Liz Jensen - The Rapture

A vile heat flashes through me. ‘So what do we do now?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

Our eyes meet. But I cannot bear it. My failure has left me with a weariness that presses on my shoulders, turning me into a yoked beast dragged in endless circles, its hooves clogged with earth. Sensing my misery, Frazer Melville touches my arm in sympathy but, feeling me stiffen, he withdraws his hand.

‘Let’s talk to Bethany,’ I suggest. ‘Maybe some of it got through.’

Wordlessly, the others follow me back to the small parlour where she is sprawled on the settee inspecting her blistered hands, the long bandage unwound and strewn around her on the floor like a giant strand of fettuccine.

‘He could see I could take more but the fucker wimped out!’ she rails. ‘And you let him go! I told you, Wheels. I need thirty seconds. If I’d had that long it would’ve worked.’

‘You’re sure you didn’t see anything?’

‘You know I didn’t!’ she explodes. ‘Because I didn’t get enough volts!’

‘There’s nothing we can do now,’ I say. I feel flattened and helpless and oddly distanced from my own body. I could be watching myself from the far wall.

‘Of course there is,’ she says, lifting herself higher on her elbow and wincing from the pain. ‘How dumb are you guys? Look, we’ve still got the machine. You know how to operate it. So go for it.’

Kristin Jons dottir’s eyes widen, and Frazer Melville shoots me an uneasy glance. Ned blinks rapidly and strokes his stubble.

‘You must be joking, Bethany,’ Frazer Melville blurts. ‘It could kill you.’

‘It won’t. Go on,’ she says, jerking her head woozily in the direction of the little machine. ‘A four-year-old could work that thing. So can Wheels here. So can any of you. Just do it. I need thirty seconds. The professor guy’s on his way, right? So do it now. While you dare. Don’t think about it, just do it.’

Kristin takes a step back. She seems suddenly smaller, as though ready to shrivel her way out of the room. Frazer Melville stands motionless. He opens his mouth to say something, looks at me questioningly, then closes it again. I know what he’s thinking.

I say, ‘No.’

‘Jesus!’ spits Bethany. ‘You fucking coward. If you can’t do it for me, then do it for the sake of all those people you think are worth saving, you dumb cow!’

I stare at the dials on the machine, then at her. She is quivering with rage. I ask, ‘Do you think they’re worth saving? Would you risk your life for them?’

‘You’re such an idiot. It’s not about other people. It’s about me. And my life’s fucked anyway. So just do it.’

‘Assisted suicide? No thanks.’

‘OK,’ she sighs heavily. ‘Let’s tell Wheels what she wants to hear. I love life. Can’t get enough of it. I want to celebrate this glorious fucking world. A certain spaz has made me see just how mind-blowingly wonderful it is, with her miracle psychobabble. I can’t wait to see the future. Bring it on. Just do it, for fuck’s sake. It’s my final wish, OK?’

And before I can think, she has shoved back the mouth-guard, reached out shakily for the face-mask, applied it to her nose and mouth and administered a pump of gas. ‘Do it now,’ she says, groggily, her eyes sliding shut. ‘Or I’ll never forgive you.’

You may not be alive to, I think. I am so terrified I could puke. Ned Rappaport, Frazer Melville and Kristin Jons dottir are staring at me aghast. Outside, there’s the sound of a car approaching.

‘That’ll be Harish. I’ll go,’ murmurs Kristin Jons dottir. Noiselessly, she slips out.

People used to tell me I spent too much time thinking, analysing, reflecting, hunting for hidden meanings when perhaps there just weren’t any. When something huge is at stake, something so big its sheer size could blind you, you can’t waste time speculating. Sometimes, you just have to take a leap in the dark.

A big, ignorant leap. To a new place where nothing is the same.

It could be the worst choice I ever make, but in that instant, it’s done. Swiftly, I wipe Bethany’s forehead with the sponge, grab the electrodes, flick on the timer, apply them to her temples, and shift the switch. I hold my breath as the clock ticks and the electricity floods her brain.

Cold, factual thoughts take hold.

I must not pass out from fear.

If she dies, they’ll call it murder.

They will be right to.

I keep the electrodes clamped to her temples and watch the seconds pass.

There’s an uncanny silence. Bethany’s face is so impassive she could be dead. The longest ten seconds of my life pass, but nothing terrible is happening. Then twenty. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Still no movement from Bethany, no sign that the current is having an effect. How should I interpret this? What am I looking for? I don’t even know. I won’t breathe till it’s over. Twenty-eight. I hear Ned gulp. Cuando te tengo a ti vida, cuanto te quiera . Frazer Melville puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. I shuck it off because I loathe myself even more than I loathe him.

Then, at twenty-nine seconds, catastrophe.

With no warning, Bethany’s head jerks up with a violent epileptic spasm and her legs and arms start jerking. The electrode pads crash to the floor, and the mouth-guard goes flying, but the frantic breakdance continues, unstoppable. Frazer Melville shouts to Ned to take her legs, and grapples with her flailing arms. Barely thinking about what I am doing, I heave myself out of the chair, and with immense effort — I can feel the adrenalin whipping through me — I throw myself across her on the settee, pinning her convulsing torso down with my weight. Her head, freed from its strap, butts me in the mouth and I taste blood. She’s still fitting. Despite my weight on top of her, she’s half off the settee. There’s more blood, Bethany’s or mine I can’t tell. I think: she’s bitten off her tongue . Then she flops still.

Ned stands back while Frazer Melville lifts me bodily off her and settles me back into my chair. I am aware of his immense strength. He could be picking up a rag doll.

Bethany, covered in blood, skewed at an awkward angle, is now completely motionless. Her chest was heaving before, but now there is no rise and fall.

The world drops away beneath me.

Kristin appears at the door open-mouthed. With her is Harish Modak.

The old man is frailer in the flesh than in the photographs I have seen: a small, shrunken figure with iron-grey hair and the dark, hooded eyes of a bird of prey. Eyes which flicker across the room, widening as they take in the carnage.

Everywhere is streaked with red. Bethany is twisted oddly, as though she has tried to turn herself inside out. Blood drips from the corner of her lip.

She has stopped breathing.

Harish Modak’s legs buckle as he registers what has happened, and he reaches out to support himself on the door-frame. Kristin grabs his arm and settles him, grey-faced, in a chair by the window.

‘I’ll do mouth-to-mouth and you work her heart,’ I tell Frazer Melville.

‘I’ll count,’ says Ned, hastening over. I take a deep breath, clamp my mouth over Bethany’s and exhale into her lungs.

The next few minutes are a blur. I taste blood and snot. If I can die in her place, I will. I’ll find a way. My life for hers. Bethany, come back. Come back . My lungs are weak with the effort of shoving air into hers. I’m working on her like a machine, all my reflexes kicking in. At one point I pull my head back from Bethany’s mouth and think, this isn’t Bethany any more. It’s Bethany’s dead body. But I carry on forcing air into her lungs anyway, peripherally conscious that Ned has handed over to Kristin Jons dottir, and is now making a phone call.