EXTRA

EXTRA by Chris Green

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

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

Of course, there were dozens of us here at first. Only those of us who are physically unable to get away remain, four of us in all. The rest have surreptitiously left. The ones who appeared to be in charge of the place also went today. We watched them go off in a minibus. Rats and sinking ship come to mind. None of us knows why we are here. Is the emergency worldwide or is it something more localised? There's no way of finding out. To add to our distress, there appears to be a power cut. Maybe there is simply no electricity being produced in these final days.

...........................................................

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

Burl Rector, if that is really his name, believes categorically that it is the hand of God.

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

I do not have the energy to point out that I for one am none of the above, well perhaps the fearful and unbelieving, but none of the rest. And although it is far from verified, what news we have is that everyone is going to perish, whether they are sinners or not, in just eleven days time. If I were to challenge Burl, he would probably have some other Biblical text at the ready. Burl's God is a wrathful God. A vengeful and unforgiving God. Burl's God put him in his wheelchair simply because he missed church two Sundays in a row.

Huey Minton is also not someone you would choose to be stuck in a lift with. Huey is not even half empty in his outlook. He is empty with a capital e. He is acutely paranoid. He doesn't even think we should eat the food that we have access to. It is bound to be poisoned, he says, even the tins will be poisoned. What would he rather us do, starve? Huey is a seasoned conspiracy theorist. He can hold forth about 9/11 or chemtrails and mind control for hours. He started off by claiming that the present emergency was an alien attack but he has since switched his diagnosis to it being a rampant airborne disease started by the New World Order as a means of population control. It doesn't matter he says whether we are out there or in here, it will still get us.

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

...........................................................

Despite our limited mobility, Mary Jane and I somehow manage to get down to the second floor. The other two are not with us. We try shouting up the stairs but there is no reply. They have vanished. Perhaps they are caught in a wormhole between floors or an unscheduled timewarp but something has happened to them. In uncharted territory such as we are, perhaps we should expect strange things such as this to happen. At least Mary Jane and I are spared the wrath of God diatribes and the wild conspiracy theories for the time being. At least Mary Jane and I are spared for the time being.

It is eerie down here with the peculiar echo of silence you find in a large space when no-one is about. Although we are two floors up, it feels oddly subterranean. Three days on and there is still no sign of the power coming back on. It is dark down here and smells of decay. It looks as if it has been abandoned for a long time. Certainly, more than a few days. The paint is flaking off the mildewed walls and the windows are clouded with soot. Spiders' webs hang from the furniture. Amongst scattered papers on a gnarled wooden desk, we discover a transistor radio. It's one of those military looking ones with lots of wavebands. Despite its business like appearance, the only transmission we can pick up is in Spanish. This strikes us as ominous. Does this mean that everyone else has gone off the air? With the smattering of Spanish Mary Jane and I have between us, we try to make out what they are saying. They appear to be talking about a football match. A big upcoming football match. Mañana, mañana, El partido más grande de la historia.

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

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

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

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

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

'German?'

'Sausages and Pilsner,' Mary Jane says. 'What about a British radio broadcast? I wonder what we would be talking about.'

'Still talking about Brexit, probably,' I say.

'It's good that even in these last days, we still have a sense of humour,' Mary Jane says.

The lightness of mood is short lived. Without warning, the Spanish station goes off the air. In mid-sentence, the excited voice dies. We are left with the hiss of static, this made up in part I recall by cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang. There is nothing out there. It is a chilling moment.

...........................................................

I can't be sure of anything anymore, there are no certainties. Everything is in flux. But, according to my calculations, there are just five days left. I can't recall how we came to be here, but Mary Jane and I now find ourselves on the first floor of the complex. First floor is probably not a fair or accurate description, in fact, no description at all. Before us, as far as the eye can see, there is open grassland. And it seems to go on for ever. It even smells like a prairie, with the scents of grasses, resinous shrubs, warm earth and sage. Yet, at the same time, we are somehow still within the confines of the monolithic structure. There are staircases both up and down. How have the wild open spaces come inside? We have entered the realms of science fantasy. The space is somehow dimensionally transcendent.

Like everywhere else around here, the prairie is deserted, if deserted is not a contradiction in terms. We haven't seen anyone else for a long, long time now. The unspecified catastrophe seems to be playing out. This is surely the end. I can't help but indulge in some reverie. There's a sudden longing for the past. For better times. Those idyllic days when life was simpler. The odd thing is, I'm really not sure that I've done some of the things that are coming into consciousness. I seem to be flooded with ……. false memories. How could I possibly have been a Roman centurion? Or been in the trenches in the First World War? I wouldn't have been born. Surely I didn't really grow gourds in Somerset or have a dog called Kafka. And I can't for the life of me place who some of these people are that are coming to mind, Philip C. Dark, Leif Velasquez. Certainly, they seem half-familiar. But, who are they? They seem one step removed from my experience. Like phantoms. There again, I do remember Vicki and the twins and Elm Close and Lee's Bar. I believe these are real memories. And my job at the insurance office. Or was it music shop? I'm sure I had some kind of career. My memory is a laboratory of confusion. Mary Jane, on the other hand, says she doesn't remember anything at all from her past.

...........................................................

Somehow, I negotiate another descent. I try to get my bearings once more but I seem to have lost Mary Jane. I call out her name but she does not answer. The darkness makes it difficult see what is down here but it is no longer open prairie. This is an indoor setting – an indoor setting with a vengeance. All the windows have been boarded up. It is dark. Enclosed. Forbidding. Where is Mary Jane? I don't want to be the last person alive.

I'm not.

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

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

'You're supposed to be in quarantine,' he says, matter of factly.

'Quarantine?' I say.

'Yes, quarantine. You are contaminated.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Don't you remember what happened?'

'Remember what?'

'The explosion on set.'

'What set? Who are you?'

'I'm Site Security.'

'What's this about an explosion?'

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

'Nineteen Days? Two weeks?'

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

'What about Mary Jane? What have you done with Mary Jane?'

'No idea what you are talking about, pal.'

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

'You say we were in a film?'

As I am saying this, I begin to understand the likely origin of the false memories I've been getting. The Roman centurion, the First World War soldier. They must be from bit parts I've played in films.

'Look!' Darth Vader says. 'Are you a bit slow or are you pulling my pisser? All of you were in Leif Velasquez's Nineteen Days. The film he was making of the classic Philip C. Dark story. The production was shut down following the accident.'

'Accident?'

'The apocalyptic explosion filming the final scene,' he says. 'It was like Armageddon.'

Suddenly, I find I am getting flashbacks about an explosion like the one he is describing. But I'm not even sure about these. In my state, they could easily be brought on through auto-suggestion.

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

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

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

I do not get a reply. Instead, he raises his weapon once more. He uses it to point the way. Perhaps I am about to find out where the others have been taken. Or, is this all part of Leif Velasquez's film? Are they still filming? You can perhaps never be sure if you are an extra.

© Copyright, Chris Green: 2017