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

through.
    She is still in disbelief when the rough hands pull her back from the street as she steps out and throw her unceremoniously back into the dark stairwell.
    She is so surprised that she does not utter a single word, or cry for help.
    Her scattered breathing joins those trembling all along that dark, dark stairwell.
    No one sleeps.

Chapter Ten – The Fight on the Tracks
    Jonah
    As I walk along the train tracks, I start counting steps. One hundred, five hundred, one thousand, two thousand... in the end I lose my count. The fog rolls in eventually and the only light I have to see the track in front of my feet is like a memory. The night is cold, and the mist of the fog, warm though it seems at first, soon chills me wet to the bone.
    Shivering, nearly shaking with cold and anxiety that has had no release, I hesitate for a few moments to rub my limbs and try to dry my hands on my pant-legs. Bending down on one knee, I can see the tracks clearly for several metres in either direction. The misty fog itself seems to glow with the reflection of the waning moonlight.
    I feel uneasy; I feel that I am being watched.
    Turning back in the direction I have come, I see a pair of legs standing not far from me, motionless, in the gloom.
    “Who’s there?” I call out, wishing that my voice didn’t carry as far as it seems to, since there may be others nearby.
    “It’s only me,” says the man’s voice, which I don’t recognise, yet doesn’t seem unfamiliar. “I have been following you for quite some time now.”
    I remain crouched low, wondering if the owner of the voice is a friend, like the man in the church, or Michael or Gabe, or someone to fear, whom I cannot name.
    “Who are you?” I ask, my voice no louder than a whisper through my strangling fear.
    “I am a friend, Jonah,” he says. “I can help you. I can help you help yourself.” His voice is clear and bold, and somehow insistent at the same time.
    “I don’t need your help.” I know what I need to do, I’m just too...
    “Scared?” he says, as if in response to my thoughts. “Scared that you might get hurt? That it’s all your fault? That you have to do something, even though you don’t know what it is?”
    The voice and its words are sympathetic, yet the tone is somehow derogatory, impatient, even as he says that he has been following me for a while, only to speak when spoken to.
    I wonder if he’s even there at all.
    “What would you have me do?” I say, trying not to burble the words out in a tumble.
    A pause – I can almost feel the smile arise on his lips – and I know that this is not someone whom I can trust.
    “You should go home, Jonah,” he answers, finally. “I can’t imagine how worried your family might be.”
    “I can imagine,” I say, flatly, “that my wife wouldn’t appreciate me bringing the likes of you home with me.”
    “I will only follow you if you follow me, Jonah. I can be your guide through this. You need my help. You’ve already asked for it, haven’t you?”
    “Don’t patronize me, man, I don’t want you following me, so just turn around and go your own way.”
    The sound of his angered breathing is audible through the mists. My tired legs are beginning to cramp up, so I stand.
    “I am not a man! ” he says in a seething whisper. “I am not like you, nor am I like that feeble idiot Michael or the scolded child Gabriel, forever wishing he had left well alone.”
    I feel my head shoot up, shocked to hear the names, and the man behind the voice can feel it. His smile is evident as he continues.
    “Ah, you are surprised to hear that I know your little friends,” he says. “Does it surprise you that much, really, knowing how powerful I am, that you are not so much in control of this situation as you would like to believe?”
    I remain rooted in place, unable to move, feeling a slight breeze begin to blow the fog away from us.
    “Your fear is fear of me, Jonah,” he says, almost visible now. “Your