As the World Falls Down

by Katy Nicholas

  How long had I felt sick for? With no menstruation dates to help me figure out how far along I was, I had to look at the other possible symptoms. The first time I’d felt a little off was about three weeks after I’d arrived at the cabin. Headaches too, but I assumed it was all down to other causes, like the heat or stress or…too much sex, maybe. So, exactly how pregnant was I? Ten weeks, at most? Still pretty early. What if I told Nate about the baby and then something awful happened? He’d be devastated. I couldn’t put him through that because he’d already lost too much. Perhaps it was better not to tell Nate. For now.

  My hand fell to my lower stomach.

  How? How had this even happened when we were all infertile? And what about the virus? What would happen to the baby?

  Shit. There were so many unanswered questions circling in my mind. I was scared. Not because I didn’t want it, but because I did. Despite the negative scenarios running through my head citing a list of reasons to not go through with this, I was actually happy about it. Really happy. As shocked as I was, I knew immediately that I wanted it.

  Nate’s baby. Our baby.

  I just prayed, to whoever or whatever was running the show now, that it would somehow be okay. That all of this would somehow be okay.

  When I left the bathroom, a figure stood in the corridor waiting for me. I balked out of surprise and drew in a sharp gasp.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Hand on heart, I frowned at the middle-aged man before me. “Well, you did.”

  He gave a low, raspy chuckle. “Apologies.”

  Giving his appearance a fleeting once-over, his attire seemed overly formal. He was dressed in smart black trousers paired with a silky, crimson shirt worn underneath a black, tailored coat.

  He held his hand out to me. “I noticed you were up already and came to introduce myself,” he said. “I’m Gabriel.”

  Ignoring his gesture, I motioned to the cameras. “Yes. I did have a distinct feeling I was being watched.”

  Gabriel laughed. “For security purposes, you understand. Not much of a voyeur myself. That’s Max’s job. I’ve been away. I only arrived back a few hours ago.”

  “Right.”

  He smiled. “Congratulations by the way.”

  Had Eve already gone back on our deal? “Eve said she wouldn’t say anything.”

  “She didn’t. I’ve got my own sources.”

  I tilted my head to one side. “Is it in the newspapers already, or do you hear the voices too?”

  He smirked. “Actually, I ran into Claire. Don’t worry, I asked her not to speak of it to anyone else. Your secret is safe.”

  With one hand placed on my spine, he shepherded me back down the corridor, the tiniest, almost imperceptible fizzle of electric fluttered under his fingertips.

  “Let’s walk.” His voice was gravelly but gentle, with a slight cockney lilt. Gabriel was a Londoner to be sure. He ran a hand over his head and scratched wearily at the receding hairline of his fringe.

  “Sounds like I missed all the fun while I was gone. That’ll teach me to leave Eve and Daniel to their own devices. I should’ve known that chaos would ensue.”

  “I thought Eve was in charge around here?”

  He smirked again. “Depends who you ask, I suppose.”

  “I see.”

  “Eve thinks her magic powers make her a more suitable leader. She has a sixth sense when it comes to finding people. Her range is limited, though. Don’t tell her I said that.”

  “My lips are sealed,” I muttered, hiding a smile.

  He continued. “I’ve just returned from Scotland, transporting down the last generator from the bunker. The well-being of this community is our priority right now. That and finding other survivors.”

  I snorted. “And when you find them, do you mention that they’ll be imprisoned and drowned as soon as they arrive?”

  He turned to me with a grin. “Obviously not.”

  He seemed unaffected by my indignation. If anything, it appeared to amuse him.

  “Besides, that’s not generally how we do things. And just so you know, the fountain was never my idea. I’m not one for ceremony. I’d much rather give people the choice of whether to evolve or not,” he added, a hint of irritation in his tone. “Or shoot them. It’s quicker.”

  I didn’t know what to make of Gabriel or what the point of this conversation was. Why was he telling me all of this? As a newcomer and not part of this community, why on earth would he be sharing his misgivings with me?

  “I thought the voices wanted you to evolve people?”

  He sighed. “So Eve says. But there was no specific memo about how to do that,” he replied. “I know there’s a better way than drowning people. Until Claire came along, none of our conduits were in tune enough to start asking questions. Not even Eve has a strong enough connection to them.”

  There was that word again. Conduit.

  “I think Claire might be able to give us the answer. I just need time to talk with her.”

  My pace slowed to a complete halt. “What has this got to do with me?”

  He massaged his stubbly chin with his fingertips. “Eve and Daniel want something from you and Nate. I want you to ask for something in return.”

  “Like?”

  “A room with a view of the Thames. More chocolate chips in the canteen cookies. A boycott of the fountain.”

  Right. He wanted me to ask Eve and Daniel to stop drowning people in return for our help—or rather, Nate’s help. I couldn’t see how I’d personally be of any use to them.

  “Why do you need me to stop them? Why can’t you do it?”

  He gave a defeated shrug. “Majority rules, I’m afraid.”

  Although I doubted Eve and Daniel would agree to my—our—terms, I nodded. “I’ll try.”

  His mouth stretched into a broad, toothy smile. “Good. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  I’d only been here for a few days, and somehow, I’d unwittingly entered into a mutually beneficial, back-scratching pact with two of the community’s supremos. Cloak and dagger wasn’t something I was good at or comfortable with, and I disliked having to do it. But perhaps it was time I learned.

  “Oh, and this conversation never happened,” he added. “We’ve not met, got it?”

  My index finger pointed toward the ceiling. “What about the cameras? Isn’t someone watching?”

  “Yes, but nobody who doesn’t owe me a favor.”

  Interesting. “Fine.”

  He winked as he turned around and strolled off back down the corridor, his shiny leather brogues tapping on the floor as he went.

  Nate was agitated when I returned to the room.

  “I was just coming to look for you,” he said, slipping his arms tightly around my waist.

  “Got held up.”

  As I told him about my encounter with Gabriel, Nate listened intently, a troubled shadow in his eyes.

  “So, what do we do?” he asked me.

  “Find the canteen. There are cookies.”

  He glowered, despite the slight smile that briefly crossed his lips. “This is serious.”

  I shrugged. “We listen to what they have to say.”

  Nate nodded and then rested his chin on the top of my head. “Anything that keeps you safe.”

  “Keeps us safe,” I corrected.

  He didn’t know I meant the three of us.

  ****

  Before…

  The weather warmed.

  I asked Rebecca again about going to look for survivors. Sometimes she was willing to discuss it, and sometimes she wasn’t. She was purposefully stalling me.

  Knowing there was a good chance I’d be leaving without her, I quietly made plans and drew up a list of supplies I’d need to take. I already had a decent sized backpack, which I kept hidden under my bed. Every time I found something useful, I’d pack it and hope she wouldn’t notice it’d gone missing.

  Early one morning, whil
e Rebecca was still in bed sound asleep, I went into the garage to look for more supplies. We kept our tinned and packet foods in here, along with anything we didn’t need close to hand. I shoved a few packets of dried, flavored pasta and noodles into a carrier bag and anything edible light enough to carry.

  Under a tarpaulin, tucked away in the back behind a stack of boxes, I discovered an old bicycle Rebecca no longer used. She’d acquired a brand new, sturdy mountain bike for her looting trips, which she kept in the shed out the back.

  This bicycle was vintage, though, with a shiny red frame and little white flowers painted on the stem. After plucking dead spiders out of the spokes and dusting the cobwebs from the handlebars, some soapy water and a light scrub made it sparkle. The rear tire had deflated to a pancake, but there was a puncture repair kit and a pump in the shed. An easy fix.

  I continued searching the garage, finding a rusty crowbar and a small, wind-up pocket torch. The crowbar would be a tight fit but essential for looting purposes as I’d have to find the majority of my food from stores along the way.

  Just as I was about to call it a day on the foraging, I spied something colorful tucked beneath a dust sheet in the corner of the garage. Curiously, I lifted the sheet away and pulled out the little floral box that’d captured my attention. Immediately, I recognized it as my mother’s. I flipped it open and examined the contents gingerly, lifting out an old photograph of my mother as a small child, pigtailed with a face full of ice cream. There were also a few items of inexpensive costume jewelry, including a watch and a string of plastic pearls. At the bottom of the box was a book—a well-worn copy of ‘Wuthering Heights,’ my mother’s second favorite book.

  I’d never had the opportunity to read it as she always carried it with her, stowed away in the bottom of her handbag, or secreted within the deep pocket of her favorite raincoat. When I’d searched for it after the funeral, it’d disappeared. Assuming it was one of the many things Andrew had purged from the flat, I gave up hope of ever seeing it again.

  But here it was. Rebecca had it all along. She must’ve rescued a few of my mother’s personal items and brought them back home with her.

  Why leave them out here in the cold to gather dust?

  Pressing the book to my septum, my nostrils took in the familiar scent of old print and binding glue. To me, it was the best smell in all the world.

  I opened the book up and leafed through the first few pages, which contained a short biography on Emily Bronte. Before the main story began, there was a blank page that someone had written on.

  Natalie,

  Saw this book and thought of you.

  Stay wild!

  Love, Sam.

  The words on the page left me dumbstruck.

  Sam was my father’s name. This book had been a gift from him.

  Why would my mother keep hold of the book when she rarely spoke of him and cringed at the mere mention of his name?

  Yet here was her treasured copy of ‘Wuthering Heights,’ a book that she’d read many times over, with a big painful reminder of my father scrawled in it.

  I closed the lid down on the box but dropped the book into the carrier bag. When I got back to my room, I slipped it into the top shelf of my bookcase between two other classics.

  One day, I’d read it, but not now. There was no room in my backpack for anything else, especially after stuffing the crowbar and the torch inside. Thankfully, although the bag was heavier than I anticipated, I could still carry it comfortably.

  It was almost time for me to venture out into the new world.

  To be wild.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After…

  An uncomfortable silence lingered in the air after all the introductions were made. We’d been taken downstairs to the office where Nate and I now sat, in front of the big oak desk, while Eve, Daniel and Gabriel sat behind it.

  Eve was the first to break the silence, which didn’t surprise me. “Nate, I will never forget what you did for me in the hospital. I want you to know that.”

  He responded with a nod and a brief, labored smile. Perceptibly tense, he gripped my hand tightly and squeezed it in a token of reassurance.

  “What did Halley tell you about us?” Daniel asked, leaning forward.

  Nate’s answer was brusque. “Everything.”

  Eve’s eyes flickered to me, and I gave her the faintest of head shakes—she wanted to know if I’d told him about the baby yet.

  “Then you know what we want from you?”

  “You want me to help you understand the virus,” Nate replied.

  Daniel pushed back on his chair and casually swung his feet up on the desk. He let a few long seconds of silence tick by before he sucked in a sigh and spoke again.

  “After surviving the virus, we were all taken to an army facility in Scotland,” he began. “It was a bunker of sorts, set up for disaster scenarios. We were kept in a section of it that functioned as a hospital—or so we thought. It wasn’t long before we realized it was more of a research laboratory and that we were nothing but test subjects to them.”

  Daniel touched his palms together, making a steeple with his fingers. “We were wholly expendable in the search for a cure. They believed survivors carried a different strain of the virus. One that was survivable. We think they planned to infect the rest of the population with it, but when they discovered the infertility issue, they brought in a doctor by the name of Lawson. He—”

  “Thomas Lawson?” Nate cut in.

  “Yes? You’ve heard of him?”

  “I’ve read some of his published papers. He’s a geneticist—was a geneticist,” Nate said, “And his wife—Kara Strahovski—was a pioneer in reproductive endocrinology. They wrote some pretty controversial articles on eugenics together.”

  Eve sat up. “Strahovski was there too, for a while. But Lawson sent her away when the virus got into the bunker. After that, they began dropping like flies.” The vehemence in her voice was palpable. “Lawson was a monster. He was the one who figured out the virus had changed us. From that point on…well, there were eight survivors to begin with, and only five of us got out of there alive. Lucky, that bastard Lawson and his minions all died off, or we wouldn’t have made it either.”

  “Who was in the bunker with you?” I asked.

  “Daniel, Tobias, Laura, and Ben,” Eve answered.

  I glanced at Gabriel. “What about you?”

  “I was working in Aberdeen when the virus hit. I ran into this lot about six months later.”

  “And how did you evolve?”

  Gabriel sneered. “I had a running car. Someone else wanted it. I got my throat slit for it. Aren’t humans wonderful?”

  If he was traumatized by it, he certainly didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed to have a permanent smirk painted to his face as if he found it all a little bit amusing.

  Daniel continued. “We stayed in the bunker for the next four years, searching for survivors and trying to build a community. A year ago, we decided to relocate to London and focus our search on the south of the country, as well as the possibility of venturing into Europe through the tunnel. We brought the research with us—laptops, files, reports. It’s all here. Some of it we’ve been able to make sense of, but the only person here with a medical background is Laura. And she’s a vet.”

  Nate ran his tongue across his bottom lip, shaking his head. “Be that as it may, I think you might be overestimating my abilities.”

  Eve smiled. “Not at all. Something tells me that you’re the one we’ve been looking for.”

  It was an ominous statement. Christ only knew what she was implying.

  Nate raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Gabriel waved a hand at Eve before she could share her insight. “Look, Nate. I’ll be honest with you. Despite our new state of being, the human race is still doomed unless we fix the big issue. If we don’t start reproducing soon, our species is done for.”

  Nate let out a disbelie
ving laugh. “You think I can find a way to cure the infertility when the experts couldn’t?”

  Eve gave me a knowing glance and then smiled at Nate. “I have complete faith in you. Besides, I believe Strahovski was close to figuring it out. Her notes on it were comprehensive, but only partially written in English. Don’t suppose you speak Polish?”

  Nate sighed. “Fluently. My mother was Polish.”

  He’d never mentioned that before.

  “Well then,” Eve said, “More proof that you’re meant to be here. Both of you.”

  Nate shifted uncomfortably and squeezed my hand again.

  Eve was clearly convinced we were here by divine influence—if divine was even the right word. Epidemiologic intervention?

  I saw my opportunity. “If we agree to stay, you have to stop drowning people.”

  Daniel crossed his arms in a gesture of defiance. “There are worse ways to die, believe me.”

  “I don’t care. It stops.”

  “Done,” Eve replied. Daniel shot her a disapproving frown.

  “And we can leave anytime we want,” I added.

  “Give us six months,” Gabriel responded. “After that, if you choose to leave, we won’t stop you.”

  “Three months. That’s all you get,” I countered. On the outside, I feigned a stern resolve, but on the inside, my chest tightened painfully with anxiety.

  “Done,” Gabriel agreed.

  Both Eve and Daniel glared at him then, but he just snickered, pleased with the terms of our arrangement. He evidently enjoyed dissenting against them.

  Eve stood. “We have already set up a room for you.”

  Presumptuous much? Not that it was any great surprise. I’d known before coming in here that we weren’t going to be allowed to leave without a fight, and it wasn’t a fight we were in any position to win. Staying, for now, was the only option.

  ****

  The old school dormitories were in the west wing of the building, set out over two floors. The corridors were dark with small arch windows, framed by heavy velvet curtains. Mahogany paneling stretched from floor to ceiling, apart from a few sections of wall, papered with lines of jacquard fleur-de-lis and Tudor roses. The floorboards groaned and cracked as we walked on them, and I imagined the former students trying to creep into each other’s rooms in the dead of night, caught out by the noise their footsteps made.