He’d never mentioned this. But now, for the first time, he almost did. Perhaps the older man was using this sarcastic façade to mask a deep, secret disappointment at the fate of his Church. A bitterness brought on by climbing the ranks of the Church of Rome only to see it crumble.
Paul cleared his throat. “You don’t mean that, Claudio.”
The other man chuckled.
“Padre,” Paul continued. “I too fear the spread of atheism and disbelief. It was strong before the impact, and I fear it has only gained power since. But, as I’m sure you know, our duty towards Christ is to do our honest best to spread his Word, especially in dark times such as these.”
Father Claudio raised his clear, blue eyes upon him. There was no trace of irony or sarcasm. (Pity, perhaps? Paul wondered.) He looked at Paul like a loving parent would his child.
“My good, young friend, it is not atheism you should fear. Atheism is none other than an unconscious praise of the Lord’s creation. No…” he stood and moved towards the window, setting his gaze on the same grim view Paul had contemplated just minutes earlier.
What he said next sent shivers down Paul’s spine.
“The meteorites,” he said, “have cast a long, dark shadow upon the Earth, Pablo. And now that our God appears to have abandoned us, new, sinister, and unknown gods are creeping out of that shadow, my dear friend.”
Claudio turned towards him.
“It is them you must fear.”
Chapter 3
Walscombe
“Shit!”
Dr. James Walscombe, PhD, was late. Again.
“Shitshitshitshit,” he said to himself, as he hurried along the underground corridors of top-secret US military facility, Atlantis.
It was the second time in a row. This was not good.
As he ran, rushing through the endless blast hatches, hysterically cursing the obtuse retina scanners and virtual-DNA samplers that seemed entirely dedicated to making him even later, he hoped he wouldn’t bump into any of the other survivors. Given their numbers – the personnel currently operating within Atlantis amounted to a grand total of three – and the size of this place, it was highly unlikely. But Jeff and Don seemed always to know exactly when it was the wrong time to start bugging him about something or other.
The eeriness of the vast, empty passages was lost on Walscombe. A man running through this abandoned high-tech structure, 132 metres below sea level, might have struck others as surreal. But not him. He’d been here for almost two years. Even before Colossus and its two little buddies had made their disastrous entrance.
He was almost there. He could see his room, just twenty feet away. And, beyond its open door, the computer screen. The final stretch –
Bzzzz, his compad sounded.
Damn.
Walscombe drew the pesky little device out of his pocket. A man’s face filled the screen. Large moustache, eyes filled with what he called ‘military idiocy’ – a mix of unquestioned patriotism and stiffness in thought – and a bald head concealed by a uniform side cap.
Major Donald White. Aka Don.
Walscombe hesitated. Technically speaking, this man was his superior and if he was calling, Walscombe was required to answer.
Realistically speaking on the other hand… well, there was no one here to arrest him if he refused to obey orders. He never had, by the way, even after they were the only three men left inside the base. He’d respected the hierarchy, even when it appeared pointless to do so. So, all things considered…
Bzzzzz
“Damn!” Walscombe desperately ran his fingers through his overgrown, messy hair, incapable of making a decision.
That’s when he saw the chat window pop up on the monitor in his room.
“Fuck you, Major,” he said and tapped the MUTE icon on the compad. He’d deal with Don later.
He had other things on his mind right now.
* * *
Atlantis had officially been constructed as a storage installation for the ever-increasing IT requirements of the US Government. Most had believed it was yet another secret NSA station, albeit a minor one, filled with servers and mass-storage devices holding the personal information of private citizens the world over. To reinforce this belief, the higher echelons within the administration had leaked documents suggesting this theory to WikiLeaks and a couple of influential and rather paranoid investigative journalists. The conspiracy theorists had bought it.
The truth was that, while the POTUS and other world leaders had been signing the so-called Future Rules for the International Execution of Nuclear Disarmament protocol (an ugly mouthful of a name, whose origin lay purely in the fact that it allowed heads of state to refer to it with the depressing acronym of FRIEND), and while pacifists celebrated this international display of good will, the US Government had other plans. Before the ink had dried on the protocol, the US had begun quietly amassing one third of its nuclear warheads underground, far from prying eyes.
Global destruction was to come under a very different guise, however.
* * *
The message on the screen read:
[email protected]> Greetings, Comrade.
Walscombe hurriedly closed the door behind him, making sure it was locked. Don might decide to pay him a surprise visit, and he most definitely did not want that to happen. He rushed to his seat at the desk, and quickly tapped his response.
[email protected]> Greetings to you. Apologies for my delay.
He then waited, fingers tapping on the desk. After a second, he reached beneath it and drew out a metal box, reverently placing it next to the keyboard.
The reply came in:
[email protected]> The struggle against imperialism requires your absolute commitment, my friend. I’m afraid I’m not able to tolerate this umpteenth delay.
Walscombe decided to weigh his words carefully.
[email protected]> I believe that might be rather unfair, Comrade. What, may I ask, are you planning on doing about it?
The cursor blinked hypnotically while the man on the other end of this communication entered his response.
It finally came:
[email protected]> The punishment accorded to you by the Supreme Soviet, whose decrees are endorsed and empowered by the will of the People, is as follows:
He stared at the screen, a hand now resting on the metal box.
[email protected]> … you will, once again, be annihilated at chess by Ivan Igorovic, hero of the proletariat and undefeated chess champion of the post-impact world.
Walscombe smiled. He flipped open the latches on the box, and got the chessboard out.
Chapter 4
Catherine
“It isn’t looking very good, is it, Cathy?”
Luke’s words were spoken through the gentle, almost naïve, smile that curved the corners of his cracked, scabby lips.
Catherine found it hard to lie. As a nurse, she thought a health professional’s bedside manner had little to do with concealing the truth.
“Could be worse, Luke,” she said. “But then again, it could be a hell of a lot better.” And indeed, it could have. The illness that was devouring him was ruthless. All sorts of opportunistic diseases were ravaging his body, and all she had to offer were very basic, symptomatic therapies that would only last until their medications ran out. Which, she feared, would be a handful of weeks from now, at best.
“May I…?” Luke nodded towards his tattered clothes, folded neatly beside him.
“Oh, sorry. Yes, of course, you can step off the examination table now, Luke,” she said, as she moved back. Luke’s skin was a mass of rashes, suppurative inflammations, and buboes from swollen glands. She couldn’t even begin to imagine his pain. She watched as he carefully slipped on his t-shirt and sweater, a slight compression of his swollen lips the only sign of his suffering.
For the millionth time that week, she wished at least one of the clinic’s doctors had survived. Here she was, single-handedly treating patients affected by th
e so-called Nero’s Affliction, with no research data, no statistical analysis, and no means of experimentation. She was a 26-year-old nurse, for crying out loud, not a luminary in some Oxbridge college. Yet when Nero’s Affliction had reached Bately, the locals had had no one else to turn to.
Luke stood, gangly and crooked, and drew a deep breath. Then, he smiled again.
“I really think the prayers are helping, Cathy. You should try, too.”
She nodded dryly, with what she hoped appeared to be a sincere smile. Religion was not quite her cup of tea.
“If it helps, keep doing it,” she said with a quick look at her watch. “The Council is meeting in fifteen minutes. Gotta go. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
“Of course, Cathy. Do widzenia.”
She grabbed her things, and left the clinic as Luke too prepared to leave.
“I’ll pray for you,” she heard him call out behind her.
Like that’s going to help, she thought.
* * *
Outside the wind was howling.
Catherine stepped out onto the pavement and quickly made her way up a deserted Castle Street.
Luke wasn’t her only problem. A steady trickle of infected was arriving in Bately, at a rate of about two or three a month. Besides them, there were the regular refugees. They had braved the North Sea, trying to escape the savage wasteland that Central and Eastern Europe had become, hoping to find food, safety, and medicine.
She and Lucy, her young assistant (who wasn’t even a nurse, but a first-year medical student), could hardly cope. Of course, the disease itself took the issue off their hands, eventually, but that was of little comfort. These refugees had refused to join the ruthless mobs of the sick, whose impending death had often turned into violent nihilists, roaming the lands under the idiotic name of meteorwraiths. These, on the other hand, were good people, who only wanted to live – and die – in peace.
And what about everyone else? She asked herself, absent-mindedly raising her scarf against the bitter wind. What about the ‘normal’ ill people? Is it morally sound to provide medicine to those who aren’t going to live, leaving fewer of them for the rest of us?
To create even more tension, most of the ‘wraiths in Bately were foreigners. Some of the local folk believed her duty lay with their own sick, not with these outsiders.
What the hell am I going to do?
“Ms. Abbott! Cathy!” a voice called.
She turned around, and saw Father Paul waving as he quickened his pace to catch up with her. He too was a member of the Council, and never missed a meeting.
“Hey, Paul.”
“How are things?”
“You know. The same.”
He nodded. She appreciated his quiet, polite ways. His understated demeanour concealed a sharp, alert mind, and she was always interested in listening to his point of view, during the meetings.
They walked along, two slightly hunched figures, braving their way across the ghostly, wind-battered streets of what had once been a happy little town. Her eyes went from her feet, rustling through piles of rotting leaves, to the bleak horizon beyond the outer limits of town. Everything was grey and brown.
They passed Bately Castle, standing impervious amongst its desolate surroundings, like the stately wreckage of not one, but innumerable past eras. The latest being their own – the one they both had grown up in, and which had ended with the arrival of the three rocks.
“Strange, isn’t it?” said Paul, as if guessing her thoughts. He too was looking towards the Norman construction, the wind wild in his hair. Then, as if he feared being dragged in too complex a river of thoughts, he asked, “Any news from the Guard?”
“We’ll soon find out,” she replied.
They’d reached the entrance of St. George’s Elementary, where the Council held its meetings ever since the town hall had been destroyed by vandals.
She was about to enter when she noticed Paul was distracted. She followed his gaze towards the opposite side of the road.
There, sitting in front of his house, sipping on a beer, was a bearded man in his fifties. A hunting rifle lay across his knees. He stared at them with cold, hostile eyes.
“Hello, Angus,” said Paul, raising a hand in the air.
The man didn’t reply. He just kept staring.
“We’ll have to do something about that, at some point, I’m afraid,” Paul whispered to Catherine.
Catherine sighed. Indeed they would.
They walked in.
Chapter 5
Angus
There they were. Those two cunts.
He saw them walking up the road, heading towards another one of their ridiculous meetings.
The nurse, wasting all the medicine on those infected Poles and Gyppos swarming in from all over the goddamn place, and the priest, selling his load of old bollocks to anyone stupid enough to buy it.
Fuck them.
They weren’t coming anywhere near his house. And, most of all, they weren’t going to take Toby from him. Ever.
Because that’s what they were after, wasn’t it? His son.
They thought he, Angus, wasn’t capable of taking care of him.
“Perhaps we could lend a hand,” the nurse had said, during her last visit. She had spoken through the door he had refused to open. “It must be rather difficult for you, all on your own. Angus?”
She had tried to make it sound nice, but what she really meant was, ‘you’re a drunk, you can’t look after your boy, and he’s better off with us.’
He rested one hand on the Remington Model 798 in his lap, and drank a big gulp of beer. Shite. He was down to his last few cases of the stuff. Then what?
They were looking at him now.
“Hello Angus,” the priest called out. Cowards. Standing there, not daring to approach him. He waited, studying their movements. After a few seconds, they walked into the school.
He looked around, at the empty homes, empty streets, empty skies. He felt a shiver. Peering down, he noticed he was only wearing a stained t-shirt and jeans. It was cold. Perhaps he should go inside and get a jacket. Maybe another beer.
Then the wailing began again.
* * *
He dragged himself up the creaky stairs, walking past the dull walls, where photographs of the life he’d lived before hung, covered in dust. Try as he might, he couldn’t avoid catching glimpses of those rectangular reminders of what had been. Sometimes, those glimpses hurt. On other days, they spoke of a past so different, so alien, they hardly caused any pain. Today, it hurt.
He and Hellen, not older than thirty, lying in the garden on a summer’s day. Hellen, in the kitchen, showing off a cake she’d baked. The three of them on a forgotten beach in Greece during a holiday, Hellen holding a caring hand in front of their son’s eyes, to protect them from the blazing sunlight. There was also a picture of the other boy, their nephew on her side. He lived in Switzerland. God knows what had happened to the poor kid, after the impact. But he couldn’t concern himself with that, too. He simply couldn’t.
He thought of a poem he’d once read. It often came to mind when walking past the pictures.
Oh when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And all around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
But fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain.
And miles around they’ll say that I
Am quite myself again.
Of course, it wasn’t the fancy that had passed, in their case. It was Hellen.
He swallowed.
Another cry came from upstairs. It was the guttural, inarticulate howl of someone suffering. It somehow seemed to rhyme, he thought, with what he felt inside. But those were the thoughts of a drunk.
It felt like he, too, was coated in dust.
* * *
The room was tidy. He had to keep it like that, not only for Toby, but because it represented a small island
of innocence inside his dull and pitiful house.
The boy was sitting up in his bed, covered in sweat, his thin limbs weakly beating the air around him as he cried. The pain had got worse in the last year or so, and there were no doctors around to help with his condition, one that he was born with. His blind eyes scanned the perpetual darkness he lived in, in search for his father.
Angus walked over to the bed and gently picked him up. Toby was 19 years old, but weighed just over 100 pounds.
He patted the boy’s back, cradling him as one would a toddler. The crying gradually died down.
“It’s okay darling,” he said, his voice broken, to his unfortunate son whose frowning face now lay against his shoulder.
He felt the tears rolling down his own eyes.
“It’s all okay.”
Chapter 6
Adrian and Alice
There once had been stars beyond the clouds.
Adrian wondered whether there were any left at all.
He stirred in his sleeping bag, Alice breathing quietly by his side. He didn’t want to wake her. They’d have to be on their way soon and he wanted her to enjoy a few more minutes of sleep before they left. Also – although admitting this made him feel uneasy – he liked looking at her while she slept. Not staring or anything, just occasionally taking a peek. Her face had no trace of the concern that haunted each and every one of their waking moments. The silent raising and falling of her chest, now oblivious to the threats that lurked around them at all times, spoke to him of a place of peace and happiness; hinting at the possibility that in a quiet corner of this broken continent they might one day carve out a place for themselves. A place to be together, safe.
Moving quietly, he reached out for the backpack that he’d tucked by his feet and drew a worn notebook out of it. A pencil was fitted inside the spiral binding. He removed it, flipped open the notebook, and began to nibble on the end of the pencil. Centred at the top of the page were five words: Things I missed out on
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