World's End

by D. B. Green

A huge red boulder smokes down from above. I dive around the Mini, knocking Amber off her feet. We roll away as the fiery rock slams into the car bonnet. The impact flips the Mini over onto its back, the smoking front-end flattened into a newly formed crater.

  The red-hot boulder sits in the middle of the crater, like a giant egg in a giant bird nest. The smell of burnt rubber and metal stings my eyes. It’s like being too close to a bonfire; the heat is intense.

  “Come on,” Emma shouts, struggling to support Dean on her own.

  I turn to Amber. “Get up.” My voice comes out harsh and snappy. I can’t help it. She runs over, checking the sky with every step. Her foot kicks at something on the ground. The journal.

  Shit.

  I must have dropped it when I dived across to save Amber. “Take the journal,” I say, thrusting it into her hands “I need to help Emma with Dean.”

  Amber.

  Everything makes sense now. Her mood swings. The change in character… What did that bitch, Shaw, do to her?

  More molten rocks rain down on the car park, like a hailstorm. If one of them hits us… “Come on.” I shout.

  We get to the safety of my van and lean against the side door as more rocks fizz overhead. Emma supports Dean while I get the keys.

  Shit.

  Luther had the keys in his jacket pocket. But I can’t get the jacket magic to work. He said you just empty your mind and focus on want. There’s too much shit going around my mind to do that.

  I grab Amber by the shoulders. She backs away like I’m going to hit her. “Get the van keys from Luther’s jacket?”

  She sniffs and then nods.

  Emma pulls her hand out of the jacket pocket. “There’s nothing in here,” she says.

  “It’s magic.”

  Emma looks at Dean. “Oh yes. I remember; it’s John Munro’s jacket.”

  Amber slips her hand inside the pocket. She closes her teary eyes. Her breathing slows, and she holds her breath. Then she pulls out her hand. The green hair from my lucky troll keyring sticks out between her fingers. She fumbles with the keys and then opens the side door.

  I help Emma lift Dean inside. We lay him down on the comfy back seat. The same seat he sat on just fifteen minutes ago when he looked about sixty years younger. Emma sits next to him. She places a hand on his forehead. “Have you got some water, Nicci? His temperature’s racing away. I need to cool him down.”

  I pass her a bottle of water from the fridge. A sudden chill runs over my skin and it’s not because of the cold water. “How do you know my name?”

  She rolls the bottle gently across Dean’s forehead. “When we kiss, our minds synchronize,” she says. “I know everything that’s happened to him and he knows everything that’s happened to me.”

  “Affinity,” I say.

  “Yes. Affinity connects us together.” She looks me in the eye. “And it briefly connects us to everyone else.” Her eyes flick to Amber as she closes the side door. “I could feel her guilt.” She turns to her. “Don’t worry, Amber. I’m not judging you. I totally understand why you did it.” Emma turns back to Dean and strokes the side of his face. “I would’ve done the same.”

  I close the van door, squeeze between the front seats, and sit down behind the steering wheel. The smell of Luther’s aftershave still lingers. Emma forgives Amber. Can I?

  Frick.

  I bang my hand down hard on the steering wheel. How could I be so stupid? The way she talked about Fiona — this world’s Fiona, like she was her real… mum. The signs were there, but I was just too preoccupied with getting out of here to see them. Amber was close to Fiona, even though she’s not known her for long. Fiona was her real mum’s nurse… until the end… then she grew close to Amber’s dad and married him a couple of years later. I guess that kind of experience bonded them all together in ways that I could never understand. But Fiona wasn’t her real mum; even Amelia and Owen weren’t Amber’s real parents — they adopted her when she was one.

  Frick.

  I bang the steering wheel again.

  Several stones pelt the concrete in front of the van, sinking into smoking craters. A small stone hits the van roof and rolls down the windscreen, leaving a melted trail down the glass. We’ve been lucky to escape the big ones — I doubt that luck will hold out much longer.

  “You better get moving,” Emma says, looking nervously out of the rear window.

  I follow her gaze. There’s nothing left of the car park near the path into the woods. The billboard is gone. The white fence is gone too — consumed in a wall of burning fire. Lucky for us that Luther always thinks — thought — of making a quick getaway. Exit strategies, he called them. He was always thinking.

  Poor Luther.

  I start the engine and drive out of the car park. I head into the bright sunshine, leaving the fiery darkness behind.

  “What happened to my clothes?” Emma asks, suddenly realizing she’s only got Luther’s jacket to cover her modesty

  I slam my foot down on the brake pedal. The van screeches to a stop. “You can’t remember?” I turn around. “You were dead, Emma… Shaw killed you, just like… Luther. Burning ash.” I nod at Dean. “He did something. There was this huge eruption, and then there you were. Stark naked, but alive again.”

  Her mouth drops open, and she stares at her hands. “I remember struggling with Andrea Shaw. It was like she was on fire. I was so hot, but I couldn’t let go. And then…” She pauses, shaking her head. “And then, he was running over.” She strokes Dean’s cheek. “Oh Dean, what have you done?”

  “How could he do magic if you were dead?” I ask, needing an answer to this niggling question racing through my mind. “I thought you needed to be together to do anything?”

  Emma shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says, turning back to Dean. “I just don’t know what he did.”

  A silver Mercedes swerves past us, heading in the opposite direction. The driver leaves his hand on the horn far too long. It speeds down the road, heading into the darkness. I turn and watch the car, but my anger at the driver washes away as the sky goes dark.

  A monstrous chunk of rock hurtles down into the road, like a smoking meteorite. It smashes into the Mercedes, causing a huge fireball. The driver had no chance.

  Frick.

  I take my foot off the brake and accelerate away. The wheels spin, complaining at the sudden burst of speed. I don’t care; anything to get away from the fire and ash. I drive towards the sunshine, leaving the fiery devastation behind.

  “Amber, give Emma some of Kathy’s spare clothes.”

  Kathy.

  Luther said everyone would live again. But he’s dead. Kathy and Eddie too. How can we restore the timeline now?

  Frick.

  I bang the steering wheel — again.

  I’ll have to go back in time — I’ll have to stop the assassin killing the royal family — I’ll be the one that gets trapped in the past to save the future.

  Frick. Frick. Frick.

  I watch in the rear-view mirror as Emma takes the rucksack from Amber. She pulls out a pair of Kathy’s jeans. I can’t help noticing how beautiful Emma is. Her photos didn’t do her justice at all. She’s gorgeous. I’m transfixed, following her every move. The beautiful contours of her body seem to glow as the bright sunshine hits them, calming my mind.

  Girls don’t look at other girls like that — you’re not normal — you need help.

  My mother’s voice flashes across my mind, like it always does at times like these. Thankfully, Amber bangs on my seat, snapping my mind back.

  Turning to look at her, I see the reason for the sudden panic — the ash cloud that covers the skyline behind us. It envelops the trees like a giant mouth biting down, with a wall of fire and rock licking the ground, like a huge demonic tongue.

  What do I do?

  “Can Dean still do magic?” I ask.

  “Not for a while,” Emma says. “He needs to recover.”

  Then it hits me.
“But how can Dean do magic?” I ask. “The Veil should have stopped him.”

  Emma strokes her hand gently across Dean’s cheek. “I don’t know; he’s always had a better rapport with... Affinity.” Her voice trails off. “Maybe that’s why.”

  Another question burns in my mind. “What is Affinity. I thought it was just a special kind of magic,” I say, glancing at the ash cloud in the rear-view mirror. “Not fricking end of the world magic.”

  Emma takes a deep breath. “Affinity connects us with every living thing on the planet; people, animals... Nature itself.”

  “So, let me get this straight… Em Kenobi. You’re saying that Affinity plugs you into the entire fricking planet?”

  I watch the tears stream down Emma’s face in the mirror. She nods her head and then strokes Dean’s cheek again — his old man’s cheek.

  More questions fire in my mind as I drive.

  “I thought you guys hit twenty-five and then stopped getting any older — lived forever?”

  Emma clenches her fist. “I wish that were true.”

  I better back off with the questions — I don’t want her going all Armageddon on us too.

  “Where are we going?” Emma asks, attempting to change the subject herself. She slips Luther’s jacket back on. “What’s your plan?”

  Luther.

  What would Luther do?

  “We’ll head back to London and regroup.” A low rumble comes from the road behind us. “That’s if this volcano thing doesn’t get us first,” I say, flicking on the radio.

  “Reports are coming in of several more eruptions. Nova Scotia, New Orleans, Paris.”

  Static buzzes and the radio goes silent.

  A tremor shakes the ground, sliding the back-end of the van across the road. I fight to regain control as the radio hisses back to life.

  “Sixteen now reported. Experts are calling these catastrophic eruptions super-volcanoes.”

  I check the mirror. We’re pulling away from the darkness.

  Shit.

  The roadblock.

  An MP stands in the road, holding out his hand for us to stop. “Hold on to something,” I shout, pressing the accelerator to the floor. The MP dives out of the way as I make a sharp left turn and head down the road to the freeway. Two MPs run out into the road behind us. “Duck,” I shout as a spray bullets thud into the rear doors.

  The gunfire stops. I watch in the mirror as the wall of fire engulfs the MPs. A dry retch rises in my throat.

  Another huge tremor lifts the back-end of the van clean off the road. Everything seems to move in slow motion; the van continues forward on just the front wheels. I try to reach around the seat to hold Amber, but I can’t find her with my fingers.

  We thud back down and the rear wheels burst. I steer the van into a bus lay-by and stop. I turn off the engine. Everything goes quiet, with just the sound of my heavy breathing filling my ears.

  Amber’s on her back, sprawled across the floor. “Are you okay?”

  She stands, but her eyes glow with twinkling Radiance. Emma’s eyes sparkle too. I twist the now fiery Sparklet of Kathy’s hair around my wrist. “The Veil must be down.” Another tremor rattles the van. The windscreen shatters, showering glass over the front seats.

  Dean coughs. “Door.” His voice is almost a whisper. “Open a Traverse to the bookshop. The Sanc—” He struggles to speak.

  “The Antiquarian,” I say.

  Emma frowns. “Why does he want to go there?”

  “I think he wants to get to the Sanctuary.”

  Emma gasps. “But you have to be—” She glances at Dean, blinking back tears. “Can Amber summon a doorway?”

  “A Traverse? No, she hasn’t done it before… You’ll have to do it.”

  “I can’t. I’ve never been to the Antiquarian.” She taps her head. “I need to visualize the location, to open a doorway — a Traverse.”

  “But if you’ve got Dean’s memories, you should remember it.”

  Emma shakes her head. “Something goes wrong with the sync around that place. I never got memories of the Antiquarian.”

  “Covent Garden,” Dean whispers, forcing out the words. “Go there.”

  Emma twists her engagement ring around on her finger. “Is it close enough?”

  “Yes… The Antiquarian is just around the corner.”

  Amber thrusts her tablet between us. Playing on the screen is a news broadcast of a volcano erupting, sending ash and lava into the air. People running, screaming… choking.

  “Is that Longstone Park?” I ask as a caption flashes on the screen.

  Live footage from Washington DC.

  “Jesus Christ. Washington!” I turn away from the harrowing footage. Eddie always said Affinity could be devastating magic.

  Emma pulls open the side door. I help her guide Dean outside. He’s drifting in and out of consciousness.

  “Have you got a door handle,” She asks. “I need one to open a Traverse.”

  I turn to Amber. “Did Luther have one in his pocket?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, then her eyes open wide and she points at the van door — the van door handle.

  I jump back into the van, lean over the back seat, and grab the baseball bat. “This should do it.” I climb back out and carefully position myself next to the passenger door. Swinging the bat over my head, I smash it down onto the door handle. Nothing. The handle stays put. Typical. Probably the only thing that isn’t falling apart on this thing. I swing the bat harder this time and, finally, the handle rips away from the door, leaving a rusty hole.

  I drop the bat and pick up the handle. “Will this do?”

  Emma nods, then glances up. The ash cloud fills the sky. It’s almost on top of us. Another tremor signals its approach. Amber helps me support Dean while Emma holds out the handle in front of her. Ash falls around us like heavy gray snow as the wind picks up. The sky is dark, as dark as night.

  Emma’s voice is low as she speaks fast, chanting “Covent Garden.” She stops her magical chant and pulls back her hand, letting go of the handle, but it stays hanging in the air, like it’s suspended on invisible wire. She glances back at me, her eyes sparkling with orange Radiance. “I did it.”

  “I’ve never seen a Traverse opened before,” I say, amazed at the sight.

  Emma reaches forward and turns the handle. A thin line of bright light shoots up from the grass, turning at a ninety-degree angle to form the outline of a door. As Emma pulls the handle, the trees and grass in front of her fold across, like they’re a page in a huge magazine.

  The bright light from Covent Garden Market shines through the Traverse, like a lighthouse on a foggy night.

  Impossible.

  Emma grabs Dean’s arm. “Come on.”

  The ash is now falling like a blizzard of dark snow. Coughing, we run through the open doorway into the upper level of Covent Garden market. People are running and screaming. The distant sound of an air raid siren echoes in the distance.

  “I can’t close it,” Emma shouts, panicking. She turns around. “Help me, please.”

  Amber rushes across to help Dean while I help Emma with the Traverse. I stare at my van on the other side — it rocks, attacked by another huge tremor. My poor van…

  Suddenly, it explodes, sending a shockwave of burning ash towards us. Turning my head from the heat, I grip the edge of the picture-like, folded surface of the shop in front of us and pull with all my strength. It feels just like I’m pulling on a solid, heavy door. Between us, we manage to close the Traverse, the impossible door finally folding back, like the missing piece of a jigsaw sliding into place. The handle drops to the floor on a bed of glowing ash at our feet.

  I bend down and pick up all that’s left of my pride and joy. “My poor van,” I whisper to myself.

  “This way!” Emma shouts, snapping my mind back. I run over to her and we support Dean, half-dragging him towards the stairs. Amber runs down in front, pushing people out of our way as the air raid
siren booms in the distance.

  Through the mass of people, I see a lone boy stood outside a shop. He can only be half Ambers age. Eight at most. He stares at a TV in the window. The screen shows a volcano spewing lava over everything — over people… then I lose sight of him through the sea of running legs.

  We run down the stairs and I try to block out the madness around us, but it’s difficult to numb my mind. The mental image of the lost boy watching the devastation unfold on the TV screen is something I will never forget.

  Finally, we reach the bottom of the stairs. The central piazza is like a shopping mall on the first day of a sale. People run in all directions, not caring who they push out of their way. Glass shatters, alarms sound. Absolute mayhem.

  “Which way?!” Emma shouts, looking lost.

  “Follow Amber!” I say.

  Amber takes the lead, heading for the exit doors. They’re smashed open — the glass panels next to them are smashed too. People swarm through the enlarged opening, not bothered about the jagged edges ripping at their clothes. We follow the swarm out and onto King Street.

  Dean’s getting heavier by the second. “Amber,” I shout. “You’re gonna have to help us with him.” She runs back over and helps support him from Emma’s side.

  No one follows us; everyone else seems to be heading in the opposite direction — like they know something we don’t.

  We reach the junction at the end of King Street. The camera on the Pizza shop across, swivels in our direction. I reach for my collar, but my blocker chip isn’t there. It probably fell off at Longstone Park. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

  We cross the road to New Row. This place was home to us for a brief, almost-happy year. Emma’s looking from side to side, like she’s lost. “Not far now,” I say.

  Several headline boards outside the newsagents topple over like dominoes as we shuffle past, the headlines burn into my mind.

  Magic Attacks

  The Country Gripped by Fear

  The Fall Curfew

  A balding man darts out of the coffee shop across from us. Fumbling with the keys, he manages to lock the door. He looks familiar — it’s the manager. He turns and stares at us, like we’ve walked in on him with the waitress again. Then, he runs off in the opposite direction, revealing a large poster stuck to the coffee shop door.