
I felt cold. I let the letter drop onto the dressing table and hurried back out of the room. There was no way to know if Kaitlyn had ever gotten the message. Only a fraction of the population survived the changes that happened to the world when the contamination was set loose and if she didn’t make it into one of the walled cities then she would have been doomed.
“Anything up there?" Taylor called from downstairs.
I shuddered and moved towards the sound of his voice. I called back to let him know what I'd discovered but I didn't mention the letter. I didn’t want to think about it any more than I already was.
“The other room down here just has one massive table and a bunch of chairs. Why would they use a room that's bigger than your whole apartment for a table?" he called incredulously.
I followed Taylor's voice until I found him and tried to stop thinking about Kaitlyn and her family. There was no way for me to know if she survived and the idea of her ghost haunting this old house was all too present.
“They obviously used to have a lot more space available than we have in the city. And my apartment isn't that small,” I pouted. I wanted to protest more on behalf of my accommodation but it really was very small.
“So this is basically an apartment? For one family?" Taylor asked, ignoring my comment.
I looked around again, taking in the pure scope of the place. The wide open areas, the views through the windows that actually had space beyond them. I had one room with a kitchen, bed and sofa sharing the space and another tiny box for a bathroom. That was my entire apartment within Harbour city and even that was bigger than the apartments people lived in on the lower levels. Some of them had to share public restrooms.
It must have been such a different life back then. In the city, only the privileged few got to go up onto the rooftops. Very occasionally, Taylor and I would sneak up to see the sky and breathe the fresh air. Technically when we did so we were breaking and entering but the old guy who owned the penthouse had never noticed us and we only risked it at night when he was sleeping. We knew it was stupid but it was worth it to spend a few hours under the stars.
These people had spent every day with the wind blowing around them, flowing through their hair, filling their lungs. I hoped they knew how lucky they were while it lasted.
My eyes started to fill with tears and I raised a hand to brush them away. It bumped uselessly against my visor and I cursed.
I crouched down and started taking the sample bottles out of the bag that Taylor had left in the hallway. Some contained a swab which needed to be wiped on surfaces, others were just empty bottles for collecting soil. I pulled a swab from the first one and ran it through the layer of dust along one of the counter tops in the kitchen before resealing it inside the tube.
Taylor took another swab bottle
up the stairs and I headed back outside. I looked down at the little black bear that I was still holding. I wanted to take him with me but there was no way he'd make it through decontamination.
I walked around to the window and placed him on the sill so that he could watch the world go by. But as I left him there, my heart twinged with guilt. He may have had a better view now, but he still looked very lonely.