Free IMPACT (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Tale by Matthew Eliot

away, fighting the urge to look back, he breathed in deeply, then exhaled as slowly and steadily as he could.
    “He’s a little odd, at times, Father Claudio,” whispered Paul as he and Mathew crossed the church’s humble nave. “But I think you’ll get along.”
    Paul knocked on Claudio’s door. “Enter,” replied the man’s deep voice.
    He was sitting at his desk, a copy of Spinoza’s Ethics open in front of him. Not a good sign , thought Paul. It was the kind of book he read when in one of his moods. Nonetheless, Claudio raised his eyes to the teenager and managed a smile.
    “Welcome, my son,” he said.
    “Th-thank you, Father,” came Mathew’s shy response.
    “I understand you’ll help me out here for a while, while Mr. Moore is away.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Sounds like a barrel of laughs, doesn’t it?” asked Claudio, with an ironic twinkle in his eye.
    Mathew couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s great, Father, really.”
    Paul observed the young man in his Metallica t-shirt and white trainers, and thought he was different enough to perhaps intrigue Claudio. Despite all the older priest’s professed aversion to human contact of late, the boy might help him get his mind off things a bit and mitigate his ill temper.
    “Okay then,” said Paul, “I’ll be going.”
    Claudio waved a distracted hand towards him. “Goodbye, Father Paul,” said Mathew, politely.
    As he left the room, Paul shot a meaningful glance towards Claudio. Don’t be tough on him , that glance said, he’s been through a lot . The older man chuckled under his breath.
    He left them, closing the door. Before leaving, he bowed his head against the door and listened.
    “Is that a guitar, Father?” he heard Mathew ask, probably pointing towards the corner of the study where the old instrument lay, covered in dust.
    “Indeed it is. It belonged to one of the local priests, I believe. Do you play?”
    “Just a bit,” replied Mathew. Paul could hear the eagerness in his voice.
    “Ah. That’s wonderful. Classical? I’d love to hear some Fernando Sor.”
    “Ehm. Well. I’m more into heavy metal, Father,” replied Mathew, meekly.
    Claudio let out a long, deep sigh.
    Paul smiled and quietly left the church.

Chapter 13
Alice and Adrian
    It took a few seconds for Adrian to spot them.
    He’d followed Ally’s pointing finger, but all he saw were thick, pale banks of fog. He tried to pierce them, narrowing his eyelids and scanning the hazy view, but could see nothing. It was like sailing through hordes of ghostly apparitions, each floating aimlessly above the water and eerily blending in with the others.
    Then there they were, emerging gradually, pushing their way through the mist like towering giants from a fairy tale: the White Cliffs of Dover.
    He had seen them before, of course, when visiting his aunt, but only during the summer. Back then, they had seemed pretty and almost difficult to look at with the sunlight reflecting off their chalky surface. But now, in this constant cloud that had washed away the seasons, the cliffs looked surreal and almost alive.
    As he gazed at them, with his lips slightly parted, he remembered a history lesson from school. Their teacher had told them that when the Romans had first travelled to the British Isles, it had possibly been their first foray into waters other than those of the Mediterranean. These alien waters belonged not to that mare nostrum , the sea the Romans ruled and called their own, but were from the realm of an ancient, hostile divinity – the Titan Oceanus, one that pre-dated both their gods and the Greeks gods; a primordial force of nature they didn’t trust.
    He pictured them as they might have been. Fearfully huddled in their ships, far from the glorious sun of Rome, sailing through the mists of these malevolent seas, governed by an unknown deity. A shiver of both fear and excitement travelled down his spine.
    There were the cliffs. Beyond them lay England.
    They were getting