Planet X (2 page)

“Hey, watch
it!” Stephen called out after the man.

“Sue me.” The
man said uninterested.

“You made it.”
He heard Sam’s voice behind him.

He greeted his
friend with an embrace and a smile as if they haven’t seen each
other in years.

“What’s going
on here?” Stephen asked as he glanced at the crowd pushing through
the front door of the store.

“Word got out
that Lee’s running out of water.”

“What?”
Stephen was worried.

“Don’t worry.
I got here early enough to get bottles for the both of us.”

Stephen let
out a sigh of relief and watched through the window as people on
the inside fought over the last bottles of water. The obese man
from earlier on shoved a woman aside and she fell to the ground as
everyone started pushing and grabbing at the last three bottles of
water.

“Things are
bound to get ugly.” Sam said, “Mind joining me for a beer?”

“Beer?”
Stephen was confused.

“I know a
place.” Sam winked at him with a smile.

CHAPTER
TWO

Sam kicked in
a boarded-up door and they climbed through the wreckage of the long
forgotten Club Zero21. The air was stuffy and dark, but Sam knew
his way around from his wild nights back when life was still
normal. He put the boarded-up door back in the frame and led
Stephen over to the bar; stepping behind the bar while Stephen sat
down on one of the high-chairs.

“What will it
be?” He heard Sam from beneath the bar.

Sam fidgeted
with something and then the white fairy lights dangling from the
top of the bar lit up. He straightened himself out and smiled at
Stephen who seemed impressed to be in a seemingly functioning
bar.

“This place
has a generator.”

“And it’s
clearly a well-kept secret.” Stephen added.

If the hordes
of people in the city still fighting to stay alive should learn
about the generator they’d tear the place down to find it. In the
dark world they called home, generators were in high demand and in
low availability.

“I used to
come here often before…”

“Before the
world ended?” Stephen joked.

“The world is
far from ending. We just need to adapt to our current
circumstances.”

Sam took out
two whiskey glasses and poured them each a glass of 20 year old
imported whiskey. He handed Stephen one glass and gestured a toast
with his own glass before taking a sip.

“Never
pictured you to be a whiskey drinker.” Stephen said.

“You gotta
make do with what you have.” Sam’s face contorted. He wasn’t used
to the strong taste.

Stephen took a
more sophisticated sip and toyed with the glass; looking deep in
thought. Sam pulled the barman’s chair closer, sat down and leaned
in closer – pretending to be a barman.

“What’s on
your mind?”

Stephen
chuckled and shook his head at Sam’s silliness.

“Barmen are
qualified therapists, you know.”

Stephen
chuckled again and took another sip of whiskey which went down a
little warmer than the first sip. He glanced at Sam who seemed very
serious in his pose as a barman. He had so many things that
bothered him or haunted him, but nothing really mattered anymore
with the end of days knocking at their door.

“I heard
Melissa died of heat stroke yesterday.”

Sam shifted a
bit uneasy and uncloaked his barman persona; taking a sip of
whiskey.

“That’s… I’m
sorry to hear that.” Sam said, “She was a nice girl.”

“She wasn’t
meant to die.” Stephen said drifting away in his thoughts, “She
never did anything to anyone and didn’t deserve to die such a
horrible death.”

“Neither did
any of the other thousands of people who died over the last couple
of months.”

Sam took a sip
in thought; he used to love Club Zero21 and mostly returned for the
fond memories he had, but the fond memories were also what haunted
him. He usually went there on his own and drowned his sorrows, but
it felt good having Stephen with him for company.

“Are you
alright?”

“I’m good.”
Sam said, “Now let’s finish this bottle of shit. We deserve a boys’
night!”

Sam raised his
glass confidently and clinked it against Stephen’s.

They kept
drinking until the bottle was empty and the room started spinning.
The dark, cool bar was the perfect hideaway from the heat and they
kept drinking until six that evening when the sun normally
sets.

As they
staggered out into the street, clinging to each other to stay
upright, they immediately broke sweat in the heat. Sam stared up at
Planet X in the distance as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
His drunkenness made him a very loud, but unwise prophet – much to
Stephen’s amusement.

“I hate that
bitch up there.” Sam mumbled, “She’s the reason for all of this. I
had a good life before she came and ruined it. I had it all and
now…”

Sam stumbled
and Stephen helped him regain his footing.

“Careful,
buddy.”

“And now look
at me.” Sam yelled at Planet X, “I’m drunk and left behind by
society because of you.”

“Let’s get you
home. You clearly don’t handle your alcohol very well.”

“I’m fine.”
Sam insisted as he stumbled forward.

“Come on.”

Stephen
wrapped his arm around Sam’s waist and the two of them walked down
the twilit street towards Sam’s apartment building that was further
on down the street. The building he called home was completely
deserted and he turned the basement into a cosy little home. One of
the secrets of surviving the intense heat was to stick to basements
or any other low laying areas.

Sam collapsed
onto the bed; falling with his face into the pillows and grunted as
his body came to rest.

“I’m never
drinking again.” Sam moaned as Stephen shut the door and locked
it.

Stephen walked
over to the bed; taking great care not to fall over and then sat
down on the edge of the bed. He helped Sam get out of his shoes and
then lay down next to him on the bed.

“I needed
that.” Sam said from inside the pillow.

“Me too.”

Stephen stared
up at the ceiling mould that spun above him and then turned onto
his side; staring at the framed photo of Sam and Alex on the
nightstand. The photo was taken about a year earlier and they
seemed happy. Sam never really talked about what happened to Alex,
but it was always evident that he never got over the loss.

CHAPTER
THREE

Fourteen
months earlier

Sam stood in
the shower with his head bowed as the water streamed down his body
like waterfalls. He had his eyes shut and tried to make sense of
everything that happened in the last couple of weeks, but couldn’t
wrap his mind around the undeniable truth that felt more like a bad
dream he couldn’t wake up from – a recurring dream he had ever
since news broke about the impending disaster that nobody could run
from.

It has been
only the two of them for years. Sam’s parents were both dead and
he’d never met Alex’s family. He had a fallout with his parents
years ago and they’ve never spoken since – not even to tell them
that he was planning on proposing to Sam.

Alex sat on
the bed of their bedroom ten storeys high and watched news coverage
of the approaching rogue planet. He was completely mesmerised by
the story as if hearing it for the first time, but it was the only
story on TV for the past month.

A diagram of
the solar system came on and he turned the volume up.

“Here you can
clearly see the eight planets and the dwarf planet Pluto orbiting
our sun in a perfect circular motion. It takes our planet exactly
twelve months to orbit the sun and the further away the planet is,
the longer the orbit takes. Pluto takes a staggering 248 years to
orbit the sun once and when it was discovered back in 1930, it had
not even completed one third of its orbit.”

The diagram of
the circular solar system changed to include an elongated oval path
of Planet X reaching well beyond our solar system.

“Like many
other rogue celestial bodies in outer space,
Planet X
doesn’t conform to the normalities of circular planetary orbit, but
rather an oval orbit reaching thousands of astronomical units into
outer space before finally looping around the sun. Scientists have
long speculated the existence of such a planet and it was finally
discovered in 2014 by NASA’s Voyager as it entered our solar system
for the first time in over three thousand years.”

Alex changed
the channel and found another documentary about the approaching
danger; this time accompanied by dramatic music and threatening
images of asteroids.

“Planet X
will
make its way through the asteroid belt as it enters our
solar system and like every time before, it will bring some of
those asteroids heading straight for earth. Planet X was
responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs by pushing a
supermassive asteroid out of its orbit and hurdling it towards
earth. It also caused the last ice age when the gravitational pull
of this rogue planet caused earth’s poles to shift.”

Sam stood in
the doorway for a moment with a towel wrapped around his waist and
his arms folded across his bare chest. Alex looked like a scared
boy as he sat in front of the TV. He was always the impressionable
one while Sam was the level-headed one.

Sam walked
over to the bed, picked up the remote and switched off the TV;
making Alex look up.

“You’re
worrying about nonsense.”

“It’s not
nonsense.” Alex insisted, “The evidence is all over the news and
social media. That thing is on its way and will be the end of all
life on earth.”

“It’s just
mass hysteria; like Y2K. Do you remember Y2K?”

“I was in high
school.” Alex said reminiscent.

“And nothing
happened.” Sam reassured him, “There have been at least a hundred
doomsday predictions since Y2K which never happened. This thing
will pass us like… Halley’s comet and we won’t even know it.”

“I don’t know.
I have a very bad feeling about this. This thing is massive and
NASA couldn’t even see it until recently. I can’t help but feel
that this might be it for us.”

Sam sat down
next to him and lay a comforting hand on Alex’s thigh. He longed
for Alex to stop worrying about every little thing. He strongly
believed that Planet X was just a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but could
see Alex was truly worried.

“Whatever
happens, I’ll be by your side.”

CHAPTER
FOUR

Stephen was
the one who was by Sam’s side when they were left behind by the
mandatory evacuations and they banded together to ensure each
other’s survival. Sam saw him as his big brother and always felt a
bit safer with Stephen by his side. He learned long ago that you
should keep your friends close and your loved ones closer and
wished he held on to Alex. Ever since he lost Alex, he felt more
like a boy rather than the confident man he was before.

Sam turned
onto his side and as his hand draped over the side of the bed it
landed in water; waking him up with a jerk. Dirty water was almost
level with the bed and Sam sat upright as he shook Stephen until he
woke.

“Get up!”

“What’s going
on?” Stephen asked confused.

“I don’t know,
but I don’t like it.”

Stephen edged
off the bed and dunked into the water that was knee height. The
water was warm and salty to the taste. It took him a moment to
realise what was happening and then Stephen spit out the water.

“We need to
get going. The sea levels has risen.”

Without second
guessing or any questions, Sam got out of bed, grabbed a backpack
from the top shelf and stuffed some clothes into it followed by the
framed photo. He stared at Stephen; waiting for guidance and then,
without a word, the two of them opened the basement door and more
water flooded in.

They pushed
their way through the waist-level water in the corridor and made
their way to the shattered glass doors of the main entrance that
must’ve given way underneath the weight of the water. They stepped
out into the watery street shadowed by Planet X looming in the sky
overhead.

“It’s closer.”
Sam finally said.

“The planet
will keep getting closer.”

“I mean death…
It’s getting closer as that thing in the sky gets closer.”

Stephen could
hear the defeat in Sam’s voice and turned to face him. He needed a
prep talk and though there wasn’t really time for that, Stephen
stepped up and tried to put Sam’s mind at ease.

“You’re not
going to die.” Stephen insisted, “You made it this far… think of
the odds you’ve overcome. This isn’t the end. The worst is already
over – or at least I think it is. The planet will get closer and
more and more things will happen to us, but we’ll make it and we’ll
be standing there on the horizon; waving goodbye to that son of a
bitch as it disappears.”

Sam gulped,
pulled himself together and nodded a bit more confident. He
couldn’t fall apart now just because of a bit of water. Though he
was still scared that it might be another tsunami like the one on
the day he lost Alex, he knew the only way to survive was to keep
hope alive and keep going forward.

“You’re
right.” Sam agreed.

“Are you
good?”

Sam
nodded.

“You’re
sure?”

“Yes.” Sam
asserted.

“Then let’s
get going. We can’t stay in the city. It’s too close to the ocean
now.”

“You think
it’s a tsunami?”

Stephen noted
a massive flock of bird overhead flying away from the city and he
knew that trouble was on its way. Trouble bigger than a bit of
flooding… trouble bigger than a tsunami.

“No.” Stephen
said with a crack in his voice, “I think this is bigger.”