The Reckoning (Earth Haven Book 3)

by Sam Kates

  “Well done,” said Ceri. “You couldn’t have done any better.”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure they believed most of what I told them.”

  Ceri shrugged. “We can only tell them what we know. It’s up to them what they make of it.”

  She looked out into the foyer. People had formed into small groups. A babble of debate arose, punctuated by the occasional raised voice.

  Tom drained the bottle of water. “Still think we should argue that violence isn’t the best way forward?”

  “Yes.” Ceri sighed. “I don’t think it will work either, but we have to try.”

  “Let’s get it over with. Then I think I’ll join you in a bottle of vodka.”

  “We’ll both need it.”

  Tom clambered back onto the wooden block and switched on the microphone.

  “All right,” he said. The noise quietened and heads turned to face him. “Does anyone have any questions?”

  Immediately, a clamour of voices was raised.

  Tom put out his hand again in the shushing motion.

  “There are too many of us to call out. Perhaps, if you have a question, raise a hand?”

  A forest of hands shot into the air.

  “Ceri will pass around the spare microphones.”

  Ceri stepped out into the crowd.

  “To your right, Cer,” said Tom. “The tall gentleman there… no, over a bit… yes. I think his hand was up first.”

  There was enough space between people not to have to squeeze past and Ceri quickly found the man Tom had indicated. She handed one of the microphones to him.

  “One moment, sir,” said Tom. “To your left, Ceri. The lady in the blue jumper was next. Now, sir, what’s your question?”

  While Ceri made her way to the woman, she listened to the man speak.

  “Hello. My name is Günther. I am from Dusseldorf. My question is, do you believe that the plague was deliberately started by these, um, people?”

  “Yes, Günther,” replied Tom, “I do. Peter did not take part in the spread of the disease, but he showed us the container which held the powder. It looked like a steel thermos flask. I saw him dispose of his powder in the North Sea.”

  “Powder?”

  “Yes. They designed it to kill over ninety-nine percent of humanity. They spread it over handrails and banisters, that sort of thing. Anything we touch. We stood no chance.”

  Ceri made her way back to the German to retrieve the microphone and take it to the next person whose hand was raised. Tom had turned to the woman she had just given the other mic to.

  “Hi. I’m Madeleine and I’m from South Carolina. Sailed into Liverpool a week ago.” She gave a short laugh. “Went clear around Ireland when a southerly gale blew us off course and near came ashore on the Isle of Man. We were going to aim for London till we saw the notice telling us to head west instead.” She cleared her throat. “To speak frankly, your tale seems like a steaming pile of doggy-do, except for one thing. I heard those voices in my head as clear as I can hear you, Tom, and I know y’all did too.” A low murmur of agreement rippled through the audience. “Since we can’t all be having the same hallucination, I have to conclude, much as it pains me, that you are telling the truth.”

  “Thank you,” said Tom. “Do you have a question?”

  “I was coming to it. The rest of these people… aw, to heck with it. Call a spade a spade. They’re aliens, ain’t that what you’re saying? So the rest of these aliens are on their way and when they get here they’re liable to make us commit suicide. My question ain’t just directed at you, Tom, but to everyone here. What are we gonna do to stop that from happening?”

  A deep hush followed the woman’s question. Tom broke it.

  “Thank you again, Madeleine. You have cut right to the purpose of this meeting. This is something we have discussed and have come to our own conclusions. I have no doubt that many here will feel that attack may be the best form of defence.” A rumble of agreement greeted Tom’s remark. “But Ceri and I have faced them with guns in our hands. In just small groups—four or five of them—they combine minds or whatever they do and can completely overpower us. There are almost five thousand of them in London. It won’t be a fair fight. And they don’t die easily. The woman—Diane Heidler—we saw her recover within weeks from injuries that should have killed her. But, listen, there may be other ways. We can talk to them. Persuade them that we are worthy of sharing this planet with them–”

  He could get no further. He was drowned out by an uproar of voices raised in anger.

  While Tom waited for the noise to subside, Ceri handed one of the microphones to a giant of a man who had been standing patiently with his hand raised. With a start, she recognised him as the man who had caused the commotion by the crazy golf course the previous morning. The leather jacket gave him away; the thick lips confirmed it. He smirked as he took the mic from her. As the outcry began to die away, he raised the microphone.

  “My name is Clint. I’m from Dublin and I have a question for Tom.” His accent was a strange one: undeniably Irish, but with a twang of something else. American, maybe. “The woman you mentioned. Diane, I think you called her. She took part in spreading the Millennium Bug?”

  “Yes,” Tom replied. “In the States. Around Los Angeles and Las Vegas, I believe.”

  A woman’s voice cried out from the balconies: “I had family in L.A.”

  The Irishman’s smirk grew wider. “Tell us, Tom, why you let this woman live? Not only that, if I’ve understood you correctly, you helped her to get better.”

  Another rising tide of voices threatened to drown out Tom’s reply. He raised his voice. “Diane saved mine and Ceri’s lives. She helped to save the lives of Brianne and Will. Without her surgical knowledge, Howard could not have saved them alone.”

  Clint made a dismissive noise in the back of his throat. “Sounds to me like you’re an enemy sympathiser.”

  Tom’s angry response cut across the fresh uproar. “Don’t be ridiculous!” Ceri glanced at him. High spots of colour had appeared in both cheeks. “I lost people I loved to the virus. I had to bury my mother in her garden because there was no one left to come and take her corpse. My girlfriend died lying in other people’s blood and shit and piss. I was going to propose to her on Christmas Eve. The children I taught…” His voice tailed off and he lowered his head.

  Before the Irishman could say anything more, Ceri snatched the microphone out of his hand and moved smartly away, but she didn’t miss the black scowl he directed at her. She handed the microphone to a tall, fair woman.

  “Yes, hello. I am from Sweden. My name is Aletta. I don’t really have a question, but I want to tell you all something. My friend here–” she indicated a thick-set man by her side “–and I landed near Dover. We had three companions. We did not go to the port or see any notices. We drove into London and came across some of these people. Aliens, if you like. They killed one of our companions and captured the others. What Tom said about their power, that they can take over our minds, it is true.” The thick-set man nodded emphatically. “Oh. And I do not think sparing this woman, this Diane, means that Tom is a—how did you say it?—a sympathiser with the enemy. I think it means that he showed compassion. That he is human.”

  The woman’s head turned at the sound of approaching engines. Ceri followed her gaze to see people making way for three khaki lorries that drew up in front of the hotel. Army lorries. A man climbed down from the passenger side of the lead vehicle.

  Ceri recognised him as he strode into the hotel, took in the scene with a glance and leapt onto the concierge desk. Hands on hips, Joe Lowden gazed at the assembly.

  “Is the meeting done?” He didn’t have a microphone. He didn’t need one. The hotel had fallen deathly still and his voice rang out clearly. “Have you all decided to fight the bastards?”

  Ceri looked behind Joe to Tom, expecting him to say something. But he remained still with his head hanging down. Dusty had emerged from be
neath the desk and was nuzzling at Tom’s shoes.

  “Well?” demanded Joe. “Gonna let them get away with it? These fuckers who murdered our families without batting an eye. Who attached electrodes to the heads of survivors and fried their brains. Gonna stand to one side and say, ‘Carry on, old chaps. Don’t mind us. You take our planet while we lie down and die.’? Or–” his wide-eyed stare became a dark glower and his voice dropped to a growl “–are we going to look them in the eye and say, ‘Fuck you! This is our home. You’ll pay for what you’ve done.’? I say, make them pay. Make them bleed and writhe and die. Like they did to our friends and families.”

  “Er, excuse me,” said an American voice over the PA system. A grey-haired man had raised one of the microphones to his lips. “My name’s Elliott. I’m a high school English teacher from Philadelphia. I’d like to ask, how are we supposed to fight these aliens? What with? We brought some weapons with us from the States, but only enough for our group.”

  Joe let out a low chuckle and waved an arm towards the lorries outside. “Glad you asked, Elliott, my man. See those lorries? Those trucks as you Yanks would say? Filled to bursting with assault rifles, submachine guns, grenades and mortars. Enough for every man and woman here to arm themselves to the teeth. Enough ammo to fight an army fifty thousand strong.” He grinned. “Handy things, army bases. And there are a lot of army bases around here.” The grin faded and his stare grew intent. “So what do you say, Elliott? What do you say, my good people? Do we fight?”

  For a moment, there was silence. Then a voice from the balcony called out, “Yeah. Let’s fight!”

  “That’s the spirit,” said Joe. “What about the rest of you? Do we fight?”

  More voices cried out in the affirmative.

  “Not loud enough,” shouted Joe. “What do you say? Do we fight?”

  As though from a bursting dam, the wave of voices crashed over Ceri, making her wince. She glanced again at Tom, who raised his head at the din. He met her eye and shrugged.

  We tried, he mouthed.

  Yes, they had tried. Even without Joe’s grand entrance, she doubted it would have been enough.

  Mankind was once again going to war.

  Part 2:

  Comrades in Arms

  Chapter Ten

  In Asia and Oceania, Africa and South America, central and western parts of the United States and Canada, the east and far north of Europe, survivors who had not been close enough to receive the summons to the U.K. nevertheless were on the move.

  Within days of waking to find their loved ones and neighbours dead, those who overcame the dark despair had found themselves compelled by a strange and persuasive voice to remain where they were. Even those—the majority—who did not understand the literal words of the message, grasped their import and obeyed them.

  For weeks survivors did not venture far, concentrating on staying alive and clearing their immediate surroundings of the dead. Decaying corpses were tossed into seas or rivers, flung into ravines or set aflame with little or no ceremony. It is difficult to feel compassion for inanimate flesh when you are weak, shocked and uncertain whether you will see out the day.

  Indeed, staying alive proved beyond the ability of many, particularly in tropical climes or in the south where a sun-blessed summer helped along the process of decomposition and encouraged new perils. Vermin and scavengers proliferated. Pestilence spread. The scent of living man was supplanted by the stench of death, emboldening predators. In some parts of the world, man was displaced at the top of the food chain by the great cats or giant mammals or even the humble rat if gathered in sufficient numbers.

  Those who possessed the wit and means to arm or barricade themselves against disease and carnivores, managed to eke out those days of being shackled to their immediate locales. Long days of filthy labour and solitude. As the compulsion placed on them by the Commune loosened, they began to spread out in ever-widening orbits. More perished when they encountered deadly fauna that had not inhabited the area, or not in such great numbers, when last they had ventured out.

  Others met their demise in the sub-zero temperatures of northerly lands like Alaska or Russia when the power failed and they exhausted their more primitive methods of staying warm, or when the need to hear the voice of another or feel another’s touch drove them out of shelter into driving snow and winds that froze fingers black.

  Gradually and inevitably the hardiest or luckiest survivors began finding each other. When initial mistrust was overcome, small pockets formed, became groups.

  In cities like Beijing, Calcutta, Cairo and Mexico City, disease became the biggest threat, but those who outlasted that and the dangers and deprivations that followed found each other more easily than those spread out across the steppes of Mongolia or pampas of Argentina.

  New difficulties emerged. The virus had killed billions of people without distinction based on skin colour or religion or social standing or any one of the hundreds of reasons people treat others differently. It behaved with equal lack of discrimination towards those it spared.

  Young and old, brown and yellow, Catholic and Muslim, there were survivors of every colour, creed and bent. From Supreme Court judge to crippled beggar, all echelons of former society were represented in this strange new world.

  As people banded together, so the good and bad in humankind began to jostle once again in the perpetual dance of civilisation.

  More died, but not over food. In southern parts, crops were ready to harvest, fruit hung ripe on trees, water teemed with fish; some survivors trod in the footsteps of their ancient ancestors by foraging and hunting. In the north, there were plenty of canned, bottled and dried foodstuffs to last well into the summer and beyond. The world food shortage had been solved at a stroke.

  No, it wasn’t arguments over food or water that caused further death. Any random gathering of humans will include those who yearn to be calling the shots, to be above the rest. In this strained new world, such quests for power, if opposed, were not decided by campaign and ballot, but by knife and bullet.

  Acts that would once have constituted crimes continued to be committed. Rape, wounding and assault, though not theft: little point risking violent retribution by taking something from another when there is plenty of everything lying around waiting to be picked up. The late President of the United States had exhorted those who would survive to forget concepts like ‘property’ that were likely to become meaningless in a world containing only a million people. And so it proved.

  Some took advantage of the absence of structure and authority to play out dark fantasies that would for ever have remained dirty, sweating secrets in a world with laws and those to enforce them. Sometimes, apparently motiveless acts of violence were driven by old prejudices that the perpetrators felt they no longer needed to keep bottled away, eating at their insides like a malignant growth. Most went unpunished. Others were subjected to mob judgement and summary sentencing that usually amounted to execution.

  But such incidents were relatively rare. Men and women who hadn’t laid eyes on other humans for a month or more were in the main gladdened to be amongst their own kind once again, relieved that others yet lived.

  Although none of the survivors had heard the voice of Milandra calling them to the U.K., all had been touched by the Commune. In hushed whispers across flickering fires, they debated what supernatural forces were at work for each of them to have heard the same words without seeing the source of the voice that had spoken them.

  They sensed that something momentous was going on elsewhere in the world; something in which they would play no part but that would determine their destinies.

  While nearly two thousand Europeans and Americans prepared for battle in a luxury hotel and nearby towns in South Wales, the rest of the world held its breath.

  * * * * * * *

  Will stared at his left shoulder in the mirror. A puckered dent showed where the bullet had entered. Behind and around it, the flesh had sunk where it had waste
d from the damage caused by the bullet’s path through his torso and his inactivity during the months of recovery.

  Both entry and exit wounds were as fully healed as they were likely to be, and Howard had removed the bandages. With a week of April remaining, the doctor allowed Will to take off the sling for an hour each day and had given him a series of exercises to get the joint moving.

  It wasn’t much fun. The shoulder was stiff and painful, the arm skinny and weak. Every movement made it feel that the flesh around the wound was tearing anew, cartilage and sinew parting, muscle separating. With Bri’s encouragement, Will did his best, but it was going to be a long, painful process to regain even a quarter of his arm’s former movement.

  Bri’s bandages had also come off. The indentation in her forehead was smaller even than Will’s entry wound and was already largely hidden beneath her regrowing hair.

  Will brought his right hand across and touched the scar. The skin around it was as pale as a vampire’s, with vivid weals and marks like the veins on a bloodshot cornea. He poked at it, fighting an urge to push through the thin flap of skin covering the hole and keep going, scratching the maddening itch as he went until his finger emerged from the exit hole. He pressed harder and the skin grew whiter. Harder again until it felt that his finger was on the verge of entering his chest. For a moment, Will maintained the pressure, wondering at the notion that it would feel good—painful, yes, and messy and risking infection, but overridingly good—to force his finger through his shoulder.

  He lowered his hand and watched the angry red marks reappear with the pressure released.

  Sighing, he turned away from the mirror and dressed, then placed his left arm back in the sling. He stepped to the window and looked out.

  A windswept, rain-drenched seafront, empty and forlorn. From his attic window, Will could glimpse a pier and funfair, bowling greens and gardens, amusement arcades filled with slot machines and video games. He was sick of the silence wherever they went and the sight of ragged Christmas decorations, a constant reminder of all that had been lost.