Sixty Days to Live

by Dennis Wheatley

  She stood there with her chin up, staring with unseeing eyes at the wall of the Ark. Sam was beside her and Gervaise, on her other side, put an arm gently round her shoulders. Hemmingway sat down in an armchair opposite them and lit a cigarette. He had decided, quite dispassionately, that she was superbly beautiful and as he gazed up at her face the artist in him took a curious delight in the thought that, if they had to die, that living masterpiece was the last thing he would ever see.

  Those last minutes seemed to drag interminably. The lake outside was still like a storm-tossed sea. The terrific downpour continued. Earthquake shocks were still felt through the buffer of the surrounding waters.

  Sam was thinking over and over again: ‘It can’t happen. It can’t happen—not to us.’ Gervaise, that this was the greatest adventure that anyone could ever set out upon; either they would be blacked out in a few minutes or be re-born into a strange new world; Lavina, that she had had a lot of fun in this life and that it wouldn’t be her fault if she didn’t have a lot of fun in the next. Hemmingway was wondering vaguely if death would take them instantaneously or if they would first be called on to face awful torments and, in the meantime, gazing enchanted at the perfection of Lavina’s face. Margery was hypnotising herself with a rapid repetition of whispered words.

  The tense silence was shattered by Oliver’s voice as he announced quietly: ‘By Greenwich Mean Time it is now 10.55.’

  20

  THE COMET STRIKES

  For a moment nothing happened—nothing at all. They stared at each other waiting, wondering, holding their breath, tensing their muscles in an agony of suspense.

  Suddenly the Ark began to rise. They could no longer see what was going on outside, but it felt for a second as though they were in an express lift soaring upward.

  There was a terrific jerk. Both the cables had snapped as the huge sphere was flung sideways right out of the water. It hovered in the air for a second then came plunging back into the lake. The electric lights flickered and went out. The mechanism of its gyroscopes was constructed to counter roll; not to withstand violent shocks. The floor tilted. Instantly the whole cabin was in confusion. Oliver fell backwards from his instruments; the others staggered, lost their balance and pitched forward on their faces. The chairs slid sideways, bumping into one another. Books, boxes, binoculars and a score of other things crashed to the floor and rolled about it as the Ark, its gyroscopes broken, lurched heavily from side to side in the frightful upheaval.

  Terrified, gasping, they scrambled to their knees and clung to its solid fixtures to prevent themselves being flung backwards and forwards. Gradually the deck steadied a little and they were able to get on their feet again. Gervaise found the switch of the emergency lights and turned them on.

  The outer port-holes no longer oscillated above the inner ones as the sphere rolled and, staggering to them, they were able to peer out. Almost with surprise they saw that, except for the fact that they had been carried a hundred yards nearer to the north shore of the lake, the scene remained unaltered. The lake was still a tossing sheet of spray. The rain still sheeted down and through it, by the jagged flashes of lightning that still lit the sky, they could see that the landscape of lake-shore, trees and ruined mansion was just the same.

  With a shout Sam seized Lavina. ‘We’ve come through, darling! D’you understand—we’ve come through! We’re going to live now.’

  Gervaise drew a deep breath. ‘Yes, we’ve passed through the Valley of the Shadow and come out the other side.’

  ‘I wonder what sort of a world is left to us, though,’ Hemmingway said gloomily.

  Margery felt sick and ill from the buffeting they had sustained but was thinking of the home in which she had lived all her life. During the last ten years much of her time had been spent in household drudgery but she had not really disliked it, and now the house was a burnt-out ruin. She had never altogether brought herself to believe in the comet, even though she had seen it, because she had a life-long habit of ignoring facts if they were unpleasant ones.

  The business of preparing the Ark had been to her rather like getting ready a temporary home in which whey were all going to live for a while, but she had never visualised its being flung into space or smashed to pieces. Instead, she had definitely persuaded herself that, having taken refuge there for a few hours, or days at the most, they would land again and she would take up her household routine just where she had left it off. But now there was no house and, for the first time, she really began to worry about what was to become of them all.

  Now it seemed that their lives were out of danger Gervaise, too, was thinking of the house. The home that he had clung to for so long, through every financial difficulty and all the attempts which his friends had made to persuade him to sell it in order to ease his situation, was now gone—or most of it. He peered again through the sheeting rain and waited till another flash of lightning lit the building. The southern half of it was still standing and he said with relief:

  ‘Some of the rooms may still be habitable and, anyhow, I think the stables have remained intact.’

  The Ark was now adrift and the wind-swept waves drove it to the east side of the lake where it gently grounded on the mud some twenty yards from the shore. Another earthquake tremor, now impinging directly on it, suddenly flung them all off their feet and for a few minutes afterwards the Ark pitched heavily from side to side again making their stomachs rise, in the case of Margery and Sam to such an extent that they had to disappear.

  ‘I expect the ‘quakes will go on for some time,’ Oliver said, when the Ark had steadied and the more hardy members of the party had settled themselves once again. ‘The ferment caused by the penetration of the earth’s crust by a foreign body is certain to cause terrific agitation.’

  ‘Is that what you think has happened?’ Hemmingway asked.

  ‘I imagine so. The comet was certainly solid or we should not have felt the shock; but it couldn’t have been as big as I feared. As it came down in the north-eastern Pacific the depth of the waters there would have proved a buffer to some small extent but the crust of the earth isn’t very thick and the forward curve of such a spherical mass would almost certainly penetrate the rock-layers; even if the back half of it is now standing up out of the waters like some huge new island continent.

  ‘How’s that going to effect us?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say. The comet may have been the size of the Isle of Wight or the size of Australia, but I doubt if it could have been as large as the Dominion or it would almost certainly have shattered the earth to pieces.’

  ‘It may have formed a new continent for us, then?’ murmured Hemmingway speculatively.

  Lavina laughed nervously. ‘Are you already thinking of planting the Union Jack there and annexing it for Britain?’

  ‘Hardly,’ he smiled. ‘There are probably plenty of people who took refuge in cellars and have survived like ourselves, but hundreds of thousands must have died or gone mad, so I should think those of us who have come through will have all our work cut out to get this country running again before bothering about any others.’

  ‘Since the moment of impact the comet may no longer be a solid mass,’ Oliver went on. ‘There is a theory, which some geologists believe, that another comet hit us many millenniums ago and broke into thousands of pieces which we know to-day as the South Sea Islands. They say it caused the flood which submerged Atlantis. In any case, I shouldn’t think that anyone has been left alive in western North America, and the Far East must have suffered severely, too. Tidal waves as high as mountains will have swept everything before them on both coasts of the Pacific.’

  The Ark had grounded again and the storm outside seemed to be abating a little although a minor tremor still occasionally agitated the waters of the lake.

  ‘How long d’you think it’d be before any tidal wave could reach us here?’ inquired the persistent Hemmingway.

  ‘Tidal waves travel at great speed,’ Oliver repli
ed. ‘If a sympathetic disturbance has taken place in the Atlantic earthquake zone and the resulting wave is great enough to sweep over western Britain it might reach us in three hours. Say we allow a margin of a further two hours; if nothing has happened by four o’clock in the morning I think we may consider ourselves safe.’

  ‘In any case we only have a local flood to fear now,’ Sam put in, ‘and as the Ark was built for just such a contingency we haven’t got much to worry about.’

  ‘Sure,’ nodded Hemmingway. ‘But now the gyroscopes have gone we may receive an awful buffeting.’

  ‘Oh, dear! And I shall be so ill,’ sighed Margery.

  ‘We shall be far better off than we should be in any other kind of craft,’ Gervaise consoled her. ‘As the Ark is unsinkable our lives are safe and after drifting for a few hours we are certain to be washed up somewhere.’

  Sam went below to try and get the main lighting plant going again. The others settled down to wait. Time dragged interminably. Lavina smoked cigarette after cigarette until the air of the cabin was blue. Just after midnight the full lights came on, and Sam rejoined them. They talked, fell silent, talked again. They tried to keep conversation going but the strain was appalling. One o’clock came, then two. The seismograph showed that the shocks were gradually lessening in intensity. By three o’clock they were incredibly weary but beginning to hope that they would escape the perils of a flood. At four Oliver stood up and reopened the ventilators.

  ‘You think we’re pretty well out of the wood now?’ Hemmingway asked him.

  ‘Yes. As far as I am in a position to judge.’

  At Oliver’s pronouncement they all heaved a sigh of relief, and Lavina said suddenly: ‘I’m feeling awfully hungry.’

  Immediately she had spoken all the others realised that they too were hungry. It was fifteen hours since they had sat down to lunch and even then they had eaten little.

  ‘I’ll cook something,’ Margery volunteered. ‘How about ham and eggs? Would that do?’

  ‘Fine!’ Hemmingway laughed. He was thinking how the simple mention of such a good, homely dish seemed to restore things to normal again. They were still alive and there was now every chance that they would go on living.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Sam, following Margery into the kitchen. ‘In my younger days I used to be rather a dab at cooking. My old mother taught me when we lived in Bradford, and some time I’ll treat you all to some Yorkshire cookies.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting we’re here for ever, are you?’ asked Lavina.

  ‘Good Lord, no, darling!’ Sam patted her shoulder. ‘But we’ll have to make this our headquarters for a day or two; anyhow until we can find out what’s going on in the rest of the country. As you’re no good in a kitchen, you’d better lay the table. You’d make a splendid Nippy.’

  Lavina’s white teeth bit into her small, very slightly drooping underlip. She was very glad still to be alive but she had never thought of herself as a Nippy and did not take the suggestion as a compliment. Sam had been brought up in an artisan’s home where the women of the family did all the work; but when Lavina had been a child Gervaise had still been able to afford servants at Stapleton. Except for a little assistance at such picnics as she had decorated, Lavina had never waited upon anybody in her life and she saw no reason at all why she should start now. She ignored Sam’s suggestion, and, although she hated any form of nursing, declared that, since everybody else seemed to have forgotten him, she was going to have a look at Derek.

  When she returned to report that Derek did not appear to have suffered from the upheaval and, although still unconscious, was breathing stertorously, Hemmingway was just finishing laying the table.

  Gervaise felt that, having survived the cataclysm, they were all entitled to a glass of wine from the limited stock for which they had been able to spare space in one of the store-rooms and, going down the hatchway, he brought up a couple of bottles of Bollinger.

  When the meal was served they had to be careful how they ate it as, now that it was grounded again, tremors shook the Ark every few moments and just as they were finishing there was a moderately severe one which set them afloat for several minutes. But the food and wine did them good and at a quarter-past five they crawled into bed in a more cheerful mood than had been possible all through the long and anxious hours since the previous morning.

  Such sleep as they got did little to refresh them as the sheeting rain drummed a tattoo on the top of the steel sphere, and tremors woke them which made them feel sick and queasy. About ten o’clock they forgathered once more in the living-room; a scarecrow crew, the two girls tousled, the men unshaven, Hemmingway with a three-day beard.

  The skies were leaden grey and it was still raining, but daylight enabled them to examine the scene of desolation around them. Branches, uprooted bushes and whole trees were floating in the lake; and the meadows, too, were dotted with the debris of the storm. The entire landscape was haggard, dreary and depressing beyond description.

  At breakfast, to which they sat down in dressing-gowns, they were rather silent; and, afterwards, Lavina declared that she was going to have a bath. The others voted it a good idea but as it had been her suggestion, they naturally let her have first turn in the bathroom.

  After she had been there for half an hour Margery called out to know how much longer she was going to be, but her cheerful treble came back to them:

  ‘What’s it matter how long I am? We’ve got all day before us, haven’t we?’

  She stayed there for a good hour and then disappeared into the cabin which she shared with Margery. The others took their baths in turn, sat about, read and talked at intervals until lunchtime, while the rain descended without intermission, still further swelling the lake. Margery prepared the meal as usual and the others laid the table. When it was ready they shouted to Lavina.

  It was another ten minutes before she appeared and, when she did, they all stared at her in astonishment. Throughout the previous day she had worn the bedraggled garments in which she had spent her captivity and made her escape out of London: her only attempt to restore her appearance having been to comb her hair back flatly on her head in imitation of the Garbo. Now, however, she had selected a girlish summer dress from among the old clothes she had collected at the house before coming aboard the Ark, and had spent the entire morning beautifying her person. Her hair was curled; if not with the art of the professional hairdresser, at least in a simple and graceful fashion. Her nails were repainted and her make-up as perfect as if she had been going to a Royal Garden Party.

  ‘Well, what are you all looking at?’ she asked with supreme self-satisfaction.

  ‘You, of course,’ said Sam with a chuckle.

  ‘Oh? What’s wrong with me?’ she smiled back innocently.

  ‘Why, nothing. It’s a joy to see you looking the Princess again. I like that little frock, too. It makes you appear even younger than you really are.’

  ‘Thank you, darling.’ She sat down at the table. ‘I saw no reason why I should continue to go about looking like something the cat sicked up just because we have to remain cooped up in this thing for a day or two.’

  Margery stiffened, and, apparently unable to contain herself, left the table. Dashing into the kitchen she slammed the door behind her.

  Lavina looked up wide-eyed. ‘What on earth’s bitten her?’ she inquired, raising her carefully plucked eyebrows.

  There was an awkward silence until Gervaise said: ‘I fear she took your remark personally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Sam, with a worried glance at his beautiful young wife. ‘Between clearing up after breakfast, looking after Derek, and preparing lunch she hasn’t had a moment to tidy herself; whereas you’ve been gilding the lily the whole morning. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, darling, but it was damned tactless of you, and you’d better go and apologise.’

  Lavina’s eyes snapped. ‘Of course I didn’t mean it. How absurd! But Margery always was over-sensitive. She
imagines that everyone is always thinking about her. I was only expressing a personal opinion as to the best way in which I can keep up my own morale while we have to remain here.’

  ‘Well, you’d better go and tell her so,’ said Sam.

  ‘Certainly not. Why should I apologise for something I never said—or, at least, never intended to refer to her?’

  ‘Margery can be very stupid sometimes,’ said Gervaise quietly, ‘but that’s not her fault. I think it would be a gracious act, dearest, to tell her you weren’t thinking about her at all, don’t you?’ He knew his Lavina infinitely better than Sam did, and she rose at once.

  ‘Of course, you old sweet, if you want me to, and I’ll offer to set her hair for her this evening into the bargain.’

  When the two girls returned from the kitchen everyone began to talk at once, to cover Margery’s embarrassment, and Lavina inquired quickly what Gervaise thought of Derek’s prospects of recovery.’

  ‘He’s still unconscious, as you know,’ Gervaise said. ‘I had a look at him several times during the night, and this morning we stripped him and washed him all over. He was in a shocking mess with bruises and cuts, but otherwise uninjured, apart from his head.’

  ‘That’ll be the packet he got when he was beaten up in Hyde Park,’ declared Hemmingway, ‘unless he’s collected a fresh lot since.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Gervaise shook his grey head. ‘All his major injuries were bandaged, so they’re almost certainly the ones to which you attended three nights ago. I put fresh lint on them, but until he comes round there’s nothing else we can do.’

  ‘I can’t think why Roy wasn’t with him,’ remarked Oliver. ‘It’s been worrying me all night.’