The End of the World Running Club

by Adrian J. Walker

  Of course, codeine helps. We overdosed on it and drank drizzle from a ditch. Then we got our bearings and put our feet to work.

  The first ten miles were of slow torment. We tried talking about the boats and about where they might be going and about Harvey. Each attempt ended in half sentences and I didn’t mention Harvey’s delirious mumblings in the middle of the night. My ankle was not as much of a problem as I thought, but my back was, probably from the way I had slept. Splintering pain ran up from the base of my spine whenever my feet hit the earth. I counted my steps, distracting myself with calculations about how many it would take before the codeine kicked in. My bones felt dry and hot. My ligaments threatened to shear like ancient rubber bands with every step. But every step came and went and led to the next one, fresh with its own unique breed of pain.

  Mud became less of a problem the further inland we went. Brown marsh became scraggy dirt. There were fields and fences, coarse hedgerows, copses with some trees still growing. We stopped at a stream and drank freezing water until I felt my belly bursting against my belt. We passed through empty villages and took shortcuts through abandoned farms, and all the time a thin, blue line of sea ran along the western horizon to our left, reminding me, pulling me on.

  About fifteen miles in, things began to change. A small bird - a starling, perhaps - had been flying ahead of me. I couldn’t remember for how long. It flitted between branches of a hedge, waited for me, then flitted to the next. I realised that the painkillers must have taken effect. I felt that something had separated inside. I wasn’t numb, just indifferent; the pain was still there but it didn’t seem to matter as much. Bryce was ever present, lumbering along beside me. He seemed to have withdrawn too. My attention turned to my breathing, and the sound of air moving in and out of my lungs took centre stage. I looked down at the struggle going on between my battered feet and the ground beneath them and remembered Harvey’s appraisal of my gait - that I still led with my right foot, in spite of its injury. I changed this; pushed forwards with my left.

  It may have been this or the codeine or any number of other things that triggered what happened next. Maybe some long battle deep within my brain had finally been won, or maybe a hidden reserve of endorphins had suddenly burst under slow pressure. What it felt like was a surrender; something gave up, something that had kept its hold too long. I felt a slow unravelling take place around my shoulders and down my spine. A lightness drew me up and my ribcage filled with cold air. My legs seemed to stretch and flush, as if unexpectedly released from heavy chains. My muscles broke free, my blood rejoiced. Everything within me seemed suddenly to turn in the same direction, like a billion tiny compass needles twitching towards a giant magnet. Everything that had been grinding and grating and straining against each other was now flowing in one single path.

  I was running, and my body wanted everything to do with it.

  My mind wanted everything to do with it.

  That other beast inside you, the one you rarely see? You have it tethered tight. It watches and waits while you mess up your life, fill your body with poison and muddy your mind with worry. For some it takes just one call to free it. For others it takes five hundred miles of agony.

  But mine was free now, for the first time since I was a boy, running with a grin like a wolf through moonlit bracken. Pain ran alongside me, kindred and beautiful and grinning my grin. I’ll always be here, it said. Always, but now we’re friends.

  I held nothing back. I took every pleasure I could from the experience and took all the warmth I could from the sun, now high in the clear sky above us. I thought about my wife and my children and ignored the cold shreds of instinct that told me they were already far away, that I was already too late. Instead I thought simple, bright thoughts about a cliff-side house with a small field, of a woman in a garden teaching her daughter how to plant vegetables, of a young boy standing in the sun, gazing up at his father as he sands the sides of an old boat in long, satisfying strokes, of an empty beach and sand beneath small toes and laughter on the water’s edge as the sun falls.

  Bryce fell behind, then caught up. I felt as if he was riding on my tailwind, with me carrying him effortlessly on whatever boundless reserve of energy I had somehow tapped into. I felt like a child. I was a child; I am a child. Because we don’t grow up; we grow over, like weeds over new grass.

  I ran with Bryce across dales and meadows and we followed streams and stone walls through ancient forests until finally we broke through a hedge and hit a road. We stopped and caught our breath, swaying, dizzy with adrenalin. We looked up and down the tarmac. It was long and straight and flat with no potholes, an untouched relic - the first unbroken road I had seen since before the strike. A white signpost said Falmouth - 3 miles.

  We ran the first two easily. The last was hell.

  “Ships!” shouted Bryce. “Ships!”

  By the time we reached the outskirts of Falmouth, I was running on the last fumes of whatever fuel I had found that morning. I was back to struggling and limping and wincing. The pain had shape-shifted back into its old unfriendly and unfathomable form. Then we reached the top of a hill and my heart exploded with relief. Falmouth harbour opened up gloriously beneath us. I could hear and see people; I swear I could even smell them, though they were still a mile from where we stood. There was movement - a ship; we were not too late. We had made it. It might take some time, but I would find Beth. I would find her and tell her I loved her and that I had run across the country to find her. We would find a quiet place and I would tell her about my vision of our simple life, and she would understand and say that she wanted that too and we would take our children away from the heaving crowds and find a place to live our lives.

  “Ships,” said Bryce again. This time he hesitated. His voice was flatter and his head was turned out to sea. Relief, joy, hope, the strange new energy I had been moving with: everything began to seep slowly away. A line of ten or more ships drew out of the harbour with their bows puffed towards the horizon and their funnels pointing back to the shore from which they were sailing. A roar of voices rose up on the wind like a mourning choir. People filled the dockside, a dark mass of human life pushing, pulling, pulsing, swarming, moving as a single entity in a clamour to reach the gangplank of the one ship still moored; the one ship, the last of the fleet to leave.

  I felt my knees tremble and give way. Weight returned like an iron jacket. Gravity grew stronger, doubled, trebled, quadrupled and finally yanked me down to the earth. My face hit the tarmac and I sprawled forwards. I heard Bryce’s voice. One of the cans fell out from my jacket and rolled forwards. I grasped for it, missed it and watched it roll slowly away. Road, sky and sea all blurred into one smear of grey as the can picked up speed down the hill.

  I felt myself being lifted, then dragged, looked down to see my feet moving beneath me, clawing at the ground as it moved backwards like a conveyor belt. A long string of drool floated out from my lips and wavered on the breeze. Bryce’s voice again, distant and urgent.

  We’re here, Ed. We made it. You made it.

  The noise of the crowd suddenly closed in around me. The smell of warmth of human life hit my nose. Something hit my shoulder, then my other one. A woman laughed, a cackling laugh like a witch, then I looked up and saw only sky. The light was the same electric yellow that we had seen on the beach the day before: charged, static, on the brink of change. Then something hit me. Bryce hit me, open palmed, twice on each cheek.

  “Ed!” He shook me, hit me again, clicked his fingers. “Ed! Snap out of it! Come on! We’re here!”

  I was awake again, standing upright, breathing, seeing and hearing. But time was slow. Everything moved through sludge. We were at the harbour. The boat was above us. We were separated from the gangplank by a crowd fifty people deep that lined the dock as far as we could see in each direction. People were moving about aimlessly. Some were laughing, some were weeping, some were drunk, others dizzy with hunger, staggering up and down with wide eyes and t
aut mouths. Everywhere I looked I saw lost, wandering souls and huddled families. The stench was terrible: fear and panic and shit and squalor - the breath and sweat of a million survivors still clawing for some chance of escape from a crumbling country. No medicine, no water, no food, no rest. We were not the only ones to have made it to Falmouth that day.

  I jumped as a loud female voice filled the air, airy and pleasant. Speakers rigged to poles rang out a metallic tannoy.

  Please move back from the dock. The Endeavour is ready for departure. Please move back from the dock.

  “Move back, please,” said another voice, close to my ear. It sounded Dutch or Nordic. Next to us were two men in military uniform. They held assault rifles.

  “My family,” I murmured. “My family are here.”

  “You have papers?” said the first.

  “Papers?” I said. “No. My family. They were brought here…I came to find them.”

  “You don’t have papers, you don’t belong here. Move back, please, sir.”

  “Come on…” began Bryce, holding his hands up. The second guard moved closer to him, pushing him back with the tip of his gun.

  “You don’t understand, they were taken…” I began, but I jumped again as the noise of the ship’s horn blared across the harbour.

  The second guard raising his gun slightly at Bryce.

  “Move back, sir.”

  “No, you don’t…you don’t….”

  The ship’s horn sounded again, longer this time. I heard something else in the long reverberating tail that made me freeze.

  “You don’t understand, I…”

  I looked up at the ship. The crowd was dispersing, moving past us, opening up the gap between us and the gangplank.

  I knew then I would find her. I didn’t believe it or hope it, I knew it.

  “SIR, MOVE BACK NOW.”

  That sound again. A voice.

  “SIR!”

  “Daddy!”

  I swung my eyes to the boat and a shot of adrenalin pulsed through me. How much that chemistry set inside dictates our perception of the world; my mind and muscles came to life and time returned to its normal speed. There on the deck, with both feet on the bottom rung of the railing, was Alice. She leaned out and stretched a hand towards me.

  “Daddeeeee!”

  The other passengers didn’t see her, too busy finding a place to stand or searching the crowd. She put one foot on the next rung up.

  “Alice!”

  Then she followed with her next leg. Her waist was now at the top of the railing.

  “SIR, MOVE BACK.” The second guard was bullying Bryce back with his gun.

  “Alice! No! Wait!”

  Her face fixed into a determined frown. She pushed her hands down on the railing and raised another trembling leg. It slipped and she tried again, this time finding the next rung. I called out and ran, but the guard caught me, pushing me back.

  “That’s my daughter!” I cried. “Alice! Get down!”

  A hopeful smile crept onto her face. She kept her eyes on me, her only goal to get from where she was to where I was. It was a simple journey; nothing stood in her way but the railing. Then it was just empty space and then me. The freezing sea and concrete thirty feet below was not part of the equation. I watched in horror as she hauled herself up.

  “Somebody help her!” I shouted up to the boat.

  Then another sound, another voice I recognised. An arm shot out of the crowd and around Alice’s chest, yanking her back. Beth’s arm. In her other was Arthur. She plonked Alice down on the deck and began to scold her. I saw Alice remonstrating, her fists waving, pointing out into the crowd, jabbering back at her mother’s sharp words. Then she stopped and took a deep breath.

  “It’s DADDDEEEEEEEEE!” she screamed. Beth seemed to falter, then stopped. She held her finger in mid-wag, crooked like a question mark. Then she turned to the crowd on the harbour. Alice placed her hands on her mother’s cheeks and directed them towards me. Beth’s mouth fell open.

  Then things began to move very quickly. The boat’s funnel gave another blast. There was a scuffling in the crowd next to us, raised voices, people moving apart. The guards turned in the direction of the commotion. Mine loosened his grip. I heard some words of warning, then the wet crack of a fist on cheek flesh. A fight had broken out. People were making space for two large men, one of whom was now reeling from a punch.

  The guard shook me away, yelled out and ran towards the fight. His partner followed, leaving Bryce and me standing, facing the thinning crowd moving away from the boat. I shot him a look and we ran for it. I kept my eyes on Beth as I pushed through the filthy hoards, ignoring the shoves, the bony elbows digging into my ribs, the angry glares, the growls of disdain. When we reached the bottom of the gangplank I saw that it was sealed off with a white, padlocked gate. Four guards stepped warily forwards and one held out his palm. He was tall with a wide jaw and cold, grey eyes.

  “Stop there!” he boomed.

  “My family are on that boat,” I said. “Please, you have to let me on board.”

  “You have medical papers?” he said.

  “No, no, but I’m fine. No virus,” I said. “Let me speak to them!”

  He looked me up and down.

  “You cannot board without medical papers,” he said. “You must go, the ship is about to depart. Please step back.”

  “No, look,” I said, pointing up on the deck. “That’s my family there! They’re right there on the deck! Beth! I’m here! Please let me speak to my family!”

  “Ed!” called Beth.

  The guard turned his head to the boat, keeping his eyes on my until the last minute, then flicking them up to where Beth was standing. He saw her calling down and turned back.

  “I am sorry,” he said. He shook his head. “There is nothing I can do. You cannot board without medical papers. You should not even be here. Now please, get back from the boat.”

  The other three guards moved cautiously towards us and raised their guns.

  “You don’t…” I began. “I just…I just…”

  “Ed!”

  “Daddy!”

  “Sir, please step back.” The guard raised his head and stood tall. I fell back into the crowd.

  “I just…just…” I looked up at Beth. She was crying. I felt an elbow in my back.

  “Watch out,” someone grumbled.

  “Just…”

  I had been aware of Bryce somewhere behind me. He had been quiet and the guards hadn’t paid him much attention. Now I felt him close by, heard him splutter something, felt his breath on my neck, sensed his frustration, sensed his hackles rise. His throat rumbled, then he snarled, then he grabbed me with both arms. The guards stepped back in fright. The first raised his gun. Bryce pulled me to his face and he planted a single, fierce kiss on my cheek. I felt myself rising up above the crowd, then swing down into them. Bryce hurled me with a thundering roar. And then I was flying, flying high over the astonished faces of the four guards beneath me, my legs and arms flailing as I sailed over the gate and landed on the metal gangplank with a crack from somewhere in my leg that I chose to ignore.

  I scrambled to my feet and turned to the crowd. I was halfway up the gangplank. Cheers and shouts came from all around, from the boat and from the harbour. I searched for Bryce, but the crowd had begun to thicken again, turning to the boat to see what was going on. The guards were at the gate, trying to open it. One was fumbling with a set of keys. He dropped them and the others cursed. I saw my chance, turned and ran up to the deck. There was another gate at the top, too tall to climb. The crowd of passengers stepped back from it as I rattled it, trying to open it, but it was locked. Beth was further up the railing to my left.

  “Help her through!” I shouted. “Help me reach her.”

  The crowd shuffled about, pushing her along with Alice clinging to her dress and Arthur gripping her neck, laughing as he saw me. I hung from the gate and reached out a hand. Beth took it and I pulled
her to the gate, reaching both arms through and holding her face in my palms.

  Beth and I met one Christmas when we were both living in London. We were at a friend’s party. I was twenty-seven and single, she was a year younger and had just broken up with someone. She was pretty and funny and we cornered each other, avoiding everyone else and stealing their champagne when they weren’t looking, laughing at their faces as they tried to drink from empty glasses. She called me her partner in crime and I phoned her the next day, arranging a date for some time in the new year. I spent Christmas with my parents, she with hers in Dundee. We texted each other, each alert from my phone bringing the same jolt of excitement, each message more and more sexually charged. I would excuse myself from whatever meal or game or film I was enduring with my family and go and sit on the toilet, thumbing through the history of our conversation again and again, imagining things.

  We met as planned and I took her to dinner in a Polish restaurant where they served vodka instead of wine. We got drunk and kissed and she let me sleep with her in her bed, although it was two weeks before we made love. Partner in crime became our private joke for everything, including sex. It was how I proposed to her and it even made it into our vows when we got married, when I faced her in a small church and saw only her glowing face and the bright red bouquet she was holding, bathed in a blur of noise and light, all the rest of the world draining away, so distant and inconsequential next to her.