To my left is open river. To my right is a crumbling pile of warped wood and two tons of speeding metal careening toward me at top speed. If I don’t move this boat in the next few seconds, I’m going to have a car parked on top of it.
I watch the auto bounce through the immense car park. My head feels stuffed with cotton. The houseboat motor throbs and my hands have gone numb with the vibration of the wheel. My heart pounds in my chest.
Something occurs to me.
I snatch my mobile phone off the table, crack the SIM card out of it, and chuck the rest into the water. It makes a small plop. I can feel a bull’s-eye slide off my back.
The top of Arrtrad’s head bobs in and out of view as he unwinds the last rope. He doesn’t see the silver auto streaking across the deserted car park, sending trash fluttering into the air. It hasn’t changed direction by an inch. The plastic bumper scrapes concrete and then flies completely off as the car bounces over a curb and onto the wooden dock.
My mobile phone is gone but it’s already too late. The devil has found me.
Now I can hear the thrumming of tires over the last fifty yards of rotten wood. Arrtrad’s head rises up, concerned. He’s hunched on the side of the boat, hands covered in slime from the ancient rope.
“Don’t look, just go!” I shout at Arrtrad.
I grab the clutch lever. With one thumb, I pop the houseboat out of neutral and into reverse. Ready to move. No throttle though. Not yet.
Forty yards.
I could jump off the boat. But where will I go? My food is here. My water. My village idiot.
Thirty yards.
It’s the end of the world, mate.
Twenty yards.
Hell with it. Untied or not, I slam the throttle and we lurch backward. Arrtrad shouts something incoherent. I hear another pencil tap to the ground, followed by dishes and papers and a coffee mug. The neat pile of wood next to the potbellied stove collapses.
Ten yards.
The engines thunder. Sunlight flashes from the scarred silver missile as it catapults off the end of the dock. The auto soars through empty space, missing the front of the houseboat by a few feet. It crashes into the water and sends up a white spray that comes through the open window and slaps me in the bloody face.
It’s over.
I throttle down but leave the boat in reverse, then hurry to the front deck. The prow, they say. Ashen-faced, Arrtrad joins me. We watch the car together, trawling slowly in reverse, away from the end of the world.
The silver car is half-submerged and sinking fast. In the front seat, a man is slumped over the wheel. The windshield bears a crimson spiderweb of cracks where his face must have hit on impact. A woman with long hair is flopped next to him in the passenger seat.
And then, there’s the last thing that I see. That last thing that I never wanted to see. Didn’t ask to see.
In the backseat window. Two pale little palms, pressed hard against the tinted glass. Pale as linen. Pushing.
Pushing so hard.
And the silver car slips under.
Arrtrad drops to his knees.
“No,” he shouts. “No!”
The gawky man puts his face in his hands. His whole body convulses with sobs. Snot and tears pour out of his birdlike face.
I retreat into the doorway of the cabin. The doorframe gives me support. I don’t know how I feel, only that I feel different. Changed, somehow.
I notice it’s getting dark outside, now. Smoke is rising from the city. A practical thought comes to me. We’ve got to get out of here before something worse comes.
Arrtrad speaks to me through sobs. He grabs me by the arm and his hands are wet with tears and river water and muck from the ropes. “Did you know this would happen?”
“Stop crying,” I snap.
“Why? Why didn’t you tell nobody? What about your mum?”
“What about her?”
“You didn’t tell your mum?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“She’s not fine. Nothing is fine. You’re only seventeen. But I’ve got kids. Two kids. And they could be hurt.”
“Why haven’t I ever seen ’em?”
“They’re with my ex. But I coulda warned them. I coulda told them what was coming. People are dead. Dead, Lurker. That was a family. It was a fucking child in that car. Just a wee baby. My god. What’s the matter with you, mate?”
“Nothing’s the matter. Stop your crying, now. It’s all part of the plan, see? If you had a brain you’d understand. But you don’t. So you listen to me.”
“Yes, but—”
“Listen to me and we’ll be fine. We’re going to help those people. We’re going to find your kids.”
“That’s impossible—”
Now, I stop him cold. I’m starting to feel a bit angry. A bit of my old fire is returning to replace the numbness. “What have I told you about saying that?”
“I’m sorry, Lurker.”
“Nothing’s impossible.”
“But how will we do those things? How can we find my kids?”
“We survived for a reason, Arrtrad. This monster. This thing. It’s played its hand, see? It’s using the machines to hurt people. But we’re savvy now. We can help. We’ll save all those poor sheep out there. We’ll save them and they’ll thank us for it. They’ll worship us for it. Me and you. We’re coming out on top. It’s all in the plan, mate.”
Arrtrad looks away. It’s plain that he doesn’t believe a word of it. Looks like he might have something to say.
“What? Go on, then,” I say.
“Well, pardon me. But you never seemed the helping type, Lurker. Don’t get me wrong—”
And that’s just it, isn’t it? I’ve never thought much of other people. Or thought about them much at all. But those pale palms against the window. I can’t stop thinking of them. I have a feeling they will be with me for a long time.
“Yeah, I know that,” I say. “But you’ve not seen my forgiving nature. It’s all in the plan, Arrtrad. You have to trust. You’ll see, yeah? We’ve survived. It had to have been for a reason. We have a purpose now, you and me. It’s us against that thing. And we’re going to get revenge. So stand up and join the fight.”
I reach my hand out to Arrtrad.
“Yeah?” he asks.
He still doesn’t fully believe me. But I’m starting to believe myself. I take his hand in mine and haul Arrtrad to his feet.
“Yeah, mate. Picture this. It’s me and you against the devil himself. To the death. All the way to the very end. And someday, we’ll be in the history books for it. Guaranteed.”
This event appeared to represent a turning point in Lurker’s life. As the New War began in earnest, it seems that he left all childish things behind him and started behaving as a member of the human race. In further records, Lurker’s arrogance and vanity remain the same. But his breathtaking selfishness seems to have disappeared along with the silver car.
8. HERO MATERIAL
Dude, let the police deal with this shit.
This account is composed of a series of patched-together camera and satellite feeds, roughly tracking the GPS coordinates provided by the phone I owned at Zero Hour. Since my brother and I are the subjects of this surveillance, I have chosen to annotate with my own recollections. At the time, of course, we had no idea that we were being watched.