The valley floor shimmers like a dream in the haze. I squint into the glare and try to spot any movement along the base of the hills which form the sides of the valley. Five nights have passed since I first noticed it creeping low on its belly, keeping its distance and hiding at the edge of my vision. I thought I would never see another living thing, but it’s still following me, the wolf, so thin and full of want. It’s no longer afraid and trots along in plain view, kicking up the dust no more than fifty yards behind me. Sometimes it gets so close I hear it pant, tongue lolling from the side of its mouth, and I imagine I can taste its fetid breath on the breeze. It is thirsty but there is no water here.
The parched earth is cracked, baked dry in the searing heat of the sun. Nothing grows in this arid ground, littered with the skeletal remains of fallen trees, branches bleached white, grasping for the sky like human hands raised in supplication. Throughout this wasteland lie piles of smouldering rubble and the air is thick with ash and soot and the acrid smell of sulphur and smoke.
At night the temperature plummets and, on the ridges that run along the hills, I see the tiny lights of a thousand fires, burning in the dark. The fires have replaced the moon and the stars which vanished from the night sky, extinguished without warning or explanation.
Every evening I light a fire of my own. The dry wood crackles and sends sparks high into the air. It burns too quickly and it’s difficult to find enough to keep it lit through the long watch of the night, but I need the warmth and comfort it provides. The wolf, too, draws near to the heat. In the morning it will shrink away like a shadow but, for a time, we are at ease in each other’s company. At dawn the chase will begin again, though the line between hunter and hunted has become blurred.
One morning, I awake to find the wolf still lying beside the dying embers of the fire, though the swollen sun has already risen. Its breath is shallow, pained and, when I approach, it whimpers, unable even to lift its head. It rolls its eyes in warning and its lips form a soundless snarl.
I find a suitable rock, heavy but not so heavy it can’t be moved. Weak from lack of food and weary from the journey I struggle to carry it over to the wolf.
This is what I’ve been hoping for but there is a part of me that’s sorry to say goodbye.
The wolf’s head caves with a sickening crunch. My stomach revolts and the bile rises in my throat. I’m struck by a fit of coughing and, when I bring my hand away from my mouth, my sleeve is streaked with blood.
I set to work with my knife. When I am done, I rebuild the fire.
When the meat has begun to cook, I notice a figure approaching from the direction I have come. A man, the first I have seen since I entered this place, forty days ago. I sit back on my heels and watch, calculating.
He seems to be at least my height, but broader. He does not hurry, neither does he appear to find his journey arduous, though he must have been walking for days. He is dressed much as I am, with his body covered and a scarf wrapped around his head to keep off the sun. This he has tied across his mouth and nose to keep out the dust and smoke. All I can see are his eyes and, even from this distance, I can see something unusual in them. It is a look I haven’t seen in a long time, as though he is of the living and not one of the walking dead.
When the stranger is almost upon me I avoid his gaze, busy with the fire. He sits on the ground and removes the cloth that covers his mouth. He asks my name and for water. I tell him I am Adam and, though I have little water left, let him have a cup.
‘Thank you,’ he says, and drinks.
When he has finished, he gazes back the way he has come. There’s something strange about his face as he does this. It’s not the usual look of incomprehension people wear when they contemplate the desolation. Instead he seems at peace.
‘What brought you this way?’ I ask.
‘Searching for a sheep that was lost,’ he replies.
‘Nothing could survive this valley. Even the wolf was almost dead before I killed it,’ I say, on my guard, sure he must be lying.
‘There’s always hope,’ he says with a smile. ‘What brought you here, Adam?’
‘I’m also looking.’
‘For what?’
‘The Song of Songs.’
His lack of surprise is so disconcerting that I feel compelled to explain.
Her name was Zoe, which means eternal life.
While she lay sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor behind the chest I’d pushed against the door the night before, particles of dust and lint skated on currents of air which were already thick and hot, even so early in the day. The tattered curtains were caught in the breeze that drifted through the open window and as they shifted, so the light played across her face as I sat watching her sleep. Her hair, splayed over her pillow, glinting in the light like coils of spun gold against her skin as pale as honey. Her slender arm trailed onto the bare floorboards and I could have wished that the moment would last forever.
I saw her fingers start to twitch. She opened her eyes and smiled.
‘I had the best dream,’ she said.
‘Was I in it?’ I asked and she laughed, pinching me playfully on the thigh.
‘In my sleep I heard a song about a love so pure that it could heal the whole world and restore everything that’s been lost so the world would be even better than before. Anyone who heard it would never be hungry or sick or sad. A song that could even bring the dead back to life.’
‘That’s a good dream.’
I squeezed her shoulder.
‘I have to get water.’
I stood, snaked my trousers over my hips and jammed sockless feet into my shoes.
I hadn’t imagined people would keep buying and selling right up until the end. I thought by then they’d have realised how worthless money was. But people were still willing to exchange food and water for gold, and I had our wedding rings.
I moved the chest and, unlocking the door, I warned her to shut it behind me and not to open it until I got back. She watched me go, so trusting and sure.
In fact, I was longer than I had expected and, by the time I returned, the evening was already approaching. I knocked three times on the door, waited, and then knocked once more. There was no sound on the other side. Softly, I began calling her name, thinking she might have fallen back to sleep. There was no reply. I began to panic and, putting down my jerry cans, I began to bang loudly on the door, no longer worried about who might hear.
I took a few steps back and then launched myself against the door. It rattled in the frame, but didn’t shift. Again and again I threw myself against it until it splintered and the lock gave way. The chest had hardly moved and I had to squeeze past it to get in.
Zoe wasn’t there.
People vanished all the time, we all knew where they’d gone, but this was different. If someone else had been there, they hadn’t come through the door and the window was too high and too small to be used for that purpose. The bedclothes had been folded, neatly, as if, wherever she had gone, she was planning to come back.
I searched for her and waited and slowly my hope began to die.
When I finish my story, I see he has tears in his eyes. Everyone has lost someone.
‘At first I didn’t believe it,’ I tell him, ‘I thought it was just an ordinary dream. But then I started to hear rumours of other people who’d heard this song, other people who’d vanished into the air.’
‘Do you think if you find it, you’ll find Zoe?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Wherever she is now, she’s better off. But, I can’t help thinking that the Song of Songs is the only hope left for us.’
He seems to be waiting for me to say something else, but I can’t think what it could be.
I look down at the floor. It occurs to me that there is something strange about his feet. They are clean, despite the dust and days of walking. I look again at his face.
‘Are you a ghost?’ I ask him.
He holds out his hand.
‘Touch it,’ he says, ‘are ghosts made of flesh and blood?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve never met one before.’
‘I’m no ghost,’ he says, still smiling.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’ve got many names,’ he says. ‘Some people have called me the Song of Songs.’
‘It’s a song. The perfect song that will undo all this,’ I tell him, gesturing at the barren landscape.
He shakes his head.
‘A love song can only be written by someone, about someone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That love can’t exist by itself.’
He takes a stick from the edge of the fire and begins to write in the dust.
