Apocalypse: Cancelled - Part 1a
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Apocalypse: Cancelled
T Minus 54 Hours And Counting
It's one of those things people will always remember, where they were and what they were doing when they first heard it. The way the grandparent generation remember what they were doing when they first heard that Kennedy was shot. Except this time, come Thursday, there won't be anyone left to remember.
Jared's in an impersonal hotel room, in an unfamiliar town, hundreds of miles away from his loved ones. Just in from a meeting running late he hasn't even relaxed enough to loosen his tie and he only turns the TV on for company and not because he wants the latest news on the big ball of fire that has been clearly visible in the sky for the last couple of weeks.
Cheron's Comet they call it, named after the unfortunate fucker who first spotted it over a year ago, before they figured out that it's on collision course with Earth. Jared remembers seeing the guy on some show on Discovery Science, a scrawny looking dude with wild hair and out of control facial hair, being all excited over his unique discovery. Jared wonders how he feels about it now, when impending doom comes with his name attached to it.
Over the last two months there's been little else on the news but theories on the comet and reports on the shaky state of the stock market. Scientists all over the world working together to find a solution to a problem they can no longer afford to be rivals about, while economical analysts do their best to predict what stock might be safe to own in a possible apocalyptic scenario. Guns, blankets, a few high tech corporations, and canned food seem to be the favorites, while most other stock plummets to the ground.
Jared thinks the whole thing is stupid, if the world is about to end money is the last thing he's worried about. Not that he is worried, much. It's impossible to imagine the world just ending, even though words like mega-tsunamis and nuclear winter keep being thrown around, as if reality is a horrifying life scale remake of that movie with Elijah Wood.
His mom begged him not to go to LA until they knew for sure, but he promised her everything was going to be alright, that he couldn't afford to pass up on the opportunity of a lifetime just because the world might be ending. He doesn't think, as he sits down to watch the special news broadcast airing on all channels, that she feels the slightest bit smug over being right.
The President looks collected, calm, as he addresses the nation from what Jared assumes is a safe location far away from his usual digs in Washington, but his voice wavers as he speaks and there are lines etched on his face that Jared never saw before. He sounds almost clinical as he gives his speech, as if he's speaking about another world, another nation, but his white-knuckled grip on the podium says it isn't so.
Jared's hearing seems to be going in and out in waves, hearing the speech only in bits and pieces. He fumbles in his pocket for his phone, calling his mother over and over but getting nothing but the busy tone that says the net is temporarily unavailable. He clenches his hands, staring blindly at the screen. The speech comes to an end with a plea for people not to panic, but judging from the sounds coming from outside, it's way too late for that.
The screen turns black for a moment and then the message is broadcasted again. It will be sent in a loop until the meteor shower preceding the final impact takes out the satellites. The phone net will go down within hours, electricity will most likely follow next. The entire world is put under martial law, not that it will matter, because there'll be no one around to enforce it.
People are advised to stay in their homes and remain calm. Military personnel are under orders to report to their nearest base immediately. Jared sits frozen on the couch, watching the speech being replayed over and over with blind eyes. It's eight p.m. on Monday evening and the world will end in exactly two days and six hours.
*
Jared is one of the lucky ones, he gets through to his mother fifteen minutes before the phone goes dead. She tells him she loves him, that they all do, that she misses him and always will. He starts crying when he hears her voice and doesn't stop even when the line goes dead. There's so much he wants to say to her, so many things he needs her to know, but the line dies with the words still backed up on his tongue.
Back home they're gathering in the City Hall, everyone he knows, his family, his friends, the people he grew up with, to spend their last few days together. He's stuck in an unfamiliar town, in a nondescript hotel room, feeling like the ground was just swiped from under his feet. All he wants is to lie down on the bed, pull the covers over his head and cry until he passes out, but he won't let himself do that.
He doesn't want to die in this room, doesn't want to sit alone waiting for the inevitable end. So he forces himself to have a shower and change out of his suit, putting on a pair of comfortable jeans, three layers of shirts and his hiking boots. He packed a duffel bag into his suitcase, hoping for a chance to take a hike through the countryside and now he packs it full with a change of clothes, spare underwear and the complimentary bottles of water from the mini bar.
He stares at the bottles lining the tiny fridge for a moment and then he swipes all of them into the bag as well, who's going to charge him now? One bottle of scotch slips out of his numb hand and rolls away on the carpet. He grabs it and twists the lid off, swallowing it down with a grimace from the burn. It doesn't make him feel better, but it doesn't make him any worse either, so he fishes another bottle out of the bag and drinks it on his way to the door.
He lets the bottle drop down on the floor and walks out of his room without a backwards glance. He doesn't think he's ever coming back. The corridor outside is deserted and he makes it all the way downstairs without running into another person. It's easy to imagine the world already ended and he's the only one left.
That notion is quickly pushed out of his head as he walks out on the street though. There are people everywhere, broken glass littering the sidewalk and car horns honking from every direction. Several of the nearby stores have broken window displays and everywhere he looks there are people grabbing whatever they can reach.
He passes by a man with his hands full of expensive jewelry and a manic look on his face. Jared wonders what the man thinks he'll be able to do with it, and he doesn't care. He just turns his head away and keeps on walking. He doesn't know where he's going just yet, but he's got two days and about five hours to get there.
The comet is clearly visible in the sky, way bigger than the stars. It burns with a solemn promise of destruction. Jared only looks up at it once, before casting his eyes back down on the sidewalk, his heart banging against his ribcage with trepidation. Somewhere in the distance a shot is heard and he lengthens his step, wanting to get as far away from the city as possible.
He feels oddly exposed in his jeans and scruffy hoodie, vulnerable in a way he can't remember being before. He's a big guy, tall and muscular, and if he has to he can hold his own in a fight, but this is something else. There are no laws anymore, no order, from this point on to the end, chaos will rule. He feels the need to hide, to find somewhere peaceful and quiet and stay there until it all ends, but at the same time he doesn't want to be alone. The knowledge that there are other people around him, other souls as lost and lonely as him is oddly comforting.
He thinks about finding a church. He's not a religious man, has hardly been into a church since he was old enough to decide for himself, but if there's a time that calls for prayers it's this one. There ought to be people in a church, scared and desperate like him. There ought to be peace and quiet, solitude without being alone.
But then he's approached by some religious nut, who grabs his shirt and screams into his ear about God, the Devil and judgment day. He shrugs off the greedy hands, pushes the man away, and decides that church might not be the place for him. The place probably won't be filled to the brim with crazies, but he's not taking that chance. He doesn't need to be more disheartened.
For the most part people leave him alone, there's the religious crazy and then there's a girl. She comes out of a store, with a dazed look in her big eyes and walks straight into his arms. She clings to his shirt for a moment, and he embraces her, grateful for the contact, but then she pulls away and turns on her heel before he's had a chance to ask for her name.
He looks after her for the longest of whiles, watching her weave through the crowd lining the sidewalk, head held high and back rigid. He wants to follow her, wants to get lost in her arms, but he doesn't want to scare her. He stays rooted to the spot until someone walks into him from behind, setting him into motion again.
After that he's left to continue his walk uninterrupted, glass crunching under the soles of his boots and the constant noise drowning his thoughts. He lets himself get lost in the mechanics of walking, putting one foot in front of the other and sidestepping obstacles in his way. He's so focused on walking that he almost misses a fight going on right in front of him, but he looks up just in time to spot it.
It's not so much a fight, at least not anymore, as it is three guys kicking a fourth who is curled up on the ground. Jeers and taunts he can't quite hear falling from their lips as they pummel the still form on the sidewalk with kicks. He looks around but people are averting their eyes, walking past the scene without looking.
"Hey," he shouts, not caring that there are three of them and only one of him. If there's one thing his mother taught him it's to never kick those already lying. "What the fuck are you doing?"
They stop kicking the still figure on the ground and turn their heads to look at him. What scares Jared the most is not that they are three against one, but the fact that they are normal everyday guys. One of them is dressed in a suit, his tie hanging loose and his shirt partly unbuttoned, and one of the others is wearing a goddamned shirt vest. They are guys he might have run into at work, or the grocery store, guys that probably have a wife and kids somewhere.
They stand like that, feet half raised and eyes locked for a moment before they suddenly turn tail and run, scattering in three different directions. Jared blinks, fighting the urge to look behind him. He doesn't think there's some big scary monster standing at his shoulder that scared them. They probably just pulled out of whatever daze they were in and realized there's a certain way to behave and kicking people already on the ground is not one of them.
The victim lies very still on the ground, but Jared's sure he can see his chest still raising and falling. He moves closer and crouches down.
"Hey," he says softly. "Are you alright?"
He's not prepared for the fist that comes out of the tight ball and hits him square in the face, knocking him over with the force of it.
"Hey," he says again, indignant now, and presses his fingers over his nose. "I just fucking saved you."
"Oh…" The guy sounds a bit dazed. "I'm sorry, I must have missed that when I was busy getting the shit kicked out of me."
The bleeding guy slowly rolls over on his back and looks up at Jared, who's now sitting on his ass a couple of feet away, which is probably a good thing or the shock would have knocked him over. It's Jensen Ackles, Hollywood's leading man at the moment with two Oscars under his belt and two sure to be blockbuster movies coming out over Christmas, or he would have, if there'd been another Christmas to look forward to.
Jared blinks. "You're Jensen Ackles," he says, pulling his hand away from his nose.
Jensen manages to push himself into sitting position. "I know." He grimaces. "How's your nose?"
"Good… I think." Jared returns his hand to his nose, pressing his fingers along the line of it, but even though it hurts it doesn't seem to be broken.
Jensen shakes his head, wiping blood from his face with the edge of his sleeve. "You'd think that with a couple of days left to live people would have better things to do than looting and beating their fellow humans."
"Yeah," Jared says, because the thought has indeed crossed his mind. "I'm Jared by the way."
"Hey Jared by the way," Jensen says with a small smile. "What are you doing out on a day like this?"
Jared shrugs. "I dunno."
"On your way to see your family?"
Jared shakes his head. "Wish I could but I'm not from around here."
"I would never would have guessed with a Texas twang like yours," Jensen answers, pushing himself to his feet.
Jared gets up as well, foreseeing but dreading the inevitable goodbye. Jensen's the first friendly face he's seen, and it's a nice face too, despite the blood. Jared's seen enough of his movies to have that fake sense of knowing Jensen and he really doesn't want to be alone any longer.
"You want a drink?" he asks, because who doesn't in times like this.
"Depends," Jensen says, tilting his head to the side. "Did you knock over a liquor store?"
Jared shakes his head. "Raided the mini bar in my hotel room."
Jensen laughs. "Sounds like you're my kind of guy. Got any whiskey?"
Jared pulls his duffel bag off his bag and riffles through it until he finds a tiny whiskey bottle. He hands it over to Jensen and grabs a gin bottle for himself. Gin tastes like ass when it doesn't come with tonic, but it's not like he can go into a store and buy a bottle now. Jensen twists the top off the bottle and downs it in one gulp.
Afterwards he licks his lips and nods as if he's made up his mind about something. "You wanna come with me, Jared by the way?"
"Where to?" Jared asks, instead of blurting out the hell yeah on his tongue.
"Home," Jensen answers.
Jared nods, smiling a little and when Jensen meets his eyes, he's pretty sure the need there is mirrored in his own.
*
It takes them two hours and the entire contents of the mini bar to get to Jensen's house. It's outside the city proper, in one of the flashy neighborhoods that cater to Tinseltown's most wanted, nothing but fences and stone walls lining the street together with a few trees to give it a more inviting look. The gates to Jensen's house are enormous, but there's a door set into one of them and that's what Jensen unlocks and pushes open.
"Welcome," he says, with an odd smile before disappearing into the dark behind the door.
Jared hurries after him, needing the superficial safety behind the sturdy stone walls. Jensen closes the door behind him and makes sure it's locked, while Jared looks around. They're standing on a driveway shaded by trees that cast long shadows in the weird light from above. He can just make out the house through the trees, a huge sprawling building with at least two floors. There are lights on in the windows and Jared glances at Jensen.
"I thought the power went out," he says. They haven't seen a single street or window light in the last hour.
Jensen shrugs as they start walking towards the house. "Emergency generator," he says. "It kicks in within twenty seconds after a power loss."
"Oh… For how long will it run?"
"I don't know," Jensen says. "It's never been needed for more than a few hours at a time before, but it should be good for a few days."
"That's… good."
The weight of what they're not saying hangs between them in the air. They won't need the emergency generator to last for more than two days because after that there won't be a house to power.
"I don't get it," Jensen says, stopping suddenly. "I'm scared witless, but I really don't get it."
Jared nods, because he understands the feeling. The ball of fire above them fills him with terror, but it's still impossible to comprehend that they only have a little over two days left to live. That Earth only has a little over two days left to live. How can you imagine the total destruction of your world when it's the only thing you know?
Jensen grabs his arm and squeezes it for a moment before letting go. "I'm sorry," he says, as he starts walking again. "I'm just… fucked up."
Jared falls into step with him without disputing his words. At this point it feels like the entire world is fucked up. He's got two days left to live, his family is miles and miles away and here he is about to enter the home of a Hollywood star.
"Oh," he says as he remembers something. "My sister says hi."
Jensen gives him a curious look as he unlocks the door.
"She's a fan. She said I should say hi if I ran into you."
Jensen laughs. "Well, say hi back…" He trails off."I'm sorry."
Jared shrugs, pain making his chest constrict. He won't ever see Megan again, won't hear her laugh, or hear her stupid stories from college. He blinks away the tears that well up unbidden and wipes his nose on his sleeve.
"She's… She's dating this dude, Charlie, and he's… he's a nice guy… but I never…" Jared clamps his mouth shut and tries to get a grip on himself.
Jensen turns away from the door and pulls him into a hug. Jared goes willingly pressing his face into Jensen's neck and gripping his shirt tight with his fists. He can feel Jensen tremble minutely against him, body taut as a bowstring and Jensen's breath against his temple is shaky and too fast.
"What do you say we get royally drunk?" Jensen asks, voice tight.
"Best idea I ever heard," Jared croaks for an answer.
*
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