Lee Kerr - Welcome to the Apocalypse

I nod and smile, not believing this is real. I’m about to answer him and to ask more questions, all in order to confirm to myself that this really is happening to me. Before I can speak, the desperate voice of the driver spills through the speakers: ‘We will not be stopping at the next station, or at any other one, for that matter. We are going all the way back to Brixton and you should all hold on real fucking tight.’

I feel the train speed up as I take a firmer hold of Scott and he wraps his arms around me, this level of intimacy not intentional but necessary. The tube jolts forward as people gasp and whimper. None of this normal and all of it is difficult to process. We seem to speed up but then we suddenly stop, all of us packed in so tight that I don’t know who I’m touching, other than Scott. Everyone looks around, trying to get a glimpse through the window, all waiting to see what will await us when we get out of the tunnel. I expect to see hundreds of people all banging on the glass, desperate to get on, happy in some way just to touch what could have been their freedom. I think of how this must be happening all over the city, in many different these stations and about how many people must be trapped in these desperate places.

The driver knows more, he must do. What he doesn’t say out loud he reveals in his tone. We all look at each other and I think we are trying to somehow convince ourselves that we will be okay, but deep down we must all know that this simply isn’t the case. Something bad is happening, something far worse than a person jumping in front of a train or a multiple signal failure. This is a whole new level of bad and I don’t think it is something those in charge ever planned for.

The train edges forward again, as I keep looking between the black tunnel outside and Scott’s crystal-blue eyes. He spends all of this precious time looking only at me; the world of caverns and other people don’t seem to be of any consequence to him. It makes me smile and even though it’s only a reflex born of years of waiting, it still makes me feel good, if only for a second. The train judders again and I let out a whimper, as all those around us take deep breaths. I think the air might be running out and I wonder how long we would be able to survive in a place like this.

‘So, Emma, can I ask you something?’ Scott says, leaning his face close to mine, like we have been in this embrace for a decade or more.

I look at him and I feel my heart beating faster. I feel faint from exhaustion and hunger – I didn’t eat much for breakfast and now it’s taking its toll. I feel the grip on me get tighter, as though he is mine and I am his, and always have been.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he asks, and then stutters, perhaps wanting to say more. He looks around and probably realises that there are twenty-or-so people listening, having no choice but to witness our first meeting. ‘It’s just that you always seemed so quiet, so uninterested in those around you, that I assumed you were probably taken.’

I smile and wait, trying to find genuine excitement from the scariest of places. ‘No, I don’t have a boyfriend. I never have a boyfriend.’

‘I see,’ he says and then nods, finally looking around the carriage, almost as if he’s got bored of me, as if picking up single girls while society is collapsing is something of a hobby for him.

I push a finger into his chest, desperate to see how solid it is, imagining how many hours I would spend doing this if we were in my bed. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

He smiles and turns his attention back to me, moving his mouth close to my ear. ‘That’s better,’ he says and blows soft air behind my ear. ‘It tells me you’re interested in me and not just this bunch of miseries we’re stuck with down here.’

I can only offer him a half laugh in between my frantic panting, a smile forming in a place I never imagined possible. I study his neckline, gazing at his smooth, creamy skin, which looks good enough to eat. I look down his white shirt, seeing what bulges out of it. ‘You haven’t answered me yet,’ I say.

He nods and pulls his head away slightly. ‘I used to have a girlfriend. We split up just before all of this started but we should have ended it long before then.’ He puts his arms around my waist, pulling me up, moving my face closer to his. ‘I should have sat down in your carriage, in the seat opposite you, a very long time ago.’

I feel his arms struggling to hold me, the space is not big enough and his back is taking the strain. Before he lets me go I take my chance and move my face closer to his. I approach slowly, distinctly aware of how little time we have and how his energy is draining away, but my eager mind is trying to capture this moment forever. Our lips finally touch, slowly at first, just teasing each other. We both know that time is not on our side, that the option of a slow build-up is not a luxury that we have today, and so his warm tongue is soon in my mouth, slowly teasing and exploring its new home. His passion flows through me, reminding all the time me of just what I have missed, of all the men I have rejected in favour of continuing to search for my personal definition of perfect. And now that it has found me I realise both the lost opportunities of denial and the reward of the wait.

The train suddenly jolts forward again, forcing Scott to put me down. He still manages to do it gently, and his eyes quickly find mine again. ‘That was nice,’ he says, with a smile, a smile that I only hope to see in a hundred places, in a thousand moments, until the day I die.

I want to keep looking at him, taking it all in, but we’re both drawn away from each other as the light of the station starts to shine into the carriage in front of us. I brace myself, waiting to feel the battering on our train from the many hysterical people waiting to be rescued. I wonder if the tube will do a few more journeys, trying to all collect those who have been left behind.

The much-expected banging doesn’t take place; instead, I hear screams from the people slightly in front of us. Whatever this new horror is, it reaches them few seconds before us. I look through a space between some people, focusing on the windows between our two carriages, until I see those in front yelling and crying at whatever it is that they have just seen.

It is soon our turn to enter the station platform. We all look through our own long windows into the station. I stay silent, quietly witnessing the hell that is spread out before me. Those in our carriage join the others in crying in fear at the unknown terrors separated from us by only a thin layer of glass.

The door is still open. Scott grips me tighter and I can do nothing but try to catalogue every horror that is laid out before me. I feel his breath against my neck as I trace the blood that has stained every wall in the underground cavern; the splatters of red seeming to spell out a pattern, a reminder of many painful deaths. Across the concrete floor bodies lie scattered everywhere, their flesh sliced open and many limbs severed from their now dead owners. I look closely, forcing myself to see all of this, my mind quickly realising that the bodies don’t seem to match the parts left around them. People must have run and fled whilst they were still being chopped apart.

The people in the seats try to move backwards, desperately hoping to escape the evil outside. The sounds of the dead and dying find me now, as I realise just how close I am. We’re packed so tight and I’m still at the front of the crowd and so I edge closer to the open door, needing to look, to see and to understand. It’s the reporter in me, something that will never leave – my need to help others know what is happening somehow overrides the fear of what is spread out before me.