Lee Kerr - Welcome to the Apocalypse

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t think to offer him any comfort. She leaves him now, going back to her calculations, quickly bringing more people into the fold as she demands that they prepare. There is no emotion left, no sad faces. He wonders if others around the world are doing the same, if there are even any world leaders left. He picks up a folder that sits next to the button. He finds it ironic that it’s titled ‘The Best Chances of Survival.’ He has already looked through, having participated in putting it together a few days ago. He shuffles through the paperwork at random, only stopping at the ideas that interest him the most. He sees a satellite image of Japan, the fortified walls they built around two of their main islands, which, as it turned out, wasn’t enough to help them survive.

He smiles at the British decision to sail their remaining fleet out to sea and create a sort of island in the Atlantic Ocean. Sure, it had some major drawbacks, because as the saying goes: ‘water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.’ It was projected that they would be able to survive at sea for less than three months before extreme lack of supplies forced them back to land and to the waiting enemy. It turned out to be a lot less when they found the lurkers were very good swimmers and didn’t have any intention of waiting that long.

He turns to the last page, to an intelligence report from the Caribbean islands, about an ingenious plan to launch a large platform thousands of feet into the air. The intelligence officer gave it a 50% chance of working which, when compared to the other options, was actually quite high. He looks at the name of the officer and thinks about trying to find him, but since they will have been based at Langley, which was destroyed days ago, he doesn’t see the point. He does wonder if it ever got off the ground, ever managed to save just a few.

Phillips reappears and disturbs his thoughts, the clipboard still in his hand. Larry notices it’s full of scribbled notes with percentages next to them. ‘Is now a good time for a progress update, Mr. President?’

Larry gets up, making himself stand shoulder to shoulder with the General. ‘I’m not sure there will ever be a good time, but I guess I need to hear it.’

Phillips nods back, looking at his notes as if he’s trying to find the best place to start. He taps the pen on the plastic as he makes a ticking sound with his mouth, until he seems to find what he was looking for. ‘Let’s start furthest away from home and work our way backwards,’ he says, as he ushers them over to the large, interactive map of the world.

They soon reach the workstation of a young soldier and Phillips taps him on the shoulder, making him jump as they distract him from whatever important work he was doing. The screen zooms in until it is only showing a red Europe, as Larry realises he is going to get a continent-by-continent summary of how screwed the world really is. He sees the many skulls covering the landmass and he wants to laugh. He is seriously impressed by how much data the American war machine can collect from around the world, but he also knows that this cannot stop the beasts from winning.

Phillips coughs and then looks down at his notes. ‘So, Europe has taken the biggest hit with only 30% of the population is left there. This is probably because, as we know, they seem to attack world leaders and centres of power, and that’s where there is the largest concentration. They crept through Africa days before anyone knew and didn’t bother themselves with anything but the biggest cities. After that Spain got hit next, as they simply walked out of the ocean and onto the beaches. It took them a while to work their way through the Spanish countryside, and then through France, and at that point the majority of world powers still didn’t know what was happening. When they eventually reached the rest of the European countries they realised it might not be a virus or plague.’

‘And we still don’t know why they are attacking world leaders?’

Phillips doesn’t answer, but he holds out his hand, keeping his focus on the pad. ‘Don’t stop me now, Mr. President, I’m on a roll.’ He taps the shoulder of his helper who in turn starts tapping commands onto the computer.

‘The Nordic regions are almost gone, probably because the population is concentrated in a few major cities. Russia put up a good fight and we think there are several thousand in the mountains, but since we have limited intelligence over there it’s hard to say. Asia, India and the Middle East have taken 70% losses so far and the battles are still continuing, so we should definitely nuke them. Australia is very big and a few thousand of the population remain but with the main cities across the coast destroyed, the majority of the surviving population will die of starvation.’ He taps his pen again, as he looks down his list and then up to Larry. ‘South America isn’t worth writing home about and Canada has gone the same way as Russia. So, all in all, I would say about 40% of the world’s population from before this started is now left, and further war casualties are projected to take us down to around 20%.’

Larry leans down and takes hold of the desk. ‘So, less than two billion will survive?’

Phillips quickly shakes his head. ‘Oh no, Mr. President, it’s nowhere near that high. Even if we assume the creatures are all destroyed, the direct assault of the nuclear tactical deterrents will kill off another billion or so, then add on the fall out and radiation, which will finish off at least another 500 million, if not more.’

He looks at Phillips but doesn’t say anything, somehow knowing he’s not finished yet.

‘And so we’re left with about 500 million. Now, this is where it gets interesting. You then need to assume that we have only killed off 60% of the lurkers, so they will easily manage to kill another couple hundred million of us. We will then probably manage to halve our numbers, when you think about everything that Mad Max has taught us. Then add in famine, disease, lack of modern medicine and the fact that we’re going to be dropping down a few rungs on the food chain, which will finish off another 60% of whatever remains.’

‘So we are left with less than ten million survivors?’

Phillips shakes his head again, as he flicks through more pages on his clipboard. ‘Our best scientists predict less than a million of us will be alive this time next year. When you then consider that people aren’t going to be having babies any time soon, the on-going fight for survival means that in a hundred years’ time we will be down to less than 50,000.’

Phillips nods, finally giving Larry and the human race the break they deserve. ‘Assuming the beasts don’t hunt us down to the last man, we will then steadily grow. Other than our current enemy there is no other creature on earth that has the capacity to grow as fast as we can. And since we’re several hundred-million years ahead of any other species we should reach our current numbers by the year 10,000.’

Larry shakes his head, looking down. ‘That sounds so unbelievably distant,’ he says, as he looks over at Lopez. ‘And so we have to trust her theory that some of the population will survive and grow, and that we will get back to where we are now?’

Phillips nods and smiles. ‘The population of our planet in 1800 was about a billion, so that gives you an idea of how it took us to recover last time. If you think that in the last 200 years we have grown by eight times from that original billion people, so it shows just what we’re capable of. It’s getting back to the first billion that’s the real hurdle.’

‘You believe her, don’t you?’

Phillips stops and remains completely unmoving for the first time since Larry has met him. ‘Mr. President, I don’t know what to believe but right now we have very little time left, so both of us need to pick something and grab hold on tight, before it’s too late.’