It seemed strange to me that no one else came looking for Marlon or Herschel, although it soon became apparent to me, upon my return, that the two men had been preparing for a lengthy journey. Perhaps it had been their intention to leave the farmhouse forever. I slept in an empty property closer to town for a good while, maintaining a watchful eye to see if Red Harvest sent anyone to find out what had happened to the two cultists, but no one ever came. Why this should be remained a mystery, at least for the moment.

Eventually my fear subsided, and for a while, as I carried out my investigation into the antidote, the farmhouse became my home. I buried Floyd much as I had buried Alice, and simply discarded the bodies of the other two; as far as I was concerned, the feral dogs now wandering the countryside could have them.

There was a stockpile of fuel and a couple of portable diesel generators within the farmhouse sufficient to supply me with electricity for the foreseeable future. From the computers, I learned that the farmhouse was only one of a number of distribution points scattered around the globe, and that the Haven – Red Harvest’s central base of operations – was located in Maine, on the east coast of the United States, near a town called Biddeford.

I watched the skies for contrails and scanned the radio waves for any sign of human life, but there was none. Even so, I could still not bring myself to believe what I would soon know to be true, that the human race was as good as extinct. I distracted myself with feverish work, and as I explored the information stored on the computers I slowly came to understand that the antidote I had been injected with was only of limited efficacy. Each dose was good for half a year at best. To stay alive beyond that would require further doses. Synthesizing it was out of the question – I lacked the necessary equipment, and all the indications seemed to be there were enormous, pre-prepared batches stored at the Biddeford Haven.

If I wanted to live any longer than the next several months, I would have no choice but to visit this Haven.

I began to prepare for a solo journey that would take me all the way across the Atlantic. I had sailed around Europe’s coasts in my youth, so I searched moorings and harbours until I found a forty-foot yacht that needed minimal work to make it seaworthy.

I find it hard to remember my state of mind during all this. I know that I certainly contemplated suicide. The loneliness was dreadful beyond imagining. But such thoughts never came close to becoming actions. Something within me drove me to live at all costs. I simply would not, could not, allow myself to die.