The End is Nigh (The Apocalypse Triptych)

by Adams, John Joseph

“What family?” she said as the coal settled beneath them. Her voice echoed in the hollow steel chamber. “My parents came down from Vancouver to work in the copper mines. My father contracted green lung from the dust and couldn’t work. I was the youngest of seven mouths to feed so they sold me—put me in service, just like you—until I’m eighteen, just like you. I haven’t seen them in years. They’re probably dead now, or will be soon.”

  Darwin understood the same sadness. The same bitter loneliness. He imagined suffering through the end of the world, only to be the last two survivors.

  She patted his arm. “You can be my family.”

  He mulled that over—the good and bad. Lucy had hinted, smiled, flirted, and nearly broken the rules to catch his eye. Part of him had known this all along and a part of him (the doubting, insecure part) had half-pretended to be oblivious—better to be wrong in his apprehension than right in her possible rejection. Where does that leave them now?

  Family. Darwin thought. Like husband and wife, or kissing cousins?

  Before he could ask, he startled at the clanging of the fire bell in the distance—the same alarm he’d pulled earlier—but this time he heard three sharp rings.

  Then silence.

  “Thank goodness,” Darwin whispered. “We’re in luck.” He helped Lucy to her feet and opened the creaking, groaning, coal room doors. “That beautiful sound was the all-clear signal. We just might live to see the morning after all.”

  “You’re sure?” She hesitated. “Is it really safe?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  They took turns dusting each other off in the shadowy darkness—turning, smiling, laughing, and gently touching. He took her hand and boldly kissed it once, then wiped off the coal dust where his lips had been.

  Why not? he thought as he paused, grateful for catastrophe. Then he let go.

  As they stepped into the corridor, they squinted at Mr. Elliot and a custodian who Darwin didn’t recognize. Each of them carried a matchless flashlight. The majordomo bit down on his pipe and grunted, “Jeezus and Mary! I had better never catch you two down here again in this state of . . . aloneness.” He pointed to the stairwell. “Clean yourself up and get back to your stations—hurry along now. The show is over but the party will continue as planned and you still have guests to serve.”

  “But . . . the Tramp . . . ,” Lucy protested.

  “What Tramp? Get upstairs,” Mr. Elliot barked. “Now!”

  They hurried along the servants’ stairwell, then waved goodbye as they split up to go change into new liveries on their respective floors. Darwin, though, couldn’t wait to abate his curiosity. He peeked into the octagonal-shaped lobby where a host of guests were collecting themselves and waiters were offering everyone free cocktails and comet pills. He wandered from the stairwell out the front door and down the steps to the circular porte-cochére where three police motorcars were parked and a patrol of mounted officers clip-clopped by in the cold, brisk Seattle night. Darwin’s mouth fell open as he looked above the smoke that had settled in the Italian garden; he saw a fire engine, ladder extended, pumping water into the trees that were still ablaze. Above that queer spectacle floated a massive airship; a hot air balloon half the size of the hotel, hovered above the seventh floor balcony. Below the basket was an enormous wooden platform, still smoking, sparking, glowing with fireworks and a neon contraption that read DRINK REAL OLYMPIA BEER from the CLAUSSEN SWEENEY BREWING COMPANY. Darwin heard police officers with bullhorns shouting at the aeronauts to come down and face charges for public nuisance and disturbing the peace.

  And for inciting a riotous stampede. Darwin thought. And for making a young girl cry in my arms. And for terrifying me, yet also making me happier and more relieved than I’ve been in a long, long time.

  • • • •

  An hour later, the end-of-the-world publicity stunt was the talk of the party as comet-watchers resumed their previously scheduled frivolities, though some of the elderly celebrants had taken their heart medicine and gone to bed. If the end of the world was nigh, they had chirped, they would greet it lying down, dreaming of greener pastures and tinctures of laudanum. Several of the guests had been taken to the hospital to treat their bumps, scrapes, bruises, and one man’s broken leg.

  Despite the somewhat subdued atmosphere, Darwin quickly ran out of machine-crafted cigars from Havana and had moved on to the hand-rolled labels from Trinidad and Brazil. No one seemed to mind the rough cohibas. And Lucy resumed her duties, though her pink cap had been crushed in the scrum.

  Darwin stood his post and gazed out the window as the Madison Street cable car descended the steep hill to downtown, past sodium-arc streetlights that flickered in the darkness, beneath the aurora, which continued its heavenly performance, unfettered. He thought of Lucy and her touch, and the end of the world seemed farther away than it had been sixty minutes ago. But, perhaps he’d earn a measure of insurance just the same.

  In Chinatown, Darwin heard that the locals had taken to the Underground—which had been publicly closed during the bubonic plague scare of 1907, but had quietly been repopulated ever since. First for opium dens, gambling parlors, and pleasure houses, and now for handsomely built comet shelters complete with brass bottles of air and Dr. Melvin’s Comet Tonic, which was advertised as wormwood but was probably nothing more than castor oil. The brick bunkers were so popular that only a few were left and could only be had through a lottery run by the Chong Wa Benevolent Association.

  Darwin had bought a ticket last week, just in case, as a way of preventing disaster, like taking your bumbershoot out because you know it only rains when you leave it behind. The ticket had cost ten dollars, an extravagance that now seemed affordable as he palmed a pocketful of old folding money he’d earned in tips from guests who had currency to burn and perhaps a limited lifetime in which to spend such wealth.

  “Quite the evening, eh?” Darwin said, as he cut and then lit the cigar of a cotton-haired gentleman stooped over a silver-tipped cane.

  The old man looked back with a twinkle in his eye that might have been a tear. “Perfect night for the end of the world. And not my first, young lad.” The old man’s lips trembled and his hands shook as he spoke. “I saw the Sidereal Tramp back in 1835, the last time it came ’round—course they called it Halley’s Comet back then. Few of us are around to remember the same panic, the same stupidity. The same . . . indulgences.”

  Darwin nodded, not realizing that people were still alive from the last apparition. “They say the Tramp’s gravity is closer this time. And the poisonous tail . . .”

  “And this you believe?” the old man asked, but his question felt like a statement.

  “Begging your pardon, sir. I honestly don’t know what to believe.”

  “And that’ll be your downfall, your lack of faith in science. But soon . . . all will be revealed. Because at my age, I feel every storm, every snowfall—I feel it in my bones. This storm—this thing—I feel it coming. This unkempt world is falling to pieces.” The old man’s voice quavered. “I’ve lived my life, I should be so lucky as to expire with an entire continent to keep me company.”

  Darwin sensed the same dread he’d felt in the boiler room. He heard the crowd’s chatter settle into a bouquet of delicate whispers. Everyone stopped dancing, or mingling, and slowly, timidly, drifted to the balcony, yet again.

  “That’s more like it,” a woman cooed as she sipped a glass of sparkling wine.

  The hunched old man stood a bit taller to see outside, and Darwin noticed the detachable collar of a retired science minister.

  “When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes,” the old man said. “That’s Shakespeare.” He squeezed Darwin’s shoulder. “G’night, lad.”

  Darwin bid him well and peered, with the rest of the wait staff, over the shoulders of the regal men and women they’d been serving. He could see the Tramp appear just above the horizon, drifting slowly acros
s the Western sky—an unmistakable white light, the size of his thumb as he extended his arm away from his body. The light flashed a ruddy crimson, arcs of fire hovering above the Olympic Mountains. The deep curve of the comet’s tail stretched out behind the glowing orb as partygoers made silent wishes, offered solemn toasts, or kissed as though celebrating the New Year all over again. There was a wave of apprehension that conceded quietly to relief.

  He felt someone take his arm and knew by her perfume that it was Lucy. He continued watching the Tramp make its way through the darkness and through the glowing curtains of the northern lights. “It’s breathtaking.” He smiled and nodded. “The end of the world should happen more often, don’t you think?”

  “Darwin—” She paused. “Darwin, I . . .”

  And then the comet flashed and the lights went out—the comforting thrum of electricity gone—everything dark but the candles and the jellied fuel which glowed pink and yellow beneath the chafing dishes and coffee pots, then that too was snuffed out in a rush of air that stole Darwin’s breath and shattered every pane of glass, exploded every bottle of wine, and gave voice to a primeval sound that was felt, not heard—something great and terrible, a city, surrendering its death-rattle.

  Somewhere amid the maelstrom, between the flutter of heartbeats, bounded by the turbulent light that enveloped the sky and the Stygian dark that would follow, Darwin thought of Lucy Stringfellow. He wished he’d touched her lips, at least once.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jamie Ford is the great grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations. His debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list and went on to win the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. His work has been translated into 32 languages. Jamie is still holding out for Klingon (because that’s when you know you’ve made it). He can be found at www.jamieford.com blogging about his new book, Songs of Willow Frost, and also on Twitter @jamieford.

  BRING HER TO ME

  Ben H. Winters

  Before she opens the door Annabel takes a moment to prepare herself. She smoothes the front of her frock, and tucks her hair behind her ears, and readies her face: smile, eyes. Ready.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello! Hi!”

  The woman from the Center launches right in, full force: “Oh my goodness we are really getting down to it now, aren’t we? We are really getting down to it now!”

  And Annabel says “Yes, we sure are,” and in unison they close their eyes, tilt their heads backwards, and stand glowing for one half of one second before snapping back into conversation.

  “I keep pinching myself,” says the stranger at the door, and then she does it, she really pinches herself. “It’s actually—finally—seriously—really—here!”

  Annabel laughs politely, as the woman pauses at last to take a breath and then to say, “My name is Marie St. Clair, by the way. I’m from the Center.”

  “Ah!”

  This had already been obvious, of course. Annabel knew the woman was from the Center, because of the clipboard—the flowers—the sash. But Annabel keeps her smile in place, and nods with enthusiasm. “Thank you so much for your service,” she says.

  “Oh, pah,” says Ms. St. Clair, waving away the gratitude with a happy smile. “It’s my pleasure. My honor, I should say. It’s all just so marvelous, that we are here to see this day. You and I and all of us, everyone now living, we are the fortunate generation, we have heard, and we shall travel through. Marvelous!”

  For a moment, after that, Ms. St. Clair just stands at Annabel’s door, beaming, and Annabel beams back. Because even though this speech of Ms. St. Clair’s is made of the same rote praise-words that Annabel has heard a million times; and despite her wariness of this woman; and despite the desperate secret that has troubled her restless heart for so many years; despite it all, Annabel Lennon feels just exactly what Ms. St. Clair is feeling. They feel it together. They stand there in communal pleasure for a moment, as if under mistletoe. Together they stand in the sunlight coming from the corridor window, and in the pleasure of what is, and in honey-toned anticipation of what is to come.

  The truth is, Annabel does think it’s marvelous, and she does feel fortunate to be here, to be alive and in this world at this moment, on this day, she really does.

  Behind them, out the corridor window, the city is a mass of black clustered towers, like a group of strangers in overcoats, waiting for a train.

  “Anyway,” Ms. St. Clair says abruptly and with force. She takes out a stylus and holds it over her pad. “What I am charged with today, on this penultimate day, is performing a final, final, absolutely final sweep to ensure that everyone has heard.”

  “Of course,” says Annabel, and then fears she said it too fast. She renews her smile, takes a breath. “Absolutely. We all have heard. Everyone in our home.”

  “There are three of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mother, father, child?”

  “Yes. Child. One child. A teenager.”

  Quiet, Annabel. Hush. Smile.

  “Great!” says Ms. St. Clair cheerily. She jots with her stylus. “And you all know the protocol?”

  “Yes,” says Annabel, and bites back the words of course. Everybody knows the protocol. Obviously they know the protocol. Everyone is aware of every detail; for the last ten years all has been known; all has been arranged as it has been commanded. They have learned the protocol from the Center, learned it from one another other, and learned it directly from the source of all truth. Loud and clear.

  But Annabel just says “Yes” one more time and widens her smile. She is smiling so tight now that her cheeks hurt. She wonders if this Ms. St. Clair knows somehow, knows the awful truth of their home, and is waiting to pounce. But the dreaded moment never comes. Instead the woman just runs down the protocol one last time—and then Annabel must sign that she has listened and understood. She does. She grips the stylus and she signs. It’s all mildly ridiculous, because of course it will all be gone tomorrow: the clipboard, the corridor, Building 170, all the buildings, these two smiling women as they are standing here now, as corporeal beings in a carpeted hallway.

  “Okay, then, I will see you when we’ve all gone through,” says Ms. St. Clair at last, and for just one split second, for half of one half of an instant, Annabel wonders what would happen if she were to ask “But what if it’s all wrong, what if it’s all just wrong? What if we’re all just nuts? Doesn’t it ever occur to you?”

  But of course Annabel doesn’t say that. Of course she just smiles some more as the woman from the Center slips her clipboard into her satchel and goes, and then Annabel turns and leans against the door with her eyes shut tight and her cheeks burning hot, until she hears her husband’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

  • • • •

  Goodness no, by the way—the answer is no. It never occurs to Marie St. Clair of the Answer Center that it’s all a mistake, all just a terrible mistake. Such a thought would never appear in her mind.

  She is committed and enthusiastic beyond question to the plan, as she has been since the day she was born. Her head is filled with passionate belief that it is right, that it is right, that all of it is just exactly right. She is not unique in this. Most people feel this way. All people, officially.

  Ms. St. Clair has been doing this for seven years, since the Answer Center was established—it’s really nine Answer Centers, one in each building cluster, all reporting to the main Center. Marie St. Clair has a chart affixed to the wall in her office, and another up in her rooms in Building 49. Sometimes at night, before falling asleep, she traces the organizational lines with her fingers.

  Now, though, she has more to do. She will not sleep tonight. Never again. She adjusts her sash and feels the pleasing weight of the clipboard in her satchel as she glides down t
he corridor toward the next door.

  YOU ARE MY WORK IN THE WORLD, she hears in her head as she walks with serene purpose down the corridor. It’s the voice of God, weaving golden through her mind, like a bright banner flowing between the pillars of a church.

  YOU ARE SERVING MY PURPOSE AND PAVING MY WAY.

  “I know!” she says, out loud. “I love you.”

  YOU ARE MY VOICE YOU ARE MY WORK IN THE WORLD.

  “I know!”

  It’s 6:15. Ms. St. Clair knocks on the next door down—she is right on schedule. Tomorrow is May 1st. It’s happening! It’s almost here! It’s amazing.

  • • • •

  “I . . . have been thinking,” says Kenneth.

  The words emerge from him slowly. He is seated at the table with his chin in his hand, and Annabel is at the kitchen island, standing before the great joint of meat, cutting it carefully. She knows what her husband is going to say, what he has been thinking. She is tired of his indecision. She stops cutting and lowers her electric slicer and turns to him and stares.

  “You have been thinking what?”

  “Thinking—just—what if we are making a mistake?”

  “We are not making a mistake.”

  Kenneth sighs and stares at the smooth table. Annabel pushes the button on the slicer and the hot hum fills the kitchen. She is slicing small peels of animal off an enormous slab; the slices curl and fall away. The animal is raw. Under the kitchen table, a fourteen-year-old girl with big black eyes and a thick tussle of black hair is hidden, her knees clutched to her chest, listening and trembling. Annabel keeps cutting. The pieces curl off the flesh and fall in their thin slices into a pile of blood. Kenneth sits in troubled silence at the table, cracking his knuckles. Annabel knows it’s too late now to change course. They’ve made their decision. It’s done.

  BRING HER TO ME, says God in Annabel’s head, whispering and vivid and undulant. BRING HER TO ME.

  But Kenneth keeps going. “I fear we are making a terrible mistake,” he says, quietly but urgently. “By our deception. A terrible mistake. And it’s not too late, Anna. It’s not too late to take care of this properly.”