by Jeff Povey
The last time they met, Evil-GG left GG tied up in a kitchen, while vowing to come back and gut him after he’d killed the rest of us. So this conversation is actually a big improvement.
The Apes know how to use chopsticks which amazes me because I can never get the hang of them. Non-Ape is on his nineteenth plate of rice and has grown huge again.
‘Feed me,’ he keeps repeating. Even though he’s feeding himself, shovelling a trillion grains of soft white cereal grain into the dark maw of his huge mouth.
The Ape is also shovelling down as much as he can manage, but there is nothing as magnificent as Non-Ape’s way with food. He lifts a plate and tips the rice into his mouth, half of it spilling down his cheeks and neck. He’s also trying to speak at the same time which means thousands of rice grains zing across the restaurant, showering us with increasing force the bigger he grows.
‘Feed me!’ He laughs, then coughs and chokes and splutters, sending even more rice flying towards us.
‘Ape!’ Carrie feels the side of her stung face as tiny rice bullets strike her.
The Ape starts laughing and then Non-Ape joins him and even more rice starts to rain down.
‘Uh, guys . . . ’ The Moth is sitting with Carrie and they’ve been holding hands under the table. I know this because I dropped my fork and when I retrieved it I witnessed Carrie take the Moth’s hand in hers. ‘You’re spitting rice in our rice,’ the Moth tells them.
‘Rice in rice!’ The Ape finds this hysterical for some reason.
Non-Ape laughs loudly as he tips another plate into his mouth, half of which turns into a saliva/rice blizzard.
Johnson pushes his plate away from him. ‘I’m not so hungry any more.’
Other-Johnson is standing with Another-Billie at one of the leaded windows that look directly out on to the main high street of the empty town. He’s been talking to Rev Two telepathically but so far she has refused to join us. He hasn’t explained why. Another-Billie is more focused on whatever pyromania-dealing death is lurking outside and keeps her eyes peeled the whole time.
Moth Two stands in the doorway, impatient to get moving. ‘We should just run for it,’ he says and then turns to look at the paralysed version of himself. ‘Or just get moving,’ he corrects. ‘In your own time of course.’
No one is going anywhere without Non-Ape at full power. If this world is coming for us then it’s going to have to go through the boy-monster first.
‘I didn’t cause a tidal wave,’ Billie tells me.
‘You probably forgot.’
Billie and I have been talking non-stop since she returned to normal.
‘A tidal wave? Seriously? I left with Johnson – or who I thought was Johnson – and that was that,’ she says, basically confirming everything the Moth has been fretting about. Could this world have created the wave to kill us? ‘I mean, why would I do that?’ Billie asks. Which is a reasonable enough question. ‘If I had Johnson, then I had whatever–’ she looks at Johnson ‘–I foolishly thought I wanted. I didn’t want to kill anyone after that.’ She then gets hit by a smattering of rice bullets. ‘Well. Maybe some people,’ she says aiming a scathing look at the laughing Apes. But at least this time I know that she’s being ironic.
‘You did sort of kill the other Johnson,’ I remind her.
‘Well, apart from him, but I was so far gone by then. And that was a good while after your tidal wave.’
Johnson leans forward and keeps his voice low and gentle. ‘No one did get hurt. Not even the Big Ape. Not ultimately.’
I watch the Moth and Carrie for a moment as he picks rice from her hair. It seems incredible that she was sent straight into my arms during the tidal wave. The chances of that were beyond astronomical. So what if Moth’s right, that we’ve been rounded up? Like lambs to the slaughter?
The Lucases are seated together in a far corner of the restaurant. They’re not necessarily ignoring us, but our Lucas is still having a deeply disturbing time trying to comprehend everything. He has taken sanctuary in his doppelganger, primarily because his best friend the Moth is otherwise occupied, but also because Non-Lucas has gravitated towards him. They’re both boys-who-would-be-prefects. Perfect prefects in fact. They exist in the rarefied air of being physically and mentally wonderful. When Non-Lucas shows Lucas his talons and then makes his loam skin ripple into a form of armour, Lucas claps quietly.
‘Man, that’s something,’ he says.
I study the doppelgangers in the room, then hear Evil-GG bickering with GG in the kitchen.
‘You’re not adding that to rice,’ one of them scolds the other. ‘I really thought you, of all people, would have had the best most exquisite taste in the universe.’
Now we’re all together like this it’s actually going to be strange to split everyone up. Although I know that Johnson is relieved that Other-Johnson is about to be a footnote in a very weird personal history.
And then my heart leaps into my mouth.
They can’t possibly go back. That murderous town made it clear that they were all hated.
I glance again at the Moth. There was something he said once. It’s scratching at the back of my mind. Something about them pouring through to this world; that once they worked out my dad’s papers, his formula, the doppelgangers from the violent world of talons and superpowers will come here. He was convinced of it. And, if Billie didn’t cause the tidal wave, are some of them here already?
More booming laughter brings another hailstorm of rice. The Lucases are glad they’re safe in their corner but Carrie is directly in the firing line. ‘So not funny!’ she barks at them. Which makes them laugh even harder.
I get up and go to the window. Other-Johnson has probably been reading my mind, invading my thoughts without my knowing. He knows it’s getting close to the moment of truth and that this time he’ll definitely never see me again.
‘I’m glad we’re leaving,’ he lies telepathically. ‘You’ve been nothing but trouble.’
I smile to myself.
‘Billie,’ I turn to Another-Billie. ‘I know it’s pitch-black and you’re scared to go outside but I think we need to get my dad healed. As quickly as possible.’
‘We might be too late,’ Other-Johnson transmits and I glance over to see a worried look on his face just as my shoulders erupt in the most violent tingling sensation ever, so much that I shudder hugely.
The Apes stop eating and turn to the window. Instincts cutting in quicker than thought.
Other-Johnson’s talons slide out. All at once.
The door crashes open and Rev Two stands there, my carbon copy, eyes wild with alarm, her hand the colour of ocean blue and throbbing, pumping in time with her racing heartbeat.
‘I don’t care whose dad it is,’ she pants. ‘I want out of here.’
Other-Johnson transmits the images to all of us at the same time. Images I will never forget in the rather short lifetime that I have left. The world has turned dark and the small tiny river I almost froze to death in is starting to bubble and rise and flood. Snow begins to fall, turning into a blizzard in seconds. Lightning bolts crash from the skies and set cars and trees and buildings on fire. But, when one huge and errant lightning hits the school bus parked on the side of the hill the doors are torn off. The electricity snakes throughout the bus, lighting it up inside, turning it as white as the white light that transported us here in the first place. So bright it blinds.
The Chinese restaurant shudders and tables lift and slide as the earth underneath swells like a wave and ripples along the floor, tearing the restaurant’s foundations apart. The ceiling cracks and splinters; the window shatters into a million pieces.
‘I told you there wasn’t time to eat,’ the Moths say in unison.
It’s no longer safe inside, but it’s even more hazardous outside.
Rev Two is thrown face to face with me by the earth tremor and her blue hand misses brushing my skin by less than a centimetre. For a moment we are trapped in time, staring at
each other.
‘We’ve got unfinished business,’ she tells me.
‘You want to do this now? Really?’ I ask as the ceiling gives way above us.
She lunges for me, but with her non-blue hand, and drags me out of harm’s way with her super-speed and strength.
‘Tell me one thing,’ she demands as the others take cover wherever they can find it. ‘Did he kiss you?’ She means Other-Johnson.
‘No,’ I lie.
‘I knew it.’ She can spot my lie easily. She is me, after all.
More ceiling collapses around us and the super-powered versions of ourselves are doing everything they can to protect us. It surprises me that they do, even if we have become ‘friends’, but there’s little time to question why.
‘I could let you die here,’ Rev Two tells me.
‘If we don’t stop bickering, we’ll both die.’ I meet her deadly look. ‘You and Other-Johnson can work it out for yourselves when you get back.’
Rev Two continues to waver between sapping the life from me and doing her level best to see sense. ‘This really isn’t the time or place,’ I tell her, hoping she’ll settle for common sense. But then again I did kiss the boy she loves and maybe for her that takes precedence over a potential apocalypse.
‘Guys!’ Other-Johnson is back in our heads, filling them with images, showing us that this stupid empty earth has opened up the portal in the bus on the hill. So it turns out that it either takes a brilliant formula or just several strikes of megawatt lightning to tear holes between worlds. There was already a fragility to the walls of reality in that bus, so perhaps it’s a weak spot between worlds.
People from the violent world start to stream through, led by Del, a boy with a glowing burning head. A teacher follows him. Mrs Crow – the mild-mannered music teacher – and she points to a tree and it erupts into flames, keen to do battle with the freezing cold elements. I’m as stunned as everyone else as Other-Johnson relays image after image to us.
Lightning strikes rain down, scorching the deepening snow as the winds begin to pick up all around the town.
The Moths, sheltering with Carrie, look at one another as more and more doppelgangers career from the bus and try to find shelter immediately. ‘Oh, no,’ they say in stereo. ‘That’s not good.’
The restaurant lurches to one side as another earth ripple tries to force us out into the open.
Both Moths hesitate and then the same thought strikes them. ‘This is one careless world,’ they say over the roar of snow and storm and lightning crashing in through the broken windows. ‘It needs to think about what it’s doing.’
More people from the doppelganger world alight from the bus. Teachers, teenagers, business people in suits, shopkeepers, scruffy students stagger and stumble out as they try to adjust to the maelstrom of elements swirling around them. Talons immediately come out, powers are turned up to eleven, as they try and take in what is happening them to them.
The Moth looks to Moth Two. ‘More people—’
‘—which is definitely what this world doesn’t want—’
‘—mean it’s going to have to up its game.’
‘Oops!’ Moth Two is stricken by the horrifying thought. The world tried to use lethal weather to finally rid itself of us and somehow managed to tear a huge hole between worlds and drag even more people in. The precise thing it doesn’t want.
GG and Evil-GG emerge through the wrecked kitchen door. ‘Rice is off,’ GG says.
I turn quickly to Non-Ape. ‘You’ve got to get to the bus,’ I tell him. ‘And then you have to do what you love doing the most.’
‘Smash it!’ He grins.
‘Yeah. Smash it so hard that no one else can get through.’ There are already over fifty of them gathering and there’s no sign of them stopping. ‘Can you do that for us?’ I ask him, knowing that he might not be able to withstand their combined might. They are not happy to be here and the second they think it has something to do with us is the moment they cut loose. They have the shortest fuses I have ever met; quick to anger and even quicker to attack. But we need the onrush of displaced doppelgangers stopped. The Moths are right; the more people making chaos then the more violent this world will become and there goes all hope of escape.
‘Easy.’ He picks a single grain of rice from my hair and swallows it.
‘Let’s go,’ the Ape says, joining him.
‘No, Dazza,’ I tell him. ‘There’s too many, they’re too powerful, you won’t survive.’
‘I beat them before,’ he tells me, forgetting that Rev Two’s mum sort of beat them for us.
‘No, please listen to me.’ I can feel my heart lurching in my chest, somersaulting until I want to throw up. ‘You need to be here with me. So say goodbye to Non-Ape, wish him well, but you can’t go with him.’
The Ape reaches out to me, puts a warm hand on my shoulder, careful that two of his five-pointer scalpels don’t take my eye out. His eyes meet mine and, for the first time in his life, I think he’s going to say something gentle and profound, but I really hope he doesn’t because I’m going to dissolve into tears when he does.
‘Yowza.’
And with that he disappears with Non-Ape, charging out of the broken restaurant, down the carpeted stairs and out into possibly the last September day they’ll ever know. Him and his best buddy. Off to war. To crush the bus and save the day.
Johnson knows what this means to me as I watch from one of the smashed windows as one giant Ape and one smaller one thunder down the high street, yelling something about buses, crashing through the snow and lightning. Non-Ape strides through the growing winds as if they didn’t exist and the Ape is tucked in right behind him. ‘Rev, we’ve got to go,’ he says quietly.
‘I know,’ I respond equally quietly. I can barely talk as my heart thumps at my ribs. What if this is it? What if I never see the Ape again?
I turn to the others and summon as much courage as I can. They all look back, expecting some rallying cry, or maybe a speech. ‘We need to get Another-Billie back to my dad. Soon as he’s healed we’ll meet at the school. That same old detention room. But for the last time.’
‘We’re splitting up?’ GG asks and turns to Evil-GG. ‘We were getting along so famously.’
‘What’s the plan?’ Non-Lucas asks while Lucas hangs back. He just isn’t equipped for this; he hasn’t been in the battles we have.
‘You’ve got speed, you can get your Billie to the hospital in seconds.’
‘Sure.’ His skin forms its armour again, rippling up and down his hands and arms and all across his face and neck. He glances back at Lucas. ‘We’ll be waiting in the classroom. Make sure you get there.’ They do some sort of ghetto handshake and before we can react Non-Lucas has taken Another-Billie and disappeared into the violent weather outside.
Rev Two steps forward. ‘Johnson and I will catch up with them, make sure they get your dad to the school after he’s been healed,’ she tells me, meaning Other-Johnson.
‘We need one of you to carry the Moth,’ I tell her.
She looks at Other-Johnson and then at me. ‘If you think you’re going with her think again.’
Other-Johnson transmits a brief thought to me. ‘Can’t wait to get back home. She is going to kill me,’ he jokes, but it catches in the back of his throat. For a moment I think he’s going to transmit another farewell message, but I guess we’ve already said our goodbyes enough times now.
‘Moth,’ he says to Moth Two, ‘we’re up.’
Moth Two looks at the Moth and bumps his fist with his carbon copy. ‘The odds of success are astronomical,’ they tell each other in unison, then grin. Moth Two turns back into the panther creature and gets ready to run to the hospital.
Moth Two leaves with Other-Johnson and I can’t help but sneak a look at Other-Johnson before he disappears into the snowstorm. That boy nearly stole my heart forever. And again I wonder if this is the last of us now. The last of all of us.
‘See you in th
e classroom,’ I call too late, they’re gone at speed and I don’t know if he heard me.
Rev Two squares up to me. ‘I’d love to hear every single thing that went on between you two. But I guess that’s not going to happen. When this is done, you’re going your way and I’m going mine.’
‘Deal,’ I nod and only remember just in time not to shake her proffered glowing blue hand.
Other-Johnson continues to transmit images from the bus to us. He is seeing it all though the eyes of various doppelgangers whose minds he invades.
I watch as the Apes arrive at the bus.
The swelling numbers of bewildered doppelgangers can barely make out Ape in the raging snowstorm. The winds are ripping the autumn leaves from the trees and making visibility even more difficult as they blow and swirl and circle in the frozen air. But Non-Ape, at the size he currently is after eating so much rice, is hard to miss. As soon as they see him coming with the Ape drawing alongside him, they react just like I thought they would.
They turn instantly aggressive, talons emerging, powers switching on.
But there’s hope in the slash of fear that slices through the ever-increasing crowd of violent doppelgangers. They’re petrified of Non-Ape, and I think to myself, just wait until you see what my Ape can do.
HOPELESS IN HARDACRE
We’re gathered in the classroom and it’s two a.m. in the morning. It’s freezing in the room and New-GG seems to hate the cold as much my GG did.
‘I hate any type of non-warmth,’ he whines even though he is wearing his faux-fur-lined WAR(M) jacket. ‘And the dark,’ he adds. ‘The dark and the cold are not my idea of a good time. Or the wet.’
‘We’re not here for a good time,’ New-Johnson replies.
‘Now you tell me,’ New-GG says with a layer of cynicism in case we miss his joke. ‘I wouldn’t have responded to the invite if I’d known that.’
Which was a text from New-Billie to the others, telling them where and when to meet.
Sad-Ape sticks close to me, so close I can smell his body odour creeping up my nostrils. New-Carrie is with New-Lucas and both are a little on the quiet side. They’re talking about New-Moth.