Nick Cracknell - The Quiet Apocalypse [= Island Zero]

Unless…

I strained my mind, pulling on those fragments of reality, trying to concentrate the million pinpricks of thought, each too tiny to be perceived individually, into a concentrated bubble, the way night-vision goggles do with the residual light in the darkness. I pulled them towards my mind’s eye, the sheer effort making my brain want to explode, not in pain but in rampant frustration. Slowly, painfully slowly (it could have been an hour or a year for I was unable to discern time in this bubble) like a snail inching its way over a hill, the light in my mind’s eye began to grow. I felt like I was fighting a battle that could never be won, like I was cycling up a perpetual incline towards a desert oasis that remained the same distance away no matter how fast my progress. More than once I nearly gave up. The pinprick of light seemed to be growing, then it would shrink back again, and I would be left gasping at the effort. Perhaps it wasn’t growing, but simply pulsating and taunting me instead. I pulled harder, willing the light to grow with every fibre of my consciousness. And just when I thought it was over, the light began to expand again, this time with a greater sense of purpose than just a mere pulsation. Here it was! My own light at the end of the tunnel! Except this was no tunnel. A tunnel needs an entrance and an exit, something tangible to allow access and egress. There was nothing tangible in this place. It just was. But the light was still growing, even when I eased back on the mental pulling. I had done enough it seemed. It had transcended its own barrier now, and had become exponential. This was either a good or a bad thing. I knew that the light would now grow to engulf me, and release me from the inky blackness, but what would happen when it did was anybody’s guess.

I waited and it didn’t take long. The light became a dazzling rainbow, every possible colour radiating from its central whiteness, and I could feel my body begin to react. Here it comes , I thought, and as it folded around me I felt almost human again. I braced myself to wake, to be reborn into reality. And when I was, a female was shouting at me.

“Mister! Mister ! Okiro!”

My first thought was that I had been in some sort of road accident and a passer by was trying to help me out. I was lying on concrete having just come around, and immediately my mind kicked in to damage assessment mode. I flexed my muscles to check for injuries. I was stiff all over, but nothing seemed to hurt too much. My head was swimming, and my vision blurry, and as my eyes swam into focus I began to register the shouting woman above me. She was speaking in a foreign tongue, and sure enough when my eyes returned to normality I could see her face clearly.

She was young, only a teenager, and strikingly beautiful, with an oval face, pale skin and jet-black hair. Her dark eyes bore the tell-tale slant of the orient. She had been shouting at me, but as she saw me rise back to full consciousness she began to calm down a little, and her words became more excited rather than manic.

“Daijōbu?!” she was asking over and over, then something that sounded like “Kikemasu ka?!”

I jerked my head up as I registered where I was. The terror hit me.

“Hans!” I shouted at her. “Where is Hans? We have to get out of here now!”

I sat up quickly, wincing as my back spasmed, desperately looking around me as my predicament came back to me. Hans had been chasing me just before I had fallen! If I had been unconscious for any more than a few seconds he would be on top of us by now.

The girl was babbling something again in what I presumed now to be Japanese, and I suddenly realised the gravity of the situation.

Here she was! The girl I had heard on the radio! Was I dreaming still, or was this actually reality?

I grabbed her by the shoulders and she seemed to recoil in terror, shouting what was probably “Please don’t hurt me!”

“It’s OK!” I assured her. “I’m not going to hurt you. Please, calm down!”

She was becoming hysterical, either through a mixture or terror or sheer elation at having met another person.

“Listen to me!” I shouted in her face, which seemed to upset her even more, while I took stock of the surroundings. We were on the pavement just outside Gambrinus again, and I looked up to see where I had just fallen from. It was all coming back to me, including the sign I had seen whilst flipping through the air.

Radio Lanzarote. Fred Olsen…

This was where she had been radioing from! The girl was struggling in my grip. She can’t have weighed more than 80 pounds, and I was considerably stronger. I relaxed my hold on her slightly, and she seemed to react positively and stopped crying.

“Please, listen,” I said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m the man from the radio! I’m the one you were trying to contact. It was you , wasn’t it?”

She looked at me in confusion, and began shaking her head from side to side. “I no eat English,” she whimpered.

I understood immediately. The poor girl was terrified. She must have found me unconscious in the street, or even seen me fall, and had rushed to help only to have me manhandle her in my confusion. A thought hit me. Maybe she had seen Hans as well…

“OK, listen,” I said. “You are Japanese, yes?”

I racked my brains for something to say to make my question clearer. The absurdity of it didn’t even occur to me. It didn’t matter a shit if she was Japanese or Norwegian as I couldn’t speak either.

“Yaponais?” I asked. She seemed to understand and nodded her head vigorously.

“Hai! Nihongo! Zhapanese!” she blurted.

“And you don’t speak, uh, eat English, yes?”

“Hai, no English, sorry,” she said, and bowed her head in a show of shame. My heart instantly went out to her. I resolved then and there to protect her no matter what, like she were my own daughter.

“That’s OK,” I said, gently laying my hand on her shoulder and attempting to give her a smile. “Please don’t be sorry. No sorry! I no eat Japanese either. Uh, Nihongo no…”

She smiled back, so far the one way we could indicate understanding of what the other was saying.

“OK,” I said. “Sorry no. Good!” I gave her a thumbs up, which she returned with glee. “But listen, this is serious…” I continued. “Did you see another man here?”

Her eyes narrowed in confusion, and I clenched my fists in frustration. How could I make her understand?!

“Uh, you…”

I pointed at her.

“See…”

I raised my finger to her eye and moved my head side to side in an exaggerated searching motion.

“Another man here?”

I didn’t know how to communicate this last part. Panic overcame me as survival mode kicked in, and I realised that instead of trying to find out if she had seen Hans we should get to safety somewhere first and then try to iron out the international relations.

I grabbed her by the hand a little too suddenly and she winced again, but I was too concerned about my insane Kiwi doppelganger rounding the corner with a pick axe or something that I pulled her along the pavement, searching desperately for somewhere safe to hide.

She complied, well, she didn’t really have a choice, but she didn’t try and pull her hand back from mine. We began to run towards the east end of Avenida Fred Olsen, towards the Gran Hotel. My plan was to get her there and hole up in a different room than the Penthouse, where Hans would surely be checking if he was still trying to find me.

I jerked my head around in paranoia, glancing behind us to see if anyone was following. But the coast seemed clear. The possibilities ran through my brain as we hot footed it across the baking concrete pavement.