IMPACT (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (16 page)

“I’d like to say something,” said Claudio, leaning forwards. All eyes turned to him. He cleared his throat and spoke solemnly. “I have listened to music all my life. All kinds of music. I’ve seen it performed all over the world, by all sorts of musicians and artists,” he lay his eyes on Mathew and paused before concluding, “And I must say, in complete honesty, that this was probably the
worst
song I have
ever
heard in my entire life.”

No one spoke. Paul noticed a small spark was shining in the old man’s eyes, as he held them on the boy with the guitar. His tone had not been hostile, but it was likely his joke was lost on Mathew and the others.

Mathew looked at Claudio. His jaw had dropped.

Paul was about to try and explain, to say that Claudio was mocking him, when he noticed a smile curve the boy’s lips. The smile quickly became a giggle, and then open, wholehearted laughter. The boy had to lay the guitar down on the floor, bending over, hands on his belly, and almost without breath.

Before they knew it, they were all laughing, Claudio louder than everyone else. He kept smacking his hand against his knee, eyes welling up with tears.

The sound of their laughter echoed through the nave and isles of the tired, small-town church.
It’s a beautiful sound
, Paul told himself, momentarily forgetting the horrors of that day. Looking at the people gathered around him, he realised that, in that precise instant, everyone was perfectly happy.

Yes. The most beautiful sound there is
.

Walscombe was distracted by his reflection in the glass panel inside the blast hatch.

He hardly recognised himself. This face staring back at him, all frowning eyebrows and wide eyes, was the face of a nervous man, one who found it quite difficult to cope with difficult situations. Walscombe could hardly be described as nervous. Yet, for some reason, this whole thing with Don and the sick woman beyond that glass panel had stretched his nerves.

Calm down
, he told himself.
Calm the
fuck
down
.

In the end, they had decided against using the PA. If Don discovered this woman’s presence there was no knowing how he might react. She’d have to find her own way around.

Standing nervously in S and S, they had watched as their new guest wandered from corridor to corridor, disappearing from one monitor and appearing, a few instants later, in the following one.

The complete silence that accompanied those black-and-white images had an eerie feel to it. It was like watching one of those old reality-horror movies, where spycams had been set out in a supposedly haunted house to witness its horrific night-time goings-on. The woman’s appearance didn’t help. One of her legs was injured, maybe broken, because she dragged it along behind her, one arm stretched outwards to help her maintain her balance. Walscombe did his best to avoid staring at her face. It was awful.

It felt like Atlantis was indeed haunted – by a ghostly new arrival and the insane Major who was nowhere to be seen.

“She’s getting close,” Jeff said, eyes glued to the monitors.

They had shut down most of the passageways to keep her from wandering off in the wrong direction. But they hadn’t managed to limit her route to a single one – there were too many corridors and passages inside Atlantis.

“Come on, it’s left, woman, turn
left
,” Walscombe said, his frustration mounting. He wanted her to reach their location and get this whole thing over with.

They had gathered food from the mess hall kitchens and left it on the floor just beyond the blast hatch. “She must be hungry,” Jeff had said, his willingness to help that unknown woman surprising Walscombe once more.

And now the two of them were standing there, peering down the silent corridor that lay beyond that glass panel, waiting for her to appear. Walscombe’s focus shifted to his reflection again, and saw it fade slightly beneath the damp overlay of his breath on the glass. He too, now, looked like a ghost. He held his breath for an instant and the condensation receded.

What the hell am I doing?
He asked himself, almost bursting out into hysterical laughter.

“Walscombe, there she is,” said Jeff, laying two fingers on his sleeve and nodding towards the corridor.

And indeed, there she was.

The woman stood exactly at the centre of the corridor – a haunting vanishing point for the horizontal lines projected by the side walls. She was pale and sick and desperate. Despite that, she smiled when she saw them.

Jeff raised a hand, and offered a hesitant welcoming wave. Walscombe did not.

What if this sickness, the meteorite thing, gets through the hatches? What if we all fall sick? Will we all end up looking like her and then dying in this shit hole?

Another voice inside his head reminded him that, not too long ago he was about to commit suicide and, if it hadn’t it been for that first chat message from Ivan, he likely would have.

That’s different
, he thought, not knowing exactly how it was different.

The woman saw the tray of food Jeff had prepared and darted – or, rather, hobbled inelegantly – towards it. She knelt down in front of the tray and eagerly brought its contents to her slack, pale lips.

“She
was
hungry,” Walscombe commented as they both stared.

She looked up, crumbs clinging to her chin and said something. They couldn’t hear through the thick, bullet-proof glass, but the motion of her lips was clear.

Thank you
.

It was the most heartfelt display of gratitude Walscombe had ever seen. And this despite the fact he could hardly bear the sight of those once-beautiful features now ravaged by the illness.

“Y-you’re welcome,” came Jeff’s hesitant reply.

Suddenly, Walscombe felt maybe there
was
a way for them to keep her here, perhaps to help her too. It would take some organising, sure, but they had all the time in the world, didn’t they? The spaces could be rearranged, allowing them to avoid exposure to the air she was breathing, while still providing her with food. Yes, he thought, it could be done.

An unfamiliar warmth crept through his limbs, as he watched this tired woman find food and respite. Jeff’s slight smile, worried though it was, was proof Jeff felt the same. They were helping her and – who would ever have guessed? – it felt good.

She finally stood, brushing away the crumbs from her hands, and looked at them. She must’ve suddenly felt self-conscious, because she immediately drew a hand over her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered.

“It’s okay,” said Jeff.

The woman frowned quizzically.

“She can’t hear you,” Walscombe said.

“Ah, yeah, right.” Raising his voice, Jeff shouted, “It’s… err… it’s okay, don’t worry!” He pointed at his own face, and shook his head, trying his best to smile.

She understood, and nodded slowly. Walscombe thought he saw a tear in her eye, but he couldn’t be sure. He just kept staring, surprised by how pleasant helping her felt.

“Hey, so,” he said, trying to think of their next move, “we should try and get her to the showers, so she can–”

The shot came as a muffled pop.

Later Walscombe would wonder whether he had heard it at all.

Blood exploded on the glass as a part of the woman’s head exploded. Tiny fragments of bone stuck to the pane, and slowly slid down along with the blood. For a second, they saw her face pressed against the glass, her skin oddly flat against it.

Then she gradually dropped to the ground, leaving a pink streak were her body slid down the glass, wiping the blood away with it.

“
NOOOOOO!
” Jeff howled. Walscombe was too shocked to utter a word or to move. He stood and watched, nothing else, as if free will had abandoned him entirely.

There was Don at the end of the corridor, his service pistol still raised in front of him.

Walscombe and Jeff watched in horror as he slowly lowered his arm and walked towards them. He was thankfully staring down at the woman. Walscombe didn’t think he could stand to gaze into those insane eyes at the moment.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!” Jeff screamed, punching the glass. His voice sounded surreal, as if echoing through an impossible maze somewhere beyond reality.

Walscombe watched Don approach the slumped figure on the ground. Don stopped to examine her. His face was almost indifferent. The insane Army Major turned her head over with the tip of his shoe (Walscombe couldn’t help but notice how shiny its leather was), then gave the body a slight kick. He grunted, as if satisfied.

Jeff was holding his face in his hands, incapable of looking at the gruesome tableau. Out of the corner of his eye, Walscombe noticed the desperate man’s shoulders go up and down while he cried.

On the other side of the glass, Don knelt down beside the dead body. He brought his index finger to his lips, kissing it. He then lay it on the woman’s forehead with absolute gentleness.

Walscombe observed in disbelief as Don suddenly stood up and peered at them. He didn’t react to Jeff’s tears and seemed only partly aware of Walscombe’s presence.

Don turned and marched back down the corridor. Once he’d reached the far end, where the passage broke off to the right, he swung around. This time, he was looking straight at them. His arm snapped upwards in an impeccable salute.

He held it there for what appeared to be a lifetime, then he turned and vanished once again, swallowed by Atlantis.

Walscombe turned to Jeff, who was leaning against the wall, incapable of standing on his own. He tried to find words of comfort, but he’d never been good at that sort of thing.

For the first time, he felt the pressure of the earth above him, weighing down on his shoulders like some sort of unspeakable misdeed.

He brought two fingers to each side of his head and pressed hard, eyes shut tight.

Whatever the future held for the men of Atlantis, it wasn’t looking good.

“Goodnight,” whispered Paul as he turned out the light.

The children were sleeping in his room. Alice in his bed, while Adrian had volunteered to sleep on the floor, resting on a spare mattress Claudio had dug out of a forgotten storage closet. Paul would never forget the expressions on their faces when they entered the neat bedroom. Alice had given him another wonderful, joyful hug, jumping on the bed and burying her face in the soft pillows.

He had helped them arrange their things, silently observing Adrian’s meticulous preparations for bed. The young boy had ensured the shutters were properly locked, and placed extra care in positioning his mattress just so to prevent anyone from entering the room without alerting him. Paul also noticed the butcher’s knife that the child had secretively placed by the side of the bed, but said nothing.

It’s a sad world that has children so wary of the night
, thought Paul.

As he left the room, Alice propped herself up on the pillows and called to him, “Father Paul?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“I just wanted to thank you. This is really lovely. I mean,
really
lovely. The bed and everything.”

On the floor beside her, Adrian bobbed his head in agreement.

He observed their features, partly concealed by the darkness, and thought,
No, thank you
. He smiled at them, waving a hand in the air and closed the door behind him.

Immediately, he heard the low murmur of their whispers as they took to speaking the way children do at night, with innocence and excitement and wonder, when the adults are away. He remembered doing the same once upon a time.

He shuffled off and entered the church. He wandered silently up and down the nave, repeatedly reaching the transept, then turning on his heels and heading backwards, his mind pleasantly void of thought.

But images of the man in the uniform slowly crept back. He recalled the feeling of his finger on the trigger, the desperate attempt to aim, the grotesque outcome of it all.

He shook his head, wishing those images could simply drop out and shatter on the floor by him doing so.

Paul looked up. There, above him, loomed the statue of Christ, his Saviour. He stopped and observed it carefully for the first time in weeks.

Tonight, that humble representation of the son of God seemed more human than divine. The scars, the tortured skin, the bleeding forehead, every inch of that body reflected the suffering that had flooded the world since the impact. It was no longer the Roman Empire inflicting the wounds on his human flesh. Now it was the meteorites. They had laid a bloody crown of thorns on humanity’s head with their arrival.

He knelt down and crossed himself. Tomorrow he’d confess his sins. But, for now, this private prostration with its wordless acknowledgement of both the horror of his attempted murder and the joy of having saved the children would do.

Paul finally stood, slightly bowing his forehead towards the cross. As sleep engulfed his mind, freeing him of the burden of reflection, he headed quietly towards Claudio’s room where he was to sleep on the sofa.

It’s been a very, very long day
, he told himself.

The knocking began just as he stepped past the aisle towards the rectory.

Loud, deliberate thumps beating against the creaky wood of the main entrance.

Paul hurriedly walked towards the door, fearing the loud noise might wake the children. Had there perhaps been an accident; an emergency of some sort? He was too tired to consider all the grim possibilities.

The knocking continued, growing in strength.

“I’m
coming
,” he said, trying to keep his voice down. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The cold air flooded in, wrapping around his body.

“Father!”

It was Luke, standing there on the doorstep, a wild, almost feverish excitement painted on his face. He grabbed Paul by the shoulders, his grip surprisingly strong.

“Luke,” uttered Paul in bewilderment. “What is it?”

The sick young man could hardly contain his joy. “Father, haven’t you
heard
? Haven’t they told you yet?”