Apocalypse- Year Zero

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  She had her weekly sessions with Doctor Marsh to break the quiet monotony. They never went anywhere in their talks because Lucy had realised after about six months that she had no intention of ever getting out, but she still enjoyed the chats and the trips upstairs. She liked the colours.

  She’d been happy in the hospital. As happy as she could be anyway. Time blurred into one very long day and she allowed it to. Sometimes she relived whole days with Michael, none of the last ones, but the early ones when she’d been normal and they’d secretly believed that they would live forever.

  Other times she just lost herself in the white walls. She’d stare at them so long that patterns in the blankness would swirl and appear behind her eyes. She’d sit like that for hours, only coming to when a nurse or orderly broke her meditation for food or drugs. As existences went, she figured it could be worse.

  Things had begun to change though. Despite her best efforts to stay doped up and serene, something had started dragging her awake again, niggling and punching at her insides until she could no longer ignore it. She burst the surface of her consciousness with a gasp as if she’d been holding her breath slightly too long under water.

  She couldn’t sit still. Her zen had gone and she paced her small square room, bare feet padding on padding, brow furrowed. They upped her medication, but she felt her body flushing her system clean. They more they pumped in, the more she pumped out. The nurses and doctors peered through her small window and she pretended to sit still as her fingers drummed beside her out of sight. Something was happening. Something was coming, and she felt alive and immortal and dangerous.

  The Lucy inside was blending with the Lucy outside and that made them both happy. The time spent alone had reconciled their differences and the voice inside her head was now her own, just a little tougher and grittier than her own used to be. But then, times had changed, and so had she.

  * * *

  She woke night after night, sweating and shivering. The dreams didn’t terrify her so much this time round, but left her with an aching void inside and sharp disorienting pains in the back of her head. What was happening? Where was it happening?

  Images filled her sleeping hours.

  The bright head-dresses and costumes of Mardi Gras swirled round her, as she was swept up into the carnival dancers. The crowd crushed her and she looked left and right trying to get her bearings. The air was hot and heavy with the scent of strong Cajun spices. A float rolled by and she caught a glimpse of the dread-locked Jamaican sitting in his jeans on a throne made of paper mache. Four bronze angels stood around him and the tips of their wings burned with white fire. As she tried to fight her way through the crowd, he raised his leathery hand and waved. There was joint burning between his long fingers. His teeth flashed and his eyes sparkled. She thought he said something but she couldn’t hear it over the music and laughter of the carnival.

  ‘Wait!’ She shouted. ‘Come back!’

  Something tugged her hand and looking down she saw the little girl. Her toy had changed. This time it was a dead cat. She hugged it all the same. She smiled at Lucy but not from her sombre eyes. ‘I’ve nearly opened another one. Come and see! Come and see!’

  The crowd vanished. The catacombs echoed around her and her feet were hot in the sand.

  ‘The tears are coming again,’ the little girl whispered, as if sharing a secret. The third door was nearly open. Lucy glanced into the open cave next to where the girl’s fingers ripped at the skin. For a second she thought she saw Michael’s watch drifting in the black eternity beyond and her heart clenched. She turned away. That was done. Michael and the quarter of a million other souls were gone.

  There was a vague scent of hashish in the air, thick and sweet. The Jamaican was here somewhere and so were the other women. She could hear them running, but she wasn’t sure whether they were running to something or running away.

  She watched the little girl working with a vague sense of distance. When she’d broken that seal something terrible would happen. She knew that in the part of her soul that felt a thousand years old. But it wouldn’t be like last time. This wasn’t going to touch her personally. She gasped. A dark haired, warm- skinned woman, not so very different from the child beside her. She was angry and damaged and in NEED. The image came and went in the blink of an eye. The water bubbled in her veins and she crouched by the girl.

  ‘Where does this door go, honey? What happens when you open it?’

  The little girl's nose crinkled. ‘I can’t tell.’ She shrugged. ‘The tears come.’

  ‘Tears aren’t nice, are they? Why don’t you just leave the doors alone?’

  The girl’s fingers carried on working as if Lucy hadn’t even spoken.

  ‘Who’s making you open them anyway?’ she asked. ‘The Jamaican?’

  The little girl turned and looked at her quizzically. ‘You are. You all are. I have to wake you up.’

  Lucy sat back on the sand. Her head swam. Somewhere behind her, the Jamaican was laughing.

  ‘Do you see now?’ His voice filled her up until his earthy drawl made her eardrums scream. ‘Do you see?’

  She turned to face him. ‘Is it time?’ she whispered with a dread she didn’t understand.

  He shook his head, harder and harder as he laughed. His flying dusty dreadlocks created a wind that whipped through the catacombs until Lucy could barely stand, one hand covering her face to protect her eyes from the airborne red sand.

  ‘Oh yes, lady.’ His laughter and the wind stopped as quickly as they’d come. He pointed a finger at her, his black eyes deadly. ‘It’s time. But which dam will burst first, lady?' he whispered. 'The one inside you or the one from the inside?'

  * * *

  When she woke, she sat in the dark. Instead of trying to shake off the dream, she dived into it, ripping the images that lingered apart in order to try and salvage some meaning. There was no point in fighting anymore. Whatever was happening, she needed to face it head on. And anyway, she was curious. She felt fresh. The drugs weren’t working. Her brain was alert and awake and she could feel the other women. They needed her and she needed them. Three plus one made four, and four was the magic number. She looked at the walls as night turned into the gloom of a grey London morning. She had an idea it might rain for days.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Has something happened in New Orleans?’ she asked out of the blue.

  Dr Marsh’s pen stopped suddenly. To see the doctor shocked made Lucy smile slightly. Only slightly though. Shocking the doctor was small in the great scheme of things. The muddy taste was stronger in her mouth and damp patches formed on her starched trousers. It was three days since the last dream and her mind was clear. The question wasn’t really a question after all.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just a feeling.’

  The doctor’s pause was all the answer she needed. It was still raining outside and Lucy stood up and stretched. ‘I have to leave now.’

  Dr Marsh stared at her, and Lucy thought she would be really quite pretty if she took her glasses off.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible yet, Lucy. We haven’t finished treating you.’

  Lucy wandered over to the window, letting her own water drip silently stealthy onto the sill. ‘I have to find the others.’ The outside world was a grey haze as her fingers almost disappeared in moisture under the wood. The window opened a fraction at a time, moving upwards inch by inch.

  ‘Fire, air, earth.’ She spoke quietly, not really to the doctor or herself. ‘ They’re out there. I see them in my dreams. I think we have other names too. Older ones.’ She paused. ‘In Patmos they speak the patios. That’s what he said. But I don’t know the language yet.’

  She felt liquid forming at her hairline and knew it would only be a matter of minutes before it started running down her face.

  Dr Marsh stood and Lucy knew that she had pressed the small alarm buzzer under her desk. ‘You’re not making sense, Lucy.’ Her voice was hesi
tant. Lucy turned to face her. The other woman looked terrified. But then she’d probably never seen someone almost melting before her eyes.

  Lucy smiled. She hoped it was gentle. ‘We’re all awake now. I can feel them. I need to find them. I can’t control it on my own.’ Her clothes were heavy with water. It felt good. ‘It’s time.’

  On the far side of the lush, red carpet, the door opened and security rushed in. Dr Marsh turned to face them. ‘Thank God you’re fast. I think she’s ill. I think she…’ She turned back pointing at where Lucy had been standing.

  Lucy was gone, and rain lashed in through the open window. There was a long moment’s shocked silence before Dr Marsh finally whispered. ‘How did she get the windows unlocked?’

  When they looked down to the pavement so far below, hands over mouths, the street was clear, only thick raindrops crashing to the ground.

  WORMHOLES

  RHODI HAWK

  Chapter 1

  “Fleecey’s dyin.”

  Rook paused in wiping the towel over her hair. “What?” she called toward the living room even though she’d heard her sister plain as day.

  “Fleecey’s dyin,” Daryl repeated.

  “How you figure that? You a doctor of veterinary science now?”

  Rook rubbed the damp spots where her hair met her tee shirt and walked bare-legged into the living room, dropping the towel to the floor and stepping onto it for the pure sake of coolness. August meant no such thing as being “fresh from the shower.” The Westclox showed 5:39. Twenty-one minutes to finish dressing and get to work.

  The cat lay curled up like a boiled shrimp. Her fur was still white as ever, but her breathing sounded ragged and her tongue had fallen slack. Rook had known this was coming. Fleecey seemed to be getting older and more senile every day. Above the cat, Daryl sat with her dark hair spilling over bony shoulders. She looked like a normal kid when she sat like that.

  Daryl turned her face up toward her sister, her glasses reflecting the spinning fan blades. “She is dyin, ain’t she?”

  “Yeah, baby, I guess she is dyin.”

  Daryl stared a moment, then said in her drawn, flat monotone, “See? You can tell she’s dyin and you don’t need to be a doctor of veteran science.”

  Rook didn’t correct her misuse of the word. With Fleecey carrying on like that, it was going to be near impossible to get Daryl to the sitter’s.

  “You gotta give her the breath,” Daryl said.

  “What? No, I can’t.”

  “You can, too. Fleecey needs it or she’s gonna die.”

  Rook said, “You can’t just do mouth-to-mouth on a dying cat.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, Fleecey’s still breathing on her own. For another, she’s gonna die anyway.”

  But her voice actually caught on those last two words. After all, Fleecey had been with them through the worst of it. Rook leaned over and pet her with a long, careful sweep, and with the slow movement she saw the tremor in her own fingers. Fleece lifted her head and looked at her, and then returned to the same position.

  Rook’s hand went to her throat.

  Amazing how, with three electric fans blowing, the room still seemed airless. The most powerful fan was the old black metal one they’d had since the days of Mom and Dad. That one blew like hell, with Daryl’s goldfish windsock latched on trying to gobble up all the cool for itself. The fan and the fish and the Westclox that now read 5:41 stood high atop the antique Coke machine, which was so unsteady, if you tried to open the door it liked to jump forward and eat you. The trick was you had to keep scotch tape on the latch and then it was fine. Inside were a bunch of CDs they no longer had to get at because they’d loaded all the music onto their MP3 players. So the door stayed shut and the machine stayed up. They kept it because Dad used to think it was cool-looking, and also it served as the tallest piece of furniture in the room—good for getting a fan up nice and high. They had a fourth fan that didn’t work.

  “Need to take her to a real doctor then,” Daryl said.

  “No, baby, you know we can’t afford it. Best we can do is make her comfortable. And you need to get ready because I gotta go to work.”

  “Not leaving Fleecey.”

  “You have to.”

  “Won’t leave her here.”

  “Oh yes you—”

  Rook felt a tickle and looked down to see a bead of sweat drawing its way down between her breasts. Her tee shirt was near sopping. “Shit.”

  She pulled the sweaty shirt over her head and draped it over the fourth fan, the dead one. A weird streamlined focus in getting down to her skivvies. 5:42. She needed to hurry, positively couldn’t be late again due to yet another last-minute crisis. Because there was always a crisis. In the three-odd years since their parents died there was always, always, always a crisis.

  Rook refused to allow herself any sadness for Fleecey. That was a luxury she literally couldn’t afford.

  She turned and stepped quickly to the bathroom. If she was late again today she was liable to get herself fired, and then one of two things was going to happen. They’d either lose the house, or Rook would have to quit school and work full time to keep things going. Both put her at risk for losing custody. If it weren’t for Ingrid, she’d have lost custody a long time ago and Daryl would have got put in some random home. Ingrid was more than her girlfriend. She’d once been her social worker. Ingrid was a kick-ass social worker but kind of a lousy girlfriend, which is probably why Rook had so many other lovers.

  No, that wasn’t really why. Rook slept around because, like her mom would have said, she was just the bad news living.

  The bathroom still smelled like steamed wood and strawberry shampoo. She picked up a cardboard box from the stool and turned out its contents, letting pill bottles pile up in the sink like a bowl of cereal, and then grabbed a dry towel from the hook on the door as she left.

  Back in the living room, two big black palmetto bugs darted behind the curtain. Funny they call them palmetto bugs. Whatever. They were roaches. Huge and crunchy if you had the nerve to smash them. She’d have to leave them be for now.

  “Here, we’ll make a nice quiet bed for her,” Rook said as she returned to Daryl’s side and folded the towel into the empty box.

  Carefully, gently, Rook lifted Fleecey and placed her in the box. Fleecey allowed her to do this without any fuss. Fleecey was good.

  “I can’t leave her,” Daryl said.

  “Oh yes you can, Daryl. I can’t let you stay here alone.”

  “No!” Daryl said, her voice rising.

  Already a flush was surging up Daryl’s neck. Antecedent, Ingrid would say. Like lighting a match.

  Daryl said, “If you won’t give her the breath then show me how to do it.”

  “Cut it out, Dar, I mean it.”

  Daryl was now in a full shout. “We have to stay here and bring her back to life!”

  “We can’t bring her back to life if she ain’t dead yet!”

  To this, Daryl flat-out screamed.

  Rook was drenched in sweat. The idea is to get her to self-monitor, Ingrid would say.

  “Listen to yourself, OK?” Rook pleaded. “You’re gonna need to calm down cuz Fleece needs peace and quiet! Don’t you want to do what’s best for Fleecey?”

  But Daryl kept on screaming and probably didn’t hear a single word.

  Rook took her by the shoulders. “Keep your voice down and get your goddamned homework!”

  “NO! NO! NO!”

  “We’re going!”

  “NO! NO! NO!”

  “Damn it, Daryl, we’re about to lose this house! We could lose everything! Just because you won’t shut up and get your homework!”

  Rook knew she was only making things worse. Ingrid always made it sound so easy. Truth was, Ingrid couldn’t really keep Daryl calm, either.

  Daryl was shrieking even louder. She thrashed and knocked some books and a burned-out jar candle off the shelves. They came avalanching
down, the glass from the candle cracking into pieces. Rook lunged to cover Daryl and Fleecey with her own body as the books kept coming. Fleecey barely moved but Daryl kicked and scratched and thrashed as though her insides had been swarmed by bees. Rook saw a flash of blood on her arm and didn’t know whether she’d been cut by the candle or Daryl’s fingernails. Then she saw Daryl’s arm was cut, too. She grabbed her wrist.

  “Stop! You’re going to—”

  Daryl’s leg kicked against Dad’s Coke machine, popping the scotch tape. The door flew open and then the whole thing groaned forward. It spat a stream of CDs onto Rook’s back. Then, atop it, the black fan tipped back. The goldfish windsock angled its tail upward and the eye looked down at the two sisters.

  Rook shoved Fleecey’s box out of the way and hurled herself over the still-kicking, thrashing, scratching Daryl, just as the Coke machine crashed down, wrenching Rook’s shoulder. She cried out. A second blast of pain in her face and she froze. Beneath her, Daryl had gone still, too.

  Chapter 2

  You’d think that if it came down to it, you could just muscle over a little kid and make her obey. That’s what they’d do if Daryl got sent off to a home. And they’d fill her up with pills to make it easier to keep a handle on her, just like Ingrid filled Rook up with pills, probably to keep her from sleeping around.

  But Rook couldn’t just muscle Daryl even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, actually, despite the fact that they were about to get thrown out on their butts. The best thing when Daryl got fixated was to let her have at it. Last week Dar had been seized with a sudden and inexplicable need to stare at wheels in motion, a compulsion so intense that she’d screamed the desire for it with enough volume to shatter crystal. And then she descended into nervous shakes and gnawed her nails until blood seeped out the sides. And so the two sisters rode around on the city bus for a good four hours just so Daryl could stare out the window. Never mind that it was a rare evening off, and for once Rook wasn’t going to have to forego sleep to study into the wee hours because she was trying to juggle work and school. And never mind the fact that they could have watched spinning wheels all day long from their own front porch as cars passed on Louisiana Avenue. That wasn’t good enough for Daryl - she had to be in a moving vehicle herself as she watched spinning wheels. So they’d crammed onto that smelly, sweaty, noisy bus, Rook balancing her pencil over the jostling chemistry books in an effort to study while Daryl stared at all the tires going by.