The Third Wheel

by Michael J. Ritchie

  ‘Drink your wine,’ he says, sombrely. ‘It’ll make things less painful.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lara says, eyes wide in fear. Then she hears the first screams. They can only mean one thing.

  Dutifully, she slugs back a quarter of the bottle in one go, then wipes the cherry-red liquid from her lips. She gets unsteadily to her feet and heads towards the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Now it’s Steve’s turn to sound panicked. ‘Lara, sit down! It’s not safe!’

  ‘I’m not going down without a fight,’ she says. ‘This is not how it ends.’ She stops and looks at her new husband.

  ‘You coming?’

  Steve meets her defiant expression, glugs down a mouthful of red wine himself and stands the bottle on the bedside table.

  ‘Anything for you,’ he says. He grabs her hand and the door is open again. Lara-and-Steve head out into the corridor, the battlefield, and the unknown.

  Gavin-and-Frederik

  Gavin puts the phone down, eyes rolling like two errant lottery balls. Why did Dexter ask such inane questions? Of course he and Fred had suffered the same as everyone else. Gavin falls onto the sofa, landing on Oscar who yelps and extricates himself from beneath his occupant.

  ‘Sorry fella,’ says Gavin, scratching the dog behind the ears. The dog looks at him rather disdainfully and plods out of the room. Frederik appears with iPad in hand.

  ‘Is he alright?’ says Frederik.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ Gavin sighs. ‘They’ll find out it was something to do with a nuclear test or an equally barbaric practice.’

  ‘Then what about this craft?’ Frederik settles down in the armchair.

  ‘Hoax of some kind,’ Gavin says with a shrug. ‘Just all a coincidence that it happened at the same time. It’s weird though, I’m not denying that.’ Gavin picks up the remote control and flips on the television to find that every channel is still broadcasting the same footage. He considers it something of an overreaction. There is only meant to be this level of coverage when the monarch dies, or the country goes to war.

  ‘There’s no point in panicking; there will be an explanation soon,’ says Gavin, and it’s at that moment that they hear the first window get smashed.

  Their Hammersmith home looks down from the fifth floor into a street that has seen better days. It’s only been twenty-four hours since he spoke to Dexter, and twelve since he last heard from his parents in Stirling – the phone doesn’t even connect now – but the road looks as though it was abandoned weeks ago.

  Frederik sits hunched over on the sofa, head in his hands. While Gavin deals with the occasional flashes of colour in his eyes as aliens pass down the street, kicking in doors and using their grey cloud technology on any people who happen to get in their way, Frederik is suffering much worse. The colours – the first rainbow he’s ever seen – are making him feel drunk. Each has meaning and he has realised, horrifically, that he can intuitively understand the language of these aliens.

  He knows that they took so long to emerge from their first spaceships not because they were concerned about the air not being right for them, but because the overwhelming use of colour had confused them and they’d taken it to be a threat. Frederik, and Gavin once he’d been informed, had surmised from this that they came from a planet with very little colour, since it all had nuance and meaning that the majority of humans would never be able to understand.

  Frederik also knows that they’re attacking at random. This isn’t a systematic eradication of humanity. They’re just taking out the ones they see and assuming that anyone left will die off anyway. They’re ruining the planet, making it ready for their own purposes, which are so foreign to Frederik that he can’t make sense of those colours.

  Gavin tries to tell him again about something Dexter said once upon a time about a place to hide in London, and that personally he would have preferred Edinburgh Castle, but Frederik doesn’t want to hear it. He grips his head tighter and fights back tears.

  On Wednesday, they make a plan. In an abandoned and raided corner shop that morning, while Gavin was helping himself to bottled water, toilet roll and dog biscuits, he picked up a London A-Z and hurried home to plot a route to the place he knew – hoped – would be safe. Frederik had pulled a collection of clothes out of the wardrobe and attempted to shove them into a couple of rucksacks, before becoming distracted by a phone call from his parents in Heerhugowaard. The city is besieged, but they’ve barricaded themselves in their home. Despite everyone involved still being alive, it’s a goodbye phone call for sure.

  The journey should take about an hour – Gavin had always been too reliant on the city’s buses, tubes and trains to realise quite how close to the centre of London he lived – but they don’t know what dangers they’ll have to face, so they give themselves a whole day to work with, leaving under cover of darkness first thing in the morning.

  They’re up and out before the sun has risen. Oscar lags behind, rejecting the firm tugs Gavin gives to his lead, furious at the muzzle that’s been put on him as a necessity to keep him quiet. Dog and owner mirror one another’s snarls, while Frederik remains alert for a sound or colour that may indicate danger.

  Unmolested and with a cooperative canine, they’ve amended the journey time to around an hour and a quarter, with a slight detour to a gun shop to pick up weaponry, even though Gavin has never fired a gun in his life. He knows that, logically, he’s more likely to do damage to himself than an alien if armed, but the situation is now so bizarrely unreal that even his Vulcan logic circuitry has shorted out and he’s stopped being rational.

  The streets are empty of people or, at least, living people. Body parts, bloodstains, empty cars and abandoned belongings litter the roads. There are even a couple of alien bodies, suggesting that humanity had a go at fighting back, but ultimately was outnumbered and outgunned. As the sun comes up, they’ve managed to only travel a few streets because of Oscar. He alternates between being livid at his new muzzle and wanting to sniff everything that seems interesting. He takes his time, with no awareness of the desperation that Gavin and Frederik feel.

  Every now and again they come across an alien or two and hide. Frederik projects colours that he’s seen into the ether and the aliens seem to notice them but are unable to tell they’re from a human source. Frederik then begins to worry that they do know and it’s a double bluff, so every time they encounter something, they move slower with Gavin constantly checking behind him. It becomes a strain, with Gavin the only one able to both see and communicate any threat. By the time they reach the gun shop, they are hungry and drenched with sweat.

  The shop has been partially looted, but there’s enough still and no one else around. Gavin takes a rifle and, using a large hardback book under the counter, matches up the correct ammunition.

  ‘You’ve never fired one of those,’ Frederik reminds him.

  ‘Do you think I should try a couple of rounds?’ says Gavin, looking at the strange item in his hands. He feels like he’s in a sniper film. ‘It might attract a lot of attention.’

  ‘From what you’ve said, the aliens don’t seem to be able to hear anything,’ says Frederik, stroking Oscar’s head and gripping the lead tightly as the dog tries to pull away to sniff at a dismembered leg.

  Gavin studies the gun for about quarter of an hour, using instructions gleaned from books behind the counter, before finally loading it and aiming a test shot at the building opposite. The rifle has more of a kick than he expects, and his thin frame is sent staggering backwards as the bullet crosses the road and embeds itself in a brick. He reloads and tries again. Another success. He finds more ammunition, shoves it into his rucksack, slings the gun over his shoulder and goes back to Frederik and Oscar.

  When they do finally arrive at the Natural History Museum and Gavin gazes up at the enormous, beautiful edifice, he realises that he’s been concentrating so hard on getting here that he hasn’t taken any of the journey in. He’s just grateful to be safe.r />
  At least, he hopes he will be.

  Gavin wakes up but can’t actually be sure that he even slept. Say what you like about the architectural wonder of the Natural History Museum, or the awe-inspiring appearance of the blue whale, but none of it’s terribly comfortable. Next to him, Frederick stirs too, grumbles something and stretches his hand out, the knuckles clicking grotesquely as he manoeuvres them.

  ‘Anything around?’ says Gavin.

  Frederik doesn’t reply for a couple of minutes, but Gavin doesn’t ask again. Eventually, he says, ‘No, can’t see anything.’

  Gavin hauls himself into a seated position, the large stuffed dinosaur he’d taken from the gift shop and was using as a pillow slipping down the whale’s slight incline. It’s their fourth day in the museum – possibly Sunday, if that even matters – but feels like the forty-fourth since any decent rest. A stray thought crosses Gavin’s mind about why Oscar isn’t sniffing around them, but then he remembers that they released him into the grounds on Friday. Frederik fumbles for a torch and flicks it on, for Gavin’s benefit rather than his own. Being inside a perpetually dark exhibit doesn’t affect his senses. Now able to see a little, Gavin fumbles in a bag for some food, and the two share a breakfast of slightly stale bread, Sprite and bananas.

  At around midday, Gavin sets out on his daily reconnaissance. Frederik once again laments that he’s sorry he can’t be more use, and Gavin has to console him for a while. He doesn’t begrudge Frederik anything for one second. He’s happy and proud to defend him. As he walks through the Human Biology exhibits, Gavin contemplates how his life changed in that moment he met Frederik. Everyone’s life changes when they meet their partner, sure, but in this case it seemed to be the discovery of someone who understood him, completely. Frederik and Gavin were both fearsomely smart, and extraordinarily kind, but each had had that aspect of them shafted in favour of one that didn’t matter. In a society so obsessed with labels, Gavin was always ‘the gay guy’ and Frederik was eternally ‘the blind guy’. Now, the epithets were hopefully a thing of the past. They were now Survivors.

  Gavin climbs the stopped escalator that passes through the centre of the Earth into the rooms dedicated to the physical sciences, to see if any other people have arrived overnight. Sitting next to remains from Pompeii are a young couple, unwashed and tired. Their small children, two boys, were off running around, chasing each other with gift shop dinosaurs. They haven’t seen anyone new come in. Gavin tries to be cheerful, but it all feels so forced.

  He wanders through the museum, not meeting anyone new, and then arrives at the very top of Hintze Hall, with a view down over Hope, the blue whale skeleton, and the upper displays on either side that flank her enormous form. He crouches down and sits on the steps, his slim frame aching with the lack of decent food and sleep.

  ‘Well done, Gavin,’ says a voice, internal but loud. Gavin recognises it as his father’s. Gavin isn’t sure if he’d ever accepted his father’s death or not. It had happened, and he had been heartbroken, but he chose never to dwell on it, and kept himself busy to distract from reality. Now, with no functioning iPod or biography to get stuck into, he was going to have to confront the truth.

  ‘For what?’ Gavin replies. He spoke aloud, but quietly. The answer comes to him in his mind, ‘For being so strong.’

  ‘What good is it going to do me?’ he mutters. ‘We’re all going to die.’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ says his father’s voice. That was like his dad – not telling Gavin that he’d see him again soon. Jack Napier didn’t stand for any of that nonsense – there was what there was, and that was it. That’s how Gavin knows that he’s making up the voice in his head and coming to terms with things on his own – his father would never return like this. Another synapse fires the suggestion to Gavin that he’s going mad. It’s perfectly possible.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Dad,’ says Gavin, uttering the single truth that he’d kept hidden from everyone for all these years. People saw him as someone who always had a plan, and he liked that. It boosts his ego and, while he knows some people were annoyed by it, he always felt that having some semblance of authority and organisation made people think he could handle anything. He couldn’t though, not really. It has all been an act – a great performance by any standards, but a performance nonetheless. He’d just been lucky a lot of the time. That’s all life was – a series of lucky breaks. Although, perhaps now, they were all about to end.

  ‘You’ll know what to do when the time comes,’ says the voice in his head. ‘You’ve never failed yet.’ Gavin knew he hadn’t, but he’s worked hard to make sure he never did. He could twist anything around to come out on top, but it was exhausting.

  Something moves in the corner of Gavin’s eye and he stands up abruptly. The voice and image of Jack disappears and he’s back in the real world. Now is not the time for fiction – reality is pressing in all too desperately on every side. He’s not sure what he saw, but he thinks it was people. They’ve gone now though, possibly into the room on the right that’s full of gemstones and geological samples. Wherever they are, Gavin has a sudden sense that Frederik is in trouble.

  Checking carefully for rivals, either from this planet or another, he skitters down the stairs again, his soft-soled shoes barely making a noise, and loops round and back down the staircase to beneath Hope.

  There’s no one.

  He runs down the corridor to the Large Mammals Room, now cursing that he left Frederik alone. He should never have done that and, if it’s not too late, he never will again. He’ll finally move ahead with the wedding plans that have been idly discussed for months, without either of them officially proposing or coming to any decisions. If there’s anyone left to officiate at a wedding.

  There’s a woman, late twenties perhaps, standing next to the whale’s cavernous bulk. There’s something oddly familiar about her, Gavin thinks, but she hasn’t noticed him yet and he can’t see her face properly. Then he notices the second figure, a pair of denimed legs sticking out of the infamous trapdoor. The woman notices him at last and begins tugging on the shirt of her companion as Gavin approaches.

  ‘Step away from the whale.’ Gavin holds his gun aloft, as the face of someone he never thought he’d see again appears from the whale’s belly, a face that looks stunned, stained and exhausted, with black rings round the eyes and dried blood on the upper lip. He looks just as bemused.

  ‘Gavin?’

  Gavin lowers his rifle.

  Peregrina-and-Pete

  They walk, and if they choose to ignore the smells of offal and blood, the sights of dismembered carcasses and the traumatic memories of the last week, it’s a lovely spring evening, although Peregrina could’ve done with a slightly thicker jumper and a shower. They see no living people, or indeed any aliens. These streets have been emptied, and apparently the aliens don’t believe in keeping guard on places they’ve already ransacked. Occasionally something moves and makes them jump, but it is always a cat, a dog or, on one surreal occasion, a wallaby.

  The streets are oddly silent, save for intermittent screams in the distance that they try not to think about, the snuffling of animals and the soft clump of their shoes on the road. Every few steps, Pete squeezes Peregrina’s hand, a silent acknowledgment that he’s still here, or perhaps a check that she is.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Peregrina asks eventually. They’re deep down a residential street of Chelsea, large houses surrounding them, some with doors open, but many still locked as if the owners fled but insisted on protecting their lavish lifestyles. Maybe they’re still locked in, starving or already dead. No faces appear at windows though, and only one in thirty, perhaps, has a light on inside.

  ‘Where have you always wanted to go but never got around to?’ asks Pete.

  ‘Mauritius?’ Peregrina says with a sad smile, thinking of the flight tickets in Pete’s desk at home, their honeymoon destination that is never to be.

  ‘OK, narrow it down to London,’ h
e says, throwing a large arm around her shoulders. ‘What London attraction did you never get to do?’ Peregrina thought for a little as they walked.

  ‘I never went to the aquarium,’ she says, ‘but if the power’s been out for a couple of days, I don’t imagine there’s much left worth seeing.’

  ‘Yeah, they won’t have had the luxury of escaping,’ Pete muses. He’s still slightly unsure as to how the zoo animals managed to escape so fast. Everything about the apocalypse – and he was under no illusion this was anything else – seemed to happen so fast. He was determined to savour the remaining time they had, be it minutes or months. Pessimistically, he assumed the former.

  ‘I never did the waxworks,’ says Peregrina, suddenly.

  ‘Madame Tussauds?’

  ‘Yeah. I never got to go as a kid, and I guess it just never happened since,’ she says. ‘The queues were always miles long though, I don’t know how anyone got in.’ Pete pulls Peregrina across the road to a street map.

  ‘Well, I reckon the queue won’t be a problem any more,’ he says. ‘Now, which way is Baker Street on this map?’ His cartographic attempts are halted however when a shade of mauve begins to dance in the corners of their eyes. Peregrina squeals and spins around in a panic, turning her heel over and gasping at the sharp pain that courses through her ankle.

  ‘Where are they?’ she says through teeth gritted in pain and fear.

  ‘Better get ready to run,’ says Pete, not looking up. He’s staring at the map, trying to match it up to the rudimentary Tube map he has in his head so that it will result in them arriving at Baker Street. ‘Can you see them?’

  ‘Not yet,’ whispers Peregrina. ‘Pete, I think I’ve just twisted my ankle.’

  ‘Can you walk on it? Can you run?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to count on it.’

  ‘OK, we’re going.’