Jamie Hallow and the End of the World by A.V. Wilkes

Author:A.V. Wilkes [Wilkes, A.V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cemetery Gates Media
Published: 2023-07-10T23:00:00+00:00

V

It’s a mad, aeons-old cult worshipping the Outer Gods. Keeping the eternal balance through blood sacrifice and black magic. But the Legion is still my home, and being shunned—actively shunned—hurts.

My period of house arrest comes to an end. Dad marches in one Wednesday morning and gives me a piece of paper with the new door combination. I notice the connecting door to his room stays firmly locked. The candles on our altar haven’t been re-lit, and he puts them in the waste sack without looking at me. He knows I won’t be praying.

“Dad—”

“Leave it, Jamie. Let’s just get through the next few months, hmm?”

There’s a defeated cast to his shoulders, and to my relief he doesn’t even glance at the blueprints unfurled on my desk: I hadn’t time to hide them. My gaze steals over to the wall panel above my bed, which Sam is holding closed from the other side, holding their breath.

The ventilation network blueprints show the entire bunker inside-out, so I suppose Richard Craddock was good for something. I just can’t wrap my head around Sam pretending to go out with him: his round sweaty face, somehow middle-aged at eighteen. It must have been torture. Sam is pretty attractive, with their hair twisted up into several messy buns and a small dab of Vaseline making their lips shine. Craddock would never, ever, have deserved them.

I haven’t seen Nick for weeks.

The taskforce hasn’t been sent on any more missions, but I don’t dare go near the Ready Room. I keep to my old haunts—library and climbing wall, staircase eleven—and I’m the only one in either, as usual. I get bolder on the climbing wall, learning to pull myself up, up, up without a safety line, relying on the grip of my tired fingers, knuckles becoming so huge I have to plunge them in icy water afterwards. My grazed knees and bruised elbows are a form of penance. One day I might have to carry a child—more than one—up that slippery ladder. My fingers can’t give way. I can’t risk falling.

The time when I’d sat in the Ready Room on the faux-leather couches, laughing along with Jenny and Nick, drinking beer, seems like a dream that happened to someone else. Even the little Mushrooms won’t talk to me now. They scatter in their cast-off clothes when I enter the library, and whisper behind my back. Unbeliever. They act like it’s contagious, make warding signs to my face. They’re just kids, I guess. Too young to know what the Legion really is. The library’s astronomy section appears to be off-limits these days, the shelves criss-crossed with sticky yellow tape, but I’ve more or less memorised all the good ones by now.

I don’t go to church.

In the mess-hall, I collect my tray from the neat stack by the serving area, slide it along the guide rails, not talking to anyone, not making any trouble. But I’m aware that people are nudging each other behind me, pointing. It’s a constant low-level hum of attention that makes the skin on the back of my neck crawl, and I wish I was wearing a hoodie.

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