The Quiet Apocalypse

by Nick Cracknell

  In the back room behind the reception desk there was another computer, buzzing in standby, but it contained only digital records and order slips for the refectory. Again it didn’t seem to have any internet capability.

  A cupboard containing around 300 room keys had been hung on the wall above a coffee dispenser, and helpfully there was a key at the bottom marked ‘master’. I took it and put it in the pocket of my beach shorts.

  I returned to the refectory and grabbed a plate of food as I was starting to get very hungry. There were baskets of bread, obviously a couple of days old but still fresh enough to eat, and trays of baked beans and little pork sausages that hadn’t yet spoiled in the heat as it seemed the restaurant was climate controlled. There was also a liberal salad display with plenty of fresh tomatoes, cucumber, onions and some delicious green chili peppers steeped in vinegar. I stayed away from the meat which looked like pork in a cream sauce.

  To the immediate left of the entrance to the room there was a row of drinks dispensers. There was chilled apple and orange juice, Coke and Fanta, and four taps emerging from a fake wooden barrel that promised red and white wine, beer and sangria. The thought crossed my mind that I may have died and ended up in purgatory or even heaven. The temptation to pour myself a vat of white wine to wash down the food was great, but I resolved to remain clear headed at least for the afternoon as I was thinking about leaving the hotel to explore the surroundings.

  I walked around with my plate trying to decide where to sit, and the absurdity of the situation suddenly hit me again. What the hell did it matter where I sat? I plumped for a table in the middle of the room so I could see all exits and entrances equally.

  Afterwards I went into the kitchen which was decked out in stainless steel and seemed to have every appliance necessary to cook a buffet meal for up to 500 people. There was a huge walk-in freezer stacked high with cuts of meat, frozen vegetables and a larder full of frozen bread rolls. I figured if I did have to stay here for a while I would definitely not go hungry.

  On my way out I paused at the wine dispenser and thought ‘to hell with it’. My head was still thumping but I figured it couldn’t get any worse and I had a ready supply of drugs so I popped a couple more and poured a large white wine.

  I took myself over to beside the pool and sat down on a sun lounger. The silence was infective. There

  was not a single sound except the gentle lapping of the water. I finished my wine and again reflected on my situation. The sheer ludicrousness of it was mind boggling. The alcohol and the heat made me drowsy and I must have nodded off on the lounger.

  I wish I hadn’t.

  92%

  Alarm. Oh shit.

  The sound drilled through my skull as I awoke to a siren blaring in the twilight. The noise level was crashing considering the silence it had replaced. Utterly disorientated, I leapt up from the sun lounger and feverishly scanned the complex to see from where the sound was coming. As my eyes adjusted to the light level I noticed the phantom numbers flashing again in front of my line of vision, then dissipating almost immediately like a firework leaves its trace on your eyelids for a moment after exploding.

  92%...

  I didn’t have time to consider it as the alarm was shaking my bones. It was like a bloody World War II U-Boat siren or something. An enormous, piercing, prophetic AWOOOOOGA that must have been audible five miles away. My mind raced, then panicked, then went strangely calm as sometimes happens in situations of extremity when the mind takes over and keeps you sane.

  Apart from my initial desire to stop the sound I was also thinking, what if it drew something towards it? I still hadn’t been outside the hotel complex and so had no idea what was out there. For all I knew, hordes of flesh-hungry zombies could be shuffling with extreme ambition toward this awful night-splitting din. It seemed to be emanating from the rooftops as the sound dipped and ducked like an aural zephyr depending on where I ran. It was echoing off the walls of the apartments, bouncing between the square formation and had nowhere to go, which only served to amplify it. As I ran around experimentally trying to locate the source I noticed it seemed to be loudest as I approached the reception area. Scanning the roof, which was made up almost entirely of glass and shaped in a pyramid formation to allow maximum light penetration, my eyes hit upon two small speakers mounted on the side of the supporting strut that held up the glass sheeting.

  Bingo.

  I pushed through the entrance doors to the reception and searched frantically for the staircase that would allow me to ascend to the second storey, but I was damned if I could find it anywhere.

  The noise was becoming unbearable and I was convinced that if I wasn’t alone on this island I would soon know about it as who or whatever was out there flocked to investigate. Something inside me told me that I needed to cut the alarm pretty sharpish for that reason. But mostly for my own sanity.

  I was still in a state of shock at this point, clutching desperately at numerous straws that would provide some reasoning or explanation for what was happening to me. My head had started throbbing again and it was all I could do to stop myself from leaning over and vomiting all over a large ficus plant in the vestibule. Try as I might I could not see any stairs. The reception was two storeys in height but was open to the ceiling above. And that was made up of the enormous glass pyramid, so there was effectively no need to ascend in here.

  In other words I was going to have find a different way to get on the roof.

  I raced outside to the swimming pool area and located a pathway between two rows of the terraced apartments. At the end of the pathway was a short flight of stairs that led up to the second storey of apartments. I hiked on to the wall that led round the side of the apartment that I guessed joined on to the upper level of the reception area, and managed to grapple up on top of it. I have never been particularly good with heights and standing above the whole complex I felt light-headed as I looked down to the swimming pool area below. The noise was considerably louder up here. Standing on top of the wall I precariously inched my way towards the glass pyramid roof. There was no purchase so it was a pure balancing act on top of a wall the thickness of a breeze block. There was a light wind but luckily it wasn’t strong enough to affect my balance.

  Gradually I got closer, my back aimed at the fall behind me. If I dropped it would be 25 feet straight onto concrete tiles, a guaranteed broken leg or two and maybe even a broken back. The idea of spending the night in the dark unable to move and prone to whatever was heading my way did not fill me with anticipation.

  Shuffling sideways across the wall it took me about 90 seconds to make the 30 yards to the support strut that held up the pyramid roof and, more crucially, the alarm speakers.

  The sound was impenetrable at this point. I could barely concentrate on putting my feet where they needed to go, but eventually I reached out and grabbed hold of the steel strut. The speakers were, of course, about a foot beyond my longest stretch and I cursed myself as I realised I hadn’t even brought anything to hit them with. I laughed ironically as I realised I would have given every worldly possession to have a baseball bat in my hand right then. Stretching as hard as I could without losing my balance I was still about nine inches short of the speakers which were by now almost comically loud. The sound drilled into my brain and I felt my eyes blurring with pain. It shrieked and whined, a constant nasal pitch that cut through the air like a knife. I strained extra hard in my reach but it was no good. My options were either to turn back and try and locate something to bash the speakers with, or to climb up the steel strut with nothing between me and 25 feet of air but the plate glass on the pyramid.

  Shit.

  Then I noticed the power wire running into the top of the speakers. It was stapled down to the strut but there was a small loop where it left the support and ran into the top of the left hand speaker. If I could somehow hook my finger through that loop and tug hard enough I could maybe sever the connection and cut the alarm. That, however, was going
to involve a jump.

  Drawing a deep breath, I focused my eyes on the loop of wire, willing my fingers to go where they needed to go. As I crouched down to get some momentum for the leap the distance between my outstretched arm and the speakers got greater, so I took a second to re-adjust my aim.

  Then I jumped.

  My hip came down on the strut at the very second my index finger slipped through the loop of wire and tugged it from its housing, and for a second I was perfectly balanced. Then the wire came out. On the plus side the noise stopped instantly, and I was so grateful that for a split second I forgot my predicament. But because I had no longer got a grip on the wire my only point of contact was my right hip on a steel beam no more than six inches thick.

  Gravity took over as it had every right to do. My body weight pulled me over and I realised with horror that I was about to land on the plate glass of the roof on my back. The strut was only an inch or two proud of the glass and so the fall wasn’t far, more of a repositioning, but I gasped as my shoulders impacted on the glass sheeting, waiting for the crack and the weightless fall to the deck below that was sure to come.

  Somehow the glass held me. I guess I must have lost a bit more weight that I had expected. I was lying on my back 25 feet above the reception area, on a sheet of glass, somehow suspended. My mind whirled as I looked for a way to get myself out of this predicament. The gradient of the slide was just great enough to stop me from slipping.

  At first.

  But I was still dressed only in beach shorts with nothing on top. Normally the traction of the skin on my back might have been enough to stop me from sliding down the glass, but that didn’t account for the heat and the exertion that had caused some pretty severe sweating to occur in that area. I groaned in realisation as I began slipping down the glass towards the edge. My hands desperately grasped for some purchase, but all they found was the inch of steel strut that was proud of the glass. My grip wasn’t strong enough.

  In the silence that had returned since I’d disconnected the alarm my scream was all that could be heard as I slid off the roof and the ground rushed up to meet me.

  Then all I knew was blackness.

  90%

  The numbers came before consciousness.

  Dimly I was aware of the flashing as I lolled in the darkness. At first they were too blurry, as if I was viewing them through water, then a rush almost as if I had surfaced and a prick of light formed in the distance.

  90%

  It got closer and closer as I felt myself come around, blazing proudly in my line of sight, emblazoned upon the darkness that surrounded me. Then as always they faded away to ghostliness, leaving only the spectre of uncertainty that I had come to accept but not yet comprehend.

  The world was a blur but I could sense a rhythmic bleeping, pulse-like, in the distance. I could sense the heat presence of other people, the warm draught of a body close to mine, passing by it and disturbing the air pressure ever so slightly.

  I was aware of voices, maybe two males in low conversation and a higher pitched female in the background providing some sort of commentary. My body was numb; I couldn’t feel or control any of my limbs in the blackness. Only a constant, uncomfortable pressure existed on my chest, as if someone had laid a large flat stone on my sternum. I could breathe, but with every breath a dolorous pain rolled into my lungs and the pressure on my chest seemed to force the air out again as quickly as I could take it in.

  The throbbing in my head had rescinded to a dull ache now, and although I was definitely not fully conscious I seemed aware of all my other senses. A sharp smell lingered in the air, like the tang a dentist’s drill leaves after it has performed. It hung over another smell; a pleasant, clean odour like a room that has just been disinfected.

  I racked my brain for some semblance of logic that would clarify the situation. Was I alive or dead? Was I alone or in company? Was I awake or asleep? Nothing seemed to make sense in the blackness in which my head swam. Unseeing but aware. Unaware but feeling. Unfeeling but sensing. I sensed, therefore I was. That’s all I was. The world was a mixture of scents and sounds but no sights, fused together in mutual darkness.

  The voices seemed to grow louder, but at the same time they seemed farther away. I was drifting, rolling on some unknown surface towards consciousness and just as I thought I was about to break through and finally, deliciously, gain the knowledge I sought the world exploded again in a massive deluge of pain, my chest expanding as if fit to burst, and the light that grew from the pinprick at the back of my vision expanded in a split second to be all-encompassing.

  And then, once again in its beauty, I knew no more.

  86%

  I awoke again in darkness. But not the darkness of oblivion, that of night. Again the figures were already fading by the time I realised I was awake. This time an eight and a six succeeded by the percentage.

  Down to 86%, but what the heck did this mean?

  I was lying on my back, in the open air, looking at the stars above as they slowly disappeared. Gingerly I attempted to move and to my amazement I found I could sit up easily. There was no pain. Only the slight tang of the night cold on my bare skin. Even my head was relatively clear.

  Taking in my surroundings I felt an almost serene calm. I was lying at the foot of the steps leading up to the reception area of the hotel complex, exactly in the spot I would have expected to land after sliding off the glass roof.

  Had I been hallucinating when I heard the voices?

  Or was I stuck in some kind of sick nightmare?

  There was nobody around me, no voices within inches of my face as I had felt in my sleep. No pressure on my chest. No smell of disinfectant.

  I checked my body all over but could sense no broken bones or serious cuts, only the stiffness in my back where I had been lying on the concrete, obviously for a few hours as darkness had descended and only the sound of a light breeze and the rippling pool broke the interminable silence.

  I rose to my feet and stretched the stiffness from my back while looking above me at the ledge. I simply couldn’t believe I’d emerged from a fall like that unscathed. I checked myself all over once again to be sure, but not even a scratch. I remembered the fall, time passing almost in slow motion as I slipped off the glass sheeting and into mid-air. I hadn’t twisted around so I must have come down on my feet or at least my side rather than landing on my head. That sort of accounted for my lack of injury but not for my period of unconsciousness. I didn’t recall the impact so considered the possibility that I had fainted in fear or shock before I hit the ground. Unlikely, as I’ve never fainted before to my knowledge.

  It was inexplicable, but then so were my circumstances in Lanzarote.

  Then I remembered the alarm. Surely a noise like that must have attracted some attention? Seemingly not, as I remained alone and had obviously been out a good few hours now that night had fallen.

  I stood in the spot I had landed for a while, just thinking, trying to fathom some sense from it all but nothing came to me. My head seemed blank, like I had woken from a drunken, dreamless sleep with no cognitive thought for hours.

  I moved over to the edge of the pool and peered at my reflection in the water. The head wound was still there and my eyes were blurred and bloodshot, but I was still me. I splashed the cool water on my face and over my shoulders and back. It smelled clean, chlorine-scented. Part of me wanted to take a huge gulp and I realised I was still incredibly thirsty, so I headed into the refectory. The lights were all still blazing and the room was eerie in its emptiness. At the drinks machine I filled a plastic cup with ice cold drinking water and downed it in one gulp, then filled it again and moved around the room sipping slowly. The food was still there, still unspoiled, still temptingly warm from the residual heat of the day.

  Why hadn’t it gone off yet?

  Surely three days in the heat of Lanzarote, even in an air conditioned room, would cause food to start ripening? Yet there were no flies present. No ants or bug
s of any sort crawling over it. It remained as it had obviously been served, in long rows of stainless steel containers, tilted forward slightly to make apportioning more accessible for the diners as they selected their meal.

  I ripped apart a small baguette and dipped it in a bowl of creamy salad dressing. It tasted fantastic, so I tried the blue cheese dressing and the thousand island too. They were all as good as each other, and I spent a few minutes selecting various morsels and trying them out. It occurred to me in a moment of paranoia that they could be poisoned and I’d double over in agony and die within hours. But why would anyone have gone to the trouble of putting me here if they wanted me dead? The thought again occurred that I must have been entered in some scientific experiment to test the effects of solitude on the psyche. It just didn’t make sense so I figured what the hell and continued eating a very fine potato salad and some rabbit stew that tasted as good as any home cooked meal I’ve ever had.

  After my impromptu meal I felt the need for a drink, and pulled myself a huge cold tankard of beer from the drinks ‘barrel’ in the far corner. The beer was like the tonic I needed to shake myself into action, and after a refill I decided to head back to the reception area and locate the entrance to the complex, or what would actually be my exit.

  The reception area resolved itself into an exit in the shape of more glass, this time a vestibule in clear glass sheeting that had automatic sliding doors to the outside. I peered through and could clearly see a road running past the outside of the complex illuminated by streetlights. The road was populated by various parked cars along the sidewalks, utterly still in the night air. The glass exit doors would not open, even when I stood under the motion sensor and waved my arms about to try and jaunt them into action.