Anna and the Apocalypse Page 5

  Her nose burned from the cold as she trod carefully through the snowy parking lot, steeling herself for another long, uneventful evening.

  A random man emerged from the shadows and walked right into her. He kept going as she recovered herself, unsteady on his feet, and it seemed not entirely sure where he was going.

  “Sorry!” Anna said automatically, even though it was clearly the man who wasn’t looking where he was going. He turned, his face hidden in shadows, and slowly began to zigzag toward her.

  “Someone started early,” she muttered under her breath before checking her watch. She was already late. No time to give him a lesson in manners.

  And so Anna didn’t see the blank look in the man’s eyes, the bite mark on his hand, or the blood running down his chin. If she had, she might have been better prepared for what happened next.

  * * *

  By the time Anna arrived, John had already mopped the café floor, polished all the bowling balls, and managed to consume two packets of crisps from the stockroom. He’d also clocked Anna in on time, just like he always did. He didn’t mind working at the bowling alley. It was a lot better than working in Little Haven’s one-screen cinema, like Chris. That boy always smelled like a fresh bucket of popcorn, and at the bowling alley, John was a lot less likely to end up getting his hand buttered and burned. That said, it had been a particularly trying evening at Thunderballs. They’d been swarmed with Christmas parties, all ten lanes occupied all night long, and the last few would not leave. He saluted Mrs. Hinzmann, the cleaner who ignored him as usual, and wandered over to the shoe counter to find his friend.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed, reeling from the overpowering stench of sweaty feet. “You smell like a shoe.”

  Anna spritzed her giant can of shoe-deodorizing spray in his general direction. She’d gone nose blind to it a long time ago; it was one of her superpowers now. Over on lane ten, a group of rowdy men from the garage down the road, draped in tinsel and plastic reindeer antlers, cheered for another strike. A combined Christmas party and bachelor night. The worst possible combination of parties in human history. They’d been there for hours, and showed no sign of tiring. Any other Tuesday, she’d have been home by now, tucked up in bed, planning her travels, but parties like this dragged on forever.

  “Christmas is fast becoming my least favorite C-word,” Anna said, spraying down another pair of shoes.

  “You wouldn’t be saying that if you were dressed like a festive legend!”

  John struck a dramatic pose, and the lights of his Christmas sweater began to dance in time to the terrible music that played over the speaker.

  “You’re right,” Anna agreed, pressing her forefingers to her temple and pretending to shoot herself in the head. She couldn’t believe he was still wearing that thing. “Although dressed like that, you know you look like a massive C-word, right?”

  “Grinch,” John replied. He rested his elbows on the counter. “Bit gutted to be missing the Christmas show tonight. Graham and Sunil have turned ‘Frosty the Snowman’ into a freestyle rap. I heard them rehearsing in biology. It’s pretty good. Very Jay-Z meets Kanye.”

  “Shouldn’t they have been doing biology in biology?”

  The men from the garage bowled their last frame, and Anna immediately grabbed their shoes and lined them up on the counter.

  “This close to the holidays, who cares?” John sniffed, trying not to stare at his friend. She was just so pretty. And funny. And clever. And now he was definitely staring. “Mr. Evans was reading comics all through class anyway.”

  “Sounds about right,” Anna said, clapping loudly to try to get the bachelor party’s attention. “Good game, guys, but we’re closing now. Come get your shoes.”

  They all stumbled over in one large group, all taller, bigger, and beefier than John. He hovered at the edge of the crowd as they threw their bowling shoes at Anna and grabbed their own footwear from the counter. The rank smell of feet blended with cheap alcohol and stale cigarettes to create a perfume that could only be found in bowling alleys worldwide. There should be a support group, he thought. Just a whiff of that, wherever he was in the world, and he’d immediately feel compelled to start mopping up vomit.

  “Animals,” he muttered. This was why he needed to get into art school: He wasn’t one of them. It was like Anna always said, they were different. She said John had an artist’s soul, and he liked that. He didn’t love it when she said he was a sentimental softy, but he knew she was only joking. Most of the time.

  Anna ushered the tinsel-sporting men out the front door. The tallest of the bunch held out his arms, as if to give her an unwanted hug, but at the last second, he staggered forward and tripped over his own feet. Anna panicked and leaped out the way, clapping a hand over her mouth as he landed in a heap on the floor.

  “I’m okay,” he said, grinning as his friend dragged him out into the cold night air. “That’s going to hurt in the morning.”

  “On Dasher, on Dancer,” Anna said, pushing the last stragglers out into the cold. “On … other ones?” She locked the door tightly and waved to the men, still staring blankly at one another in the snow.

  “Firebolt?” John suggested. “No, that’s Harry Potter’s broom, isn’t it?”

  “Oh no!” Anna exclaimed, turning quickly and pressing her back against the door.

  “What?” John asked, immediately panicking.

  Anna dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

  “We can’t hang out anymore,” she declared gravely. “I’m afraid you’re too sad.”

  “Look, it’s a very popular series of books,” he said, his face flushing red as he followed Anna back to the shoe counter. “And everyone has read them.”

  “Peak sad!” Anna laughed. “Sorry, John.”

  “Ahem.”

  Mrs. Hinzmann, always lurking around a corner with her broom, cleared her throat and gestured for the two of them to look at the floor. One of the pairs of bowling shoes that Anna had been cleaning were on the floor, right by her bucket.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Hinzmann,” Anna said, dashing across to pick them up. Sure, she looked like your average, quiet old lady, but you did not want to get on the wrong side of Mrs. Hinzmann. Anna couldn’t prove it, but she was almost certain that she was the one who had put a moldy tuna sandwich in her gym bag earlier in the summer, after Anna had accidentally knocked over a bucketful of dirty water on the lanes. The older woman pointed toward her eyes and then pointed at Anna, sending chills down her spine, before disappearing into the staff room. Anna picked up the broom from the cleaning cart, raised it above her head, and struck one of the bowling shoes.

  “Hole in one!” she yelled as the shoe sailed through the air, over the counter, and landed, with a thud, in the bottom of the bin.

  “All right, whatever,” John said, brushing imaginary dust off his shoulders. “Watch this.”

  He picked up the other shoe, placed a hand over his eyes, and prepared to toss it with all his might right as Mrs. Hinzmann reemerged from the staff room.

  “John, wait!” Anna yelled.

  John did not wait. He threw the shoe like he was throwing a dart at a bull’s-eye and it flew right into the back of Mrs. Hinzmann’s head, knocking her over.

  The pair of them froze, eyes glued to the motionless old woman, laid out unconscious on the floor. Anna looked up at John. John looked back at Anna. Mrs. Hinzmann still didn’t move.

  “Oh my God,” gasped John. “I’ve killed Mrs. Hinzmann.”

  8

  BACK AT SCHOOL, the Christmas show was not going well. Not as bad as accidentally killing a cleaning lady, but still, not great. Savage and Anna’s dad sat in the lighting and control booth in the back of the auditorium facing the stage as two students dressed as rapping penguins walked out to light applause. Showtime. Tony cued the music while Savage studied his approved lyrics sheet. Every participant had been required to submit all details of their performance, in writing, to be screened in advance. The last thing Li
ttle Haven needed was a repeat of The Great Accidental F-Bomb of 2012.

  My favorite dish is fish, mother flipper,

  And I eat it for the hell of it,

  A nice bit of halibut.

  That’s not the only fish they’ve got,

  Mackerel (mackerel).

  I can take more than a snack full,

  Salmon with some jam on.

  I could drink it by the tap full

  Haddock’s always radical,

  I eat the fins, I eat the gills.

  Pollock, cod, flounder, guppy,

  All fish is delicious to me.

  Unfortunately, reading along with the lyrics did not make them better.

  “They’re a laugh,” Tony said, reaching out to turn up the music.

  “They’re abominable,” Savage corrected, slapping his hand away from the knob. “Four weeks of lunchtime rehearsals and for what?”

  “At least they’re trying,” Tony commented.

  “Very,” Savage agreed, closing his eyes and pressing his fingertips into his temples as the chorus hit.

  There’s plenty of fish in the sea, baby,

  But there’s not enough fish for me (yo, fish is delish).

  We say there’s plenty of fish in the sea, baby,

  But there’s not enough fish for me.

  After what felt like forever, the penguins wrapped up, and the audience clapped weakly. So far they’d had the world’s worst rapping penguins, three boys in leotards dancing to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” and a girl who vomited on stage halfway through her reimagining of A Christmas Carol, set in a dystopian future, run by robots.

  “This is the worst show yet,” Savage announced. If the eyebrows on the senior girls hadn’t already sealed it, he was now utterly convinced that this generation would be responsible for the end of all things.

  “Ahh, you know they mean well, Arthur,” Tony said, clapping him on the back. Savage almost choked on his own tongue. “Phil was telling me about these lads last night.”

  “Phil?” Savage repeated. “You mean Mr. Evans?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Tony said. The penguins shuffled off the stage, bumping into each other as they went. “We were talking about the show over Christmas cocktails last night.”

  Savage squeezed his jaw so tightly, it was a wonder his teeth didn’t shatter. He hadn’t been invited to any Christmas drinks. Not that he would have gone, but still. Was there any wonder the children had no respect for him when the teachers couldn’t even attempt to show any?

  “Anyway, I was telling Phil, it’s nice of you to help the children out like this, Arthur.” Tony rested a hand on his forearm, just for a second. The look on Savage’s face made it quite clear the gesture wasn’t welcome. “A lot of these kids are going through difficult stuff,” Tony went on, crossing his arms across his chest and nestling his hands underneath his armpits. “This show gives them something to focus on. I know you don’t want people to know it, but underneath it all you’re a good man, Mr. Savage.”

  “I can assure you I am not,” Savage said in his soft, ominous voice. “A good man does not make a great educator. We can’t trust these idiots to do anything by themselves, Tony. If I let them run this show without close supervision, it would be chaos. Obscene chaos. They’re no better than animals.”

  “They’re children,” Tony argued. “You could go a bit easier on them.”

  Savage turned to give him the full weight of his sneer. No wonder his daughter behaved the way she did. No wonder she thought she could run off around the world and have her life waiting for her on a plate when she got back. They might not realize it, but they needed someone like him, he realized as the next act took the stage, now more than ever. Shepherd was wrong. He needed to be harder on them, not easier. They needed firm discipline, a strong leader, someone who knew right from wrong.

  “Hit it!”

  Tony hit a button, triggering a fake snowfall, and a spotlight lit up the stage, illuminating Lisa in her sparkly blue sequins. The orchestra struck up a sexy jazz beat, and Lisa turned around to reveal a very different dress from the one Savage had approved. She elegantly wiped a rogue snowflake off her eyelashes, leaned forward toward the microphone, and smiled.

  “There’s a lack of presents in my stocking, and my chimney needs a good unblocking,” she crooned as four shirtless male dancers appeared on each side of her, wearing nothing but tight red-and-white flocked shorts, knee-high socks, and green elf hats.

  “These are not the approved lyrics,” Savage breathed. “This is not what we rehearsed.”

  “If you’re feeling frozen stiff, my fire’s burning hot for you,” Lisa sang, tiptoeing around her dancers while the audience stared, equal parts horrified and delighted. It was enough to make Miley Cyrus blush. “Before you take a nap, let me sit upon your lap, there’s only one gift that I wanna unwrap. Baby, it’s that time of year!”

  “Mr. Gill seems to be enjoying it,” Tony said, coughing uncomfortably.

  Mr. Gill clapped along happily in the front row while Chris’s gran gave her two thumbs up, both of them blissfully ignorant to the meaning of Lisa’s lyrics. Along the same row, a horrified mother slid her hand subtly over her toddler’s eyes while one of the recently single-again divorced dads whistled a catcall, loudly.

  “Gill is an imbecile,” Savage declared. “I’m going to kill her. Turn off the lights.”

  “You can’t do that,” Tony argued, even though he was unsure where to look himself. He’d watched little Lisa run around his back garden when she was a toddler. How was it possible that she was now giving a teenager dressed as a Santa stripper a lap dance in front of the entire town?

  “I’m going to get some fresh air,” Savage replied, pushing his chair away angrily and abandoning the booth. “This show is a disaster.”

  “Come on, Santa!” Lisa sang, thrusting one arm up in the air as she realized Chris’s seat was still empty. She tried hard to not show her disappointment. He hadn’t made it back in time for her song after all. “Give it to me!”

  The whole hall burst into thunderous applause as she finished the song, but she could only see Chris’s empty seat. Forcing a smile, she took a bow with her dancers. Where could he have been that was more important than her show? Heartbroken, she slipped off the stage, still smiling for her adoring fans, and went in search of her phone.

  * * *

  Outside the hall, Savage closed his eyes and attempted to compose himself. The show was a shambles, and now it was obscene to boot.

  “Calm down, Arthur,” he said out loud. “In two weeks, you can expel her and then we’ll see who’s laughing.”

  At the other end of the corridor, the alarmed fire doors rattled from the outside.

  “Who’s there?” he called.

  He’d given Tony very clear instructions, all doors were to remain alarmed and locked from the inside during the show. He wasn’t having the reprobates of this town entering his school, unchecked.

  No one replied.

  “She’ll be the first to be expelled and he’ll be the first to be fired,” he announced to himself, licking his lips at the very thought as he made his way down the hall to confirm Tony Shepherd’s latest failure.

  Another bang at the double doors made him jump.

  “Why don’t they listen to me?” he growled, hitting himself in the head with the heel of his hand. “Why don’t they listen to me?”

  The doors rattled again.

  “Enough!” Savage screamed, panting for breath as the rattling stopped.

  Careful not to push the release bar that would set off the alarm, he gave it a slight tug. Well, there were a million other reasons he could find to sack the man. Before he turned away, Savage thought he saw something move through the narrow slit between the doors. Cold air rushed in through the crack, perhaps an eighth of an inch wide, and he pushed his face right up against the door, desperate to see who was outside.

  “Who is out there?” he murmured as what looke
d like dozens of shadowy figures approached. He fumbled in his pocket for the school keys. If they didn’t want to tell him their names, he’d go out there himself and give them what for.

  “It’s about time the people of this town start listening to me,” he declared, holding the tiny silvery key aloft. “Starting with you, whoever you might be.”

  And then Savage disarmed the doors to the army outside the school walls.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you did it,” Anna said, biting her lip as she stared accusingly at John. “You little old lady beater.”

  “Shut up!” he replied, trying to sound threatening. It didn’t work. “I mean it, Anna.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!” she laughed, unable to keep a straight face for a second longer. She continued to mimic, “Don’t move, Mrs. Hinzmann. I’ll get you some ice, Mrs. Hinzmann.”

  “I thought she was dead!” John wailed as Anna ran off into the public playground. They were halfway home, and John was still recovering from the heart attack he’d given himself when he clocked the cleaner in the head with a bowling shoe. It turned out she wasn’t dead, but she was very, very unhappy with John.

  “I’m so going to lose my job,” he sulked, spinning the merry-go-round with one hand. Anna looked up at the falling snow. It was a beautiful night, and for the first time that year, she was starting to feel a little Christmassy.

  “I know what’ll cheer you up,” she said, sitting down in a big patch of untouched snow.

  “What, assaulting a cleaner?” John suggested moodily. “Because it wasn’t what I hoped it would be, to be honest.”

  Anna was still laughing as she lay backward, stretching out her arms and legs to make a snow angel.

  “And you say I’m the soft one,” John said, clambering down into the snow beside her. He flapped his arms and legs wildly. “Oh no, mine’s all crap now.”

  “Yours is brilliant,” Anna assured him, even though his angel was crap and he most definitely was the soft one. “Me and Dad used to have competitions every winter when we came up to visit my nan and granddad. Mum would judge to see who could make the best ones but she always let me win.”