He perched himself up on the opposite elbow, legs still spread flat out on the ground behind him, and rolled up his sleeve to inspect his skin.
There were three silver-white flakes of dead skin, almost perfectly circular, where he had felt the itch.
“What–?”
His fingers prodded at the dry film of epidermis, both fascinated and disgusted by it. He scratched a little harder and they came off.
“Yuck,” he said to himself. Then he noticed a similar itch coming from the other elbow. He reversed his position, planting the first elbow in the grass, and rolling up the opposite sleeve. Here too he found the dead flakes of skin. His eyebrows drew together as he wondered, concerned, what they could be. Was he ill?
That was when he felt the cold touch of the muzzle behind his head.
* * *
“Who are you?” asked the voice.
Paul tried to speak, but couldn’t. Also, finding an appropriate answer to that question wasn’t easy. His mind registered the fact that it was a male voice, and that it had a slight accent – Swedish perhaps, or Danish.
There were no thoughts flying through his head, no words he could utter, just a basic, instinctive and voiceless dread of death that utterly paralysed him.
He felt a boot shoved into his back, pinning him to the ground. The muzzle stabbed at his head, the man obviously frustrated by his lack of response.
“Who are you?” he repeated, louder.
Paul tried to articulate his reply, but failed. All he succeeded in producing was a strange, high-pitched muttering sound. He felt the pressure from the boot on his back increase. He swallowed and tried again.
“I-I’m… my name is Paul. I’m a priest,” he said realising how odd it was to define himself, his whole person, in such a scanty collection of words to a man who might be about to kill him.
The man grunted. The muzzle was once again thrust into the back of his head.
“What are you doing here?”
Paul tried to think, but it wasn’t easy. What combination of sentences might, somehow, get him out of this situation without giving his friends away?
Before he could speak, there was a rasping sound somewhere behind him. It was a small, metallic voice, and heavily distorted. In his fear, Paul conjured up the image of a small devil, like the ones he’d admired in the illustrations within ancient manuscripts in monasteries all across Italy. He pictured it there, standing next to this armed man, pushing him to end Paul’s life.
“Stay there,” the man said, and Paul felt the pressure from the boot abandon his back. Soon after it, the firearm went too. It was a walkie-talkie, just like the one he had under his chest. Someone was trying to contact the man with the weapon.
“I’m here, sir, what is it?” the man said into the walkie-talkie.
The response was muffled and Paul couldn’t make out its contents.
“I’m still in Ashford. Found someone in the area I was patrolling, sir. Got him here.”
Something in the quality of the sound of those last few words made Paul realise the man had turned around, shoulders towards him.
Paul decided to take a peek. He turned his head, slowly, and saw the back of a muscular man, the rifle in one hand and the walkie-talkie in the other, held close to his ear. The peculiar thing was that he was wearing a uniform – a stern, red and black outfit that was meticulously clean and strangely intimidating in its elegance.
“No one else, no,” the man was saying, in reply to a question Paul hadn’t heard. “The team has left. I’ll follow soon.”
The rifle.
The thought entered Paul’s mind from nowhere, fully-formed and crystal clear.
The rifle is right next to me. Under my jacket. He hasn’t seen it. All I need to do is reach out, grab it, and shoot this man while he’s turned.
It was so simple, so manageable. All it took was for him to hold the weapon, aim, and pull the trigger. If he aimed it properly – it shouldn’t be too complicated at this distance – perhaps he would be able to kill the man instantly, without him suffering.
Easy.
Yet it was the most complicated and overwhelming thought he’d ever considered.
Murder. The most vile of sins against man.
His ears tuned in to what this individual – the one whose death he was contemplating – was saying in the walkie-talkie.
“… might be others. Not sure,” he threw an indifferent glance at Paul, then turned around again. He listened, as the voice on the other end said something. “He’s a priest. Yes, I know. I’ll question him before I do…”
Before he does what? Paul asked himself, his heartbeat accelerating. Was that as bad as it sounded? Did this man intend to kill him? And the disgust with which he’d pronounced the world ‘priest’, was it real or had Paul simply imagined it?
“… I’ll contact the team, ask them to get back here and search the area again. Yes, as soon as I’m done here, sir.”
He wants to interrogate me, kill me, and then ask others to return to conduct a search, Paul thought. He couldn’t be completely sure that this was the meaning of those words. Not the bit about killing him, anyway.
What he was sure about however, was that this man would call others like him, armed men who would come back and possibly find his friends. They might even kill some of them. Or perhaps all of them.
Paul tried to concentrate. He had little time. At the beginning of the walkie-talkie conversation, the man had pointed out he was ‘still in Ashford.’ This suggested that the person on the other end was elsewhere. And that the team returning to conduct the search, they were a third party. If Paul shot and killed this man now – that’s a very big if, a voice inside him added – the man on the walkie-talkie would be alerted. He’d then inform the other group that something was up.
If I am to kill this man, it’ll have to be after he’s closed the communication. I need him to end the call before he turns around.
“Yes, sir. All right, sir–” the man’s tone suggested their conversation was coming to a close. Paul tried to balance things rationally, to weigh the situation. But the thought of a swarm of uniformed men raiding the warehouse, gunning Cathy and his companions down was overwhelming.
Before he knew it, his hand reached for the rifle under the coat. His fingers touched the cold metal. It felt just like the one that had been pressed against his head minutes before. Except this one might save my life, rather than end it.
Paul turned, laying on his back in the grass, drawing the weapon to his chest. He held it there with both his trembling hands. As he rotated the barrel towards this nameless man with the intention of killing him, he knew this action, even done in defence of his friends, would spell the end of his life as a priest.
He positioned the sight as Bill had taught him to earlier that day, aiming for the head. Almost precisely where this man’s weapon had been resting against his own.
Paul held his breath.
The man closed the conversation. “Yessir, of course sir. Over and out.” Then he turned, fumbling with the walkie-talkie, in an attempt to hang it off a small hook on his leather belt. His body was now facing Paul, but his eyes were low, on the belt. He thinks I’m such an insignificant threat, he isn’t even bothering to keep his eyes on me, thought Paul.
“All right then, little priest–” the man began before noticing Paul and the rifle pointed at him. His eyes and his mouth both widened, like in one of those old cartoons Paul had watched as a child, and his hands darted up to fire his own weapon.
Things happened very rapidly.
“Forgive me, Father,” he whispered, feeling his own heart break.
He pulled the trigger and in that exact instant something inside him cried: The safety! Release the safety!
He heard the dull click of the weapon’s interrupted mechanism and his heart stopped.
But amazingly, despite the safety, his opponent’s throat burst open, pierced by the bullet.
The man fell to the gr
ound, dropping his weapon. Paul scrambled to his feet, shaking in horror, and noticed the man’s black shirt was now stained by blacker shadows where the blood was flowing.
For five seconds or so, Paul watched the man shake grotesquely, his muscles contracting in random spasms.
The priest felt tears run down his cheeks as he ran to the man’s side.
Chaotic thoughts burst into his mind, broken and echoing through the vast chasm of his desperation. I can stop this. I can stop this. Lord, I can make it better. I can go back, go back and change it. Oh Lord, I have sinned, but I can save this man, save my friends, and–
“He’s dead, Father.”
It was Neeson’s voice.
Paul turned, still crying, and saw the soldier standing behind him, his rifle raised from the shot fired.
“He’s dead,” repeated Neeson. “I aimed for the throat, Father.”
Chapter 19
Atlantis
Walscombe had watched the impact through a monitor in his room. The feed was from one of the innumerable webcams that had been set up for this purpose by weirdos and others who had nothing better to do with the little time they had left. Most news channels had simply closed, as nobody bothered to turn up for work when the meteorites’ strike had been confirmed. Lazy pricks, thought Walscombe, with a humourless smile.
He had sat in his chair, munching on Doritos, uncertain about how he was meant to feel, as he gazed at the low-resolution images on the screen. They showed an empty field in the ass-end of nowhere in Bumblefuck, Nebraska or something like that. A bouquet of grain stalks swayed lazily in the breeze, their proximity to the lens tricking his eye into thinking they were six foot tall. The video was black and white, but he found it easy to visualize the gold and brown that belonged to this distant view. There had been many fields like that where he grew up. Those, like this one, as empty and boring as his own childhood had been.
He slipped another Dorito between his lips, incapable of participating in the drama that was unfolding outside. As surreal as Atlantis was, it had a way of reversing first impressions. One might have initially regarded this unimaginatively named subterranean hell hole as something out of a sci-fi novel. But, after a few months inside, it was the outside world that had receded into a haze of unlikelihood.
Without an illiterate commentary by some dick in an expensive suit, there was little to suggest these serene images were the preamble to the end of the world. It was as if America’s dubious love for drama had been exhausted once an actual threat was headed their way. During the build-up, there had been endless drama, when the calculations suggested it would simply be a near miss, a drive-by without any meaningful consequences. But once the horrible truth was revealed, all the fuss appeared to die down, like the morning after a small-town festivity.
At first a light entered the top-left corner of the screen. He stopped chewing. It was a vast fireball, its white blaze almost unbearable. He later wondered if what he saw was their own goddam rock – Colossus, bane of the Americas. There was no way to be certain, other than perhaps investing time into calculating the angle of incidence and the like. But he had no real interest in doing anything of the sort.
After the initial flair of light, the feed’s images had dimmed, as the webcam’s exposure mechanism tried to compensate for the extreme brightness. Suddenly, that grain field was projected into a thick digital night, the powerful shooting star wandering across it, propelled by what appeared to be unfathomable rage and hatred.
For an instant, Walscombe had admired the long, shiny tail it left in its wake, momentarily feeling moved.
Then the image had plummeted to black.
Walscombe started chewing again.
* * *
It was a weird morning.
Walscombe had walked to the mess hall to have breakfast. The usual walk along the corridors, the usual food, the usual company sitting at the usual table. Except—
Don wasn’t there. Walscombe almost dropped his tray and the food he’d picked from the table Jeff unwaveringly insisted on laying out for them.
Don late? It was unheard of. This was a guy who insisted on maintaining a strict adherence to the pre-impact Atlantis timetable no matter what (clearly a Sisyphean effort, as Walscombe saw it).
Jeff raised his melancholic eyes towards Walscombe’s and read the surprise in them.
“I know,” he said, “I tried his compad – nothing. So I went over to his room and tried knocking–” Jeff paused, taking a sip of the liquid shit they had instead of coffee, “–after a while, he replied. Said he’d be right with us.”
Walscombe shrugged and took a seat opposite the quiet technician.
“So how are things?” asked Jeff.
“I’ve completely run out of imagination, so it’s getting harder and harder to jerk off,” he replied with a smirk. He enjoyed the ill-concealed irritation on Jeff’s face every time he talked like that. Just as the other man was about to let it go, he casually added, “Wish we had some porn lying around, an old-fashioned mag. I should go through the dorms again at some point.” Walscombe popped a cookie into his mouth, savouring the scandalized twitch of Jeff’s lips.
This was unfair. He actually liked Jeff. He was smart, reserved, and interrupted his chess games only if he really had to, unlike Don. But this small, guilty pleasure was difficult to give up.
“He’s never done this before,” Jeff said thoughtfully. “Be late, I mean.”
Walscombe feigned indifference, but he did think this might actually be a cause for concern. It definitely was unlike Don to be late. On the other hand, it was pleasant to sit and have breakfast without him.
“It’s OK, Jeff. Hey, want some more of these disgusting cookies?” he asked as he stood and walked towards the counter again. Jeff shook his head, still ruminating over Don’s lateness.
“Yeah, I know. They suck.” Walscombe whistled as he grabbed a handful of them.
He heard Don enter the room.
“‘Morning, Major,” he said, wondering whether Don would ever pick up on the sarcasm in his voice when he called him that. “Would you like–”
He paused.
Don was walking towards the table, wearing his full uniform as usual and, as always, expecting one of them to deliver his breakfast. But today his face was covered in shaving cream.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Don as he took his seat. His voice was absolutely normal. “I’m sorry for being late. Glad to see you started without me.”
Jeff looked at Walscombe. The quizzical contortion of the tech’s eyebrows almost made him burst out laughing.
“I’d rather have tea, Walscombe, this morning, please,” Don said to him.
“Ah–” he was uncertain how to approach this. It was worrying, but, to be honest, it was also rather entertaining. “– yeah. Sure, Major.”
He’s freaking lost it, he thought, as he poured the brown sludge into a plastic cup. Donnie Downer has lost his marbles.
He walked back to the table and lay the cup in front of the Major. He then shot a look at Jeff, who looked so bewildered that Walscombe feared Don might freak out if he noticed it. (Freak out more, you mean, Walscombe said to himself.) Jeff cleared his throat, concentrating on his breakfast.
Walscombe sat down, doing his best to control his own expression, but he couldn’t help throwing glances at the head of the table where Don was staring down at his cup of tea, lost in thought.
The three men sat in silence. Walscombe knew he should have seen this coming. The man was clearly insane, always had been. How else to explain his fixation with running Atlantis as if nothing had happened? Like there still was a government, a president, a world out there who gave a fuck about the place.
Don ran his fingers through his neatly cropped hair. In doing so, he left a long white smudge of shaving cream along his temple. He looked up at them, with that splattered trail of foamy soap wobbling as he said, “Eat up, gentlemen. There’s lots to do, as usual.”
Walsco
mbe thought his stomach might burst as he tried to contain his laughter.
* * *
Much to Walscombe’s annoyance, Ivan opened with a Sicilian Defence, moving the c pawn to the d4 square. He responded with a Hungarian Variation, which he often did when his opponent decided to go that route, and distractedly wondered what Don was up to. After breakfast, Don had wandered around the base, disappearing down one of Atlantis’s labyrinthine corridors.
Despite his initial amusement, he felt slightly unsettled by the whole issue. Especially given the fact that Don was, after all, a dangerous man. Fit, muscular, and constantly armed with his service pistol, he might realistically pose a threat if his sanity was gone for good.
[email protected]> You’re slow today, Comrade.
Ivan’s chat message appeared on the screen, interrupting Walscombe’s thoughts.
[email protected]> Are my advanced chess tactics confusing you, capitalist scum?
He smiled.
[email protected]> Don’t flatter yourself, ruskie. Just busy with a few things, over here in the land of the free.
He concentrated on the game again, his eyes floating above the chess pieces neatly laid out in front of him. When he bought this set on EBay, almost three years ago, he never would have guessed how important it was to become in his daily life. Then again, he never could have guessed the world was only a couple of years away from total destruction.
As he considered his next move, he heard Jeff’s voice, loaded with trembling hysteria, call out to him. “Walscombe!”
He turned to the door, expecting to see Jeff with a big gunshot wound from Don’s pistol, or something equally as appalling. But he stood, uninjured and wide-eyed, at his door, panting like crazy. He’d obviously ran all the way to Walscombe’s room.
“You have to see this,” Jeff said, the words heavy and breathless.
“See what?”
These interruptions generally frustrated him, but the anxious note in Jeff’s voice combined with the whole Don issue made him genuinely curious.
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