Last One at the Party

by Bethany Clift

As I walked back from the shop, I became aware that the street was rammed with parked cars. I’d had to leave the Defender in the middle of the road because all the parking spaces were taken, a fact that I hadn’t registered at the time because I was getting used to driving and parking wherever took my fancy. I wandered down the road trying to figure where everyone had been going. I didn’t have to walk far. I turned the corner and there they were. Perhaps a thousand, maybe more. It must have been some kind of local football club or community centre. There was a long, low building on one side and they had erected a stage at the front of the space. There was no one on the stage (that I could see), just a huge digital clock (now blank) and a massive banner that read ‘Together’. And about a thousand dead bodies.

Lucky was even keener to leave the cottage than I, and was standing by the Defender whining to be let in by the time I got there. As I turned the ignition key I had a brief moment of paralysing fear that the Defender might not start but, trusty as always, she roared into life first time with a rush of blue smoke from the exhaust. Those folks at Land Rover know how to make a good vehicle. If anyone ever does read this diary I want you to know that I thoroughly endorse Land Rovers as my vehicle of choice – apocalypse or no apocalypse.