CHAPTER TWELVE
Quivering reflections of candlelight flickered up and down the murky waters of the Thames as Philip’s torch-runners dashed to their set positions around the city of London. Every few moments one would duck into an alcove or behind a building, standing stock-still, listening for any followers. Then they would rush out again, their disturbingly destructive spirits aroused with the macabre love for fire that every human shares. Soon the entire city would be engulfed, yet some would still gaze at it in wonder, watching the world around them warp as the intense heat transformed London into a land of mirages and fluttering currents. Then the waters would flood, covering the burnt and creaky necropolis that remained, giving it a few last moments of dignity before it was razed to the ground.
Thousands of miles away, in the skies over the Himalayas, Michael Haley and his fleet of Exterminators rose into the air and began their short journey north toward their target. Inside his confined cockpit the man with two names felt his heart begin to beat faster as the adrenaline began to kick through his brain. He had given everything a chance to work, the best chance he possibly could. Now all he could do was his job, and hope that Philip had managed to do his. Hopefully, in a half-hour, he would arrive over a ruined and empty city.
And if not?
He didn’t want to think about that.
Back in the river-house Philip stood as still and erect as a meerkat on lookout, waiting for the signal he hoped more than knew was coming. His watch had counted past the point of no return, and Judas would arrive in less than fifteen minutes. The fires should already be started, his torch-runners running away from the city like everyone else in the hopefully frantic crowds. The boy, Xavier, was standing patiently in the corner, apparently lost in thoughts of his own. He was still reevaluating his thoughts on the boy himself, but his instincts were still saying to take him to Moscow. Whatever. Stop focusing on that. Philip thought. The only way you’re going to survive this is with focus. That was when he heard the gunshot in the distance, followed by two more in quick succession. Without further ado he heaved against the ancient wheel with every ounce of strength left in his aging body, and ever so slowly it began to turn.
Xavier was not lost in his thoughts. To be closer to the truth, he was floating in them. None were flowing through his mind; they were all still trying to get in. The world had begun to move quickly, far more quickly than he was used to. Moscow? Moscow? A thought pounded through, only to be quickly displaced by another. What’s going to happen to London?
What’s going to happen to me?
Who is this Philip?
Will I ever see the fish again?
What will happen to the people?
What did he mean rebellion?
Why are we going to Moscow?
Who is this colleague?
Why would anyone be looking for us?
Are we in danger?
What the hell is happening here?!
STOP!!
The final voice roared through his mind like a sonic-boom, sending the others tumbling away like so many insignificant bowling pins. He relaxed the muscles he had unknowingly tensed, just in time to hear the gunshots in the distance and see Philip begin to turn the wheel.
The waters of the Thames began their ascent slowly, methodically, unnoticed by the frenetic mobs running from the leaping flames. They engulfed pavement, burned trees, and swallowed building in the blink of an eye, never slowing on their quest to eat away at the city beneath them. People had begun to dive into the rising waters of the murky, sediment-riddled river, just escaping the fire’s wicked reach. The river began to climb a little faster as the man in the river-house found his rhythm. Then the waves rocketed up the banks, eating away at the walkways and streets themselves, neutralizing the flickering flames with a subtle hiss wherever they met. The flood line rose up to the ground-level, past the sidewalk, up the sides of buildings until the river was pouring into first-floors and covering the shacks and shanties that littered the streets. People and animals alike were carried away by the gentle-yet-raging waters, holding on to whatever they could find. The only still figure in the city stood on the roof of a five-story building, the tallest one there, watching as the land around him was cleared. Finally when he could see nothing more than rabid waters and manic flames, he emptied his gun into the air, tossed it away, and dove into the swollen river below.
Philip heard the final gunshots and quickly reversed his grip on the wheel, twisting it back with as much energy as he could muster. He had no idea how the world would look when he emerged, whether he would be greeted by charred corpses or a drowned city, but he could hope. After nearly a minute of turning he stopped and checked his watch. Judas would be there in less than five minutes. It was time to run.
“Xavier!” He called to the boy, obliviously sitting in the corner of the river-house. “We need to leave! Now!”
“Hmm? Oh, right.” Xavier said, snapping out of his reverie. Together they walked out into the city, both giving their own gasps at what they saw.
London had become a ghost town. Buildings were ruined, burnt to the bone and filled with turbid water. The streets were strewn with slime, and every few feet there was a small flash as one of Xavier’s precious fish lit up the pavement with their final glimmers. The sky was dark and gloomy, storm clouds rolling across the weakened sun.
And soon they’ll be broken. Philip thought. How do we get out?
While Philip tried to remember the streets, Xavier scanned the streets for something, anything, that resembled a tank. Finally his eyes lighted upon a small glass vase the size of a tissuebox, remarkably whole in a row of shattered counterparts. The sign over the door read Fulton’s Flowershop, creaking and blowing in the wind. Xavier quickly ran over and filled up the vase with water from one of the many puddles, and scooped up as many fish as he could find still alive on the streets. There was a piece of anonymous material trapped under an upturned table; it may have once been some kind of tarp. Xavier ripped it into a strip of the right size and then curled it over the opening of the vase, fixing it in place with a piece of string he caught blowing in the breeze.
“Xavier!” Philip called from a ways away, finished mapping out the city in his head. “Get over here!” He seemed excited, and Xavier turned around curiously to a foreign sound. Philip was almost a hundred feet down the street, revving the engine to an abandoned car that had somehow survived the flood and the fire. Xavier dashed toward him, carefully cradling his makeshift fish-tank in his arms. “Get in!” Philip yelled as Xavier swung around to the passenger side and crawled into the backseat, yanking the door shut behind him. A strange sort of exhilaration began to fill him as the animal strength of the machine roared around him. He was in a car, something he had only seen flying rarely by on the street outside his orphanage. Now he was in one, about to fly through those streets himself. His firefly fish blinked softly in their vase as he strapped himself in, as if anticipating the ride ahead. Then Philip slammed on the gas, considerably left full by the previous owner, and the car tore down the street in a cloud of dust.
The fleet of Exterminators broke through the clouds overhead; their pilots searching the ground below for the bustling city they thought would be sitting there. Instead they saw a burnt husk of brick and stone carved in two by a swollen river. It was a generic ghost, no different than the broken hulk of Annandale. Michael Haley groaned outwardly, while inside he was sighing with relief. They had succeeded. The city had been evacuated. And now there was only one thing left to do…
The Exterminators fanned out across the city, making their customary circle with their commander settling in the middle. One by one they drifted to their optimum height, orbiting slowly until each was in their specified position. Michael drifted slowly into the center until he was positioned over Big Ben itself, surveying the once-great city one last time. Just before he gave the order to drop he thought he saw movement on one of the streets near the edge of his vision. Just before the payload hit the ground he thought he could make out a small car, racing maniacally toward the countryside, trying to escape the blast-zone.
And then it was obliterated. Eradicated. Erased in a blaze of blinding light.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cold, frothing waves washed over the sandy beach of the former Delaware River, where skyscrapers and processing plants had once stood. The sky was a sparkling, crackling nexus of sparks, discharging massive blasts into the ocean. Pitch-black thunderheads blanketed the city, rolling from horizon to horizon with no end in sight, dumping torrential rains onto the tired, broken city.
Yet, through it all, a solitary figure still roamed the beach. The man was just too short to be considered average, with short-cropped blond hair that was just beginning its transition to gray. Oceanic eyes centered a lined, weather-beaten face, showing marks of an age far beyond his well-toned thirty-six year old body. The beach sand crunched softly underneath his sneakered feet, creating an uneven drumbeat to his right-favoring limp. On his head sat a baseball cap, a relic of a forgotten time when sports were still played and life was still led, clashing perfectly with his blue button-down and black cargo slacks. Soaked to the bone but seemingly oblivious to the wind and rain, he continued to trek up and down the expanse of murky brown until he finally found what he was looking for.
A body was lying on the sand, half-in, half-out of the pounding surf. As August drew closer, he began to rush, knowing that in this kind of weather it would disappear at any moment. The final few feet he took in a slide, landing beside it and quickly dragging the limp girl from the mercy of the waves to the relative safety of the decrepit boardwalk.
His hand frantically felt for a pulse, slackening in relief as it felt the weak but dogged beat on the side of her neck. She was alive, somehow alive.
Not much longer. His mind warned.
August gritted his teeth, lifting her up once again as he searched for his car in the blinding rain. Finally after nearly a minute of scanning the sidewalk he found it and unlocked the doors. The girl he placed carefully in the passenger seat, snapping her seatbelt in place both for safety and for fortification. He didn’t need her sliding off the seat and injuring herself even worse. But almost as soon as he started driving her eyes slid carefully open.
Esti felt herself slowly return to life, hoping that it was simply a dream, a coping mechanism, but somewhere deep inside knowing that it was something more. That’s ridiculous. She thought cynically. You’re dead. You fell into the ocean, and you’re dead. You’re dead and floating at the bottom of the sea.
But there was movement, some kind of airy movement. She could smell the faint scent of old leather, intermingling with an even fainter aroma of fried food. But she was dead. Dead. Deader than dead. She had to be dead… because if she were dead there would be no way to remember.
But now there were sounds… the sound of wind whistling through empty buildings and rain pounding on empty streets. There was a rumbling surrounding her, smooth and concave and strangely comfort-ing. There was a rustle of fabric against fabric, and the subtle click of a tooth against a tooth. They were the sounds of a car, and of the person driving it. They were sounds of life.
No! I am not alive! I am dead! I must be dead!
But then her eyes were sliding open, despite her heartfelt wish to keep them tightly shut. And they were seeing not the bottom of the ocean, not the empty void of death, but a windshield and the water-covered street beyond. There was a dashboard, with a speedometer and a gas gauge and every light imaginable. There was a sliding vent, emitting slight wisps of heat. There was a gray ceiling, a black fabric floor. A red-marked lock on a wood-accented door.
No! This cannot be happening! I’m dead! I fell over the side, I JUMPED over the side! I’m dead! I can’t remember! I won’t remember! I’m DEAD!
It was no use, the floodgates had opened and images were pouring out. A ship, fighting crushing waves and blinding spray. A wheelhouse, dark and fragmented by slivers of pulsating orange light. The sound of a gunshot, short and loud. Recoil. Her unprepared arm being pulled, yanking back as the barrel swung up in the air. And then the man she had shot, knelt on the floor, crawling in pain, clutching the mass of blood and flesh that had been his right leg. His eyes, locked into hers. Disbelief. Crazed disbelief. Reflexes. Flying. Falling. Plummeting. Diving. Ocean. Water. Cold. Cold. Cold.
Stop! Stop!! STOP!!! She screamed silently, trying to push those pictures away into a place where they would never emerge. But they refused to disappear, orbiting through her agonized mind, mocking her pitiful attempts at expulsion.
“Stop…” She whimpered aloud, her face contorted into a mask of pain. “Stop… please stop…”
“It’s okay.” A calm, sublime whisper slipped through her haze of anguish. “It’s alright. You’re safe. Completely safe.”
“No… I shot him. I shot… I shot him… And… And…”
“It’s alright.” The voice continued. Softly. Infuriating in its smoothness. “You had no other choice. You’re fine Esti… Everything is going to be fine.”
“You don’t understand!” Esti almost screamed, turning toward the source of the voice. Her vision had cleared by now, and August watched her serenely. “I shot him! I shot-” She paused, registering what he had just said. “Wait… how do you know my name?”
“I knew your father.” The man replied. “He used to tell me about you, everything about you. He sent a message to Peter a few days ago, how he had told you to come to Philadelphia if something went wrong. Today I found you one the beach, out cold. You’re lucky actually, a few more minutes and you probably would have gone back into the waves.”
“Well… that would be an improvement.”
“Hey!” August screeched the car to a halt, the brakes grinding against the empty road. “Stop talking like that!”
“But-”
“Don’t give me any goddamn excuses!” He said commandingly. “You have every fricking right to be alive right now! Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have your life? And you just want that to be gone, just throw that away? Are you kidding me?” He shook his head angrily. “An improvement?! Now tell me hotshot, how would your death improve this world? Because just as far as I can see, it’s pretty fucked up as it is, about as fucked up as it will ever be. I don’t really think it can get much worse!”
“I-”
“Don’t even try! People are dying in the streets! Plague is rampant! Entire cities are being wiped off the map, razed to the ground, people burning alive inside their homes! Food is running out, water is infected with bacteria. Miles and miles of land is covered in radioactive waste; nothing it ever going to grow there again. The ocean is as good as dead, there’s so much oil floating around in it that the only things left living are plankton and brine shrimp! The entire world is being shut down, set to run on clockwork that doesn’t exist. The doomsday clock reached midnight centuries ago, and it’s not turning back anytime soon. And you’ve been gifted with a good life amid all this, with a father and an education and people who care about you! Do you know how many others would want to have that?” He was practically livid now.
“No sir.” Esti said stiffly. “I guess that I don’t.”
“Damn straight.” He began to drive again, slowly picking up speed until they were once again racing through the dilapidated streets.
“I just want to forget it…” She began.
“Forget what now?”
“The gun. The bullet. Everything…” She turned back to him with a strange sense of self-righteousness igniting in her soul. “You know what I want to forget?” Esti made no urge to control it. She wanted him to feel everything she was about to throw. “I want to forget running through that alleyway after I saw my father get his head blown apart by a bullet! I want to forget waking up on the hold of that goddamn ship! I want to forget the other people in that hold, the ones I couldn’t save, the ones that they’re going to sell in some foreign port as slaves or kill just for the hell of it! I want to forget the twenty-nine hours I spent squeezed into a closet, hearing people walk past and never making a sound, knowing that if they heard me I’d be one of those slaves. I want to forget being thrown into the sea, swinging around that ship. I want to forget looking into that cabin, pulling that trigger. I want to forget that gunshot, and seeing that hole where his leg should have been! I want to forget everything goddammit! Every fricking thing!”
The man was looking at her in a strange way, not angry, not even annoyed. He actually seemed… satisfied. And strangely… so did she.
“Cathartic wasn’t that?” He asked with a strange smile. “One of the most underrated forms of healing. Purging every last emotion until it’s all out, all in the open. And once you’ve heard it all you may have found things that you missed…” He turned back to the road, his eyes fixing on the asphalt. “Discovering that your pain, or some of it, is unfounded.”
“You’re a psychologist?” Was all Esti could think of asking.
“Name’s August.” He replied simply, grinning. “Pleasure to meet you.”
And Esti couldn’t help but start grin back.
Again, sorry for any typos I missed (there are always a few). As I said I'll be posting the edited version in a few days (it will be pretty big though, so be warned). That should be error-free. And then I'll begin working on Part Two, which I hope will be just as good as Part One!
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