Outside the Portsmouth, in the far distance, a small yacht bobbed on the choppy waves of the Irish Sea, lights flickering in the dark like fireflies, and apparently making little in the way of progress in any direction.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Soldier?” the Captain snarled, and Nathan heaved out a relieved sigh. “No we should not fire on them. This is over, don’t you get it? All this secret mission bullshit is done. What we’re doing now is surviving. There is no us and them.”
He pointed behind him, back toward the dark shape of the mainland that had all but disappeared from sight.
“There’s us and them. Understand?”
The soldier flushed and nodded.
“Sound the horn. And get a lifeboat out there. Tell the medical crew to be ready. We’re taking on more passengers.”
*
The Portsmouth made steady progress, but the trip to Australia would be long, Michael had been told. They would give the land as wide a berth as possible, so they wouldn’t be taking the fastest possible route.
Adding extra time to the feeling of calm safety that being on the ship gave him didn’t seem like such a bad idea to Michael. Already he was beginning to wonder what they might find when they reached the only country on Earth that was supposed to be unaffected by the Wildfire virus. Nobody really knew if it was true; for all anybody knew they could make land and walk right into the very same horror they were running from.
He wouldn’t have minded staying on the ship forever.
After two days the power station at Wylfa finally collapsed upon itself, and the sky behind the Portsmouth was lit briefly, like a poisonous second sun had appeared, burning itself out in seconds.
Michael realised he couldn’t even be sure it had been Wylfa. Could have been any number of power stations around the UK. Might even have been an explosion tearing apart a different country altogether. France, maybe; Spain. It barely mattered. All around them, the land itself would burn as the remnants of civilization began to decay.
This fire would burn for decades. Centuries, maybe.
The fallout from the destruction of the nuclear industry might well kill off the Infected, but there was no way to know for sure. The creatures’ genes were a mystery, and might now remain so forever. Michael hoped so.
He leaned on the rail and stared at the endless peaceful ocean. They hadn’t seen land for a while. He smiled when he felt Rachel’s presence next to him.
“G’day, mate,” she said with a wide grin.
Michael arched an eyebrow.
“Figured I should practice the lingo,” she said with a shrug. “We’re all going to be Australians now, right?”
Michael cracked a smile.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “When there’s only one place left, is there any point giving it a name?”
“It’ll just be home, then.”
Michael couldn’t disagree with that.
“I guess we’re still running,” Rachel said a little wistfully.
“I look at it more as regrouping,” Michael replied. “Australia’s a big place, but it won’t be long before it feels small. One way or another, we’re going to have to take this planet back.”
Rachel nodded thoughtfully, and stared down at the waves that washed gently against the hull of the ship.
“One way or another,” she agreed finally.
Michael followed her gaze and watched the sea passing underneath the Portsmouth, and wondered how long it would be before he saw land again. Saw people again.
He flinched a little in surprise when Rachel slipped her hand into his and squeezed gently. For too long, Michael's thoughts had been dominated by fear of humans; by the overwhelming urge to put as much distance between himself and others as possible.
After a moment’s hesitation, he squeezed back.
Epilogue
Brad heaved his board across the damp sand, panting at the effort it took to make progress under the energy-sapping heat of the blazing sun above. The surf had taken it out of him, more than he could ever remember. The waves had been fantastic, high and regular, each one persuading him that the fire in his muscles should be ignored for just one more run, and he had been powerless to resist the lure of the waves until finally he began to cramp and had no choice but to return to the beach.
A lot of people didn’t understand the narcotic rush of surfing. Brad felt sorry for them. Something about being carried along by the ocean made him feel humble and powerful; giddy and focused all at once. There was nothing quite like it, and on a day like this, when the sun that seemed to scorch the skies over Australia incessantly decided that it would be okay for the wind to get involved too, Brad would have bet that anyone—even the most ardent anti-surfer—would feel a twinge of addiction if they just tried it.
When he was about fifty feet away from the clear waves that lapped at the beach, Brad stripped his wetsuit to the waist and collapsed onto the soft, powdery sand, letting the warm breeze dry his hair and body.
He stared up at the empty sky, feeling his vision swim a little as his aching muscles engaged his mind in a heated debate about the wisdom of taking a nap.
Other than the whisper of the waves, there was no sound.
It had been like that for a couple of months, and no one in Australia seemed to know why. TV, radio and internet had disappeared simultaneously one day, and in the weeks that followed, as speculation reached fever pitch, the general sentiment in Australia was that something terrible had happened out there, beyond the endless crystal sea.
Nobody seemed to have heard from their relatives in the US or the UK, and even the closer countries—Japan, New Zealand—had fallen silent.
Brad had heard plenty of rumours: that some awful disaster had befallen the world—a war, perhaps; or maybe the day of reckoning had finally arrived and God had spared only Australia.
It was all nonsense, of course. The only rumour Brad paid attention to was the one about the military sending out recon flights that never returned, and even then only because his brother was in the military. If Shane said there was something to the rumours, then Brad figured he should probably listen.
Finally there was a rumour of a single plane that did return, bringing back a cargo of extraordinary tales about a world burning, lapsed into shocking violence, as though nuclear war had broken out across the rest of the globe all at once, and everything everywhere was affected.
Brad wasn’t sure he believed it, but he supposed it was plausible enough. The TV news—back when there had been TV news—was always full of some country squabbling with another, tearing each other down and delivering threats like schoolyard bullies.
Brad thought the world would have been a much better place if all those idiots in suits could just spend a little time out there on the surf, letting the rolling waves wash away their problems.
He shrugged mentally. It didn’t much matter to him what happened to the rest of the world. Australia could survive just fine on its own: very little of the country’s goods and services were imported because the place was just so damn far away from everywhere else that it made shipping most things impractical and inordinately expensive. The only thing they had really lost was the news and the internet, and in some ways the loss of communications had actually improved life.
He let his eyes close, daydreaming about catching up with Kimberly later for a barbecue. And the rest: today was Brad’s birthday, and he knew Kim had procured some special lingerie for the occasion.
Life was good.
He dozed.
*
Brad woke with a start sometime later, when the sun had passed overhead, and his first thought was that he hadn’t applied sunscreen, and that he should know better than to fall asleep on a blazing hot afternoon. He didn’t burn much, not anymore. But there was always the threat of skin cancer.
He reprimanded himself as he sat upright, and only then did he begin to wonder what might have caused him to wake so suddenly.
His mouth d
ropped open.
When he had fallen asleep, Brad had been alone on the beach. It was often like that: Australia practically had more beautiful beaches than it had people; there were plenty to go around.
But he wasn’t alone now.
An enormous battleship sat just offshore; long and sleek and laden with enormous guns that looked like they could blow a hole in the universe. Much closer, he saw a small boat powering its way to the beach, and realised that it was the noise of the engine that had caused him to stir.
He stood on the hot sand, swaying a little, filled equally with curiosity and apprehension.
What the fuck?
There were seven people on the boat. As Brad watched, six disembarked into the shallow water and splashed toward the beach, and the boat turned around and made its way back toward the distant ship. Further back, Brad could see similar boats approaching. It looked like the ship was unloading all its passengers, and pretty soon the beach was going to be crowded.
Brad trotted forward, open-mouthed, his surfboard forgotten behind him.
The first of the people to reach dry land was a man with a serious expression and a slightly underfed look about him. A woman followed behind, petite and attractive and with intense eyes that Brad found almost hypnotic.
“Is this Australia?” the man asked gruffly in an accent Brad could not quite place.
The question threw Brad a little.
“What? Uh…yeah, of course this is Aus—Dude, is that a fucking battleship? What’s going on?”
The serious man turned to the woman and grinned wryly.
“Looks like John was right about Australia being clear.”
The woman nodded and smiled wearily.
“Clear? Clear of what?” Brad stuttered. “Where the hell did you guys come from?”
The man grimaced.
“I think we’re what’s left of the rest of the world,” he said flatly.
Brad’s mouth had only just managed to shut. It dropped open once more.
“The rest of the world? What happened?”
The man shook his head ruefully and laughed, as if he didn’t even know where to begin.
“The end,” he said finally.
W I L D F I R E
C H R O N I C L E S
by
K.R. GRIFFITHS
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This one's for my family and my close friends (you know who you are), all of whom at least pretended to understand why I spent a year locked in a dark room tapping on a keyboard, and most of all for you, for reaching the end with me. I can't thank you enough, and I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did.
KRG June 2014
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