This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection)

by Craig DiLouie

  There was only one way to find out.

  It was on the third floor.

  A door. Just a plain, wooden door, but until you stood facing it, you couldn't see it. A single step in both directions and it simply vanished from view. I reached out and pushed the door, but it didn't move. There was no handle to open it with.

  I remembered the keys, and reached into my shirt and pulled them out.

  Something was happening, something I hadn't expected. One moment there were four compasses hanging on chains round my neck, and the next there was only one. I panicked and searched. How could I have lost the other three? But something about the single compass in my hand was different. I looked closer and saw that all of the four points on the compass were now showing on the one I held in my hand, and the compass was pointing directly ahead of me.

  "How very curious," said Adler, as he peered over my shoulder.

  "You were right. Something was supposed to happen," said Rudy.

  I reached out to the door, feeling solid wood, and pushed. It simply swung open.

  "Even more curious. It would never open for me," said Adler.

  "The Key!" said Rudy, "I mean the compass. It was never whole before."

  I hesitated for a moment. I hadn't told Adler or Rudy about the dream, about what I thought might be waiting for me in the room beyond the door. Was I going to die in the room beyond the door? Was I going to discover another grim scene of death?

  I took a deep breath, and stepped across the short open space, into the room beyond, trying to ignore the sheer drop down below as I crossed. Directly ahead of me was what I had dreaded seeing. It was the dressing table with the mirror. But there was something different here, something that was not the same as the dream. The seat was there, in front of the table, but there was no one sitting in it, no dried and withered body. Had I been dreaming about the future? It wouldn't have been the first time. Was my death still to come from this room?

  But there was no choice. I went over to the chair and sat down in front of the mirror, brushed aside the dust and the cobwebs that covered it, and stared directly at the face that was reflected back at me.

  The face that wasn't mine.

  He was much older than me, with dark curly hair that was lined with grey streaks; his face was weathered and tired, with bags under his eyes. He looked sick and pale, and sweat dripped from his face. He was dressed in some strange uniform, a bright white shirt, with a black jacket and grey trousers. There was a brightly coloured piece of cloth, with a picture of an eagle and a snake, tied around his neck that seemed to have no particular function.

  "Who are you?"

  I realised that we had both said the same words together.

  "I'm James Halldon," we both replied, but then he looked confused.

  "No," he said, "that's wrong. That's not me at all. I'm not James Halldon, but I thought I was."

  I could see a change in his expression. The pallid colour was fading, and his skin began to flush, as though the blood in his body had only just remembered its job. I could feel my head throb for a moment, and then it was like someone had taken a heavy weight off the top of my head, one that I hadn't even noticed was there in the first place.

  "I am James Halldon. But who are you?" I asked.

  The man stared back at me, and then glanced around him. It was then that I saw that the room he was in was different as well. There were tiles upon the wall. It looked like one of the old toilet rooms that I had seen in the ruins occasionally, when my team had gone to the old city to scavenge for supplies, back when I was much younger.

  What was I thinking? Scavenging? Old city? Team? These memories were new. Where had they come from? My mind raced.

  The man in the mirror looked back at me.

  "I'm where I started," he said, as though he was surprised to even be there.

  "Where?"

  "I thought I was trapped, in a dark place, with monsters and ghosts, but I'm not. I'm still in the toilet, at the service station. The mirror, with you in it, it's here. I'm not in the dark at all. It's you that is trapped. You. You were the face in the mirror that I saw before everything changed."

  I didn't need to look behind to know that Adler and Rudy were standing there, watching over my shoulder. Whether they could see what I could see, hear what I could hear, I didn't know, but as the man in the mirror began to make sense of everything, so did I. With each memory that he recalled, another became clear to me. Many of the things that were in my head weren't true. They weren't my memories. They were his, this man who stared back at me from the mirror. One by one the memories broke down and faded away. At first, each of them was vivid, like I had been there, like I had lived them, but then they became fuzzy, memories that were faded after many years. Then finally they were gone, removed completely, not even forgotten, like they had never even been there.

  He smokes a different brand of cigarette to me, Mayfair, and somehow the brand is important to him. I always smoked whatever I could find. Now it was all so clear. It was never me that was puzzled by the cigarettes, it was him.

  "You've been stuck in my head."

  It was a statement more than a question.

  "Yes," he said, "I remember now. I walked into the toilet, and there was this mirror. It didn't look as though it belonged here. It's so old and cracked. I went to the toilet, and then I washed my hands, and then I looked into the mirror and you were looking back at me. I started to feel sick, dizzy, and then I was in the dark, and lost. I was hurt, like I had fallen or something, but it's not true is it? Was it a dream?"

  "No. This isn't a dream, it's real, but you are there and I am here. Somehow, things got mixed up."

  I remember now. I've looked into this mirror before. I was here before, but the first time I failed to do something, something I need to do, something that I came here to do. It was the mirror. I'd looked into it, and seen his face instead of my own. Something unexpected happened, and I stumbled, fell somewhere. Did I fall out of the door and off the scaffolding? That would explain my injuries. Did I bang my head? Was I merely confused? Somehow this stranger, this person from another world, had been in my head.

  "I don't come from London. I've never even been to London. I don't even know where England is."

  "I do. It's where I live," said the man.

  "I'm not a salesman."

  "I am," he replied, reaching down and picking up his briefcase, like that was significant somehow. He held on to the briefcase like it was precious.

  "I never met a tramp on the bus did I?"

  "No. That was me, when I was a child. I never knew his name, until now. He was called Rudy, but I have never met him again since."

  "No, but I have."

  "How did this happen?" he asked. "I just saw everything. I just spent the last God knows how many days in that place."

  "I don't know. Somehow when we both looked into the mirror we got mixed up."

  "I've been stuck in your head all this time, when in truth, I was standing right here in the toilet. How long have I been standing here?"

  He looked at his mobile phone.

  "Ten minutes," he said. "I have only been here for ten minutes."

  I mirrored him, taking out the mobile phone I had found earlier. I shook my head, confused. I had no idea what this device was for. Earlier, when I had found it, I had known, but now it was only a dead gadget from a forgotten age, with no meaning to me.

  The man in the mirror looked away. I don't know what he was looking at, but I could sense his relief, his joy at knowing that he was still alive, and free. As soon as he stepped out of that toilet door his life would be normal again.

  Then he was gone, and I was staring at an empty toilet. Just like that, he left.

  He didn't even say goodbye.

  I stood up and turned to Adler and Rudy. I could tell by their shocked expressions that they had witnessed it all.

  "His device," said the voice in my head.

  "His creation for drawing people her
e. To make his creations. You could not control it. I tried to warn you, but you came here anyway."

  This was why I was here.

  This thing in front of me.

  It may have looked like a mirror, but it was something far more sinister. The memory, or at least part of it, sharpened in my mind, unlike most of my memories, which were scrambled even more now that many of them had left. My previous life, in London, somewhere called Earth, being a salesman, driving a car, riding a bus to work. That was all someone else's memories. Who was I? Where had I come from? I'd spent so many days now, searching for a way to get back to a world that wasn't even my own. Was it possible that this was where I had come from? Or maybe one of the doors that lead to other places? Was my home through one of those doors?

  I looked back towards the mirror, and then to Adler and Rudy.

  "That's your world through there. But it's not my world."

  "How can you be sure?" asked Rudy.

  "Because I remember some things, but I know that I have never known that place. I have never even been there. Those memories were his, they weren't mine. You should go."

  Rudy stared at me.

  "What? We can't leave you here. I can't leave you here."

  "Yes, you can, you have to."

  "I can't, and even if I wanted to I couldn't. I don't even know how to."

  "Try going through it, going through the mirror, while it is still your world through it. I don't know if it will work, but if CutterJack can bring people through it, maybe you can go back that way. It may be the only chance you ever get."

  "I don't think I can do it," said Rudy, shaking his head and backing away.

  "You have to try. It may be the only chance you will ever get to go back home. I have to destroy this thing, and I have to do it now, before some other stupid disaster stops me from doing it."

  "I think what Rudy is trying to say is that he doesn't want to," interrupted Adler.

  I stood there for a moment, confused.

  "Why?"

  "Because back there I will just be dead!" said Rudy, "Back there, I will go, well, I don't know where I will go. At least with you, I still have something like a life. Back there I was homeless and alone. I led a pointless and hopeless life. At least here I have friends, and some purpose."

  "What purpose?"

  "To destroy those like him. To fight for something. To help you."

  I didn't know what to say. It was Adler who spoke.

  "I also have no reason to go back now. All the time I was alive, I sought to find my way back to my home, back to the life I led before, but now I am no longer living, and after having discovered all of this, this place, and the knowledge that there are other places, I don't want this to end. There is so much more to discover. Other worlds, James!"

  "If you are sure?"

  They both nodded.

  "And besides," said Adler cheerfully, "we still have to find out who you really are, don't we?"

  "Yes, it would seem that way. I thought I was starting to get some idea of who I was."

  "Then let us start doing so right now. Destroy the device, before that evil thing that is no doubt waiting for us outside, somewhere, right now, trying to figure out how to get past the Maw and get in here, actually manages to."

  I looked back at the mirror. The image of the toilet was gone. Now there was only darkness, no reflection.

  CutterJack used this device to capture his victims, and I was here to destroy it. How I knew this, I could not remember, but I knew that it was what I had been sent here to do. I don't know who sent me here, or if there was even a plan for me to escape once I had succeeded, but I knew that if I didn't finish this now, countless more souls would suffer. Somehow the first time I had tried to do this, I had failed, it had trapped me.

  "We can't use this to escape."

  "No," said Adler. "I think you are right. My original ideas that he used it to travel were wrong. I can't see how it can be used to travel other than maybe using it to control someone on the other side, or bring people here. There has to be something else, another way. Or maybe it can be used in another way?"

  "Yes, but how?"

  I heard the familiar sound of DogThing growling.

  "We need to find another door."

  I felt something warm on my chest, and reached inside my shirt to pull out the compass. It was glowing. A spark of light shot out from it, to strike the mirror, and the darkness inside the glass vanished. Instead, there was a clear image of a wall. I squinted to see what might be significant about the wall. It wasn't like the ancient wall outside. This was made of bricks, not massive stone blocks, and it didn't look that old.

  "Look," said Adler, pointing.

  The image was changing. Where there had been bricks, there was now a seam of light surrounding what looked like the shape of a door. It opened slightly, and then the image was gone.

  "I know that place. I've seen it before, but there is no door in that wall."

  "Where is it?"

  "It's over the great wall. The scaffolding goes higher, much higher, and then it goes over the wall at the top. I went there, once, a long time ago, long before I discovered this door. But it leads to a platform that goes over the void that is the other side of the wall. But it ends at a brick wall. I always thought it was a curious place to put a wall. It doesn't even block anything. It's just there, on a small rocky outcrop, at the end of the platform."

  The compass glowed again.

  "The direction of the compass has changed. It's like it's pointing us somewhere, towards the great wall."

  "Then let us go, quickly. But first destroy that thing," said Adler.

  I turned back to the mirror and drew my blade, turning it in my hand. With a grunt, I thrust the blunt pommel into the black glass. I hit it again, and again. On the third strike, the mirror shattered, scattering glass fragments across the room.

  Unfortunately, so did the ground underneath me. Floorboards collapsed, bricks crumbled, and the roof of the building began to fall in. I stumbled, hauled myself up again and ran for the entrance. It seemed like the very fabric of the building was being torn apart. Through the gaps in the wall, I could see darkness and mist, and things, immense things, clawing at the building and tearing it apart.

  I reached the doorway and jumped, barely landing on the scaffolding, skidding to a halt a few inches before I toppled over the edge.

  I turned back around, bracing myself, expecting to see a building collapsing, but there was nothing. Even the door had gone.

  DogThing sat a few feet away, waiting patiently for us.

  "Where now?" asked Rudy, as I tried to get my breath back.

  "We go up," I said, glancing at the levels of scaffolding platforms that rose up above us until the darkness swallowed them.

  "And let's hope that door is still open when we get there."

  Eight floors up and probably two hundred feet from the ground I discovered where the platform finally led to.

  It was exactly as Adler had said. Instead of rising up further and further it drew level with the top of the wall that Adler was so convinced marked some kind of boundary that shouldn't be crossed, at least not from the ground. From there, the platform extended towards the wall, and then over it, where it stretched outwards into the darkness and continued on and on. I stood there for a moment, peering down over the other side of the wall, into the emptiness below. I could still see the ground behind us, and some of the Maw moving around. Most of them were up on the scaffolding, following us. The other side of the wall, where I had only been once, by pure accident, was an empty, endless void.

  There was scaffolding holding up the walkway on the other side. Roughly every ten feet or so, the metal struts poked out of the darkness and upwards, to hold the wooden planks in place, but I couldn't see where they ended.

  "Are we going across there?" asked Rudy.

  I shrugged.

  "I don't think we have a lot of choice."

  "It is not far," said Adler,
"even if it looks it. The wall on the outcrop is only just out of sight, along the platform."

  DogThing was right behind us, and behind him came the rest of the Maw. Below, I could see what might be the last few stragglers jumping up onto the bottom of the wooden slope below.

  It seemed to me as I walked across that rickety wooden platform, into the darkness ahead, that with every single step it might give way, and we would all tumble down into the darkness below. I'd only walked about ten feet when the wall with the door in it came into view, giving me a little more confidence to move on. I was about half way across the space between the top of the wall and the door at the end when I happened to glance back down into the darkness below.

  I wished I hadn't done that.

  Very little light was down there, only the faint glow from some stalactites that I could see high above us. I wondered if they were in the ceiling, and if there was a roof to this place that was just out of view. The crystals cast a small amount of light down onto the platform, and the ground below, just enough to see what was there.

  At first I couldn't make out what it was that I was seeing; it looked like the surface of some strange rock formation, spread across the ground below. But as I stopped and squinted, trying to focus on the strange, bumpy shapes, something moved.

  One of the rocks below shifted, nudging the one next to it. From there, a kind of wave effect spread across the ground. I still hadn't figured out what I was looking at, even though it was moving. I was convinced that I was viewing some new, and strange, but natural phenomenon.

  Then one of the rocks looked up and moaned, and I realised that I wasn't seeing the ground at all. They weren't strange rocks. They were heads, every single one of them, thousands upon thousands crammed in together, moaning and moving, shifting, pushing and shoving each other.

  The ground underneath the rickety platform that we were all walking on was a sea of zombies.