Ice Diaries by Lexi Revellian Read Free Book Online

you?”
    “Sam. Greg told us all about you.
Including your tattoo. He was very taken with your tattoo.”
    “Any time you want to check it
out for yourself, you have only to ask …”
    Sam batted her mascara-ed eyelashes. “I
might just do that one day. We have to make our own entertainment
round here.”
    “I’m in favour of that.”
    “Are you coming to the ceilidh
tomorrow?”
    “Is that an invitation?”
    Charlie materialized in the doorway,
dumped a couple of boxes on top of the pile and put a proprietorial
arm around Sam’s shoulders. She gave Morgan a straight look.
“You’re Morgan,” she told him. “I’m
Charlie. I see you’ve met my other half.”
    Charlie couldn’t be more of a
contrast to Sam. She is thickset, with cropped hair, and noticeably
lacks any form of personal vanity. She used to be a research
assistant to a Labour MP whose name didn’t mean anything to me,
but she said he was a rising star. She’s hardworking, bright,
and devoted to Sam whom she spoils rotten. Watching Morgan’s
reassessment of the situation made me grin irrepressibly. He shot me
a glance and I tried to straighten my face.
    “What are you collecting?”
I asked. “I forgot to look at the list.”
    The list is sellotaped to the wall at
the bottom of the stairwell. Now and then it falls off because of the
damp. We worked it out together ages ago, as soon as we’d
accessed the shops. It’s designed to make us more methodical by
focusing our group forages on basics we all need, and stop us being
distracted by inessentials. We can go after those on our own.
    “The list says dry goods,”
Charlie said. “But the rats have got what’s left of them.
It’s a real mess.”
    Morgan raised his eyebrows. “Might
have been a smart move to shift the stuff the rats could get at
first.”
    “Some of us wanted to.”
Charlie sounded defensive. “Personally, I thought we should
come every day till we’d cleared things like biscuits,
spaghetti, rice, and flour. They’d be safe in our homes. None
of us have rats.”
    “Why didn’t you then?”
    “Me and Sam and Tori were
outvoted. The others thought we should take a mixture of things, just
in case something happened to stop us getting down here.”
    “You could have come on your own.
For fuck’s sake, it’s the end of the world, and you’re
counting votes like you’re a borough council.”
    Charlie bridled. “We happen to
think a democracy is fairer. We all work together. That’s got
to be more efficient than each of us doing our own thing.”
    Sam chimed in. “Anyway, why
should we do it if the others won’t? It’s not much fun,
lugging boxes about alone in the dark with the rats under twenty
metres of snow.”
    Morgan shrugged and walked away.
Charlie turned her back on him and said to me, “We’re
doing mainly tins and a few toiletries, as we haven’t done them
for a while.”
    Greg, Paul and Archie turned up
together, and we stood around chatting before we started a relay to
move boxes to the surface. Greg’s only qualification is a Level
2 NVQ in Warehousing and Storage, which sounds more useful in our
current situation than it is. He’s told me so much about the
units he took I can recite them; Maintaining Hygiene Standards in
Handling and Storing Goods, Moving Goods in Logistics Facilities,
Maintaining Health, Safety, and Security in Logistics Operations
etcetera etcetera. If unimaginable circumstances called for me to
take that exam I’d ace it.
    Morgan had gone missing, and we weren’t
sure if he was going to help or not. He reappeared lugging a car roof
top box from Argos, and asked if there was any objection to him
taking it. We said no. They were one of the first things we took, and
we all had our own. I gave him a hand carrying the box up the stairs.
It was a lot heavier than I expected. At the top I plonked my end
down and said,
    “Okay, what have you got in
there?”
    “Supplies. Stuff I need. I
thought it would save time not to have it