13: George – Stone Soup

13: George – Stone Soup

Post apocalyptic city

The shell of the Toy Store’s basement groaned. Whatever was happening outside pushed inward on the room. It popped ears and lay heavy on the senses.

George crept up to the cellar door and placed his hand on the lock. The wood shuddered, creaking at the slightest touch, threatening to unleash whatever fresh hell it held back if he disturbed it. He withdrew his finger and retreated downstairs.

They were in a converted goods basement, reinforced with steel and lead plates. As far as George was concerned, he and his sister could stay there until her phone alarm sounded an all-clear. The only caveat to his decision was their company. Their dad’s snoring ground on his nerves, but he tolerated it to keep his mind off their hosts. Or what was left of them.

Children lay in their parents’ arms, snuggled into their chests on warm mattresses under the freshest sheets. Even at rest, they held smiles borne from a night of play and sweet-laden dinners. Their parents didn’t share those smiles, lips twisted in torment and soaked in tears. Wendy had gone from bed to bed, drawing sheets over their eyes. It was as close to a decent burial as she could give.

“George, can we go?” Wendy said as she drew the last duvet over the bellboy. “I can’t stay here. Not with the kids.”

“Go where?” George said. “If you haven’t been keeping up, there’s an apocalypse going on outside.”

“To your girlfriend’s? That was the plan, wasn’t it? Y’know, the reason I agreed to get dragged along in the first place?”

George spat. “Oh, like she’s still alive? Don’t know if you noticed but we just got roasted by some cosmic microwave. These guys had the right idea.”

Wendy eyed the morgue she’d made. George fished three sticks of Repose from his pocket.

“Why do you have three?” she said.

“Holden’s girlfriend gave me a couple of spares. One for me, one for Rhea. But you can have it.”

“And the third?”

“George nodded at Zeke. “I could slip him some now. It dissolves in the mouth.”

“Shut up!” Wendy seethed. She stormed up to George and raised a palm, but this time he caught it mid-swing. She tore away and glared. “Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you? You could finally be rid of the old man. Would that make you feel big, George? Finally being big man of the family?”

“I don’t give a shit about our family! I never did. I never asked to be part of it, and I certainly never felt like I belonged to it.”

Wendy’s face wrinkled. She backed away. “What’s wrong with you?”

George groused. “Obviously I don’t mean you. You’re my sister, the one person I’m related to that I actually like, even if you do keep playing mom. Not that I’m saying you’re trying to replace her or anything. But when you take the mantle you do an admirable job. You’re like the glue that holds us together, the one who keeps me from turning into dad. I was going to ask you to be my best man actually. Well, if Holden wasn’t around. And you’re looking above me, aren’t you? Why, what’s above me?”

 A sharp ping reverberated through the room. A bolt shot from the ceiling and lodged itself into the wooden step between them with a thud. George and Wendy looked up. Over their heads the ceiling bulged, the stretching metal now audible in the vacuum of their argument. Something cold and wet landed on George’s nose. It dripped down his chin, giving him just enough time to connect the clues. He hauled Wendy over his shoulder and jumped to the basement floor, diving out of the way before the load bearing supports gave in and a thousand tonnes of grey mush cascaded after them. The gunge washed over them like an avalanche, cold and wet and heavy.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me.” George said, wiping his face. “We should definitely go.”

He pulled Wendy to her feet. They were covered in gunk. George fought through the deluge, back up the stairs to fumble with the door latch.

“Dad!” Wendy screamed.

Zeke’s snoring hadn’t changed. Wendy tugged on George’s sleeve .

“We have to go back for him!”

“He can come to us for a change!”

The door was stuck. George beat on it, pulling and kicking and hammering until it loosened. There was a sharp squeak before it opened, followed by a spray of grey sludge through the cracks. The door then flung wide and hard into George’s face, and a grey wave washed him and his sister back into the basement. They collided on their dad’s head.

“Ow!” Zeke said, batting his kids off. His eyes half opened. “Wha zat? Earthquake?”

“Oh, shut up.” George said. “And get up unless you wanna drown.”

The grey goo spilled onto Zeke’s mattress. The cold shocked him awake and he shot to his feet, landing knee deep in gunge, spluttering in confusion. The icy stone sludge rose steadily through split wall plates. It seeped over the sleepers, the children and their parents, sealing them away from the world, giving them their burial.

“How are we going to get out of here?” Wendy said. She squeezed George’s arm.

For once, George and Zeke didn’t argue. They fought through the falling muck, against the current and up the stairs. Twice it threatened to bowl them back, but the Travers pushed on, wading onto the shore of the store’s main floor where it was only ankle deep. Large holes drained away, whirlpools leading back down. They slipped and skidded around them to the street, Wendy sliding after, still clinging to George’s sleeve and letting him pull her in his wake.

Zeke grabbed his suitcase, still at the main doors, and flipped Wendy’s backpack onto his shoulder. As they crossed the threshold, the extra weight overloaded the floor’s splintered timber. Zeke fell through the basement ceiling with a loud snap. Only George’s quick reflexes saved him from falling back down.

“Let go of the fucking suitcase!” George yelled.

“Piss off!” Zeke said. “That’s my life in there!”

George hurled a tide of abuse at him, incoherent against the sound of melting masonry, but with Wendy’s help, hauled him back up. Zeke clutched the suitcase in a bear hug.

Escaping the molten building, they waded across the street. The roads were melting, too, creeping up their shins with each step. Groans and screeches made them look up. The buildings of the city swayed, not by more than a meter in any direction, but enough to be noticeable.

“Get to the beach!” Someone shouted.

A man waved from the beach side of the promenade. They followed him, pushing through the goop, slipping and half crawling away from the dancing skyscrapers and storefronts. The stairs to the promenade had become slime, the texture and color of melting chocolate, though the smell was anything but. It had no odor, no heat, yet there was no denying what they saw. Everything stone had liquidized.

“Is this a delayed response to earlier?” Wendy said.

“What response?” George said.

“Well it was hot. Now everything’s melting.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

They reached the stairs, more an oozing slide by that point, and slid down. They crashed in a heap of limbs on sand with barely a squelch. The beach was normal. Covered in muck, they ran after the stranger who pointed at a row of wooden beach huts. His own family waved him in and the Travers clan took shelter next door.

Soon other survivors followed their move, covered in gloop but alive. They cowered in their hideaways for the rest of the day while the city creaked above.

“The superstructures seem mostly unaffected, though a little twisted.” Their rescuer said. “The cladding and exteriors though, they look like a god’s taken a blowtorch to them.”

More survivors gathered around him to watch.

“Hey, George? Take this.” Wendy said, and handed him her phone.

George took it and saw the app she’d opened. “Are you? Are you fucking with me?”

Wendy posed against the backdrop of the sinking city. “Just take a picture.”

“I’m not taking your picture at a time like this.”

“Aww, come on. How often do you get a view like that?”

“It’s the end of the world, not spring break at Disneyland!”

She snatched her phone back and took her own picture. “End of the world, tomato. I like to think there’s a way through anything. And if we survive, I want a photo album full of memories. Now take a pic of me with the whole city in the background. All I keep getting is my face and the back of dad’s head.”

George’s face was one of incredulity, but he took her pictures. When someone screamed from behind, he turned and raised the camera again. Two women had stripped off in the surf.

“Oi, I don’t want naked women on my phone.” Wendy said.

George tossed her phone back. “Hey, you want memories, I want memories. So you keep them and if we’re still alive at the end, you can send them over. Call it an incentive to survive.”

Wendy’s eyes narrowed. Zeke peeked over her shoulder and eyed the women on her screen.

“Why they shtriffing off?” he slurred.

“I think they’re bathing in the sea to get rid of all the crap we’re caked in.”

“Why, it don’t shmell. Tha look goodsh thouwgh.”

George elbowed him. “They’re younger than your daughter.”

“Shon, when ya eyeshight’s a blurry ash mine, nobody’sh an age. Jush nice shapesh.”

A half dozen more survivors made it to their settlement and followed the women’s example. George and Wendy did too, the former thankful for his sister’s foresight in bringing spare clothes. Zeke at least cleaned his face. The rest of the unprepared masses rinsed their clothes off but with no other choices, redressed in their wet attire. The earth was still hot enough they wouldn’t freeze. Hot enough to make them sweat.

George sat in silence while Wendy helped a child hurl. They’d swallowed the stone soup and rather than see what would happen, had done their best to disgorge it from their stomach. Zeke drank on his own, listening to theories about why the beach stayed unaffected. Their benefactor had gathered a small circle. The sat cross legged around him, all nude as he explained his observations.

“I think we should keep our clothes off until this event is over. It seems stone and glass are affected by this event most. Crystalline structures seem less so. The metal of the buildings seem to be slightly weakened, but still holding its general shape. If you’ll observe this bottle, you can see it’s remained completely unaffected.”

He held up a plastic bottle. It looked like a plastic bottle.

“Polymers, such as plastic here, seem to hold an inherent resistance to the effects of, well, whatever’s causing all this. That’s good news for us since we’re made of polymers ourselves.”

“Wait, we’re made of plastic?” Wendy said.

“Not exactly, but our molecular makeup is similar. I would posit this phenomenon attacks the bonds between matter, therefore the weaker the bond, the stronger the attack is. Unfortunately there’s a small inconsistency in my theory. If the beach is made of sand, which in terms of molecular binding is the same as ceramic or glass, it should have liquefied along with everything else.”

“It ain’t sand.” George muttered, rubbing his foot. “It’s all dead coral and crushed seashell.”

The weekend scientist nodded gravely. “Ah, then that would explain it. My hypothesis was correct. Polymers aren’t affected so we should be safe here.”

“Wow, you’re pretty smart.” One of the naked girls said. She cosied up to him. “Got any hypotheses on what to do next?”

The man grinned. “Simply stay here until the event is over. Then the earth should solidify again.”

He led the circle in observations while newcomers brought their numbers up to an even twenty. The information was shared and shared again over the course of the morning. Just as Wendy’s alarm told her it was ten-fifteen, six more survivors made their appearance and waved. The group on the beach waved back, but a gasp of surprise rippled through the newcomers. Their arms didn’t lower and two toppled over, holding the same pose, as stiff as statues.

“We have just over sixteen minutes until the last one hits,” Wendy said. “We better not get distracted.”

“Help me!” someone cried.

“What’s going on? I can’t move!” said another.

Behind them, the city stopped shifting with a screech, the stone ceased melting. The unwashed strangers were petrified as their clothes, saturated in stone, set in an instant.

“George, we need your tools!” Wendy called.

He ran over to the first statue. Shallow breaths wheezed through a small gap in their face. He grabbed a screwdriver and hammer from his belt and chiselled the stone away as carefully as he could. It broke easily, and when enough was removed from the person’s mouth, they rasped at him.

“Chest. Can’t breathe. Please!”

George took the hammer to their chest. Whoever was in there would have bruises, but the shell cracked. When enough of a hole was made, Wendy and the science guy pulled at it. It was no good. The stone had soaked into their clothes, forming a stronger composite material. All George could do was hammer away, weakening the stone carapace down from a solid shell into something more malleable. It took an hour, but eventually the person inside, a young boy, was able to move enough he could free himself from his clothes. George helped him up and got a nude hug in return. He avoided eye contact and gestured at the circle of other nudes helping the less trapped.

“Naked beach party’s over there.” He said. “Now you all know what it feels like.”

“What does what feels like?” Wendy said.

“Nothing. At least these guys are warm.”

 “Yeah, can you imagine being out here naked in the cold?”

“I remember it well.”

While the latest arrivals had hair gelled by stone, others found it simply flaked out like dandruff. Their neatly folded clothes had solidified, though, leaving them without anything to cover up with.

“If the city’s solid again,” Wendy said. “Maybe we should get going.”

George shook his head. “No. I couldn’t. I can’t go to Rhea’s and see her dead and buried in stone.”

“But what if she’s not dead? What if she’s trapped like that boy? You want that on your conscience?”

“She wouldn’t be. She probably made it to the beach.”

“Then it wouldn’t hurt to walk along the beach until we get to hers. We have a couple of hours and we can walk through the streets now. At least dad’s suitcase can roll.”

“If the wheels aren’t clogged up.”

It was hard to argue with Wendy’s logic. As usual she pointed out what he missed. They grabbed Zeke and held his suitcase hostage until he agreed to follow. The steps to the promenade had become barely more than a ramp, yet Zeke’s wheels were fine. He rolled it up to the street where the surface of the road had levelled out in a perfectly smooth, dark mirror. It reflected the clouds above.

Before they left, Wendy peeked into the Toy Store. The basement was now solid stone, a floor one foot higher than it had been half a day ago.

“At least they got their burial.”

She hurried after Zeke and George. The streets were different. Car wrecks were washed into pile ups and small ships had somehow sailed down Main Street, locked in place, out of place among the ruins. They diverted through side streets and alleyways, and found people.

The people were statues, half buried in the black mirror, people who’d survived the fire only to be caught in the deluge. They lay forever preserved in their final moments, terror etched on the faces of the less lucky, those who’d been alive when the stone set, who’d been entombed, encapsulated without a strong arm and hammer to release their airways.

When they passed one collapsed doorway, Wendy grabbed George’s hand and pointed.

“Is that a child?”

George peered into the dark and turned to throw up, splattering two bodies half encased aside the doorway. He halted Wendy with a hand.

“You don’t need to see her.”

He didn’t talk the rest of the way, and the reached Rhea’s road without incident, or checking any other alcoves. A quick survey of the beach showed nothing and nobody. The fog had almost completely dissipated, enough left to obscure fine details. They almost missed one on the driveway of Rhea’s house.

Sunk up to her chest was the petrified form of Cat. Only her face was left uncovered, twisted and wide eyed, and her body had sunk up to her waist. The handlebar of George’s bike broke the surface of the floor in front of her.

“She made it across ten kilometres only to fall short of the last door.” George said.

Wendy mouthed a repeated “No.” She’d been showing Cat George’s baby pictures just that morning. George held his stomach and heaved again.

“No,” he said. “Not like this!”

He banged on Rhea’s door, fists making less of an impact than normal. The door was more solid, seeped in stone. George called out and banged harder, but Rhea didn’t respond. He screamed her name and clambered through the windowless hole to her bedroom.

Her room was coated in collapsed ceiling. Only three floors of holey rebar sat between him and the sky. Rhea was not there.

“George?” a familiar voice called from outside.

He ran to the window and looked up. From across the way, up in the Yao apartment, Holden leaned out waving with both arms.

“Holden!” he cried. “You’re alive!”

He shot over the ledge and ran across the street. Holden’s building exterior was a mess of holes, nothing but the veneer of cladding, but Holden himself was still up there, still alive and kicking. George called Rhea’s name, hoping she’d made it there. The response he got was Wendy’s alarm.

“Five minutes,” she said. “Beach?”

“No! Get up here!” Holden called. “You need to get inside!”

Zeke and Wendy turned to George.

“The man’s never steered me wrong before.”

George led the way to the entrance and pushed on the building’s doors, but they refused to budge. Stone had sealed them shut from top to bottom, immoveable and without handholds to grip.

“We can’t get in!” Wendy yelled.

“Then climb! Holden screamed.

The scaffolding was still there. There were only five floors. George growled an irate “Fuck it” and heaved Wendy up with his hands beneath her shoe. Zeke clambered onto the first level, pushing his case up before the attempt. Holden lowered the scaffolding winch to help Wendy up the last three floors. She got in just as the final alarm sounded off.

“Guys, we have less than a minute!”

George grabbed the winch and tied it to Zeke’s suitcase. Zeke kept the struggle up. The alarm ended and Wendy called out their thirty seconds warning. They climbed as fast as Zeke could.

Twenty seconds.

Zeke got to the top floor as she clocked ten. His suitcase reached him at the same time and Holden dragged them both in. George reached the top floor as Wendy counted down to zero. He looked around and uttered a “Fuck my life” and launched himself at Holden’s window.

And missed.

He collided with the roof of the window frame and fell back out as a strange upturn twisted his stomach. George reached for a bar and got a shriek from Holden and Wendy as he missed. He lashed out again but the bar was further away. So were Holden and Wendy. The whole building had drifted away. The scaffold was out of his reach. George risked glancing down.

“What the actual fuck?” He said.

“Oh my god, how are you doing that? Wendy cried.

Holden just stared, dumbfounded. Zeke sniffed at his flask with a frown.

George was stood in mid-air, suspended above the street, a five storey drop between him and the asphalt. Tentatively, he took a step forward. His position didn’t change.

“Okay, nobody laugh.” Wendy said. “In cartoons, you don’t fall unless it’s funny.”

George clamped his eyes shut. “I don’t want to fall whether it’s funny or not.”

“George, you’re not falling.” Holden said.

“I can feel that. I can feel exactly how I’m not heading groundwards as we speak!”

“That’s because you’re going the wrong way.”

George opened his eyes and looked down properly. The building his friend and family stood in sank gently as he levitated above the rooftops. Understanding sunk in as he didn’t. Gravity. The final Event was gravity.

The world’s gravity had disappeared, and George was falling into the sky.