Doomsday

by Chris Morphew

  ‘Shh …’ I said, bouncing him as I walked, projecting a calm that was the complete opposite of what I actually felt. ‘Shh-shh-shh … What’s wrong? Do you –?’

  Bright light smashed me in the face.

  Tobias stopped crying, snapping out of it like nothing had ever been wrong. I stepped back, almost tripping. Headlights. We’d reached the skid, but someone else had reached it first.

  ‘Jordan,’ said the figure hunched behind the wheel, and I felt the life drain out of me.

  It was Calvin. He jabbed a thumb at the cage behind him. ‘I need you and the baby to get into the –’

  ‘Run!’ I shouted, whirling around.

  ‘No!’ Calvin leapt down from the driver’s seat, ready to give chase. ‘Stop! Please.’

  My feet slid to a standstill. Please?

  Officer Calvin stepped out into the glow of the headlights. He moved slowly, like he was trying not to startle us, arms spread wide in a gesture of non-violence that didn’t square too well with the pistol holstered at his hip. Or the fact that he was just about the most bloodthirsty psycho in this whole town.

  ‘Please,’ he said again. ‘Don’t leave. I realise this will be hard to swallow, but – I’m here to help you.’

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 3.47 A.M. 13 HOURS, 13 MINUTES

  ‘So, you still haven’t told me your plan,’ said Lauren, jogging along beside me. ‘How are we going to stop Shackleton? How are we even going to get in there? I mean, do you even know how to shoot that gun?’ She paused, eyes narrowing. ‘You do have a plan, right?’

  I took a deep breath, glad she couldn’t see me gritting my teeth in the darkness. ‘We need to find Reeve.’

  ‘Yeah, but how?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.

  ‘I mean, if he’s not answering his phone –’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said tightly. ‘I get it.’

  She shrank back.

  I’d tried to call Reeve a few minutes ago, but he hadn’t picked up. Maybe because he was too busy getting shot at, or maybe just because he believed the caller ID when it told him I was Dr Galton. Texting was a dead end too. If these phones had ever been able to do it, Shackleton had locked the function out.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Lauren. ‘It’s just – Dad’s stuck on security duty and Mum was down in the main prison place. I haven’t seen them in weeks. I don’t even know if they’re …’ She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

  I pushed through a tangle of undergrowth and something clicked inside my head. ‘We saw him,’ I said. ‘Your dad. Ethan, right? Ethan Hamilton? We saw him a few hours ago, up in the Shackleton Building.’

  Lauren lit up. ‘Was he …?’

  ‘Yeah, he was okay,’ I said. ‘Still on duty for Shackleton, but he switched sides when the coup started.’

  Like most of Shackleton’s guys, Hamilton was more scared than devoted – strong-armed into submission by the ‘loyalty room’, the cafeteria-turned-high-securityprison where Shackleton held a bunch of their relatives to make sure everyone kept following orders.

  The last we’d seen, Hamilton had gone off with Reeve and Tank to help liberate the loyalty room and undermine the Co-operative’s hold on its men.

  ‘I knew it!’ said Lauren. ‘I knew he’d stand up to Shackleton. He was just waiting for the right –’ She stifled a shriek as I dragged her behind a tree. ‘What? What’s happening?’

  I put a finger to my lips and pointed through a gap in the trees.

  Movement in the bush up ahead. Not security. Too loud and disorganised. Laboured breathing and crunching undergrowth. The sounds of people not used to treading softly through the bush.

  I thought about just letting them pass us by. If these were townspeople who’d escaped the fighting, then good for them. They were a lot safer out here than where we were going.

  But something about the figure up at the front of the pack made me reconsider. I released my grip on Lauren and got slowly to my feet, flashing on my light. ‘Hey. Who’s there?’

  The huddle froze, and I felt a jolt of recognition. It was Peter’s parents, both dressed in nurses’ uniforms. And five others, all wearing thin hospital gowns.

  Mr Weir was holding a heavy bit of tree branch, wielding it like a club. He turned on me.

  ‘Whoa. Hey!’ I said, shifting the light so it shone up into my face. ‘It’s me!’

  Mr Weir let out a heavy sigh, lowering the branch. ‘Luke. Good to see you, mate.’

  I stepped out to meet them, stomach already tensing at the conversation I knew was coming, then felt myself get shoved aside as Lauren exploded past me. She launched herself at Jeremy, a pasty kid at the back of the group, throwing her arms around his neck, kissing him roughly (and noisily) on the mouth.

  She kept it up for a good few seconds before a girl with a guard’s belt over her shoulder – Alyssa, I think – came up and tapped her on the back. ‘Uh … guys? I know it’s the end of the world, but seriously, get a room.’

  Lauren broke it off and dragged Alyssa into a hug, leaving Jeremy staring self-consciously at the ground.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Mr Weir asked me. ‘We were coming back to find you lot.’

  ‘Where’s Peter?’ asked Mrs Weir. ‘Is he okay? Is he still …?’

  She trailed off, afraid of the answer. The last time either of them had seen Peter was weeks ago, back before Kara had shown us the murder video, back when Peter was still fairly newly crazy.

  I swallowed, trying to work out where to start. But before I had time to even string a sentence together, Lauren and Alyssa broke into our conversation again.

  ‘Luke! Come here!’ Lauren held out her arms and I flashed the torch at her. She looked herself over, like she was checking for injuries or something, then turned to Jeremy, a huge grin on her face. ‘See? Nothing!’

  Jeremy stared at his hands, and I realised what Lauren was talking about. Jeremy’s skin thing. His not-so-fun habit of imprinting himself onto anyone he touched. Lauren had had her hands all over him and nothing had happened.

  ‘You’re cured!’ she beamed.

  ‘You still got me,’ frowned Alyssa, holding her blotchy arms up to the light.

  But Jeremy was still fixated on his hands. ‘How?’

  Someone moved behind them and I shifted my torch around. Mrs Lewis, the old school librarian, had reached up to the face of a skinny bald guy. Her brow crinkled. ‘I think mine’s gone too.’

  There were murmurs from the others. More support for Jordan’s fallout theory.

  Mrs Weir put a hand on my shoulder. I stiffened, feeling the tension in it.

  I turned to face her again. Searching for the right words. Knowing those words didn’t exist. And despite everything, I felt tears spiking at the back of my eyes.

  Mrs Weir let out a sob, seeing the answer before I opened my mouth. Mr Weir pulled her into his arms.

  ‘He got better,’ I said finally. ‘Before he – Before the end. He didn’t die sick. He got his mind back. It took a while, but …’

  Everyone was quiet now. Listening in. Mr and Mrs Weir tightened their hold on each other, but their eyes stayed unwaveringly fixed on me.

  ‘We – we know how to stop Tabitha,’ I said, and realised that I actually still believed it. ‘We have a plan. As close as we’re going to get, anyway. And that’s because of Peter. He died to make sure we got that information. If we win this – if we stop them – it’s because of him.’

  It was true. Not the whole truth, not even close, but true as far as it went. Peter’s parents deserved the whole story, and they’d get it. But not now. The rest could wait.

  Mrs Weir stepped out and hugged me. I could feel her shaking. ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. Which was the dumbest thing in the world to say, but also kind of the only thing.

  ‘Thanks, mate.’ Mr Weir patted me on the back. ‘Thanks for looking out for him. I’m sure you did all you could.’

  Someone grunted next to us, and Mrs Weir released me. One o
f the other guys from the medical centre was holding a blood-stained shirt up to his arm. He looked awkwardly at the three of us. ‘Sorry guys, but can we …?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry mate.’ Mr Weir’s face shifted as he forced himself back into action. He bent down, grabbing his branch and pointing it back in the direction of the Vattel Complex. ‘This way.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Security know about the Complex now. They came for us a couple of hours ago. Took everyone back into town.’

  ‘But you guys are meant to be the ones stopping all this!’ said Alyssa, like they’d got themselves abducted on purpose. ‘You said you had a plan!’

  ‘Jordan got out too,’ I said, ignoring her. ‘She and her baby brother. Tobias. She’s taking him out to the release station, this place outside the boundary wall. He’s meant to be special. Like, special enough to stop Tabitha. At least, that’s – that’s the information Peter got for us.’

  Mrs Weir pursed her lips, swelling with a kind of miserable pride, imagining Peter as the tragic hero.

  ‘A baby?’ said Skinny Bald Guy, looking around like he’d missed the first half of a joke. ‘That’s the grand plan?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know it sounds crazy –’

  ‘It is crazy.’

  The others stared at each other, letting it all sink in. Alyssa sighed. ‘We are so screwed.’

  ‘Not yet, we’re not,’ said Mr Weir, with a very forced-sounding optimism. He set off again, back towards the Complex. Then, sensing my unease: ‘We won’t stay long. But Daniel needs patching up, and we need to pick up some tools.’

  ‘Tools?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Mr Weir glanced at Mrs Weir, who handed him something I hadn’t even realised she was holding. A dark, amorphous shape, about the size of my shoe.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. It’s probably not even fixable, but …’

  He stopped walking. ‘We were right under that jet when it came down. Right under the cockpit. The smaller bits of wreckage all got vaporised by the grid, but the big stuff …’ He shrugged. ‘A chunk of it dropped down right over Jess and me. Looked like half a storage compartment or something. This was inside. Like I said, probably a lost cause. But I guess those are about the only causes we’ve got left now, huh?’

  I flashed my torch at the thing in his hands. Charred black, antenna gone, screen shattered, buttons half melted off. But immediately, I realised what it was. And immediately, Mr Weir’s warning about not getting my hopes up shot straight out the window.

  It was the jet’s transceiver.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ said Mr Weir, in a voice that said I wasn’t the only one ignoring his advice. ‘Anyone feel like giving the outside world a call?’

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 3.53 A.M. 13 HOURS, 7 MINUTES

  ‘You’re lying,’ I said, barely keeping my hands steady on Tobias.

  ‘Jordan, please –’

  ‘What are you even saying? That the last hundred days have been just a big misunderstanding?’

  My body begged me to run. But some other instinct kicked in, some subconscious need to confront him, and I stayed fixed to the spot.

  ‘I know,’ said Calvin, switching the skid’s headlights back off. ‘I know. It’s absurd. And after all I’ve done, you have every right to just walk away from this. But for the sake of your family –’

  ‘For the sake of my family? My family, who you just sent away to be tortured?’

  ‘I sent them away for their protection!’ said Calvin, a familiar growl slipping into his voice. ‘Those officers will follow my orders. They will safeguard your mother and sister until we return.’ He pressed a red-gloved hand to his injured head. ‘Or would you prefer them to have been executed, down there in your hideout?’

  ‘You led those guards down there in the first place!’ I said. ‘If you didn’t want to hurt us –’

  ‘What alternative was there?’ said Calvin. ‘Once your friend gave away your location, do you really think there was any stopping Shackleton dispatching a security team? All I had left was to lead them in myself and attempt to contain the damage.’

  ‘Yeah, well, brilliant job there,’ I spat.

  Calvin bristled. He gestured at Tobias. ‘You still have your brother. I believe you know how significant that is.’

  I pulled Tobias closer against me. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? The only reason I’ve still got my brother is that Bill took him from you!’

  Lies. All of it. The Co-operative knew what a big deal Tobias was. Shackleton had figured it out before we had. That’s why he’d burst out laughing last night, back when we were still scrambling to figure out what Tobias even was.

  Somehow, in the time since we’d rescued Mum and Georgia from the medical centre, Shackleton and Galton must have discovered something in Tobias that they believed posed a threat to their work.

  But if that was true, then why were we even having this conversation? You could always count on Shackleton for a self-indulgent pre-murder chat, but Calvin was much more straightforward. He just pulled the trigger and moved on. So why –?

  Like he’d read my mind, Calvin’s hand suddenly blurred to his waist, snatching his pistol from its holster. Amy screamed. I twisted around to shield Tobias, eyes shut, legs shaking.

  But instead of a gunshot, I heard a muffled thump and turned back to see the dark shape of the weapon lying on the ground at my feet.

  Amy dropped to the grass and snatched it up. She stood, pointing the pistol shakily at Calvin.

  Calvin nodded. ‘God knows I’d deserve it. But you’d be destroying your best chance at saving the people you care about.’ He spread his arms wide again. ‘And trust me when I say you don’t want a murder on your conscience. Not even mine.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘please, tell us all about having a conscience.’

  But after a moment’s hesitation, Amy slowly lowered the weapon.

  The shield grid sparked above our heads. Tobias screwed up his face, squinting away from the flash of light. I shifted him around so he was facing my shoulder. Calvin glanced almost wistfully at the baby. My skin crawled and I clutched Tobias closer to me.

  Calvin reached to his waist again, unbuckling his utility belt, throwing that to the ground as well. Disarming himself completely.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said softly, ‘that day at the airport, weeks ago, when I apprehended you and Luke in an attempt to discover where you were hiding your friend Peter … How did you manage to escape?’

  The memory leapt to the front of my mind. Calvin had caught us outside the medical centre, where Peter had just been kidnapped by Tank, Cathryn and Mike. Calvin thought we’d done it, so he’d dragged us out of town to the airport, where he’d be free to interrogate and murder us without interference. But just as Calvin had been about to pull the trigger on Luke, I’d dived at him. Somewhere in the scuffle, my thumb had ended up slipping into Calvin’s mouth, and then …

  Calvin smiled grimly, spotting the gleam of recognition in my eyes. ‘That was the first time I felt it. Empathy, as I’m sure you’ve realised, has never been a strong suit of mine. But in that moment – I felt it all. Everything you felt. Your fear for Luke, for Peter, for your own life. Your worry for your family. Your darkest nightmares about the end of humanity. Your rage at the Co-operative. Your rage at me. I felt all of your pain and frustration and hurt as though the feelings were my own, and it … it was …’ His voice cracked with the memory.

  Almost as soon as he’d bitten me, Calvin had stopped struggling. He’d scrambled away from me and fled the airport, sobbing like a child.

  ‘At first, I thought it was something you’ d done,’ continued Calvin. ‘But then the symptoms began to recur.’

  Another memory. Two weeks later. Calvin and his men had stormed my old house back in town to abduct Mum and Georgia. Luke had thrown himself at Calvin, and Calvin had recoiled in spontaneous, irrational fear. Luke’s fear.

  So what? I thought fie
rcely, pushing against the doubt creeping in around the corners of my mind. A couple of random freak-outs. What does that prove? They wore off, and he went straight back to being evil.

  ‘Soon it was everyone I touched.’ Calvin held up his hands, indicating the gloves. ‘My condition was so severe that Shackleton pulled me from duty. He felt he couldn’t trust me to carry out my orders. He questioned my loyalty to the ideals of the Co-operative.’ Calvin’s arms slumped back to his sides. ‘He was right to question.’

  Amy raised the pistol again. ‘It’s a trick,’ she said skittishly. ‘Jordan, you know it is.’

  I wanted to agree with her. I did agree with her, mostly. But the harder I tried to just shake Calvin’s story off, the more it needled at me. I’d never known Calvin to be an actor or a con-man. He wore his depravity on his sleeve. Point and shoot. Simple. Even if this was all some elaborate deception, it was still a side of Calvin I’d never seen before.

  But why bother? Unless there was something I was missing. Some reason he needed me alive and on-side.

  ‘Even if it’s true,’ said Amy, and even in the dark, I could see the gun shaking in her hands. ‘The part about him feeling your emotions or whatever. Even if that’s true, the fallout’s gone now.’

  Calvin glanced at me for confirmation, clearly thrown by this news. ‘No,’ he said, voice not quite steady. ‘I am not – There’s no going back. The fallout may be gone, but my guilt isn’t.’ His eyes pierced through me, shining in the moonlight. ‘I am not claiming to be a new man. And I am certainly not expecting you to forgive me. But, at least in some small way, I know how you feel. I’ve felt it. I can’t just ignore that. Not even if I wanted to.’

  I knew what Luke would tell me: that this was no time to be putting our trust in a man who’d only ever tried to kill us. That we should hold out for a plan that didn’t involve acting like naive hitchhikers in a bad horror movie.

  But he’d still come with me.

  Tobias stared up at me, like he was waiting for me to make a decision. Again, Georgia’s drawing popped into my mind. Calvin and Tobias and that huge, haunting smile.