“She was hungry,” Walscombe commented as they both stared.
She looked up, crumbs clinging to her chin and said something. They couldn’t hear through the thick, bullet-proof glass, but the motion of her lips was clear.
Thank you.
It was the most heartfelt display of gratitude Walscombe had ever seen. And this despite the fact he could hardly bear the sight of those once-beautiful features now ravaged by the illness.
“Y-you’re welcome,” came Jeff’s hesitant reply.
Suddenly, Walscombe felt maybe there was a way for them to keep her here, perhaps to help her too. It would take some organising, sure, but they had all the time in the world, didn’t they? The spaces could be rearranged, allowing them to avoid exposure to the air she was breathing, while still providing her with food. Yes, he thought, it could be done.
An unfamiliar warmth crept through his limbs, as he watched this tired woman find food and respite. Jeff’s slight smile, worried though it was, was proof Jeff felt the same. They were helping her and – who would ever have guessed? – it felt good.
She finally stood, brushing away the crumbs from her hands, and looked at them. She must’ve suddenly felt self-conscious, because she immediately drew a hand over her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered.
“It’s okay,” said Jeff.
The woman frowned quizzically.
“She can’t hear you,” Walscombe said.
“Ah, yeah, right.” Raising his voice, Jeff shouted, “It’s… err… it’s okay, don’t worry!” He pointed at his own face, and shook his head, trying his best to smile.
She understood, and nodded slowly. Walscombe thought he saw a tear in her eye, but he couldn’t be sure. He just kept staring, surprised by how pleasant helping her felt.
“Hey, so,” he said, trying to think of their next move, “we should try and get her to the showers, so she can–”
The shot came as a muffled pop.
Later Walscombe would wonder whether he had heard it at all.
Blood exploded on the glass as a part of the woman’s head exploded. Tiny fragments of bone stuck to the pane, and slowly slid down along with the blood. For a second, they saw her face pressed against the glass, her skin oddly flat against it.
Then she gradually dropped to the ground, leaving a pink streak were her body slid down the glass, wiping the blood away with it.
“NOOOOOO!” Jeff howled. Walscombe was too shocked to utter a word or to move. He stood and watched, nothing else, as if free will had abandoned him entirely.
There was Don at the end of the corridor, his service pistol still raised in front of him.
Walscombe and Jeff watched in horror as he slowly lowered his arm and walked towards them. He was thankfully staring down at the woman. Walscombe didn’t think he could stand to gaze into those insane eyes at the moment.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!” Jeff screamed, punching the glass. His voice sounded surreal, as if echoing through an impossible maze somewhere beyond reality.
Walscombe watched Don approach the slumped figure on the ground. Don stopped to examine her. His face was almost indifferent. The insane Army Major turned her head over with the tip of his shoe (Walscombe couldn’t help but notice how shiny its leather was), then gave the body a slight kick. He grunted, as if satisfied.
Jeff was holding his face in his hands, incapable of looking at the gruesome tableau. Out of the corner of his eye, Walscombe noticed the desperate man’s shoulders go up and down while he cried.
On the other side of the glass, Don knelt down beside the dead body. He brought his index finger to his lips, kissing it. He then lay it on the woman’s forehead with absolute gentleness.
Walscombe observed in disbelief as Don suddenly stood up and peered at them. He didn’t react to Jeff’s tears and seemed only partly aware of Walscombe’s presence.
Don turned and marched back down the corridor. Once he’d reached the far end, where the passage broke off to the right, he swung around. This time, he was looking straight at them. His arm snapped upwards in an impeccable salute.
He held it there for what appeared to be a lifetime, then he turned and vanished once again, swallowed by Atlantis.
Walscombe turned to Jeff, who was leaning against the wall, incapable of standing on his own. He tried to find words of comfort, but he’d never been good at that sort of thing.
For the first time, he felt the pressure of the earth above him, weighing down on his shoulders like some sort of unspeakable misdeed.
He brought two fingers to each side of his head and pressed hard, eyes shut tight.
Whatever the future held for the men of Atlantis, it wasn’t looking good.
Chapter 24
A Night-Time Visit
“Goodnight,” whispered Paul as he turned out the light.
The children were sleeping in his room. Alice in his bed, while Adrian had volunteered to sleep on the floor, resting on a spare mattress Claudio had dug out of a forgotten storage closet. Paul would never forget the expressions on their faces when they entered the neat bedroom. Alice had given him another wonderful, joyful hug, jumping on the bed and burying her face in the soft pillows.
He had helped them arrange their things, silently observing Adrian’s meticulous preparations for bed. The young boy had ensured the shutters were properly locked, and placed extra care in positioning his mattress just so to prevent anyone from entering the room without alerting him. Paul also noticed the butcher’s knife that the child had secretively placed by the side of the bed, but said nothing.
It’s a sad world that has children so wary of the night, thought Paul.
As he left the room, Alice propped herself up on the pillows and called to him, “Father Paul?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“I just wanted to thank you. This is really lovely. I mean, really lovely. The bed and everything.”
On the floor beside her, Adrian bobbed his head in agreement.
He observed their features, partly concealed by the darkness, and thought, No, thank you. He smiled at them, waving a hand in the air and closed the door behind him.
Immediately, he heard the low murmur of their whispers as they took to speaking the way children do at night, with innocence and excitement and wonder, when the adults are away. He remembered doing the same once upon a time.
He shuffled off and entered the church. He wandered silently up and down the nave, repeatedly reaching the transept, then turning on his heels and heading backwards, his mind pleasantly void of thought.
But images of the man in the uniform slowly crept back. He recalled the feeling of his finger on the trigger, the desperate attempt to aim, the grotesque outcome of it all.
He shook his head, wishing those images could simply drop out and shatter on the floor by him doing so.
Paul looked up. There, above him, loomed the statue of Christ, his Saviour. He stopped and observed it carefully for the first time in weeks.
Tonight, that humble representation of the son of God seemed more human than divine. The scars, the tortured skin, the bleeding forehead, every inch of that body reflected the suffering that had flooded the world since the impact. It was no longer the Roman Empire inflicting the wounds on his human flesh. Now it was the meteorites. They had laid a bloody crown of thorns on humanity’s head with their arrival.
He knelt down and crossed himself. Tomorrow he’d confess his sins. But, for now, this private prostration with its wordless acknowledgement of both the horror of his attempted murder and the joy of having saved the children would do.
Paul finally stood, slightly bowing his forehead towards the cross. As sleep engulfed his mind, freeing him of the burden of reflection, he headed quietly towards Claudio’s room where he was to sleep on the sofa.
It’s been a very, very long day, he told himself.
The knocking began just as he stepped past the aisle towards the rectory.
Loud, deliberate thumps beating against
the creaky wood of the main entrance.
Paul hurriedly walked towards the door, fearing the loud noise might wake the children. Had there perhaps been an accident; an emergency of some sort? He was too tired to consider all the grim possibilities.
The knocking continued, growing in strength.
“I’m coming,” he said, trying to keep his voice down. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The cold air flooded in, wrapping around his body.
“Father!”
It was Luke, standing there on the doorstep, a wild, almost feverish excitement painted on his face. He grabbed Paul by the shoulders, his grip surprisingly strong.
“Luke,” uttered Paul in bewilderment. “What is it?”
The sick young man could hardly contain his joy. “Father, haven’t you heard? Haven’t they told you yet?”
“Told me what, Luke?” Paul suddenly felt awake and aware, shaken out of sleepiness by Luke’s intensity. “What are you talking about?”
The young man smiled, his eyes locking into Paul’s.
“The Affliction, Father, they’ve found a cure.”
Chapter 25
Someone Dark
Colossus. Europa. Nero.
Whoever the forgotten astronomer, journalist, or committee member who came up with the names, I commend him. They have a nice ring to them, don’t they?
Colossus, with its titanic stature, that spelled the end for the Americas. Europa, who devastated the civilization to whom she owed her name. And Nero, my personal favourite, with its pestilential load of obscure sickness striking deep inside the East. Of course, this is all fanciful simplification. The deadly guest that travelled along with Nero was present on the other rocks too, although to a lesser degree.
Colossus. Europa. Nero.
Death. Destruction. Disease.
A giant, a Greek goddess, and a psychotic emperor. Sometimes, before falling asleep or in the lazier hours of the afternoon, I let my mind drift and consider the wondrous and unreliable thoughts inspired by their names. I follow their paths, often ending up with confused images, sketches of unfounded theories, and a strange sense of fear and awe before the overpowering might of Nature.
The goddess, Europa, Zeus’s beloved, inexorably entwined with Greece’s lore and culture – the same culture that once was the heart of the West – now returning to reduce that civilization to cinders. And Nero’s Affliction, spreading like the fire the ancient Roman emperor was said to have unleashed upon his own people.
I can get lost in these thoughts.
But always I return to the image of the vast rock they were once united in, travelling through the utter silence of the expanses of space. This mindless conglomerate of the most basic matter of nature, this idiotic tangle of atoms and vacuum, blindly drifting along its orbit. Here, I find none of the virtues or sins all the merciless destroyers among humans are endowed with – no cunning, sophistication, or higher moral calling. No trace of intelligence to balance its physical grandeur. Just a big rock, floating ever closer to the coming collision, to its resting place here on Earth.
This world of ours – the one I shall one day rule – with all its history and glory, brought to its knees by virtue of basic laws of motion and attraction. Nothing more.
Except, there is more.
Humans called the Sun ‘god’ in the infancy of our civilization. We believed eclipses and comets carried with them the stark warnings of ill fate. Earth, the planet we inhabit, was our Mother. Somewhere deep inside the human consciousness there is a need to explain the physical world, to draw myth from maths, fantasy from physics. This is not, I believe, due to a naïve world view or inadequate scientific understanding. If this were the case, we’d have been done with religion decades, if not centuries, ago. No. The shortcomings of our faiths do not lie within them being incompatible with modern science.
Religion, with its romantic tales of divinity and humanity, will die – indeed already is dying – simply because it doesn’t have a story that fits post-impact Earth.
So, the Sun truly was a God. Comets did indeed spell misfortune. Human belief causes consequences, and it doesn’t matter whether those beliefs are grounded in fact or fiction. Belief in the intangible, be it a unicorn or a deity, exists because there are men and women willing to believe it does, and act accordingly.
There is a tale to these meteorites.
And it’s a tale I can tell.
And the people will listen.
END OF BOOK ONE
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Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed this first installment of IMPACT.
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Matthew
IMPACT (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Page 13