Shift #2

by Jeff Povey

Boom.

  He’s going for the Black Moths.

  Other-Johnson pulls himself straight again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Rev . . .’

  I know from the look on his face that it’s bad news.

  But I also know he doesn’t have to tell me. It’s been staring at me the whole time.

  I turn to Johnson. I can’t believe what I’m about to say.

  Up ahead Non-Ape punches the bridge with all his might.

  ‘Johnson.’ My voice is caught way back in my throat.

  A crack runs all the way along the bridge.

  Black Moths are shaken from their perch and some pitch headlong into the Thames. Others swarm towards Non-Ape.

  But he punches the bridge again and it buckles and groans and the Black Moths are thrown this way and that.

  Johnson can see tears in my eyes. ‘What is it?’

  Another punch lands.

  Then another.

  But there are too many Black Moths and despite how many plunge into the Thames enough still manage to reach Non-Ape, leaping on him and attacking with a savagery that far outdoes their earlier attack.

  The Ape looks on, for once unable to do anything.

  I don’t know how much strength Non-Ape used up throwing half a hotel into the Thames but there is no way he can be on full power. The Black Moths intensify their attack.

  Other-Johnson plunges into my mind and starts yanking images and memories from me. He does it so hard I cry out in pain. But he doesn’t apologise as he rifles through me, searching and scanning and searching some more.

  The first of the fallen Black Moths climbs from the Thames and onto the boat. They can swim then. The Ape is on him in an instant, driving the pole straight into his throat before heaving him into the air and flicking him back into the Thames.

  The Ape is watchful as he grips and re-grips his weapon. I look at him and realise that he wants this. The video game to end all video games.

  Another Black Moth leaps onto the boat and the Ape charges for him.

  Other-Johnson is wrenching more images from my head. They are speeding by at a hundred miles an hour.

  There’s a flash of white light and we arrive back in the school. The Ape can hear footsteps. I am listening with him now, and then I’m following the footsteps as they hurry out of the school and leave footprints in the snow.

  The Ape was right.

  There was someone in the school with us.

  Then I’m in a deep river that shouldn’t have been so deep. Not enough to drown me anyway.

  There’s the winter that was never winter. The snowman. The bleak freezing cold.

  I see Johnson and Billie entwined.

  Behind me the Ape kills another Black Moth as it leaps onto the boat. The Ape marches forth, smashing and slashing as more of them swim for the boat and climb up its sides.

  Black Moths are being torn apart by Non-Ape on the riverside, and their limbs and heads and bodies land beside us after he hurls them away. But they keep coming for him, talons slashing and teeth biting. There are too many for him this time, I am sure of it.

  More images come.

  Billie crushing me a little too tightly in the church, nearly squeezing the life from me. She’d already started to change and didn’t know how powerful she was becoming. I didn’t think of it before but how did she know I was there?

  Then the Ape miraculously finds Johnson in the blizzard. In ten minutes exactly. A miracle.

  Or a manipulation.

  Billie raining kisses on Johnson as he comes in from the cold.

  Non-Ape roars and shakes free of the Black Moths. He digs his fingers into the base of the bridge and tears it from its mooring. Black oil drips from a hundred cuts in his skin as he summons all the God-like power he can and heaves one end of the bridge into the air, snapping it in half. Black Moths are suddenly plunging into the river, but this time half a bridge is coming down after them. God knows how many he kills but what’s left of the bridge sags and bows and then collapses into the Thames, taking the rest of the Black Moths with it.

  More images are plucked from my head.

  Non-Ape attacked on the train. The attack that seemed only focused on him.

  Johnson completely unscathed on the train. Not one curl on his gorgeous head was touched.

  The Moth kidnapped.

  Images keep gathering as Other-Johnson ransacks my brain.

  The winter that never was.

  Escape.

  Europe.

  Black Moths are still climbing on board, coming from all directions. Their talons and sleek bodies dripping water.

  The Ape’s pole is covered in black oil but even he can’t take all of them down.

  Non-Ape bellows as he wades into the river, trying to reach us, crushing anything that gets in his way.

  Not the river, I think. Don’t go in the water. ‘Don’t!’ I yell. ‘There’s something down there!’

  But on he ploughs.

  ‘Get back!’ Johnson yells at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s something—’

  That something drags him under.

  One second the river is up to his chest and the next Non-Ape is gone. He doesn’t even get the chance to bellow.

  So this is it.

  This is our last stand.

  The day has turned even darker as the Ape backs up in front of us, eyes trained on the advancing Black Moths.

  All along someone has been making it impossible for us to leave. They took our brain and they tried to take our muscle. Both vital to my grand quest.

  But how could they possibly know that was my plan?

  The Black Moths keep climbing aboard. Even though their numbers have been decimated by Non-Ape there are already too many of them to fight. Without Non-Ape we’re dead.

  ‘Rev.’ Other-Johnson is in my mind again. His voice is barely a whisper.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Really thought we had a chance.’

  He doesn’t think this is going to end well and who can blame him?

  Johnson stands side by side with the Ape who breaks his pole in half over his knee and hands one half to Johnson.

  ‘You’re some man,’ Johnson tells the Ape, his eyes never leaving the Black Moths. They’ve got us surrounded and they have all the time in the world.

  The Ape stays tall. ‘We’ve got this.’ He has no give up in him but the odds are impossible now. There must be over twenty Black Moths on the boat with more still climbing up the sides.

  I think of the Moth, trapped somewhere, alone and unable to do anything more than crawl. With us dead no one will come for him now.

  I have made an unholy and tragic mess of this.

  Other-Johnson mentally arrows in on the footsteps in the snow again. He takes me all the way with him as together we track the footsteps.

  We glide down the steep hill that leads into town and the footprints lead all the way to the town square. The snow appears from nowhere and thickens with each step.

  And standing there, as snow appears all around her, is Billie. I watch as the snow spreads throughout the centre of town.

  An entire winter springs up around her in seconds.

  It’s only now that I realise he is dragging these images from her head and putting them in mine. Which means she must be close by.

  I almost choke. ‘Billie . . .’

  Other-Johnson is running short home movies of Billie through my mind.

  Billie on the train thinking that she needs to stop us getting to London, that Johnson will never be hers if she doesn’t. The train rattles a speck of the dead Moth Two’s oily blood into the air. Her eyes settle on it through the train window and she wills reality to change.

  Moth Twos spring up all around the fast-moving train.

  She has so much power.

  Being cut by Non-Lucas and having her DNA spliced with his has given birth to something incredible.

  Another image.

  Other
-Johnson kicking a classroom door that just won’t open.

  There is no Invisible Entity. Nothing came back with us.

  The enemy has been amongst us all along.

  There was no way Billie was going to let us leave. No matter what the cost . . .

  Other-Johnson leaves my head and I realise I have nothing left now. My best friend has taken the last of me and snuffed it out.

  ‘For what it’s worth she’s not one of you or one of us any more.’ Other-Johnson is genuinely heartfelt.

  But there is one last battle to be fought and I drag myself upright and join the Ape and the Johnsons. The Black Moths stop, waiting for the signal to lunge. I don’t even have a weapon.

  My shoulders are on fire. My spider sense is burning me from the inside and the slowly sinking boat rocks as another big wave hits it. Is Non-Ape underwater fighting whatever it is that dragged him under?

  Something leaps through the air – just like Non-Lucas could leap – and makes it from the bank of the river all the way to the boat in one silky graceful bound.

  Billie lands on the deck. Behind the Black Moths.

  They hunker down low, on all fours, and with her supermodel height she towers spectacularly above them.

  ‘We were going to be so happy,’ she tells me. ‘It was a gift. A world all of our own. Me and Johnson.’

  Clearly the Moth didn’t figure in her romantic plans.

  Johnson tightens beside me. ‘It wouldn’t have lasted,’ he whispers drily.

  ‘I went to the school as soon as we got back in town,’ Billie tells us, but looks directly at me the whole time. ‘I ran up that hill and when you weren’t there I realised what was meant to be. It was written in the stars, Rev. It always has been. I’m meant to be with Johnson. Not you and him. It was never going to be you and Johnson.’

  ‘Billie, there’s no need for this,’ I tell her but I know it’s not Billie any more. I don’t what she is now but maybe it’s better that way. I need to keep this impersonal, because if she gives me an opening then I’m taking it. ‘All this over a boy?’ I try and smile.

  ‘But then I saw the white light and suddenly you were back,’ Billie says, ignoring me.

  ‘Told you I heard footsteps. I’ve got great ears,’ the Ape tells anyone who cares to listen.

  Johnson stands taller, and fixes Billie with an honest and defiant look. ‘You might as well stop there because I’m not going to love you. Look what you’re doing! What you’ve done! How could I love someone like you?’

  Which isn’t what any girl wants to hear, let alone a super-powered, reality-manipulating she-devil.

  ‘Great line, Johnson,’ I whisper heatedly. It’s right up there with Non-Ape for stupidity. What is it with boys?

  Billie’s eyes blaze and she lets out a snarl.

  Other-Johnson flashes a glare at Johnson. ‘Yeah, that went down well.’

  Johnson shrugs. ‘Just saying it like it is.’

  The Ape takes a step forward. He can’t help himself; he doesn’t do hanging back.

  ‘I’m going to kill them all,’ he says. ‘Anything that gets in my way is dead.’ He’s never been so focused. Or determined. ‘Rev – I’m killing every single one of them.’

  ‘Wrong,’ Billie replies. ‘And so, so stupid.’

  The Ape moves first, charging forward, his bulk gaining momentum and giving him power as he ploughs into the Black Moths. He thunders through them and I already know what he is doing – he’s going for Billie. Of course he is. He knows how to win.

  Goosebumps break out all over my skin as he takes the fight to Billie. I know what he’s thinking. If he can take her down then all of this will disappear. His gut instinct is telling him to get to her, whatever, however. And he cuts and slashes his way, a boy against a tide of unbeatable odds, but still he keeps going – one step at a time, one centimetre, one millimetre, always going forward, always moving towards and not away, never being beaten back, never giving ground. Black Moths leap upon him and he lashes out as Johnson joins the fight.

  Other-Johnson grabs me round the waist and leaps me through the air, trying to find safety. But three Black Moths rise with us and bring us down with a bone-crunching thud. They set about Other-Johnson as I roll to my feet and come up in time to see the Ape crunch through the swathe of Black Moths and take aim at Billie with what’s left of his pole. He’s about to hurl it like a javelin when a Black Moth cuts him across the stomach with a bright and shining talon. The pole spears through the air even as the Ape falls to his knees, blood pouring from his wound.

  Billie takes great delight in flicking the pole away, making sure the Ape knows how futile his attack was. He kneels before her, holding his stomach with one hand while trying to push himself to his feet with the other.

  Billie looms over him with all the hatred she can muster.

  Oh God no.

  I am already running for the fallen pole as she brings the Ape’s face up to meet hers. ‘You animal.’

  A talon slips from her fingertip and with one hand snapping the Ape’s head back she exposes his neck. ‘You vile, vile animal,’ she says calmly, and swings her talon towards his throat.

  But no one beats the Ape. No one. And he lurches forward, driving hard with his mighty legs, shoving Billie backwards, carrying her, half in a fireman’s lift, back towards the edge of the boat. She is taken by surprise and can’t quite fathom that while she is an arrogant hateful teenager he is a warrior. And like any warrior he was born to fight.

  ‘Come on then!’ he bellows and Billie is so shocked by the attack that she is barrelled over the edge of the boat. The Ape roars like an animal as Billie splashes down into the river. He turns and tries to find me through the blur of Black Moths who have pinned the Johnsons to the deck. More of them surround me and the Ape launches towards me, weaponless, bleeding profusely, but still coming. Coming to save me.

  The first Black Moth leaps for me and I jam the end of the pole straight into its throat. But they’re clever and smart and the Black Moth hurls himself over the edge of the boat, whipping and twisting the pole from my hands even as he dies. A selfless kamikaze attack that leaves me utterly defenceless.

  His sacrifice paves the way for Black Moths to converge around me.

  The Ape barrels towards me, trailing blood. ‘Rev!’

  He has almost made it when he is caught and cut down before my eyes. Black Moths leap on top of him and even the Ape, the mighty Ape, can’t wrestle free of them.

  I don’t even know I’m crying as Billie climbs back on board, soaked and angrier than ever. All of us are trapped, pinned and with no hope of escape as Billie walks straight up to me, shoving Black Moths out of her way. She spits river water out of her mouth and snarls again. Billie’s blazing darkness envelops her and she is lost to it. My best friend is no more.

  All of her talons slide into view. ‘Want to hear something funny?’ Billie lets out a slow sad sigh. ‘I didn’t even know I was doing it, not at first. I honestly had no idea.’

  Billie shows her taloned hand to me. ‘Which hand would you like? The left or the right?’

  ‘How about neither,’ I reply.

  She manages a smile at that. ‘How about both?’

  She is about to plunge her talons into me.

  ‘I told you to choose your Johnson. I gave you a chance.’

  This is it, Rev. Your race has run. And I apologise to Lucas, and to Carrie and GG and the Moth. I am so sorry that this happened.

  And to you, Johnson. I so wish it had been different.

  And you, Ape. I love that you were there for me, and I’m sorry that it’s over now.

  Billie’s hand arcs towards me.

  ‘Billie, wait!’

  It’s Johnson. He is being held down on the deck but he can still see that Billie is about to slice me in half.

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ he shouts. ‘I’ll go away with you.’

  Billie stops. Her talons are within millimetres of striking me.

&nbs
p; ‘Wherever you want. I don’t care as long as we’re together,’ he tells her

  No, I think. You can’t do that.

  Billie gestures to the Black Moths and Johnson is allowed to climb to his feet. The Ape is still alive but he seriously needs medical attention. Other-Johnson, even with his extra strength, can’t break through.

  Johnson doesn’t look at me. I know he can’t because he has to focus everything he’s got on Billie. ‘Billie, we’ll go away, and we’ll make it work. Me and you. That was your dream, right?’

  Billie’s eye flicker to blue for a moment. ‘You’re just saying that.’ But in her voice is a desperate desire to believe what Johnson is telling her.

  ‘Let them go home and I’ll stay. It’ll just be us in a world of our own.’

  ‘Johnson, don’t,’ I whisper.

  But he continues to act as if I’m not even there. His eyes meet Billie’s. ‘You and me and a Harley-Davidson. That’s all we need.’

  Tears are rolling down my cheeks because finally I know which Johnson I want. Maybe I always knew and maybe Other-Johnson did as well, considering how hard he tried to win my heart. He’s been inside my head and probably my heart, so he saw it there and he tried to act as if it wasn’t. But the boy I love is standing right before me. Long dark curls frame his perfect face, his taut bare torso and his long thin legs ready to take him away with Billie.

  I didn’t even get to kiss him, I think. Or tell him how I felt.

  ‘How about it?’ he asks Billie. ‘I’m ready to go now.’

  Billie can’t help herself. She finally has her heart’s desire. ‘Promise?’

  ‘Hope to die.’

  Billie is in heaven.

  ‘I’m all yours, B. All yours,’ Johnson tells her.

  My heart snaps.

  I’m surprised no one hears it because it definitely snaps in two.

  Billie glances around the boat and I can imagine the fantasy that is overpowering her. They could sail away together. They could be lovers in an empty paradise.

  Johnson senses the same. ‘We’ve got the Garden of Eden all to ourselves,’ he tells her. I don’t know how he’s keeping so calm and measured.

  Billie smiles and one by one the Black Moths pop out of existence, leaving drops of black blood to run between the cracks in the decking.