Inside her body a cloud of red expands, like the butterfly of an inkblot test. I see a bullet lodged deep in the cavity of her chest. As she re-materialises and falls to the ground the nerves that make up her husband’s fingers reach out for her desperately. The shape of his anguished face outlined in furious red.

She lands with a dull thud and lies panting on the asphalt, taking deep laboured breaths that gradually slow, and he lifts his head skyward with a look of sad determination. Preparing for a reality he could never imagine but must now inhabit.

A second shot rings out.

This time the bullet meets a car windscreen, the sound ricocheting off the once quiet suburban landscape. People crawl on their stomachs to their cars. Others double over and take cover against the sides of houses. Children scream. People call out the names of their loved ones. Gradually the street empties.

Cars move slowly to avoid hitting the body. And though she reaches her hand up occasionally to grip at their hubcaps none of them ever consider stopping. The fact that they avoid her at all is a small mercy.

XXXV

When we phone for an ambulance the line rings but there is no answer. We fetch a portable radio from the kitchen and find it awash not with static but silence. On the television the studios are now all empty. News desks stand unattended. Traffic cameras show mile-long lines of unoccupied cars.

When the last of the neighbours depart I leave the safety of the house and stand over the woman in the street. I see her chest rising and falling in frantic bursts, her breathing short and sharp. Her head engorged by the sickness, the edges of her face mushroomed outwards. Her red eyes searching frantically for some imagined horizon.

‘She’s alive,’ I call out to Simone. ‘She’s still alive. We have to help her.’

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ she says, shuffling anxiously on the porch. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do.’

‘We have to at least try,’ I say, scooping her up in my arms.

‘Where will you take her? The hospital? They can’t help her. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t.’

‘A clinic, then. There has to be someone left.’

‘You can’t fix her.’

‘We can’t just leave her here, Simone. I’m going to get help.’ I look out at the street, towards the city. I feel it calling me. ‘Come with me,’ I say desperately.

She shakes her head. ‘I can’t. I just can’t.’

I lift the woman into the back seat of the car and lay a blanket over her. I run my hand through her shock of white hair and try not to look at the ugly red blotch on her shirt. It clings uncomfortably to the skin beneath, rising and falling with each laboured breath. I place my hand over it helplessly, feeling weak.

‘I’ll be back soon. I promise. I’ll come back for you,’ I say.