29: George – Last Stop to Nowhere

Rhea tore from George’s arms and skidded to the edge of the floor, gripping it hard before the momentum carried her out the window. She leaned out to call “Daddy?” through the wrecked bridge. It dangled by a few frayed lines and scaffold caught on rebar. George and Holden joined her, one calling for the pastor, the other for his family.

The yells and thrashes of the airborne Craysons drew their eyes. They hadn’t plummeted. Instead they sank fluidly through rising thermals, but even a slow fall couldn’t save them when they had nothing to grab onto. The drone circled them, a small red light indicating their deaths were being recorded.

“Dad!” Alex screamed. She clutched him hard enough to break the skin of his fingers. “Otis!”

Otis flailed at the mercy of an upward draught, a mercy pushing him back towards his family. He grabbed his dad’s leg, crying to be saved. Yvonne didn’t join them. She glared up at Holden, at Cheppard, cold and hard and calculating and aiming. Her revolver lined with her sights and she fired, and the bullet sparked off a bar blocking Cheppard’s chest. He ducked in panic and threw Alex’s gun. His arm caught on cables and he missed by a wide shot. Yvonne berated herself and watched it fall. Then, looking up, realized she was alone. Yvonne raised the gun to her head.

“Yvonne, don’t!” Lenny screamed.

Alexis screamed, too. It was incoherent.

“I should never have married you.” Yvonne said.

She scowled at her husband and blew kisses to her kids. Then she pulled the trigger.

“Mommy!” Otis called.

The hammer clicked and the tension snapped, a jolt through the hearts of everyone watching. Ears pricked for a bang, a collective breath held once more as the last of Earth’s people peered over the edge of the world to witness the Crayson family’s fate.

“Fuck,” Yvonne said. “I wasted that one showing off earlier.”

Below the rooftops, Alex and Otis pushed their dad away, half swimming through the air, half falling on the thrust of discarding him. Yvonne pulled them in, and as a family they shrunk into the clouds. Lenny, alone, sank after them in silence.

The drine followed them down. George fixed his eye on the speck vanishing into the blue until Rhea tugged at his vest.

“We need to help my dad.” She said.

George shook his head, yet no words passed his lips. He spluttered and the shakes traveled down his body. His breath stuck, forcing a gag, and he fell away from the edge to scramble for the furthest wall.

“George?”

“I can’t breathe.” He said.

Wendy pulled Holden up by his collar and shoved him in George’s direction. “I think my brother’s having a panic attack. Try giving him a hug.”

Holden stumbled into George and the two fell further back. Holden buried his face in his hands and fell to his knees.

“That was my family.” He said.

Wendy looked down at him. “Shit. He’s useless as well.”

She leaned over the bridge and poked it with a finger. When it didn’t move, she slipped through the dented bars and climbed down. Cheppard was at the midpoint, hung like a puppet in twisted lines. His eyes rolled over Wendy without recognition.

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone useless, too?” she said.

He stared at her, gaping, then looked back at where the Craysons had fallen.

“They… they…”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Wendy said. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked it.

“Ow!” Cheppard said, focusing instantly. “What? What in god’s name are you doing? Let me go!”

Wendy pulled harder. “I’m motivating you. It’s the stick and carrot method. This is the stick.”

Cheppard straightened to loosen the tension on his scalp. “If this is the stick, what on Earth’s the carrot?”

“I let go when you reach the top.”

Cheppard slipped his hands through the gaps in the metal and twisted his leg out from the cables. “Let go now. I’m coming up.”

Wendy eased up through the pressed tunnel and slithered back onto the ceiling, still with Cheppard’s hair in hand. He squeezed out, jarring the holdings and pushing down to force himself up. As he folded himself through the last of the bridge’s dented tracks, a rending groan and solid clang shot out, and the bridge fell with his lower half still inside.

“Daddy!”

“God!”

“Rhea.” Wendy said. “Relax. See?”

The bridge snagged further on the building’s protruding rebar. It dangled over the chasm, safe from falling, barely a foot lower. Cheppard’s head turned white in shock, all but the red patch where a fistful of hair hadn’t followed it. Wendy shrugged and blew the hairs from her palm, then pulled on one of his arm instead.

Rhea took the other. “Dad, can you please stop trying to jump into the sky?”

“Tell me about it,” Wendy said. “We’ve had enough of that already. Save it for when it’s your only option left, like if we all get really hungry and there’s nothing to eat except the useless members of our tribe. I couldn’t bring myself to jump, that’s why I’m making myself useful now.”

Three more pairs of hands added to their efforts as Eddie and his friends pulled on various parts of the pastor. There was some resistance, but he popped out, and Rhea wrapped her arms around him and refused to let him go.

“Thanks, you guys.” Wendy said. “You three definitely won’t be on the menu.”

She left Rhea to hold her dad and the three volunteers to share confused glances, to go check on her brother. Holden sat against the wall with him, easing out of his own stupor, gently rocking George to a half mumbled tune tunelessly dribbled down his chin. He didn’t look up when Wendy’s feet appeared in his line of sight.

“Your brother appears to be having a flashback,” he told her. “Said he should’ve let go of the winch.”

Wendy crouched by George and held him. She stroked his hair, tracing loving lines through his stubble, and leaned in to shout in his ear. “Stop being selfish! Holden’s family just died and you promised to get us somewhere safe before that happens to the rest of us. Do you want to be eaten?”

George winced and jumped and bashed his head on the wall. “Gyarfh! What the fuck, you dingbat?”

“I’ve decided to take on the role of the group’s morale speaker.” She said. “I’m going to motivate and inspire you.”

George sagged. “Inspire me? I just watched five people die in the least natural way O can possibly imagine and the buildings we’ve been in have gone the same way, which means there’s nowhere we can escape this, so I don’t need motivation. In fact, what all any of us need are those damn suicide sweets.”

“Four people. Rhea’s dad is fine.”

“Oh, only four died. Four people who, while in the act of dying, took shots at each other and destroyed our bridge. Who cares if one survived?”

“Well, Rhea cares. He is her dad after all.”

“And I care. Because my family didn’t live.” Holden said. His lips trembled, as did his arms. He clenched his fists, then shot to his feet with a roar. “I’ll kill the Cheppard. I’ll kill you! I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

Wendy stuck her foot out and Holden went flying. As with the theme of the week, it was all too literal. In the subdued gravity, Holden skimmed across the ceiling to the windowless edge. Only a trio of outstretched hands prevented him joining his family.

“C’mon, bud.” Eddie said. “Don’t lose it now. We need you.”

They guided Holden back in. As soon as their hands left him, however, Holden lunged at Cheppard and hoisted him up by the throat and punched him in the gut. Cheppard shielded his body and Holden wailed on his face, then threw him into a wall to kick, scream and howl at.

“Stop it!” Rhea cried.

George grabbed Holden’s arm mid swing. Eddie took the other. With the other guys holding his legs, they pried him away from the pastor.

“Holden, stop. You’re gonna kill him.”

“He killed my family. He said he was going to negotiate with them, and then he pulled a gun out.”

Cheppard raised an incredulous eye through the dripping blood of his brow. “I took a gun your cousin had aimed at my face.”

“She wouldn’t have done shit. She was just a kid trying to scare you.”

“Well it worked! She scared me good. Would you expect me to react any other way?”

“You shot her, pastor.”

“I shot blindly! And I wasn’t the one who dislodged that brutalist monstrosity you laughingly call a bridge.”

Holden strained against the arms, gaining a step and a half before George and the others dogpiled him.

“I’m sorry about what happened.” Cheppard said. “Your uncle negotiated down to less dangerous substances. He understood a dwindled civilization would collapse if hard drugs were available.”

“Don’t you dare.” Holden said.

“I’m not trying to make excuses. But I still believe this is the Rapture, and they drifted towards heaven. They made their peace with the world, with you, you saw that. They supported you when it mattered.”

“Get you dad out of here.” George said.

Rhea didn’t hesitate. She helped her dad up, shushing him before he said another word and helped him limp to another floor. Holden’s struggles weakened under the weight of his friends, his attempts to escape turned to wracked sobs. When they let him go, Wendy cradled his head and held on until he gave up holding back tears.

“I’ll look after him.” She said. “I think you guys should continue working.”

Eddie patted George’s arm. “Come on. We can still salvage this. Right?”

George looked around. A dozen pairs of eyes stared back from crevices and doorways, murmurs and whispers and hearsay brushing the edge of his hearing. He snapped off a loose chuck of plaster and hurled it out at the building they’d come from. It smashed into powder on the outer walls.

“Don’t you lot have work to do?” he said.

. . .

Three floors below, Zeke took Jamie and Cynthia from room to room, scrounging for food or anything to drink. When he found a stack of loose bills, he stuffed them in his pocket.

“I don’t think the money’s gonna help you now.” Cynthia said. “Not anymore. Not with the world gone and ending.”

Zeke flipped a coin. “Who says I’m hoping to spend it? If I can get a full set of notes and coins, I’m putting them on display.”

“Like a museum?” Jamie said.

Zeke’s hands shook and he dropped the coin. He fished out a flask from his suitcase and took a swig.

“Sure, lad. Like a museum. By the by, I found something for you.” He handed Jamie a pack of batteries. “No idea if they’ll work after the sun went all flamey and lightning, but here’s hoping.”

“I want to see if the photos of my family are still okay first.”

He rummaged in his box for his phone and found it under a snoozing cat. He held his breath and the power button down. After a tense few seconds, the screen glowed, and the phone came back to life. Jamie sniffed as his family photos revealed themselves undamaged and uncorrupted. He went through each one, crying, but happy.

“Look at all those smiling faces.” Zeke said. “Don’t you tell me you’re no photographer.”

Jamie kissed his parents’ picture and changed the phone settings to power saver. “I set alarms for a minute before all the events start and stop. Is that helpful?”

Zeke patted his head. “It is, lad. It is.”

Jamie pulled out the Polaroid and changed the batteries. A flash revealed they worked just fine.

“I got something else for you. Kids still like balls, right?”

Jamie took the net bag and pulled out a rubber ball. He slammed it down and watched in satisfaction as it ricocheted around the room and disappeared out the window.

“You’re spoiling the boy.” Cynthia said. “Makes me think you’re more a softie than you like to let on.”

Zeke took another swig from his flask. “Yeah, that’s me, love. All heart.”

Jamie took a picture of Zeke and Cynthia standing in the overturned room, then ran out to take pictures of anyone else he could find.

Zeke kicked open a fridge lying on its side. The shelves fell out with a clatter. Nothing edible remained on them.

“We’re not two full days into this and all the food’s already bad.” Cynthia said. “And your boy and his pals doing all the hard work, they’ll be getting mightily hungry.”

Zeke righted a cupboard and found it just as empty. “Our George can fend for hi’self. It’s my dippy daughter I worry about. I don’t think she’s ever had a second of responsibility in her life.”

. . .

Wendy watched the tormented face in her hands scrunch up, over and over. With Cheppard and their audience gone, Holden had taken control of his breathing and forced himself to calm down. She continued to stroke his face, an almost relaxed expression tentatively spreading, when Cheppard escaped his daughter’s watch and returned. Wendy signaled him to leave before Holden opened his eyes, but the pastor sat beside them, cross legged, and failed to break the ice twice before trying to reach Holden.

“No apology could ever be enough.” He eventually said. “But I am sorry. I let my fear get the better of me and allowed my zealousness to disrupt your plans.”

Holden’s eyes flipped straight into a glare. Wendy held him down and shushed him.

“Holden, stay calm. He wasn’t himself the first time. And I don’t think it’s fair to hold him responsible for your family.”

“And what about our first little misunderstanding, eh?” Holden said to Cheppard. “Or did you forget booting my ass out your door when you couldn’t handle your daughter having a boyfriend?”

Cheppard waved his palms. “I’m not sure that one counts. You being there put her in danger.”

“You knocked me down a flight of stairs. Concrete stairs. While I was nursing a fresh bullet wound, knowing I had nowhere else to go, knowing you were sending me to my death. And then you threw a whole other guy on top of me. It counts, pastor.”

Cheppard’s head sunk into a resigned nod. “Then perhaps that’s three wrongs I’ve done you.”

“And three’s a pattern.” Holden sat up and let Wendy’s hug shift into an arm pin. “You said that during your little episode this morning.”

Cheppard chewed on his lip. “I can’t make up for what I’ve done to you. Shame doesn’t begin to describe what I’m feeling. Maybe horror. I spent thirty years believing I’d become a good man, only for one bad week to out me as a coward who panics and turns on everyone he cares about.”

“You can let go, love.” Holden said to Wendy. “I’m calm.”

Wendy let his arms go, slowly, and sat back in silence. She remained close and in sight, pointing to her eyes and then back to Holden. Holden acknowledged her warning with a nod, then punched Cheppard in the face.

“Holden!” Wendy said. She skirted to the pastor’s side and checked his nose. A small trickle of blood ran down his cheek and his eyes welled. She punched Holden back. “I thought you were calm?”

“I am.” He told her. “And I need to make sure we get to the tunnels before the light fades. Pastor Cheppard, as much as it pains me to tolerate your uselessness longer than I have to, might I suggest finding a use to make yourself of? And if you no longer see yourself above us, kindly sink down to our level and shovel some of this shit off the block. Lighten the strain on the supports.”

“I get you probably want me dead, Mr. Crayson.” Cheppard said. “Holden. Just, please, I implore you, take it out on me. Kill me if you want. But promise me you won’t take it out on Rhea.”

Holden gave him a disgusted leer. “So you murder my family and now you insult me? I wouldn’t stoop to your eye-for-an-eye. Any mistakes of the father can be dealt with by said man.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought, what with me being partly—”

“Completely. You panicked and turned on them, did you not? Don’t you dare censor it.”

“Fine. Maybe I am responsible. Which is why I believe it would be natural for you to want to return the favor.”

“Maybe I will.”

He marched off without looking back, leaving the pastor alone with Wendy and four disinterested bodies draped across a wooden chest.

“For the record,” Wendy said. “I’m only not mad at you because you’re family now.”

Cheppard looked up from his hands with a puzzled frown. “Miss? Who exactly are you?”

. . .

The survivors had dispersed through the building, falling back on breaking down doors and throwing everything through windows. Holden homed in on the rhythmical banging from the opposite side of the building where George and a handful of volunteers had kicked holes through four buildings in his absence. Holden took his place at George’s side without a word and planted a foot against the brickwork. The weakened masonry cracked under his first blow.

“Cheppard still alive?” George said.

“Yeah.”

“That’s good, seeing he’s now my father in-law. Eddie owes me ten bucks.”

“How far are we down? I expect at leaat a third the way since I’ve been gone.” Holden said.” The rest won’t take more than an hour.”

“It’s like the block before, all one long building. And since we don’t have to drag bridge material with us, we got nothing to slow us down. Might have to swap teams every twenty minutes, though. They’re getting tired.”

Holden snorted. “Fine by me, pal. I have frustrations to vent.”

His foot crashed through the wall. George and three others made short work of the surrounding bricks. After a short break, George swapped them out with other volunteers. Twenty minutes later, he swapped them out again, and after that, nobody had the energy to come back.

Though the sun had become a diffuse light, the sky soon grew dim and cramps left George on more frequent rests. With no food or water and over a day of physical exertion, exhaustion crept up and he crashed on a convenient, armchair at the end of the street. He helped Holden set up a relatively easier bridge across a small alleyway, nothing more than three planks of wood side by side, and Holden continued pounding the walls alone.

“Wouldn’t mind something to eat right now.” George said. “My last proper meal was a couple of sandwiches Cat made me. Didn’t even finish them “

“Cat made you sandwiches?” Holden said. “And when was this?”

“Oh, just before she admitted to tricking you into being in a specific room at a specific time so your cousin could snipe you from outside, and then stole the bike you gave me to ride off into the sunrise that razed the world.”

Holden spat. “Good for her. Last time I asked her to organize something, I ended up having to buy off the equipment inspector.”

“Good sandwiches though. Wish I’d saved one. Or pocketed some candy at that kiddie store. They had jumbo packs. Rhea had food at her apartment. Did we take any?”

“May I offer you some sage advice, my friend? Dwelling on food’ll only make you hungrier.”

“Getting hungrier is exactly why I’m dwelling on it. I don’t fancy starving for the next couple of weeks, even if we’re safe.”

Holden cracked another wall. “The station has everything we need, my friend. Vending machines, toilets and that vestibule with all the stores and cafes. A man could live like a king if he owned that.”

“If we even make it.” George said. “’cos my feet are killing me and I don’t know how much further I can go without some grub and sleep.”

He limped over to Holden and pressed his weakened foot against the loosest brick and pushed with his bodyweight. It fell forward and the row above crashed down with it. When the dust cleared, Holden gave a whistle as the station vestibule faded into view on the other side.

“Seem’s you’ll go all the way.”

He gave George a grin and they pulled more bricks down, kicking them aside despite their fatigued muscles, and waded through debris and an easily collapsible ceiling into the kitchen of a burger joint on the side of the round room. Across it lay the main entrance to the station, a wide view of the promenade and the ocean across it, or the hole in the earth where it had once been.

“Fuckaduck.” George said. “We really did make it.”

“Another insult in the space of an hour?” Holden said. “Who’d you think you were dealing with?

“The man who’s always talking out his ass.”

“Your confidence in me is astounding. Oh, look. A freezer.”

 He sidled past George, legs drilling postholes in the wafer thin ceiling tiles, and stood on a fallen machine. Its lid cracked off. Green slime stunk up the joint as it oozed onto a light fixture, a sickly aroma of sour milk and rotten fruit. Holden plugged hos nostrils with two fingers and jiggled the handle with his other hand, experimentally at first, then switched to aggression when he realized it was caked in a film of stone. He beat the handle until the vault-like door crumbled open, and as soon as it did, he and George were met with a fall of cold steam and two corpulent corpses huddled at the back, blue skinned and covered in frost.

“Airtight.” Holden said. “Industrial. Kept everything cool.”

“Yes, nice fridge. Did you notice the bodies frozen in there?”

“But slowly thawing. Still colder than a fridge, though.”

“Except now we’ve broken the seal. Has that guy got a hamburger in his mouth?”

Holden climbed in for a better look. “He died chewing a frozen patty. Starved, surrounded by food. Two obese men huddled for warmth and still dying of cold. What a way to go.”

“Maybe we don’t mention these guys? And remove them. Imagine telling everyone we found something to eat and then presenting them with this.”

Holden’s eyes hardened into a scowl. “The sky’s proved convenient for disposing of unwanted complications.”

George nodded solemnly.

“Take this guy to the alleyway and dump him there.” Holden said. “Mope when we have time to spare.”

He ripped a corpse from the icy floor and lowered it to George. The man was twice his mass, but now weighed less than half. George took him to the hole in the wall and back to the alley. Once he was sure nobody was around, George dropped the man, who floated in the narrow space between the buildings and wedged itself between two gutter pipes.

“Oh.” Holden said. “This might be difficult to explain.”

“You could try dropping the other guy on him. Maybe they’ll dislodge?”

Holden considered it, then unslung the slightly thinner body and aimed his feet at the first. He threw him down and the corpses collided and entangled with each other, breaking the gutters with the scrape of plastic on brick, and spun away out of sight.

“Bullseye.”

George groaned. “Let’s also not tell anyone we played Tetris with corpses.”

They hobbled back through the block, calling for volunteers to spread the word. The word spread fast. The stoners guarding the crate hoisted it through the meandering tunnel they’d carved, from one end of the block to the other, with only one alleyway bridged by planks of wood for their trunk to overcome. Others followed the noise, convening at the burger joint, and spread into small groups on the Styrofoam tiled, aluminum framed ceiling.

The station’s inner gates were locked, but the wealth of food and drinks pushed them down the lists of priorities. Tramping through the stores, they raided them for snacks. Chips, candy, chocolate, cookies, everything still preserved, if stale. They found drinks in bottles and cans, warm but sealed. Their exodus had brought them to a land of plenty.

Zeke lit a pile of Styrofoam tiles and takeout boxes, anything that would burn, and offered it to Holden to roast defrosting food on. A steel drum of oil was found in the supplies room and with the fire beside it, frying became an option. Soon, everyone was able to overcompensate for their two day fast, though it wasn’t until they’d eaten their fill that George was struck by a realization.

“We should have told everyone not to open sealed foods.” He said. “Might have lasted ten days of we rationed.”

“The tunnel stretches to the whole ends of the island.” Holden said. “We can head down to the furthest station and ration what’s there for week and a half before hunkering down in the middle.”

“Not Central Station first?”

Holden tossed a plastic-fire baked French fry in the air and swallowed it without chewing. “The island’s taller in the middle, my friend. Makes it stronger, safer, and the tracks are higher to prevent flooding. It all runs down to this station, to flow out the sea under the bridge.”

“You seem more practical than usual. Even for you.”

Holden snorted across the room at Cheppard eating with Rhea. “We’ve almost reached safety. Once we’re up there, I’ll deal with what’s in my head.”

Wendy wandered over from sitting with Zeke and Cynthia. She handed them some cola cans and sat down by the fire.

“Rhea’s been trying to get your attention.” She said. “You’ve been ignoring her since—”

“Her father second degreed my family.” Holden said.

“Yes, and that’s very poor husbandry on my brother’s part.”

George stopped mid chew. “I thought husbandry’s something to do with animals.”

Holden grunted. “It means to cultivate.”

“Right,” Wendy said. “Go cultivate a relationship with your wife.”

George looked back to see Rhea waving him over, and groaned, but rose. “Only been married five minutes and already I can’t hang with my friends.”

He plodded to a path the others had trampled in the ceiling and navigated the cables and wires usually hidden above the tiles. Halfway across, he had to clamber over the chest still zealously guarded by its four stoner keepers, one of whom giggled uncontrollably as Eddie whispered sweet nothings in her ear. He shifted as George passed, wincing as a shard of rent aluminum stabbed him in the ass. Rhea called George to a spot she’d claimed next to them, a cleared shelf on the underside of an escalator. She greeted her husband, shoving a handful of fries into his mouth before he could say anything.

“Hello, husband of mine.” She said, and kissed him on the nose.

“Flphh-fugh-uffoff mine.” He said, swallowing. “Hey, padre. Or is it father now?”

Cheppard barely looked up in acknowledgment.

“Father? Y’know, ‘cos you’re like a priest? And some guys like their in-law kids to call them dad? No? Nothing? Y’know what? I’m just gonna stick with Padre. I think it means dad and priest and pal in Mexican.”

Rhea stuck more fries in his mouth. “Sweetie, I don’t think dad’s in the mood right now”

“Mwum jzzz nungnung’t break the ice. Look, no-one’s holding you responsible for what happened. Even Holden isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, he hates your guts after the last couple of days, but frankly who doesn’t?”

Cheppard’s face fell even more. Rhea shoved another handful of fries at George, but he dodged the attack.

“What I’m getting at is Holden doesn’t care if he hates you or not. He could think you were the most despicable human alive, but as long as you’re useful, he’ll watch your back.”

Rhea threw her fries at him. “George! Can you not right now?”

“Sorry.”

Cheppard sighed. “No, it’s alright, dear. He’s right. I should make myself useful. Make it up in any way I can to your friend.”

“No, it’s not alright.” Rhea said, and tilted George’s chin to her. “Remember our counseling sessions? I find you always ramble when you’re trying to distract yourself from something. And you’ve been rambling a lot this evening.”

“Oh, so now you’re being professional?”

“No, I’m being in love with you. You had a panic attack a couple of hours ago. Then you ran away.”

“Actually I left to knock down walls to get us all here.”

“And everyone here thanks you for doing so, but that’s not why you left.”

George turned to Cheppard. “Does she talk to you this way when you’re dealing?”

Rhea blocked their faces with her open hand and twisted George’s eyes back to hers.

“Do this for me?” she said. “I just watched my home fall into space and my dad nearly hung by a mob led by my new husband’s best friend. Whose family just died. After holding us hostage. While the world’s upside-down. So can you pretend, just for me, we’re back in the therapy bus. That life’s normal. The air-con’s on, you’re lying on a couch, it’s still the early days before we started fucking, and nothing you say will pass these four walls. What aren’t you being honest with me about?”

George glanced around, noting the lack of four walls and air-conditioning, and the el padre in the corner of the room.

“That’s a lot to pretend.” He said. “Alright, fine. If you wanna know, I tried to kill myself yesterday. And you saw it.

“I called out to you to stop.”

“Yeah, I heard. Midstep through the window.”

She smiled. “Well I’m glad you did. I got to see you again.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t stop, did we? You know what my plan was? I just wanted to show you I cared. That I was a responsible man. Now I have responsibilities pouring out of my ears. I have a dozen people looking to me and Holden to save them, which would have been fine if everybody else didn’t keep screwing up the plan. My dad, your dad, Holden’s dad’s brother’s family, dead guys in the food—”

“Wait, what?”

“—having to treat everyone here like children. Having to make up roles like getting you to throw debris out the windows? Like the weight of furniture was going to make a difference, especially now everything’s a million times lighter. We just said it to keep you all out of the way and not panic, otherwise you’d stew over all your Anxieties and come running to us with your non problems, interrupting us while we were hard at work trying to save you, and of course I couldn’t say any of that until now because responsible people aren’t supposed to go around blaming all their misfortunes on the idiots surrounding them, are they?”

George’s words echoed through the station. The background hubbub and separate conversations died halfway through his speech. All eyes turned to him.

Disbelief rose in Rhea’s eyes. “You mean you kept us busy, exhausting ourselves, just to keep us out the way? I thought we were doing important work. You made us think we were helping, that we were part of a team.”

“I’m sorry, but we needed to make sure you—”

Who does that? Who the hell do you think you are?”

Holden’s voice cut through the silence. “We’re the ones you put all your hopes on, as well as all the pressure. Saviors wanted, no experience necessary, right?”

Cheppard lifted his head up. “What else didn’t you tell us?”

“Firstly, I’ve decided I don’t hate you, pastor. My family would have made your lives miserable. Imagine saving yourselves from certain death only to spend the rest of your days enslaved to guys like me.”

Shock and betrayal crossed the faces of everyone listening. Outrage simmered in hissed tones. Holden picked himself up and walked to the center of the room. He took a bow, drawing all eyes to him, and grinned as wide a grin as he could in sincerity and without irony, and broke the murmuring with a kick to an upturned churro stand. It jumped a foot in the air and crashed on its side. The bang was violent, challenging, and shut the room up instantly.

“Yes, we lied.” he shouted, and jumped on it. “And what if I did? I said what I did to keep you all alive and alive you all are. You want to feel betrayed? Talk to the pastor. A man who tried to convince you to jump to your deaths with his promise of heaven. And every word was true. To him. And if he’d succeeded, you’d all be dead. What I spoke was what you needed to hear, and the end result speaks for itself. You’re alive. You’re fed, and behind these gates is the safety you’ve been working towards. Judge my means, but you’ll follow through to my ends, or admit to your hypocrisy. So what say you? Are you ready to let bygones be and live another day, or will you let your outrage outweigh your sensibilities? Who’s going to help tear these gates down and know they made the choice to stay alive, no matter what?”

Nobody answered.

At first. Then Zeke raised a hand.

“I’m with you. For the boy and this fine lady.” He said, pointing to Jamie and Cynthia. “But someone else has to do the gate ripping ‘cos I can’t get it into focus.”

“That’s the spirit. And that’s a wall you can’t focus on. The gate’s behind you. Anyone else have the strength and fortitude to actually help rip down a station gate? George, did you bring your tools?”

George waved his toolbelt.

“Then if you’ll all be patient for just a while longer, we’ll get on with saving your necks.”

George gave Rhea and apologetic kiss and followed Holden to open the gateway. He kicked his dad in the thigh on the way past. As soon as he vacated his seat, Eddie took the opportunity to rest his ass on a spot with less pointed edges.

“Think you can still vouch for them doing what they say they will?” he asked Rhea.

Rhea shook her head. “I can’t believe he lied to me. You guys, sure. It was for everyone’s good, but me? We’re supposed to trust each other.”

“Do you still do?”

Rhea watched George and Holden spring a bolt from the railings. A section of the gate popped out.

“I want to.”

“Same here. See that girl draped over the box? Laura. If I play my cards right, she’ll be draped across me later, if we actually get somewhere safe enough to bed down.”

Rhea looked up at Laura, a flexible waist and two huge globes below a cute pixie face, half fallen down the Crayson chest. She caught Eddie looking and blew a kiss.

Rhea turned to Eddie in disgust. “Is this really the right time to be chasing ass? The world’s ending, you know.”

“It’s ended already.” He said. Everything’s flipped on its head now, so excuse me for wanting some company to spend it with. Besides, didn’t you just ask your boytoy for a chance to feel normal?”

“Getting laid makes you feel normal?”

A cloud of mixed scents wafted over them as Laura blew at him, several different flavors from the Crayson line.

“Do you mind?” Cheppard said to them. “You’re affecting everyone with your fumes. It’s bad enough you sinning your lungs off without forcing us to breath it as well.”

They laughed at Cheppard. One threw a fry at him.

“None of you helped out, and yet you believe you deserve to be saved?”

“Don’t try that shit with us.” One of the guys said. “You heard your boy. Nobody really helped. We were just smart enough to not get conned into your bullshit.”

“Well you’re gonna start.” Rhea said, pointing at the trunk. You want in, there’s a tax. Luckily you brought it with you.”

“You’re not seriously going to charge them drugs for safety?” Cheppard said.

“Well they aren’t helping. What else they got to justify their place?”

“Barn, is he serious?” Laura said.

Rhea glanced at Barn. “Did she just call you Barn?”

“Yeah. You know me?”

“No, I just never met someone called Barn before.”

“Barn’s what my friends call me. ‘cos I had a barn.”

“Oh. What’s your real name?”

“Barry.”

“I think I’ll call you Barn. And you guys?”

Barn pointed at the others. “That’s Derek, that’s Violet, you met Laura. The one in the trunk’s called Cazz.”

The trunk opened and a sleepy hand poked out to wave a knife.

“You guys are so weird.” Rhea said.

“Well I’m going to help out.” Laura said. “And so’s Cazz.”

The trunk opened again, this time with a “Huh?”

Laura flipped the lid and helped Cazz crawl out. She frowned at the station.

“We’re in a station.” She said. “They have trains.”

“Well done! C’mon, we’re volunteering to break a gate.”

“We are?”

Laura pointed at George and Wendy across the room helping Holden. “Remember her? We met her at the beach on the way to Alex’s. She got us to wash all that stone soup of before it set solid. We’d have been proper stones otherwise.”

“Proper stoned?”

Derek cackled. “Sounds good to me!”

The laughter was cut off by a reverberating boom. Flashes of lightning filled the black space outside the main entrance, killing conversation and levity.

“Thunder?” Cazz said.

By the exit, Cynthia rose from her seat to peer out into the twilight. She squinted in the darkness, then recoiled and caught herself mid swear.

“Zeke, you might wanna tell your boy to come looky here.”

George heard and waded through the tile sets to look out the door. Wendy followed.

“Fuckballs” was all he said.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and converged at the main doors. From above, across the promenade, in the depths of what used to be the ocean, lines of orange zapped through the earth and steamed. Unlike lightning, though, they didn’t disappear after the initial flash. They grew brighter.

“George,” Rhea said behind him. “Get us into those tunnels now.”

George nodded quickly and retreated to the back. “Anyone want to volunteer, now would be a great time.”

He slipped through crowd and got to work on the nearest bolt.

“What’s everyone staring at?” Holden said, unlocking his.

“Look later. Open gate now. Fast.”

Outside, the cracks widened. Orange sparks dripped from the rocks, glowing lines raining into black clouds. The smell of Sulphur rode the breeze, icy but warming.

“Gravity didn’t reverse.“ Eddie said. “It’s gone completely. We’re in centrifuge. Shit, that’s why we’re on the ceiling. And oh, fuck, that’d includes the tectonic plates.”

“That would mean the longer we wait, the heavier we get.” Wendy said beside him. “Right now we weigh about a quarter our normal weight.”

“Yup. If I’m right, the earth is exploding right now. It’s slowly but surely exploding, and we’ve just been clinging to the outer layer of that explosion the last two days.”

“Doesn’t really look like an explosion, does it?”

“I said it was slow. The glow is magma breaking through the expanding crust. That’s what the cracks are.”

Wendy looked up. “So if one of them opened up above us, we’d be showered with burning, molten, liquid rock. We’d die in agony and never know what hit us, especially since it would go through the top of the head first.”

“Yeah. You a bit of science fan?”

“No, I’m in charge of morale.”

Cheppard stepped out onto the edge of the main door’s overhang and surveyed the jagged landscape of burning lava falls and blackening smoke spewing from its depths.

“It’s Hell on Earth.” He said. “It’s literally hell on earth.”

. . .

George and Holden popped another bolt from the gates. The bottom half came away, fully free. They tried to bend it, to save time, but the steel was hard and refised to bend more than an inch.

“Hello, did you need volunteers?” a woman said behind them. A thin man joined her.

“The more the merrier.” George said. “I’m George, this is Holden, and we will be your saviors this evening.”

“Ingrid.” The woman said. This is Norris. We’re, err, scared.”

“Hold this gate up while we loosen the bolts and well be in before you know it. Nothing to fear.”

“That preacher just said it’s Hell on Earth.” Norris said. “And from the looks of it, I believe him.”

“Well if Hell’s on Earth, it means Earth must be in Hell, so let’s get inside it and stay alive.”

The gate clanged and fell away to Holden and George’s cheer. Ingrid and Norris held it up triumphantly, then looked around for somewhere to put it.

“Toss it over the edge and tell everyone they’re saved.” Holden said. Ol’ Holden wouldn’t ever let his crew down.”

Ingrid and Norris carried the gate to the exit and threw it out as instructed.

“Err, those guys there say we can go in now.” Norris said

The survivors turned to see Holden and George standing in the arch of the gateway and put the hellish landscape to their backs. The promise of safety, the strength of the tunnels awaited them. Let Hell claim the surface. The last humans on Earth would claim the underworld, and all the protection it offered.

“Fuck,” Holden said. “George, do you recall what I said about the center of the island being elevated?”

“To prevent flooding, liquids run downhill and out this station to the sea.”

“Well done. Kindly explain that to everyone behind us while I make myself scarce.”

Holden skirted around the crowd as George looked up at the tunnel. It had indeed been flooded and guided a flow to the exit. A flood of liquidized stone that had solidified inside it, sealing their sanctum completely.

George turned to the expectant crowd.

“Um, we may have a slight problem.”