Extra

Extra by Chris Green

How do they know there are only thirteen days left? How can anyone be so precise? And what exactly is the nature of the emergency? Why does no one appear to know? Or if they do know, why are they reluctant to tell us? Not that I can do much about it, whatever it is, stuck on the third floor of this ill-equipped building in the middle of nowhere in a wheelchair with both legs in plaster. You can’t even get the internet in here to find out what is going on. Perhaps you can’t get the internet anywhere now. Perhaps the internet has been shut down. This would make sense if they, whoever they are, don’t want people to find out what is happening.

It wasn’t so bad at first when we were told there were nineteen days left. Initial thoughts were that it was a hoax, or whatever the supposed emergency was would go away. There was plenty of time, nineteen whole days. There’s not much that stays in the news for nineteen days. But as the days count down with no further revelations regarding the emergency, and no way of finding out what is going on, I can’t help but speculate. What are they hiding and why? Has there been a nuclear accident? A biological attack? Is there a colossal asteroid on a collision course? There have of course always been things that have been kept secret because it is not in the public interest to know. Rumours about unbearably loud sounds, antimatter on the loose, apocalyptic winds, blinding blue lights. Media silence seems somehow more sinister. Is the emergency worldwide or more localised?

There were dozens of us at first. Only those of us who are physically unable to get away remain. Four of us in all. The rest have surreptitiously left. Slipped away silently in the night. The ones who appeared to be in charge also went today. Rats and sinking ships spring to mind. None of us knows why we are here. There seems to be no way of finding out.

………………………………………….

When you are faced with the prospect of annihilation in eleven days time, eleven feels like a very small number. It is impossible not to feel fear.

Noah Abrahams believes it is the hand of God.

‘It’s retribution for all our sins,’ Noah says in one of his diatribes. ‘Revelations tells us the fearful and the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, whoremongers, and sorcerers, idolaters and liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.’

I do not have the energy to point out I am none of the above, well maybe the fearful and unbelieving, but none of the rest. And although it is far from verified, what information we have is that everyone is going to perish, sinners or not, in just eleven days time. If I were to challenge Noah, he would have some other Biblical text at the ready. Noah’s God is a wrathful God. A vengeful and unforgiving God. Noah’s God put him in his wheelchair because he missed church one Sunday. Something to do with an unforeseen lock-in at the Dog and Duck.

Huey Minton is another you would want to be stuck in a lift with. Huey is not half empty in his outlook, he is empty with a capital E. He is acutely paranoid. He doesn’t think we should eat the food we have access to. It is bound to be poisoned, he says, even the tins will be poisoned. What would he rather us do, starve? Huey is a seasoned conspiracy theorist. He can hold forth chemtrails and weather modification for hours. He started by claiming the present emergency was an alien attack, but he has since switched his diagnosis to it being a rampant airborne disease spread by the New World Order as a means of population control. He says it doesn’t matter whether we are out there or in here, it will still get us.

Mary Jane doesn’t have an explanation for the emergency, and I am with her on this. If we are going to survive, its cause is perhaps secondary. We need to come up with a strategy for our survival beyond the next eleven days. Or at least be able to live out our remaining time in good spirits.

………………………………………….

Despite our limited mobility, somehow Mary Jane and I get down to the second floor. The other two do not. We shout up the stairs. There is no reply. They have vanished. Caught in a wormhole between floors, perhaps, or an unscheduled time warp. We are in uncharted territory. We should expect strange things to happen. At least. we are spared the wild conspiracy theories and Noah’s wrath of God diatribes for the time being. At least. we are spared. We are two floors up, but it feels subterranean. That eerie echo of silence you get in a large space with no one about. Three days on and there is still no sign of the power coming back on. It is dark and smells of decay. It feels like it has been abandoned for a long time. Certainly, more than a few days. Paint is flaking off mildewed walls. The windows are clouded with soot. Spiders’ webs hang from the furniture. Amongst scattered papers on a gnarled wooden desk, a radio. One of those muscular ones with dozens of wavebands.

Despite the radio’s military appearance, the only transmission we can pick up is in Spanish. This strikes us as ominous. Does this mean that everyone else has gone off the air? With the smattering of Spanish Mary Jane and I have between us, we try to make out what they are saying. They appear to be talking about a football match. A big upcoming football match. Mañana, mañana, El partido más grande de la historia.

‘Vamos a descubrir que Barcelona es el mejor equipo para la eternidad,’ one of them says. ‘Barcelona es el mejor equipo de futbol del universo entero.’

With just eight days to go before the apocalypse, it seems that this is the match to decide once and for all who is the best team in the world.

‘Perhaps this is something they should have done years ago and had done with it,’ Mary Jane says. ‘Rather than put us through the anguish for eleven months of the year every year, only for it to start all over again.’

‘What do you think they would be talking about if it were a French station?’ I say.

‘Wine, of course,’ Mary Jane says. ‘They would be talking about appellation and terroir and all that nonsense.’

‘German?’

‘Sausages and Pilsner,’ Mary Jane says. ‘What about a British radio broadcast?’

‘Probably just be the weather forecast.’

‘It’s good that in these last days, we have a sense of humour.’

The lightness of mood is short-lived. Before they can disclose the GOAT football club, the Spanish station goes off the air. In mid-sentence, the excited voice dies. We are left with the hiss of static. This, I recall from my science classes, is made up of cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang. There is nothing out there. It is a chilling moment.

………………………………………….

There are no certainties anymore. Everything is in flux. According to my calculations, there are just five days left. I can’t recall how we came to be here, but Mary Jane and I are on the first floor. Before us, as far as the eye can see, is open grassland. It goes on forever. It even smells like a prairie. Scents of grasses, resinous shrubs, warm earth and sage. Yet, we are still within the confines of the monolithic structure. How have the wild open spaces come inside? Have we entered the twilight zone?

We’ve seen no one else for what seems like forever. The unspecified catastrophe is playing out. This is the end. I can’t help but indulge in some reverie. A sudden longing for the past. For better times. Those idyllic days when life was simpler. The odd thing is, I’m really not sure I’ve done some things that are coming into consciousness. I seem to be flooded with ……. false memories. And not good ones. How could I have been a Jarrow crusader? Or in the trenches in World War One? ….. And I can’t place some of the people coming to mind. The names Phil Dark and Darius Bro seem half-familiar. But who are they? They seem one step removed. Like phantoms. There again, I do remember Tammi and the twins. …… And Clyde Crescent and Lee’s Bar. And Rosie. The papers coming through the door. The solicitor’s office. The issue with the bank. These appear to be actual memories. I’m not sure about too many details, but this barrage of thoughts is coming through strongly. My job at the tech giant. Or was it, spy centre? ….. Or was it nightclub? It’s difficult to be certain of much right now. My memory is a carnival of confusion.

………………………………………….

Somehow, I don’t quite know how. I manage another descent. I try to get my bearings. I have lost Mary Jane. I call out her name. She does not answer. The darkness makes it difficult to see what is down here, but it is no longer open prairie. This is an indoor setting with a vengeance. All the windows are boarded-up. It is dark. Enclosed. Forbidding. Where is Mary Jane? I don’t want to be the last person alive.

I’m not.

‘Don’t move!’ barks a hollow voice from out of the gloom. I’m thinking it is the Grim Reaper. My heart is thumping. I’m not ready for this. The seconds pass. The figure slowly approaches. In the slither of murky light coming from a split in one of the boarded-up windows, I can just make out his shape. In heavy black uniform and protective headgear, he looks like Darth Vader. He is pointing a gun of some sort in my direction.

‘Oh! It’s you,’ he says as he gets closer. Do I detect a sense of relief in his voice? Was he expecting someone more dangerous? I’m still too terrified to say anything.

‘You’re supposed to be in quarantine,’ he says matter-of-factly.

‘Quarantine?’ I say.

‘Yes, quarantine. You are contaminated.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Don’t you remember what happened?’

‘Remember what?’

‘The explosion on set.’

‘What set? Who are you?’

‘I’m Site Security.’

‘What’s this about an explosion?’

‘There was an explosion. On the set of Nineteen Days. Two weeks ago.’

‘Nineteen Days? Two weeks?’

‘Come on now! You were one of the extras in the big scene at the end of the film. I had to apprehend two of your oppos a day or two ago and take them back in. Difficult bastards, they were.’

‘What about Mary Jane? What have you done with Mary Jane?’

‘No idea what you are talking about, pal.’

Perhaps there was no Mary Jane. The only thing I am sure about is my confusion.

‘You say we were in a film?’

As I am saying this, I begin to understand the likely origin of the false memories I’ve been getting. The Jarrow crusader, the First World War soldier, the job at the spy base. Nightclunb security. They are bit parts I’ve played in films. Uncredited roles.

‘Look!’ Darth Vader says. ‘Are you a bit slow or are you pulling my pisser? All of you were in Darius Bro’s Nineteen Days. The film he was making of the Phil Dark story. The production was shut down after the accident.’

‘Accident?’

‘Get on the page, will you, man,’ he says. ‘The apocalyptic explosion filming the final scene. It was like Armageddon.’

Suddenly, I find I am getting flashbacks of an explosion like the one he is describing. But I’m not even sure about these. In my state, it could be auto-suggestion.

‘They had to shut down the film and quarantine everyone involved in the scene,’ he continues. ‘Those of you that actually survived, that is. Because of the alarming side effects you were experiencing. Toxic chemicals were discovered everywhere, some of them never known before. The area has been declared a no-go zone. All means of communication both in and out have been cut. Weren’t you told any of this?’

Communication cut. This explains the lack of radio reception, perhaps, but there are still a lot of things that don’t add up.

‘What happened to the others?’ I ask. ‘Where have they taken them? And where is Mary Jane?’

I do not get a reply. He raises his weapon. He uses it to point the way. Am I about to find out where the others have been taken? …… Or is this all part of the Darius Bro film? Are they still filming? You can never be sure if the cameras are rolling if you are an extra.

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