Shift #2

by Jeff Povey

  ‘Not the hair!’ GG wails.

  GG sees the Moth and then Johnson and Billie. He can’t help himself and sprints towards them. ‘We saw the wheelchair tracks! And it is you. It really is!’

  He hugs them all in turn, kissing them on their cheeks. I’m sure he lingers when it comes to Johnson. ‘Oh that feels good.’

  The Ape stands to one side and watches in silence. He isn’t sure what to do or how to behave. He’s always been the outsider of our group and it’s never been so apparent as now. The others look at him and his hesitation mirrors their own.

  Until Johnson bunches his fist and stretches an arm out to the Ape. ‘Good to see you.’

  The Ape looks at the bunched fist and then bounces his own fist against it. ‘J-Man.’ The Ape then turns to the Moth. ‘You didn’t get squashed.’

  He’s referring to the hotel that fell on us.

  The Moth grins again. ‘Not me, Dazza. Way too tough for that.’

  The Ape bumps knuckles with the Moth too. ‘Sweet.’

  Billie is the only one who isn’t smiling. She stares coldly at the Ape. The last time she set eyes on him she was drunk and said some truly awful things to him. So much so that he lumbered away and nearly didn’t come back. I don’t know why she can’t give him a break, but the chances of her ever warming to him are slim. To his credit he nods at her. ‘Want to see my snowman?’

  Billie is stunned. ‘You were making a snowman?’

  Ape nods. ‘I make the best snowmen ever.’

  Billie turns away and I see her try to control her temper. ‘A snowman,’ she mumbles to herself. ‘He made a snowman.’

  The Ape shrugs and wanders further into the church. ‘Always wondered what was in here.’

  At least we’re back together again. Well. What’s left of the original eight of us who were in detention. We might still be stuck in this empty world, but we’ve got each other again and that’s something.

  The Moth wheels towards me. ‘I want to hear everything about the world you ended up in.’

  I glance at Johnson who is still holding hands with Billie. I wonder if they’ve ostracised the Moth a little, turning him into a three’s-a-crowd gooseberry. The Moth has always been overlooked, but he seriously seems glad to have someone to talk to now.

  We spend the next hour or so talking and debating what to do next. It seems that there has definitely been no sign of the doppels, for months now, so on that score we can count ourselves safe. It’s about the only bit of good news we have though. It seems that in the last five months not even the super brain of the Moth has worked out a way to go home.

  ‘We had your dad’s papers but they got lost in the smashed hotel,’ the Moth tells us. ‘Then we tried to find your dad—’

  ‘If it was your dad,’ Billie adds.

  ‘But he was gone along with the others,’ the Moth finishes.

  My dad – or Rev Two’s dad – was burned in a weird fire as he tried to get through to this world. Their version of Billie is a healer and the last I knew she was trying to bring him back to life.

  In my heart I thought it definitely was my father. I had held what was left of his hand, and I swear I felt a connection with him.

  But if they’ve taken him with them then I guess he wasn’t my dad after all.

  The Ape can’t seem to settle or take an interest in anything. I’m not sure but I think he’s on high alert and he is roaming the church. Something, some deep-rooted instinct, is making him edgy. That, or he’s looking for a toilet.

  ‘When you say you saw footprints outside the school . . . ?’ Billie asks.

  ‘They were heading into town,’ I reply as calmly as I can.

  ‘Leading away from the school?’ she presses.

  The Moth considers this. ‘Were there any going up to the school?’

  ‘None that I saw.’

  ‘We haven’t been up there in months. The footprints would imply that someone else was at the school and then left just before you,’ the Moth decides.

  Someone else was at the school. That is not a sentence I like the sound of.

  ‘Told you I heard someone,’ the Ape calls from the shadowy recesses of the church. So he is listening. ‘I’ve got great ears.’

  ‘Must be one of the doppels,’ I tell them. ‘They must have been in the school. They were fresh prints, I know it.’

  ‘Told you,’ the Ape calls out again, reminding us even though we don’t need reminding.

  ‘But they’ve disappeared. We haven’t seen anyone else in all the time we’ve been here,’ the Moth says, looking confused.

  ‘Not even Other-Johnson,’ Billie adds, directly looking at me.

  So that’s two Johnsons definitely gone in the space of an hour or so. I’m not doing so well on the romance front.

  Johnson is leaning back on a pew with his long legs stretched out in front of him. He is usually laid-back and calm but now there is a quiet, maybe resigned, stillness to him. He doesn’t even react at the mention of Other-Johnson. He doesn’t bat an eyelid.

  He’d looked so hurt when my stupid frozen-brain declared some kind of love for Other-Johnson that I thought he must still have a residue of feeling for me. But if there was I completely extinguished it with my frozen woeful declaration. Johnson is so over me.

  ‘You must have have brought someone back with you,’ Johnson says. ‘From the alien world.’

  I don’t like his accusing tone.

  ‘But we’d have seen them,’ I say. ‘They would have been in the classroom with us. And they were all about to attack us, so if they’d come through they’d have carried on attacking.’ I’m sure of it. ‘Wouldn’t they?’

  No one has an answer.

  ‘Was everyone violent there?’ the Moth asks. ‘What was it like?’

  GG shudders. ‘You’d rather go to Margate.’

  The Moth is seeing hope though. ‘There’s positives in this.’ He strokes his flat nose in thought. ‘We can still move from world to world. That’s a big, big positive.’

  ‘But we don’t know how to go where we really want,’ I tell him.

  ‘That’s something I can work on. And the time thing. I read something once about how chronology isn’t universal. Time happens how and when it wants to. And there’s this other amazing theory.’ He’s getting animated now. Finally, after five months, he has something concrete to put his mind to. ‘Since the universe began with the Big Bang it’s been accelerating and moving forward, but there’s this thought that it’s on the equivalent of an elastic band. And when it reaches as far as it possibly can it’ll start pinging back, racing all the way towards the Big Bang again.’

  ‘You lost me on “elastic”,’ GG quips.

  But our ignorance, doesn’t dampen the Moth’s excitement. ‘All of this’ll happen again one day. The Big Bang will start again, and it’ll reach its furthest point and then twang back. And it’ll do it over and over. Back and forth for billions and billions of endless years. We’ll all meet again and again and again. So if it happens in our universe then it’s probably happening in all universes. But that’s where the time shifts. It’s not exact. It’s not identical.’ He rubs his thighs now, excited. ‘There’s going to be universes that don’t move as quickly as ours, and others that move at a thousand times the speed.’

  It takes a moment to digest, and even after that moment I’m not quite sure what the Moth is talking about. But he has latched onto a theory that satisfies his naturally questioning mind.

  ‘We’ll do this all again?’ Billie glances at Johnson and she is clearly keen for that to happen.

  ‘Love never dies,’ the Moth adds. ‘Nothing does.’

  ‘I wondered why I got déjà vu.’ GG smiles. ‘I’ve been here before. What a lucky, lucky universe. GG lives for ever.’

  The Moth sits back, dreaming of twanging eternities, but Billie delivers a more sombre tone. ‘That’s great thinking, Moth, but shouldn’t we concentrate on the timeline we’re in? Only the alien world kno
ws everything.’ She sits up straighter. ‘They know we’re here and your dad, Rev, wrote it all down like a map. They just need to find his papers and they’ll have someone who’ll work it all out from there.’ Billie looks anxious and Johnson immediately slips a reassuring arm round her waist.

  GG loses his momentary joy at immortality. ‘What are you saying, Billie?’

  ‘What if they start coming here? Maybe they already have, judging from the footsteps.’

  Billie’s blunt statement hits home because everyone falls silent at the dreadfulness of this idea.

  GG covers his face in his hands. ‘Margate doesn’t sound so bad now. We should maybe pack up and go there.’ He looks and sounds tired.

  This is becoming too much. We are lost, we are alone – almost – and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. We should have come up with a plan or a positive line of thought before finding the others. Instead we can’t even offer a single shred of hope.

  The Moth whirrs his wheelchair back and forth in tiny agitated movements, still thinking. ‘I suppose that’s possible.’

  ‘Possible or probable?’ asks Johnson.

  ‘Probable,’ the Moth answers.

  ‘Only if they find the papers in their world,’ I counter.

  ‘Which they definitely will.’ Billie is convinced.

  I have never heard four more frightening words. They linger in the musty church air and everyone stops breathing. We fall silent again, hoping someone will break the ominous and dark atmosphere.

  The Moth is first to gather himself, but he doesn’t look his usual positive self. ‘If they know about this world, then they’ll, uh . . . they’ll . . .’ The Moth’s space brain is overloading with thoughts and rapid connections. ‘Yes. Of course . . . There’s a million good reasons to come here.’

  Billie glances at me.

  She and Johnson have probably been very happy here, going about their lives. It’s by no means perfect but at least they were finally out of danger. And what do we do? Come back and ruin everything.

  Billie unfolds her long supermodel limbs. She is a lot taller than I am, and her mixed-race grace and slender legs have always made her stand out. I spent our friendship feeling like I had to fight to be noticed when I was with her and there was always the nagging sense that she quietly enjoyed that.

  ‘Rev, what have you done?’ She says it quietly and with care and concern, but I’m sure there’s the faintest hint of condemnation there as well.

  ‘It’s so obvious,’ the Moth says, bewildered. ‘They’re going to pour through.’

  GG pulls a quiet grimace. ‘Could you stop sounding so certain about that?’

  ‘Think about it, GG,’ says the Moth. ‘This world is full of resources. Double the oil and gas and water that they already have. Or it could even be a place to live, and their world would be less crowded and – well – there’s a thousand benefits I can think of.’ The Moth is almost sorry to say any more. ‘So, yeah, I’d come here if I were them, and I’d get rid of anything I didn’t need – or like.’

  Billie pulls a cowed and vulnerable look and Johnson draws her closer so she can rest her head on his chest. She’s got the damsel-in-distress act down to a tee.

  ‘But then again they know there’s another parallel world now – well, two, in fact, ours and this one,’ says the Moth, ‘so it could actually be even worse.’

  ‘There’s a worse?’ GG asks quietly.

  ‘They could go to our world.’

  The Moth’s wheelchair is edging back and forth, over and over, and he doesn’t seem to know he is doing it. It’s a subconscious movement but the whine of the oil-dry motor is starting to get to me.

  ‘OMG.’ GG spells it out slowly. ‘They’d overrun us. It’d be like an alien invasion.’

  The thought chills my newly warmed body and I drop at least twenty degrees.

  ‘He’s right. They attacked us – why not attack an entire world?’ Billie’s eyes widen in fear. ‘It’s what they do.’

  My mouth dries in under a second. The Moth’s wheelchair is screeching in my ears and I yell at him. ‘For God’s sakes stop going backwards and forwards!’

  The Moth brakes hard. All eyes are upon me. Accusing. Shocked.

  I try to calm down. ‘That that might not happen.’ I’m almost pleading. ‘Why would they come here?’

  ‘Your dad – if it was him – did.’

  Johnson’s words hit the hardest. They fill the church until they are squashing down on me, suffocating me, leaving me breathless.

  The Moth starts whirring back and forth again.

  GG tries to take some of the blame. ‘I was there too. I’m responsible as well. Me and the Ape.’

  ‘It’s Dazza.’ The Ape is now leaping up at one of the large stained-glass windows to try and see out of it. I have no idea why. Does he sense something out there? Or is he just checking on his beloved snowman?

  ‘All they’ll have to do is find your dad’s papers.’ The Moth whirrs. I wish he wouldn’t, because everything he says adds another layer of black. ‘Yeah,’ he says, working it round and round in his mind, ‘someone will read them and make sense of them and that’s it, game over. Not just for us, but maybe for everyone.’

  ‘Moth, please.’ GG has been experiencing the same dread and doesn’t want to hear any more either.

  ‘Any ideas, Rev?’ Johnson’s laser-black eyes take me by surprise and I almost, but not quite, catch my breath.

  Billie tightens a little. She can see Johnson is looking straight into my eyes.

  And in that moment I feel a sliver of hope that I might not have lost him completely, despite the last five months and all the loving Billie could muster.

  ‘I guess we close the portal,’ I offer.

  The Moth stops whirring.

  ‘To do that we still need your dad’s papers, Rev. I never got to fully take in everything he’d written, but if I was to go over it again . . . Well, he came through to this world so he must know how to switch the portals on and off.’

  ‘Only not very well, considering he was fried to a crisp,’ Billie snaps, then quickly avoids my accusing look. ‘Sorry, Rev, that slipped out. Pressure of the moment.’

  ‘So just like before, we need the papers,’ Johnson declares.

  The Moth nods. ‘With them I could get us home and close the whole multiverse thing down. Well . . . in theory.’

  GG puts his hand in the air. ‘I vote for that. I’ll even cheerlead if you want. Closing portals down. Well, ra-ra-ra to that.’ GG has brightened again. You can never keep a boy like him down for long.

  ‘So if the papers would help then let’s go get them.’ At last I can see something positive. A sort-of plan is better than nothing.

  ‘Yeah, let’s do that,’ Billie says, sarcasm dripping from her voice. ‘Know anyone who can lift mega-megatons of hotel rubble? Because that’s where the papers are buried.’

  I wish I was outside making a snowman. I wish I was a little kid on a sledge with her dad wrapped round her, keeping her warm and safe. I wish for anything but this.

  ‘We need to go back to London.’ I’m not even really sure who says it, but I think it’s Johnson. I’m not really listening because I’m caught up in my sad wishful thinking.

  ‘We have time,’ the Moth says, ‘if you think about it. Five months passed here but only an hour passed in their world. Which means we could have months, maybe a year, to dig around in that smashed hotel before the doppelgangers start pouring through. We’ve got a chance. The papers were in my room and I was on the ground floor. I can still remember the number of the room.’

  Billie stares deeply at the Moth and shakes her head. ‘Hawkings, I used to think you were clever.’

  ‘It’s Hawking,’ he responds for the millionth time.

  GG and the Ape are down by the river trying to hook my lost boot out of the icy waters. It would probably be quicker ‘shopping’ for a new pair from any of a dozen shops in the town, but GG assured me that the
boots were ‘so, so you, Rev’, and trudged outside with the Ape.

  GG and the Ape’s voices drift in from outside the church.

  ‘It’s been five months. An hour for us but five months for them,’ explains GG. ‘It was summer when we left.’

  ‘Still is,’ the Ape replies.

  ‘How can you say that? It’s winter now. Look at all the snow.’ GG’s voice rises an octave.

  ‘You snow nothing!’

  Their voices carry easily. That’s the beauty of an empty world, a silent world. When you take away the humming drum of human existence it’s amazing how acute your hearing becomes.

  Sound travels, I think, it really does travel. But I wonder if that’s a good thing. Because someone else left footprints in the snow, which means there’s someone here with us. We are definitely not alone.

  I have been lying stretched out along a pew, wrapped up in a sleeping bag, and my core temperature has risen to a level that means I’m probably alive, but it still doesn’t feel like life. Not where it really counts.

  Thanks to Johnson and Billie my heart is deader than the dead lying in the ancient frozen graves that surround the church.

  ‘Got it!’ the Ape shouts.

  ‘That’s not Rev’s boot.’

  ‘Yeah it is.’

  ‘That’s a ghastly wellington, and it’s at least a size twelve. Now throw it back. Honestly.’

  The voices should be a comfort to me but all I can think is why didn’t I get back here earlier? As in straight away. As in maybe not ever leaving in the first place.

  But more than anything: why did Johnson forget me?

  Isn’t it an undeniable and universal rule that romantic heroes wait in rain and storms and watch the seasons passing until their loved one returns? Carrie used to write the worst romantic poetry in the universe and if she was me right now she’d be writing things about undying sentries of the heart standing guard until the future arrives.

  ‘How are you doing, Rev?’

  The Moth whirrs up to me in his wheelchair. His nose is scarred from all the things he’s been through in this world, but because he has a body that is already pretty much broken it is hard to tell if he’s been damaged any further. Then I think wouldn’t it be ironic if he’d actually been battered into a better shape by having a hotel land on him.