Any minute now, Beth would have the proof she needed. She would know for sure that she was letting her imagination get away from her.
She glanced up from her phone and pushed the shopping trolley forward to the next spot in the newly painted lane. The lane divided the pedestrian walkway in two, with the half closest to the road left for people to pass – which they did at speed, hugging the far metal barrier, despite the cars hurtling past them. It was clear which side they considered to be the greater danger. Beth’s father, Michael Griffiths, took a moment to catch up, fussing with his perfectly average coat and his not-quite-combover, only for them to be instantly blown into disarray again.
A bell clattered and Beth jumped. Everyone in the queue swung to look. Tension relaxed when it was just a door to a darkened shop, opening to let someone in. For a moment, Beth was surrounded by the nostalgic aroma of stale coffee and unwashed winter coats.
“Do you have to stare at your phone?” asked her father. “We’re supposed to be on holiday. You don’t see me needing to be on my phone every waking second.”
“The prime minister’s announcement is about to start,” reminded Beth, not for the first time.
The wind gusted more strongly up the long slope from the grey shore, cutting through the multiple layers of clothing Beth had on and tousling her long auburn hair. She let go of her skirt long enough to swipe it behind her ear.
Her father waved his hand dismissively. “It’s just going to be the usual nonsense. Report any suspected cases. Wash your hands. They never say anything important at these things.”
Beth desperately hoped that was true.
Her father continued, “And why all that fuss about wanting to shop early if you’re just going to watch it on your phone anyway?”
“I’m more worried that we won’t be finished by curfew.”
Her father, and presumably everyone else remaining in the socially distanced queue, still had hope that they would finish by sundown. The day was as bright and clear as one could ask for in the winter, but even the best weather couldn’t delay the darkness. They were moving smoothly, but they were still so far down the street they couldn’t see the supermarket doors. By Beth’s estimate, they might just get in before the new government-mandated closing, but they would be running to get home in time. And it would be very difficult to persuade her father to run.
“The announcement is starting,” warned Beth, inserting a single earbud. She supplemented it by reading the captions. She didn’t want to miss anything.
In the beginning, it seemed like her father might be right. Pledges and platitudes and politicians trying to look like statesmen. Then the moment arrived and passed so quickly that Beth almost missed it, despite explicitly looking for it. In between the announcement that it was considered safe to re-open the high schools, and a standard reassurance that super-rabies still didn’t seem to be airborne, was the brief mention.
‘With a heavy heart, we must prioritise the safety of the living and take steps to ensure the safety of our medical personnel, our police and our military. As brain damage has been determined to be irreversible, any patient will now be considered legally dead upon entering stage four.’
“They’re going to shoot Uncle Alex,” she said to herself.
“Beth! How could you say such a thing?”
“The announcement,” Beth tried to explain. “He’s stage four. He’s been declared dead.”
“I’m sure that’s not at all what that means. Honestly, Beth, I know you’re still upset that we came on holiday even though he was ill, but that’s no excuse to come up with nonsense like this. You can’t just throw a tantrum every time things don’t go your own way, you know. You’re an adult now. When I was your age, I was already working and earning money for the household. The only sea-side holidays I was getting was a day trip on the trains to South Pier, and let me tell you, that place was a dump. You can’t even imagine how grateful I would have been to have had the opportunities you have.”
“I know,” she said. Beth couldn’t blame her father for his disbelief. After all, she hadn’t believed it either.
When she had first discovered The Book, it had been a mildly interesting oddity. It was just an entry to her e-book reader she was somewhat sure she hadn’t added herself. A short little horror story about a family dying in the opening wave of a zombie apocalypse. A family with the names of their family. A setting that matched exactly to their holiday destination. Activities that matched the Christmas markets and restaurants and tourist traps they did visit. She had assumed it was some sort of advertisement for customised AI writing. Or perhaps a joke from one of her friends. Or perhaps a threat.
The story itself wasn’t good. The content was weak. The plot was just a series of events that became progressively vaguer as the story progressed. The descriptions were workmanlike and flat. The characterisations varied from non-existent to nonsensical. Her own character was a passive cardboard cutout, who made no decisions and took no significant actions. It didn’t mention her older brother Peter at all, when he was just a short trip across the strait and would have moved heaven and earth to come rescue them. What had been scary wasn’t the story, but that it knew or could predict so much about her. Even then, it was hardly the first time an app or a site had known far too much about her for her comfort.
Then the events had started to come true.
She could tell herself that she had dismissed the accuracy because it was ridiculous to think anything else. It was distastefully piggybacking off current affairs. It was guessing based on previous government responses. It was the power of AI pattern recognition. It was just lucky. It was perfectly rational to assume was that it was just the fiction it appeared to be. Sensible. Wise.
But she knew why she had delayed considering the impossible, until this moment, until she had no other choice. She did not want it to be true. She had required more and more evidence and dismissed more and more coincidences. But eventually she had picked this moment to make or break. The one the seemed so absurd, so unthinkable, so cruel. That her government would make legal to kill its own citizens.
And they had done it.
And that made it all true. And she would have to do something about it.
There was no point revealing the existence of the book to her father. She knew full well what kind of reaction she would get if she tried. No amount of proof would ever be enough to convince him. Perhaps if the book had fallen into her father’s hands directly, then he might have been more willing – no, that wasn’t fair. She probably would show him the book eventually, but only with Peter next to her, explaining it together. Peter would know when to reveal it, and how to say it, and who else needed to know. She just needed to do this little bit by herself. After that, then they could determine the best path forward together.
The queue expanded and contracted, pulling them around the corner. They were now in an alleyway between the supermarket and an adjacent shop, heading for what had previously been a service entry with the original doors now exit only. From somewhere ahead of them, Beth could just make out a disagreement. She couldn’t hear the words, but the tone was getting more aggressive and more hysterical. Everyone else went quiet, shuffling in place. The passage itself was cramped, only opening up some thirty meters in front of them into a small parking area. Beth glanced around her, noticing the entrance to a recycling bay just behind them.
The shouting increased in volume. Then a scream. “He’s infected!”
A man ran backwards through the queue, scattering people ahead of him like the bow wave of a speeding ship. With him as an example, others followed in his wake. Beth stepped back into the entrance of the bay, guiding her father backwards to join her. She swung the trolley sideways so it couldn’t be rolled back into them. The flow shoved and the trolley rattled, moving them step by step backwards. Beth braced against the trolley with all the strength she had, calculating the moment at which they’d have to abandon their position or risk getting crushed by the trolley itself, and realising it was already too late.
“Settle down, everyone,” shouted her father. “I said, everyone, settle down!”
A few people looked in their direction, but only long enough to determine that the new source of noise wasn’t a threat. The emotion of the crowd was like a tidal wave, and Beth could feel her breath speeding up. The Book didn’t have them dying this early, she told herself. But perhaps it didn’t mention it because the injuries they would get fell short of life-threatening. Or perhaps just her action of watching the broadcast had changed something. Perhaps she wouldn’t have trapped them in that bay if she’d been less tense. Perhaps they were going to die. Right then, right there. Not of the infection or of starvation, but of fear.
“It’s still daylight!” continued her father. “We’re in no danger here.”
Another step, and the trolley caught on a container. Her impromptu barrier held. People moved past them rather than into them. Beth closed her eyes and said a prayer of thanks to a god she didn’t believe in.
The bottleneck at the entrance to the road brought the panicked flow to an abrupt halt. Like a wave hitting the pier, they flowed back again, clashing with the people still trying to leave. The trolley rocked, and this time Beth had to brace it from being pushed in the opposite direction. In that confusion, the bottleneck abruptly eased. The passageway began to empty out. There was more space between the people and those people were less frenetic. Almost as quickly as it had begun, it was over. A couple who had been a few spots ahead eased away from the wall, clutching at each other. They had spent most of their time in the queue arguing under their breaths with short sentences and rigid body language, but that was now forgotten. The girl turned into the boy’s arms and let him manoeuvre them both into the parking area. She was half laughing and half crying in relief. Beth was tempted to join her.
“We don’t have time for this,” said her father, fretfully. “We still need to get our groceries. Honestly, people should show a little more respect.”
Beth checked the time on her phone, but she didn’t really need to. The sun was still out, but it was already visibly less bright.
“I think we should give up on that for now and just head back,” said Beth, as tactfully as she could. “We don’t want to still be caught up in this after curfew.”
“But our place in the queue!” objected her father. “We’ve almost reached the front.”
What queue? was Beth’s first thought, but she didn’t say it aloud. Equally unvoiced was her strong desire to never risk that again. We almost died! What’s wrong with you?
“THE SUPERMARKET IS NOW CLOSED,” blared through an announcement system. “NO FURTHER CUSTOMERS WILL BE PERMITTED ENTRY. THE SUPERMARKET IS NOW CLOSED. NO FURTHER CUSTOMERS WILL BE PERMITTED ENTRY. THE –”
“They can’t do that! It’s barely four-twenty! We have a good ten minutes more.”
“I guess they’re closing early,” said Beth. “With all the chaos.”
Beth pushed the trolley and winced when it didn’t move. She rocked it back and forth, but it had no give in either direction. While the trolley had proved an excellent barrier against the stampede, it was now wedged in place. She experimentally tried picking it up, but it was heavier than Beth realised.
“Can you give me a hand?” she asked her father.
“Just climb over it,” he replied. “Perhaps I should try to talk to someone in charge. Really, it’s entirely too much for them to just close like this. Don’t they know that we’re paying customers? And considering the prices they’re charging! It’s daylight robbery, it is, taking advantage of people like that.”
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“I really think it would be safer to pick it up and swing it out. That will help divert anyone coming past, as well.”
“I told you not to wear a skirt,” grumbled her father.
He hadn’t, and Beth was wearing trousers underneath them anyway. That wasn’t her concern. Instead, she envisioned them balanced precariously on the trolley, her father in his impractical platform shoes that boosted his height from an unremarkable 5’8’’ to an unremarkable 5’9’’. She pictured some other panicked person running into them, sending them sprawling onto the concrete slabs, perhaps to be trampled under another surge of people. She considered their fate if they were forced to go to hospital, where even a broken leg could now be life or death. She squatted down a bit to get a better handhold on the trolley. Her father half-heartedly helped lift. With a squeal, Beth managed to swing it enough to let them out. Ahead, a motor whined to life. Clunk after clunk, the shutters closed on the supermarket door.
“Now see what’s happened,” complained her father. “If we’d just been a little faster… We aren’t going to get food now.”
“No,” agreed Beth.
“I guess we have no choice but to head back, then.”
“Yes.”
They made their way out of the alleyway and back to the street, her father still grumbling about the unfairness of it all. The street seemed like a different world. Cars drove along like nothing was happening, in safe little bubbles made of fibreglass and steel. They escaped from the crowd, past the brightly coloured buildings with contrasting window shutters that were washing out to grey in the fading light. The lessening number of people should have helped calm Beth’s nerves, but the whole situation was so overwhelming that it barely took the edge off. Her shirt clung uncomfortably to her back as each shuddering breath tried to pull it loose. She was shivering harder now, and she couldn’t tell if it was from emotion or from cold.
But nothing got her father down for long. As they walked back along the shore to their out-of-season cottage, he was already shifted from complaining to telling her about his plans. “You see, the casinos have these cash giveaways that you can tap into, if you’re clever.”
“Matched betting?” asked Beth. “Didn’t you say you’d already used up all your welcome offers, and you got … goobered? Gazumped?”
“Gubbed,” corrected her father. “And no, this isn’t anything like matched betting. Matched betting is when you use promotions and boosters to make opposite but identical bets. Then whichever side wins, you can get the money out. But really, the only people who make money are the people who run the websites tracking everything. Do you know how much they charge every month? Whatever happened to providing that kind of information just to help each other out?”
Beth did know. She remembered the complaints vividly from when her father had tried it himself. It had been a tense few months, but thankfully he had never been tempted into actual gambling. Most of what he’d lost had just been time.
“And the sweepstakes?” prompted Beth obediently.
“Sweepstakes! You know those coupons you get for buying stuff that you can use at online casinos?”
No. Beth was reasonably confident she’d never seen a coupon like that. She wasn’t even sure that kind of advertising would be legal.
“But because it is a lottery, they also have to give you the prize if you mail in a ‘reasonable facsimile'. It’s legally required. You can send in these postcards, and they have to add the money to your account, even if you don’t buy the stuff. Then you just bet on red and black at the same time and draw out your winnings.”
Beth didn’t think that law applied in their country. The only lotteries at all had to be government run, as far as she knew. She didn’t say anything. Whether it applied or didn’t apply, didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Even if they got safely home, there weren’t going to be any online casinos offering deals. If The Book was right (and she had already promised herself that she would believe it from then on) then they had much more serious things to worry about.
“Oh?” she prompted anyway. “Can you make much money off of that?”
While her father launched into his enthusiastic predictions of his future wealth, Beth allowed herself to fall back a bit. He couldn’t see her expression and didn’t question the authenticity of her occasional encouraging noises. The riot had been a distraction, in a way. But now she was thinking about it again. Perhaps later that evening. Perhaps sometime earlier while they were wrestling trolleys. Perhaps right at that very moment. Some military man in a hazard suit was walking into Uncle Alex’s hospital ward – and shooting him.
They arrived at the cottage fifteen minutes later and let themselves in. Beth hung her coat carefully on the hook, concerned as always that the coat holder might break. The decorations in the cottage had started and stopped with what looked good in photos. Giant plates with pictures of ship anchors and mermaids. A wooden paddle for some forgotten canoe. Inspirational quotes burnt into driftwood. Beth felt vaguely like she was tiptoeing through the set of some commercial. Power of the Sea – a Scent for Him.
“No food?” asked her stepmother, Sophie.
Sophie embodied the "thin waif" aesthetic that had been popular some two decades prior. She was short and delicate, looking younger than even her relatively young age. At thirty-two, she could still be confused for a university student and dressed the part. Perhaps to make up for Beth’s father’s blandness, her hair was dyed in chunks of purples, greens and blues that she ensured always matched her clothing.
“The supermarket shut early,” replied her father. “No sense of duty or responsibility, I swear. It wasn’t like this when I was young. After we spent all that time in the queue, too.”
“There was a bit of a riot,” reminded Beth. “I think they were concerned for everyone’s safety.”
“What, that little bit of shoving? That wasn’t even worth mentioning. Had worse than that during January Sales.”
Beth rather thought there was a difference between people shoving in the excitement of choosing bargains and people shoving in literal fear of their lives.
“Where are the twins?” asked Beth of her half-siblings.
Her father looked around as if he’d only just noticed their absence.
“Oh, out somewhere,” said Sophie. “I think they went to the beach.”
“Alone?” asked Beth.
“They’re teenagers now,” said her father. “It does them good to have a little independence. Explore the world for themselves. Stand on their own two feet. So much better than staring at a screen all day.”
“It’s a little bit close to curfew, though,” Beth said. “Maybe we should call them.”
“If you want to,” said Sophie.
Beth sighed and pulled out her phone to call their watches. For good measure, she checked the app for the twins’ location as well. After an unproductive few calls, she pulled her coat back on, knowing it would be a while longer before she could warm up. Indeed, it was a full twenty minutes before she was hustling them through the door, the alarm for curfew sounding in the street behind them.
“They aren’t going to arrest us,” said Oakley.
Oakley was still shorter than Beth, and likely would remain shorter even into adulthood, but he was broadening out around the shoulders and was starting to explore the advantages that gave. His twin sister Calley was built more like her mother and was practically invisible behind him.
“The risk of infection—” said Beth.
“Kids our age aren’t at risk of infection,” reminded Calley quietly.
Oakley spoke over them both. “Don’t tell me you believe that nonsense. The government is just trying—”
“All the governments? They hate each other about everything, but have all agreed to lie about this one specific thing?”
“Children, enough,” said Sophie. “Your father has a headache.”
Beth let it go and went to get changed. It was a relief to spend a few minutes under hot water, and a temptation to stay longer. But she knew she had things she needed to do. With all the clothing she owned hung over chairs and across tables to air and to dry, she put on her pyjamas and an abandoned beach robe. It felt a little sacrilegious. This was the most important task she might ever have to do in her life: investigate ways to travel away from the port. And she was doing it dressed in towelling and leopard print.
She couldn’t guarantee her family’s safety, she knew that. But she could get them out of the way of certain death. She needed transport out, and a way to convince them to go. A hint from The Book suggested the ideal candidate. It took ten minutes frustration of re-loading and re-routing while the internet glitched out, but she got confirmation. She took it to where her father was supervising as her stepmother sorted through their remaining food. She would need to handle it tactfully. It would be best if her father thought it was his own idea, after all.
“Have you seen this?” Beth asked them both. “They’re offering trips to Pines. How ironic that Peter couldn’t join us because of all the fuss, but now we could just hop on a boat if we wanted. For free, even. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
“Really?” asked her father. “Let me see.”
Beth handed over her phone cautiously.
“Oh, I see. They’re calling it an evacuation,” said her father. “What a load of nonsense. This will blow over the same as it always does, mark my words. And in the meantime, they’re wasting tax-payer money on this type of foolishness. No sense of proportion.”
Beth made an agreeing sound and retrieved her phone. It seemed like her father would need a little more of a nudge. “Our stay here at the cottage ends officially soon, doesn’t it?”
“They can’t kick us out,” said her father. “It isn’t our fault our flights have been cancelled. And it’s not like the new people can arrive to take our place, is it?”
“No, I imagine not. Still, they probably will charge us for it. Probably add some emergency fee as well.”
“Do you really think so?” asked her father with sudden intensity.
“Well, that’s just the kind of thing they would do, wouldn’t they?”
“You’re right,” he said with great indignation. “They probably will. They know they have us trapped here, at their mercy. It would be just like them to charge us through the nose for it. I’m going to have words for someone if they try, I can tell you.”
Beth left that there. Time for another approach. “Any joy in finding enough food for a meal, Sophie?”
“Oh, we’ll make do,” she answered. “We might have finished the Christmas lunch leftovers, but have some frozen potato and a can of tuna. It might be a bit odd, but we shan’t starve.”
“Such a pity Peter couldn’t be with us,” said Beth. “I was so looking forward to having a family meal with the whole family. It’s been such a long time since we saw him in person, hasn’t it? I wonder now, with everything, if it’ll be even longer before we see him again. We might not even recognize him.”
“It can’t be helped,” said her father. “He’s doing very important work. It’s so absurd that the paranoia over this silly illness prevented us from seeing him now.”
Come on, make the connection, Beth mentally urged her father. Doesn’t it make sense? Doesn’t it give you everything you want?
“I wonder if he’s doing okay when it comes to meals,” tried Beth. “Do you think he is managing to get groceries—"
“You know what?” interrupted her father. “I’ve decided. We’re taking that ‘evacuation boat’. If Peter isn’t going to come to us, then we’re going to him!”
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
“What an amazing idea,” said Beth. “That’s perfect.”
The look on Sophie’s face suggested she knew exactly what Beth had been up to, but it didn’t matter as long as she didn’t give it away.
“Shall I see what’s involved?” asked Beth.
Her father agreed. Beth returned to her room, her spine crawling with the fear she’d be called back, but he didn’t. She’d done it. She’d convinced her father to leave. They’d be safe. Within a few minutes, she’d registered her family. It didn’t come with a guaranteed time – the evacuation would apparently be first-come-first-served – but it did confirm they were eligible. They just had to be there. She informed Sophie of the details, and together they made vague arrangements to start packing after the meal.
While the food cooked, Beth updated her little travel journal. Nothing incriminating if one of her half-siblings snooped through it again, of course. The riot, and feeling of being drowned in the emotions of the crowd, and their escape. The arguing couple, and their later reconciliation. The youths still vaping on the beach as the sun set, the cold a small price to pay to prove how rebellious they were. After that, she opened The Book again. She practically had the thing memorised, but she still hoped to tease a few more hints out of it now. Now that she knew for sure it was real.
But when it opened, her breath caught. The Book now came with versions. Two little numbers at the top she could flip between. 1.0.0. 1.1.0. It wasn’t a feature she had ever seen in her reader before, but that was a very small part of the mystery. She selected the new version hopefully. She was tempted to jump forward to the conclusion, but she instead started from the divergence, just skipping over the scene with Uncle Alex. It was bizarre reading the events of the last few hours repackaged in the contrived tone of The Book.
Beth rolled her eyes at how absurd that was and paged forward. Her father agreeing to the evacuation, and the next day, setting out. But they didn’t make it. All of that, and they didn’t make it. And for the stupidest reason – they’d arrived too late to take the first boat.
No one realised that was a problem, initially. The stated intention had been to ferry everyone across the strait and quarantine them on the other side, doing as many trips as necessary until every stuck citizen and holiday maker was evacuated. But by the time the first load arrived at Pines, a rush of new cases had been reported on the mainland. Pines refused to let anyone disembark. They were forced to complete their three-day quarantine on the boat. The boat did make a second trip – but by that point the speed of the infection had already accelerated. One, or more than one, person had come aboard infected. The second quarantine had been a bloodbath. After the first test came back positive, the crew barricaded the doors closed and left the refugees to die. There was no third trip. The Book wasn’t clear whether her family had been in that second trip or left behind to die the same way as originally, but The Book was clear that they didn’t survive. It did give Beth a twinge of unease. Was this a sign that their fates were already sealed, and anything she did would be futile?
No. She refused to believe that. She must have been given The Book for a reason. Now that she knew it could update, it was even more helpful than she’d originally thought.
It was a tragedy and a mercy was that it had already been too late to save Uncle Alex before she’d read the book even for the first time. If she’d just argued harder with her father to stay home—no, there was no point in thinking about that. It was too late now. She’d never see him again. Never find out his opinion on the latest season of Flames Over Firnest. Never get his advice on how to handle the irritating lab partner. Never hear another version of that one time, when he was in college, when he’d tried to parkour over the university roofs. Uncle Alex was dead. They’d shot him.
But it wasn’t too late to save everyone else. It wouldn’t just save their lives in getting them to Pines. It would be an ongoing guide in keeping them safe. She had the tools to change things, and she would change things. She would keep everyone alive. More than that, perhaps. She would help everyone thrive.
