by Jenna Grey
Polly went back to bed, fully dressed, working on the assumption that she’d almost certainly be dragged out of bed again soon for some other world-threatening crisis. Liam took the first shift news watching, keeping himself occupied playing ‘Vikings’ and beating the crap out of a few imaginary monsters. Out of all of them, he had had the most sleep and the least to do, and Polly thought that he needed to do something proactive to make him feel that he was at least doing something useful. Polly took the breakfast shift, but her eyelids were drooping.
The room over the shop was just one large room, that covered the entire shop, and which served as a living room, kitchen and general dumping ground for things that Bert couldn't cram into the small back room of the shop. One side of the room was almost a living room, with a sofa, a TV and a couple of tables piled with old books and what looked like receipts. The other side had a small dining area, well, an old Formica table that had gone out of fashion about fifty years ago, with four mismatched chairs. Along the wall, there was an old sink, a cooker and a refrigerator, both of which must have belonged to Mrs Noah. Polly made herself a black coffee and took another Pro Plus, desperately fighting off sleep. Finn appeared in the doorway, his hair a tousled mess, wearing just a tee-shirt and shorts.
“Anything? he asked.
“No, it’s all the usual round of misery, nothing that we can do anything about. There were a few items about the aftermath of the train incident. The PM was visiting the injured in hospital and giving them the usual platitudes, still insisting it was wild dogs. Are the public really that gullible?”
“Most are too scared to look for the truth, but I bet the internet is buzzing with conspiracy theories. That one is going to have them guessing for years.” He sat down beside her on the sofa and slipped his hand over hers.
"How did it go with Liam earlier? Is he okay? I haven't had a chance to talk to him properly since all this started."
Polly felt her heart hurry through a few beats, and she gave what she hoped looked like a casual smile.
“Yes, I’m still not quite used to his new look body; it freaks me out a bit because he looks so different, but yes, he’s okay."
He gave her a teasing smile and tweaked her nose.
“You really can’t lie,” he said.
Polly slapped her hands over her face like the emoji monkey and let out a little mewl of embarrassment. She plastered a grin on her face and took her hands away.
“He is okay, but...”
“He loves you and seeing me and you together is hurting him,” Finn finished. He didn’t seem too upset, but Polly was reasonably certain it was just a veneer.
“He’s had such a dreadful life; he deserves some happiness.”
Finn’s face tightened just a little.
“Do you really think you need to tell me that? I don’t want to see him miserable.”
“He can’t help how he feels. I mean, he’s not deliberately trying to cause problems.”
“I know that. I do understand, trust me. We shared a body for long enough. I could feel what he was feeling a lot of the time, sense his thoughts. I do understand that he can’t help any of this any more than we can.”
“Then share me with him,” Polly blurted out. And as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could take them back because the look on Finn’s face told her it had been a huge mistake. He dropped her hand as if it was red hot and leapt back from her, moving across the room as if he wanted to put as much space between them as he could.
“Oh right, now we get down to it. All this pussy footing around, trying to soften me up, so you can get what you really want. Well, why not just ditch me and go with him if you feel that way? I mean, you obviously don’t really give a damn about me if you want to go with him.”
Polly felt her hackles rise.
“Now you’re just being childish. We have a problem, and I’m just suggesting one possible solution. You come up with something better."
Finn rounded on her, and his face was so full of rage. Polly really hadn’t expected such an extreme reaction.
“Let him go and find his own fucking girlfriend! He’s got a body now. He has the same chance as everyone else of getting laid.” His voice had almost reached a shout by the time he finished the sentence.
“Do you really think that’s all it’s about? Him getting laid? He loves me as much as you do, Finn. Him getting laid is not a solution to the problem. When we thought he was lost in Hell, you said that you’d do anything to get him back, that you’d be happy to share your body with him again. I’m only asking you to share my body with him. You’re a bloody hypocrite.”
He looked hurt now.
“I know, and I meant it. He’s my brother, and I love him, I really do, but what am I supposed to say? You love Liam. Fine, I understand.” He slumped back down on the sofa, looking so deflated, as if the whole world had suddenly dropped on his shoulders. He gave her a look that would have softened Hitler's heart and said, “He’s the one that saved your life, not me."
“What?” Polly went and sat back down with him, wrapping her arms around his neck, although she wasn’t sure if it was to comfort him or comfort herself. “Oh, Finn, you don’t believe that, do you? I know you would have come to save me if you could. I love you with all of my heart, but you know as well as I do, that what’s between us, and between you and Liam is so far from ordinary that none of the usual rules apply. For God’s sake, he was a part of you for all of those years. You shared something with him that no other human has ever had to my knowledge. I have no idea if my feelings for him are there because he was part of you for so long. I only know that I love him and I love you, and I’m so confused.”
Polly didn’t stop the tears because she knew they needed to come. She wasn’t surprised to see that Finn was crying as well. He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, his head buried against her neck.
“I love you so much. I don’t want to lose you. If I have to share you with Liam, I will, but please don't leave me.”
Polly started to laugh through the tears.
“Oh, you bloody idiot. I will never leave you. We need to get together with Liam and talk this through, try and work it out before it drives a wedge between the two of you...”
“Talk to me about what?” Liam stood in the doorway, dressed in just a pair of tattered jeans, and towelling his mane of hair dry. Oh, that so did not help. Polly forced herself to look anywhere but at his pale, lean body, snaked with silver trails of water, that disappeared into the too low waistband of his jeans.
“You look as if you’ve just stuck your finger in a light socket,” Polly said, tutting. “Honestly.”
“Talk to me about what?” he repeated. He examined both of their faces carefully, and it must have been obvious to him that they had both been crying. Polly’s face was hot and stinging, and she knew her eyes must have looked puffy and swollen, just as Finn’s were. Liam just stood, drying his hair and waiting for one of them to say something. Finn finally said:
“Polly wants to be with both of us.”
Liam looked as if someone had kicked him in the balls. He froze for a moment and then laughed.
“Okay, I didn’t see that coming,” he said. He looked between Polly and Finn, a look of pure bemusement on his face. Polly just sat there like badly hung washing, sagging slightly and desperately trying to find the right words.
“I... I love both of you, and it’s not my fault, all I know is that I don't want you to be shut out.”
“So you feel sorry for me?” Liam said. “A mercy fuck?” He looked hurt, angry, Polly wasn’t sure which.
“No! That’s not it at all. I love you both. It’s nothing to do with feeling sorry for you. You are such a prat sometimes, Liam, you both are. I just know that I want to be with both of you, although right this minute I’m not sure why. You both need your heads banged together to knock some sense into you!”
Liam looked across at Finn, and a grin
spread across his face.
“She’s a bit of a dragon when she gets going, isn’t she? Not sure either of us should get involved.”
Finn started laughing then as well; then the smile dropped from his face to be replaced by a look of pure hatred.
“Right now we’ve got more to think about than our love lives anyway. We need to put this on the back burner until we get that Hell bitch put down once and for all.”
“Yeah, agreed. That cow is going down.” Liam walked over to Polly and kissed her lightly on the nose. “But thank you for giving me something good to think about when we’re not battling hellspawn.”
The voice from the TV dragged Polly’s head around, and for a moment she just stood, petrified, staring at the images on the screen, not quite able to make any sense of them. There were images of twisted metal and concrete, an earthquake perhaps in some far-flung corner of the world. Then, moment by moment, the real horror of what she was seeing began to creep in. The red tape rolled across the bottom of the screen, too fast for her to catch all of it, but she saw the words ‘Medway’ and tragedy. She turned the volume up and felt a dreadful wave of nausea sweep over her as the words began to sink in. The voice over was a broken thing, the sound of someone fighting tears and losing.
“This is terrible, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” the reporter was struggling to be heard over the sound of the helicopter engine, her words carried off before they could hit the mike. The eye in the sky helicopter circled above a scene of terrible devastation. Oh, this is terrible – there are people trapped down there, crushed under concrete and metal. Cars are plunging into the water. There are people jumping into the river, and the wreckage is falling down on top of them. I can’t, I can’t...”
At which point she broke down completely, and someone else took over, another woman, her voice strained, but more in control than her colleague. “This is Angela Carter on the Eye in the Sky traffic watch helicopter. “What we see here is a tragedy on an unimaginable scale. Below, cars and lorries are plummeting over the edge of the bridge; people trying to scramble from vehicles as they plunge into the water. The Eurostar passenger train, linking London with the Channel tunnel is gone, completely submerged and very few survivors are making their way to the surface. The train had apparently just started its journey across when disaster struck, and at a top speed of 185 mph, it was impossible for it to stop in time to prevent tragedy. The whole structure of the bridge has crumpled and collapsed around it, hundreds of people are fighting for their lives; we have no idea how many have been lost, but this is undoubtedly a tragedy of unparalleled proportions. Emergency services are pouring in from every direction, I can see army trucks approaching, ambulances are already on the scene, and teams are moving into the scene to help, risking their own lives to try and rescue survivors. Bystanders are moving in to help as well, ordinary men and women, completely ignoring the danger to try and help the wounded to safety.”
“Go and get your dad and Liam, now,” Polly said. Finn was in shock, unable to process what he was seeing. He suddenly rallied and did as he was told.
Polly watched the horror unfolding on the screen; the mangled wreckage of the bridge dangled over the water, a cat’s cradle of twisted metal decorating the concrete like some piece of grotesque modern art. People and cars were being thrown through the air, as if some infantile god was having a temper tantrum. Then Polly realised that was exactly the truth of it, and she felt anger boiling up inside her. Beneath the twisted wreckage, people were struggling to get out of the water, trying desperately to avoid the falling debris and swimming to the shore. Polly felt her chest tighten and she couldn’t breathe, a full-scale panic attack setting in. The world around her suddenly seemed to be too much for her, and she dropped to her knees fighting for breath. Finn had come back in, but there was no sign of Bert.
“Polly?” Finn asked. But it was Liam that knelt down beside her and put his arm around her shoulder.
“She’s okay, just a panic attack. You need to slow your breathing, love, you’re hyperventilating.” But she couldn’t, as hard as she tried, she just couldn’t. The world began to swim around her, and she felt it slipping away.
Then she felt Liam’s cool hands on her forehead, and where there had been panic, she could feel a tingle of energy coursing through her. The world began to come back into focus, just fractal images to begin with, then consolidating into shapes she recognised – two men, kneeling in front of her with worried looks on their faces. She struggled to sit up.
“I’m fine, really,” she said, the best lie she could muster under the circumstances. She pulled herself to her feet, wobbly at first, but then finding her footing. “Thanks, Liam – you beat aspirin any d—”
She was cut short by the ring tone. Finn answered, putting it on speaker phone.
It was Blaine.
“Are you watching the news?”
“Yes, it’s a bloody nightmare,” Finn replied. “Do you think this is Hel’s work? Could it be terrorists?”
There was some grumbling from the other end of the phone, Blaine telling someone to piss off, and then he said:
“I have no idea. Yes, it could be a terrorist attack, but I don’t think so. There were no explosions, the whole thing just broke apart. Those poor bastards didn’t stand a chance. Whoever did this knew what they were doing, they hit the bridge in just the right places to cause the collapse and do the most damage.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Finn asked.
Blaine made a strange noise, and Polly knew just what expression his face held. She knew his anger wasn’t directed at Finn.
“I think it’s too late for us to do anything. We just have to let the authorities pick up the pieces. But God help us. This is very, very bad. All we can do is keep an eye on the news and watch for anything else. In the meantime, I’ll try and find out a bit more about the warehouse and try to help with the clean up.
Two days passed, two worryingly quiet days, apart from more horrific news about casualties from the Medway earthquake. The final count was 2220 people dead, there were hundreds injured. They were calling it a natural disaster, the worst in British history, but they all knew there was nothing natural about it. There were more visits by the PM to the survivors to give more platitudes, but other than that very little of any consequence happened.
Then the phone rang.
“Stay put, I’m coming over,” Blaine said. “I’ve got some news for you, and I don’t want to tell it over the phone.”
Bert came downstairs just then, looking very rough around the edges, his hair an electric shock, his eyes still sleep laden. He looked at the screen and gave a weary shake of the head.
“Hel?” Polly asked.
“It certainly looks like it,” Bert said. “I’m quite certain that this is the work of Loki and his brood. The malice of gods is a terrible thing to behold.”
“We should have seen this coming,” Finn said. He sounded so weary.
“Oh, nobody could have seen this coming. Yes, we knew that bitch would try something, but we could never anticipate where she would strike, even with our powers of far-seeing. We need to remember who we are dealing with. These creatures are far older than we can even imagine and with far more power. We cannot hope to compete with them on their own level.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring, Dad,” Finn said.
“Oh, I’m not being defeatist, I’m just saying that we might have to find a more creative way of tackling them. I have more than a few ideas.”
Polly turned back to the screen and watched as they dragged a woman out of the water, the voice over warning too late that some viewers might find some scenes distressing. Distressing? The reporter was right – this was their 9/11. Polly wondered just how many people had died; the bridge had been packed, the train must have held hundreds of people, men women and children.
“So many people’s lives just snuffed out by that evil cow. I hope your ideas involve a great deal of pain f
or her and her family,” Polly said.
The cameras cut to a news team on location, a female news reporter was on screen, looking surprisingly well dressed and styled considering she was standing in the middle of total carnage.
“Aid has already been pouring in from all over the world. Trained rescue teams are beginning to search through the rubble for survivors and divers are recovering bodies from the river.”
She began talking to one of the survivors, a middle-aged man who looked very dishevelled, but unharmed.
“Are you able to answer a few questions for me?” The man nodded, glancing over his shoulder as the sound of an ambulance siren dragged his attention away for a few moments.
“Yes, I’m all right. I’m one of the lucky ones.”
“Can you tell us what happened here?”
“I was just driving, I’d only just got onto the bridge, then everything began to shake, vibrate, like an earthquake – no, not like an earthquake – it was an earthquake. There was so much noise, and I could hear metal tearing underneath me, a terrible groaning sound. I just dumped my car and ran. I managed to climb down the metal support things before it collapsed under me and I ran, just ran as hard as I could until I knew I was safe. I could hear it all going to hell behind me, and the ground was still shaking. I tried to turn back to see if I could go back and help anyone, but it was too late, the whole thing had just collapsed into the water. The water was churning, like there was something underneath it. It was... I don’t know, just felt wrong...” Shock suddenly set in, and Polly watched him collapse to the ground, sobbing. The camera cut away.
“We’re hearing the same story from other survivors, that this was an earthquake, right here in the heart of the English countryside. I’ve just got a report through from the Met Office, confirming that this does appear to have been a localised earthquake, magnitude 7.5, but as far as they know it’s an unprecedented event. There has never been an earthquake in England that has recorded such a high level. Several earthquakes have been recorded in the home counties recently, but these were only around magnitude 3.0. Government sources are denying that this could be a terrorist attack. It is being classed as an act of God.”
