Less Than Little Time (Between Worlds Book 1)

by Sabina Green

  “Back where, Dad?”

  “To the sawmill. I can’t take it anymore. I’m haunted by memories of Lewis wherever I go, but at work… it’s the worst. The sound of the saw is killing me and… whenever anyone gets close to it, I forget to breathe. I constantly feel sick. I’m useless.”

  That’s all I’d said to her that day, and it was enough. She called her work and took a few days off. She refused to go back home and stayed with me, even though she didn’t have any of her things there. Luckily, Ruby saw it all as a big adventure, and an opportunity to trick us out of more treats. On Monday, Connie called a few institutions. She’d found a psychologist who could see me the next day, and she drove me over. She didn’t listen to my protests that I can drive to the doctor myself, but I was grateful. Even though physically I could move around normally, I was desperately afraid of being alone; her presence was an incredible help.

  “What happened isn’t your fault, you don’t have to blame yourself.”

  “I feel like a weak loser.”

  “You’re not weak. You’ve just been strong for too long. Everyone needs to take a break sometimes, and if you don’t, your body will do it for you.”

  The truth was that I’d never really recovered from losing Penny, or from the violence of her death. Since my mental health was already compromised, Lewis’s death hit me like a hurricane.

  “Post traumatic stress disorder,” I told Connie the doctor’s diagnosis.

  “Move in with me, Dad,” was her answer.

  Since then she’d been taking excellent care of me, while trying to make me think that the deed is mutual. And now I couldn’t stand watching her suffer without doing anything.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “About what?” she stalled.

  “About what’s been troubling you. You don’t have to be brave all the time, I’m happy to help. And if I can’t… I know a good psychologist.”

  Her chin shook a little. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll think about it.”

  She started eating her bramboráky, but she was doing it so slowly, as if she had to force herself. It occurred to me that she just wanted to end the conversation. She was staring into nothing and wiping her greasy fingers into a napkin without thinking.

  She took a deep breath. “I think I’ll take some time off. Not just a long weekend,” she added, “I was thinking more like a few weeks.”

  Relief washed over me. “That’s a great idea.”

  I’d been thinking she might be suffering from the same thing as me. PTSD has lots of triggers and symptoms. From my own research I knew that people working in the medical industry, prisons and the police are especially susceptible because they are constantly faced with injuries, violence, sadness of the families… What if she was affected by some case? Or has something happened to her specifically? There were so many bitter criminals walking around, ready to cause harm. Somebody could have been threatening her, following her or even attacked her. So if her state of mind was really connected to work, she definitely should take a break. I knew that she’d started working for the police because of Mum, to help put guys like those from the bank behind bars. But she’d already served her time, surely… Who knows, maybe she’d change her mind and want to find a calmer job. There were so many options.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand. What do you say to a family holiday? You, me and Ruby?”

  Connie

  Mark was trying to outline the plans for relocating the chosen ones last night, but I had to stop him. There was just so much to take in, I struggled to pay attention. I’d remembered some key points, mainly the selected meeting place and a date by which everyone must be in the country before the spreading infection made flights a risk.

  I’d only known New Zealand from Geography lessons at school and a few travel articles on the internet. Based on the pictures, it was a gorgeous country with breathtaking nature, and I’d often thought about visiting myself. Whenever I travelled abroad, it was always with Dad, and to the heart of Europe to our Czech family. We’d go for at least three weeks. The family budget didn’t allow for another holiday until the next year, and as soon as I started working, I was limited by the time and the number of days I had off.

  It seemed incredibly sad to me now that I was supposed to go to New Zealand under these circumstances. I doubted I’d be able to appreciate the beautiful nature or the fascinating Maori culture while knowing I was a step away from my deathbed. But be that as it may, I needed to get my family there, no matter what.

  My suggestion to go to New Zealand surprised Dad. For a while he didn’t know what to say, just a long eeegh, an unusual response for him, but in the end he didn’t seem to have any objections. He nodded, which made me feel so relieved. What would I have done to persuade him, if he’d said no?

  “Why New Zealand?”

  I had an answer ready. “Have you heard of the Animal and Environmental Protection Association?”

  He looked confused. “Yeah. Aren’t they the ones you donate to?”

  “That’s right.” I put on my most passionate look. “In about a month and a half they’re organizing a climate change conference there. It’ll be a big event, and it’s open to the public. They’ll have big names from all around the world speaking, and fighting for new laws. I’d like to go, you know how important the environment is to me…”

  “Why am I only hearing about this now?” He frowned. “It must have been in the works for ages…”

  You have no idea… Along with spreading the plague, The Collective had also planned out several excuses to get the chosen people to New Zealand, and the conference was one of them.

  “I’d heard about it a while back,” I lied unwillingly. “I thought I wasn’t gonna go because it’s abroad, but in the end I changed my mind. I don’t want to go alone, so if you and Ruby join me, we can make a holiday out of it. We can relax, explore the place, and I’ll attend the conference. I’ll get some rest from work, spend quality time with you two…”

  As I was speaking Dad raised his hands, chuckling. “You don’t need to convince me, I’m in!”

  I sighed in relief and smiled back at him. “Alright then. I’ll talk to the sergeant and see how many days off he can give me. I’ll get the tickets.”

  Just then there was a knock at the door and I jumped. I immediately pictured Mark standing there, or someone else from The Collective, for a check up or something.

  I was completely incapable of movement. Dad had no such qualms, going to open the door. I counted three heartbeats before a familiar face showed up in the entrance.

  “Emma,” Dad exclaimed happily and turned to me with questioning eyes. “I didn’t know you were coming over!”

  I shrugged and let him think I’d forgotten to mention it. The truth was that our weekend plans had totally slipped my mind. I didn’t particularly feel like going anywhere either, to be honest I’d have much rather started researching plane tickets and the itinerary for the beginning of our New Zealand trip. After all, I couldn’t very well ask Dad and Ruby to just sit quietly in the safety of their hotel room until the world declares a state of emergency.

  “I won’t keep you long, Frank,” she said sweetly and quickly kissed him on the cheek. The two of them had always got along. It was strange that Dad missed the flash of sadness in her eyes when she turned to me. “I just came over to pick Connie up, we’re going for a drink.”

  I frowned. “Wasn’t that supposed to be tomorrow?”

  “I didn’t feel like waiting.” She shrugged and took a deep breath. Was she also forcing herself to stay calm?

  “I’ll just get my bag,” I said after a moment and went to the bedroom. I changed from my casual jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt while listening to the two of them chatting.

  Afterwards in her car Emma and I just stuck to small talk. When we got to my friend’s favour
ite bar–”It’s stylish and the drinks don’t cost a fortune!”–and sat down at a small table in the back corner, I finally told her everything about my cancer.

  “Frank doesn’t know, does he?”

  “No,” I said quietly and felt a sudden weight on my chest, as if I was being smothered by a buffalo.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I can’t hurt him. Not yet,” I added when I saw my friend open her mouth to protest. “He’s been going through a really tough time and I can’t make it even worse. I guess it doesn’t make sense, but I just can’t do it yet. I… I don’t want him to look at me like I’m a walking corpse. I want as much time with him to be normal, without us breaking into tears, thinking about how much I have left, and…”

  A panic attack stopped me from talking. I only had to think about the moment of truth and my entire body was fighting against it with all its might. Emma then did probably the best thing she could. She hugged me until I regained control over myself.

  “You see? This is exactly it. You know I’m dying, you pity me and I react with tears. And that’s exactly what I want to avoid with Dad, for as long as possible.”

  We then spent a long time talking about my diagnosis, the previous hospital visits, my feelings, nausea and chest pains.

  After a while she tilted her head as a new idea suddenly occurred to her. “Do you have a bucket list?”

  I wiped my eyes and nose. “What?”

  “I hope it’s not too forward to ask. Or too morbid.” She looked unsure. “I was just wondering if you have a list of things you’d like to experience, before…”

  “Of course I do,” I replied. To get rid of eight billion people certainly wasn’t one of the items, but… “I want to go to New Zealand. Explore, enjoy nature, learn a bit more about the Maori culture.”

  If I talk about it often enough, maybe I’ll convince myself that that is the only reason for my visit.

  “That sounds nice,” she smiled sadly. “What else?”

  I smoothed out my smooth shirt. “That’s it.”

  “Cool… But if you changed your mind, you could do a lot more than that in half a year.”

  Five months, I corrected her mentally. It had already been almost four weeks since the doctor’s prognosis.

  I felt an urge to tell her about all those nightmarish plans about to hit the world. How would she react? Think me strange, hide, tell other friends or notify the police? Mark was right when he had told Andrew I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the safety and survival of my family. Emma might not even take me seriously and think that the shock of cancer spreading through my body had made me lose my mind.

  My meetings with Mark have become an almost everyday affair and I felt like a junkie, going to him to get my fix. It was a terrible analogy in his case which I would never mention out loud, but it was true. I was addicted to the flow of new information. I wanted to make sure that their grand plan was really thought through to the last detail, and that in the case of any kind of trouble, they had a dozen unexpected solutions and plans B, C, D… Anything to ensure Dad and Ruby’s safety!

  After each of his explanations my head was buzzing with yet more questions, like fireworks going off inside my mind.

  “Rotorua, New Zealand,” I read aloud the name of a place marked out on a map that Mark showed me. There were notes written around it in abbreviations I didn’t understand. “Why there?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged, although there was no indifference in his voice. “I didn’t choose the place. As far as I know, Rotorua had already been selected when I was joining The Collective.”

  I looked up from the map, taken aback. “You never wanted to know why?”

  “To be honest, no. I’m mainly focused on the plans for releasing the plague going ahead. There’s no way I’m ever going to go to New Zealand, but I trust the leadership to have chosen well. It didn’t seem important to know their reasons. Does that make sense?”

  I nodded, although I personally found a huge interest in them.

  “The Collective had spent years choosing the right place,” Mark continued. He must have seen how desperate I was for details. “Rotorua must fulfil all the requirements. When you say New Zealand, everyone imagines its nature. Green, lush, life-giving. The Collective thinks that people should go back to living in harmony with nature, and where else would it be better than New Zealand? The conditions for agriculture are good, and so is the climate… This is just me speculating of course, I may be wrong.”

  It made sense.

  “How many people… are you going to save?”

  “This is another thing I can only guess about,” he said, apologetically this time. “Given how many stations there are around the world, and given that The Collective wants the new community to be diverse and multicultural, I’d say at least two hundred. Maybe three hundred.”

  “Including the children?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Andrew was watching us from his desk, but didn’t add anything to our conversation, despite the fact that his knowledge, I guessed, must be even more extensive than Mark’s. Maybe he was still angry with his colleague for bypassing protocol and taking me in, even though The Collective was working fine without me.

  I tailored my next question especially for him. “Why did you decide to let me join The Collective?”

  Andrew didn’t look up but stopped turning pages in his folder and his left hand froze above the keyboard. He was listening; he must have raised this topic with Mark many times.

  “For several reasons,” Mark admitted. “The most important one being that the idea of going to New Zealand is going to sound much more natural coming from you than from strangers. Your reasons and persuasion will be much easier for Frank to accept than if they came directly from us. Didn’t you say he’d agreed straight away, without hesitation?”

  I nodded.

  “Because you’re his daughter. The Collective doesn’t underestimate friend and family ties, you know.”

  I wondered what kinds of persuasion techniques they were going to use on Dad, but it didn’t matter anymore. He’d already agreed to go to New Zealand. If only he knew it would turn into a permanent stay… I didn’t doubt that neither Dad nor Ruby would ever return to Australia. That was a truly strange idea, after all, this was their home.

  “Right at the start you mentioned that to be accepted into The Collective, you have to fulfil certain requirements. What are they?”

  Mark paused for a moment, scratching his head awkwardly. “Well… I don’t know about the very beginning, how they were putting The Collective together ten years ago, but there are a lot of psychologists and psychiatrists in the leadership, and they thought that it was better to mainly add people who… let’s say people who have nothing to lose. Those without a family or anything else they’d want to live for. Those with really bad experiences, who have maybe even thought about taking their lives…”

  I gaped at him. “Those people are deciding the fate of the entire human population?”

  “Don’t be so high and mighty,” he said darkly. “Most of them wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for other people.”

  I felt embarrassed. Wasn’t I looking after a small five-year old girl at the station just the other week, who’d been beaten and raped by her own father for years? Didn’t I wonder if the sad, quiet girl would ever recover? I was reading to her from books and watching her colouring a picture of a gingerbread house. She was sitting there quietly, and when I wanted to pat her tiny arm in encouragement, she flinched away in fear. Now I was wondering if she, when she grew up, would be a suitable candidate to join The Collective. She might be more than happy to take part in their activities…

  “I’m sorry,” I blurted out.

  “We have to deal with the world we live in, Connie. Not the ideal one, that doesn’t exist. Bu
t one day it might, thanks to The Collective…” Mark added in reconciliation. Then he noticed that the mug he’d brought me was empty. “Would you like some more coffee?”

  “All the teas and coffees I’ve had in the last few weeks are starting to make me sick.” A hot drink was always a good way to keep my hands busy. Sipping on it gave one a seemingly important activity, as the world around started spinning out of control. But I couldn’t drink any more. “I’m hungry, I’ll go get something to eat.”

  I reached for my handbag, wondering if there was a restaurant nearby. Or maybe just a quick sandwich at the café across the street.

  “Would you mind if I joined you?” Mark said. “I could eat too.”

  I was surprised. Since he’d invited me to that café for our business meeting, we’d only ever seen each other in the Association lounge. I didn’t seek out his company outside of it, there was no reason to… But what does it matter if we have lunch together?

  “How come you’re suddenly so trusting?” I asked quietly on our way to a nearby place Mark had suggested. I used this opportunity to ask even more questions. The fact that we’d left Andrew and his curious ears behind in the lounge was a bonus. “We’re practically strangers.”

  Mark was staring at the people passing by, deep in thought. “I’ve never been the kind of guy who trusts others implicitly. But when I started volunteering for the Association and The Collective, a lot of things started to change. I guess it might seem like we’re all super secretive, but that’s not actually the case. We’re just trying to keep things secret from the world, but there is complete honesty and trust between the members. The company promotes truthfulness and honesty among the employees, it’s incredibly effective. If you live in that for a while, it gets under your skin. And besides… it probably sounds really weird, but I’ve known you for a really long time and I know that I can trust you.”