The Doomsday Dilemma by David Dwan - HTML preview

Paul gave him a grave look. “I know.” Then he snapped out of it a moment later getting back to business. “Look, just get them to James Street. Get Lib to text me when they’re there.” He took a hold of Earl’s arm and drew him close. “Earl, now you need to listen to me. Stay away from James Street, go anywhere but stay away and out of sight. The police are looking for you, Christ it’s dangerous as hell you being here, but that can’t be helped.” He was clearly struggling with something.

“Paul, what is it?” Earl asked with a growing sense of unease. “Everything’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, course.” He let go of Earl’s arm. “Truth is, Earl, and I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t want you fucking this up.”

“Me?” That stung Earl like a slap in the face. “What does that mean?”

“All I’m saying is just send the text and keep out of the way.” Paul replied defensively. “Once I get Lib and Freddie back here I’ll get her to text you. Don’t worry you’ll be here when it all goes down.”

He doesn’t trust me, Earl realised bitterly. After everything none of them really trust me, and with that came the sudden fear that they might shut him out altogether. He had to fight the urge to smack Paul right in the face, but that would just be proving his point, still Paul glanced nervously down at Earl’s hands which he had balled into fists without realising it. He flexed his fingers and stepped away and onto the loading ramp because he couldn’t rule out hitting the stuck up bastard regardless and if he did that then he definitely would be out of the picture.

“Okay,” Earl replied weakly and moved off down the ramp and off across the back stage loading area without another word. He felt like a child who just wanted to hang around with the big kids, but they had laughed in his face. He was glad he had his back to Paul as he strode away towards the welcoming shadows because he couldn’t see the tears forming in his eyes.

“I’ll see you soon,” Paul called after him.

Earl didn’t turn around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CALM BEFORE

 

 

Despite the fact that they had the car’s heater up full blast, Libby felt cold. And although they had gotten back from Logan’s and into town just twenty minutes ago, it felt like they had been sitting there for hours waiting for Dennis to text them with an update. On more than one occasion she had to stop herself from texting or even calling her Brother, but they had told him not to call unless it was absolutely vital, so it was only right that she did the same.

She had parked the car down a deserted side street where only half the streetlights were working so she could hide them in the darkness between the yellow pools of light dotted up and down the street. They had a good view both up and down the street in case they had been followed but hadn’t seen hide nor hair of another vehicle, let alone any pedestrians, since they had arrived.

Freddie was sitting next to her in the passenger seat staring silently out of the side window, his mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear what he was saying to himself. He was actually looking out over a large expanse of waste ground clutching the box in both hands as if for comfort. But she knew he could have just as well have been staring at a brick wall, he was so lost in introspection.

She was about to say something, anything, just to break the oppressive atmosphere when the phone buzzed loudly where it was resting in her lap, her heart skipped half a dozen beats and she began to fumble with the phone, her fingers suddenly feeling twice as thick. She glanced across at Freddie before checking the message, she could see his reflection in the car’s window. He shut his eyes and his brow furrowed, for a moment she thought he was crying, but if anything he looked like he was praying.

“We’re on,” she said checking the message from her brother. “Paul wants us to meet him at James Street,” she thought for a moment. “Isn’t that near that old railway depot in the centre of town?” She asked. Freddie nodded his head almost imperceptibly. “Den says there’s a few police around, but nothing to worry about.”

“Anything about us?” Freddie said not turning around, his breath misted the window obscuring his reflection.

“Nope, just to meet Paul at James Street. He wants us to text him when we’re there.” Libby closed her eyes trying to conjure us a mental picture of the quickest route through town to James Street, it wasn’t far, probably twenty minutes at the most. She shook her head in quiet disbelief. So close now, she thought. James Street couldn’t be any more than five minutes or so from the university. Then it was just a matter of getting inside, saying their piece and then standing back to watch the shockwaves. Simple when you thought about it like that.

Another text came through snapping her out of her daze. She glanced at her phone, it was another from Dennis: ‘Don’t forget about me, big sis’. Libby frowned. What did he mean by that? She supposed he was feeling a little left out again. So despite her better judgement she sent him one back. ‘No one can forget about you, shit head. See you soon.’ I hope.

“We should get going,” she said but just couldn’t move, it was as if the events of the past few hours had finally caught up with here all at once. Her arms felt too leaden to even rise up to the steering wheel. “God,” she uttered. “Can’t seem to get going... Stupid.” When she finally got them working, her hands were shaking so much she had to grip a hold of the steering wheel just to stop them.

“Now, I’m glad I have the WMD,” Freddie said and gave her the ghost of a smile.

“Yeah, it’s stupid but I just can’t get them to stop shaking.” She flexed her fingers several times until they gradually began to behave. I’m so scared, she wanted to tell him but something stopped her, she was supposed to be the strong one, wasn’t she?

“I know how you feel,” Freddie said. “I feel like I’m gonna puke, my stomach’s doing back flips.”

“Mine to,” Libby admitted, she felt like she had swallowed a gallon of battery acid, she could taste the bile in the back of her throat. Libby started the ignition but left the car idling. “You thought about what you going to say yet?” She asked Freddie.

He grimaced sheepishly. “I had it all worked out. This big speech, I’ve been running it over and over in my head since we started back.” He shook his head and fell silent.

“Go on,” Libby urged, she laid a comforting hand on his knee and was relieved to see it wasn’t shaking so badly now.

“That’s just the point,” he said. “Can’t remember a damn word of it.” He put the box in his lap and took out a piece of paper from his inside coat pocket. Libby had completely forgotten about the letter Logan had given to Freddie. “I think I’ll just read what Logan wrote, it sums things up a hell of a lot better than I could. Wanna read it?”

“Not right now,” she said. “Just remember the hard work’s already done,” she told him. “We’ve got the virus, and I have a feeling that all you’ll have to do is flash that bottle and the place will go ballistic.” Libby moved her left hand off his knee and onto the gear stick. She was about to put the car into gear when Freddie gently grabbed her arm, it was a slow movement but the unexpected contact made her start all the same.

“Look, Lib... Before things get really mental, I just wanted to say...” He faltered as a sob escape him.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Libby twisted around and took his face in her hands, where as she was cold as ice, he was burning up.

He took her hand and kissed it. “I know, don’t worry, I’m not trying to back out again or anything. It’s just that... I just wanted to tell you how glad I am you’re here. I’m so damn scared half the time I can’t think straight. I truly couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

Libby leaned forwards and kissed him. “Of course you would,” she lied.

He suddenly grabbed her pulling her close. “God I love you,” he blurted out and kissed her so urgently that Libby had to fight the urge to pull away. Even after last night’s passionate love making, even after everything they had been through, came the icy realization that he meant nothing to her now. If she felt cold on the outside it was nothing compared to her frozen heart.

“I love you too,” she lied again. Libby squinted at his face in the half light of the car. “Hey, your nose is bleeding.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLES TURNED

 

 

“So, that’ll be the tables turned then.” The old man’s face was a bloody mess, his nose was clearly broken which gave his voice a nasally tone as he spoke. But still he managed to grin at Harper revealing a set of broken teeth, his eye lids were still heavy having just about come around from unconsciousness as he looked across the kitchen table at Harper who was seated at the other side with blood shot eyes. “Why Harper,” he slurred. “You don’t look so good.”

Harper couldn’t help but laugh. “Christ, would you like me to get you a mirror?”

The old man brought a bruised hand up and lightly touch his cheek, he hissed in pain forcing a fine mist of blood through his ruined teeth. “Now I know how you feel,” he said looking at the blood on his finger-tips.

“Not quite,” Harper replied. “I haven’t shot you... Yet.” He rested the pistol on the table by the grip so it was pointing at Logan’s chest. The truth of it was Paul Harper didn’t feel any pain at all, the massive amount of whatever was in Logan’s wonder pills had seen to that. He was as high as a kite and the drug had given everything a golden haze around it. Despite his situation, Harper couldn’t remember feeling so content. It was a feeling he could get used to.

“You are grinning like a loon, Harper,” Logan pointed out with some amusement. He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his black and blue eyes. “How much did you take?”

“Enough,” Harper replied. He had taken another of them moments before Logan came around, not that he had been in any pain, the first one was still in full effect, he just wanted to drift away a little deeper. He had a feeling things were coming to a head and couldn’t think of a better way to go out. He fished out the pill box with his free hand and gave it a shake. “Still got a few left though.”

“Don’t suppose I could have one?”

“Physician, heal thy self.” Harper replied and put the pill box onto the table in front of him.

Logan guffawed at that and instantly regretted it, he cursed and screwing his face up in pain. “Wow, that was incredibly painful,” Logan said with a grimace.

“Good,” Harper said. Although through his drug fluid haze everything had a kind of horrific beauty to it. His thoughts clouded over, he had to ask the old bastard something, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was.

“My, what a pair we must look,” Logan said with a thin smile, even that slight motion made his blood shot eyes flare with a flash of agony. “Like two bloody bookends. Anyone peeping in through that window would think they’ve stumbled upon night of the living dead.”

True enough Harper had to admit, they did make a grim duo... Wait a minute, night? Why did that strum a chord of disquiet in the back of his mind? Night. Harper was sure it had been daylight when he had ran outside to try and stop those Eco-idiots driving off with Logan’s pride and joy. It had been day hadn’t it? Or at the very least early evening. He tried to rack his numb brain but he was having more and more trouble focusing his thoughts on anything more than talking and breathing and not falling off the damn chair he was on.

He look up, although the florescent strip light was on above him the room seemed so dim if could have been lit by candle light for all the good it was doing. The large kitchen window to his left confirmed what he feared; he couldn’t see anything through it only the kitchen reflected back at him. He could have been sitting here watching Logan slowly drifting in and out of consciousness for hours. A stab of fear cleared his thoughts for a moment. He had something important he needed to do, he was sure of it. But what? Why was he sitting in a kitchen with a bloody looking scarecrow across the table from him, stoned out of his mind?

Car keys.

“Where are your car keys?” He asked and tapped the pistol on the table for emphasis.

Logan seemed to take an age to process the question. “You can’t stop them, you know? You don’t even know where they are going.” He thought about that for a moment. “Come to think of it, neither do I.”

“I have to try, now answer the question. Where are your car keys?”

“Harper the action hero,” Logan said weakly. His head lolled forwards and for a second Harper thought he was going to die right then and there.

“Logan!” He shammed his free hand on the table and the old Man looked back up at him again through unfocused eyes. “Answer the question. Where are your fucking car keys?”

Logan lent slowly forwards and rested his elbows on the table, he held his head in his hands as if he had to do so to keep looking at Harper. He ran his tongue across his shattered front teeth. “You know I can’t do that, Harper,” he finally said, the pain clear in his voice as he spoke. “What are you going to do, shoot me?” He nodded to the pistol. “That would be such a shame,” he lamented. “So close to the end.”

“That’s a matter of perspective,” Harper told him. He wondered if he would even remember doing it, if he did murder the old man, he was so doped up. Everything felt like a warm cosy dream, despite the desperate scenario he had found himself in, he was calm, happy even, he just hoped the elation would last long enough for him to get away from here. He looked at the pill box on the table then to the pistol in his hand, handle resting in the table, barrel pointed up slightly to Logan’s chest.

Pain killers both he mused and he contemplated taking another pill. It was easy to see how someone could get addicted to the buzz. He couldn’t even remember the pain he had been in before; of being so scared he thought he was going to piss himself. He focused back to the matter at hand with growing difficulty. Logan had told him that shooting him so close to the end would be a shame. “I could live with it,” he said.

“Not by the look of you,” Logan replied.

“I feel fine,” he said. “Never better to be precise, I could get used to this.”

“I doubt you even have the strength to...” Logan didn’t get chance to finish his sentence.

Harper shifted the pistol slightly to the right and pulled the trigger. Logan physically jumped in his seat as the bullet zinged by his ear and tore into the wall over his left shoulder. The pistol kicked hard in Harper’s hand and he watched the shell casing ejecting from the breach as the slide zipped back as if in slow motion, he followed its ark as it spun smoking through the air. He was so wired he felt that he would be able to catch it in mid-air he wanted to. Instead he let it fly off and out of sight.

Logan looked at Harper, his eyes wide with terror; it felt good to see the old bastard so scared. What had he said earlier? ‘That’ll be the tables turned then’. Damn straight, the gun was power and it filled him with elation to weld it. To be the master of his own destiny for a change, he vaguely recalled another thing Logan had so glibly told him early. That it felt good to be the player instead of the played. Now Harper knew what he had meant by that. Power. The power of life and death, no one would blame him for putting a bullet in Logan’s big brain for what he had done to him these last few hours, days, weeks or however long he had been cooped up here at the good Doctors will.

“I guess you do have the strength after all,” Logan said eyeing him suspiciously. “But do you have the will?”

Harper felt a shot of cold shock run through him as his finger twitched and he almost pulled the trigger; just to see the look on Logan’s face. Harper glanced at the pistol and in an instant all thought of killing the Doctor melted away.

Could he really have done it? The plain answer was; hell yes, and blame the dope in his system for it. That was terrifying.

“I don’t time for this bullshit Logan,” Harper said. Despite himself Harper could quite clearly hear a voice at the back of his mind saying ‘shoot him, shoot the smug bastard!’ The voice was very compelling. “Logan, the keys,” he said trying to block out the homicidal seducer in his head.

At this Logan lent back in his chair and folded his hands together placing them on the table in front of him. “No,” he said quite plainly. “I’m quite happy just to sit here and let things unfold.”

“Logan!” Harper said insistently, didn’t the old fool know how close he was to getting a bullet in the head? ‘Shoot him.’

The old man smiled, winced, but smiled all the same despite the pain. “Let’s just sit here and see what happens.”

“Christ Logan, you fucking lunatic.” Harper despaired. The old Man looked so calm that Harper began to wonder which one of them was doped up on morphine.

“This is pretty much what I was going to do tonight anyway,” Logan said. “Obviously I hadn’t planned on being quite so battered and bruised, but there you go,” he added nonchalantly.

No, this wasn’t right, Harper fretted. The old man was trying to play some mind game on him. “What are you really up to, Logan?” Harper asked. “What is all this really about?”

“I’ve told you,” Logan replied.

“No, you’ve told me a load of bollocks. I don’t believe for a second you’ve done all this... Me... Poor Frank. All this nightmare, just so you can give away your life’s work.”

Harper could feel himself slipping away again, the kitchen was getting darker, he felt so numb he realised he couldn’t feel the gun in his hand, but could feel the increasing pressure on the right hand side of his head like it was going to burst open spilling his already damaged brain all over the floor.

“Harper?” Logan said but it was as though his voice was out of sync with his mouth, it moved and a second later the word came out. “Harper? You drifted off there for a moment, stay with me, okay?”

Harper concentrated hard on Logan’s mouth waiting for the sound to reach him. He took his time processing the words as if they had been spoken in a foreign language. He swallowed hard and gently pocked himself in the side of the head through the bandage. Pain shot through his head like a lightning bolt, he cried out, but more in relief than discomfort. It was as if he had just been hit with a defibrillator. The kitchen came back into sharp bright focus once again, as did Logan’s battered face. The old man was looking at him like he had lost his mind, but he didn’t care. Paul Harper had never been so happy to be in pain in his life. Pain was real, immediate, pain meant life. He shook the morphine haze from his head as best he could and clung on to his hard won equilibrium.

“Tell me what you are doing?” Harper insisted.

“Is it so hard to believe that I want some good to come from what I have created?” Logan said, he sounded genuine enough, but Harper could sense he was lying.

“Christ yes. You shot me, killed Frank, and God only knows who else. All for the good of humanity? Bullshit.”

The old man lent forwards. “Come on, Harper” he pleaded. “Must you believe the worst in everyone? I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that I might actually be trying to make amends?” He sounded convincing enough, but Harper saw nothing but lies in his bloodshot eyes as he continued. “I know taking the virus could have gone smoother...”

“Huh, no shit!”

“But those two kids that were here. They believe in me, Harper.” He had bloody tears in his eyes as he spoke. “They truly believe some good can come out of all this. God, they think I’m some kind of hero. The way I have sacrificed everything to get the virus to them, to expose the world to what we have been doing at Ventrex.”

Expose the world, Harper felt a chill which he hoped was the drugs in his system wearing off. “But those kids don’t know you the way I do,” Harper told him coldly.

As Harper searched Logan’s face for any sign of deception, he suddenly found himself desperately wanting to believe the old man had become caught up in a chain of events that he had started but could no longer control. Because the alternative froze the blood in his veins. He could almost believe him, almost. If it wasn’t for his eyes.

“And I know you, Logan,” Harper whispered.

Harper and Logan sat in silence for the longest time, Logan was looking at his hands folded on the table in front of him, he looked to Harper like he was praying, and then after an age he slowly raised his head and met Harper’s gaze. He gave a slight shake of the head and then a horrifying, lunatic smile slowly began to creep across his bloody face. It was as if a mask of sanity had suddenly been lifted.

“You know, Harper” he said grinning now, exposing broken and jagged bloody teeth. “You really are a little too intelligent for a security guard. You’re wasted in that dead end job,” he said. “Or maybe that bullet I put in your stull knocked some sense into that brain of yours...” He sucked air in through his ruined teeth making a