How the World Ends (33 page)

“I don’t understand,” I say, standing there, suddenly alone. The stone? I remember then, a grey rock with a red ruby inside, and a narrow blade stuck into lock of a very old door. Was that real, or part of a dream? I turn and try to find my way through the maze of monuments.

The rain has made us all strangers for a moment, and it falls so fast and hard that the whole world is obscured. As I stumble through the graveyard, bumping into headstones and trees alike, I find myself suddenly at the opening of a great crypt.

There is no light here and no rain either, aside from the faint sound of dripping. What little glow there is seems to be reflected from a piece of silver on the ground down a few steps. It feels so familiar, and I remember a door, then, and the immense weight of the world as it fell upon me, only to be broken upon a… sword.

I slip and stumble my way down the stairs. My clothes are filthy and wet, and my hands are covered with mud.
I must look to a stranger like a madman
, I think to myself. I trip over the chunks of stone that have been left lying on the floor of the tunnel-crypt.

And then the single point of light in the darkness is here before me. I see the thing that seems to be from a dream long ago, not just from the past, but from another lifetime, when such things were more than symbols.

The sword is a silver cross that sticks straight out of the rock before me, beckoning me forward. I kneel and draw its blade, with as much respect and reverence as I can muster, slowly and smoothly out of the earth. I rise and stand there in the darkness, holding the weapon in my hands before me.

I take a step forward now, keeping my eyes downward, careful not to trip over the rubble on the floor.

“Finally, the man I have been looking for.”

I look up, startled at the sudden noise. “Who are you?”

“I am your destroyer, Jonah,” he says, smiling. He looks completely dishevelled and covered in mud, dirt and blood. His neck is dripping from a large cut, and his head is like one massive bruise, mottled with blackened blood and yellowed contusions. I don’t know him. I don’t think I would recognise him even if he was my brother.

“I came through hell to get here,” he continues, with a voice filled with malice and rage, “and I’m going to make damned sure that I don’t go back there until you’re dead enough to come with me.”

“That sounds complicated,” I say, oddly detached, as he raises a pistol towards my chest.
Is this how I die?
“And I’m not too sure about the whole ‘hell’ thing, either.”

“
I’ve
never been more confident about anything, and neither was your brother, after seeing what he had done.”

“That doesn’t sound like Ruben.” My voice is little more than a whisper, and he pulls the hammer back on the gun with a loud click. I keep talking. “He wasn’t much for heaven or hell or anything like that. One life was all he ever reckoned on.”

“Oh, I think you are quite mistaken when it comes to your brother,” he says, calmly. “Your brother doomed us all to this fate, out of rage for the untimely death of his wife, and I’m here to make sure you get what he deserved.”

I get one split second to wonder about that – about why this man would think any revenge against Ruben hadn’t already been fulfilled with his murder – but the thought has no conclusion; he pulls the trigger.

As he does so, I swing the sword with all of my strength and hope that the momentum will impale him as the bullet strikes me down. But nothing is ever as it seems, and revenge least of all. The sword in my hand turns to a forked stick of wood, and I stop to look at it as if this is more troubling than the very fact that I am about to be pierced through with bullets. Yes, nothing is
ever
as it seems, and we should all remember that, especially in times of distress. I look down at the dried out piece of wood in my hand and wonder if I put pressure to the stick, would it bend or break?

While I am doing this, indeed even before I think these thoughts, Sergeant Thomas leaps down the slippery stone stairs and smashes the angry man’s head nearly off his shoulders with a massive chunk of stone. The gunshot careens off the walls of the tunnel behind me, and the sound of the rain mutes the echoes of its report. The body hits the mud on the tunnel floor with a quiet thump.

Bill Thomas is beside me then, and he puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s good to see you, brother.”

The words sound strange from him, as if there is a significance behind them beyond the kinship we have shared in the last weeks, and of course, the last few seconds.

“It’s good to see you too.”

And without too much more thought to the dead man bleeding out at our feet, perhaps because we have become overly used to the sight and sounds of unnatural death that this one doesn’t feel so bad, we step back into the daylight as the sun begins to break through the clouds.

Bill looks at the piece of wood in my hands and says, “What were you going to do, swat him to death with your divining rod?”

“Don’t get me started, man,” I say, smiling. “You’d be surprised at what I can do with this rod.”

As the rain stops and the light of the world gets brighter, I can’t help but feel better. Bill puts his arm around my shoulder, and our many companions crowd around us, somehow certain now that the worst is behind us and we can once again move forward. Everywhere I look is the happy-sad smile that only a survivor can know of.

I feel a lingering pity for the fallen man in the tunnel, though, and the memory of his words sticks with me. I decide, for the moment, not to worry too much about my brother’s legacy, and I look northward towards what I so readily left behind some days ago.
I will not do so again
.

My family beckons me home with the memory of their love, deep inside my veins, and I wonder if that has made all the difference.

Chapter Six – The Long Walk Through Fire

Bill

Jonah and I walk together through the day and share the same watch at night, though it seems unnecessary now to keep such night-time vigils against sudden danger. We talk of all the things that have happened in the past days and weeks, and of the loss of life. We talk of the various useless things that we might have done to stop it that wouldn’t have made a damned difference anyways.

Those angels have disappeared, and I can just about say good riddance, since they seemed to be meddling about as much as they were helping anything. Many, many others show up to take their place, too, so they aren’t missed or anything like that.

People seem to see us from far off and, like thirsty animals to water, they flock about us, joining sometimes in ones and twos, and then sometimes in tens and twenties. They come down from the hills or up from deep ditches and even from the branches of tall trees. Why anyone would hide up in a tree is beyond me, but it’s not my place to criticize. Not yet, anyways. I plan on bringing these folks up to speed on how we should be organizing ourselves as soon as we get to wherever we’re going, but for now I’m content to just walk beside my friends.

We eat what we find along the road, and there is plenty that has sprouted up, as if nature’s making up for lost time. It’s amazing to watch the folks who’ve been travelling with Jonah find things that are useful. Even the smaller kids manage to pick up all sorts of berries and other things from low down that are valuable.

My biggest concern about the future, now that we have survived, is coffee. My pack was left behind when Geron’s men picked me up and, as far as I can remember, that was the last of the beans that anyone thought to bring along. Idiots, all of us; I mean, if the world ends and everything is lost in a hellish darkness, what is going to make you feel better than a hot cup of coffee? Exactly.

I guess it won’t kill me not to have it, though.

…

Susan

I have been altered by the new friendships that have been forged in the crucible of the last while. I have been damaged by the loss of Amy, who had become a sister to me. A woman can’t deny the power of a sister, especially when she hasn’t had one, and then she has one, and then she loses one: that’s a damaging loss.

I am amazed at my newfound skill in picking out things that we can eat from the new growth along the roadsides and at the edge of the woods that we skirt around. In a few spots, especially when we find wild strawberries or something else with actual flavour, it is a real joy to see the look on everyone’s face. Looking around, I watch others watching others enjoy the rare treat. After being so hungry, it’s amazing that we are greedier for the happiness of our fellow travellers than our own appetites.

But not all of us are capable yet of relaxing long enough to smile. Most of those that come to the group, and we are a long train of several hundred people now, are shell-shocked beyond comprehension. Some need to be led along and practically hand-fed in cases where they are too weak to feed themselves. Some are too frail or too disturbed to even drink a bit of broth.

I try not to shed too many tears about everything that has happened. The sadness sits deep down within me now, more like a living presence that shares my body, and I embrace it eternally with all the love that I had for those who are gone. That approach seems to keep the tears at bay, most of the time. I think I seem too tough to the others, especially the new ones. I wonder if they resent me, as I am now a better walker than most, and I don’t seem to need the same amount of sleep as I once did. That’s just how I have adapted, though, after staying so watchful for so long with only a few of us to keep an eye on each other.

I have become much different from the timid woman who walked through an imaginary wall into an old church to be tasked with this burden. I don’t see it as something Jonah asked me to do, though. He himself seems an unlikely candidate for such responsibility. No, I like to think it is I who has been given the chance to present myself for service, and I have been allowed to serve my people however I can, whoever they are and by whatever means are available.

I wonder if that is why I am still alive. It doesn’t explain why Amy isn’t, though, since she was the same as me in most respects. She was probably better than me at surviving in the wilderness. She ought to be alive, not me. I can only think that it is just the way of things: some of us die and some of us live, and we can only do what we can for the living and remember the dead with all the love that they deserve. I keep her memory as a protected, living thing that dwells within my soul now.

I keep my eyes busy with the search for food and for stragglers joining the group.

I endure the beginning just as I feel I have endured the ending.

…

Steven

Why do we follow him? What hold does he have over us? I can remember dragging him in a litter along this very same road. Now here we are again, tagging along after him like a bunch of sheep, albeit with more organization this time up the road. I guess we have to go somewhere, though, so we might as well follow him as anyone else. But until we get where we’re going, I am reserving judgment as to whether this is the right direction at all.

Or is this just a vicious dream that is only just now recurring into a nightmare?

But the more I dwell upon it, the more I don’t bother with those kinds of thoughts, since it doesn’t make any difference anyway. Here we are, together, and the group is getting bigger everyday. People seem to just appear every morning, joining in the long chain, asking questions, or simply following along and watching from a distance. I try to stay near to Jonah – he seems to be the only one who knows where we’re going.

His horse is the gentlest animal imaginable, and a few days out from the city another one comes up to us. I guess this one belongs to Jonah as well, for he immediately throws his arms around the thing’s neck and cries out that he knew she’d be back. I’ll never understand it, but I guess it’s what happens when you spend too much time in the country. I hope I don’t turn out like that, wherever we’re going.

He puts about four kids on each horse, walking between the two of them and leading them with his very presence, for there are no halters or saddles on them. They seem to be content to walk this way with the light loads on their backs, and there’s no concern for them running off. It doesn’t seem right, to have a dumb animal be so devotional. Why do they do that?

The kids love it; they bounce along for about an hour until they get switched off with another set. They all have filthy clothes and hair that stands up all over the place. I am grubby, too. I can feel the dirt in my very bones, as if every day without a real shower or bath lets the filth dig deeper into my skin. Everyone looks the same, though, even the girls.

I start to pass the time counting people, but it becomes impossible. There are about fifty people that I know, and of them maybe thirty are from around the foster home where I was brought up. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds and hundreds that trail along the road now, all stretched out in a long group. Jonah doesn’t even try to talk to all of them, or call out to people about what they should do or where they should go. He just walks in the middle of everyone, leading those two horses and folks just spread out around him.

Some walk in front, but most trail along behind, watching to see the kind of food that the more experienced people gather up, and then follow suit. Even with the considerable number of people who seem to have knowledge of plants and herbs which grow along the way, it’s mostly roots and prickly leaves that we get to eat, and not even enough of those, so that you end up crunching dirt as much as anything.

Dirt on the inside, dirt on the outside, dirt and filth everywhere. All I want is be clean. Why can’t we just arrive wherever we’re going, or at least stay still long enough to rest properly? But that’s the problem with such a large group, they take forever to get going and just as long to settle down and stop for the night, so we don’t bother to do lunches and crap like that. If you’re hungry you just follow someone who knows something and grab whatever you can when you see what you can eat. At about mid-day the whole area, wherever we are, is teeming with people tottering along after those gifted few who show which roots can be dug up or leaves eaten raw. There are others wandering farther afield trying to hunt animals.