And then suddenly, it all sprang back into place, but now I could see the world of the present as well, one time superimposed over the top of the other. The room was pristine and destroyed, immaculate and filthy, gleaming white and dim and dark, all of it fusing together into a flickering, mind-bending mess.
Luke’s hands trembled against me. I could still see the doorway behind his back, but now the ragged outline of the tunnel’s mouth had reappeared alongside it. And there, barely visible in the glow of my abandoned torch, was the dark silhouette of someone moving.
‘Hurry!’ Luke cried, attention flitting back and forth between me and the tunnel. ‘Please! Whatever you – You have to let me in!’
The shadow in the tunnel scuttled closer. Light glimmered as the blade of Peter’s knife caught the torch beam. I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt like it was closing in on itself. The world began to break down again, my grip on the past slipping away, and all at once I understood what I had to do.
Luke was dead. If he was still in the present when Peter arrived, he’d be gutted right there where he stood. But if I could get him into the past, if I could give him somewhere to run …
Maybe this time it would be different.
Please! I begged, some deep, primal part of me crying out for help. Please, don’t let him die.
The bile rose up in my throat and I felt the ground start to give way underneath me, but I held on, focusing whatever strength I had left on keeping up the connection between the two timelines.
A furious wind rose up, rushing into my ears and under my skin. I felt myself splinter apart, my vision blurring as my body lost cohesion. Over Luke’s shoulder, I saw Peter shuffling closer, his dark form filling the tunnel now. Luke whirled around, letting go of me. He turned back, face drained of colour, wrapping me up in a frantic, desperate kiss.
I love you, he mouthed over the tornado spinning through my head. I tried to respond, but I was too far gone, pulled open and stretched apart.
Peter twisted around and dropped to the floor.
Luke cast a terrified glance over his shoulder.
Peter raised the knife high over his head, screaming something at Luke. Luke spun back to me, and I had to force myself to keep watching, keep the connection alive.
Don’t let him die. Please.
Luke ran straight at me, and I jumped back – or would have if my body was still capable of moving like that. I looked down at my stomach, caught a fleeting glimpse of him blurring into me, and then he was gone. Somewhere in transit between the blood-stained ruin and the gleaming laboratory.
But he wasn’t there yet. I couldn’t let go. Not until –
Peter cried out in fury, loud enough for me to hear even over everything else. He rolled back his shoulders, knuckles white on the handle of his knife, glaring into me with bulging, inhuman eyes.
‘NO!’ I screamed, throwing my hands out as if that was going to do anything. The whole world shuddered and roared around me, like it knew what was coming next.
Peter looked into me, looked through me, a hideous grin spreading across his face.
He lowered his head and charged.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2.17 A.M. 14 HOURS, 43 MINUTES
He was getting away. Straight through her and gone, just like Crazy Bill before.
Coward. Filthy cheating coward bastard!
I felt my fingers drumming on the knife. I knew what I had to do.
Straight through her and gone and kill the dirty bastard and then finally – finally – Jordan would be mine again.
She swirled, glowing and brilliant and hardly even Jordan anymore but still beautiful, still mine. I smiled at that. The thief was trying to escape, but she was holding the way open for me to go in there and kill him.
Kill the bastard and get back what’s yours.
I ran, straight in, straight through, into her body that was not her body, light everywhere, spinning all around me. I grabbed hard on my knife, rocketing through the big, bright silence.
And then there was a room again, still bright, but walls and floor and solid. I landed wrong, almost falling but not.
And I saw him.
DIRTY UGLY THIEF!
Everything else was gone. Everything but the rage, rage, rage, filling me up and showing me what I had to do.
RUN!
He tried to shake his head, to open his mouth and scream, but he was too slow. Stupid and ugly and slow. I swung my arm, up in the air and down in his chest. The knife was blunt but I was strong and now the scream came out, all wet and pathetic.
BLOODY COWARD! BLOODY WEAK STUPID TRAITOR!
I took back my knife, sticky and oozing. Back into his chest again, hitting the bone underneath, and again, breaking something open, and the blood poured out faster and faster. He coughed and fell down, taking my knife with him, still taking, even now.
I looked back at Jordan, still there, a shimmering perfect haze, ready to welcome me back to her. My chest swelled up with the thought of it. Time to go home.
The bastard screamed again. I crouched down, getting my knife back, cursing him as he kept trying to breathe. Shallow, slippery gasps, like a fish. I stood, disgusted with him, and then froze, my eyes flickering to the ceiling.
There was a camera up there. It had been watching me the whole time.
I looked away. Not important. Nothing was important except that he was gone and the world was right again. It was done. Finally, it was done.
I ran back into her, into the glorious, consuming light. Anger gone now. No sight, no sound. Nothing but surging, soaring joy. So furiously bright, so allconsuming, tearing me up and hurtling me along and tossing me over and over myself, over and over and –
Something was wrong.
Where was she? Where was the filthy room with the stains on the floor? The first trip had been nothing. Seconds. This was too long.
The brightness dimmed. Sound rose up in my ears. Transcendent light covered over by grey, roaring mess.
No. This was wrong. This was wrong.
Turbulence rattled through me, pummelling muscle and bone. I was screaming. Burning. Not fire, but something, curling around me, licking up my body and into my mouth and nose, consuming everything.
Then smack into the solid ground, everything bright again. I was back. Back in the shining laboratory, in a pool of the traitor’s blood. Still shaking.
The light was everywhere, cracking walls and shattering windows with a sound like an erupting volcano. Concrete and glass and dirt rained down from the ceiling. The whole world caving in on me.
And then it was gone.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2.21 A.M. 14 HOURS, 39 MINUTES
I saw it all.
I saw Peter charge out after Luke.
I saw his knife come down again and again.
I saw Luke cry out and fall to the ground, the life gurgling out of him.
I saw him drag himself across the room, streaking his own blood across the floor, out into the next room where he would spend his last breaths warning Kara about the end of the world.
I saw the whole thing play out exactly the way I’d seen it a thousand times over on Kara’s surveillance tape.
And then the whole world blacked out and I didn’t see anything.
I woke up, concrete hard against my back, and for one treacherous moment I was disoriented enough to blur the pain a little.
Then I opened my eyes and saw the dull brown stains spread out underneath me, lit up by the glow of my abandoned torch, and reality set back in like a battering ram. I felt my chest cave in, my lungs collapsing, my whole body giving way under an avalanche of crushing, nauseating grief.
A groan burst out of me, long and low and guttural. My arms wrapped around my stomach, shivers rattling through me, tossing me against the dirty ground. His blood was everywhere. Smeared out around me, soaking into the concrete.
I had to get out.
I was on my feet before I even knew it, desperate to be out of there. My legs failed me
and I hit the wall, hands crashing into the tunnel.
I started gagging. Not a vision. Just my body’s pointless attempt to purge itself. I rode it out, head down between my arms, and then half-climbed, halffell into the tunnel.
And then finally, the dam burst and the tears came flooding out. I crawled through the darkness, stopping and starting, overcome with ugly, unrestrained, shuddering sobs.
Some subconscious part of my mind registered a change in the way my cries echoed off the walls. I was back out in the corridor. I got up, only now realising that I’d left my torch behind. I staggered aimlessly through the black until I collided with some spongy wood sticking out from the wall. I held onto it, keeping myself standing.
But why? Why even bother? Why not just curl up and die and be done with it?
Nothing had changed.
It was all over, and nothing had changed.
I’d held out for as long as I could, longer than I’d ever done before, watching him struggle and bleed and crawl out of the room, hoping against hope that something would step in and save him. But nothing. Nothing. Blow for blow, scream for scream, it had all happened exactly the way it was supposed to.
WHY?
Why let him get murdered? Why couldn’t he have just delivered the message and come back? Why did he have to die for it?
For months, I’d been hurtling along on the strength of my stupid visions, convincing myself that they were somehow helping us along, guiding us through these hundred impossible days, that somehow we were meant to overcome the Co-operative and make it out alive. And now this.
I spun away from the wall, rage blazing up and bursting out. ‘YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE HIM!’
After that, it wasn’t even words. I screamed my throat raw, crying out into the endless darkness, until finally my lungs gave out and I stood, chest heaving, waiting for something, anything, that would justify what had happened here tonight.
But of course, there was no response.
Nothing but deep, deafening silence.
I started running. It was all instinct – some innate reflex kicking in below my conscious mind. I just needed to get away. I fumbled in the dark, somehow finding a path among the laboratories.
Light glowed faintly up ahead. The dying flicker of an old camping lantern. It was coming from Bill’s excavation room. Peter’s room. The place he’d spent two weeks obsessively digging up out of the rock. All in some deluded attempt to return to the Jordan he’d left behind twenty years ago. To return to me.
I pushed on, shakier with every step. Through the old laboratory with the floor covered in broken glass, through the remains of another decrepit corridor, into the room with the lantern that Bill had dragged us into, only hours before.
I stopped at the back wall, almost slamming into my own shadow, and sank to the ground again, dizzy and out of breath. Crying again. It seemed impossible that I could still cry. I felt so emptied-out already. But the tears kept coming, dredging themselves up from the depths of me and running together into deep, wracking sobs that left me gasping for breath.
He was gone.
Gone.
I realised now that I’d never actually believed it was going to happen. Not really. Even in my most desperate moments, I’d never let go of the stupid, stubborn hope that somehow this would all get turned around. And now it was finished and he was gone, and I realised I had no idea what to do next because every single one of the plans in my head had Luke in it.
I was paralysed, the grief and the emptiness drowning out everything around me until there was nothing left in the whole world but to lie here in the dirt and weep.
‘Luke …’ I choked. ‘Luke …’
I winced, the sound of my voice driving daggers into my own injured head, but I kept crying out, as if I could call him back from the dead. ‘Luke …’
My eyes snapped open.
I gazed over at Bill’s old camping lantern, my mind alight with a sudden realisation. As I watched, the lantern seemed to shimmer slightly, waving out of shape, as though there was heat rising up from the ground in front of it. At first, it could have been just tears obscuring my vision, but the distortion quickly expanded and spread, growing brighter, more visible, like mist or steam or something.
Like me.
Another portal was opening up. The one from a few hours ago. The one I’d inadvertently created – inadvertently become – when Bill brought Luke and me out here to force his way into the future. This was the other end of it.
I sat up, staring into the brightening cloud. I’d seen all this before, from the other side. Which meant the other Jordan, the one from the past, could see me.
‘JORDAN!’ I yelled. ‘TAKE HIM! TAKE HIM AND GO! HE’S –’
My voice became a splutter and then gave out completely. What was the point? She couldn’t hear me. Of course she couldn’t. That had been me a few hours ago and I hadn’t heard a thing. Nothing had changed, and nothing was going to. Despite his misguided attempts to avert events, Bill had been right all along.
It was inevitable. All of it.
I slumped back down again, blocking it all out, trying to ignore the roiling pool of liquid light burning on the other side of my eyelids.
It wasn’t until a fierce thud struck the ground in front of me that I remembered I still had one more ordeal to survive before this was all finally over.
I sat up. Crazy Bill from a few hours ago had just flown out of the portal, filthy and stinking, barely covered up by the tattered remains of his medical gown. He’d landed awkwardly, sprawled on his back between me and the portal, the torch in his helmet shining a spotlight onto the ceiling.
I slid away until my back hit the wall. Bill rolled over and stood. He sobbed loudly, lifting his hands to reach out to me, face taut with a kind of awestruck joy.
‘I’m back,’ he said breathlessly, like he almost didn’t believe it. ‘I’m back, Jordan. I’m here.’
I pressed into the wall, cold fury spreading through my chest.
It was him. Peter.
He advanced on me, hands trembling, spreading apart to embrace me. ‘Jor–’
‘MURDERER!’ I yelled, lunging at him. ‘You stupid – pathetic – !’
He lurched away, shocked, like he couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t pleased to see him. He gathered himself and stepped forward, trying again.
Then he stopped.
His eyes locked onto mine, slowly pulling themselves into focus as though he was just now figuring out how to use them. The smile slipped from his face. His mouth drifted open in dawning, horrified comprehension, like he’d suddenly realised where he was and what he was doing. Like he was waking up.
I slammed my fist into the side of his face, all pain and rage and adrenaline. ‘YOU KILLED HIM!’
He recoiled again, waving his arms, trying to speak.
‘NO!’ I cried, punching him in the stomach, in the ribs, in the mouth, fists pounding at whatever they could reach, beating and beating, sick, choking, blind with tears, screaming myself hoarse. He staggered under the blows but didn’t cry out, didn’t fight back. I kept going, hammering into him, head throbbing and spinning, arms aching from the effort, until finally my body said no more, and I collapsed at his feet, gasping for breath.
He stared down at me, an agonised moan slipping out between his rotting teeth, then wheeled around to look into the portal still swirling in the air. He steadied himself, head clutched in his hands, and took off at a lumbering run. Back through the shimmering cloud. Back into the past.
Almost as soon as he’d disappeared, the portal began to break down. The light grew brighter still, spreading out and filling the room, and the walls shook with the familiar sound of rushing wind. And I guess there was some part of me that still cared about preserving my life, because I shrank into a corner, shielding my head as cracks snaked through the concrete and bits of the ceiling broke loose and fell away.
Everything turned white as the portal erupted
in an explosion of light. And then it was gone.
The darkness returned, and I lay on my back, dust raining down on my face. My chest rose and fell, gradually regaining its natural rhythm, and I waited as my eyes remembered how to see again in the dim light of Bill’s lantern. By the time they did, I seemed to have got some small part of my mind back as well.
I was still here. Still alive. The gaping, invisible hole in my chest hadn’t gone anywhere, but I was starting to feel like maybe I could split my attention just enough to let some other thoughts creep in around the edges.
My family was still out there.
The world was still out there, however temporarily.
Luke had given up his life to warn the rest of us about Tobias. Was I really going to just lie here and waste that?
There would be time to grieve later. To do it properly. But right now I had to get out there and do something, or else I was going to have a lot more to grieve over.
One more day, I told myself, slowly rising to my feet. You can do that much. Keep it together for one more day, and then you can fall apart all you want.
But even as I moved to leave the excavation room, I caught myself glancing over my shoulder, checking out of habit to make sure Luke was with me, and my insides gave another sharp twist.
Focus, I ordered myself. Keep it together. Think. What’s next?
My first job was getting outside. I bent down to grab Bill’s lantern, carrying it with me as I climbed back through the caved-in corridor and into the lab on the other side. The light was all but dead now. Still, it was better than nothing.
I jolted as my foot struck something heavy lying on the ground, and then swung the lantern down to see what it was.
Bill’s pickaxe. The one he’d been using to hack this place apart. I shivered, remembering the night Dr Galton had flung an almost identical pickaxe into my side, cutting me open on our way out of the medical centre. Luke had carried me to safety. He’d saved my life. And now –
Enough.
I took a breath, hoisting the pickaxe up off the ground with my free hand. I wouldn’t use the pointy ends. I didn’t want to kill anybody. But one solid whack with the broad side would be enough to take care of any unsuspecting guards who were still –
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