by Patrick Ness
—Well, so far nothing seems to be happening.
—Yes, but doesn’t it also seem like too much ‘nothing'? The few poll guardians I’ve heard from have reported that hardly anyone is voting.
—It’s early yet—
—Still, the pensioners always like to get out first thing.
—So what do we do?
—I don’t know. Sit here and be unnerved is about all I’ve accomplished so far. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. Treat the day as normal, but with our eyes open for anything.
—I was just going to spend a quiet day with Talon until going to campaign headquarters tonight.
—For the victory rally.
—Still so sure, Cora?
—Something good has to happen. We’ve had a string of unpleasantnesses up to now. Speaking of one among many, The Crash are safe, yes?
—Definitely. The round-up went fine. They’re in a secure paddock in the back of the zoo. It’s not all good news. A lot of them are injured. Two of them have died in the paddock.
—If I ever get my hands on the shitheads who did that—
—Language, Cora. Talon’s in the waiting room.
—She’s here?
—Yes, no school and no baby-sitter.
—Of course, the holiday.
—Things are going to be in a ruckus soon enough, one way or the other. I wanted to keep her as close as possible.
—As if this whole day wasn’t going to be hard enough anyway without vague, unfounded threats of who knows what.
—It’s probably nothing.
—Probably. And at the end of the day, you’ll be Mayor-Elect, and a new era will begin for Hennington.
—Let’s wait and see.
—Oh, give an old woman her—
The door to her office swung open sharply. Albert charged in holding Talon by the hand. Kevin was behind them. Cora could hardly contain a relieved smile. Until she read Albert’s face.
—What’s wrong?
—Have you seen the Arboretum?
—No.
—It’s on fire.
—What?
They went to the far window. A column of black-and-white smoke chugged into the air from the section of the Arboretum near the top of the hill.
—My God. Look, there’s more smoke just starting. Is that near Mansfield?
—Something’s happening. Something bad. The streets are deserted.
—I saw that, too.
—Hi, Max. I think you should take Talon to a safe place.
—A safe place?
—What’s going on, Daddy?
—I don’t know, baby. I’m sure it’s nothing.
—I think we should leave, too, Cora.
—Why?
—I just have a terrible feeling. My mobile’s gone dead.
—How could that happen?
—The communications relay is near the Arboretum.
—But it’s not near where the smoke is coming from.
—I’m not convinced the two are unrelated.
—Jon Noth was here this morning.
—What? Why?
—I’ve been trying to get hold of you. He said he came to warn me.
—Oh, shit.
—He said something was going to happen and that I might be in danger.
A low thud shook the window. A black ball of smoke rose into the air, down the hill from both the University and the Arboretum.
—Daddy, something just blew up!
—We’re going to head home right now, baby.
—I think that’s the best idea, Max. Us, too, Cora. We should get out of here.
—I can’t just abandon my post at the first sign of trouble!
—My first priority has to be Talon, Cora.
—Of course, Max. I wouldn’t keep you two here, but Albert, I’m in charge of this city. My last act as Mayor will not be to leave it undefended against whatever this is.
—How come there are no sirens?
The adults paused at Talon’s question. She was right. No sirens; no ambulances, police cars or fire engines. No sounds at all from the city, just livid smoke funneling up into the air like several stationary tornadoes. Another low thud shook the window matched by a new black ball of smoke appearing even further down the hill. They watched as a burning petrol-station sign made an arc in the air before coming down like a meteor and disappearing into the front of a small hotel.
Kevin broke the silence.
—Whatever it is, it’s heading this way.
102. The Journey of Faith.
Peter sat low in the back seat of Jarvis’ car looking out the back window. Luther lay stretched across his lap, jostling some as Jarvis sped through the city. Jarvis kept checking his rearview mirror at the increasing conflagration rolling down from the hill behind him. They had seen the Arboretum burning as they got into the car. The first explosion happened before they managed to reach the end of the block. Jarvis increased his speed down a road that was emptier than it should have been. A boom shook the car’s windows.
—My God, there goes another one. What the hell’s going on?
—I have my suspicions.
—You know?
—Suspicions only, but as much as I hope I’m not, I think I’m right.
—What’s causing this?
—It’s not a what, it’s a who.
—Then who?
Jarvis turned the car around a sharp corner.
—And who the hell are they?
A line of people blocked the far end of the roadway. Jarvis hit the brakes, stopping a good distance from them. They walked forward – it almost looked like marching – carrying fuel cans. Jarvis and Peter watched as they poured some liquid over a parked car, then stepped back and set it aflame. The car became engulfed. Neither Jarvis nor Peter spoke as the fire reached the car’s fuel tank, causing an explosion that somersaulted the car forward in the air. The line of people regrouped and began walking forward again.
—My God, it’s almost—
—Orderly.
—I think we should get out of here, Jarvis.
—Yes, I think so, too.
He threw the car in reverse, squealed an impressively fast three-point turn, and rocketed the car back out the other way. He turned down another side street, coming face to face with another group making its way down the block lighting fires. Storefronts, a bus stop, a realtor’s office shaped like a house. The street behind the fire lighters was working its way up into an inferno. Peter leaned forward from the back seat.
—Look. Over the rooftops.
Towers of smoke appeared down to their left and right, on the horizon. Almost the entire hill up to the Arboretum was ablaze.
—People live in that area. There must be houses burning, too. What’s going on?
—We have to get out of here.
—I don’t believe what I’m seeing.
Jarvis turned the car around yet again.
—We’re going to have to head south rather than east.
—If that way’s even clear.
Jarvis brought the car to a sudden halt as a ragged-looking man ran in front of them. A larger group followed him, all looking behind them as they ran. A car came lurching out of a side street, its back end in flames, careening past Jarvis and Peter. They watched it travel the length of the street until the fire met its fuel tank. It catapulted up into the air, coming to rest in the front entrance of a coffee shop. Peter spoke almost as if to himself.
—The world’s ending.
—Maybe sometimes it has to.
Jarvis pulled the car around the increasing number of fleeing people, trying to aim it vaguely south. The city stretched further in that direction, but it seemed to be the only way clear from the eerily marching firestarters. Small groups of people were standing on sidewalks now, gaping at the fires burning not so far away. Jarvis and Peter passed a fire station, its trucks idle, the building looking deserted.
—That doesn’t make any sense. Why aren
’t they responding? Jarvis, look out!
Jarvis swerved to avoid a burning police car that came screaming in from the right half of an intersection. It struck the curb and bounced through the outer pumps of a petrol station, lighting the grease-covered cement ablaze.
—Oh shit oh shit oh shit—
Jarvis hit the accelerator as the petrol station erupted in a mushroom-cloud behind them. The blast briefly lifted the rear of the car off the ground. Jarvis fought to keep control before finally skidding to a stop. A swooshing sound screamed through the sky over them. They watched the petrol-station’s sign, transformed into a missile by the explosion, make a horseshoe in the air before coming to earth, destroying most of the two-story façade of a small hotel. Peter pointed past Jarvis’ shoulder.
—Look.
Crowds of terrified people were now running towards them. Though not as many as there should have been, Jarvis thought. Behind the running crowds, Jarvis followed Peter’s finger to another ominous line of marchers heading towards them. From the south. Peter asked the question that seemed so obvious, the same one running through Jarvis’ own mind.
—How can they be coming from all directions?
—The city’s too big. You’d need almost the entire population … Uh-oh.
—You don’t think—
—Maybe it’s just this part of the city. It still seems concentrated here in the north.
—For now.
—We really, really need to get out of here.
—Do you know any shortcuts?
—After living here for so many years, I hope so.
Jarvis straightened out the car and headed down yet another side street, swerving now and then to avoid the confused, yet still oddly smallish, crowds of frightened people who seemed to be at a loss as to which direction to run. Smoke thickened the air. Jarvis kept his speed as fast as he dared, once suddenly jumping up onto the sidewalk and driving across a front lawn to avoid a mass of overturned, burning cars.
—You all right back there?
—Yeah. I’ve never run for my life before.
—Neither have I.
—Strange, huh?
—Yeah, hold on.
The car thumped back onto pavement again. Peter gripped Luther’s body, instinctively grabbing his hand as the car sped away. Because of the noise or the adrenaline or even just the sheer impossibility of what was happening, it took a moment for Peter to realize what the pressure on his palm was. He looked down.
Luther was gripping back.
103. The View From Here.
Archie watched the north end of the city burning from his penthouse office downtown. The fire was alarmingly big for being so young. He had glanced out at the smoke rising from the Arboretum not more than an hour ago. What had only been a single column of billowing gray had quickly moved down the hill into the buildings lying to the south.
No, not moved. Moved was wrong. Because what fire moved that fast down hill? What happened below the first fire must have been a new fire, then a new one below that, and so on and so on. In less than an hour, the sky was already hazy to the horizon with ash and cinder. Several city blocks were on fire up there, it seemed. He was too far up to hear anything, but he had seen the large fireball that could only have been a petrol station or one of the natural-gas towers. He’d watched some sort of long projectile fly up into the air, turn, and come crashing back down. Surely they couldn’t have weapons like that, could they? Whoever they were. Surely that wasn’t a missile?
This isn’t really happening, Archie thought. My eyes are fooling me. I’m projecting this. This is a, what do you call it, allegory. An allegory. None too subtle either.
He turned from the window and walked slowly back to his desk chair. His bones snapped and creaked even in the simple act of taking five steps. The age that he had ignored for going on nine decades suddenly seemed to have realized its laggardness and come upon him all at once. It was the sadness that did it, he was sure. Despair was one thing, despair had a component of energy, despair grappled and fought, despair needed you alive to feel its pain, but sadness, sadness was something else altogether. Sadness was a slow vampire. Sadness reached in and uncorked you like a full tub. Sadness was the parasite that killed its host.
He’d had despair for a while, but it had proved fruitless. Then somewhere along the line, it had turned into this terminal sadness. Maybe it was the day after day without news from Thomas, maybe the ever-dawning culpability that he felt for sending Luther away that afternoon, the last time he ever saw him; maybe when the anger, that most temporary of demons, fled in a rush on the morning when he had surrendered and enlisted Thomas’ help. Whatever the reason, the despair had turned to sadness, and Archie was slowly suffocating in it. He had sold Banyon Enterprises, a decision that made sense at the time and right now didn’t even really seem to matter at all. He had sent Cora away, his true love, his – well she would have to be, wouldn’t she? – closest friend. He had lost Luther for good. His other son had proved unreachable, though Archie admitted he hadn’t tried all that hard to reach him over the years.
No, what he hadn’t lost, he had severed himself. The only thing remaining was the sadness. He leaned back into it once again in his luxurious leather chair. He began to cry but stopped for lack of energy. It’s over, isn’t it? That fake fire out there on the horizon, that’s what it means, right? It’s over, all of it. At the end of it all, I failed. All that work, all that time spent was for nothing, because at the end, I failed. Luther is dead. That’s all this has amounted to. Luther is dead, and I’m responsible.
Archie relaxed back in his chair to a position almost comfortable. He took a few shallow breaths. His chest hurt. He could feel the sadness reach in for the last of him, reach in and squeeze the final anguish of pain from his heart.
Oh, my son, what have I done?
He couldn’t quite tell when death came upon him, which was a shame because it would have been a relief from the unbearable ache of his body. But his heart finally stopped, his breath left him for the last time, and he did die, deep in the vast silence of the office he would have to have left soon anyway. The fire continued outside. The day’s destinies were beginning to be met all over the city.
A low hum could be heard by anyone walking by Archie’s office, if anyone did, a hum that seemed to be coming from the chair where Archie sat slumped, his arms hanging low to the floor on either side of him. A low hum, yes, but unmistakably there.
104. War It Is, Then.
A distant smell of smoke filled the air, and members of the herd were growing agitated. She had jumped to her feet at the sound of the first distant explosion. Even though it was far off, the tremble in the ground was disturbing, shaking her out of what had become her first real rest in many, many days. However strange this new place was, they at least had plenty to eat and drink through the hot, dusty morning, and the few thin creatures who hovered around the edge of the herd had done nothing to bother them as they lay down, at last, to rest, a rest that had proven cruelly brief as the first explosion thundered through the ground, waking up not just her but the rest of those members of the herd who had not slipped off into permanent slumber. They stood now again. Facing an unseen threat, again. Looking to her for leadership. Again.
She had recognized at once that the path of the flight from the gully had been chosen for them. After stopping to form their defensive circle, time passed, but nothing happened. Slowly, she realized the thin creatures had left an opening in the circle around them. As nothing continued to happen, she reluctantly led the herd through that opening. The circle of thin creatures followed behind them. As they walked, there was always one clear direction in their path, so that was the way they headed, even though she knew that was what the thin creatures wanted. Trying to force the herd’s way through them would prove immediately effective, but more would die. And the thin creatures would just track them down again. If the creatures wanted a fight at the end of this run, then a fight it would be, but
with the full numbers of the remaining herd.
Yet at the end of it, they had been led into a dusty field, walled around all sides except for a gate at one end. The herd prepared itself for an attack, which then never came. Slowly, they realized that bundles of dried grass were positioned around the small field, as were standing ponds full of water. The herd grew restless until she herself went over and sniffed one of the bundles. When she took a bite out of it and chewed down the sweet grass, something approaching a sigh of relief made its way through the herd, and in no time, herdmembers were everywhere, eating and drinking their fill. As the few hours passed, something resembling calm slowly descended on the group. Her own eyes began to feel heavy. She lay down with the rest of the herd and somehow went to sleep, finally forgetting the pain in her damaged horn. A few days had passed that way, a bucolia that had almost, almost, made her let her guard down.
And now this.
The members of the herd stood silently, not one of them moving or lowing. She raised her head high into the air, picking up the scents that lingered there as deeply as she could. Definitely burning, still at a distance but growing. She squinted. Her eyes weren’t sharp enough to see the specific pillars of smoke on the horizon, but she could gauge the more general darkness of a certain section of the sky. Something else, too. Thin creatures, of course, but that smell had never quite left this little field. This was different though, wasn’t it? She took a long slow breath, letting the air roll slowly through her great nose. Yes, thin creatures, but different. She smelled sweaty agitation. She smelled quick, purposeful movement, growing closer with each passing second. There, just there, lying faintly against all the other smells –
She lowered her head and snorted loudly to the herd. She threw herself into a trot around the animals as they gathered themselves quickly into the defensive circle once more. The approaching smells were becoming clearer, and now there was no mistaking it. Thin creatures, lots of them, approaching and accompanied by the same, evil metallic smell that had preceded them in the attack in the woods, the smell that had brought the explosions.
