Escape

by Jeff Povey

  ‘I was growing to like him,’ she says. ‘Well, as much as I like anyone.’

  I’ve spread the ash and dust from the vacuum cleaner, but so far nothing incredible has happened. No flash of white light, no key, no portal.

  New-GG cups his hands and blows into them. ‘I’m not even sure why I want to escape,’ he suddenly announces.

  ‘Because from this point on everything becomes inevitable,’ New-Lucas tells him. ‘We are facing the end of days.’

  ‘Very dramatic,’ New-GG whistles.

  ‘You know it better than anyone,’ New-Carrie tells him. ‘You’re the one who picks on the Ape the most. After he proved there was no way out of town.’

  New-GG falls silent. A miracle in itself.

  But the dust and ash remain just that. Nothing magical happens even though we wait until it’s nearly four in the morning, once again combing every square centimetre of the classroom and coming up with nothing.

  I want to scream. The desperate plan has failed desperately.

  ‘So what now?’ New-Carrie asks.

  ‘I guess we live the day all over again,’ New-Billie declares and I watch another piece of her die, a light switching off behind her eyes. She squeezes my arm. ‘Nice try though,’ she tells me.

  ‘Let’s tear the floorboards up,’ I suggest. ‘Peel the plaster from the walls. There’s got to be a way out.’ My voice is turning high-pitched in desperation.

  But one by one the light diminishes in all of them.

  ‘I’m going home,’ New-GG yawns. ‘That’s enough non-excitement for one night.’

  New-Lucas watches him leave and then New-Carrie heads past him towards the door. ‘See you back here after school no doubt,’ she says to no one in particular. Resignation in her normally shrill voice.

  ‘Guys . . . ’ New-Lucas calls after them. But they don’t return.

  New-Johnson lights a cigarette and blows a stream of smoke towards the ceiling.

  ‘They’re bad for you,’ I say half-heartedly. I have nothing but trivial thoughts left in my head. The disappointment has crushed me.

  ‘They can’t be,’ he replies. ‘I wake up with fresh lungs every day.’

  New-Billie takes his hand and he lets her have a puff on his cigarette. ‘We all do.’

  Which is when the light-bulb moment hits like a heavyweight’s right hook.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  And suddenly everything looks bright again.

  IN THE TIME OF WAR

  Other-Johnson, even while he’s racing with Moth Two to the hospital, is jumping from one violent world interloper’s mind to the next. He’s doing this because Non-Ape is attacking them one by one. My Ape is there by his side, in the middle of the battle, cutting and slicing his way to the bus. Over a hundred doppelgangers have emerged through the portal now. Non-Ape has only one thing on his mind; to reach the bus, to crush the bus. They use their powers and their talons on him, but on he roars, fuelled by the bucketloads of boiled rice he’s just eaten. Invincible, unbeatable, absolutely and utterly invulnerable to anything they throw at him. He can’t stop them all and some evade both him and the Ape and fly, run, jump, even blink from one spot to another, swarming their way across town. The bus spews out evil doppelganger after evil doppelganger but on the Apes fight.

  The world gets angrier and more belligerent as the river floods and the snow fills every pocket of air. It knows it has made a huge mistake by accidentally opening the portal and is getting ready to put a stop to it.

  We’re taking a less combative route to the school, using the empty alleyways and sneaky shortcuts that proliferate throughout the freezing town. Rev Two is strong enough to piggyback the Moth with ease and he hangs tightly on to her. Evil-GG could also probably carry him, but he claimed he had a ricked back and a broken fingernail from being thrown out of the train window – twice. My GG, Carrie and Billie are barely breathing in case a doppelganger hears them. Lucas is still trapped in his world of wonder and disbelief. He staggers through the hurricane winds as best he can.

  ‘We’ll freeze to death out here,’ he whispers as we edge into the churchyard, where the levelled church is barely more than ancient, hallowed rubble thanks to Non-Ape. But it provides cover from the elements as we lie low for a few moments, studying the steepest of the steep hills that leads back to the school. A hill that is blanketed by snow and battered by winds that carry lightning bolts. The swollen river has already submerged the wide expanse of empty car park and shows no signs of receding. It won’t be too long before the town starts to drown. But luckily we are going uphill, a very steep hill at that.

  ‘If we divert to the south there’s a twisty overgrown pathway that leads through a clumps of houses,’ Rev Two says, taking command of the group, possibly like I did without ever realising it.

  ‘Near that big cemetery?’ I ask through chattering lips.

  She nods. ‘We can take that path and head down another alley way before emerging above the school. Sound like a plan?’

  ‘My ears are so cold I can’t hear,’ GG says.

  ‘What?’ Evil-GG immediately jokes back.

  Rev Two’s route is a good one, but at some point we will have to reveal ourselves and navigate at least fifty metres of open road before taking the corner that will lead us to the school parking area. We’ll be lucky if we do it without being seen. The doppelgangers that got past the Apes will be lapping up the fact that there really is another world for them to try and exploit. They don’t realise it doesn’t want them either.

  ‘We’ll freeze before we get there,’ Lucas warns, his voice immediately whipped away in the violent winds.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll probably die before you freeze,’ Evil-GG tells him. ‘Those people from our town, they are not fans of ours. Especially not if they blame us for this. Which they will do because really they are awful people.’

  ‘They’re worse than awful,’ GG confirms. Like me, he’s seen them up close and personal. ‘No offence,’ he quickly adds in the direction of Rev Two.

  Carrie eyes the car park and is the first to see movement. ‘Get down,’ she whispers.

  We duck as five boys from the violent world, led by burning-headed Not-Del emerge from a hole in the fabric of reality and start splashing through the empty car park. One of them must be a teleporter. They are bewildered as they scan the town. ‘What the hell? I mean – seriously – what the hell is happening to our town?’ Not-Del asks, clearly not grasping that they have been shunted here.

  ‘D’you know all of them?’ I ask Rev Two. She nods. ‘What can they do?’ I ask.

  ‘Power-wise?’ she says and thinks for a moment. ‘Some can’t do anything.’

  ‘But they’ve got talons,’ the Moth reminds her.

  ‘We’ve all got talons.’ To prove her point she shows us one of hers. A gleaming steel death-dealer. ‘Some of those boys can do stuff, like the tall one can spit acid.’

  ‘Gross,’ GG groans. Then thinks for a moment. ‘Unless of course you can’t find your nail-varnish remover.’

  ‘The short one with the dark hair, he can spin.’

  ‘Spinning doesn’t sound that scary,’ Carrie whispers, teeth chattering from the insane cold. ‘Maybe we can cut through them, because we really need to move before we turn into statues.’ She shivers and wraps her skinny, pointy arms around herself.

  ‘He turns like a hurricane, a vortex. He can suck you in and shred you,’ Evil-GG tells us.

  ‘Makes you giddy just thinking about it,’ GG quips half-heartedly, like the rest of us he is freezing to death. We have to go. As in right now.

  ‘We’re at the hospital.’ Other-Johnson enters my head again. ‘Billie’s healing your dad as fast as she can. She doesn’t know how long it’ll take but he’s already looking better.’

  ‘Can you take them?’ I ask Rev Two.

  Rev Two’s full chest swells a little further. ‘I can take them,’ she purrs.

  Johnson jo
ins us, watches as one of Not-Del’s mates is suddenly burned to a crisp by a bolt of lightning, leaving Not-Del stunned, quite literally, as the electricity from the bolt travels through the water they are trudging in. All of the boys are blown off their feet. This world has obviously had enough of playing nicely.

  ‘Looks like we caught a break,’ Johnson whispers and leads the charge for the alley that’ll take us up the hill. ‘C’mon! Move it!’

  As we run, the white sky erupts over where the bus is and we watch plasma beams arc through the air as the Apes continue fighting their way to the bus.

  ‘Jesus,’ Rev Two whispers. It’s my whisper, my voice.

  The night crackles and fizzes as the battle rages. But there’s a new group of violent doppelgangers surging into the car park now, at least twenty of them, angry and bewildered in equal measure. They’re not quite sure why they’re here, but their awe is taking a battering as the empty earth rains everything bar a plague of frogs down.

  ‘They’ve seen us!’ yells Billie.

  ‘I’ve got this,’ Rev Two steals the greatest line ever spoken, but I’m not going to split hairs as she shoves the Moth into Evil-GG’s arms. ‘Get to the school.’

  Rev Two’s hand erupts into a luminescent blue, brighter than ever, as she goes to meet the gang of murderous doppelgangers. The lightning and snow don’t faze or slow her.

  ‘She’s buying us time,’ Johnson tells us, but we are all aware of that and her probable sacrifice bites deeper than the icy winds.

  ‘She’s magnificent.’ The Moth speaks for all of us, as Rev Two seems to glide on top of the rising flood, graceful as graceful gets as she meets the gang of doppelgangers head on. The rest of us head for the dark, overgrown alleyway as fast as we can.

  When I glance back, practically all I can make out in the blur of snow is a slashing blue blur. But then Rev Two’s entire body glows blue as she momentarily looks in my direction. I don’t know if she can see me or not, but she raises her arm in the air, in complete defiance. She’s raising it my way, her blue hand dazzling and crackling like never before. She makes a fist and I raise my hand and make the same fist in recognition of her gesture. And then the doppelgangers surge towards her.

  Please beat them, I think to myself, beat them all, Rev.

  We probably have about five minutes before we die of exposure – that’s if we don’t get ambushed first – so we charge up the snowy sludge of the alleyway as fast as we can, slipping and sliding, scrabbling for purchase only to slip back again.

  Evil-GG reaches the top of the alleyway before the rest of us are halfway up it. He takes a moment to set the Moth down, making sure he’s as shielded from the elements as much as possible before heading back down the steep alley and collecting GG.

  ‘Shouldn’t it be ladies first?’ GG squeaks as he’s swept up into Evil-GG’s sinewy arms.

  ‘It is, babe,’ Evil-GG smirks as he darts back up the alley again.

  Johnson sees me slip and grabs my hand, pulling me to him. ‘I’m quitting school,’ he tells me as he pants hard, breathing in great gulps of snow-filled oxygen.

  ‘You and me both,’ I cough as we hold on tight and fight our way to the top of the alley.

  Billie catches my other hand. ‘I’m signing on the minute we get back.’

  Evil-GG comes back for Carrie and is ready to return for Billie when a new group of doppelgangers appear at the top of the alleyway. There must be a dozen of them. One of them is a toothy, rotund woman, and her carbon copy from my world works in Specsavers.

  Evil-GG spots them first. ‘Time to let the beast out,’ he yells over the raging, roiling elements. Back in his world, Evil-GG is feared by one and all. He is the worst of the worst according to Other-Johnson, and he unsheathes his talons and starts firing them back up the alleyway as he charges towards the doppelgangers, a violent, merciless whirl of spite.

  ‘You think so?’ A deep baritone voice booms down through the snowstorm, and it comes from an exact copy of our red-faced town crier who marches up and down the high street on a Saturday, ringing a bell and bellowing loudly. ‘YOU REALLY THINK SO?!’ he yells and his voice rumbles with such force that it comes rocketing down the alleyway and catches Evil-GG, hitting him like a concrete wall and smashing him backwards. The voice continues to pick up momentum and force as it sends Evil-GG slipping and sliding and tumbling back towards me, Billie, Johnson and Lucas. He clatters into us and we are thrown backwards in an avalanche of limbs until we reach the bottom of the alleyway, landing in the freezing waters of the ever rising river.

  Evil-GG springs to his feet, shakes himself then yanks me and Johnson to our feet before pulling a cowering, shivering Lucas to his feet.

  ‘I hate this, I hate this,’ Lucas says over and over.

  ‘You OK?’ Evil-GG asks me and Johnson.

  All we manage between is a nod.

  Billie gathers herself. ‘Can’t you shut that guy up?’ she asks Evil-GG.

  ‘The safe word for today is schtum,’ grins Evil-GG and is about to take the attack back to the doppelgangers.

  ‘They’ve got the others!’ Lucas points through the storm and we can clearly see GG making Carrie get behind him as he tries to protect her and the Moth from the doppelgangers who have now turned in their direction. There is no way we can reach them on time.

  ‘Save them!’ I scream at Evil-GG, as if he can magically get there in time. And bless him for trying, he starts back up the steep alleyway as fast as he can.

  ‘Hey, big mouth!’ he yells, but his voice is nothing compared to the town crier’s.

  Johnson takes my hand and we start climbing up the alleyway again. Now is not the time to give in. Even Lucas follows, his mind genuinely scrambled but still able to recognise that the Moth is in danger. Billie brings up the rear.

  ‘Rev,’ she pants.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Get Evil-GG to cut me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If he cuts me, I can turn back to . . . whatever I was. You need that version of me.’

  If ever I wished that she was still infected and able to create reality, then this is the exact time.

  ‘No. No way,’ I pant. ‘I couldn’t let you go through that again.’

  Up ahead the doppelgangers are gathering in front of GG who is clearly saying something to them. Maybe he’s pretending to be Evil-GG again, but whatever second he buys before the doppelgangers descend on him is a godsend. From nowhere the bus comes spinning out of the sky and lands directly on the doppelgangers. All of them. Non-Ape has reached it, smashed it and then thrown it away. The bus squishes the crowd instantly. It’s doubtful he was aiming for them, there’s no way he could see them from where he is, but we needed luck and it came our way, so I’m not going to complain.

  ‘You know how you can miss the bus and you get really angry,’ Evil-GG babbles as he helps drag us uphill. ‘Well, look what happens when it doesn’t miss you.’

  A mighty roar booms into the sky and it starts raining broken alien bodies as Non-Ape hurls doppelgangers this way and that. They hurtle down, plummeting and landing hard all around us, some are still alive but after impact they probably wish they weren’t.

  ‘We’re going to be all right!’ Billie says, reaching the top of the alley. ‘We can do this.’

  The Apes have stopped the invasion. They’ve closed the portal down.

  Billie’s right. For once we are winning. We’ve got a chance now.

  As long as this earth doesn’t swallow us up.

  REPEAT AFTER ME…

  So the answer is staring me in the face. It is so obvious I feel like I’m the most stupid person who ever lived.

  I snuck back home just before five in the morning, didn’t sleep a wink and then pretended to be up early, making tea and toast for my two favourite parents. My Non-Dad seemed pleased when he saw a plate of toast and a mug of tea waiting for him on the kitchen table. I could tell he felt we were making headway and it lifted his spirits no end.

&
nbsp; As usual, they drive me to school early; as usual, I do something wrong; and, as usual, I’m told to go to detention, which suits me just fine. But also as usual, the dark nothing that threatens to engulf the town has grown closer. It’s the only thing that seems to break the rules of repetition. I can see for myself that it has blacked out the dwindling edge of town. Time is most definitely running out.

  I’m soon on my way back home during the lunch break. I’m walking quickly and New-Billie, even with her ultra-long legs, is having trouble keeping up. I’ve been waiting to make this journey all day and nothing’s going to slow me down now.

  ‘What if you’re wrong?’ New-Billie asks.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You keep building my hopes up.’

  ‘Trust me, Billie,’ I urge.

  ‘I don’t know if I can take another disappointment.’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ I assure her,

  New-Billie and I slip into the flat and I can barely breathe as I march down the short hallway and straight into Non-Dad and New-Mum’s bedroom. I yank open the wardrobe and drag a leather jacket out.

  New-Billie watches in silence, not daring to speak in case she curses the moment.

  I grip the leather jacket, stopping to take in the odour of old leather and Non-Dad’s aftershave. I know what he has done has been done from the depths of heartache and love. That he isn’t a vicious man, just a very sad and desperate one. But when New-Moth died it changed everything and I feel no remorse for Non-Dad’s pain. He made a terrible mistake but too many have paid for it.

  I slide my hand up the inside of the jacket’s sleeve.

  New-Billie’s eyes meet mine. She is holding her breath.

  I slide my hand further up . . .

  And there it is.

  The formula.

  We’re on repeat. Every day contains the same things: food, cars, petrol, heat and light. It can all get used up, eaten, digested, whatever – but then it all comes back again, ready to nourish and enrich. This version of my town is stuck in its own version of a black hole so it can’t replenish from the outside; instead it just recreates what it needs everyday anew. People may die and never return, but that doesn’t stop the day returning with all it has to offer.