As the World Falls Down

by Katy Nicholas

  And then I knew what to do.

  I unbuttoned the top few buttons of Luc’s shirt and placed my hand on his chest. It took only a matter of seconds for the static buzz to build and spread out in waves like ripples in a pond.

  Luc’s body arched and shook for a moment before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped sideways onto the gravel.

  “What the—” Laura screeched, dropping to her knees. She felt for a pulse on his neck, and then on his wrist. “He’s dead.”

  Having just killed a man, I promptly upchucked and then blacked out. The last thing I remembered was the sharp, wet gravel digging into the side of my face as I collided with the ground.

  Lizzie waits for me.

  She stands in a field of long grass and cow parsley; the little white flowers tickle my knees as I brush past.

  Lizzie smiles. “I knew you could do it. He was right about you.”

  I sigh. “Who was? I don’t understand.”

  “You will soon, I promise. There is someone here with us who has a story to tell you, but not right now,” she says. “Just know that both you and Nate are very important to us. As is your daughter. Trust in us.”

  Easier said than done.

  Lizzie turns to walk away, but I grab her shoulder. “Tell me how to save Sebastian!” I demand. “Tell me if there’s a way to infect him with the virus and live. Please? Your virus accidentally killed seven-and-a-half-billion people. We’ve seen enough death. Please help us.”

  Lizzie frowns. “What makes you think it was an accident?”

  “Nate said…he thought the virus made a mistake…” I shake my head in disbelief. “You murdered seven and a half billion people on purpose?”

  Lizzie takes a deep breath and gives me a solemn look. “Do you know what would’ve become of humanity if you’d all carried on as you were?”

  A lump sticks in my throat.

  “Humanity’s end was a brutal one. More violent and devastating than you could possibly imagine. A thousand times worse than our virus,” Lizzie tells me, with an indignant glare. “But because of our intervention, those souls live on. Every life the virus takes—and will ever take—is here. Trillions upon trillions of souls.”

  My eyes grow wide. I have many questions, but no time to ask them. “What about Sebastian? He doesn’t have the virus! He’s dying.”

  Lizzie smiles. “Do you choose him to be one of you?”

  I nod. “Of course! Yes.”

  “Then give him our blood,” she answers.

  “Will that save him?” I ask.

  Lizzie raises an eyebrow. “Do you trust us?”

  “Yes,” I answer, resolutely. What choice did I have?

  Lizzie gives me a doubtful look, but chuckles. “Our blood is the key. Tell Nate, and he’ll know what to do.”

  Before I have the chance to thank her, she shimmers like heat rising from a hot pavement, and disappears. For a few seconds, I watch the empty space that Lizzie’s body had occupied, feeling a strange sense of loss. It isn’t long before I shimmer and disappear too.

  ****

  Before…

  “I know that you’ve not been happy, but are you sure you want to do this?” Rebecca asked me as I made my preparations to leave.

  “I have to.”

  She nodded and looked out of the kitchen window at the heavy gray clouds about to burst and deliver a torrent of rain upon us. “Fine. I won’t stop you, but do something for me?”

  I looked up from the map I’d spread across the kitchen table. “What?”

  Rebecca pulled up a chair next to me. “Wait till cold weather has passed. It might still snow—”

  “No,” I cut her off.

  She grunted angrily. “Freezing to death for the sake of waiting a few months tells me you aren’t as sensible as I think you are.”

  I’d assumed it was another ploy to make me stay, but her logic was sound. Having to pack for wintry conditions meant carrying extra clothing and supplies. If the weather did turn icy or snowy, I really didn’t want to be stuck out in it with no guarantee of finding a warm place to sleep.

  “Okay,” I said dejectedly.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “I’ll help you and make sure that you have everything you need.”

  Would she really help me, or would she would change her mind again and beg me not to go?

  “Why don’t you come with me?” I asked her. I’d do it alone if need be, but I’d rather not leave her by herself if there was any chance she might accompany me.

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve seen everything I needed to see.”

  I sighed. “You’re sure there’s no one alive out there?”

  She considered my question for a moment. “The only thing you’ll find out there is death.”

  I turned away from her.

  “Besides, even if you did find someone, how do you know they’d be…all right?” she added.

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “Desperate, lonely people do dark and desperate things.”

  A chill ran up my spine. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.

  “I am a little worried about stumbling across a community of cannibals,” I answered her, with a grin.

  She gave me a stern look. “I’m glad my worry for you is amusing.”

  Taking hold of her hand, I gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine. You’ve been out there plenty of times and come back in one piece.”

  “I know,” she huffed. “But you’ll probably end up going further than I ever did. I know you, Halley. You won’t give up easily.”

  She was probably right. “I won’t be gone long. I promise.”

  Her expression was skeptical. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After…

  What felt like hours, lasted only minutes. I awoke to find myself slumped over Ben’s shoulder as he carried me down the corridor, toward the stairwell. As I dangled limply down his back, the blood rushing to my head filled my ears with a throbbing, thunderous roar, prompting me to slide awkwardly from Ben’s grasp.

  “Luc will be awake in a few hours,” I muttered. “You should get him somewhere comfortable.”

  “It usually takes longer than that,” Ben answered.

  “Not this time.”

  “How would you know that?”

  I shrugged. “I just do.”

  Ben snickered, although there was a shadow of uneasiness in his eyes.

  “I have to see Nate. Now”

  I ran, my wet shoes squeaking and slipping on the smooth floor tiles as my feet hit the stairs, taking two at a time.

  “I know how to help Sebastian,” I panted, bursting in through the door of the treatment room.

  Eve and Daniel were sat together on the far side of Sebastian’s bed, arms around each other as Eve cried onto Daniel’s shoulder. Nate stood next to the intravenous drip trolley, about to inject a syringe of something into the clear tube attached to Sebastian’s hand. He spun to look at me as I stood shivering in the doorway, a puddle forming at my feet.

  “What happened to you?” Nate asked, aghast. He grabbed a blanket from one of the other beds and threw it around my shoulders.

  “Long story. Not much time,” I breathed. “You have to give Sebastian our blood.”

  He stared at me for a moment and then turned back to the little sleeping boy. “Like a transfusion, you mean?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. They said it would make him like us—a survivor. The virus won’t kill him. They said you’d know what to do.”

  He started rummaging through one of the boxes of supplies he and Ben had brought back from the hospital yesterday.

  Daniel stood. “What good will giving him a blood transfusion do?”

  Nate tipped the box upside down onto one of the empty beds. “It will bombard his body with the virus. It might just be enough to stop his immune system from resisting it. Especially in his weakened condition.”

  Da
niel regarded Sebastian, a pensive frown wrinkling his forehead. “We infect him, and then we evolve him so that his body can heal?”

  Eve suddenly came-to from her distracted grief state, a horrified look on her face. “We can’t do that to a child, can we?”

  I went to tell her that we didn’t have to drown people anymore, but Nate spoke first.

  “We might not have to evolve him, not straight away at least,” he said. “Think about how the virus works. Every cell in his body will be replaced and thus no longer affected by the radiation exposure. Apart from his brain cells, anyway. They will still be irradiated, but I may be able to treat him with potassium iodide in the short term. In any case, if it works, it’ll buy us some time.”

  “If it works,” Daniel added.

  My eyes drifted to Eve who’s reddened, tear strewn eyes began to look hopeful.

  “It will work,” I said, mostly to her.

  “Do it,” she replied.

  Nate gathered together everything he needed and then radioed for Laura to come back to the treatment room. As soon as she stepped through the door, he ordered her to set everything up.

  “Eve, what’s your blood type?” Nate asked.

  Eve hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know!”

  He directed the same question to Daniel.

  “O positive,” he replied.

  “Perfect,” Nate said. “Roll up your sleeve.”

  To get out of the way, I went and sat on the spare bed. Eve came and sat beside me after being asked by Laura, somewhat brusquely, to move. I put my arm around her, not knowing what else to do.

  “How did you know how to help him? Did Claire speak with them?” she asked, after ten minutes of silently observing everything that was happening.

  “No,” I said. “They told me.”

  Both Laura and Nate glanced over to me briefly then. Nate smiled in a supportive kind of way, but Laura was obviously unsettled. The look she gave me was the same look people gave to Claire when she came out with her nonsensical utterings.

  “How?”

  “In my dreams.”

  If my revelation surprised Eve, she certainly didn’t show it. In fact, she gave me a slow nod and a knowing smile, like she’d seen it coming. “You sound like Claire.”

  “I know.”

  “They tell you anything else?” Daniel asked, wincing as Laura jabbed a needle into a vein in his arm.

  I wanted to be honest about my communication. “The virus did exactly as it was supposed to. It meant to wipe us out. There was no mistake.”

  Nate snapped his head up, anger flashing in his eyes. “They purposefully committed mass genocide?”

  Was this the appropriate time to be making such revelations? Somehow I doubted there would ever be a good time to explain it.

  “They don’t see it that way.” I went on to describe my encounter with Lizzie and what she’d told me about how every soul they killed with their virus was now with them, wherever that was.

  “They’re not gone?” Eve asked me, the hope in her eyes growing exponentially. She took great comfort in my statement, and the others would too.

  “It’s a kind of afterlife, I think,” I mused.

  Everyone fell silent then, in quiet contemplation. The word afterlife had ramifications. Perhaps I should’ve chosen a different term to explain it, but something told me I’d described it perfectly.

  “And who are they, exactly?” Nate asked, finally.

  There was no way to respond to that question. Were they Gods? Angels? Aliens? None of those appellations seemed correct. Whatever they were, it was a term we didn’t have in our human vocabulary. Yet.

  Giving a shrug and a palms-up gesture, I stood. “I need to get out these wet clothes.”

  Nate moved close to me and whispered in my ear. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeh, we’ll talk more later.”

  Back in our bedroom, I hurriedly shed my wet clothing and got into the shower. The water was hotter than usual, the blissful heat quickly taking the chill off. After spending so long under the shower that my fingertips puckered, I got out and dried myself off, before deciding to rest a little before heading back to see how Sebastian was doing.

  Of course, once my body was warm and cozy under the soft duvet, not even an earthquake could have stopped me from falling asleep. The dreams that entered my mind were the nonsensical variety, not a red desert in sight.

  The sound of the shower running finally roused me again, whether it was minutes or hours later, I couldn’t tell. Nate appeared, naked and wet, toweling himself down, as I stretched and yawned.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  He smiled and then climbed in under the covers with me. “About six hours.”

  Obviously not the brief cat nap I’d intended it to be. “How’s Sebastian?”

  “Stable. I took the opportunity to check in on you and take a shower.”

  “Will he make it?”

  “Yes. Thanks to you.”

  He slid his hand up my thigh and around to my back, pulling me into him for a long, hungry kiss. I swung my leg over his pelvis and then pushed myself up on top of him, kissing his lips forcefully while my hand guided him into the space between my legs. He groaned as my body met his, my hips finding a leisurely rhythm that rapidly generated a pleasant tingle within me.

  When my pace increased, and my breathing quickened, he swore and grabbed hold of my waist, controlling my movements in such a way that, seconds later, I trembled from the sweet release, feeling him pulse with gratification at the same moment.

  “Nate,” I whispered, after collapsing down onto his chest. “I need to tell you something.”

  He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. “What is it?”

  The butterflies of anxiety instantly began to dart about in my chest. I rolled back onto the bed and sat upright, wrapping myself up in the duvet.

  He sighed. “I know something isn’t right with you,” he said, sitting up and swinging his legs out of bed. He got up and walked over to our dresser, pulling out some jeans and a fresh pair of boxers. He dressed and then stood nervously in the center of the room with his arms crossed.

  His expression became serious. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

  Sliding off the bed, I shuffled over to the dresser and dropped the duvet once I’d pulled on a long, baggy t-shirt dress.

  “There are a few things I need to tell you,” I said, moving in front of him and putting my arms around his waist. “But I’ve been too scared to say anything. I thought if something bad happened, it would be better if you never found out.”

  “What?”

  “You told me once that you couldn’t lose anyone else that you cared about,” I said. “I thought by not telling you, I could protect you.”

  He shook his head, flustered. “From what? Halley, you’re scaring me!”

  I breathed deeply and cast my glance toward the window, watching the dribbles of rain meander down the glass against the backdrop of a dark night. “My head is messed up.”

  “I already knew that.”

  “My mum didn’t die of a heart attack, Nate.” The words almost choked me. “She killed herself.”

  He exhaled and rubbed his face. “Oh, Halley. I’m so sorry.”

  I kept my eyes fixed on the winding raindrops. “I loved her, but it wasn’t enough.”

  Nate drew in a sharp breath and stood beside me. His fingers gently nudged against my chin, slowly bringing my head around to face him. “No matter how bad things might get, I swear that all the while you live and breathe, you’re stuck with me.”

  I laughed but took another deep, shaky breath before continuing. “I needed you to know how I felt because it’s the reason I’ve been keeping things from you. I wanted to make sure everything was going to be okay before I told you. But, the truth is, I don’t know if it’s going to be okay. I mean, I think it is—”

  The worried frown reappeared on his brow as he cut me off. He’d clearly
had enough of my ambiguous rambling. “Just tell me!”

  “I’m—you’re—” I stammered. “You’re going to be a father, Nate.”

  He stared at me and then laughed. “What?”

  “I’m pregnant, Nate.”

  He stiffened and let his hands drop to his sides. “No, you can’t be.”

  “I took a test.”

  “Tests can be wrong,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  A nervous laugh left my lips. He didn’t believe me. “It wasn’t wrong.”

  “It’s also not possible for you to be pregnant.”

  His reaction had me at a loss. Aside from asking him to confirm it with a blood test, I didn’t know how else to convince him.

  I grabbed his hand and placed it on my stomach. “I know it’s probably too early for you to be able to feel anything, but she’s moving around.”

  He snatched his hand back. “This is madness! You are not pregnant!”

  A growl of exasperation rattled in my throat as I forced his hand back on my lower abdomen.

  Then, from somewhere in my poor, addled brain, I heard a whisper.

  “Show him.”

  I put my hand over his and moved his palm down to where I felt the bubbling sensation.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Halley—”

  “Shut up and close them,” I snapped.

  “Fine.”

  In the same way as I’d done with Luc, I concentrated on forming the static in between our touched hands.

  Claire was right when she told me the static could be used to send a message—just as the electrical impulses in our brains formed thoughts and memories—and, as I focused on trying to make him feel what I felt, the static warmed and prickled under my palm.

  He suddenly gasped. “How are you doing that? I—I can feel it. She’s moving—wait, she?” His eyes flew open, and he looked at me. “It’s a girl?”

  “I think so.” Keeping the static going was making me lightheaded. I let go of his hand and put my arms around his neck.

  “It’s not…I don’t understand how…” he stammered.

  “Me either, but since you’re the doctor, you’ll have to figure it out.”