AN: Okay, I obviously don't own the characters; I also don't own the parts in bold, which were taken from Stephen King's 'The Shawshank Redemption'. It owes a lot to that story. This was written for a post-apocalyptic challenge.

HIS JUDGEMENT COMETH

1) In ‘the hole’.

Four walls, obviously. White, slightly patchy, a greyish damp stain spreading from the upper left corner. Martin figures that someone left their bath running. Forgot about it, maybe, in the rush to escape, or died in it. More likely, he figures. Who’d just forget that their bath was running? Wouldn’t you just stop to turn the faucet off? It’s not that much extra bother, after all.

Anyway, four walls. Room’s like a perfect cube, six sides, four walls, one ceiling, one floor, covered in fuzzy musty brown carpeting. He hates the feeling of it beneath his feet, and wonders if he’ll be stuck in socks forever. Two doors: if he sits at the foot of the bed there’s one to his left and one to his right. The one on the right leads to a bathroom; the one on the left leads to the rest of the apartment, and the rest of the world.

Inside the room: one bed, double, with two pillows, white sheets, and a heavy green blanket. A chair in the left corner with an overhanging lamp that has to be lit with oil. There’s electricity, sure, but they ran out of light bulbs and there are none to be found. At the bottom of the bed there’s a small dresser, containing their clothes, and on top of the dresser there’s a TV. Next to it there’s a small stack of DVDs that Martin can recite the words along to, and next to the bed there’s a bookcase containing precisely seven books:

1) The Bible;
2) Romeo and Juliet;
3) The World According To Garp;
4) Different Seasons;
5) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin;
6) War and Peace;
7) A copy of Cosmopolitan.

He isn’t sure if Cosmopolitan counts as a book, but he’s read it, so he figures it should do. In fact, he’s read all the books except War and Peace which, for some reason, he can’t quite get into. On the other side of the bed there’s a small table, containing a long-dead phone that’s there mainly for decoration, a digital clock that tells the time with bright bold red numbers, three pens, and a couple of notebooks.

It’s enough to occupy him, most days; on the other days he sits by the window and watches the street, trying to see the people below, if there are any. Most days there aren’t. Most people have left the city, or they’re dead already. Martin thinks that in a lot of ways he’s lucky, lucky despite the fact he hasn’t left this room for exactly five hundred and thirty-two days. He knows this because one of the notebooks contains nothing but numbers, and he counts them all up every day, just to make sure they’re correct. Danny says it’s five hundred and thirty-four days, but he knows Danny once flunked math. Anyway, Danny doesn’t have the time that he does, every day, to sit counting small dashes and numbers. Martin doesn’t mind counting all the dashes and numbers. He’s always liked plain, methodical tasks, and this is definitely one of those.

From the window he can see:
- The road;
- A phonebox;
- An old makeshift hospital;
- Three bodies in various stages of decomposition;
- Four cars (one red, two black, one taxi);
- Several buildings.

He isn’t sure what the buildings were used for, before everything began, probably something to with finance, or law, or publishing, maybe, but now they’re all empty. Vacated, because everyone in them is dead or gone or run away or something, and a million years ago it probably would have been his job to track them down.

Today, he decided to reread the first chapter of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, as slowly as possible, mouthing the words as he read them so he could feel them properly, and then he lay on the bed with his hands behind his head and watched a spider crawl from one side of the ceiling to the other. Then he dragged the chair over to the window to watch out for Danny. That’s where he is now, watching the street below for a sign of some kind of movement, a dark head moving from one building to another, a quick flash of a familiar blue parka, something, anything.

Finally he sees the figure approaching, head bowed down against the buffeting wind, but Martin would recognise that stance anywhere and he feels a sudden flush of relief. He dips into the bathroom to smooth down his hair and splash water over his face to reinvigorate himself, and comes back out to hear the front door slam. Danny’s voice shouting “Hey, Martin, I’m back!” and he replies, “See you in a second!”

Hears the sound of running water, and after about fifteen minutes Danny lurches in, smiling and rubbing at his wet hair with one hand. “Good evening,” he says, and he looks happy but there are massive dark shadows beneath his eyes.

“Hey. Many casualties today?” Martin asks, taking a step towards him.

“There were, uh, fifteen new cases. And twenty-two deaths.” Danny winces slightly and throws himself down onto the bed, stretching out, his wet hair leaving droplets of water on the sheets.

“They’re slowing down,” Martin observes, joining him on the bed.

“Yeah, that’s because there’s no one left in this goddamn city,” Danny says harshly, and then sighs. “Listen, I shouldn’t have snapped…”

“It’s fine. I really wish I could do something to help,” Martin says honestly, and Danny’s already shaking his head.

“You can’t. If you go out you’ll get sick as well,” he says abruptly, and Martin really hates that it’s the truth. “You know we can’t let that happen.”

“Mmm, I guess,” Martin agrees half-heartedly, despite the fact that at this point he’d probably welcome a little sickness to drive away the monotony of spending all day, every day, in the same room. “You’re still not…”

“I’m fine,” Danny says, his voice heavy. “I don’t know why. I’ve been exposed to it so many times, but still, I’m fine.”

“I guess you have antibodies, or something,” Martin says vaguely, and Danny nods.

“Guess I do.”

And neither of them can decide whether or not that’s a good thing, so they sit for a few moments in silence before Danny smiles and says, “I found some food.”

“What sort?”

“Cans. Beans, lentils, tomatoes.”

And it’s sort of pathetic that Martin actually feels his mouth begin to water as he nods. “Great. Where was it?”

“In some deserted store in the Bronx,” Danny answers.

Martin nods again, and then says, “What’re the symptoms again?”

Danny takes a deep breath, counts them on his fingers as he reels off the list. “Red eyes, nausea and vomiting, tiredness, stiffness of the limbs, weight loss, rash around the throat, armpits and groin. Why?” His eyes widen suddenly. “You think you have it? You think I haven’t been careful enough?”

“No,” Martin protests, and it’s the truth. “I’m fine. I just wanted to check.”

“Okay,” Danny says doubtfully, and Martin notices for a sickening moment that the whites of his eyes are webbed with red spider-trails. Then he remembers that Danny hasn’t exactly been sleeping much lately, for one reason or another, and shakes his fears away.

Danny has reasons to be tired; he works long hours for no money in one of the hospitals that people set up. He had basic first-aid training to begin with; now he knows how to treat pretty much anything, except the plague that’s been sweeping over the country. No one knows how to treat that. And then after work he has to go scavenging for food, clothes, supplies.

In a way they’re lucky to have their apartment, but it’s not as if there’s anyone else living in the building. They could take over the entire place, if they wanted, but Martin doesn’t want to leave the apartment, and Danny doesn’t want him to, either. Most people left when the disease started spreading, but they decided to stay: Danny with his immunity to it and his ability to help others, Martin in isolation. The idea of leaving Danny behind wasn’t even an option. It still isn’t. If Danny told Martin to run, he’d probably laugh in his face.

“You been looking outside much?” Danny asks, after a moment, and Martin shrugs.

“There’s nothing to look at,” he tells Danny.

“Yeah, I know.” Danny squints over at the window. “There’s less and less people every day.”

“Guess they’re all leaving,” Martin observes, but he has no idea. No TV, no radio, no phone. Just Danny to tell him what’s happening, and the view from his small window.

“Yeah,” Danny agrees, “leaving or dying.” A sigh. “We’re reaching the end of an epidemic again. It’s the time that everyone dies. There’s no space for graves.”

“None at all?”

“Not unless we demolish apartment blocks,” Danny says, raising an eyebrow. “And they’re refusing to take the bodies. Hell, they’re refusing to fly in and out of the country.”

“Haven’t these people ever heard of protective clothing?” Martin mutters sarcastically, stretching out and leaning his head on his hands.

“This is a bitch of a disease,” Danny tells him, and Martin nods.

“Yeah, I know.”

Danny sits still for a moment, and finally forces a smile onto his face. “You hungry?”

“Hell, yeah,” Martin says enthusiastically, and it really sucks that he can’t leave the room. The apartment’s pretty big, but the room outside is where Danny leaves his contaminated clothes at the end of work, where he is before he’s scrubbed himself clean of the sickness he comes into contact with all day. Neither of them want to chance Martin getting infected. It’d just waste all the time they’ve already spent keeping away from the disease, it’d just invalidate all these days, weeks, months, of care and precision.

But sometimes Martin stares out of the window and wonders. Because what’s the point in being alive and healthy if he isn’t allowed to live?

2) ‘That lucky son of a bitch.’

5:30 AM: Woken as the digital clock’s alarm goes off; hears a thud as Danny’s hand slams down on it, turning it off, and a creak as the other man lurches out of bed and towards the bathroom. Goes back to sleep.

6:00 AM: Woken again as Danny kisses him goodbye and leaves for the day. Again, goes back to sleep.

8:30 AM: Usually wakes again around this time. Sighs, stretches, gets out of bed. Puts on socks so the linoleum floor isn’t too cold beneath his feet. Goes to sit at the small table, and eats whatever they left on there last night: dry cereal, dried fruit, slightly stale crackers.

9:00 AM: Showers and dresses. Often wears the same clothes as the day before; it’s not like he does anything that might get him dirty.

9:30 AM: Makes the bed, wipes up droplets of water from the bathroom floor, makes sure that the room’s in a perfect tidy condition. Finally sits on the bed and begins to read.

11:00 AM: Closes his book. Goes to stand at the window to watch the street below; sometimes Danny walks past and waves up at him.

12:00 PM: Goes to the small table, sits down. Opens the notebook covered in dashes and numbers and adds another. Counts up all the dashes and numbers twice, just to make sure his calculations are correct.

1:00 PM: Finishes whatever food was on the table.

1:30 PM: Flips through all the now defunct channels on the TV, in the hopes that someone will have turned the power back on. They haven’t.

2:00 PM: Does a hundred press-ups, a hundred sit-ups, and jogs on the spot for fifteen minutes. Repeats the process.

3:00 PM: Opens the other notebook and continues with his sketch of Danny.

4:00 PM: Chooses another book; reads for an hour.

5:00 PM: Begins to watch out for Danny.

6:30 PM: Danny arrives home; fifteen minutes later he joins Martin in the bedroom.

7:30 PM: They eat dinner; whatever Danny has managed to salvage that day.

8:00 PM: It begins to get dark. They don’t light the lamp; instead, they sit in the blackness and talk and laugh about days that neither of them recognise any more.

And the process continues somewhat like this for quite some time.

3) I have a crazy feeling of freefall.

It has been five hundred and thirty five days.

That’s 12840 hours.

That’s 770400 minutes.

That’s 46224000 seconds.

That’s not as long as it feels.

4) You may have gotten the idea that I’m describing someone who’s more legend than man.

It’s seven o’clock on a Tuesday evening (at least, he thinks it’s a Tuesday) (five hundred and sixty-four days) that Martin shifts uncomfortably under Danny’s arm across his shoulders, and says, “You think this is ever going to end?”

Danny’s fingers are idly drawing circles on his shoulderblade. “I don’t know.”

“You think things can ever go back to the way they were before?”

“Too many people are dead.” Danny’s voice half regretful, half flat.

“Okay.” Martin takes a deep breath. “What about today? Did anyone die today?”

“People die every day.”

“How many?”

“Today, there were sixteen deaths. Although that counts the deaths over in the Harlow hospital as well, a courier came over to tell us.”

“Is that bad? I mean, on a general scale of normal days.” Martin’s suddenly desperate to know, to understand.

“Yesterday was worse. It’s getting better.”

“Do you ever wish that you weren’t immune to it?”

“Every day, Fitzy,” Danny murmurs, hand still tracing a soft pattern on Martin’s skin. “Every fucking day.”

5) Rocks on the windowsill.

The hospital that Danny works in has been set up in what used to be the FBI building. So, instead of Samantha’s desk, there is a gagging four-year-old girl sitting on a bed, her chubby legs swinging back and forth as she throws up into a basin. At Vivian’s desk, the woman who works as a receptionist works out charts of the dead, writes out certificates to families, tries to organise the delivery of a furnace to burn the bodies.

Instead of the conference table, a man sits up in bed, his neck swollen, red tears rolling uncontrollably down his cheeks from his crimson eyes. In place of Danny’s desk there is a trolley containing a meagre heap of medical supplies, and instead of Martin’s desk there’s a skeletal woman breathing shallowly, her head resting on her bony hands.

They’ve discovered that Jack’s office with its excellent air conditioning makes a perfect morgue.

6) A fool’s errand, you say.

Usually Danny tries very hard not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk as he walks home. He was once told by his aunt that every crack he stepped on, an angel would die.

On the five hundredth and eighty-fourth day, he is so thoroughly sick of everything that he stamps on the cracks as hard as he can. Because to die would be a mercy, and he figures that he’s helping the angels out. Clearly, they have no power in heaven, because if they did then they’d be doing something to help everyone in pain. And he figures that everyone he knows who’s dead would desperately want to help them. Death’s a mercy.

Stamp. Bye, Jack. Crash. There goes Sam. Smash. And so, Vivian falls. Clomp. See you, Rafael. Bang. Mami, Papi, his grandma, his grandfather, his cousins, his aunts, his uncles, his friends. Everyone he’s ever loved.

He reaches his apartment block, shoes still making an unnaturally loud clattering noise on the sidewalk, and he sees Martin’s white face staring down at him from the window, from his stupid little jail that’s not going to protect him for long enough, and as he climbs the stairs upwards, Danny weeps.

7) Get busy living or get busy dying.

“You ever thought about escaping?” Danny asks. His hand’s resting lightly on Martin’s stomach, their foreheads very close together.

“I guess,” Martin answers slowly. “Getting out of the city?”

“Yeah, just… just leaving.”

“It’s not just New York with the sickness,” Martin reminds him, and he hears Danny shake his head through the blackness.

“Yeah, I know, but there must be somewhere where the people aren’t sick. I mean, the entire human race can’t be wiped out. There must be other people like me, with immunity to the disease.”

“Not many,” Martin remarks. “I mean, how many more are there in New York? Two, three?”

“Probably less than,” Danny says, his tone all the more defeated.

“I don’t see how we can leave,” Martin says bluntly, shrugging. “I just don’t see it. I’m sorry. I don’t want to go out.”

“I thought you were sick of being stuck inside.”

“I want to go outside. Not out there. There’s a difference. I go out there, I die.”

“Right.” Martin hears Danny sigh, his short exhalation seeped in defeat, and he leans forward.

“Hey, Danny?” he says, very softly, and there’s no response but he continues anyway. “There’s one good thing, at least. If this hadn’t happened, we would totally have broken up by now.”

A spluttering choking gasp of laughter from Danny, and Martin’s smiling as well as he moves towards him, pressing kisses on his temples, his jaw, the lines around his mouth.

8) He had lost that little trace of a smile that always seemed to linger around his mouth.

They leave New York on the seven hundred and eighty-third day, because Danny can’t find any food anywhere, and it’s either leave or starve.

It’s the summer, the sun baking down on them as Danny avoids the cracks in the pavements, and Martin tells him what he remembers from the books he read over and over again when he had to stay inside. He tells Danny that what he’s feeling is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. He tells Danny about how, in the world according to Garp, they are all terminal cases, and Danny looks as if he feels slightly sick.

They walk along together, shoulders not quite touching, and it’s one afternoon that Martin can’t bear to look up into the sky because it’s too bright, one afternoon that Danny leans over and says to him in a despairing voice, “Your eyes are bloodshot.”

9) Look at the stars for me, just after sunset.

The weight drops from Martin’s frame, and he begins to feel more and more light-headed, as if he’s floating, maybe, except his legs hurt so much that he can barely skim himself along. He wears sunglasses all the time, because the light hurts his bloodshot eyes, and he starts throwing up. The skin on his throat turns purply-red and blotchy, and Danny looks as if he can hardly bear to see him.

Finally Martin’s legs give out, and he finds that he can’t walk anymore. For a little while he feels Danny’s arms around him, carrying him, and then for even longer he can feel nothing at all.

10) It gets harder and harder to make subdivisions.

How to survive anything: detach yourself. Danny tells himself that time after time as he cradles Martin in his arms, tells himself that it’s just another body of just another person. He wishes he could believe it.

11) Remember that hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Some time later (it is the eight hundred and sixteenth day, although neither of them are keeping count anymore), Danny is sitting next to Martin on a bench in the middle of a deserted park. He’s staring up into the sky, and all of a sudden really regretting stamping on the cracks and killing all the angels. It would be nice, if he could feel that someone’s watching over him. Instead he’s alone, because Martin’s breaths are growing more and more shallow and really, there’s not much point in going on by himself.

Suddenly there’s a horrible gagging noise, and Martin rolls over to spit out a mouthful of something foul and red onto the ground. Another gag and another smacking splatter on the concrete, and this is a new development.

He leans over to stroke Martin’s back gently, and watches as his eyelids flutter slightly. The other man’s lips are dry and cracked, and it’s seriously difficult to even look at him.

“Fitzy, how’re you doing?” he murmurs, and Martin blinks at him.

“Better,” he says, his voice tinny and like someone who’s forgotten to speak.

“Seriously?” Danny’s seen a million of these patients, but none - none quite like this, because rightfully Martin should be dead.

“Mm.” A trickle of blood runs down Martin’s chin as he smiles and his lip cracks. “Crap,” he says absently as he raises a hand to wipe it away, and maybe it’s going to be okay.

“How do you feel?” Danny asks, touching Martin’s forehead, and the raging fever’s gone.

“Okay,” Martin tells him, eyes searching Danny’s face. “You think I’m better?”

And Danny’s suddenly bowled over by a massive wave of relief, and he reaches forward to grasp Martin in a heavy-handed hug as he gasps, “For God’s sake, man, for God’s sake. I’ve been praying for a miracle all this time, and you’re what they give me?”

“I’m not good enough?” Martin asks, and Danny laughs.

“I never thought they’d give me something so good as my miracle,” he tells him.

Martin’s smiling in return. Looks hazy and exhausted because he probably still feels like crap, but he’s alive at least, and that’s a start.

12) I hope.

On the day of infinity (the day of forever, the day that all other days lead up to, that all other days stem from, the only day that really matters), Martin’s holding onto Danny’s hand and pointing at the ocean.

“This is it,” he tells him, voice bubbling over with excitement, and Danny’s shaking his head at him, lips twisted in a wry smile.

“This is what you wanted to find?” he asks, inhaling, and as Martin looks at him, how the wrinkles in his forehead are smoothing out, he can tell that there’s no stench of sickness here.

“It’s bluer than it was in my dreams,” Martin says, taking a step towards it, and the beach is empty except for the two of them. They haven’t seen another living soul in days and neither of them has any idea what they’re going to do for food or water or anything, but all of a sudden Martin doesn’t care. It’s warm with a breeze drifting in on them, and it’s as if everything’s normal, and nothing’s happened, and Danny was never left out of the greatest disaster ever to hit the developed world, and Martin never survived it.

Martin’s still smiling as he kicks off his shoes, ditches his backpack, and drags Danny down to the water’s edge.