by Gary Martin
“True, but you were ready to cut your losses after the car exploded. I should have listened to you,” Terrell says.
“To be fair, I’m not sure why anyone’s listening to me anyway; I did hit my head quite badly in the crash. I wouldn’t trust me to make decisions,” Jacob says.
Terrell approaches Jacob. I’m not sure what he’s going to do, his skin’s too dark for me to read his facial expressions in this light. He gives Jacob a hug. “Sorry, man,” he says.
“No worries. Let’s carry on and tackle these bovine bastards.”
A light suddenly shines in our faces and, with a crash, a thick metal leg hits the ground in front of us. I look up, squinting at the light, and around three metres above our heads is a huge rectangular body with three more articulated legs.
“What the fuck is that?” I shout.
“That is an auto-herder. They come out at certain times of the day when cattle need to be moved places,” Jacob shouts back.
“What does it want with us then?” I ask.
A green bolt of light, followed by a small explosion next to Terrell gives us our answer.
“I think it wants to kill us. Leg it!” Jacob shouts.
Jacob runs in the direction of the cows, faster than Terrell or me. I look over my shoulder, and the auto-herder is in pursuit. Its lumbering body leaning to one side and then the other with every awkward leg movement. Another green bolt and the ground explodes in front of me. Bits of mud and shrapnel hit me hard in the face and I fall down to my knees. My ears begin to ring and, for a second, everything feels like a floaty dream. I’m not sure where I am. I shake my head and stare into the darkness for a few seconds. It quickly dawns on me that there’s a giant metal bastard chasing me, so I pull my shit together and get up again quickly.
I turn to my left and start running in a different direction to Jacob and Terrell, hoping that if we split up it might confuse the thing.
“John! Run toward the cows, it won’t fire on you. It won’t risk hurting them,” I hear Jacob shout behind me. Damn it. That means I’m now its sole target. The ground beneath my feet is getting boggy again and it’s getting harder to move in any direction. Then, after two very deep muddy steps, I’m stuck. I can’t pull my right foot out of the mud. I look round and the auto-herder is upon me. It shines a red light on my position, I close my eyes and wait for the worst.
Something metal grabs me around the waist, and tries to lift me off the ground. My right leg feels like it’s going to pull apart at the knee, and I start to scream. But just as it feels like the socket is going to pop, my shoe comes off and is forever lost. It’s almost a relief, until I realise that I’m now about four metres above the ground being held against my will by the arm of a giant metal insect.
I hear some metal clanks, and the auto-herder sharply turns to the right, shaking me like a doll. I then see two silhouettes: Jacob and Terrell. They are standing below the machine and they’re throwing rocks. All it seems to do is piss off the auto-herder and it fires two green bolts on their position. The ground erupts in orange flames, but I see that they managed to get out of the way. The taller silhouette then runs towards the metal monster’s front left leg and throws more stones at its body.
The auto-herder fires another two green bolts. This time it’s not the ground that erupts in flames, but the machine’s left leg. The leg splinters and begins to buckle. The whole machine starts listing heavily to the left. I’m now only about two metres from the ground. The metal claw around my waist loosens off, then drops me. I hit the boggy ground hard, back first, and it knocks the wind out of me. Jacob picks me up, throws me over his shoulder and runs away as fast as he can, seemingly oblivious to the bog. I see the auto-herder’s body crash into the ground and then it slowly rolls over onto its back. Its remaining legs are flailing in the air, as if the thing is throwing a giant tantrum.
“Can we go home now?” Terrell says.
“No. Fuck no. Something really big and mystical doesn’t want us to get to Joe’s place. I say fuck the universe in its stupid arse and keep going,” Jacob says and folds his arms.
It hurts to breathe, and I’m all for going home. I’ve had enough. But I chance a look in the direction of Joe’s house anyway. The cows have wandered off, and it looks like quite a short walk now.
“We may as well get this over with,” I say. “Come on, follow me.”
We walk in silence across the rest of the field. I don’t even complain about my shoeless, very wet (and probably covered in cow shit) sock. We hop over the last gate and are on another country lane. Just up the road is Joe’s house.
“Come on John, the sooner you confront him, the sooner we can go home,” Terrell says and puts a hand on my shoulder.
13
It was twenty-one fifty-six about three minutes ago according to Jacob’s watch. It really isn’t the time to be knocking on this worn, peeling green door. Or on anyone’s door. Even if the lights are on. I look back at Jacob and Terrell who are both standing by the gate at the end of the path, urging me with arm gestures to knock. I sigh, then I knock. Quietly though, not wanting to disturb anyone at this late hour. Quickly realising how stupid that is, I knock harder. I hear a muffled voice in the house shout, “Joe, answer the bloody door.”
I tense up, hearing the name and finally knowing for sure this is the right place. A small part of me was hoping the teacher had given me the wrong address or the address was somehow fake. Then what we would have now was a silly adventure that we could laugh at in the future.
The door creaks open. Joe looks as if he’s about to give whoever has knocked on his door so late a piece of his mind. His eyes then open wide and he suddenly looks pale.
“John ...,” he says quietly.
“You promised me an explanation,” I say.
His eyes start looking in every direction, as if he’s looking to pull an explanation out of thin air.
“Please tell me you have an explanation,” I say.
He stares at me, but says nothing.
“Joe, you sold out Mister Jelvus. Someone you claimed you respected. Why would you do that?” I ask, now pleading. Still nothing, except maybe a slight tick in his right eye. He’s no longer looking at me, it now seems like he’s looking through me. I’m not sure I know how to get through to him. I decide that I have to ask the big question. Hopefully, the accusation will shock him out of his flutter.
“Joe. After the guards took down Jelvus, did you tell me to go out the fire exit into the woods because you knew Blonde and his friends were waiting for me?”
He stops looking through me and his pale eyes fix on mine; they almost look apologetic, but only for an instant. The door then slams in my face. I stare at the badly painted door for a few seconds. I turn to Jacob and Terrell and shrug my shoulders. From the gate, Jacob mimes knocking at the door again. Fucking hell. I know I have to and I’ll regret it if I don’t, but I really don’t want to. What answer will I get now? I doubt anyone will even answer the door. So, I knock again. The door opens almost instantly. An oldish man, maybe in his late thirties or early forties, is standing there. He doesn’t look like he’s in a talking mood. In fact, he looks furious.
“Can I speak to Joe, please?” I surprise myself by asking.
“If you think I’m going to let you speak to him after what you’ve done, you’ve got another thing coming, lad. Just leave him be,” the man says. I’m completely lost.
“I haven’t done anything. I just...” I’m cut off by a rifle being pointed at my face.
“I said, just leave him be. Now turn around and never come back here,” he says in a slow, but calm way. I don’t argue or say another word. I just turn around and walk slowly down the path, back toward Jacob and Terrell. I hear the door close as I reach them.
“Fuckin’ prick!” Jacob shouts at the house.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
14
The walk back to Jacobs’s house starts off as a sombre affair but soon ends up wi
th us just taking the piss out of each other. We get back to his mother’s house by three a.m. Terrell says his goodbyes, then heads off and I head in with Jacob. I follow him upstairs and open the door to what I hope will now be my room for the rest of my time at this school. Jacob stops me. “Annoyingly, tomorrow, we’re going have to stay back at the school dorm I’m afraid,” Jacob says.
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“Because my mother signed a special dispensation form for us, because of what happened. It runs out today. It’s the rules. Got to board at a boarding school. Even if you only live a few miles away.”
“I guess that makes sense. It’ll be better for me now,” I say.
“It will be. We’ll get you moved to our dorm. Everything’s gonna be great,” Jacob says and smiles.
“What about your dad’s car?” I ask.
“Shh. Everything will sort itself out,” Jacob says, and winks at me. He turns around and heads to his room. I walk into mine and sit on the end of the bed, staring at my school bag. I pull out Noah and the flood and walk downstairs. I quickly root through the drawers of the kitchen and find half a box of matches. Quietly, I open the back door and sneak into the garden. I’m sure I noticed a chimenea earlier.
The motion light turns on and I see it in the weeds behind the garage. I have one last flick through the book. If this is what Mister Jelvus believed was the building blocks for a new future, then he was deluded and I can’t trust his future. However compelling the man himself was, this is complete insanity. I rip out a few pages, screw them up and put them in the chimenea, placing the book on top. I light the screwed-up pages and watch, hypnotised, as the flames take hold and it slowly burns.
My parents were fools, but it’s finally beginning to creep into my head that I actually miss them. It hurts that I’ll never get to see them again. One day I’ll find out who killed them. Mister Jelvus was also a fool, and I don’t want to fall into the same trap as him. There may be a conspiracy, the past may have been re-written, but what can I do about it? Why should I care? I’m just going to keep my head down and do just enough to get by, having as much alcohol as I can along the way.
I start to feel dizzy. It’s suddenly daylight and pain sears through my entire body. Jacob’s garden vanishes and electricity crackles around me. I begin to think that Joe has called the government on me for being at Mister Jelvus’s class. Then, for a second, complete silence. In the crackling electricity’s place is a bright white light. I have to close my eyes from the agony of it. There is a high-pitched wailing coming from somewhere. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. I try to move but I’m fixed to something. My arms are tied at the wrists and pulled out tight. I slowly open my eyes and look down. I’m naked from the waist up, covered in cuts, bruises and gouges. I cautiously look up and, as I do, my neck makes a horrible cracking noise. I see blood on the white wall and then see a body on the deck staring at me. Ez’s father. What the fuck? I turn towards the incessant whining. On a gurney scattered with blood covered medical instruments is a baby, screaming and writhing. My view is suddenly obscured by a giant bear of a man, with a long grey beard and wild eyes.
Twenty-five years later …
15
Ezmerelda Kowolski. She was the one. No, she is the one. Because she’s not dead. At least, I hope she’s not dead. But it is quite likely. You see, the world has ended. Considering how I left things, if she is alive, I seriously doubt she thinks I’m the one anymore. If she ever did. I can imagine it’s hard to get over being abandoned while pregnant and in a coma as the world comes to an end. Hopefully she never knew. No. Hopefully she does know, because hopefully she’s alive. I feel bad either way. Not that I knew the world was going to end at that point. I was, however, in charge of the ship that had an integral part in ending the world. More accurately, I was in charge of the ship that killed the sun, but my general uselessness as a waste disposal spaceship’s captain (shift manager) pretty much ruined that for everyone.
My job was to take rubbish from the Earth on a month and a half voyage, then shoot it into the sun’s corona. A simple job that required me to use my best skill set: being lazy and doing just enough to get by. My crew managed themselves and I just read books and did the odd bit of paperwork. It suited me. Until everything went badly wrong.
It started when Ez’s boss, Rupert Rawling, decided to steal the project he was working on with her: a doomsday device called the Forever Dark. They were building it for Skylark, (a huge company that basically owns the World Governments) and Rupert took it and decided to store it in one of my ship’s waste pods as some sort of awful revenge against them. Skylark had meant to hold his family ransom to keep him working on the project because he’d gained a conscience and decided to pull the plug. Unfortunately, they accidentally killed his family, and Rupert lost his mind. He decided to use the Forever Dark to end everything and everyone. He posed as a new waste technician on my ship, then went on to murder over half of my crew. If it wasn’t for a last-minute effort by my engineer, Robert, I would have also died. Unfortunately for everyone else, Rupert’s plan worked, and his device was fired into the sun with the rest of our rubbish. The device worked as intended and, quietly, with no bombast or fanfare, the sun started to die. Robert broke Rupert’s spine for his efforts but, by then, there was no way to stop it.
So now, I’m in limbo somewhere between the sun and the Earth. My only hope is that Ez (whose father is very rich and owns a space shipping company), Jacob and Terrell have somehow managed to get off the frozen wasteland the Earth has become …
16
I’m no longer sure I’m glad to be alive. It’s been a tough six months. Kerry’s death has hit me hard. I almost have no feelings about the rest of the crew we lost, except maybe Mark, but not in the same way. I’m sad that they’re gone, and the way they lost their lives was horrible. But Kerry’s death is the one that hurts. Because it was my fault. I’ve been through her last moments a hundred times in my head and she’s died again a hundred times, because of my inaction, my uselessness.
It’s been six months since we lost the signal from Earth and, after he’d managed to rig up the solar generators to give us a little more power, Robert was tireless in his attempts to get the communications array working again. I wasn’t any real help, just did exactly what he told me to, no questions asked. I’ve had to do several space walks to the array above the bridge to check and replace parts, but nothing obvious seemed to be broken. We simply weren’t receiving anything because no one was sending anything. At least, not on any frequency we could receive. When we finally accepted this fact, there was nothing to do but wait and try to face the elephant in the room.
By all rights, Rupert Rawling should be dead. His spine is snapped, and he spends his days wailing in absolute agony. Sometimes, when I’m staring at the ceiling in my bunk lost in dark thoughts, I can just about hear his pitiful screams, merged in with the creaks and groans of our broken ship. It almost feels like they’re sharing their pain. Robert and I take it in turns to feed him and hose him off once a day, not that he really eats anything. It’s as if he has nothing left between his almost translucent skin and his bones, he may as well be a living skeleton. We lock the door and spend the rest of the time hiding away from him, not talking about it.
The sun is still shining behind us as we slowly limp back to Earth, only not as brightly. It used to hurt my eyes looking at it through the specially tinted glass, but now I can make out detail and stare at it for hours.
“John, look. I think I can pretty much see the Earth now,” Robert says and points.
I walk over from the rear of the bridge and look out of the forward viewport. It’s still a small speck but larger and brighter than all the others.
“Oh yeah, it looks the same as before from this distance. At normal speed I’d guess we’d be about three days away.”
“Looking closer to a month now though, I’d say.” He stands up and stretches. He doesn’t look like the same person h
e was six months ago. His hair has grown, covering the intricate pattern of tattoos on his head with a thick blonde mane. Why I thought he was bald is anyone’s guess, probably just making myself feel better in a different time when I thought the man was an arsehole. He’s lost so much weight. Rather than the huge figure of a man he was, a tall, well-proportioned and slightly gangly man has taken his place. The stress has hit us in opposite ways. He’s stepped up to the task, and I’ve been compulsively eating and hiding away in total self-pity. If alcohol were allowed on the ship, I would have drunk myself to death by now.
“One month and we’ll finally see the extent of Rupert’s Forever Dark,” I say. Robert looks at me.
“I’m surprised at the lack of shipping, normally we’d have been in contact with other cargo haulers by now, sun or no sun.”
“Maybe they’re all dead. We’re all that’s left,” I say.
“Before we lost the signal from Earth, it seemed clear that there were mass evacuations. So, stop your depressing whining, there are people out there. We just have to find them,” Robert says wearily.
“Or they’ll find us.”
“Maybe,” he says and looks at his watch. “I think it’s your turn to feed and hose off our guest, John.”
I look at Robert and then towards the hatch.
“Hopefully he’ll have died in the night,” I say and start to make my way down the ladder. I climb down past the habitation deck and stop at the rec deck. I don’t like to spend time in here now. Only to get food and then head back to my quarters or to the wash room. Too many awful memories.
After a hunt through the dead crew’s quarters, we managed to find most of their food cards and have hung them up on the food dispenser so there’s pretty much no limit on what we can eat. I grab one of the six cards hanging on it and insert it in the slot. When it’s my turn to feed and hose him down, Rupert always gets the chicken fricassee. I really hope it still tastes like it’s been soaking in bleach.
