After the Rain | Page 2

who was her
best friend that week, put their arms around each others' shoulders and
watched it avidly. It was about a woman who was in love with two men
and the men hated each other and there was fighting and glorious
kissing and sophisticated, cutting insults, and oh, they dressed so well!
The audio was dubbed over from English, but that was OK -- the
voice-actors they used were very good.
After the second showing, she and her friends allowed their seats to
lower and set off for the concessions stand, where they found the
beaming proprietors of the cinema celebrating their opening day with
chocolates and thick sandwiches and fish pies, and bottles of brown
beer for the adults and bottles of fizzy elderflower for the kids.
Valentine saw the cute boy who Leeza liked and tripped him, so he
practically fell in Leeza's lap, and that set the two of them to laughing
so hard they nearly didn't make it back to their seats.
The next picture barely had time to start when it was shut off, and the
lights came up and one of the proprietors stepped in front of the screen,
talking into his phone, which must have been dialed into the cine's
sound system.
"Comrades, your attention please. We have had word that the city is
under attack by our old enemies. They have bombed the east quarter
and many are dead. More bombs are expected soon." They all spoke at
once, horrified non-words that were like a panic, a sound that made
Valentine want to cover her ears.
"Please, comrades," the speaker said. He was about sixty and was

getting a new head of hair, but he had the look of the old ones who'd
lived through the zombiism, a finger or two bent at a funny angle by a
secret policeman, a wattle of skin under the chin, loosened by some
dark year of starvation. "Please! We must be calm! If there are shelters
in your apartment buildings and you can walk there in less than ten
minutes, you should walk there. If your building lacks shelters, or if it
would take more than ten minutes to go to your building's shelter, you
may use some of the limited shelter space here. The seats will lower in
order, two at a time, to prevent a rush, and when yours reaches ground,
please leave calmly and quickly and get to your shelter."
Leeza clutched at her arm. "Vale! My building is more than ten
minutes' walk! I'll have to stay here! Oh, my poor parents! They'll think
-- "
"They'll think you're safe with me, Leeze," Valentine said, hugging her.
"I'll stay with you and both our parents' can worry about us."
They headed for the shelter together, white-faced and silent, in the
slow-moving crowd that shuffled down the steps into the first basement,
the second basement, then the shelter below that. A war hero was
handing out masks to everyone who entered, and he had to go and find
more child-sized ones for them, so they waited patiently in the
doorway.
"Valentine! You don't belong here! Go home and leave room for we
who need it!" It was her worst enemy, Reeta, who had been her best
friend the week before. She was red in the face and pointing and
shouting. "She lives across the street! You see how selfish she is!
Across the street is her own shelter and she would take a spot away
from her comrades, send them walking through the street -- "
The hero silenced her with a sharp gesture and looked hard at Valentine.
"Is it true?"
"My friend is scared," she said, squeezing Leeza's shaking shoulder. "I
will stay with her."

"You go home now," the hero said, putting one of the child-sized
masks back in the box. "Your friend will be fine, and you'll see her in a
few minutes when they sound the all clear. Hurry now." His voice and
his look brooked no argument.
So Valentine fought her way up the stairs -- so many headed for the
shelter! -- and out the doors and when she stepped out, it was like a
different city. The streets, always so busy and cheerful, were silent. No
air-cars flew overhead. It was silent, silent, like the ringing in your ears
after you turn your headphones up too loud. It was so weird that a
laugh escaped her lips, though not one of mirth, more like a scared
laugh.
She stood a moment longer and then there was a sound like far-away
thunder. A second later, a little wind. On its heels, a bigger wind, icy
cold and then hot as the oven when you open the door, nearly blowing
her off her feet. It smelled like