by Stevens, GJ
She hurried the rest down in one go.
I took the flask and lifted to my feet, my weight seeming to grow with every step as I bent and placed the glass by the door.
Cassie had already lain down on the bed, my legs too heavy to leap the gap, to cup her head in my hands. It was all I could do to get my leg up before I could do nothing but close my eyes, hoping the guilt I felt wasn't my last thought in this fucked-up world.
91
My head throbbed to the beating of the wind. Air pounded around me, pushing heavy into my eardrums.
Shifting my body as I lay, I tried to release the numb of my shoulder and to move the dead weight trapping me against the bed.
My eyes flew open, shrinking back against the fresh light and I realised it was Cassie's hair in my face as I reached for her shoulder.
Surprised and relieved, I found her warmth, but the joy was short-lived when she wouldn't respond to the shake of her arm.
I slid my shoulder from under her, my legs giving way as I put weight to the floor. Scrabbling up along the slippery tiles in my socks, my vision cleared and her body defined. It was her face buried in my shoulder, the bandage on her hand soaked through and mottled black and yellow. A sickly stench of decay wafted up as I shooed away the flies.
I hoped this was just her body’s response as it fought the disease with the aid of whatever the doctor had given us, and not a sign she was too far gone to pull through and the cocktail we’d both been given hadn’t pushed down the nails in her coffin.
Shadow's head lifted in the corner of my vision and he jumped to the floor, his knees buckling as his claws skated on the tiles.
Leaning close, I touched Cassie’s shoulder before carefully turning her on her back.
As she settled, I looked to the ceiling; the pound of air was so close now, like something was landing just above our heads.
A helicopter. My eyes twitched, blinking wide. Why had it taken me so long to figure this out?
Shadow's bark rattled the glass and sent my hands to my ears for shelter from the pain. I shook Cassie's shoulder again. Who could sleep through this deafening racket? Who could lay there in bed as the world churned around us?
I snapped for Shadow to be quiet, but he continued to bark before moving forward and out of my view.
Kneeling to the floor, I stared at her face. Her cheeks were rosy red, so bright against the blonde hair laying across her face. She was hot, vivid red. I knew it couldn't be a positive sign.
“Cassie,” I cried. “Cassie,” I said, right up in her face.
At least now Shadow's bark was getting quieter. I pushed my lips against hers, but she didn't reply. She flexed none of her muscles and my heart felt like it stopped dead.
I turned, standing, wobbling on my feet and stared out at Shadow through the glass and the door hanging ajar to the side.
This was it. The time I'd been talking about for so long. The moment I'd dreamt about since this sorry mess began.
The helicopter was here to pull out the survivors, to take away the saviours now a cure had been found; we’d been left behind when they couldn't wake us.
I had to show we were okay. I had to show them we were awake. We had to get to the helicopter.
I slapped down to the bed, pushed on my trainers, trying to muster speed. I turned and pulled up Cassie's warm body, praying my knees would let me lift.
She didn't move, didn't react as with great care I hefted her over my shoulder, pinning my arms around her legs; hoping this was the time where everything would go right.
Shadow led the way as I picked my route through the smashed glass. The instruments dropped to the tiles. The remains shattered all around.
They'd destroyed the place to stop it from getting in the wrong hands, I told myself over and again.
Keeping my eyes wide for any movement, I stepped into the corridor, the boom of wind louder than ever before. I could feel the roof complaining at the weight sitting above.
In the corridor there was no sign of a struggle. No new battle scars running along the walls. No bodies once or twice dead and so I followed Shadow along its full length to the other end of the building, our path unerring as he found the climbing set of stairs.
Stopping only a moment to resettle her weight, I pushed through the door to a gale pouring down the stairwell.
With tears in my eyes I climbed, following Shadow, bursting out to squint at the brightness.
A camouflage helicopter sat on the roof the other side of the building, its rotors spinning hard and a line of white coats and soldiers climbing in.
“Ellie, Jack, Tish,” I said, as I saw into the packed cabin. “Look, Cassie,” I said, even though she wouldn't respond.
I ran, slowing only to navigate around the puddles of ice and knee-high ventilation towers dotted around.
I heard a call and realised there was someone at the back of the group; someone separate from the line running towards the open door. His hands were waving, frantic in the air, his shouts barely cutting through the downdraft.
“Wait, wait,” I heard him say, the words only forming as I pushed to concentrate.
With my heart beating out of my chest, I watched as Lane reached the helicopter, but was pushed back by several hands as they tried to slide the door closed.
Lane wasn’t giving up, slamming his foot to bar the flow of the door.
An order shouted out and I knew the ending before the gun raised from the packed helicopter. I knew the bullet would fire out before the bang I heard over the rotors. I knew Lane would fall to the ground before the spray of red flew from the back of his head.
I settled my pace; stopped my run, let my feet stick to the tar roof. I let Cassie slowly down to prop her against a ventilation tower.
I pushed my hand in the air, smiling and looking to the kids I could just make out. I waved as the door closed and the engine's whine grew to a high pitch.
I waved a slow-motion circle in the air as it struggled at first to lift, watching as it turned through ninety degrees, growing smaller with every passing moment.
Shadow rubbed against my leg and tugged at my jeans as if he wanted me to pull him up.
I looked down and saw Cassie squinting back. My flat expression lit up as my heart pounded. Like a giraffe on ice, I supported her as she climbed to her feet and took her in my arms, squeezing harder than I should.
My gaze fell on Shadow, following his stare to the village.
Slowly, movement came into focus, settling from one dot-sized face in the distance to another, again and again.
Turning with Cassie in a circle, I watched their slow, steady movement in our direction.
Nothing could dampen my spirits. Nothing could push my elation away.
Together we would live to fight another day and I didn't care how much of a struggle it would be; the children were safe.
I had Cassie in my arms and maybe, just maybe, we'd helped to find a cure. We'd get out. Things would turn out okay.
We would just have to survive until tomorrow, or maybe another.
We heard a voice high with energy coming from somewhere close.
I turned, still holding Cassie in my arms and she pulled away, opening our embrace, her gaze following mine as I kept her arm around my shoulder.
She saw the advance, but only exclaimed as we both caught sight of a white van in the car park. Bold letters stencilled on the side, cables running from the back to a camera on the shoulder of a man looking into the viewfinder, its weight pointed to a woman in a red pant suit; a microphone held in her hand as she talked at the camera, oblivious to her impending death.
“I wonder what their story is?” I said as I pulled Cassie in close.
Before The End
G J Stevens
1
The first I knew was the phone call from an old friend; my blood pressure calming when I saw it wasn’t the newsroom. I’d just arrived at my parent’s house mid-morning on Christmas Day and her picture smiling back w
ith full lips and bright white smile felt at first like a season’s treat.
I pushed away any hesitation as our only Christmas together flashed into my thoughts, but as she skipped the festive greetings, that perfect day hurried from my mind. With her panting breath my heart rate climbed as she told me a story reminiscent of the TV horror series which had just finished its millionth season. Experiments gone wrong. People rising from the dead.
Invasion of the Bodmin Snatchers.
I could almost read my headline scrolling across the screen.
But it was a well-timed prank, the one day of the year my guard would be at its lowest.
I listened, amused throughout the short call. Her hurried tone told me it wouldn’t do to interrupt her tall story. But when I caught Jamie’s muffled words egging her on in the background, she’d lost me.
With true dramatic climax, a slap to the mouthpiece and what sounded like an over-dramatised fall to the floor, the line went dead before I could speak.
She was once my best friend and I hurried to collect my thoughts, trying to understand why she would do this on her first call in such a long time.
I turned to my mother who was stirring one of the many steaming pans on the stove.
“You remember Toni, don’t you?” I said as I looked back to the small screen, apprehensive for Toni’s face to appear again in want of a proper conversation, or at least a reason.
Mum did, of course. We were inseparable at school. Like sisters until we had to grow up. It had been so long since we’d last spoken.
Even when I had been glad to receive the calls, we missed each other so many times; either I was following a scoop around the world, or she was locked in some government lab for months at a time. It had been a year since we’d met in person. We’d grown too close, too young and maybe providence had stepped in to make the decision neither of us could. If they only knew, my parents would have said her absence was God’s will.
My head came back to the room to hear mum talking about Terry and Anne.
“Does she ever talk about her parents?” she said, and I could see the sadness creeping on to her face when I didn’t speak, when I didn’t tell her we weren’t that close any more. “Did she ever say why it happened?”
I shook my head as I pulled the open bottle of Prosecco from the fridge and topped up her glass, setting the empty bottle to the side. Our parents had been friends for almost as long as Toni and I, but Toni had never spoken about why her parents split up so suddenly; why they had gone their separate ways after twenty years of marriage, leaving each other and the area with nothing but a short call to my mother to say goodbye.
Toni had long left the family home and although I’d asked so many times, she was always too distracted to want to chat about anything so depressing. I swallowed down my guilt for not trying harder.
Toni’s call stuck in my head as I ate through half the late-cooked breakfast Mum insisted on making. When I couldn’t finish the pile of food it triggered the same old lecture about my weight.
I wasn’t in the mood for the usual debate about how the British public were wrong to want their TV presenters emaciated. Dad reminded me I was an investigative journalist first as he nodded to the row of framed awards he insisted on hanging on the dining room wall.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the world I lived in. It would break his heart for him to know they wanted me as a presenter because of my looks and not because a few stories had landed in my lap or the years I’d spent at university and on the lowest rungs during my training.
Still I took pride in their beaming smiles, even if my achievements didn’t mean the same to everyone.
Out alone in the garden even though I’d given up smoking so long ago, I plucked up the courage to call Toni back, ready to give her a piece of my mind. It wasn’t right for her to do this after so much time.
It wasn’t fair on either of us. Yes, I’d told her to stay away, but maybe now, after so long, we could be friends again.
I softened with every unanswered ring, with every echo of the chirps down the wire. By the tenth I’d changed my mind. I’d already forgiven her and was ready to say I’d be on the first train. We could spend the next four days together if she could handle it. If I could.
Still part of me was glad she hadn’t answered when the call rang out. I knew deep down I should calm my impulse to think everything would be okay between us. I drew a deep breath and tapped my finger on Jamie’s image instead.
Nearly dropping the phone as his voice pulled me from where I’d wandered someplace back in time, I glanced at the video call lit up with Jamie’s eyes, the bottom half of his face obscured with his index finger as he frowned at the unexpected shout in the background.
They were together and playing games.
My parents came out to the garden, Mum offering me white wine, and I took a beer from Dad’s hand before waving them away.
“Not funny,” I said, knocking back half the bottle as I strode to the bottom of the garden.
I let Jamie talk, defend himself, dig deeper as he denied all knowledge of the one-sided call with Toni.
Jamie, our mutual friend was someone we’d both grown close to as we went through school. The third musketeer in our dysfunctional pack. I thought I’d lost him so many times. First when the world cracked down the middle as Toni and I crossed the line; the second when it ended, the first time at least.
Thumbing to end the call, I couldn’t help analyse his tone, using my professional tools to dissect the conversation as I walked back to the kitchen. Jamie was at home only ten minutes away with his husband and their two kids. Of course he was, it was the season for family.
My breathing grew shallow and Mum asked me if I was okay. I nodded, leaning against the counter to keep myself upright whilst realising it could mean only one thing; Toni was playing a game. She was trying to tell me she was here in town. She was just down the road at Jamie’s.
Neutral ground.
I looked up to see Dad offering me a beer, the empty gone from my hand already. He could sense my tension. He wanted me to relax.
I took the bottle wet, with condensation. I thought of downing it to bolster my courage but instead placed it on the side as I grabbed my car keys and slipped back into my heels, telling my parents I’d be back within the hour.
I drove slowly, wanted to arrive and at the same time not. I had to fight to force my concentration to the road, conscious of the bottle I’d emptied so quickly and the thoughts of seeing her again. The good times had been so good and the bad times were fading into the background.
With my breath pluming white, I knocked using the brass and counted the pounding beats in my chest as I waited.
Before I could run back to the car, the door spread wide to Jamie’s face lit with surprise.
“Where is she?” I said, pecking at his cheek, peering over his shoulder and into the kitchen.
“She’s not here, darling. I haven’t spoken to her in weeks.”
“So it wasn’t you in the background,” I said, the mix of emotions draining as I watched his brow lower and head slowly shake. “Fuck. So she’s really in trouble then.”
2
Back at the car and despite Jamie’s protests for more information, I scrolled through my list of contacts, determined not to chase after her but not able to bring myself to leave her on her own.
Each of the names from the newsroom group scrolled by as I imagined what I’d say, watching their reactions in my head. They didn’t know her, they hadn’t heard the fear in her voice. In their shoes, would I believe?
No, I wouldn’t and what if Toni’s call was one of her elaborate tricks to get me to come to her so she could say it was me who made the first move?
I thought of the time she made me cry with joy, surprising me in America whilst I was on assignment, or the time the tears flowed for the other reason.
No. I wouldn’t let myself think about that.
If this was all a ruse the
n one of my over-ambitious colleagues would be embroiled in the soap opera of our relationship and it would be all across the newsroom. I could be the next celebrity gossip in the magazines.
No. I couldn’t send someone else. If I was going to help, I would have to do this myself.
We hadn’t spoken in so long. I’d made my decision; we needed a long break and she agreed, by her actions at least. She was nothing if not head strong. She would wait for me to call. She would wait for me to come back to her.
It had been so long I thought she and I had come to terms with it being this way forever.
She would never call unless she was in trouble.
The good times had been so amazing.
She’d shown me her weakness. She’d reached out and I couldn’t help but go to her rescue. The words she’d used, the fear in her voice. In all our time together she’d never lied. She’d been brutal with her honesty.
I thought of her words again. The headline.
Maybe it was a chance for another certificate on the wall and perhaps it could be enough to be taken seriously again.
I thumbed her number and listened to her generic answer phone message.
Where to start?
I knew people. I knew her boss’s boss.
I knew the minister in charge of the department she’d worked for the last ten years. Favours for silence were owed all over the place. Some for second-hand information told in confidence, others of my making. A misplaced hand here, a quiet dinner somewhere special. Right or wrong, married men were so easy to add to the list.
Still, no one answered my calls. No one gave themselves a chance to tell me I was making a fool of myself over some woman playing a cruel joke.
Swerving to avoid an oncoming car, I juggled my ringing iPhone and pulled over to answer the call I wasn’t expecting from Stan, my Editor-in-Chief.
He was calling from his house and not best pleased with the interruption to his celebrations. After my series of calls, word got through and this was my warning under the excuse of it being the season to be jolly and that’s what everyone was trying to do.
