Mike Shevdon: Strangeness and Charm

I reached Tate, finding him absorbed in watching her walk back towards the orb.

"What happened?" I asked.

"She tried to leave, but she can't. They can't get out any more than we can get in."

"What did she say? Why didn't she stay?"

Tate turned to me.

"She said, whatever happens, no matter how things turn out, however long we have left, she wanted you to know that she loves you."

I pressed myself against the warding, watching her retreating back. "Alex!" I shouted after her. "Alex!"

She kept walking, never looking back.

As Chipper watched Eve, Alex scooted backwards, got to her feet and ran across the frost covered grass.

"There's no point in running," Eve shouted after her. "Very shortly there won't be anywhere to run to."

She kept running towards the tower until she encountered the barrier. It threw her back and she bounced back onto the grass. She got up, brushing the grass from her skirt, her dignity more hurt than the rest of her, and then realised that there was someone watching her from beyond the barrier.

"Good evening, Miss," said Tate.

He stood in the half light under the clouds. He might have been a stone, or the trunk from some ancient blasted oak. Except there were no stones up here, and no trees, only a broken windowless tower that looked like no one had ever used it.

"Are you going to pretend we're out for a walk again?" she called across the grass that separated them.

"Why," he asked. "Is there somewhere you'd rather be?"

She laughed, "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Glastonbury Tor is a beautiful spot, Miss" he said. "The Isle of Avalon. You should have seen it before it was drained."

"Yeah," she said, gazing round at the fields below the Tor where they faded into grey in the half-light under the clouds. "I think I'd have liked that."

"You could leave?" he suggested.

"Can't, can I? Little Miss Mayhem over there has got the whole hill locked up tighter than a duck's arse."

He smiled.

"What are you smiling at?" she asked.

"I was thinking that even ducks have to go sometime."

"Yeah," she said again. "Except when it all goes down the toilet first."

"Except then," he agreed.

They watched each other across ten paces of grass. She thought she would have liked to accompany him in a walk around the hill, but that probably wasn't going to happen.

"Are you scared, Tate?"

"Of what, Miss?"

She laughed again, "Of that," she said, pointing up at the sky. "That's what's happening. She's going to end the world and herself and me and everyone else with it. She's barking mad is what she is."

Tate looked up at the black hole in the sky, then back at Alex. "People don't do things without a reason, Miss. She'll have her reasons, even if they seem strange to you."

"You know, I've played this game before, though not for real — never for real." She looked up at the hole.

"What game, Miss?"

"If you had one hour before the end of the world, what would you do with it? Have you ever played that, Tate?"

"No, Miss. I don't think I have."

"Yeah, well. It turns out that what I'd do in the last hour before the end of the world is freeze my arse off. I wish I'd brought something warmer. Aren't you cold?"

"I don't feel the cold, Miss. At least not yet."

No, she thought, you probably don't. But you will.

"What's it for, Tate?"

"What's what for, Miss?"

"All of it? Life? What's it all for?"

"Does it need a reason, Miss? Does it have to justify itself? And if so, to whom?"

"Maybe we're about to find out," said Alex, staring upwards at the wonders of the universe above her.

"Maybe we are," he agreed.

"It doesn't seem fair," she said. "I was just getting the hang of it and now it's all going down the tubes."

"There is no fair, or unfair," said Tate. "There is only doing, and not doing."

"You forgot," she said.

"Forgot what?" asked Tate.

"You forgot to call me Miss," she reminded him.

He shook his head. "No, Alex. I didn't forget."

She watched him for a long time, but he neither moved nor changed expression. He met her gaze calmly, levelly, while she thought about everything she'd done, and everything she'd not done.

"I've fucked it up, haven't I?" She wrapped her hands tighter around her, shivering against the bone numbing chill.

"Have you, Miss?" he said.

"There you go again," she said, throwing her hands up and walking around in circles. "I just don't get it."

"Yes you do," said Tate.

She stopped suddenly. "Are you winding me up?"

He simply inclined his head, which might have been a yes, and might have been a no.

"You've got a nerve, haven't you? I mean, the world is about to end and you're… what are you doing, Tate?"

"Talking," said Tate.

She watched him. "Yeah," she said. "I 'spect you are."

She looked back at the centre where the things they'd stolen rotated slowly around the orb. Eve and Chipper were standing together. It was clear to her now. Chipper had the hots for Eve, he would do anything for her. Sparky watched them, a little way apart.

"I've gotta go," she said, turning back. "Do me a favour?"

"What is your wish?" he asked her.

"Tell my dad… whatever happens, however it turns out… never mind, just tell him I love him. Tell him I'm sorry."

"I'll tell him you love him, Alex. Don't worry."

She glanced to the right. She could see her father mounting the side of the hill, trying to reach her.

"I gotta go," she said.

"I know," he said. "I'll tell him."

She turned and strode back towards the orb and the people stood around it. Behind her her dad's voice rang out, calling her name, but she daren't look back.

"Jeeezus! It's cold." Alex crunched across the grass, leaving footprints where the brittle strands simply snapped under the pressure of her feet. She went to where Eve and Chipper stood in the freezing air. "You've got it all wrong," she said, her teeth chattering as she spoke.

"Finished sulking now, have we," asked Eve. "Sulk all you like, there's nothing you can do."

Eve seemed unaffected by the cold. Perhaps she welcomed it.

"I wasn't sulking," Alex said. "I was thinking."

"That's a first," said Eve. Chipper grinned.

"I was thinking that the real problem here is you," she said to Eve. "Whatever your problem is, you're determined to take it out on everyone."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Eve.

"Don't I?" said Alex. "Little Evie, left all alone? Little Evie, with no one to turn to?"

"Shut up!" screamed Eve. "I'm going to make you regret you ever opened your fat stupid mouth."

Chipper, loomed over Alex. "You better shut up, like she says."

"Leave her, Chipper. I can handle the likes of her," said Eve. "She doesn't understand. She's standing on a hundred thousand tons of stone and she wants to challenge me? We don't have to wait for the end of the world. We can kill her now, and bury her. Not necessarily in that order."

Alex felt the ground soften beneath her feet.

"You stupid little girl," said Alex. "You think you're the big thinker with your highbrow books and your pothead philosophy, but you can't see beyond your childish little nose. You accuse me of sulking, but isn't that what this is? One giant hissy fit to show the world once and for all that you want things your own way, or not at all?"

"Say that from the grave, bitch," said Eve.

Alex spread her feet keeping her balance as the ground shifted and sank beneath her. She fought the urge to struggle as she sank knee deep into the earth. She wouldn't give Eve the satisfaction or watching her try to crawl out of the hole that was forming around her.

"We shouldn't be fighting like this," said Sparky. "We should stick together — help each other."