by Cross, Amy
“I deserve to go with them!” Lucy shouts, backing away toward the door. “These things are my children. I'm going to find Edward,” she continues, “and I'm going to make him listen to me. When he sees that I followed him in here, he'll realize that I've got what it takes. Maybe I always seemed a little passive to him before, and I know Edward doesn't like passive people. He likes people who are strong!”
As she takes another step back, a figure appears in the doorway behind her. It's the zombie, the same one that freed me earlier.
“He likes people who take charge!” Lucy hisses.
“Hey,” I reply, “you need to -”
“Don't tell me what I need to do!” she screams, aiming the gun straight at me. “I'm going to be on that rocket, and you're not, and that's all that matters! Your opinion isn't relevant!”
“But -”
“Shut up!” she shouts. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut -”
Suddenly the zombie bites her neck from behind, digging its teeth deep into her flesh. She screams and tries to pull around, but the zombie falls against her and knocks her to the ground. The gun slips from her hand and is sent spinning across the room, as Lucy tries desperately to push the creature away. She cries out again, as the zombie's teeth dig deeper and deeper into her neck, and I watch with a growing sense of horror as I hear a series of crunching sounds as her spine is crushed. Her eyes start bulging from their sockets as the zombie tears one side of her neck clean away, and then the creature reaches down and starts smashing her head against the ground as if it's trying to crack her skull open. All the time, Lucy is still letting out a series of faint, guttural groans, as if somehow she's clinging to life.
Martha steps toward them, and I see that she's picked up the gun. Then, before I have a chance to say anything, she fires, blasting Lucy's head open and sending blood splattering across the floor.
The zombie immediately starts reaching down to eat what's left of her brain.
“Aren't you going to shoot that thing too?” I stammer.
“No,” Martha replies airily, lowering the gun. “So far, it's not really pissing me off.”
I take a few cautious steps forward, but I'm filled with an instinctive urge to destroy the zombie.
“It pretty much saved your life, didn't it?” Martha reminds me.
“Sure, but -”
“Then let's not be too hasty,” she continues, watching the creature with almost reverential awe. “I swear, it's as if there's some brain function left in that thing. It almost makes me wonder whether...”
“Whether what?” I ask after a moment.
“Whether there was still some part of Andrew left at the end,” she adds, with tears in her eyes. “What if he watched as I killed him? What if he was pleading with me not to pull the trigger, and I did it anyway?”
“Let's just get out of here,” I tell her, unable to stop watching as the zombie keeps feasting on the remains of Lucy's brain. “There'll be time to figure things out once we've escaped, but until then we need to keep moving.”
She mutters something under her breath, but then she follows me as I make my way around the zombie and out of the room. Just as we're about to head along the corridor, however, I glance over my shoulder and see that the creature's still eating. With any luck, this is going to be the last zombie I ever encounter in my life.
Chapter Five
Elizabeth
“Arrangement?” I stammer, taking a step back as Maxwell Carver comes toward me. “What arrangement?”
“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Carver continues, turning to Dad, “perhaps I didn't give you long enough to talk to your daughter. Would you like me to head out for a while longer so you can give her the good news?”
“What are you doing here?” I shout at him, before hurrying over to Dad and grabbing his arm again. “We need to leave! Now! Whatever this asshole wants, let's just ignore him!”
“I'm sorry,” Dad says softly, “but that's not how this is going to work.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I've been talking to Max, and we've agreed that we have some... common interests.”
“Common interests?” I wait for him to continue, but slowly I'm starting to realize exactly what he means. “Dad,” I say cautiously, “have you made a deal with Maxwell Carver?”
“Forgive me, Elizabeth,” he replies. “Everything I'm doing now is in your best interests.”
Turning, I see that Carver is watching us with a big grin on his face. He looks very pleased with himself, and that makes me worry even more as the shuddering sound continues to shake the entire facility. I want to ask them both what they're up to, but at the same time I'm terrified of the possible answers.
“There's no need to look so apprehensive,” Carver tells me. “You're being given the chance of a lifetime, Elizabeth. A vacancy has arisen, or is about to arise, and you've turned up at precisely the right moment. All the madness of the past year has delivered you to this moment, and now your father has found a way to save you. Isn't that delightful?”
“Elizabeth,” Dad says, “you need to be rational and logical about this, rather than emotional.”
I look back over at him.
“I thought you were going to get us out of here,” I reply. “I thought you were going to save us all, but you just scuttled off to find Carver and cut some kind of deal!”
“I can't save everyone,” he says firmly. “I can't even save myself, but I can save you!”
“I don't want you to save me,” I tell him, “not if -”
Suddenly I feel a rush of hunger in my mind, and I freeze as I realize that I'm picking up on more of Joseph's thoughts. It's as if he's feeding on something, although the sensation quickly passes. I take a moment to try to get my composure back, and then I realize that I'm feeling a little dizzy.
“Elizabeth?” Dad says, coming toward me. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” I lie, before turning as I realize that Carver is also approaching. It's as if I'm being slowly trapped in a pincer movement.
“No, you're not,” Dad continues. “It was as if you were zoning out there for a moment. Elizabeth, if something's wrong, you need to tell me.”
“Nothing's wrong!”
“You heard her,” Carver says calmly. “John, you have to learn to trust your daughter. She's old enough now to make her own decisions, and if she says that she's fine, then you must take her at her word. Stop trying to make her decisions for her.”
“I know how to look after my kids,” Dad tells him.
“I'm not sure the other one would agree,” Carver says. “What was his name again? Hank? Hunter? Ah, I remember... Henry.”
“Leave him out of this!” Dad sneers, stepping toward him. “You don't know what you're talking about!”
“He's right, though,” I say suddenly, surprising myself a little.
Dad turns to me, clearly shocked.
“I mean, he is,” I continue. I know this is cruel of me, but at the same time I want to knock Dad down a peg or two. “Henry and I had to fight for ourselves when all of this started. We were trapped in the apartment building, we almost died every single day. Henry did die. I'm not saying that was your fault, but... you weren't there to save him, either.”
As soon as those words have left my lips, I regret saying them, but I can't apologize. Besides, everything I said is true, even if it was also unkind. Dad keeps lying to me, and acting as if he knows best, and every time he ends up making things worse. I thought that he was finally going to be honest, but I guess I was wrong.
“Let me talk to Elizabeth alone,” Carver says after a moment, before placing a hand on my shoulder. “If we remove the family element, I'm confident that Elizabeth will make the right decision once she's been given all the information.”
***
“Another planet?” I whisper, staring at the screen. “You can't be serious.”
“On the contrary,” Carver replies, “I'm deadly serious. Or do you think t
hat everything around you is somehow lacking ambition?”
“No, of course not, but...” I turn to him, and I'm starting to think that he means every word he's just said to me. “There aren't any other planets,” I continue. “I mean, not ones that humans can live on. And not ones that we can reach.” I wait for an answer. “Are there?”
“Of course there are,” he replies. “Thousands of them, millions even. That's not controversial science, Elizabeth, it's established fact. And thanks to our research, we've identified several planets that we believe we can reach within five hundred years, using the technology that we've developed.”
I stare at him, trying to get my head around these insane ideas, and then I start shaking my head.
“None of what I've told you is particularly new,” he continues, “but here comes the real science-fiction part. The old idea was to build so-called 'generation ships', in which it would be the ancestors of the original crew who would eventually arrive at their destination. The idea was feasible, but it was soon supplanted in our minds by another, more ambitious possibility. What if the original crew could still be alive at the end of the journey, four or five centuries later?”
“That's not possible,” I point out.
“Not without a little help,” he says with a faint smile. “Elizabeth, we call our ship the Atherius, and it's designed to carry everything that's required for the human race to flourish on a new world. There's also room for two human pilots, who would assist in the deployment of the seeds once the ship reaches its destination. Originally, those two places were going to be auctioned off to the highest bidders, but eventually we decided to cancel that plan. Until today, Madeleine Crozier and I were going to be the lucky two who would accompany the last remnants of humanity into the stars, but your father and I have come to an agreement.”
He pauses, before stepping closer to me.
“Now it's you who will be on the ship,” he adds. “With me, of course.”
I start shaking my head, unable to believe any of this.
“You're a better candidate all round,” he continues. “Your father didn't have to do too much persuading at all. I've already made arrangements to lock Madeleine out of the core command area, so the matter's settled. And in return, he's going to help make sure that there are no last-minute hitches. It's a win-win situation and, frankly, I think he should be in the running for Father of the Year.”
“I'm not going anywhere,” I tell him. “I'm not giving up, we're going to rebuild the world!”
“You were in Manhattan for a while recently, weren't you?” he replies. “How did the rebuilding go there? As far as I'm aware, the city is not completely flattened.”
“It was,” I tell him. “There's nothing left.”
“I see.” He pauses. “Oh well.”
“New York is -”
“There'll always be excuses,” he says, turning to one of the monitors and tapping to bring up an image on the screen. “Zombies. Wars. Plagues. Famines. This world is done for, Elizabeth Marter, and so is anyone who stays here. If you don't believe me, then allow me to demonstrate. This is a feed from our satellite, captured just last week. I think you'll finally see that we have to abandon our home planet.”
I open my mouth to tell him that he's wrong, but then the screen flickers and I see a shot of the world from high above. I've seen images like this before, of course, but this time something's horribly wrong. There are vast blackened smudges covering whole countries, while in other area there seem to be huge fires that stretch across continents. Even the sea is darkened in places, and the whole picture is so awful that I quickly tell myself that it can't possibly be real. The world can't be in such a terrible state.
“Nuclear facilities have been destroyed, setting off chains reactions on a massive scale,” Carver explains. “Many satellites have crashed, hitting cities. Wars have broken out among the very few survivors. Now tell me, Elizabeth... do you still think the world can be saved?”
Chapter Six
Thomas
“Elizabeth should have been back by now,” I tell Martha, as we walk along what must be the ten-millionth corridor we've seen so far today. “Something's wrong, I can feel it in my -”
“Quiet!” she hisses, putting a hand out to stop me.
Before I have a chance to ask her what's wrong, I realize I can hear a voice in the distance. Someone's muttering angrily, accompanied by a series of loud, regular beeping sounds. I turn to Martha and see the concern in her eyes, and then I listen as the voice up ahead gets louder and angrier. The craziest thing is that I think I recognize the voice, and after a moment I turn to Martha again.
“That's -”
“It's Maddy Crozier,” she says, completing the sentence for me, “and she doesn't sound very happy. Certainly not like someone who just got everything she wanted.”
We listen for a moment longer, and then we start making our way along the corridor. Maddy sounds completely furious, and I watch as Martha slowly raises the gun that she acquired from Lucy.
“You're not going to shoot her, are you?” I whisper.
“Not unless I have to,” she replies. “Or I want to. We'll see.”
Edging closer to the door at the corridor's far end, I realize that Maddy now seems to be attacking something. Sure enough, a moment later I look through and see that she's using a chair in an attempt to smash a panel next to a sealed door, and her efforts are becoming more and more frantic. She's muttering something angrily under her breath, and so far she seems completely unaware that we've arrived. I look at Martha again, and then I watch as she takes a step forward. I guess, at least with the gun, we should fare a little better than the last time we encountered Maddy.
“Come on, you bastard!” Maddy yells, and this time the chair's legs break off. She tosses them aside, but she still doesn't notice us as she sets about trying to pull the panel away from the wall.
I look at Martha again.
She turns to me, and then she shrugs before looking back over at Maddy.
“You think you can lock me out of the core, do you?” Maddy continues furiously. “What's going on, Max, did you get a better offer? Or did you decide to take the trip alone?”
“Hey,” Martha says, “what -”
“Back off!” Maddy screams, turning to us for a moment before getting back to the task of trying to destroy the panel. “Do you have any idea how completely irrelevant you two are right now? I literally couldn't give a damn about the fact that you're still alive. All that matters is that I get through here and figure out what's wrong with Max!”
She slams her fist against the panel, and then she lets out a gasp of pain as she takes a step back. Examining her hand, she seems to be in some degree of pain, and after a moment she starts flexing her fingers as if she's worried that they might not work properly.
“He's actually trying to lock me out,” she stammers finally, as if she can't quite believe what's happening. “Shows what he knows. Obviously it hasn't occurred to him that I can enter the rocket's lower section and head up through the maintenance hatches. I'll be in the launch module before he is, and then I'll make him realize that he's made a massive mistake!”
“You're like a goddamn yo-yo,” Martha replies. “Do you wanna slow down for a moment and tell us what you're talking about?”
“Not particularly,” Maddy mutters, before turning and storming over to us. “Give me that gun.”
“Excuse me?” Martha replies.
Reaching out, Maddy tries to grab the gun, but Martha pulls away. Maddy tries again, and this time Martha pushes her back with a firm shove.
“Fine,” Maddy continues through gritted teeth, “I don't need your help anyway. Just keep out of my way.” With that, she storms out of the room, leaving me standing alone with Martha.
“She's nice,” I say with a sigh.
“What did she mean,” Martha replies, “when she said that she was being locked out of the core?”
“Maybe that's why Eli
zabeth hasn't come back,” I suggest. “Her father must have taken her into the central part of this place, and now for some reason they're trapped there.”
“Okay, I'm making an executive decision,” Martha says. “Your buddy's gone, this place is rumbling louder and louder, and I feel like we're spinning our wheels here. We already ran into that crazy Hoyle woman, not to mention a zombie, and now Maddy Crozier's been added to the mix for good measure. Thomas, we know how to get out of here, so let's do it. Now!”
“But Elizabeth -”
“She can take care of herself,” she continues, cutting me off. “Would she want you to go running into danger, if there was even the slightest chance that you could escape? Not if she's any kind of friend, so come on.” She steps toward the door, and then she hesitates as if she's waiting for me to go with her. “Thomas, this isn't the time for grand gestures! This is the time for getting the hell out of this place! That was the original plan, remember?”
“We can't leave her here.”
“She's nothing to us!”
“I won't leave her here,” I reply, stepping past her and heading out into the corridor. I can still see Maddy, storming away in the distance. “She said something about getting into the main section via the rocket, right? If we follow her, we can do that as well. It's better than blundering around in the dark and just ending up going along endless corridors.”
“We'll only end up getting ourselves killed.”
“I'm not leaving another person behind,” I say, before setting off after Maddy. “I've done that too many times already over the past year, but today is when it stops.”
“So you're willing to risk both our lives just for some girl you barely even know?”
“You can wait for me here,” I reply, “or outside. Wherever. Something bad must have happened to Elizabeth, and I'm not going to leave if there's a chance I can help her.”
“Thomas, don't be an idiot!”
Grabbing my arm, she pulls me back, forcing me to stop for a moment.