R.M. Allinson

THE LAST DAY ON EARTH

For my mum, Robin.

CHAPTER ONE

Present…

Lucy dreamed that it had all been a big mistake. Relief washed over her for a few blissful moments when she first woke. All too soon she realised she’d been dreaming and today was the day. She wanted to go back to sleep. It felt surreal knowing she’d woken up for the last time. She was kind of surprised that she’d managed to sleep at all. She lay in bed and gazed up at the ceiling, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stickers she’d put up there when she was a kid, and tried not to count them. She didn’t want to be reminded of space right then. She wanted just a few more moments before she had to face reality.

She held up her wrist and looked at her watch out of habit, then dropped it again. It had died a week ago. She had no way of knowing the exact time, but judging by the cacophony of birds welcoming in the dawn, it was probably before 7:00am. Roughly fourteen hours until the asteroid was due to strike.

Lucy kicked off the tangled sheets and got out of bed. She stood still, listening for a moment. Apart from the birds outside, and the excited crowing of the rooster, she couldn’t hear a thing. The house was silent. She wrapped herself in her dressing gown and padded her way out to the kitchen. She wasn’t overly surprised to see her mother huddled over a cup of tea. More times than she could remember, Lucy had started the day by coming out to the kitchen to the reassuring sight of her mother with her cup of tea.

Liz startled as Lucy pecked her on the cheek.

“Sorry, love, off in my own world.”

Lucy reached over and quickly touched the kettle. It was cold.

“How long have you been up?” Lucy struck a match and lit the gas burner.

“Oh a few hours. I couldn’t sleep. What with everything… besides, your father was snoring his head off.”

“Dad always could sleep anywhere, anytime.”

Liz smiled faintly. They sat in silence while they waited for the kettle to boil. Lucy picked idly at the side of the table and could tell Liz was resisting the urge to tell her to stop. The kettle started to whistle. Lucy got up and pulled it off the heat, and rummaged through the pantry, looking for her favourite green tea leaves that her sister Claire had sent during her last visit to Japan. She had been rationing the leaves but figured there was no point anymore. Today was the day.

Liz watched her. “I wish Claire and the boys were here,” she said for what Lucy felt was the thousandth time.

“Me too, Mum.” Lucy wondered where her older sister was at the moment. Claire had been living in Toronto with her Canadian husband Tom and their two little boys for the past five years. The last time they’d been able to speak to her, she’d told them they were going to try to get out of the city and go to Tom’s uncle’s farm a few hours north of Toronto. They hadn’t heard anything from her or Tom since. Lucy had watched her mother cart around the old satellite phone for weeks now, not wanting to miss it if Claire called, but the phone remained stubbornly silent.

“Do you think they’re okay?”

“I don’t know, Mum. I hope so. But…” Lucy stopped and sighed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” There wasn’t any point in saying that even if her sister and nephews were okay now, they wouldn’t be tomorrow. None of them would.

Lucy scooped a couple of teaspoons of the fragrant green tea leaves into the pot and poured in the hot water. She carried the pot over to the table, and let it steep while she found her favourite cup and saucer. Her great-grandmother had given them to her for her ninth birthday. She’d always left it at her parents house for safekeeping. She’d never quite trusted any of her housemates enough not to accidentally break it. Now she was glad she’d left it here. Most of her worldly belongings were still in her flat in Melbourne. That is if it hadn’t been looted or squatted in. Lucy had no idea if her flat was even still there. Some pretty crazy stories had been trickling out of the city.

Lucy looked up as her father walked into the kitchen, blearily rubbing his eyes. He was already dressed, in old jeans and his favourite work shirt. He walked over to her mother, kissed the top of her bowed head and gently squeezed her shoulder. She smiled grimly up at him.

“Good morning, Bill,” Liz said as she reached up and gripped his hand.

“Well, I don’t know much about the good part, love,” he said as he plonked himself down into the rickety kitchen chair. “Really should get around to fixing that,” he muttered. Bill looked up to see both his daughter and wife staring at him. “Uh, right… never mind.”

“Would you two like some breakfast?” Liz stood up, clutching her green cardigan to her as if it would protect her somehow.

“May as well,” Bill said. Lucy just shrugged. She wasn’t very hungry. She supposed the impending destruction of your world was a great appetite killer. She wondered how people on Death Row in America could stomach eating those lavish last meals that they ordered.

Lucy watched her mother busy herself making scrambled eggs. They were lucky, luckier than most. Her parents lived on a farm, and they still had power from the old diesel generator Bill had kept for the rather frequent times the power went out even before everything went to hell. They had running water from the bore, and plenty of fresh food; more than enough eggs from the chickens and ducks, milk from Mildred and Daisy the goats, fruit from the orchard, veggies from Liz’s vegetable garden and thanks to the generator, the freezer full of meat was still good. Lucy reflected that they were lucky the asteroid wasn’t coming in winter, and that they were in the southern hemisphere. Luck was relative, she supposed. Then she felt guilty, because her sister was in the northern hemisphere and probably dealing with snowstorms. There would be no fruit trees or overflowing vegetable gardens for Claire and her family.

Liz dished up the scrambled eggs. Bill dove into his with enthusiasm, while Lucy just pushed hers around her plate. She watched her parents eating, and the thought that this was the last breakfast she would ever share with these two wonderful people brought a lump to her throat.

Bill finished his eggs and cleared his throat.

“Now, Liz, Lucy,” he paused to wipe his mouth. “I know you don’t think there’s any point, but I’ve reinforced the old bomb shelter and stocked it—”

“Oh, Bill…” Liz sighed. “This one’s going to be bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. We’re not going to survive it.”

“We might, we might not.”

“We won’t,” Lucy chimed in.

“Well we definitely won’t if we’re not prepared. They don’t know how bad it’s going to be. Jim Schmidt said—”

“Jim Schmidt! That old crackpot! He also told me the moon landing never happened, and thinks Elvis is still alive!”

“Well, no denying he’s got a few screws loose, but he was a science teacher for forty years. He’s not deluded about everything. He does knows a thing or two. He said it depends where the damn thing hits. If we get lucky and survive the initial hit, and the fires, and earthquakes, and the tsunamis, and whatever else the damn planet throws at us, there’ll probably be one of those nuclear winter type things. We won’t be able to grow bugger all for years. If any people or animals do survive, most of ’em will starve.”

“Reassuring picture you’re painting there, Dad.” Lucy rubbed her face. “This one’s too big. We’re toast.”

Bill sighed and shook his head.

“How much stuff have you got squirrelled away down there?” Liz asked, looking at Bill shrewdly.

“Enough for about five years… if we’re careful.”

“Geez, Dad, how long have you been planning this? And why didn’t you tell us?”

“About six months. When I first started hearing the rumours. I knew you two would tell me to stop and that it was pointless, and stupid. At first I thought you’d just tell me it was another beat up like that whole Y2K thing, then when they finally admitted it, well… you just seemed so certain that we were going to die. I thought you’d tell me to stop.”

“You’re right. I would have.”

“Please, Elizabeth. Please don’t give up on us yet. I really think we have a chance here.”

Lucy looked back and forth between her parents. Liz just shook her head.

“Don’t be so cruel, Bill.”

Lucy decided to leave her parents to it, and got up and left the kitchen. She went into the laundry and checked on Matilda. Four little mewling black and grey fuzz balls surrounded the grey cat. She’d finally had her kittens. Great, Lucy thought.

Lucy gave the contented new mother a quick scratch behind the ears, looked a moment longer at the new kittens, and then went out to the verandah and curled up in the old rocking chair. It had been her grandmother’s favourite thinking spot. Lucy had adopted it ten years ago after Grandma Ina had died.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there. Her watch was stuck on 5:35. As the sunlight slowly crept along the tiles towards her, she watched the dogs chasing each other around the yard. She was envious of them. They had no idea life, as they knew it, would soon be over. To them, it was just another day of playing and chasing in the sun, eating and scratching and investigating all those scents dogs seemed to find so fascinating. The birds continued to squawk and squabble in the trees and the ants marched ever onwards. Lucy felt a lot of empathy for those dinosaurs who had lived and died 65 million years ago. They had woken to a morning just like this, and just like this, their death was hurtling toward them. Only they didn’t know it. Sometimes she wished the governments had never admitted the asteroid was coming, and that everything they’d used to attempt to steer it off course had failed. That they hadn’t admitted it would be catastrophic, and wasn’t just going to burn up in the atmosphere. Hadn’t confirmed it was bigger than the one that had wiped out the dinosaurs and they were probably all going to die.

Wouldn’t it have been better not to know? Then life would have gone on like usual. Society wouldn’t have disintegrated. But then she would have spent her last day on earth working in an insurance call centre, fielding calls from irate customers complaining about their premiums going up yet again. And those people would have wasted their final day being on hold and wasting energy on being mad about insurance premiums.

When you knew the world was about to end, those things just didn’t seem to matter anymore. A lot of things didn’t seem to matter anymore. Working two jobs to save money for an overseas trip she’d never get to go on felt like a waste of time. Analysing every text message from a certain boy seemed stupid now.

Nearly everyone seemed to agree that working was not how they wanted to spend their last few weeks. It was a shock to realise how much everyone took for granted, especially in the cities. It amazed Lucy how quickly everything had fallen apart.

She wondered if the powers that be had realised what would happen once the news broke. They couldn’t be stupid enough to think everyone would just keep carrying on like nothing had happened, keep caring about the same materialistic, mundane issues that had occupied them before. Interest rates and new taxes didn’t strike quite the same chord as they used to for some reason.

Lucy wondered where the asteroid would hit. That was one thing they’d never told the masses. She’d read online that it would smash into the Pacific, it would hit Russia, that it would land in the middle of the Amazon, and that it would wipe out New York City. It was all speculation. All quoted “experts”. Lucy was torn between wanting it to land right on top of her, or on the opposite side of the planet, as far away as possible.

Lucy sat there until her backside went numb. She stood up, stretched, and decided to go and visit her friend Tim one last time. She’d told him she’d probably come over. Apart from enjoying his company, she felt sorry for him. He was alone.

She went back into the kitchen to tell her parents where she was going. Her mother was alone in there, washing up the breakfast dishes.

“Mum, what are you doing?”

“Cleaning up, what does it look like?”

“Don’t bother with that, not today.”

Liz laughed. Lucy thought it sounded brittle. She took the washcloth out of her mother’s unresisting hands and led her over to the kitchen table and gently pushed her down into her usual chair. Lucy went to the pantry to find the emergency stash of chocolate. This stash had served them well over the years, from simple bad days to break ups and deaths. Lucy pulled out her mother’s favourite dark chocolate and broke off two large pieces and placed them in front of her mother.

“Here, eat this.”

Lucy grabbed the last of the Ferrero Rochers for herself and watched her mother out of the corner of her eye as she unwrapped and methodically savoured each of the delicious chocolate balls.

“Where’s Dad?”

“In that blasted bomb shelter. I don’t know why his grandfather even built the damn thing.”

“You know Dad, he’s got to feel useful.”

Liz just sighed and nodded. She picked up one of the chocolate pieces and popped it in her mouth.

“Who needs drugs when you’ve got chocolate?”

Lucy smiled. “I’m going to go see Tim for a bit, is that okay?”

Liz nodded. “Yes of course, that poor boy. Take him some bread. Don’t be too long though.”

“Thanks, and I won’t.”

“I’m going to start making the last supper. Any special requests?”

Lucy thought for a moment.

“Lasagne?”

That almost got a laugh out of Liz.

“Why did I even ask? You’ve been requesting that for every special occasion since you were seven.”

“Hey, what can I say, I love your lasagne. When you’re onto a good thing…”

Lucy watched Liz bustle around the pantry. She piled Lucy’s arms up with a fresh loaf of bread, a jar of her homemade quince jelly and some precious butter.

“Be careful, sweetheart.”

Lucy nodded. They hadn’t had too many problems with drifters or violence out on the farm, but Tim lived closer to town and they’d heard some pretty bad stories, let alone what had happened to Tim’s sister.

“Thanks, Mum.”

Lucy went back to her room and found her old school backpack. She carefully put the bread, jelly and butter in the bag and slung it over her shoulder.

Millie, the oldest of the dogs and mother to all of the rest, almost tripped Lucy up as she went out the back door. The old dog got up and wagged her tail as she padded faithfully after Lucy out to the back garden, past the large vegetable patch and into the orchard.

She paused to admire all of the heavily laden fruit trees and thought what a waste that they’d most likely be turned to cinders before the day was done. She walked through the trees, picking the plumpest, juiciest looking fruit. Apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, tamarillos and plums joined the bread, jelly and butter in the backpack.

Food gathered, Lucy walked over to the horses paddock. She thought about taking the motorbike — it still had some petrol left in it, but dismissed the idea. Her horse, Lightning, would enjoy the ride, and so would she. It was much more peaceful than the bike, and besides, the horse was a lot quieter and would draw less attention to herself, and he could still go pretty damn fast if she needed him to.

Lucy called Lightning over to her when she reached the gate. He’d been her horse since she was thirteen. She’d felt quite guilty leaving him when she moved to Melbourne for university. The black horse came trotting up, a big golden mare followed right behind him. Lucy gave her mother’s mare, Kunama, a scratch behind the ears and an apple for good measure, before letting the smaller black horse out through the gate. Kunama tried to follow Lightning through and neighed and stomped when Lucy blocked her.

Lucy stared at the mare for a few moments, looked back towards the house, then opened the gate again and led both horses to the stable. She saddled both of them up and walked them back up the driveway towards the house.

Liz was cutting onions when Lucy went back into the kitchen. She wiped her eyes as she turned to her daughter.

“That was quick,” she tried to joke.

“Put that down.” Lucy reached for the knife her mother was holding.

“What are you doing, Lucy?”

“Come for a ride,” Lucy tugged on her mother’s arm, trying to drag her out of the kitchen.

“I can’t, I’ve got to—”

“It can wait forty minutes. I’ve got Kunama all saddled up. Come on, Mum. It’s a beautiful day out there.”

“But what about Tim? You don’t want me hanging around.”

“You’re right, I don’t, just come for the ride with me. Kunama needs a good gallop.”

“But what about… I need to cook, I have so much stuff to do, I—”

“Mum, shush. Come with me. Don’t waste your last day in the kitchen crying over bloody onions.”

Liz relented.

“Let me change.”

Lucy waited outside with the horses. Lightning kept head-butting her, looking for more apples or treats in her pockets. Kunama stared stonily at the house, ears flickering, until Liz came out. She neighed in what Lucy assumed was pleasure and trotted over to Liz.

“Hello, beautiful girl,” Liz murmured into Kunama’s mane, as she hugged the horse. “I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you.”

Mother and daughter mounted up.

“We’d better tell your father where we’re going.” Liz turned Kunama’s head towards the patch of trees that hid the bomb shelter. Lucy hadn’t been out there for years, not since she was a kid. She remembered playing games out there with her sister and cousins, and one year when the bushfires had been really bad and gotten worryingly close, Bill had had them all hide down there until it was safe to come out again.

“Bill, are you there?” Liz called out. Lucy exchanged a glance with her mother as they heard a thud and a muffled curse. A few moments later, Lucy’s father’s shaggy head appeared in the entrance to the shelter.

“Going for a ride?” He asked, eyeing the horses. Liz nodded.

“Lucy’s going to visit Tim for a little while and I’m just going up to make sure she gets there okay. I’ll be back soon.”

“Good. Stay safe. I should be done in here by the time you get back, then I can help you with the feast.”

Liz smiled at him and Lucy waved over her shoulder as they turned the horses around and headed down the track. Lucy urged Lightning into a canter, and then all of a sudden Liz and Kunama leapt into a gallop. Not to be outdone, Lightning sprang forward. It was kind of funny how competitive the horses could be, Lightning in particular. Lucy didn’t think Kunama actually cared, but Lightning always needed to win, even if it nearly killed him. Kunama was bigger, her stride was longer, but Lightning nearly always won. Lucy would barely be able to hear Kunama breathing, while poor old Lightning would sound like he needed an asthma pump.

Lightning and Lucy soon pulled even with Liz and Kunama, and then passed them. Lucy grinned at her mother whose hair was flying free and who actually looked happy for the first time since they’d found out.

CHAPTER TWO

Two months ago…

There had been rumours floating around for months, but with no confirmation from the space agencies or governments, most people had ignored them, assuming it was just another asteroid like Apophis, or DA14 if they thought about it at all. It might come close, but that was it. That didn’t stop a lot of amateur astronomers from noticing the asteroid seemed to be quite large and heading on a collision path with Earth, and it didn’t stop the conspiracy theorists from picking up on the news. Of course, a lot of people just put it down to the usual crazy Doomsday nuts and didn’t pay any attention. Lucy was one of those people. She hadn’t realised at the time that her father wasn’t.

She was sitting at her desk, sipping at her freshly brewed tea, waiting for the beep in her ear to let her know a call was about to drop in and day-dreaming about the holiday to Spain she’d booked for September. She was wondering if Steve, her new boyfriend, would call to see her that night, when her phone rang. Her heart skipped a beat, but when she looked at the caller ID it was her best friend, Jessica. Not Steve. She glanced up at her boss, but he wasn’t looking in her direction.

“Hey, Jess. What’s up?”

“Are you watching this?” Her voice sounded about three octaves higher than usual.

“Watching what?”

“The asteroid.”

“The what?”

“Oh God. Shit. Lucy, turn on the TV. Right now.”

“I can’t, I’m at work. What’s going on? Jess?”

Lucy could hear her friend starting to hyperventilate.

“Deep breaths, Jess. What asteroid? What are you talking about?”

There was silence on the phone as Jess took a moment to compose herself.

“You know the asteroid that those crazy people keep talking about?”

“Mmm.”

“Well apparently they’re not so crazy after all. Some bloke at NASA told some journalists yesterday and the President of the United States just confirmed it. He said there’s nothing that they can do.”

Lucy just blinked. Nothing? Rubbish. Of course there was something they could do.

“Ha ha, sorry to tell you, Jess, April Fools is four months away.”

Lucy heard a deep sigh on the other end of the phone.

“I’m not kidding, Lucy.”

Lucy hung up. After a moment she logged onto Facebook. Her news feed had gone mad. She logged onto a national newspapers website.

END OF THE WORLD over a picture of a massive asteroid colliding with the Earth, screamed up at her. Holy shit, she thought.

Lucy clicked on the main article.

In breaking news, the President of the United States of America has confirmed that the asteroid Cecilia, which is larger than the asteroid that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs, will most likely collide with Earth in a matter of weeks. After several high-level denials over the past six months, the government was forced to admit to the oncoming disaster after NASA astronomers Reg Thompson and Constance Walker confirmed in a press conference yesterday afternoon, that Cecilia is on a collision path with our planet and all efforts to divert the asteroid have so far failed.

“I urge all Americans, and people around the globe, to remain calm. While it is true that all attempts so far have failed, we do have the very top people looking into the best methods of dealing with this problem, and they will continue to do so until the last possible minute. We must have faith. I repeat, please remain calm,” the President said from Washington. Later in the press conference the President confirmed that all known methods of diverting the asteroid had been attempted and were unsuccessful. When asked what methods remained, the President became evasive.

“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Above all, remain calm,” was the message from Downing St.

The Australian Prime Minister has yet to comment. The Leader of the Opposition released the following statement:

“This is catastrophic. This is what happens when funding is cut from research and development, and we have a Prime Minister who doesn’t believe in Science. This should have been spotted months or even years ago, but thanks to all the funding cuts that have happened both here and overseas under the current administrations, we’re stuck in this predicament. I urge the Prime Minister to throw everything he’s got into stopping this thing. It’s not a joke, and not something that he can bury his head in the sand about, like he’s done with so many other issues.”

More coming soon…

Lucy sat there in shock. Jess hadn’t been joking.

She called her back.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You believe me now, right?”

“Yes,” Lucy whispered.

“Can I come over?” Jess asked.

Lucy looked around the office. It was mostly empty. Most of her team was at lunch. She caught her boss’ eye. He frowned at her.

“Yeah sure. I’ll be home in about half an hour.”

She hung up, logged off her computer, and grabbed her handbag.

“Have you heard?” she asked her boss as she approached his desk.

“Heard what?”

“Check the news sites. I’ve got to go. I’m sorry. Goodbye.”

She kept walking, ignoring his calls for her to come back.

Lucy left the office building in a daze. The streets were already busy. Lucy thought everyone looked slightly crazed, and nearly everybody was talking or crying into their phones, or at least trying to.

“It’s like goddamn fucking New Years,” she heard one man mutter as she walked past him.

She made it to Flinders Street Station. It was packed, even more so than usual. She studied the board, looking for her train and platform. The platform was dangerously packed. Just as she’d been about to give up and fight her way out of the station and begin the long walk home, a train rolled into the platform. She managed to squeeze onto the train, along with the hundreds of other people. The normally quiet commuter train was alive with the clamour of voices. Everyone was talking about the asteroid.

Lucy eavesdropped on a middle-aged man and woman next to her.

“I just can’t believe it. Surely they’ll be able to figure something out?” the woman said.

“I don’t know, Cathy. I hope my son’s okay. He’s in London. I tried to call him, but it’s the middle of the night over there.”

“Oh, Bob, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Can’t they just blow the damn thing up?”

“Wouldn’t they have tried it already? Why can’t they just be honest with us! Who knows what’s been going on! I feel so helpless.”

“If this thing’s for real, and not some elaborate sick joke… I really hope this is some War of the Worlds type stunt…”

“War of the what?” Lucy mentally thanked Cathy for asking, because she didn’t think he’d been talking about the Tom Cruise film.

“You know, that H.G. Wells radio show back in the 1930’s that had everyone believing a Martian invasion was actually happening.”

“I can’t see the American President being involved in something like that, Bob.”

Lucy privately agreed.

She was jolted back to reality when the mechanical announcers voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that Ripponlea was the next stop.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” she muttered as she tried to squeeze back through the crush of people before the doors shut again.

Lucy found herself glancing upwards at the sky every few steps as she walked from the train station to the flat she shared with her friend Mitch. She wondered if and when she’d be able to see the asteroid. There was no sign of it yet, her near-constant scanning of the clear blue sky confirmed. It looked deceptively peaceful.

The tree-lined streets of Elwood were strangely quiet after the chaos of the city. The few other pedestrians that she passed seemed oblivious to their surroundings. Through windows, Lucy glimpsed families crowded around televisions and computers, and one man who looked like he was packing his entire life into his SUV. He glared warily at Lucy as she walked past. She felt slightly indignant. Did he think she was going to steal his stuff? In hindsight, Lucy acknowledged that it was a legitimate fear for him to have had.

The flat was empty and silent when she shut the door behind her. She was vaguely disappointed. Mitch’s comforting presence would have been appreciated. Lucy by-passed the empty living area and slowly climbed the stairs to her large loft bedroom, her dangling handbag thumping as it hit each step.

The room was exactly how she’d left it that morning. Lucy surveyed it for a moment, then stepped over the threshold. Bed unmade, yesterday’s clothes strewn all over the floor, a pile of books next to the bed that she’d been meaning to read, a wilting aspidistra plant under the skylight, bills that needed paying on the desk.

She straightened the bedspread, put the clothes in her laundry basket and watered the poor neglected aspidistra. Her mother had given it to her when she was 19 and had first moved out of home. Lucy was quite proud of herself that she’d managed to keep the plant alive for six years. She had not inherited her mother’s green thumb.

She sat down at her desk and opened up her laptop. There was an email from her sister waiting for her.

Lucy — go home to Mum and Dad’s. Don’t stay in the city. I’m worried that things are going to get ugly soon. Keep in touch and be careful.

Love Claire xox

Lucy frowned. Her mother hadn’t called her yet. That was strange. She pulled her phone out of her handbag and called her parents home. There was no answer. She put the phone back in her bag.

She opened the news website again. There were a bunch of articles that hadn’t been there when she’d last looked. She clicked on one.

Cecilia, an asteroid first discovered a year ago by South African amateur astronomer Frank Langdale who named it after his daughter, is approximately 14.5km (9 miles) wide. In comparison, the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was thought to be 10km wide.

Lucy stopped reading and stared at the screen in shock — worse than the dinosaurs? Shit!

She jumped at the knock on the door. She sprang up and raced down the stairs, pausing to look through the peephole, then threw open the door. Jess was standing there, hair on end, grocery bags in hand.

“Hey, come in.”

Jess followed her into the kitchen where she dumped the bags onto the table. She pulled out two bottles of wine, a packet of Tim Tams, a bag of grapes and three blocks of chocolate.

Lucy reached up into the cupboard and pulled down two wine glasses.

“Pour. I can’t do food right now.”

Lucy leaned on the bench and watched as Jess opened the bottle of red, and poured two large glasses. A couple of drops spilled as her hand shook.

“Mitch home?”

“Nope.” Lucy shook her head. “Haven’t heard from him.”

Jess handed her a glass, and they both took large gulps.

“Crazy, huh?”

“Yep.”

Lucy put the wine down, rubbed her face and let out a huge breath. She looked at her friend. Jess’ short hair was standing on end and Lucy soon realised why. She kept running her hands through it, something Jess usually only reserved for exams or before big dates or job interviews. Or finding out that there was a massive asteroid heading towards your planet.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Jess.”

“This is crazy. Where’s Bruce Willis when you need him?”

Lucy spluttered on the sip of wine she’d just taken.

“Bruce Willis?”

“Yeah, you know, that movie where there’s an asteroid coming to wipe out America and Bruce Willis and Jennifer Garner’s husband save the day and Arwen cries a lot.”

“Right… you mean Liv Tyler?”

Jess nodded. Celebrity names had never been her strong point.

“Don’t think I saw that one. How do they save the day?”

“They blow it up. Or something. I can’t remember exactly, I saw it when I was a kid.”

“Could they do that? Blow it up I mean,” Lucy asked.

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. I remember reading a while ago that the force needed to actually blow up an asteroid that size is like a bazillion times bigger than any of the bombs they’ve ever made. And anyway, even if they did blow it up it would just mean hundreds of smaller big chunks of rock hitting us, and not all of them would burn up in the atmosphere. They’d still do a hell of a lot of damage.”

“What about… I dunno… rockets or something to steer it off course?”

“No idea, Luce. How long do you think they’ve known?”

“Who? The government?” Lucy asked. Jess nodded.

Lucy thought for a moment before answering. She took her wine and one of the blocks of chocolate over to the couch and sank down. Jess trailed after her.

“Probably awhile,” she sighed. “The only reason we know right now is because those two NASA people spilled the beans.”

“True. Do you think they’ve got shelters or anything?"

“Probably,” Lucy shrugged. “Not like it’s going to help us though. If it’s as big as they say it is…”

“Yeah — bigger than the dinosaurs. That’s not exactly reassuring. But things survived back then right? I mean, we’re here today as living proof.”

“Yeah. But, it was mainly little scavenger type creatures. The original mammals were tiny. Obviously a few crocs survived. And sea creatures.”

“I reckon some people will survive. Some of those post-apocalyptic novels will be coming true,” Jess said.

“Those frogs that bury themselves in the desert and wait for the next rains would survive I bet. It would be interesting to see what rises from the ashes… see what the next stage of evolution looks like…”

“Yeah, but you won’t be around to see it.”

“Bugger,” said Lucy.

They both laughed and drank more wine.

“What are you going to do?” Jess asked.

“What do you mean? Doesn’t seem like much we can do other than hope they pull off some miracle.”

“No, I mean, between now and then.”

“Oh…” She hadn’t really thought about it yet. “Guess I won’t be going to Spain after all. Damn it! I’ve wanted to go to Spain since I was a kid.”

“There’re lots of places I want to go… but I was thinking more practically. You’re not going to stay here are you?”

“No. Claire emailed me just before, she told me to go to the farm.”

“Your sister’s got the right idea. I wonder how long things can keep going for? I mean, I’m not going to work tomorrow, are you?”

“Hell no.”

“See, our jobs don’t matter so much. I mean who’s going to miss an accountant or an insurance call centre worker? But I’m going to miss being able to go to the supermarket, or being able to call the police or fire brigade or go to the hospital, or catch the train. Really, if I don’t want to spend my last weeks on earth working, why should I expect a policeman or bus driver or checkout chick to?” said Jess.

“I… I hadn’t actually thought about that. Shit. We gotta get outta here.”

Jess nodded grimly.

“The sooner the better.”

“Where will you go? Your dad lives in Frankston.”

Jess shook her head. “Didn’t I tell you? He moved back to his parents’ farm in Gippsland a few months ago to help out after Grandpa had a stroke. I’ll go there.”

Lucy nodded. She wondered what all the people who didn’t have a convenient relative with a remote farm would do. Steve? What would Steve do? His whole family lived in the city. Maybe he could come with her.

They spent the rest of the evening reminiscing about their university years, and contemplated futures that would never come to pass.

CHAPTER THREE

Present…

“Lucy! Look!” Liz’s cry brought Lucy out of her reverie. A mob of kangaroos came bounding out of the trees and raced off into the open paddocks next to the creek. Lucy smiled. She never tired of the sight. She gazed around at the landscape and wondered what would survive. Probably not the kangaroos unfortunately. But possibly a lot of the plants. Well, not these exact plants, but their seeds. The Australian bush was designed to regenerate after devastating fires. That was if they weren’t in the middle of a giant crater tomorrow of course. She thought that even those seeds might have trouble then.

Liz and Lucy rode on in companionable silence.

“Do you have any regrets, Mum?”

“A million.”

“Like what?”

Liz looked over at her daughter.

“Not seeing you grow up and marry and have children of your own, or making any use of that university degree.”

“Yeah, well, that’s on my list of regrets too. I meant for you personally though.”

“I don’t know, Lucy. I’ve had a pretty good life. I would have liked to go back to Europe with your father, and I wish we had gone to visit Claire and the boys more often. I always wanted to go to Hawaii.” Liz paused and thought for a moment. “When it comes down to it though, I think I did pretty well. Your Dad and I still love each other after 34 years together, we raised two wonderful girls, I enjoyed my job most of the time and your Dad loved running the farm. I never did record my album though.”

“It would have been a best-seller, I’m sure,” Lucy grinned.

“Like your book,” Liz winked.

“Mmm yeah, like my book. You know, that’s one thing I really do regret. I mean, not like it matters, even if I did there’d be no-one around to read it after tonight, but just to know that I could actually finish one, you know?” Lucy thought of all the half started stories tucked away in files on her laptop. She had always thought that she’d have time to finish them off one day.

“I always wanted a son.” Lucy looked over at her mother in surprise. “We tried for another baby after you, but it just never happened.”

“I never knew. I’m sorry, Mum.”

Liz shrugged. “That’s life. Then Claire decided to raise her family in Canada. I never thought my grandchildren would be on the other side of the world most of the time.”

“She was thinking about coming back, you know.”

“Was she?”

“Yeah. She told me the last time I talked to her before… you know. They were looking into getting Tom’s qualifications transferred.”

“Really? Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

“Mum… I’m scared.”

Liz reached over and grasped Lucy’s hand.

“Me too, love, me too.”

Lucy knocked on the peeling green door. She turned to wave to her mother. Liz waved back and nudged Kunama back in the direction they’d come from. Lightning whinnied from under the tree she’d tied him to.

“Who’s there?” a familiar voice called out.

“It’s me. Lucy.” She tried to open the door. It was locked.

“Lucy who?”

“Lucy Black!”

“Oh.” The door clicked, then opened. Tim, Lucy’s unofficial fiancé from the age of four (he’d never given her a ring) and pseudo-husband from the age of seven when his older sister Bethany had married them on the primary school oval, stood in the doorway in his track pants and a dirty t-shirt that proudly proclaimed Long Live Dumbledore.

Lucy frowned at him. “What other Lucy were you expecting?”

“You could have been Lucy Whitmore.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“And why would Lucy Whitmore be visiting you?” Lucy Whitmore had been the reason she’d been referred to as “the other Lucy” for most of high school. As far as Lucy Black knew, Lucy Whitmore had never said more than five words to Tim.

“Well, she slept with all the other guys in our year, I thought she might not want to die without having sampled the full dozen.”

“Keep dreaming,” Lucy snorted.

Tim stood back and let her in. She handed him the backpack.

“Oooh, goodies,” he said as he started riffling through it. “Mmm bread. Eat this with me.”

He led the way down the dark hallway to the bright kitchen. Sunlight was streaming in through the large windows. Lucy blinked. It was a mess.

“No point cleaning up! The asteroid will do that for me,” he said as he caught Lucy looking around at the piles of dishes and food wrappers. Lucy shrugged. He had a point. Although, personally, Lucy wouldn’t want to spend her last few days or weeks surrounded by squalor. But then again, Lucy thought, Tim had lived surrounded by squalor ever since he’d moved out from home and no longer had his mother to clean up after him. It was just strange to see this, his mother’s usually sparkling kitchen, in such a state.

Tim scrounged up a couple of plates from somewhere — Lucy didn’t look too closely at them. He carefully laid out the little tub of butter and jar of jelly and started slicing hunks of bread off the loaf. He lifted a slice up and sniffed it.

“Mmm, fresh. Your Mum’s awesome.”

“Hey, how do you know I didn’t make it?”

He didn’t even dignify that with a response. Lucy huffed.

“Yeah, Mum’s been pretty good at rustling up food and making it edible. Dad too. I’ve just been handing out the stashes of chocolate I keep finding all over the place. I think they were Claire’s.”

“Have you heard from her again?”

“No… we’ve been hoping that she could get her hands on a satellite phone or something, but…” Lucy shrugged.

“She might be dead.”

Lucy glared at him. He just shrugged in return.

“Well, she could be. Crazy shit’s been going on lately if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Thanks for that, Tim.”

“Sometimes I think they’re the lucky ones. Like Mum, she never knew about any of this. She died thinking her kids and grandkids were going to live great fulfilling lives. Not be snuffed out by some piece of space rock hurtling towards us at a million miles a minute, or god knows what happened to Beth. I’m still hoping she’ll just walk through the door, as stupid as it is.”

“It’s not stupid,” Lucy murmured. Bethany had gone into town one day, about two weeks after they found out about the asteroid, to trade for some food and fuel. She hadn’t come back. No one knew what happened to her, not anyone that was talking at any rate. Tim had eventually found her bike in some bushes about three kilometres out of town, but there had been no sign of his sister. No police to go to, no way to find out what had happened to her.

Tim took a sip from his mug and stared at it for a moment before hurling it at the wall. Lucy jumped as it smashed.

“Why us? Why our lifetime?”

Lucy couldn’t answer. She didn’t think there was one.

“Sorry, Luce, it’s just there’s still so much I want to do with my life. And it hasn’t been like one of those stories where you find out you’ve got cancer or something and only a month to live and you can do everything on your bucket list because the rest of the world is just fine and dandy. It’s just you with the ticking time bomb over your head. The whole world’s been messed up since they told us. Two months! ‘Hey everyone! You’re all probably going to die in two months, so, uh, yeah, just carry on, live your lives to the fullest and forget we said anything because we can’t do anything about it! Have a good day!’ Yeah right… what did they seriously think was going to happen?”

“Sometimes I wish that they’d never told us, if it just happened and no one knew until BAM! Then nothing,” said Lucy.

“Do you really believe that there’s nothing after?”

“I honestly don’t know, Tim. Logic says no, nothing. But I would love to be proved wrong and have a chat with you about it up in heaven or wherever tomorrow…”

Lucy paused. She stared out the window and over the green paddocks. Tomorrow… there really would be no tomorrow.

“You know, it just hit me then. I mean, really, really hit me. Logically of course I’ve known that this is going to happen, but… but it only just truly hit me then.”

“You always were a bit slow,” Tim said with a forced grin.

“This sucks.”

“Understatement of the century.”

“So what are we going to do? I don’t want to spend my last day of existence being all bitter about something completely out of my control. How do you want to spend our last day on Earth?” Lucy asked him.

“I guess a drug induced haze is out of the question?”

“Yes,” Lucy said.

“How about a drink?”

“I don’t want to spend it drunk either! Although I guess we wouldn’t have to worry about the hangover.”

Tim laughed. “That’s the spirit.”

Tim reached for some of the bread and sniffed the butter.

“It’s made from goats milk, that’s why it smells different,” Lucy said after she watched him frown at it.

“Ah.” He spread the butter on the fluffy bread. “What kind of jam is it?”

“Quince jelly. You’ve had it before.”

“Oh yeah. I like that stuff.” He slathered the bread with the jelly and took an enormous bite. He silently offered some to Lucy. She took a quick small bite and handed it back.

“So what do you want to do?” Lucy asked.

“Sky diving. Base jumping. Fly a kite. Walk the Cinque Terre. Find my sister. Meet the Dalai Lama. Make love under the stars. Oh oops, can’t do any of that.”

Tim took an angry bite of his bread. Lucy was unsure how to treat his bitterness. She felt it too, but not as much as he did.

“We could fly a kite.”

“What? Do you carry around spare kites?”

Lucy snorted, a mental image popped into her head of her riding Lightning and going about her daily business with a bundle of kites trailing after her.

“No, doofus, but they’re pretty easy to make.”

Tim stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

“I was kidding. I don’t want to fly a kite.”

“Oh. Okay.”

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes while Tim finished off half the loaf of bread.

“Let’s go down to the creek,” he said eventually.

They grabbed the backpack, still full of fruit, and headed out the back of the house. Tim slammed the door behind him and whistled. A great big German Shepherd came bounding around the corner and barrelled into Lucy.

“Hi, Napoleon.” She patted his head and tried to avoid all the slobber he was spraying around in his excitement.

Lucy followed Tim and Napoleon through the overgrown backyard. They jumped the back fence, and she almost twisted her ankle as she landed on the other side. Tim’s hand shot out to steady her.

“Easy there. Don’t go killing yourself too early.”

“Thanks.”

A bit more cautiously, Lucy followed Tim and the dog as they wended their way down the trail that led to the creek. They scrambled a few hundred metres down to the rocky outcrop that had been their favourite hangout spot when they were in high school. This was where Lucy had smoked her one and only cigarette, had her first kiss (with Tim; they’d sworn never to do it again and never to tell anyone and to just generally pretend that it had never happened), sipped her first beer and spent many relaxing afternoons just lying in the sun, under the speckled shade of the gum trees.

Tim’s neighbour, Olivia, had often joined them there after school. She’d been a year below them. Lucy hadn’t seen her for years, but it still felt a bit empty being in that spot without her.

“What happened to Olivia?” she asked.

“Hah. I was just thinking about her. She did the whole London thing, then ended up moving up to Edinburgh with her Scottish boyfriend. Her parents are still next door. Her Mum keeps checking in on me. Wonder what it’s like over there at the moment? The UK, I mean.”

Lucy shrugged. “Probably similar to here. Nothing works. Thrown back into the Dark Ages. Kinda screwed if you don’t have convenient rural relatives. But colder and wetter.”

“Yeah, I’d hate to be stuck in any of the cities. Not that it matters in the end though, does it?”

“Dad reckons we might survive.”

“What?”

“Yeah… I know, right. He’s got Granddad’s old bomb shelter all stocked up… he’s been listening to Jim Schmidt.”

Tim snorted. “Mr. Schmidt was my Year 9 science teacher. Did you ever have him?”

Lucy shook her head. “Nah. Missed out. I had Norton instead.”

“Old dragon,” Tim muttered. “Schmidty told us one time that there was a high likelihood that that the moon landing had been faked.”

Lucy laughed. “Yeah, you shoulda heard Mum when Dad said he was getting his info from Mr. Schmidt.”

Tim grinned, then frowned. “What if him and your Dad are right?”

“I dunno, Tim. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow, but I’m not holding my breath. I think I’d rather be pleasantly surprised.”

“I haven’t exactly been planning on living much past tonight. I don’t have any supplies or anything.”

“You can come hang out in Dad’s shelter. I’m sure they’d be cool with it. Besides, if we’re going to single handedly carry on the human race, I’ll need someone to breed with. I think Mum and Dad are a bit past it.”

Tim screwed up his nose.

“No thanks.”

Lucy punched him playfully in the arm.

“Nothing personal. Vaginas are scary.”

“You were all set to let Lucy Whitmore have her way with you.”

“I would have politely turned her down. I think. Then updated Facebook and Twitter with the fact that Lucy Whitmore finally wanted to bang me. If the Internet still actually worked, that is.”

“You know it was surprisingly easy to sever my addiction to the Internet once it wasn’t actually there. A couple of years ago I promised some idiot guy that I wouldn’t go on Facebook for a week. Do you know how hard that was? I felt like I was missing out on so much. And when we’d go camping, I’d be fretting about all the emails and statuses I was missing out on… it’s a lot easier when you know for a fact there are no statuses or emails whatsoever because everyone’s in the same offline boat.”

“I never liked Facebook anyway.”

“Besides the point, Timothy.”

“I never asked you. Where were you when you found out about dear Cecilia?”

“Work,” Lucy said. “Jess called me. I didn’t believe her at first…”

“I didn’t even find out ’til the next day. I had the day off. Spent it playing Call of Duty and ignoring my phone. Beth turned up at my place the next day and dragged me here. I honestly thought she was crazy at first. Then I saw how crazy everyone else was being and thought that maybe I was the crazy one, not them.”

“Dad came and got me. Kinda. I got to the petrol station at Little River, then sat there waiting for half a day with everyone else trying to fill up, then they tell us that they’ve run out… thank God mobile phones were still working, otherwise I would have had a very long walk…”

“We only just made it back here. Pretty much just coasted into the driveway. Bikes and peddle-power for us after that. No handy horses or motorbikes here.”

“That’s what you get for not having a family history of paranoia,” Lucy laughed. “I’m pretty sure Dad could supply the whole town for at least six months on the amount of petrol and gas he’s got stashed away. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Hah. Who am I going to tell? And what can they do now?”

“True. We never got much trouble out on the farm, surprisingly,” Lucy said.

“You’re lucky. I get someone here nearly every day. Hence the locked door.”

“Guess so. I suppose we should be thanking the Council for not maintaining our road after all. It looks like nothing’s down there. Used to drive Mum nuts, she’d wash the car but as soon as she’d actually drive anywhere it would be filthy again.”

“Is that why you never washed your car?” Tim laughed.

“You wouldn’t have known if I did. But yeah, I learnt quite early on that car washing was a futile endeavour,” Lucy said defiantly.

“But you moved to Melbourne six years ago.”

“Old habits die hard.”

Lucy threw the pebble she’d been fiddling with into the water, startling a pair of ducks who had been frolicking in the water.

“Seriously, you can come back with me,” she said, looking at Tim sideways.

Tim bit his lip and looked out over the creek and trees.

“Thanks… but no thanks.”

“But—”

“No, I’m serious. I’ve actually thought about it. I want to be alone. I have a joint I’ve been saving, and a bottle of scotch that belonged to my Dad that Beth had been saving for who knows what, and I’m going to drink it and get high and that’s how I want to go.”

“But—”

“Save it, Lucy. Seriously.”

“Okay.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“If you change your mind, you know where to come.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

After a while they ran out of conversation, even though Lucy kept trying to think of something else to say to prolong the moment before she’d have to say goodbye to her oldest friend. Tim called Napoleon to him, and they trekked back up to his house. He offered her the backpack but she told him to keep it.

He walked her out to the tree where Lightning was grazing.

“Good luck,” Tim said as he hugged her tight.

“You too,” she whispered.

“I’ll come bug you tomorrow if I can.”

“Good.”

Lucy gave him a quick kiss, and then mounted up on Lightning. She looked down at her friend.

“I love you, Tim.”

“You too, kiddo.” He smiled back up at her, and then slapped Lightning on the rump.

Lucy caught one last look behind her before Tim went back into the dark house.

CHAPTER FOUR

Two months ago…

Lucy didn’t go into work the next day. She woke up feeling groggy and hungover; Jess was snoring softly next to her fully clothed and drooling all over her favourite pillow. She didn’t remember going to bed. Staring up through the skylight at the bright blue sky, she wondered if yesterday had really happened, or if it had just been a disturbingly vivid dream. Her best friend’s presence lent weight to the possibility that yesterday was real.

She held her arm up and looked at her watch. 10:00am. She should have been at work two hours ago. She rubbed her aching head and licked her dry lips.

She rolled out of bed and gulped down the glass of water that was sitting on the desk. A faint buzzing caught her attention. It took her longer than usual to realise it was her phone. She rummaged through her handbag, but not quickly enough to answer the call. She looked at the screen in disbelief. 143 missed calls. Mostly from her mother, a handful each from Steve, Mitch, her friend Katie and two from her cousin Rosie.

After quick glance in Jess’ sleeping direction, Lucy took her phone downstairs. Mitch was sleeping on the couch, so she went into the kitchen and called her mother. The first call didn’t connect, but the second try went through.

“Lucy! Finally. I tried to call you,” Liz yelled. Lucy held the phone slightly away from her ear.

“Yeah 112 times… sorry Mum, my phone was in my bag. I’m okay.”

“You’ve heard?”

“If you mean the asteroid, then yes.”

“I want you to come home.”

“Yeah, I’m planning to, Mum. Are you okay?”

“I haven’t slept a wink all night. I keep pinching myself.”

“Not a dream?”

“Doesn’t seem to be.”

“Do you think they’ll be able to fix it?”

“Fix it?”

“Divert it or whatever. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know, love, but I think we should prepare for the worst. Just in case.”

“Have you talked to Claire?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, she called a few hours ago. Tom’s been in Vancouver on a business trip, she’s waiting for him to come home, then they’ll figure out what to do.”

“Oh. How did Dad take the news?”

“He didn’t seem all that surprised actually. He’s doing what he does every day, out on the farm, like nothing’s changed.” Lucy couldn’t decide if her mother sounded more concerned or annoyed.

“You know Dad, he needs to mull things over for a while.”

Liz just sighed. “Can you come home straight away?”

Lucy thought for a moment. “Tomorrow, Mum. There are a few things I have to do first.”

“Lucy, I really think you should come home as soon as possible. I’m worried that people are going to panic and riot, and it won’t be safe for you.”

“Okay. Maybe tonight. I’ll let you know.”

“Alright, keep in touch, sweetheart.”

“I will. Love you, Mum.”

“I love you too. Be careful.”

Lucy rubbed her face and stared at her phone for a moment. She called Steve. No answer. She put the phone down on the bench and went into the bathroom. She popped a couple of ibuprofen pills into her mouth and hoped they’d take care of her pounding head. She stared at herself in the mirror. She was pale. Her eyes were all puffy, and her dark hair resembled a bird’s nest more than anything else. She grabbed a cotton pad and some make-up remover and got rid of the remnants of yesterday’s mascara and eyeliner from under her eyes.

She turned the shower on and waited for the water to heat up. Growing up on a farm during a drought, it had been hammered into Lucy from a young age to save water, and she felt incredibly guilty if she was ever in the shower for longer than three minutes. Today though, she stood under the steaming water until her fingers turned all wrinkly. She slowly washed her hair as she went over the events of yesterday in her mind. Finding out, coming home, Jess coming over, wine, talking, more wine. She vaguely remembered Mitch coming home at one point with a bottle of tequila. That would explain the hangover. Wine didn’t normally give her one. Or maybe she was just getting older. Older… would she get to celebrate her 26^th birthday? It was four months away. They said the asteroid was due to strike in two months. Two months. Would it be as bad as they said? Lucy looked down at her hands and wondered how long she’d been in the shower. Her hands hadn’t been that wrinkly since she was a teenager spending hot summer days in the creek behind Tim’s house.

A loud knock on the door startled Lucy.

“Hurry up, Lucy! I need to pee!” Mitch called through the locked door. Not for the first time, Lucy wished that their flat had a separate toilet and bathroom.

“Okay okay, hang on.”

“I’m hanging on as much as I can!”

“You’re a guy! Use a bush! ”

“We’re not on your farm, Lucy, get outta there.”

Lucy turned the water off and grabbed the nearest towel. Dripping wet, she went and unlocked the door. Mitch barrelled past her and pushed her out, slamming the door behind him.

Jess was still sound asleep when Lucy went up to her room, so she took a chance and quickly got dressed.

Lucy shook Jess awake. She muttered and pushed Lucy’s hand away, rolled over and pulled the doona over her head.

“Come on, Jess, wake up.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“I know you don’t, but we have a busy day ahead of us.”

Jess rolled back over and blinked blearily up at Lucy.

“Please tell me that it was just a dream.”

“It was just a dream.”

“Liar.”

“Yep.”

“Thought so,” Jess sighed.

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Jess yawned and sat up. “Jeez, how much did we drink last night? My head does not like me right now.”

Mitch came thundering up the stairs, glass of water and pills in hand. Lucy bemusedly watched as he sheepishly handed them to Jess. He’d had a painfully obvious crush on Jess for over a year now. At least it was obvious to Lucy; apparently not so obvious to Jess, who feigned ignorance and disbelief any time Lucy brought the subject up. Lucy wondered if the threat of their impending demise would spur Mitch into action.

“Thanks, Mitch. I’m blaming this on you and your tequila by the way,” Jess mumbled as she took the proffered gifts.

“Anytime.”

“Hey, Luce, can I use your laptop?” Jess asked after swallowing the pills with a large gulp of water. Lucy nodded and sunk down onto the floor. Mitch followed suit, leaning against Lucy’s bookshelf.

Jess reached over, grabbed the laptop off Lucy’s desk and flipped it open.

“No luck, they haven’t retracted the catastrophic outlook yet,” Jess said after a moment.

“Bugger.”

“Oh, the PM put out a statement telling everyone to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. What’s with that? Shouldn’t he be telling us to stay calm and everything will be fine?”

Mitch nodded. “You’d think so.”

“Have the Americans come out with anything new?”

Jess was silent for a moment, scanning the screen in front of her.

“Nope, not really. Oh, riots and looting in New York, L.A., London and Paris.”

“Already? Sheesh,” Mitch exclaimed.

“How about Toronto?”

Jess looked sharply at Lucy. “It doesn’t say anything, so I’m assuming no, or at least nothing major.”

Lucy bit her lip. She was worried about her sister and nephews. How far away was Toronto from New York again?

“Any mention of Vancouver? Mum said my brother-in-law is there.”

Jess shook her head. “Melbourne trains are running on a Sunday schedule today. Apparently some of the train drivers turned up for work. At the moment they’re guaranteeing two more days of limited service, no promises after that.”

Mitch swore. “I didn’t think about that. Glad I have my bike. Although I don’t really want to ride all the way to Geelong.”

“I can drive you there if you want,” Lucy said. “It’s on my way.”

“When are you going?”

Lucy shrugged. “Either tonight or tomorrow morning. Mum’s worried. She wants me home as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame her. Some of these riots look pretty bad,” Jess said. She was still reading on the laptop.

“I wonder how long it will take for someone to snap here and start smashing windows,” Mitch said.

“Yeah, it only takes one or two people, then everyone else loses their heads and before you know it you’ve got a full-scale riot on your hands,” Lucy replied.

“God, some people are so stupid. There are people in Los Angeles looting microwaves, designer handbags, make up, clothes, jewellery… get a grip people, you’ll need food and water and candles, not the latest Gucci bag,” Jess exclaimed at the computer. Lucy just shook her head.

“Do they not realise what this means?” Jess asked in disbelief.

“I’m having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around it myself,” said Mitch. “Besides, they might figure something out. It might not be the end.”

“Fingers crossed,” Lucy and Jess said at the same time.

Lucy sat on the front steps to her block of flats. Jess had gone back to her place a few streets away. Mitch was packing.

She looked up and down the street. It was a hot day. Normally, on a day like this there would have been a steady stream of people, with beach towels slung over their shoulders, making their way to or from the nearby beach. Today she only saw a lone man walking his dog. He nodded grimly at Lucy but didn’t say anything. She nodded back. Even the normal constant noise of the traffic on Ormond Esplanade was muted.

Lucy heard Steve before she saw him. She watched the end of the street as a young man on a motorbike came around the corner. She stood as he pulled up in front of her and took his helmet and jacket off. He came over and she slipped easily into his arms. He hugged her tight.

“Hey,” he murmured into her hair.

“Hey,” she whispered back.

They stood like that for a few minutes, bodies pressed against each other, drawing comfort, until it got too hot. They leant back and looked at each other. Steve reached down and brushed a strand of hair out of Lucy’s eyes.

“How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay. I guess. How are you?”

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet to be honest.”

“No, I know. I feel like pinching myself. Repeatedly. Until I wake up. It’s not working though.”

“Pity. I wouldn’t mind waking up either. Did you see the story this morning?”

Lucy frowned. “Only the looting.”

“Yeah I saw that. Just more doom and gloom. The American government announced that they have some shelters and they’re having a lottery for places.”

“Wow. Pity we’re not American. How many places do they have?”

“Almost a million.”

“A million! They must have been planning that for a while.”

“Considering there are over 300 million Americans, it doesn’t seem like much.”

“I suppose so,” Lucy said. “D’you reckon the Aussie government have any top secret shelters or a lottery planned?”

Steve shrugged. “Probably not.”

“Thanks for coming over.” Lucy hugged him again.

“I wanted to,” Steve replied. He kissed her forehead. “Want to go for a walk?”

Lucy nodded. Steve took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. They headed down the street toward the beach.

“How’s your family?” Lucy asked while they stopped at the traffic lights, waiting for the green man even though there was hardly any traffic.

“They’re okay. Worried, of course. I don’t know. Mum’s never really been the type to share her feelings. My sisters talk to each other more than they talk to me. Dad’s stuck in Hong Kong. He managed to get through on Skype this morning.”

“Will he be able to get back?”

“I hope so. He’s trying to get on the next flight out of there.”

“My Mum wants me to go home to the farm.”

“Yeah, makes sense. What about your sister? She’s in Canada, right?”

Lucy nodded. “I don’t know what Claire’s going to do. I haven’t talked to her. I just got an email from her telling me to go to Mum and Dad’s in case things get bad.”

“Yeah… you’re lucky in a way. When do you think you’ll go?” Steve asked. They reached the beach. It was empty save for a lone swimmer a few hundred metres away.

“Tomorrow. Or tonight. Mum’s pretty keen for me to get out of here.”

“Oh.” Steve looked down at his feet.

“What?”

“Well… it’s just… if they don’t get rid of this thing… I might not see you again.”

Lucy rocked on her heels.

“Why am I so dense?” she muttered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about that… wait, that came out wrong. I just… this is so surreal.”

Steve hugged her. “Yeah, I know. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not. None of this is. It’s screwed up. This isn’t meant to happen in real life. Just movies and books.”

“I know.”

“You could come with me.”

“To the farm?”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied, warming to the idea. Steve could come with her — they’d be together. Support each other through this, like a real couple.

“What about my family?”

“Um…” Lucy thought about Steve’s domineering mother and prissy sisters on the farm. “Er…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not sure they’d like it…” Steve said. “And I couldn’t leave them. Not now. They need me.”

“Of course. I understand,” Lucy said, even though she didn’t, not yet. “But… what will you do if everything goes haywire?”

Steve shrugged. “We’ll manage.”

They stood side by side on the beach, watching the waves crash in, undisturbed.

“It’s really not fair,” said Steve, bringing Lucy out of the trance that the waves had put her into.

“No kidding.”

“This’ll probably come out totally sappy, but I finally meet a great girl who I could possibly see myself with for the rest of my life… and it turns out the rest of my life might not be very long at all.”

“Really? Do you mean that?”

“Yes. I mean it. I… I think I love you, Lucy Black.”

Lucy smiled up at him, tears suddenly prickling her eyes. “I think I love you too, Steve Martinelli.” Of course, it took the possible annihilation of the planet for him to finally say ‘I love you’.

Saying goodbye to Steve was hard, but not as hard as she would have thought. Harder was Jess. After a stop-and-start goodbye with Steve that started in her bedroom and ended on the footpath, filled with kisses and promises to keep in contact, and a half-hearted suggestion for him to come up to the farm for a few days, she’d sent him on his way. She blinked back tears as she set off in the opposite direction towards Jess’ home.

Jess opened the door after Lucy had knocked four times. Her hair was still standing straight up.

“Come in, come in,” Jess ushered her into the lounge room. Jess’ belongings were scattered everywhere. Her cat, Mergatroid, was sniffing cautiously at a coat slung over the couch.

“I don’t know what to take!”

Lucy shrugged. “What do you think you’ll need?”

“I don’t know! That’s the problem. If the world ends in March, am I really going to need a coat?”

“Probably not.”

“But say we survive it, then it will get cold, and I’ll need a coat.”

“Then take the coat.”

“You’re really not much help.”

Lucy shrugged again. “I’m as clueless as you, Jess.”

“Mitch told me he liked me.”

“What? Finally! When?” Lucy exclaimed.

“When you went downstairs to call Steve.”

“What did you say?”

“That his timing was terrible.”

Lucy laughed. “I suppose it is.”

“I told him if we survived this thing, maybe we could go on a date.”

“Good, something to live for! Steve told me he loved me.”

“Why does it take the end of the world for guys to admit their feelings?”

Lucy spent the next half hour helping Jess pack. She decided to take the coat after all “You never know,” was her reasoning. They packed up her little Hyundai Excel until it was almost exploding.

“Got everything?”

“I think so.” Jess frowned at the car. “Too bad if I haven’t, I don’t think much else will fit in there.”

“True that.”

They both stood in silence for a few minutes, looking at the overflowing car.

“Well… I guess this is it, eh?”

Lucy bit her lip. “I suppose it is.”

Jess hugged Lucy hard.

“Good luck, wench.”

“You too, trollop.” They both laughed.

“Luce, you need to let go.”

“I don’t want to.”

She finally did though.

“Hopefully we’ll wake up in a few mornings and find out that they’ve diverted it or whatever, and we can resume life as usual,” Jess said.

“Yeah. They’ll have to think of something. Surely.”

“But in the meantime, you take care and be careful.”

“You too.”

“Keep in touch.”

“Thanks for being such a good friend, Jess.”

“Oh come on, don’t get sappy on me, Black.” Jess punched Lucy on the arm and started crying. “Damn it, now you’ve made me cry.”

“Sorry,” Lucy half-laughed as she wiped her own tears away.

“I’m gonna go now before I start crying buckets.”

“Drive safe. Let me know when you get home.”

“Likewise.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Present…

Lucy savoured every moment of the ride home, but it was over too quickly. Time has a funny habit of speeding up when we least want it to. She tried to take everything in and to notice it all, the piercing blue sky, the rustling of the gum trees, the warbling of the magpies, the scurrying of the little sunbathing skinks as they fled the horses oncoming hooves, Lightning’s warmth and deep even breathes. She even took notice of the slight wind lifting the hair off her neck, the persistent fly that seemed fascinated with her nose, the sound of Lightning’s hooves on the road. The damn fly!

Too soon for her liking, Lightning turned into the driveway. The dogs came racing up to meet horse and rider, barking excitedly. Lucy nudged Lightning into a trot and approached the house. She looked at it, almost with a stranger’s eyes. The house was rambling and welcoming. It was part of the landscape, like it had been there forever and would be there forever more, surviving drought, bush fires, floods and inheritance. Not massive asteroids though.

Lucy unsaddled Lightning and lingered over his last brushing. He seemed to enjoy it; although he enjoyed the apples she gave him when she put him back in the paddock more. She gave him a hug and kissed him on the nose, before heading back inside.

“Mum! Dad! I’m back,” she called out as soon as she opened the back door.

“In the study, sweetheart,” Liz replied. “How was Tim?” Liz asked as Lucy walked into the small, sunny room.

“Okay. Considering. I invited him to come here for it.”

Liz smacked her forehead. “Of course, I should have suggested it. Did he come back with you?” she asked, looking behind Lucy.

“No, he’s not coming.”

“What? Why ever not?” Liz frowned in puzzlement.

Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know. He said he wants to be alone. Alone with his thoughts and his whiskey and his memories.”

“That poor boy, he’s been through so much.”

“We all have, Mum.”

“That’s true, but… well, I wouldn’t wish that family’s past year on anyone.”

“I wish we’d found Beth,” Lucy sighed.

“Of course.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Just washing up, he’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay, I think I might too. What are you looking at?” Lucy asked as she belatedly registered that her mother was surrounded by scattered photo albums.

“Baby photos, yours and Claire’s, and mine… and some of your grandmother’s. Your Gran looks so young in these.” Liz handed a photo to Lucy. There was a young redheaded woman holding a newborn baby, with a black haired toddler clutching her skirt.

“Is that you?”

“I’m the baby. That’s your Aunt Mary.” Liz pointed to the toddler.

“Was Grandma’s hair really that colour?”

“Yep, she was a natural red-head. Your Grandma was quite disappointed that she never had any redheads herself. Just Mary’s black, my mousy brown and Greg’s blond.”

“She must have been happy when Patrick was born then.” Patrick was Lucy’s cousin, Aunt Mary’s youngest.

Liz smiled fondly at the photo. “Yes, she was.”

They spent the next half hour looking through the old photographs until Lucy’s father came looking for them. The smell of cologne preceded him into the room.

“Wow, Dad, you look spiffy!” Lucy and Liz both looked up at Bill admiringly. He had somehow managed to tame his unruly hair, trimmed his beard, managed to get the dirt out from under his fingernails that, Lucy swore, had been under there since she was a child.

“Just dressing for the occasion,” he said.

“What, dying?” Lucy asked with a furrowed brow.

“No. The last supper.”

“Oh. Right, suppose I’d better too!” Lucy got up. Her father sunk into the spot she’d just vacated and started looking at the photos in Liz’s hands.

Lucy paused just outside the door and listened to her parents reminiscing about a family holiday they’d taken to Perth when Lucy had been seven. She smiled fondly and made her way to the bathroom. It was still steamy from her father. She took her time in the shower, refusing to feel guilty. What was the point of saving water now? She inhaled the scent of the mango body-wash and enjoyed the feeling of the bubbles all over her skin. She turned the taps off once she started to get bored, and then dried herself under the heat light.

Hair wrapped in a towel, she stood in front of her wardrobe trying to decide what to wear. Something nice. She ran her hands through her dresses hanging there, considering.

“You look lovely,” Liz said when Lucy came into the kitchen a while later. She’d settled on the dress that her mother had given her last Christmas, and actually made an effort with her hair and make-up for the first time in weeks.

“Thanks, Mum. Like Dad said, better dress for the occasion.”

Liz nodded approvingly.

“What can I do?” Lucy asked, eying the kitchen bench which had bunches of herbs and piles of fruit and vegetables on it.

“The chicken’s already in the oven, your Dad’s just gone out to pick some basil for me, you can cut the potatoes for the roast while I finish up the lasagne. Thanks, love,” Liz said as she pushed a chopping board toward Lucy. Lucy went into the pantry and grabbed a half dozen large potatoes, plonked them in the sink and started peeling them. After she’d chopped up the potatoes, her mother pushed carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and pumpkin in her direction.

“Bleh, Mum, I hate pumpkin.”

“Too bad, I love it, and we’re having it,” Liz said firmly. Bill winked at her from his reclaimed spot stirring at the stove.

The kitchen was warm and full of mouth-watering smells. Lucy thought it was pleasant, all of them cooking together. It was usually a solo job for whoever’s turn it was cooking that night. Lucy smiled to herself again as she listened to her parents exchange light-hearted banter.

One of the dogs stuck his head around the corner, watching them with bright, alert and hopeful eyes. The dogs weren’t allowed in the kitchen, and they knew it, but it didn’t stop them from trying their luck every now and then. The smell of the roast chicken made it a most tempting challenge.

Lucy stopped chopping.

“What are we going to do with the dogs?” She looked up at her parents, who glanced at each other. “And the cat, she just had her kittens this morning… I know the horses and the goats can’t fit into the shelter… but…”

“Well. I’m not sure. I don’t have enough food for four dogs and five cats and us as well,” Bill frowned.

“That’s assuming we survive at all, my dear,” Liz said.

Bill nodded.

“Surely we can have them with us tonight. Give them the best chance if there is a chance to be had,” Lucy pleaded. She wanted to be surrounded by her animals — to give comfort and to receive it.

“Yes, alright. I wouldn’t mind having them there at that.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

The phone rang. Everyone jumped. Liz fumbled with the satellite phone, and nearly dropped it in her rush to answer.

“Claire!?” Liz yelled into the receiver. “Oh, I’m sorry, hi, Mary.”

Lucy and Bill looked at each other, crestfallen.

“No, no, no, of course it’s wonderful to hear from you, we just haven’t heard from Claire for a while… we’re fine, considering. How are you and the kids?”

Liz wandered out of the kitchen as she talked with her older sister. Mary lived up in Queensland with her three kids. Lucy looked at her father. He was an only child and barely knew his cousins, so she doubted that he was expecting any calls other than from his eldest daughter.

“Dad?”

“Yes, my precious?”

“Do you have any regrets?”

Bill scratched his beard and appeared to think for a few minutes before answering.

“I always thought I might like to climb Mount Everest,” he finally said.

“Really? I never knew that.”

“Mmm, I never really told anyone except your Mum.”

“Why didn’t you do it? That would be pretty awesome,” Lucy said as she emptied the vegetable scraps into the chook bucket, and then wondered why as she’d already fed the chickens and ducks for the day and they wouldn’t be around to get this tomorrow.

“Life got in the way. I had the farm, you girls, it costs a lot of money, plus your mother was terrified I’d die up there,” he said while he took the lasagne out of the oven.

“You should have done it.”

“Yes. I should have… too late now. Even if we do survive, I don’t think they’ll have the infrastructure in place for an Aussie farmer to go and climb Mount Everest anytime soon.”

“Yeah, probably not.” Lucy looked around her for something else to do. She reached for the bowl of fruit and started chopping pieces up and throwing them in a bowl for fruit salad.

“What about you, Goosey?”

“Hmmm?” Lucy asked, so engrossed in cutting the nectarine just right that she barely registering her father’s childhood nickname for her.

“Regrets. Unfulfilled dreams,” Bill prompted.

Lucy put the knife down and stared at her father. I’m only twenty five years old, of course I’m full of regrets and unfulfilled dreams, she thought. She took a deep breath and blew it out.

“Where to even begin? Travel’s a big one, I guess.” Lucy paused and thought for a moment. “I always wanted to go backpacking like Mum did when she was young, and like Claire did.”

“Why didn’t you?” Bill asked, a frown creasing his forehead. Lucy shrugged then scowled.

“I guess I was always waiting for someone to go with me,” she said. “I wish I’d had the guts to just go by myself like Claire did.”

“Yeah, well, your sister always was more of a loner than you are. She’s not the most… co-operative… of people either. I don’t think Claire travelling with one of her friends would have ended very well,” Bill mused.

“She went travelling with Tom a lot,” Lucy pointed out.

“That’s different. They’re married. It’s a different dynamic.”

“If you say so,” Lucy said. Privately, she regretted the thought that she’d never find out for herself what the dynamics of a marriage were. She tried to thrust the thought from her mind. So far, for the most part, she’d managed to keep most of those negative thoughts at bay. She didn’t want to start indulging in them now. “I dunno, Dad, I finally build up the courage to book my trip to Spain by myself, and then this happens before I get the chance to go. I also finally meet a guy who doesn’t seem to be a total dud like all my other boyfriends, and now I’ll never know if he was the one or not. It’s not fair, Dad.”

“No, it’s not. Wait, what guy?”

“Steve. I told you about him. The one I met at the beach.”

“Oh… the one with the motorbike?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He was… he is nice. He told me he loved me the day after we found out about this.” She waved up at the ceiling.

“Oh. Bugger.”

“Yeah. Bugger.”

It felt a bit strange for Lucy to be talking to her father about Steve and love. She usually saved this kind of talk for her mother. She picked the knife up again and resumed chopping.

“I wish you could have met him. I think you would have liked him.”

“Hmmm. We’ll see.”

“No, Dad. We won’t.” Lucy sighed. Bill started to say something, but the look on Lucy’s face cut him off. He stared helplessly at his daughter.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I know you think we have a chance. I just… I don’t know. I don’t think we do. And even if we did, what’s the world going to look like on the other side? Would it be worth living in?”

“I can’t answer that, Luce. I’m just not ready to see my wife and daughter die and I’m not going to go down without a fight.”

Lucy put her knife down, went around the table and hugged her father.

CHAPTER SIX

Two months ago…

It usually took Lucy two and a half hours to drive home to her parent’s farm. Two hours after leaving their flat, Lucy and Mitch had only just made it over the West Gate Bridge. They’d wanted to leave the night before, but Mitch had heard on the radio that the West Gate Bridge out of the city had been closed due to a series of bad accidents. Volunteers were clearing the wreckages, but it would take a while, and the other routes out of the city were barely moving, so they’d decided to get up early and leave the next morning.

Apparently, so had a lot of other people.

Lucy looked nervously at her petrol gauge. She still had half a tank, but this kind of stop and start driving wasn’t kind to her tank.

She glanced over at Mitch. He was tapping his fingers on the dash and sighing every now and then. It was starting to get on Lucy’s nerves.

“Wish I had a private jet. We’d be home in a jiffy,” Mitch sighed again.

“You’d still need to drive through this to the airport.”

“Hmm. Well, it wouldn’t be so bad if we were waiting in a limo.”

“With champagne.”

“And Pringles.”

“Pringles?”

“What? I like Pringles. What’s wrong with Pringles?”

“Nothing. As long as they’re the green ones, I’m cool with Pringles. They just don’t usually go with champagne and limousines.”

“Strawberries then.”

“That’s better,” Lucy laughed.

“I wonder if there’s been another accident? I haven’t seen it this bad since they did a bunch of roadworks last Christmas,” Mitch pondered.

“Could be… Jess told me you finally told her you like her,” Lucy said, taking her eyes off the unmoving car in front of her to look at her long-suffering housemate. He squirmed.

“Yeah… terrible timing, I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell her before? You know, when you could have actually done something about it.”

“I don’t know. I tried. It never came out right though. Or came out at all, really,” Mitch mumbled. Lucy thought he might even be turning red.

“You’ve liked her for years.”

“What! No I haven’t!”

“Don’t lie,” Lucy teased.

“I’m not! Maybe I am. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“You never know. This’ll probably all blow over. Some hot shot American will save the day, and you and Jess will live happily ever after.”

Mitch just snorted and stared out the window at the traffic that was not budging.

Ever so slowly, they inched their way out of the city. The traffic started to move faster once they hit the Princes Freeway and began leaving the suburbs behind. Lucy kept looking at her petrol gauge.

“I’m going to need to fill up at Little River,” she told Mitch. He just nodded.

They both stared in shock at the line up at the petrol station at Little River.

“I’ve never seen it this busy before,” said Mitch.

“No, me neither… I don’t think I can make it to Geelong…”

“It’ll probably be just as bad there. Let’s just wait here.”

They played noughts and crosses, then hangman, in Mitch’s sketchbook while the line slowly moved forward. Lucy looked around at all the other people, anxiously, impatiently waiting. A fight broke out up ahead when one man in a hotted up commodore tried to skip the line and budge in.

Finally, it was almost their turn. There were only two cars ahead of them now. The line up behind them was longer than ever.

“Nearly there!”

“I think you may have spoken too soon,” said Lucy after she watched the man at the pump shake the nozzle then throw it down in frustration before storming off into the shop where the cashier was. She looked over at the other pumps, where people were having similar reactions.

“What? Oh no, they can’t have run out. We’re almost there!” Mitch exclaimed. “What do we do now?”

“Wait and see, I guess.”

They didn’t have to wait long. A young man dressed the petrol station uniform came out with a large hand-written sign that said:

NO MORE PETROL

LPG GAS ONLY

(UNTIL THAT RUNS OUT TOO)

SORRY!!

Lucy and Mitch both swore at the same time.

“Glad I’m not him.” Mitch nodded toward the attendant who was rapidly being surrounded by an angry looking mob.

“I hope they don’t hurt him, it’s not his fault,” Lucy said, worriedly. So far it just seemed to be verbal. No one had thrown any punches yet.

“What do we do? Do you have enough petrol left to get to my house?”

Lucy looked at the petrol gauge. “Nope. Probably get halfway there. I’m almost running on fumes.”

“Bugger.”

“It’s okay, I’ll call my Dad. He’s got some petrol tanks on the farm. He can bring us some,” said Lucy as she rummaged through her handbag for her phone. She really hoped her father would be able to come. She didn’t fancy walking or hitch hiking the 170 kilometres in between here and the farm.

“Hi Mum, it’s Lucy.”

“Hello, sweetheart, where are you? Are you all right?”

“Yes and no. We’re at the petrol station at Little River. I’m almost out of petrol and they’ve run out here. I was hoping that Dad could come and get me and bring some petrol?”

“Oh no, out of petrol!”

“Yeah. There are a lot of angry people here.”

“Will you be all right?”

Lucy looked over at the crowd surrounding the poor attendant. Some of them were still yelling at him, but he was just shrugging helplessly and trying to back away from them.

“I think so. No one’s done anything stupid yet. I don’t envy the poor kid working here though.”

“Well, be careful, Lucy. Don’t get involved. Here’s your father.” Lucy could hear her mother murmuring to her father.

“Hi, Dad,” she said when he picked up the phone.

“Hello, pumpkin, what’s the matter? Your mother said you ran out of petrol.”

Lucy told him what she’d just told her mother.

“Are you in the actual town, or at the servo on the highway?”

“On the highway.”

“All right, hold tight, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Lucy moved her car out of the now useless line-up and parked next to the building. Some of the other people drove off after finding out there was no petrol left, but quite a few stayed. Lucy wondered why, then realised they were probably as stuck as she was. Her father wouldn’t get there for about two hours.

“Are you hungry?” Mitch asked. “I’m gonna go in and grab some food.”

“Yeah, a bit actually. I’ll come in with you.”

They got out of the car, Lucy locked it out of habit. She looked into the car parked next to them. A middle-aged lady was sitting there, crying. Lucy bit her lip, contemplating whether to say anything to the woman or not. Lucy hated it when people asked her if she was okay or all right when she was crying, when she obviously wasn’t. Whatever this woman’s problem was, there was most likely nothing Lucy would be able to do about it, and what was the point in interfering if she couldn’t do anything to fix it? It was probably the whole asteroid blowing everyone to smithereens thing that had her upset, and there was definitely nothing that Lucy could do about that.

She turned and followed Mitch through the automatic doors. The shelves looked a lot more depleted than they usually did. Lucy grabbed a packet of chips, a cold bottle of water, and an ice cream out of the freezer, and then joined the line-up of people waiting to pay. Looking around the shop as she stood in line, she noticed quite a few people who didn’t seem to bother with paying for their sweets or drinks. They just grabbed them off the shelf and with a furtive glance towards the harried cashier, walked outside. She raised her eyebrows at Mitch, who was hovering over the almost empty newspaper stand, but he just shrugged at her.

The woman in front of Lucy was taking a long time at the register.

“I don’t think it’s working,” the woman eventually said. The flustered cashier took the debit machine, looked at it and swore.

“Do you have cash?”

“No, I only have my cards.”

“Ah, just take it,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “All of you! Just take it! Take it all! I don’t even know why I’m here. Screw this for a joke.”

The man tore off his name tag, threw it in the bin and stormed out the back through the ‘Employees Only’ door. The lady in front of Lucy looked around in alarm. Lucy looked over at Mitch. He looked bemused. The cashier came back out and looked around at the startled patrons. He grabbed an armful of chips and chocolate bars, looked defiantly up at the security camera and walked out.

Lucy sidled over to Mitch.

“What do we do?”

“You heard the man. Just take it.”

“It feels wrong.”

“The world is ending, Lucy. It’s gonna get worse than this if they don’t figure things out.”

Lucy nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

Mitch grabbed a couple more bottles of drink out of the fridge, elbowed his way to the freezer and pulled out a few of their favourite ice-creams.

“Never know when we’ll be able to get these again, better make the most of it while we still can,” he said in response to Lucy’s quizzical look.

Lucy picked up a few more things, paused in front of the register and left a $10 note.

“You know someone else is just going to take that,” Mitch chided her.

“It makes me feel better.”

They sat under the shade of one of the trees behind the service station quickly eating their ice creams before they melted, which was rapidly happening in the afternoon heat. Word of the free-for-all inside seemed to be spreading, and the stranded people were swarming in and out of the shop laden with food and to Lucy’s utter amusement, lottery scratchies.

After an hour and a half Lucy saw a familiar dirty blue ute drive in. She jumped up and waved at her father. She pointed towards her car. He parked opposite it and Lucy ran over and leapt into her father’s waiting arms. Her father’s arms had always been a safe place, somewhere no one could get her, and nothing could hurt her. Not anymore, but remnants of that childhood fantasy still clung, and his hug did make her feel better, at least for a few moments. After hugging her for several minutes, he patted her on the back and put her from him.

“All right, let’s get a move on, your mother’s anxious to get you home.”

“You got here quick,” Lucy said.

“Uh, I came the back way and may have taken a few liberties… ones that you will not repeat.”

“Do as I say, not as I do?”

“Exactly.”

Mitch coughed behind her.

“Oh! Dad, you remember Mitch, don’t you?” Lucy stepped back and pulled Mitch forward. “Mitch, this is my Dad, Bill. You met him at my birthday party a few years ago.”

The two men nodded and shook hands.

“Okay then, Mitch, can you carry this jerry can for me, I’ll take the other one.” Lucy rolled her eyes at her father’s back. She was perfectly capable of carrying a jerry can. She trailed after them as they took the cans over to her car. Her father had started pouring the petrol directly into her tank when the crying woman noticed him. Lucy watched as her eyes widened and she scrambled to get out of her car.

“Oh my god, please, please, can you please sell me some of that petrol?”

Bill looked sharply up at the woman, then warily around at everyone else. Lucy looked too, but no one else seemed to have noticed them yet.

“I’m sorry, this is for my daughter.”

“Please, I’m begging you, I’ll give you all my cash, I need the petrol.” The woman looked like she was about to start crying again.

“So does my daughter.”

“My mother, you see, my mother, she’s in a nursing home. I need to go and get her. All the staff have left. There’s no one there to look after her. I need to get her and bring her home. I need to get her.” The woman really was crying now.

Bill looked uneasily at the woman, then at Lucy.

“Dad… maybe… umm,” Lucy looked helplessly between her father and the distressed woman.

“Mitch, where do you live?” Bill asked.

“Just the other side of Geelong.”

“How about this. Mitch, I give you enough petrol to take Lucy’s car to your parent’s home and, Lucy, you can come home with me and, ma’am, I’ll give you the rest and you can go and get your mum.”

The woman blinked rapidly a few times then leapt forward and hugged Lucy’s father.

“God bless you! You’re a lifesaver! Thank you so much!” she exclaimed and went over to her car and pulled out her purse and a wad of fifty-dollar bills.

“No, no need for that.” Bill waved her away.

Lucy stood back beside Mitch as Bill helped the woman pour the petrol into her empty tank.

“You’d better take good care of my car,” she said to Mitch.

“Don’t worry, I will. I’ll even wash it for you.”

“Good. ’Cause I’ll be wanting it back when all this blows over.”

“Uh huh.”

A man wandered over just as Bill finished pouring the last of the petrol into the woman’s tank.

“Hey! Do you have petrol? I need some! My kids are at boarding school, I need to pick them up!”

“I’m sorry, mate, I don’t have any left.” Bill held his hands out. The man eyed the woman’s car.

“You should probably leave now,” Lucy muttered to the woman. She nodded and scampered around to the driver’s door, thanked them again and drove off.

The man swore.

“I hope you get your kids, I do, but I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

The man swore again and kicked Lucy’s tyre.

“Hey!” she exclaimed.

“Lucy,” Bill warned. “Mate,” he said to the man. “We’re all in the same boat. I’ve just come to get my own daughter,” Bill nodded towards Lucy.

“I know, I know, I just…” the man let out a frustrated growl and stalked off.

Lucy warily watched the man, but no one else approached them. She opened the back door of her car, pulled out her two bags and put them in the back of her father’s ute.

“Okay. Well.” She handed Mitch her keys. “Be careful.”

Mitch slowly reached out and took them.

“Yeah. Thanks. You too.” He looked down at his feet, then up at the sky. “Keep in touch okay?”

Lucy nodded and after a slight hesitation, leant in and gave him a hug.

“It’s not the end. It can’t be,” Mitch whispered, and then let her go.

Bill offered Mitch his hand again. “Take care of yourself, Mitch.”

“I will, sir. Uh, thanks for coming to our rescue. And I’ll take good care of Lucy’s car ’til this all blows over and she can come and get it.”

Bill nodded. Lucy waved as she climbed into the ute, and kept waving as her dad started the engine and drove off down the highway.

“How are you, Lucy?” her father asked once they’d been driving for a while and Lucy’s eyes were dry again.

“I don’t know, Dad.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Present…

The dining room was rarely used. When Lucy was a child, the large, bright room with its huge mahogany table had only been used on special occasions; Christmas, Easter, and the odd dinner party her parents had thrown for their friends or visiting relatives. As a family they had usually eaten in the warm, cozy kitchen, seated around the old wooden table that Bill had inherited from his great-grandfather.

Tonight they sat in the dining room.

The large table was heavily laden with mounds of delicious looking food. The table was set for three with the family’s best china dishes and bowls, and the good silver cutlery that had been a wedding present when Lucy’s grandparents married. A sudden memory of summer mornings spent polishing the silver under her grandmother’s demanding gaze flashed through Lucy’s mind. Lucy sat in the seat her grandmother had always occupied and took a deep breath. Her mouth started salivating immediately and her stomach grumbled loudly.

“This smells delicious, Mum,” Lucy told Liz when she came into the room carrying the last dish from the kitchen.

“Thanks, love, I hope it tastes as good.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” Bill sat down at the head of the table and eyed the table with a gleaming eye.

Once they were all seated, they paused and looked around at each other.

“I feel like we should say something,” Liz said.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Bill stood up and went to the wine cabinet that had always been out of bounds to Lucy and Claire. He fumbled with the key that was kept hanging next to the cabinet. Lucy had always wondered at her father’s security sensibilities. He carefully pulled out a dusty bottle and placed it on the table in front of Lucy. She eyed it. Penfolds Grange. Expensive.

“Wow, Dad. Going out in style!”

“I bought this the year you were born. I was going to give it to you on your 30^th birthday.”

“Wow, Dad,” Lucy repeated. “I hope it’s not corked,” she added with a grin.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Liz handed him the bottle opener. He wrestled with the cork, and then took an appreciative sniff of the wine. He reached over and went to pour Lucy the first glass.

“Wait, shouldn’t we decant it?” Liz stopped him.

“Too right, love. Where’s the decanter?”

“In here somewhere.” Liz crouched down in front of the crystal cabinet that was full of inherited crystal. Lucy had never bothered to give her parents wine glasses for Christmas — they could stock an antique store with the amount of crystal that had ended up in their house, it had trickled down from various grandparents, great-grandparents and spinster great-aunts.

“Aha!” Liz carefully manoeuvred the decanter from the back of the cabinet and managed not to knock anything else over. “Here we go.”

Lucy watched as her father carefully poured the bottle into the old decanter.

“How long are we meant to wait?” Lucy eyed the wine, and then looked at the food.

“No idea. Liz?” Bill looked over at his wife. Liz just shrugged.

“You can see we got a lot of use out of that decanter. I think Auntie Mildred gave it to us as a wedding present.”

“This is when I’d normally Google the answer.” Lucy looked at the now useless computer that she could half-see through the door and sighed.

“I think it will be fine.” Liz reached for the decanter and poured them all a glass. She held her glass up. Lucy and Bill followed suit.

“To my wonderful husband and my darling daughters and grandsons.” The three of them clinked glasses and muttered cheers and took a sip. The wine danced across her tongue.

Bill coughed, and then held his glass up again.

“I’d like to say something before we eat, if you don’t mind.” Lucy and her mother both nodded. “I don’t know what our world is going to look like tomorrow, or if we’ll be here or not to see it. I hope that we will be, but… well, in case we’re not…

“Liz, you’ve been my rock for almost 35 years. I didn’t think it would be possible, but I love you even more now than I did on our wedding day, and you grow ever more beautiful with each passing year. You’ve inspired me and supported me and I couldn’t have asked for a better wife or partner in life.

“Lucy, I couldn’t be prouder of you. You’ve grown from my little imp into a beautiful young woman. I always knew you had a good head on your shoulders, but how you’ve handled yourself over the past couple of months has really confirmed it in my mind. I am one lucky father to have a daughter like you. And Claire.

“Claire… it goes without saying that we miss her terribly, and wish that we could have spent these past harrowing months with her and our grandkids. But life doesn’t always work out the way we want it, obviously, and now we…” Bill paused and took a deep breath.

“We hope that she’s okay, our Claire, and that she knows that we’re thinking of her and love her very much.” Bill stopped and took a big gulp of wine.

“I’m sure she does, Dad.”

“All right, let’s tuck in before all this wonderful food gets cold.”

Lucy piled up her plate with a little bit of everything (except the roast pumpkin) and a lot of the lasagne. Her mouth started watering and her stomach grumbled again. She suddenly realised she hadn’t really eaten anything yet today, apart from a small bite of Tim’s bread and an apple. Earlier she’d wondered how criminals on Death Row could possibly eat with their impending demise staring them in the face, but now she understood. This was probably — despite what her father thought and hoped for — the last time she was going to get to eat. Like the ride home, she wanted to savour it and appreciate it. She loaded up her fork with a large portion of lasagne and shoved it in her mouth. It was as delicious as it always was. The three of them ate in silence for a few minutes, too occupied with all the food in front of them to speak.

“Mum, Dad, I just wanted to say something…” Liz and Bill both put their knives and forks down and looked at her attentively. “This is probably going to sound totally sappy, but I want to say it anyway.” Lucy paused and took a sip of wine followed by a gulp of water.

“Thanks for being such great parents. I couldn’t have asked for better. I know I was a horrible toddler and a bit of a… challenge… when I was a teenager, and I’m sorry for being such a brat, but I really do appreciate all that you’ve done for me and taught me over the years and I know Claire would say the same if she were here too. Actually, no, she’d say it heaps better than I am but I… yeah, well, just thanks. I love you both.” Lucy looked up at her parents. Her mother looked like she was about to cry.

“Mum, don’t cry. That was about the worst speech ever in the history of speeches.”

“No, it was lovely. Thank you, sweetheart.” Liz sniffed and wiped her eyes. Bill leaned over and patted her on the shoulder.

They continued to eat until they were all full, chatting about this and that, steering away from anything asteroid or end of the world related. After polishing off two full plates, Lucy patted her full belly in contentment, and then squeezed in one last spoonful of sticky date pudding.

“Mmm, that was great, Mum!”

“I’m glad.”

“Looks like the dogs are in for a treat,” Bill observed, looking over the table. They’d all eaten more than their fill but the three of them had made barely a dent in the food. There was enough there to feed a small army.

“It almost feels like a waste, but then I think…” Liz stopped and let her breath out. She stood up and started gathering their plates.

“Don’t bother washing them, Mum.” Lucy smiled grimly when her mother looked at her quizzically. “I’ll do them in the morning if Cecilia doesn’t take care of them.” Lucy thought she’d take a leaf out of Tim’s book although almost regretted it when she saw the look on her mother’s face. Liz blanched, and sat down quickly.

“Yes, yes, of course. Funny, it still, even after all this, doesn’t seem quite real.”

“I know, Mum. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault.” Liz took a deep breath then gazed out the window. The late sunlight was streaming through the window, catching the dancing dust mites in its gaze. “Shall we watch the sunset?” Bill and Lucy both nodded.

The three of them quickly cleared up the table, and took out the leftovers for the dogs. The four dogs were ecstatic. Their whole bodies seemed to be wagging in glee at the pile of food in front of them. Even Matilda, the cat, ventured away from her kittens to sniff at the roast chicken. She furtively ate it while warily watching the dogs. They were too engrossed in eating to even notice the cat. Chasing Matilda had been some of the younger dogs’ favourite pastime when they were pups. Lucy had been worried about her until one day she saw the cat giving as good as she got, chasing the pups right back.

“Come on, Lucy!” Lucy heard her mother call. She strode around to the front of the house. Her mother was perched up on the roof and her father was halfway up the ladder, passing a bottle of wine and three glasses up to her.

Lucy scrambled up the ladder to join them. The spot her mother had chosen had a sweeping view of the paddocks and creek and the vivid pink and red sunset. Lucy warily looked up at the sky. She couldn’t see anything other than the early evening stars that had started to peek out. She focused back on the sunset. It was stunning. She leaned against her mother and let out a deep breath that she didn’t even realise she’d been holding. Liz put her arm around her and held her close. Bill settled himself on the other side of Lucy and wrapped both women in his strong arms. When she’d been a child, this was the safest place in her world. A big part of Lucy wished she still was a child and that any problem could be fixed with a big hug from her father.

They sat like that for a few minutes, soaking up the last rays of the dying sun. Lucy’s eyes followed when Bill pointed wordlessly. A mob of kangaroos bounded across the floodplain next to the creek. They watched in silence until the kangaroos were out of sight.

Bill handed them each a wine glass and balanced his between his knees as he unscrewed the wine bottle. It was one of their usual wines this time, nothing fancy. He poured it into the glasses, and almost spilled his glass all over himself, but was saved by Lucy’s mother’s quick hands. He let the empty bottle roll down into the gutter.

They clinked glasses and sipped the wine. Normally Lucy liked this brand just fine, but it was a bit disappointing to her taste buds after the Grange. They drank in silence, listening to the birds sing out the day, admiring the sunset and taking comfort in each other’s presence.

Lucy watched the sun disappear below the horizon with a sinking heart. Her chest felt tight; she’d just seen her last sunset. They sat in the growing dusk. Bill was the first to stir, slapping at a mosquito on his arm.

“All right, girls. Does anyone know what time it is?” Lucy shook her head. Liz looked down at her watch.

“We’ve got about an hour.” Lucy’s chest felt even tighter at her mother’s words. Bill held them tightly.

“Okay then. Well. Let’s get off this roof for starters.” He slid down to the gutter and manoeuvred himself onto the ladder. Liz started to pass him the glasses. She stopped just short of his waiting hand. Lucy watched her mother carefully as she stared at the glass in her hand. Without warning, Liz flung the glass from her with a cry. It smashed on the brickwork below.

Lucy’s father looked up at them with raised eyebrows. Her mother seemed to deflate a bit. Liz just shrugged at Bill’s questioning look with a wry smile. Lucy looked at the now empty glass in her own hand. She felt a little tipsy from the wine, but she wasn’t drunk and she doubted either of her parents were either.

“Go on, Lucy. It feels good.” Liz gestured for her to throw her glass as well.

“If you say so,” Lucy said, then pulled her arm back and tossed the glass as hard as she could. A satisfying shatter came from behind the bushes. Lucy grinned for a moment at her mother. She looked at her father, but he just shook his head and went down the ladder.

“Gather anything you want to keep, and bring it to the shelter,” Bill told Lucy and Liz. Lucy glanced at Liz. Her mother seemed willing to go along with this scheme of her father’s. Bill told them to meet him at the shelter in ten minutes, and then he strode off into the gathering darkness, whistling for the dogs.

“Do you think… do you think Dad might be right?” Lucy bit her lip and looked at her mother. Liz frowned.

“I honestly don’t know, Lucy. I’d like him to be right, but… I’m also… I’ve been preparing myself.” Lucy nodded.

“I’m still trying to figure out how I feel, as opposed to how I think I ought to feel.” Lucy shook her head. She didn’t have much time left to figure it out. She looked up to see her mother looking sympathetically at her.

“I wish I could fix this for you, Lucy. You have no idea how powerless I’ve felt the past few months. This is not what I wanted for my children. Obviously. When you were born, I swore that I’d do everything in my power to protect you…”

“You could try giving Cecilia ‘The Look.’ That always frightened your students. And me… and probably Dad as well. And maybe even Grandma too.”

Liz smiled wanly. “I could try,” she echoed.

“I don’t like your chances of success though, I don’t know that asteroids have the emotional capacity to be intimidated.”

Liz snorted. “If only. The sheer force of will of the entire planet.”

They reached the hallway that led to the bedrooms and briefly parted ways. Lucy stood in the doorway and surveyed her childhood room. What would she want to keep? There wasn’t much. She grabbed a framed picture of her and Claire when they were kids, and another more recent one of herself and her nephews. She touched the picture of Claire and wondered where her sister was. She pulled down a photo of her and Jess at their university graduation. She hadn’t heard from her best friend since the mobile phone network went down. She missed her.

Lucy felt around in the back of her wardrobe and found an old bag. She plucked her favourite novels off their shelves and put them in the bottom of the bag. It was strange thinking about the possibility of tomorrow, albeit a vastly different tomorrow, after over a month of thinking that oblivion was her only possible future. She tried to think practically. She didn’t allow herself any more room for sentimentality, other than a handful of photographs and a gold bangle that her grandparents had given her when she’d graduated from high school. She looked over her clothes and picked out some of the sturdier looking pieces to join the books in the bag. Her journal and an unopened packet of pencils went in the top of the bag. She threw a last glance around the room, then walked out, shutting the door firmly behind her. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been. She could still hear her mother rustling around her bedroom.

Lucy walked out to the laundry to grab Matilda and her kittens, but the box was gone. Lucy took one last lap of the house she’d grown up in. Memories threatened to flood her. She allowed herself to wallow for a minute before ruthlessly closing her mind to the clamouring thoughts.

She stood outside and waited for her mother. The moon had risen. It was almost full and lit the landscape with its silver glow. Apart from a quick glance at the moon, Lucy kept her eyes firmly earth-bound. She didn’t want to risk seeing her death hurtling toward her. Her mother came out carrying two large bags. They didn’t speak, merely nodded at each other. Together they walked across the dark yard, through the orchard to the old bomb shelter. A warm glow emanated from the opening of the shelter. Bill was waiting for them.

Lucy blinked as her eyes adjusted. The last time she’d been in the shelter it had been mostly empty and full of dust and cobwebs. Now it was clean, brightly light and full of boxes and supplies. There was a comfortable old couch that used to live in their playroom, a little kitchenette up against one of the walls, a dining table, Claire’s old desk, and bookshelf full of survival books. The box with Matilda and her kittens sat high on a bench, out of reach of the dogs that milled about. It seemed bigger as well, even with all of the extra stuff in it.

“Oh, Bill.” Her mother and father had followed her in. Lucy dropped her bag and walked to the end of the shelter. There was a new door.

“What’s behind here?”

“Sleeping areas, a toilet, and another supply room.”

“Wow, Dad.” Lucy was shocked. This was much more than she’d been expecting.

“Like I said this morning, I think I’ve got enough down here to last us a few years, and I’ve got all sorts of seeds so we can replant if we get the chance to…” he faltered off. Lucy and her mother were both staring at him.

“What?”

Lucy shook her head.

“Oh, Bill. This is amazing.” Liz bit her lip and Lucy knew she was trying not to cry. Lucy watched as her mother turned around and buried her face in her father’s shirt. Lucy quickly strode over and hugged both of her parents.

“Dad, I… this is… wow… I wasn’t expecting this. I hope it wasn’t all for nothing. You’ve put a lot of effort in here.”

“Well, we’ll find out soon one way or the other,” Bill said. He led Liz over to the couch. Lucy trailed after them. She made herself comfortable in between her parents. The dogs made themselves comfortable at their feet. Liz gripped both Lucy and Bill’s hands tightly in hers.

They sat. And waited.

About the Author

R.M. Allinson is an Australian author. She grew up in a teeny tiny town called Noorat (which is no longer even officially a town as of the 2011 census) in rural Victoria and graduated from Monash University in 2008, with a very useful Bachelor of Arts. After back-packing around Europe and North America in her early twenties, she somewhat accidentally ended up living in Vancouver, Canada for the past 3 years.

Along with Canada and Australia, she’s also called Japan and Kiribati home (if you know where Kiribati is without looking at a map, you get a lollipop) at various points in her life. When not writing, you can usually find her either with her nose in a book, hiking or skiing in the North Shore mountains, at a gig, tending to her balcony jungle, or stalking the pets page on craigslist and day-dreaming about the day they move to a pet-friendly building.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2013 by R.M. Allinson

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations, ore persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Humblenations.com

Language: Australian English