Read Online How the World Ends by Joel Varty - Free Book Online Page A

radio is now a sharp question, but I can’t make out what it is. A few furtive glances this way and that, then the guard turns back towards the downtown area with its train station, skyscrapers, and greater accumulation of people.
    I know it is time to move. I know where I must go – and the waiting has only made it clearer where I must go. Follow the tracks, says the voice, now more than a whisper, more than an imaginary sound, it is as real a sound as one can hear in their head without the sound being spoken. I feel that it is the right move.
    The tracks are right near the lakeshore, and I skirt the edge of the river using its myriad bushes and shrubs for cover on my way. The railway bridge over the river is flat with no arch or side-rails. From this side I have a clear view of the station and all the engines parked there – and not for the first time I wonder why. Why is this happening? Is it an invasion? Who are these guards and what are they protecting? Are we really prisoners in this place? Do we have any options? Do I have any option but to run from it?
    Shaking my head with the confusion of it all, with the disparity of the thoughts of running versus fighting versus hiding. The fear, and its shame, is haunting me. The thoughts of my family, hopefully safe in our house – but I don’t know that, are teasing me. I don’t know what to think. The voices are silent now; this is my decision, as I stand at the railway tracks peering to my right into the darkness of the station against the lamp of the city.
    The silence is nearly complete now, with no more shouting or gunfire. It reminds me of camping with my brother and the way our voices, once we had stopped talking, would leave a vacuum of silence that allowed all manner of other sounds, ones that belonged to the silence of the darkness, to creep forth into being. These sounds now accost me – taunting me with their calls.
    All at once, the lights of the city flicker back out. The silence is absolute. The darkness, though, is not that bad. The mist seems to have cleared for the moment. Bright stars and a crescent moon, rising in the east, reflect off the mirror of the lake water. I turn towards home and, by the power of this faint light, begin the long walk toward my family.
    …
    Lucia
    The stairwell of the condo building is pitch-black. There are no windows, and the emergency lights are not lit. The doors at each floor are locked and her electronic keys do not work. By the faint but dying glow of her cellphone, Lucia Hadly slowly creeps down through the gloom towards ground level. She slips past the glowing, frozen eyeballs reflected from the frightened faces of those also trapped in the tower.
    The guards are waiting, not for her specifically, but for anyone. She, as an individual, as an agent of the demise of this city, has been tactically forgotten. Her past, present and future have become the sum of several ill-advised decisions brought upon by her... what? What was it I was trying to achieve? She asks herself? Why did I do this? It wasn’t supposed to end like this. It isn’t my fault. Eventually, she almost convinces herself.
    When she reaches the bottom of the steps, she steps toward the door. Just as the battery on her cellphone, her only light in this utter blackness filled only with the sounds of terrified breathing, dies out, she touches the crash-bar of the door to the outside. She slowly depresses the handle and eases the door open with a soft squeak of hinges. The starlight nearly blinds her, yet it is only enough to show her the silhouette of the two guards outside. It seems odd that they are looking toward the building, watching for any movement. She has never imagined that this apartment building of luxury condominiums would become her prison. She has never considered the possibility that she, of all people, would not be allowed to leave of her own free will.
    She is thinking something along those lines as she opens the door wide enough to slip