I throttle down but leave the boat in reverse, then hurry to the front deck. The prow, they say. Ashen-faced, Arrtrad joins me. We watch the car together, trawling slowly in reverse, away from the end of the world.
The silver car is half-submerged and sinking fast. In the front seat, a man is slumped over the wheel. The windshield bears a crimson spiderweb of cracks where his face must have hit on impact. A woman with long hair is flopped next to him in the passenger seat.
And then, there’s the last thing that I see. That last thing that I never wanted to see. Didn’t ask to see.
In the backseat window. Two pale little palms, pressed hard against the tinted glass. Pale as linen. Pushing.
Pushing so hard.
And the silver car slips under.
Arrtrad drops to his knees.
“No,” he shouts. “No!”
The gawky man puts his face in his hands. His whole body convulses with sobs. Snot and tears pour out of his birdlike face.
I retreat into the doorway of the cabin. The doorframe gives me support. I don’t know how I feel, only that I feel different. Changed, somehow.
I notice it’s getting dark outside, now. Smoke is rising from the city. A practical thought comes to me. We’ve got to get out of here before something worse comes.
Arrtrad speaks to me through sobs. He grabs me by the arm and his hands are wet with tears and river water and muck from the ropes. “Did you know this would happen?”
“Stop crying,” I snap.
“Why? Why didn’t you tell nobody? What about your mum?”
“What about her?”
“You didn’t tell your mum?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“She’s not fine. Nothing is fine. You’re only seventeen. But I’ve got
“Why haven’t I ever seen ’em?”
“They’re with my ex. But I coulda warned them. I coulda told them what was coming. People are dead.
“Nothing’s the matter. Stop your crying, now. It’s all part of the plan, see? If you had a brain you’d understand. But you don’t. So you listen to me.”
“Yes, but—”
“Listen to me and we’ll be fine. We’re going to help those people. We’re going to find your kids.”
“That’s impossible—”
Now, I stop him cold. I’m starting to feel a bit angry. A bit of my old fire is returning to replace the numbness. “What have I told you about saying that?”
“I’m sorry, Lurker.”
“
“But how will we do those things? How can we find my kids?”
“We survived for a reason, Arrtrad. This monster. This
Arrtrad looks away. It’s plain that he doesn’t believe a word of it. Looks like he might have something to say.
“What? Go on, then,” I say.
“Well, pardon me. But you never seemed the helping type, Lurker. Don’t get me wrong—”
And that’s just it, isn’t it? I’ve never thought much of other people. Or thought about them much at all. But those pale palms against the window. I can’t stop thinking of them. I have a feeling they will be with me for a long time.
“Yeah, I know that,” I say. “But you’ve not seen my forgiving nature. It’s all in the plan, Arrtrad. You have to trust. You’ll see, yeah? We’ve survived. It had to have been for a reason. We have a purpose now, you and me. It’s us against that thing. And we’re going to get revenge. So stand up and join the fight.”
I reach my hand out to Arrtrad.
“Yeah?” he asks.
He still doesn’t fully believe me. But I’m starting to believe myself. I take his hand in mine and haul Arrtrad to his feet.
“Yeah, mate. Picture this. It’s me and you against the devil himself. To the death. All the way to the very end. And someday, we’ll be in the history books for it. Guaranteed.”
This event appeared to represent a turning point in Lurker’s life. As the New War began in earnest, it seems that he left all childish things behind him and started behaving as a member of the human race. In further records, Lurker’s arrogance and vanity remain the same. But his breathtaking selfishness seems to have disappeared along with the silver car.
8. HERO MATERIAL
Dude, let the police deal with this shit.
This account is composed of a series of patched-together camera and satellite feeds, roughly tracking the GPS coordinates provided by the phone I owned at Zero Hour. Since my brother and I are the subjects of this surveillance, I have chosen to annotate with my own recollections. At the time, of course, we had no idea that we were being watched.
Shit, man. Here it is, the day before Thanksgiving. The day it all happened. My life up until now was never that great, but at least I wasn’t being hunted. I never had to jump at shadows, wondering whether some metal bug was about to try and blind me, sever one of my limbs, or infect me like a parasite.
Relative to that, my life before Zero Hour was perfection.
I’m in Boston and it’s as cold as a bastard. The wind is cutting my ears like razor blades and I’m chasing my brother through the Downtown Crossing outdoor shopping pavilion. Jack is three years older than me and as usual he’s trying to do the right thing. But I won’t listen to him.
Our dad died last summer. Me and Jack flew out West and buried him. And that was that. We left our stepmom alone in California with a lot of tear-streaked makeup and everything Dad owned.
Well, pretty much everything.
Since then, I’ve been sleeping on Jack’s couch. Mooching, I’ll admit it. In another few days, I’m flying to Estonia on a photojournalist gig for
In about five minutes, the whole fucking world is going to go bat-shit insane. But I don’t know that, I’m just
