The End of the World Survivors Club

by Adrian J. Walker

  Carmela and Bryce shared a look.

  ‘Aye,’ said Bryce. ‘But you could still use some help. Carmela and I are staying.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Ed. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘What, compared to the last year? Aye, right fucking Magic Roundabout that’s been, like.’

  ‘But we need you.’

  Carmela smiled. ‘No. You need you –’ she pointed at me, then Ed ‘– and you. That is all.’

  Richard nodded. ‘I’m staying too.’

  ‘What?’ I said, ‘But you’ll be stranded here.’

  ‘Ach,’ said Bryce, ‘we’ll get to shore and down to you somehow. We’ll find you. We always do.’

  ‘Beth,’ said Richard, ‘this was never about us, it was about you and Ed finding your children. And you’re almost there, so let us help.’

  ‘Dad?’ said Josh.

  Richard smiled. ‘It’s all right, son. You and Dani go with Beth and Ed.’

  ‘No,’ said Dani, standing straight. ‘I’m staying too.’

  ‘I can’t allow that,’ said Richard.

  ‘That’s not your choice,’ said Josh. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Dani, he looked his father in the eye. ‘And I’m staying too, Dad.’

  ‘Josh—’

  ‘I want to help.’

  Richard gripped his son’s shoulder. His breath shook. ‘All right, son. All right.’

  ‘Hate to break up the love in the room,’ whispered Frannie, peering through a gap in the door, ‘but there are two guards outside, each one about the size of Kansas. What’re you proposing we do about them, Curt?’

  ‘Hoo, well,’ said Curtis, scratching his head. He looked down at Grot’s lifeless body. ‘Could use that gun, I suppose?’

  Bryce snatched up the gun. ‘Leave it to—’

  But Suyin and Evie had already burst through the door, and screeching like banshees they tore across the dirt. One guard turned in surprise, only to receive a large well-aimed rock from Suyin’s catapult directly in the face. By the time he hit the ground the other was in mid-turn, gun lifted, but Evie was already on his back, feet against his spine and rope around his throat. She strained and squeezed and the guard’s sunglasses fell from his face, revealing popping eyes. He scrabbled for his throat, fingers barely stroking the rope deep in his flesh, and before long he was still on the ground next to his partner.

  Evie whipped off the rope and stood panting.

  ‘Time to go,’ she said.

  We crept to the shore where the Buccaneer was moored, and after fast, fierce hugs Ed and I climbed aboard.

  ‘You got a full tank,’ said Curtis. ‘Head south and watch for that junk. There haven’t been lights on the shore for half a year, but my guess is there will be when you get to where you’re going.’

  As Suyin and Evie kept watch, the others pushed us off and we let the current take us.

  We were about fifty metres from the shore when, with one last wave, the others ran from that metallic beach and disappeared along the track. We had arrived at Fresh Kills in silence, but we left it to the sound of gunshots and screams.

  Chapter 33

  When we were fifty metres from the shore we started the engine and motored south. I took the helm as Ed watched from the stern.

  ‘Christ, Beth, what are we doing? What if they don’t make it?’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough. As soon as he realises we’re gone, he’ll be after us again. We need to get one of those sails up.’

  Ed went to work on the mainsail, and as I turned to keep watch something thumped the hull.

  ‘Watch out,’ said Ed. ‘There’s still debris in the water. Keep to port.’

  I looked ahead, searching for a path through the plastic lumps in the sea.

  ‘Shit,’ said Ed, struggling with the mainsail’s cover. ‘Who tied these knots? They’re like steel.’

  Another bump on the hull. Ed fell back on the cabin roof.

  ‘Watch it!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I eased our way from the minefield of junk. Once we were in clear water again, I glanced behind. The island was far from us now and there was no sign of the boat. A nervous smile flickered on my mouth.

  ‘Ed, I think—’

  ‘What’s that?’ Ed had got to his feet and was back at the mainsail’s fastenings.

  ‘I think—’ I glanced back again. The smile left me. My heart plunged. ‘Oh, fuck.’

  ‘What?’ said Ed.

  A white shape had appeared to the east of Fresh Kills, turning south towards us with an angry drone.

  ‘They’re coming. Ed, they’re coming, get that sail up!’

  ‘Fuck.’ Ed fumbled with the ties. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, who tied these knots!’

  ‘Just get it out!’

  I pushed the throttle but it was already as high as it would go. The drone grew louder, accompanied now by splashing jolts as the boat scudded, closing the gap.

  ‘Ed, please, hurry!’

  ‘I’m trying!’

  Half the mainsail cover was free but there were still six knots to go. I looked back. He was already halfway to us. I scrabbled in the shelf for the binoculars and, as I trained them behind, our pursuer gradually came into focus. Tony’s puce and furious face glared back at me from the helm. His white shirt was blackened and torn, smeared with blood from a wound on his shoulder. He was breathing hard, gritting his teeth. There was nobody else on the boat.

  I dropped the binoculars and looked back at Ed, now on the last knot.

  ‘Ed, we need to get that sail up now!’

  ‘I said I’m—’

  He was cut short by a sharp report and the whip of a bullet across our stern. I swung round to see Tony aiming a pistol at us. He was now close enough to see without binoculars, and his eyes were black, boiling with rage. There was no trace of his mask now. The calm waters of the person he had spent his life selling to the world had run dry, and all that remained was the hungry, twisted reptile that had been lurking in its shallows.

  He took another shot, closer this time.

  ‘He’s firing at us,’ I said.

  ‘I got that. Where are those guns that Maggie and Dani had?’

  I scanned the deck but they were nowhere to be seen. They must be below deck.’

  Another shot. I felt the bullet’s breath and screamed. Tony was almost alongside us now, the boat’s huge bow wave disrupting our path. With one hand on the helm he glanced between us and the water ahead, waving his gun and trying to find a shot. He aimed, but pulled back at the last minute as he swerved to dodge a lump of dirt.

  I had an idea.

  ‘Ed, hold on!’

  I swung the Buccaneer to starboard, re-entering the dangerous, junk-filled waters.

  ‘What are you doing?’ yelled Ed.

  ‘Just hold on.’

  Ed gripped the mast. I took us into the minefield as far as I could, leaving Tony speeding along its edge. Our hull thumped and cracked. He took another shot but it missed us completely, and with a snarl he threw his own boat in after us.

  Soon he was next to us again, even closer than he had been before. He squinted and aimed at the mast.

  ‘Ed, get down!’

  Ed scrabbled to the deck, but Tony had already taken the shot and with a terrible crack, the mast splintered.

  Ed’s head snapped back.

  He fell to the deck, blood already pooling at his neck.

  My heart stopped dead. No metaphor. It didn’t beat.

  ‘Ed,’ I stammered. ‘No!’

  I stared in horror at Ed’s still body, but my eyes were distracted by a huge mass looming ahead. I managed to swerve around it just as Tony let off another shot. This one missed and he hit the obstacle, bouncing to port. He snatched the helm with his right hand, and in doing so his pistol flew over the side. With a cry of outrage, he swung to starboard again, meeting me on the other side of the lump.

  This time he didn’t stop. His boat crashed into the side of the Buccaneer and in
a few clumsy steps he had leaped over the two guard rails. I screamed as he landed upon me, pinning me to the cockpit’s wall.

  ‘Got you!’

  ‘Get off me! Get your fucking hands off me!’

  We struggled. He reached for my throat but I grabbed his wrist. The stench of his breath was so sickening I had to turn from it.

  And in doing so my eyes found Ed lying still upon the deck.

  I was shot through with grief, a fierce, fierce pain worse than anything I had endured.

  Get up, I thought. Don’t leave me, please …

  I let the thought drift away, and felt an overwhelming urge to go with it – to give up and let that wretched man take my life too. It would be so easy to go limp and drop my arms. His hot hands would find my throat and crush it. It wouldn’t take long. Then I could fall into the oblivion that waited behind everything, and I wouldn’t have to feel anything anymore.

  I think I might have done it too, had it not been for the fact that the foot of that wretched man above me chose that moment to make contact with my stump.

  I howled, turned and screamed in his face: ‘What is your fucking problem?’

  ‘You, Beth,’ he said with hot, heavy breaths. ‘You’re my problem. You ruined everything. And now you’re going to face the consequences.’

  ‘You murdered my husband, you bastard. I’m going to make you pay.’

  He grinned and shook his head, eyes wide. ‘No, Beth. You’re the one who’s paying today, not me. And do you want to know how?’ He pushed his face closer. ‘Fire. I’m going to lash you and that useless corpse over there to the deck of that gin palace, shower you with petrol and strike a match. I’ll watch it burn with a glass of my rum, listen to your screams until I’m bored, and then do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take a little trip to Daytona, see if I can find your children. Maybe I can teach them a thing or two about consequences too, eh?’

  My blood chilled. I said nothing. A stillness had come over me.

  He shook me, angry at the lack of response. ‘Eh? What about that?’

  But all I felt was the churning of a deep and dreadful sea.

  There was a glint as the sun caught metal, and my eyes travelled from Tony’s rabid face to the chains around his neck.

  ‘Is that all you believe in, Tony? Actions and consequences?’

  ‘What else is there?’

  ‘It’s just … all these trinkets of yours. I wonder what they mean?’

  Slow heart thumps like the sway of a whale’s tail. Breaths like a thousand-mile tide.

  ‘Totems,’ said Tony with a sneer. As his eyes dropped his grip weakened. ‘Reminders of the ones who have crossed me.’

  I searched through the layers of metal and stone.

  ‘Are you sure that’s wise? To carry the belongings of the people you’ve killed? Some would say you’re dealing with something you don’t understand.’

  Chain after chain, stone after stone, and finally – a crucifix.

  ‘Well, it’s a good thing I’m not superstitious then, isn’t it?’

  My eyes met his. ‘I wasn’t talking about superstition.’

  He frowned. ‘What?’

  I wrenched his hand away, snatched the crucifix Maggie had given me in Gibraltar and – hoping it would do what I told it – pressed its top.

  A blade shot out.

  Tony raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, fuck me sideways.’

  With a scream I drove it into the side of his neck. It went deep and stuck there for a moment. Tony clutched at it, staggered back, and gulped as a belch of blood arrived at the wound and another at his mouth.

  At this his face creased with rage and he held out both hands for me, but I had already picked up my crutch and swung it with everything I had against his head. It whipped round and he stumbled right, arms still out before him like a zombie, and my second swing hit him in the throat.

  With one last look at me he fell back, hit the guard rail, and tumbled into the water.

  I scrabbled to the side to see. He floated away, face down, leaving a trail of blood in his wake until a great pile of rubbish absorbed him and swallowed him down into its oily plastic bowels.

  When he was gone, I scrabbled over to Ed. Tears were already at my face when I turned him over.

  ‘Ed, Ed, please, speak to me.’

  His face was calm, as if in sleep. There was a wound on his head, just above his left ear, hardened now with blood.

  ‘Ed, please.’ I held his head and put my brow to his, whispering. ‘I can’t do this on my own. I can’t, I just can’t.’

  All I could hear was my own breath and the waves. I stayed like that for some time, just breathing in his smell and whispering the same words over and over. ‘I can’t do it on my own. I can’t do it on my own.’

  Our third date was when it happened. We’d been out for dinner, then met with some of Ed’s friends in a bar I didn’t know in the New Town. There were about ten of us, drunk at a table, but as the evening wore on and the music and laughter grew louder, Ed and I retreated to a corner, sharing our own private conversations, deeper looks and kisses, until finally we became oblivious to the others.

  I slept with him that night, and the next day was Sunday.

  ‘What are you doing today?’ he asked.

  I told him, by reflex, that I liked my Sundays to myself. My flatmates were usually out and about, so I liked to spend the day reading, tidying, just being with myself.

  I detected some hurt in his smile, but he told me to enjoy it and to call him. Perhaps we could meet up in the week.

  That day I roamed the empty flat, restless, moving objects and trying to start books but finding myself staring out of the window instead, thinking of his face.

  So I called him.

  ‘Hi. It’s me. Do you think … I want to see you. I don’t want to be alone.’

  I don’t want to be alone.

  I don’t want—

  ‘You’re not alone.’

  I sat up.

  ‘Ed?’

  He turned his head, groaning. ‘I said you’re not alone. What happened?’

  I gasped. My heart kick-started, my veins flushed.

  ‘Ed, you’re alive!’

  I kissed his face all over and pulled him to my chest.

  ‘Ow.’

  ‘Sorry, I just thought you were dead. Christ, don’t move, you’ve been shot.’

  He sat up and held the side of his head. ‘It doesn’t feel like it.’ He touched the wound. ‘Feels more like a – aargh.’

  He pulled a long splinter from his flesh and held it up, dripping.

  ‘Fuck, that hurts.’

  Suddenly he sat bolt upright.

  ‘Where’s that prick?’

  I shuffled closer and held his face in my palms. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘How?’

  I kissed him long on the lips. The taste of saltwater, blood and sweat washed between our mouths.

  ‘I killed him.’

  He hesitated, still emerging from the kiss. ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Yes, it was. Now let’s get our children.’

  Chapter 34

  We sailed all day with nothing behind us but the wind. It was not the cruel wind that had seemed so intent on pushing us from our path just before we met Fresh Kills, nor the absent breeze that had pushed us there in the preceding days. This one wanted us to move. It was with us, right there on the deck and pushing us every mile of the way.

  Ed and I were too engrossed in our tasks to speak. I stood at the helm and hugged the coast while he trimmed the sails and watched for obstacles from the bow, but we shared smiles and glances, and treated each other’s wounds when the wind was low.

  Hope filled our sails, but as the day wore on we grew nervous. Our threat was behind us, decomposing into fish food, but what lay ahead? The scale of our objective was expanding. Until now it had been merely to cover distance, but soon we would have to moor and scour untold miles of coast for our children. How did we ho
pe to find them? Were they even there?

  It was dusk when we saw lights. As Curtis had said, there had been no sign of life on the land since we had set off, but now an orange glimmer clustered upon what looked like an estuary. There was nothing north or south of it as far as we could see, and the water had cleared of debris. We headed in.

  The lights drew apart as we approached the estuary.

  ‘They’re islands,’ I said. ‘Just like Ulrich said.’

  ‘They weren’t always,’ replied Ed, looking over the starboard guard rail. ‘Look.’

  He pointed down into the clear blue water, beneath which trees and weed-strewn buildings were visible – houses, shops and a car park sailed below, and a street sign that said, to my unfettered delight, DAYTONA.

  ‘Ed, this is it. We’re here!’

  We dropped everything but the jib and weaved between the islands, keeping our distance. Most of them were small and uninhabited, squat tufts in the water like the ones we had encountered near Cadiz, and others were only sparsely lit.

  The main source of the lights was on the southern bank of the river mouth. Unlike its opposing bank, which was deserted and covered with dead trees, this was a series of long beaches backed by dense forest. The lights were flaming torches, between which shadows moved, and a rich concoction of smells floated from the shore; cooking meat, wood smoke and rainforest.

  Ed’s plan was to find somebody – an official or police – and explain. If this was the safe haven Captain Ulrich had described, then surely they would have some systems in place, a record of who had landed here and where they were.

  I didn’t like it. The thought of surrendering our search to some unknown bureaucracy – or worse, to be rejected by it – filled me with dread, but it seemed like the only way. The coastline stretched for miles ahead, and who knew what lay behind those trees?

  So we drifted, searching for some sign of officialdom.

  But life had other plans. Like the wind, something else was guiding us that day – I’m certain of it.