Chaos Theories Collection

by Moody, David

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I knew something like this would happen.’

  ‘You’re here now. That’s all that matters...’

  ‘He was never good enough for you, Sam... never treated you the way he should have.’

  ‘How can you say that, Dad?’

  ‘I’ve seen you together...’

  ‘Only when you’ve been around. You’ve always made things difficult for Steve.’

  ‘But when I picked you up and brought you back here... you sounded so low, so lost...’

  ‘Maybe your dad’s right, Sam.’ Steven said. ‘I screwed up and I couldn’t even see it. Maybe I wasn’t good enough for you.’

  ‘You were perfect for me,’ she said. ‘You still are.’

  ‘I just wanted to be with you when...’ his words dried up. He thought he’d come to terms with the inevitability of what was going to happen, but being here with Sam made the pain feel fresh and raw again, wounds re-opened. He’d accepted his own fate, but the thought of anything happening to her was too much to take. And now he’d made it to Criccieth and found her, now his journey really was complete, he knew there was nothing ahead of them but a few precious hours together, then the end.

  She moved closer to him. She touched his face, stroked his stubble and looked deep into his eyes, studying him as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing was real. ‘How did you get here?’ she asked.

  ‘Long story,’ he answered, ‘and I don’t think I have enough time left to tell it. It’s taken days.’

  ‘I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again.’

  ‘Same here. I tried to call to let you know what I was doing but I couldn’t get through.’

  ‘I didn’t have my phone. Dad said the networks were all down.’

  ‘Overloaded yeah, but not down. I managed to talk to Mom and Dad before all the electrics failed. I kept trying you...’

  Sam turned around to face her father. ‘You lied to me...’

  ‘You should be here with me, Sam. He was never right for you. He never cared for you like I did—’

  ‘No, Dad, don’t.’

  ‘But can’t you see...? Your life’s fallen apart since you married him.’

  ‘All our lives have fallen apart, Dad. The difference is we’ve all tried to accept what’s happened and do our best to deal with it. Since Mom died you’ve done the opposite. You’re trying harder and harder to hold onto me and the tighter you squeeze, the weaker your grip gets. Steve makes me happy, don’t you get that?’

  ‘But you chose me. You came back here with me.’

  ‘It was never about making a choice. Don’t you see? I came here with you to make him think, and that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t know we’d have such little time. For crying out loud, look what he went through to get here. I love you both. I don’t want to choose.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Steven said, holding Sam’s hand, their fingers entwined. ‘If you want to stay here with your dad, I understand.’

  ‘But I don’t,’ she told him. ‘I want to be with you.’

  ‘We could stay here...’

  ‘I don’t want to spend the little time left just sitting here waiting for it to happen. Look around you... I don’t know these people, this isn’t my world... I want to be with you, Steve. Take me away from this place. We might still have a few hours, maybe even a day or two... let’s walk and find somewhere to sit this out. I just want us to be together. I just want to be doing all the things we should have been doing since we’ve been apart.’

  ‘It’s only been a few days, you make it sound like forever.’

  ‘It’s been since the summer, since Jack. I want things how they used to be. I just want to be with you again...’

  There was nothing he could say. He held her, happy just to hold her like this for as long as they had left now, but she gently pulled away. Steven let her go and moved away, knowing how hard what she was about to do would be. She wrapped her arms around her father.

  ‘I love you, Dad.’

  Steven kept walking, far enough so he couldn’t hear, close enough so he didn’t lose sight of her, and waited for her to say the hardest of goodbyes.

  28

  Where they were going and how long they had left didn’t matter, all that was important was being together. Sam draped a loose shirt over Steven’s blistered shoulders, covering his weeping wounds, and led him away from the castle ruins and back along empty streets into the burning village. ‘How long has it been?’ he asked her.

  ‘Since what?’

  ‘Since the last energy pulse? I passed out in front of your dad’s house when it hit. How long ago was that?’

  ‘I don’t know. All the clocks stopped working long before. It’s been a few hours, though, at least. We were right in the heart of the castle when the last one hit, all of us cowering in the one space with something resembling a roof, and it was still unbearable.’

  ‘They’re getting closer together.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So we have to get under cover. It might not be long.’

  ‘But, Steve...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s going to make any difference, love.’

  He pulled up then stopped, as if the weight of what was happening to the world had shifted entirely onto his shoulders. ‘All the time I was trying to get here, all I was thinking about was seeing you again, that was all that mattered. But now... now I feel different. Now I’m here I don’t want this to end. I don’t want you to die.’

  ‘But there’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘Listen, Sam, I’ve just travelled halfway across the country to get here. I’ve driven through riots, been attacked, had my car stolen and stolen it back, walked miles, lost everything... don’t tell me now that there’s nothing I can do. There’s always something. There has to be something...’

  She took his hand and started to walk again but his legs were like lead. She looked deep into his face, lit up by the flames devouring the building they stood beside, fire reflecting in the moisture of his eyes. ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘and I’m very proud of you, but you are a stubborn arsehole.’

  He looked at her, stunned, wondering if he’d misheard. ‘You’re insulting me at a time like this?’

  ‘It’s the least you deserve,’ she said, grinning broadly though tears were running down her cheeks. ‘It didn’t have to be like this...’

  ‘How could it not have been? You make it sound like I should have stopped the world from turning.’

  ‘I’m not talking about this,’ she said, gesturing around her at the scorched, smoke-filled world, ‘I’m talking about you and me, about us being apart for so long. We should never have let it happen.’

  ‘I’ll take the blame. It was my fault. I let things stagnate. It was me who couldn’t deal with stuff. It was me who couldn’t deal with Jack. I was the one who had his head buried in the sand. My priorities were all fucked up and I’m sorry.’

  ‘It takes two,’ she said. ‘I was just as stubborn at times. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. What you’ve done to be here is incredible. All the things you should have done but didn’t, all the things you should have said but never did... none of that matters anymore. I love you, Steven Johnson.’

  They kissed. Dry, cracked lips touching lightly, painfully, but with no shortage of emotion. When they separated, Sam looked up at the smoke billowing overhead like fast-moving clouds. She started to walk again, leading Steven down towards the ocean. He scanned the sky constantly, watching for the light. It looked deceptively calm. ‘What if it’s over? How long did you say it’s been? What if that was the last one?’

  She swallowed, throat painful and dry. ‘I don’t think so, love.’

  They continued walking down towards the sea wall. ‘But what if it is? Imagine that, Sam... we can hope, can’t we?’

  ‘I think hope is all we have left.’

  They stopped when they reached the quay, a long, concrete p
linth which used to stretch out into the sea but which now simply jutted out over the dried-up beach, going nowhere. The castle was almost directly above them now. People continued to try to escape the relentless heat in the shallow waters around the headland, clinging onto the shadows. Steven looked back and saw that huge swathes of the village were on fire now, the flames spreading with remarkable speed, jumping from building to building, gradually consuming all of Criccieth. Before long there’d be nothing left of this place but ash. Even if the sun decided not to spit another venomous blast of energy towards the planet tonight, Criccieth was lost. He gazed deep into the inferno and wondered what it would be like elsewhere in the world. Nearer the equator, things would probably have happened with even more deadly speed. Millions of people dead. Billions of them. No escape. Burned alive.

  The finality of what was happening hit Steven hard. He leant against the rail around the quay. It was almost too hot to touch, but he held onto it just the same, fearing he’d collapse if he let go. Sam saw the desperation in his face. ‘I love you,’ she said.

  ‘I should have been here sooner... I should never have let you go. Such a fucking idiot... I’ve never been able to tell you how I feel. I always fuck up. I always get it wrong and—’

  She lifted a finger to his chapped lips, silencing him. ‘Steve, you’ve travelled across the country to spend your last hours with me. Look at the state of you. You don’t need to tell me how you feel. I already know. You’ve shown me.’

  ‘I don’t want you to die... I don’t want to let you go.’

  ‘Then don’t let go. There’s nothing any of us can do to stop what’s coming, we’ve all known it for a while. Seems to me this is the best we could have wished for.’

  They embraced again, holding each other up, bodies locked together, both oblivious to everything else happening in this scorched and dying world. Everything was being destroyed, all life being stripped from the surface of the planet like someone with a heat-gun might have stripped paint from a wooden door.

  A shrill scream from somewhere nearby shattered the ominous quiet. ‘We need to go,’ Steven said.

  ‘Go where, love? Why bother? There’s nowhere safe now.’

  She was right, but he refused to accept it. He racked his brain. There had to be something he could do... somewhere he could take her... And then it struck him. He’d scoffed at them before, but that was when he’d been alone and focused on reaching Criccieth. Now he had Sam, and he knew he’d do anything to keep her alive. ‘Underground.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘On the way into the village earlier... there are people up on the hills. The old mines... they’re trying to dig down and shelter.’

  ‘But, Steve...’

  ‘Please, Sam, come on. It’s our only option.’

  She held back. Thinking. ‘Wait, let me get Dad. I can’t leave him.’

  He grabbed her hand and ran back towards the road up to the castle, taking her by surprise with his sudden speed, almost pulling her over. He turned to check she was okay, then froze.

  Sam had her back to the ocean. Behind her, the distant horizon had begun to change colour. He’d barely had time to process the thought when the light intensified to an unbearable level, like the flash from an atomic explosion. All around them the people of Criccieth began to react. Those still in the water tried to wade towards the shore. The ground itself started to rumble and the air pressure changed, as if the sky had become too heavy to support its own weight. Sam started to run and Steven grabbed her, desperate not to lose her as they sprinted back along the quay. The light brightened still further. It was like dawn now, and in seconds he knew it would be bright as day, then brighter still. He saw an isolated, shack-like structure up ahead, nestled against the headland. He’d probably passed it a hundred times before tonight but never paid it any attention. Now it was their lifeline.

  ‘This way,’ he said, shouting over the roar, pulling her along behind him. Together they ran towards the shack and followed others trying to cram themselves into the small building. Steven pushed his way through the people already inside, digging through them to get himself and Sam as far from the door as possible. It was a boathouse, and Sam dragged him down under the hull of the vessel in storage. They held onto each other, buried under bodies, and made themselves as small as possible as the building shook. Deadly shards of incandescent light spilled through gaps between the wooden slats of the building’s walls, and between those walls and the roof. Steven saw people being burned by the crisscrossing light, slashing them like razors. There could only have been another ten or twenty people in here with them at most, but the panic and frantic movement as they all tried to cram around the boat made it seem as if there were many, many more... a terrified writhing mass.

  The maelstrom outside continued to build, more light flooding into the little building with each passing second. A vicious laser of white-heat fell upon Steven’s shoulder and he screamed with the sudden pain. But he couldn’t move and risk exposing Sam. She had to stay protected at all costs. He screwed his eyes shut and buried his face next to hers, gasping with relief when someone else stumbled in the way of the light and took its full force from him.

  And then came another blast wave. The boathouse had been protected by the headland until now, but nowhere was completely safe anymore. The pressure and gale-force wind raced across what was left of Criccieth, filling the world with awful, howling noise. Slats were torn from the walls and roof of the building, allowing in more deadly light.

  Was it subsiding? Was it over?

  Eyes still shut, Sam sensed the change first. She shifted her head to look up and around: the world was still impossibly bright but the brightness had definitely peaked and was beginning to fade. ‘We need to move,’ she said, her voice dry with heat and fear. ‘Steve, move!’

  He looked up then scrambled to his feet and followed an exodus back outside. They stumbled over bodies, some burned, some crushed, a tangle of outstretched arms sticking up as if trying to trip them up, but they kept running because the building they were in – what was left of it – was on fire. There were flames all around them. The boat they’d sheltered under was burning too, its deck already ablaze. Still holding Sam’s hand, Steven kicked out at the numerous obstructions lying in his way then rushed outside—

  —into a scene of almost unimaginable horror. It seemed that everything still left to burn was on fire now for as far as they could see in every direction. Though the light had faded back to almost normal levels, the whole world still seemed lit up. Behind them, the boathouse collapsed.

  Choking smoke filled the air. Steven ran one way but Sam pulled him back: in the chaos he’d become disorientated and was heading back towards the beach. The haze cleared momentarily and both of them froze in horror at what they saw. Those people who’d still been in the water were horrifically burned. Many were dead, their bodies being gently rocked by the pitifully low surf, but others were still somehow clinging onto life. They staggered out of the steaming waters like creatures from a horror movie, barely recognisable. Hairless, skin blistered and raw, their last rags of clothing burned away to almost nothing, fused with their flesh. Some screamed in pain but others could no longer make any noise save for desperate dry rasps, the insides of their bodies as damaged as the outside. They held their arms out like ghouls, no longer able to touch, but still able to feel. One man – Steven thought it was a man – collapsed just ahead of him. The flesh on his back was a mass of black and red, like melted plastic.

  ‘We can still make it,’ Steven said to Sam, but she didn’t respond. She was staring up at the castle now, and though the building appeared not to have sustained any obvious damage in the pulse, billows of smoke were pouring out from within its crumbled walls, giving it the appearance of a massive chimney. They both knew there was nothing left to burn inside the ruins but the people who’d been sheltering there. Sam stifled a sob. ‘Come on!’ Steven screamed at her again, desperate. ‘It’s too late, Sam. He’s
gone.’ She allowed herself to be dragged along.

  ‘Steve, slow down... I can’t keep going.’

  ‘You have to,’ he said, sheer terror keeping him moving forward. ‘We can still make it. We’ve got time. It’ll be a while before the next pulse.’

  ‘Yes, but it’ll still come, and the result will be the same.’

  ‘Not if we’re underground. Come on, Sam, trust me.’

  ‘I do trust you, it’s just that...’

  ‘I love you and I’m not going to give up now, not without a fight.’

  29

  The climb to the top of the hill was agony, every surface hot to touch. The pungent air was acidic and foul to taste. They both panted with effort, their lungs filling with hot smoke which burned their throats and stung their eyes. Sam coughed so hard she thought she might turn herself inside out. Every precious breath she managed to take in was almost immediately forced back out again. They held onto each other as they climbed through fog-like banks of smoke.

  Eventually the ground levelled out. Each step forward was increasingly difficult. The tarmac had softened but the soil on either side of the road had hardened like rock, brushfires hemming them in.

  A wall appeared out of the haze on one side, and to his surprise Steven realised they’d reached the car park from which he’d first seen Criccieth when he’d arrived yesterday evening. How he wished he could be back there now, wished he could have those precious hours and minutes over again, wished he was anywhere but here, at the very end of everything. ‘I’m sorry, Steve,’ Sam said, letting go of him and doubling-over, her hands on her knees. ‘I have to stop.’ She looked up at him and he wiped tears from her blackened face.

  ‘You can’t. You have to keep going... please.’

  ‘No more, love...’

  ‘We can’t stop, Sam. If we stop now we’ll struggle to get moving again.’

  ‘Just a couple of minutes...’