The Quiet Apocalypse

by Nick Cracknell

  I marveled at her resourcefulness. As a 19 year old I could barely tie my shoelaces. With my background in radio hacking I wondered how anybody with no training could possibly learn their way around the myriad dials and broadcasting foibles of a standard system inside a radio station. Yet she had somehow managed it, through sheer tenacity and will, and had returned each day to check if anyone was broadcasting.

  I marvelled again at the incredible string of coincidences that has brought us together.

  What if she hadn’t found the radio station?

  What if I hadn’t found the outpost?

  What were the odds that we would both hit upon the same idea, and how even greater were they that we would both be transmitting/listening at exactly the same time?

  The supernatural element of it made me wonder yet again if we hadn’t somehow been coerced into our behaviour. If somehow we had been subconsciously influenced or pushed towards the respectable broadcasting stations just to make it more interesting for whoever was watching or controlling this whole absurd game.

  After a couple of weeks of waiting she had been browsing through the channels on her CB when she had stumbled across my recorded message, and the rest was history. She had somehow managed to translate my message, as weak as it had been received, and after waiting two days for me to come to Arrecife she had set off, on foot, to find the outpost I had mentioned in search of me.

  That’s why she hadn’t been in Arrecife when I’d first arrived!

  She was here, and I was here. But despite our best efforts it seemed we could shed no more light on the matter than that. I wanted to be able to solve this mystery for her as well as myself. I felt an almost paternal concern for her wellbeing, most probably predicated on her astounding vitality, like the first flush of womanhood in a very young girl. It seemed inconceivable that anything could possibly be wrong with this marvel of human vivacity. Her limbs were long and lithe and supple and white, and her hair was the darkest black I had ever seen, almost blue it was so black. Her skin was flawless, her feet as dainty as a princess, her eyes a dark brown that swirled with strokes of honey and cream. She was mesmerising, and the more she spoke the more I felt drawn to her. It was an extraordinary feeling, a mix of wantonness and protection that I struggled to unite within myself. But what occurred to me next put paid to any notion of sexual attraction, and awoke in me a primal instinct merely to ensure her survival.

  “Akari,” I said with rising concern, “if you’ve been here for over a month, how much longer have you got left? What is your percentage reading?”

  Despite the language barrier she seemed to understand exactly what I was asking, as if she had been expecting the question all along.

  With her hands shaking, making the water in her bottle appear to dance, she looked at me with something approaching guilt.

  “San.”

  She held up three fingers.

  23%

  Three percent! She only had three percent left! But what did that mean? If her life was counting down at the same rate as mine, that meant the next time she went to sleep could mean she would never wake up. The possibilities ran through my mind. What would happen to her? Would she disappear? Melt away? Or would she just drop dead in front of me?

  “We have to get out of here,” I said as we made our way along the beach front. We weren’t headed anywhere in particular, but I had felt the need to get out of that hotel room and do something that might spur me into action to prevent what could be coming.

  I didn’t want to think what would happen to this beautiful young girl once she hit zero.

  I was holding her hand and pulling her along, changing direction every few metres, pacing around in a blind panic as I tried to make some sense of the situation.

  “Please,” she begged. “No worry.”

  She bowed her head and then looked at me from under her black fringe, in a gesture of acceptance. Then she said something which has stuck with me ever since. It was in flawless English, with no trace of an accent that belied her nationality.

  “I am ready.”

  I almost laughed in incredulity.

  “You’re ready?” I cried. “For what? You don’t have the slightest idea what you are saying!”

  Again she shrank away at my outburst, but I was too incredulous at her comment to try and reassure her. I just continued to babble at her in the street while she watched me calmly but from behind her defensive gaze.

  “Don’t you realise that you could die when your percentage runs out?” I shouted. “Have you not considered this?”

  Of course I knew very well that she had considered it. After all, she would have to be a total masochist not to have considered the prospect of her own death over the past month and I could tell that she wasn’t.

  “Don’t you want to survive this?!” I continued, oblivious in the moment to the fact that she couldn’t understand me. “Well I’m sorry love, I’m not going to stand by and watch you fade away without at least trying to do something about it!”

  She shook her head and smiled at me, in what I could only assume was resignation.

  Think, dammit! I scolded myself. I was so consumed by her seeming acceptance of fate that I couldn’t think straight. I had no reserves left myself, but suddenly my own physical exhaustion didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered to me at that moment was trying to keep this young girl alive, as if I let her go I knew it would be the end for me as well.

  Part of me couldn’t wait to see what happened when she hit zero as it would assuage my own worries. Death, at least, would be something. It was the not knowing that was the real killer. But it was a small part of me that thought that. The rest of me was desperate to ensure her survival, not entirely out of self-preservation, for I knew that if I could keep her alive it meant I could keep myself alive, but it also meant I wouldn’t have to go through what I would inevitably have to go through if she did die. At that moment I simply didn’t think I would have the strength of mind to cope with that.

  Her eyes gazed at me with a mixture of concern and pity, and I was again struck by the maturity of this young woman. So what if she had accepted her fate? What right did I have to try and take that away from her? It was her life after all, and if she was ready to leave it then that was her choice surely?

  No, I refused to stand by and let it happen without at least trying. But what the hell could we do? How inexorable were these flashes of percentage? Were they the be all and end all? Should we perhaps just wait and see what actually did happen when one hit zero percent? For all we knew, the whole damn thing might just perpetuate itself and she’d wake up in exactly the same hotel room with a fresh charge at 100%?

  I was running all this through my mind in a kind of wild stupor and must have looked extraordinary to the poor girl. It was starting to get dark, and we needed to take action if we were to successfully stave off fatigue and not go to sleep.

  “Coffee!” I said out loud, and made a gesture to a restaurant on the beach front. “You need coffee!”

  I mimed lifting a cup to my mouth and drinking, then jumped around a little to signify the rush of caffeine. She seemed to understand, and nodded her head somewhat in resignation. I think she grasped what I was trying to achieve.

  I pulled her in to the restaurant and found a coffee machine behind the counter. It was a proper Italian one, made of shiny gold brass, and I had absolutely no idea how to operate it. I flicked a switch and it started making boiling noises which I figured was what it should do, and it had a grinder built in with some beans ready to go. After some messing around I produced a thick black cupful of coffee and made Akari drink it, which she did with a look of disgust on her face. I wondered if she’d ever had coffee before in her life.

  The action of getting her to drink some caffeine seemed to calm me down a bit, as if I had subconsciously awarded her an extra few hours of life by preventing her going to sleep. We stood there in the café, her looking at me curiously to see what my next absurd move was going
to be, and me racking my brains to come up with some sort of plan.

  My mind kept whirring back to the idea of a boat. I had entertained the idea before, whilst in the marina at Playa Blanca and during my three day bender, of appropriating a vessel and attempting to sail it to Fuerteventura, or further. I dismissed it purely out of technical difficulties. I had never sailed a boat before, had no idea about jiving or booms or whatever the other terminology was. If I couldn’t get a car to start the likelihood that a boat would go using the same fuel was non-existent. If it even did use the same fuel, which of course I didn’t know. The concept of jibs and spinnakers and staysails and headsails was anathema to me as hotwiring a car, and although I’d given that a go I had miserably failed (and almost been killed) in the process. I had therefore given up on the sailing boat theory almost as quickly as it popped into my mind.

  I had kept it at the very back of my brain as almost a last-resort situation, to be resurrected should I get down to the final few percent and still have no idea how to get off the island.

  Well, it wasn’t my final few percent we were talking about, but it was Akari’s. I turned to her and mimed a sailing motion.

  “Can you sail a boat?” I asked her, moving as if I was hoisting a sail. She looked at me in confusion. For all she knew I was asking her if she could bell-ring, and she shook her head slowly.

  “Shit!” I shouted, and she recoiled a couple of steps. The futility of it all suddenly hit me, and I considered the idea of just finding a bar and drinking whisky until she expired. Maybe have a dance and at least enjoy ourselves watching her final sunset.

  But something in me wanted to beat this place, and whoever it was who was responsible for forcing it upon us. I resolved not to go down without a fight, and after downing a shot of coffee myself the seed of an idea began to germinate in my mind.

  ---

  I had passed the airport on my cycle into Arrecife from Puerto Del Carmen four days previously. What if, I thought as Akari and I cycled back along LZ-2, there was a way of getting a plane to fly without the need for fuel? There must be human powered craft, or some form of electric motored thing that could cover small distances, that might allow us to get at least an aerial view of the island…perhaps get us across to Fuerteventura or even further? From my estimation, Lanzarote only sat around 70 or so miles from mainland Africa…

  My mind was racing with the potential of getting off the island somehow, as if it were Lanzarote itself that held us in its sway, and if we could escape its boundaries then it might just slow, or even halt the inexorable countdown of our respective percentages.

  What if?

  It was another longest of long shots, but I was prepared to take any risks necessary now to ensure our survival, and what exactly did we have to lose anyway? Akari might only have a few hours left to live. Any idea, no matter how farfetched, was surely worth pursuing. After all, the CB radio experiment had been arguably an even greater long shot that what we were now attempting, and we had pulled that off hadn’t we?!

  I had no idea of what we could expect when we arrived at the airport but the enormity of the forces that would have to come together in order for something to work started to dawn on me as we approached, only 20 or so minutes after we’d hauled ass out of Arrecife. Akari was obediently in tow on another hijacked bike as I pedaled frantically through the outskirts of the city.

  The fact that I’d never flown a plane in my life or even been on anything other than a commercial airliner wasn’t deterring me at this point. My only thought was reaching the airport and assessing our options as they presented themselves.

  I didn’t know what I was expecting. Would there even be any aircraft there? Obviously I hadn’t seen or heard any take-offs or landing since being on the island, but as with everything else that indicated the presence of humanity here before my arrival - cars, food, hotel guest lists - I knew in my heart that there would be planes there.

  I was hoping that there would be a variety of small hangars set aside for private planes. Those of amateur flyers, or charter planes that did aerial tours of the islands, or even rich folk who had their own base on the island that came and went by private plane.

  There had to be something there that we could work with! Perhaps aviation fuel had different properties than regular automobile fuel and would have retained some components of combustion? I seriously doubted it, but then it was possible wasn’t it?

  New peaks of optimism were worming around inside my brain as we continued through the zona industrial outside Arrecife and the airport came into view. I had been cycling so hard I didn’t realise how out of breath I was, and had to pull over to compose myself just as we pulled up to a sign reading Terminal de Carga. Akari pulled up behind me and attempted to sign something to me.

  “We are… fly?” she managed.

  I nodded vigorously. Having tried to explain to her my plan whilst hunting for a bike for her back in Arrecife, I had been blabbing so fast I doubt she had any idea what I was trying to get across. It was a testament to her character that she had followed me thus far, not knowing where we were heading or what was going through my mind. I wondered if she was following me purely for company, or if she really believed I had a plan that could save us.

  When she smiled at me I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be all right. As long as I had her trust I felt we would get through this somehow. Her face seemed to light up at the thought of flying, and I got the distinct impression that she’d had the idea all long. She said something in Japanese that I couldn’t gather, and pointed towards a large cargo building in the distance. I nodded, and we set off again in its direction.

  Airports have always had a strange effect on me. It’s the impersonality of the places, I thought as we cycled along the deserted tarmac roads. Thousands of people every day passing through the same place with the same ultimate goal in mind - getting somewhere else - but never knowing the people around them. You might be standing next to someone who was travelling to exactly the same destination as you or flying 20,000 miles in the opposite direction, and you would never know. And it was the emptiness of this place that struck me even more. There should be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of separate journeys happening every day here. I had seen my fair share of abandoned outlets since I’d been on the island, and I felt I had a pretty good handle on the whole abandonment concept by now, but this place that should have been bustling with commuters, holiday makers and staff going about their daily business seemed to hum in its neglect.

  I felt suddenly angry, the optimism stripped from my thoughts by the sheer futility of this pointlessly unutilised space.

  What was our goal here?

  Doubts again flooded my mind, what if we were to get off the island somehow, maybe reaching Morocco, to find that totally abandoned too?

  As I saw it our options were broad, but farfetched. As we cycled around searching for inspiration I tried to weigh up the cons and limitations (as very few pros sprang to mind) of each of the following:

  A standard, fuel-burning small aircraft.

  Advantages: Lightweight, could fit both of us, potentially easier to fly than a more complicated airliner, further range than just to another Canary Island meant Africa may be within reach.

  A helicopter.

  Advantages: Probably easier to take off, land and operate than an actual aircraft, fewer controls, depending on size could most likely fit both of us. Problems: Again, probable lack of combustible fuel, shorter range meant probably only another Canary Island within reach.

  An electric aircraft of some sort

  Advantages: Could be flown without fuel, airport electricity most probably up and running so could be charged. Probably much easier to operate and fly than a fuel burning aircraft. Problems: Did they even exist? What would the range be? Could it take the weight of two people?

  Hang glider/glider

  Advantages: Powered solely by pilot, no complicated controls to fly. Probl
ems: Need significant altitude to launch (top of Gran Hotel maybe?). Lack of range. Rely on thermal updrafts to travel long distances, so would be ineffective over sea. Could only reach Fuerteventura in all likelihood. Risk of crashing into sea…

  Hot air balloon

  Advantages: Could be flown without fuel provided gas tanks were available. Easier

  to operate than standard aircraft. Could surely hold two people. Potential for travelling further, possibly African coast. Problems: How to steer. At mercy of winds…

  There may be other possibilities I thought, but until we got wherever we were going it was impossible to say what the best course of action would be. I didn’t think it would be a problem trying to persuade Akari to get on board, literally, with any of them, even though she seemed more resigned to her fate now than she had been back in Arrecife. There was a sort of acquiescent expression on her face, as if she were experiencing life for the last time, and wanted simply to bask in its glory before being taken from it. I caught her eye and tried to smile, and she nodded calmly as we rode along.

  18%

  I thought it pointless to begin at the terminal itself. I felt it would only contain shops, gates and a sense of foreboding, but after Akari motioned that she was hungry I reasoned it would be good practice to at least fill our bellies and stock up on some drinking water before we got started on our search for a working flight aid.

  The good thing about the terminal was that signs were in English as well as Spanish, and although this didn’t help Akari I felt more at home with signs pointing me to relevant spots in my own language.