Doomsday

by Chris Morphew

  ‘Luke,’ Peter’s dad said wearily, as I pulled the phone out again.

  ‘I’m not calling Jordan,’ I said, scrolling shakily through the list of names, a shiver flashing through me as I found the one I was looking for.

  Noah Shackleton.

  I hit call and brought the phone up to my ear, a weird out-of-body feeling rippling over me.

  I flinched as the ringing cut out, replaced by a howling, agonised scream. I heard hurried footsteps, and then a door slammed shut, muffling the poor man’s cries.

  ‘Who is this?’ hissed Shackleton. There was a fire in his voice that I’d never heard before.

  I took a breath. ‘It’s me.’

  A moment’s pause. I shuddered as another muted scream echoed in through the closed door.

  ‘I’ll kill you,’ Shackleton spat. He was breathing hard. ‘I don’t know how you’ve managed this, you miserable ulcer, but whatever else results from your actions, I promise to repay you with an excruciating end.’

  I dropped a hand to the ground, steadying myself. Not that I’d been expecting Shackleton to be thrilled to hear from me, but usually he kept all that buried under layers of calm, grinning menace.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said, surprising myself by getting the words out the first time. ‘Where are you? Tell me where to –’

  The guy through the door screamed again, louder still, freezing the words in my throat. The noise intensified, raw and guttural, grinding through my insides. Finally, it choked itself out. Silence fell on the other end of the line.

  I heard a door clunk open again. ‘Well?’ Shackleton demanded of whoever had just come out.

  A woman’s voice. Dr Galton? ‘He’s dead. Negligible resistance to the pathogen.’

  ‘Get another one,’ Shackleton seethed.

  ‘Noah, we’ve already lost –’

  ‘Get another one! A woman. Get downstairs and …’

  Shackleton kept talking, but I’d zoned out for a second. Downstairs. He was back in the Shackleton Building. Probably somewhere up on the top floor.

  Mr and Mrs Weir were both staring at me now, frozen in place. How much could they hear?

  ‘… you can inform Melinda that if she does not have the bunker back open by the time I return, it will be her on the table.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Galton stiffly.

  The door banged shut, and I felt a glimmer of relief. Whoever they were mutilating up there, it wasn’t any of our guys from the Complex. Not yet, at least.

  There was a scuffling sound as Shackleton pulled the phone back to his ear. ‘You will not die with the others,’ he spat. ‘I will not afford you the dignity of succumbing to Tabitha. Before this day is over, I give you my word, I will spill the life from you myself.’

  The line went dead. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the display until the light flashed off, my heart pounding like I’d just run a lap of the town.

  Shackleton couldn’t possibly know that Jordan and I were the ones who’d killed the fallout – we barely even knew it ourselves – but clearly that wouldn’t keep him from pinning it on us anyway. And whatever sick experiments he and Galton were doing up there, it didn’t seem like they were filling him with confidence.

  What did it mean?

  What would happen if the clock ran down to zero now? Would anyone survive? And what would Shackleton do if he found out the answer was no?

  ‘Well?’ whispered Mr Weir. ‘You gonna tell us what he –?’

  I jolted as a boot crunched in the dirt nearby. Mr Weir’s hands rushed to the rifle I’d given him – then froze as the muzzle of another weapon came down between our heads.

  ‘Nope,’ grumbled the weapon’s owner. ‘Not a smart idea.’

  Mr Weir slowly lowered the weapon and lifted his hands to his head.

  ‘Better,’ said the man, taking a step closer.

  I glanced down at a muddy boot and the black leg of a security officer’s uniform. The guard flashed on his torch, throwing my shadow out in front of me.

  ‘Luke Hunter,’ he said gruffly, coming around to face us.

  I squinted into the light. The guy was tall (or seemed like it from down here, anyway), with massive shoulders, a shining bald head and a scar running down from his eye to his chin.

  ‘Listen,’ said Mrs Weir, ‘we’re not –’

  But the guard was already lowering his weapon.

  ‘Lazarro,’ he said, stretching out a hand to pull me up. ‘Reeve sent me.’

  Mr Weir’s hands shot towards the rifle.

  ‘No, wait!’ I said, the guard’s name clanging in my head. Lazarro had been working behind the scenes on Reeve’s coup. ‘He’s okay! He’s on our side!’ I lowered my voice. ‘You are on our side, right?’

  ‘You’re still alive, aren’t you?’ said Lazarro, ignoring Mr Weir’s distrustful glare. ‘You guys coming or not?’ He flicked off his torch and trudged away through the bush.

  ‘Is Reeve okay?’ I asked, striding to catch up. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He’s fine,’ said Lazarro. ‘Just a little run-in with an escaped civilian with a gun. Lucky for us, he didn’t have much clue how to fire it.’ He frowned at the darkness ahead of us. ‘Now, how about we cut the conversation until we get where we’re going?’

  Peter’s mum and dad fell tentatively into line behind us, and we crept out around the southwest corner of town. Somewhere along the way, it started raining. The shield grid sparked and spat with it, but most of the water still seemed to make it through. Not heavy, but enough to feel it through my clothes.

  After jogging down several blocks, Lazarro took us behind a row of blacked-out houses and waded through the knee-high grass of a backyard, up to someone’s back door.

  He crouched down, pulling a bit of paper from his pocket and slipping it under the door. There was a tiny rustle as someone on the other side picked the paper up, then the handle turned and the door clunked open.

  Reeve stood in the doorway, grinning broadly. ‘Hey, guys. Good to see you.’ He ushered us inside. ‘Sorry I never returned that call. Battery was already on the way out when we spoke the first time.’

  We padded down the hall, into a lounge room identical to the one we’d left behind an hour ago. Three men sat hunched around the coffee table, weapons resting at their sides.

  ‘Wilson, Hamilton, Chew,’ said Reeve, and the officers all nodded or waved half-heartedly.

  The one called Wilson had a pile of choppedup T-shirts sitting on the table in front of him. He stood up, bringing over a handful of what looked like bracelets or something: strips of blue, red and black fabric, braided together.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing one to each of us.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

  ‘Friendship bracelet,’ smirked Chew from back on the couch. ‘I think he likes you.’

  ‘Rebel ID,’ said Wilson, flipping a casual middle finger over his shoulder at Chew, reminding me forcibly of Peter. ‘So we know who’s one of us.’ He patted his own arm, tied with a woven band up near the shoulder.

  ‘Wilson loves his braiding,’ said Chew, still grinning. ‘He wants to be a hairdresser when he grows up.’

  ‘Nice to know at least one of you has plans to grow up,’ said Lazarro dryly. ‘Get rid of them. Stupid idea. Might as well sew a target to our chests.’

  ‘So, what’s going on?’ I asked, handing the band back to Wilson, who stared down at it, dejected. ‘How come you guys are back out of the Shackleton Building?’

  Reeve’s expression darkened. ‘Shackleton Building’s not such a fun place to be right now. We lost the loyalty room not long after we took it. Got a few of the prisoners out, but not many. Not enough. And now they’re out on the streets, and Shackleton’s locking the town centre down again. He’s setting up a perimeter around the Shackleton Building to deal with anyone who tries to get back in.’

  ‘Where’s Tank?’ I asked, dreading the answer. I turned around, like I might have missed him the first ti
me. ‘And Officer Miller. Are they …?’

  ‘Still inside,’ said Reeve. ‘There’s a few of them still in there. Laying low, or posing as Shackleton’s men again.’

  ‘Or actually Shackleton’s men again,’ said Lazarro gruffly.

  ‘Or dead,’ said Chew.

  ‘Better dead than back in Shackleton’s pocket,’ said Lazarro, shooting Chew a penetrating look.

  Chew shrank back in his chair a bit. Lazarro had been working with Reeve for weeks now, but the rest of these guys had only switched sides a few hours ago. It looked like the trust was still pretty shaky.

  ‘Chew, why don’t you head upstairs and take over the watch?’ said Reeve, moving to break things up before they had a chance to escalate.

  Chew rolled his eyes and stood up.

  ‘I spoke to Shackleton,’ I said, as he disappeared upstairs. Mouths dropped open around the room. I pulled out my phone and they all relaxed a bit. ‘We need to get back into the Shackleton Building. He’s up there with Galton, running some kind of –’

  Reeve held up a hand. ‘You’ll get no argument from us, mate. But we’re not getting in there with a handful of rifles – which is why we’ve got four guys out at the armoury, picking up some supplies. When they get back, we’ll figure out what we’ve got to work with.’

  ‘If they get back,’ Lazarro muttered.

  ‘They will,’ said Reeve. ‘Kirke and Ford are solid, and this place is in more than enough chaos for the guys on duty out there to believe Shackleton’s sent them in as reinforcements.’

  ‘It’s not Kirke and Ford I’m worried about,’ said Lazarro.

  ‘Look,’ said Reeve, ‘I know the other two are inexperienced, but we don’t have a whole lot of –’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lazarro, far from convinced. ‘Best we can do.’

  ‘It’ll work,’ said Reeve.

  Lazarro slumped down into a couch, face twisting up like he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Just as long as no-one tries anything stupid.’

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 6.51 A.M. 10 HOURS, 9 MINUTES

  ‘Stupid,’ spat Calvin, squatting beside me in the mud. I twitched as he thrust an arm at me, but he was just handing over his binoculars. I took them from him, casting him an uneasy look before peering through the dripping undergrowth at the scene unfolding at the armoury.

  I knelt in the wet grass, one hand on the binoculars and one cradling Tobias as I focused on the entrance.

  There was a truck parked outside – the one that had shot our tyres out. It was open at the back, with a ramp to the ground and boxes piled up inside. Guns and ammunition and who knew what else. And in front of it all, strapped down just inside the roller-door, another skid unit.

  It looked like the guys guarding the armoury had been helping load it all up. Not anymore.

  As I watched, a guard dragged a scraggly-haired officer out of the armoury at gunpoint and threw him to the ground next to a pair of others.

  ‘The one with the hair is Ford,’ said Calvin. ‘The two with him are Kirke and Green.’

  My ears pricked up. Ford and Kirke were two of Reeve’s guys.

  ‘And I take it at least one of those two morons lying unconscious on the ground is yours as well,’ Calvin continued.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Inside,’ he said.

  The sun was rising by now, a faint glow creeping in through the blanket of grey clouds. I peered back through the gaping doors of the armoury and spotted two figures sprawled out on the concrete. A metal canister lay on its side between them. Sleeping gas, like the stuff we’d used last night at the Shackleton Building.

  They had them fooled, I thought, passing the binoculars along to Amy and squinting out at Reeve’s three remaining men, kneeling in the dirt while Shackleton’s guys paced around them, shaking their rifles. Reeve’s people told the guards they were here to pick up supplies for Calvin or Shackleton or whoever. And they

  bought it. But then some idiot decided to try knocking them out with the sleeping gas.

  Amy gasped next to me and I jolted. ‘What is it?’

  She pointed at the ramp leading up to the armoury’s second level. The roller-door at the top was clattering shut, and another security officer was swaggering down, rifle in hand.

  ‘It’s him,’ she said.

  Officer Reynolds. The last time we’d come out here, he’d put a bullet in Amy’s leg.

  I watched as he made his way casually down the ramp. For whatever reason, the rest of Shackleton’s guys seemed hesitant to pull the trigger on their old colleagues, but I had a feeling Reynolds might not be quite so discerning.

  ‘Do something!’ said Amy, suddenly panicked. ‘If you really are here to help us –’

  ‘Stay here,’ hissed Calvin. He strode out into the clearing, eyes on the ramp. ‘Reynolds!’ he barked.

  Reynolds froze. The other two guards turned, raising their weapons, then saw who it was and dropped them again.

  Calvin waved Reynolds down, and they converged on the spot where Reeve’s men were lined up in the mud. Calvin glanced down at them, then turned to the officers standing guard. He started speaking, but I couldn’t hear a word of it over the rain.

  I hoisted Tobias up off my lap, holding him against me, ready to move at a moment’s notice.

  Amy flinched next to me as the guards abruptly stood back from the men on the ground. But then Reynolds thrust a hand at the scraggly-haired guy, Ford. He stepped back, helping him to his feet. The others followed suit, and in ten seconds, all three of Reeve’s guys were walking off towards the truck, looking over their shoulders like they couldn’t figure out what was going on.

  A minute later, they’d retrieved their unconscious friend from the entrance, piled back into the truck, and peeled out onto the narrow dirt road back to town.

  ‘Huh,’ said Amy, like it was about the only word she could manage.

  I nodded vaguely. ‘Yeah …’

  Calvin watched until the truck was out of sight, then started towards the armoury. His men fell into line behind him, and they disappeared inside the enormous, gleaming building. The heavy double doors trundled shut, sealing them in.

  Tobias gurgled happily.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.

  Amy lowered the binoculars, raised them, and lowered them again, still experimenting with the new speed of her body. She turned to look at me, long hair clinging to her face and shoulders in the rain. ‘I don’t know. I mean, up until right now, I would have said we should get out of here as fast as we could, but …’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  I wished Luke was here. My hand was halfway to my pocket to call him before I remembered it was pointless. Twenty minutes into our walk here from the wrecked skid, I’d felt around for my phone and discovered that it was missing. Left behind in the crash.

  I’d asked Calvin for his, but he’d refused. Said he didn’t want to waste the battery unless it was something important.

  I got to my feet. The rain was getting heavier now, pasting my jumper down to my arms and back. I leant over Tobias, doing my best to keep him out of it.

  We waited.

  Eventually, Amy got up from the bushes and stood beside me. She opened her mouth, then bit her lip, like she’d decided not to say whatever was on her mind after all.

  ‘What?’ I prodded.

  She sighed heavily, almost shuddering. ‘I hate him,’ she said at last. ‘I mean – I hate him. He abducted me.

  He took away everything – everything I ever –’ She sighed again. ‘I haven’t seen my family in months. I don’t even know if they’re alive, and now …’

  She faltered, tears filling her eyes. I waited, giving her a chance to finish. Amy had hardly ever spoken about her family, these past few weeks.

  ‘And now this,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘You don’t trust him,’ I said.

  ‘No, that’s –’ Amy twisted in frustration. ‘That’s the thing. I don’t want to trust him. I want to keep hating him, b
ecause that’s what he deserves. But then he goes off and does all this –’ she waved a hand at the armoury, ‘– and I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. How am I supposed to feel when the guy who’s always been the bane of my life turns around and does something that might save my life?’

  I stared back at the armoury, thinking of Peter: crazy, violent, abusive. Murderous. A killer who’d died to save Luke from a murder of his own creation. Emotion surged in me. Everything, all at once. I held it back, pushing it down the way I’d been doing all morning. No time for it. Not now.

  But now here was Calvin, Murderer in Chief, pulling the same change-of-heart trick, and this time it wasn’t just one life at stake. It was everyone’s.

  ‘I don’t want to trust him either,’ I said in an undertone. ‘You’re right, it’s like betraying everything we’ve ever fought for. But if he really is trying to help us, if the fallout really did change him, then we can’t just turn our backs on that. And listen, if you’re right about – If this really is all headed somewhere, if there’s a purpose to it … What if that purpose is big enough to include even him?’

  Amy frowned. ‘I was afraid you were going to say something like that.’

  ‘Look, I’m not saying you have to like –’ I began, but then a faint clatter from the armoury put an end to the conversation. I looked up to the top of the ramp and saw the door rolling open again. A shiny new skid unit rumbled out, the cage at the back piled high with wooden crates.

  ‘He’s alone,’ said Amy, handing me the binoculars.

  Calvin was at the wheel, guiding the skid carefully down the ramp, a new rifle slung over his shoulder. The roller-door closed behind him as soon as he was clear.

  Calvin steered onto the dirt road, idling just out of sight of the armoury.

  As we splashed through the wet bush to meet him, my eyes hovered over the crates stacked up in the cage. Before long, I was close enough to read the black writing stamped across the sides. They were all the same. Explosives.

  My mind shook with stark, bright images of another skid, rigged up with C-4, tearing through Phoenix, veering into the security centre, swallowing it up in a ball smoke and flame. Mike, blindly sacrificing his life out of misguided allegiance to a deranged monster who cared about nothing but self-preservation.