Part Three - Adam

Adam arrived at his apartment building panting, sweaty and panicked. As he had run, the voice in his head had been chanting ‘inland, got to get inland’, but his rational mind had interceded enough to work out that he should go home and pack some stuff. His rational mind hadn’t got any further than that, since his whole being was still bent on getting away from the ocean and the masses of people.

His flat was empty. He stripped off his sweat soaked clothes and tore through his drawers, putting on jeans, a T shirt and shoving other clothes into his backpack. Next he hit the kitchen, grabbed the box of muesli bars he had bought weeks ago and not opened, a bag of bread, the half empty jar of peanut butter and filled up a pump bottle with water. The water made him feel uneasy, but he told himself that this was fresh water from the pipes, not infested water from the sea.

He went out onto the balcony, to see what was happening outside. It was dark already, the streets busy with people heading inland. Some of them were dripping wet, moving strangely, making a noise that hurt Adam’s head. He shuddered, the sweat on his body had cooled now, and the fear made it much worse. Fascinated, Adam watched the mob move through the street. He started to think that he was safest up here, in his secure apartment six floors up. He wondered where he had thought he was heading before, to Brooklyn? Newtown? If you kept heading in that direction you just ended up at the sea again anyway. It would be easy to stay here, safe. He heard the sound of breaking glass, it was looting. There were two guys over the road who had actually smashed the window of a shop and were taking stuff out of the windows. It doesn’t take much, Adam thought, for it all to turn to shit. Best to stay up here, where there’s just me.

He went back into the apartment. He locked the balcony door even though at six floors up no one was ever going to try it from the outside. He tried to sit down but he was up again in a moment, back at the window, he had to know what was going on. He saw a flash of red in the crowd below, he leaned into the glass to focus in more and yes, it was a red haired woman. Gretchen? Could it be Gretchen out there, lost in the crowd? He went back out onto the balcony to get a better look.

Then the ground moved. He thought it was an earthquake, but then he heard a noise. It wasn’t the dull under-the-Earth rumble of an earthquake. It was a howl torn from the throats of hundreds of people. It was the screeching, mind bending roar of a movie monster. He turned his head, inevitably, towards the ocean again. There was something wrong with the sky line. There was a bulk there that was new, wasn’t angular like a building. For ten long seconds Adam looked and looked and couldn’t comprehend.
Then his concept of reality shifted and he saw that it was true, there was a gigantic horror-movie monster in Wellington, moving through the streets of the CBD like Godzilla. He couldn’t make it out in any detail, he could just see a dark shape, silhouetted on the night sky, and that it was organic and it was moving. It was moving towards him. For another ten seconds Adam stood and stared, teeth grinding together and a fresh sweat drenching him.

He checked the crowd again, this time he was sure of it, the flash of red in the crowd was a girl, definitely a girl, and she was being jostled to the side, squashed into a doorway. She wasn’t able to push back into the flow, to get away. Adam had to get down there and help Gretchen, tell her about getting inland. Then he’d be a hero to her, not the pathetic latte guy anymore, but someone who had saved her life in extraordinary circumstances. Movies had told him that this was the sure fire way to get a girl to fall in love with you.

Taking up his backpack, Adam left the apartment and went down to the street. He was shaking with fear, but being a hero was all about doing something even though it scared you, right? The ground was shaking too, the monster, the Godzilla shape in the darkness, it must be walking around. Getting closer maybe.

The street was chaos. People of all ages were running inland as fast as they could, carrying bags and small children. Some of the people were the wet ones. Adam’s breathing was coming through ragged, he avoided the eyes of the wet people, trying instead to push his way through the mob. It was insanely difficult to go against the flow, he was swept along with it for several metres, but he kept pushing forward, across the stream and to the other side. The other side where Gretchen was waiting for him, depending on someone to help her, in this night where no one was looking out for anyone but themselves. These thoughts kept him moving.

‘Adam?’ a voice said, cutting through his determination. He looked around for the voice, someone in the rush had stopped and taken hold of his arm. Adam blinked for a moment and then recognized possibly-Bonnie. She was soaked to the bone and her eyes were wide and staring.
‘Bonnie?’ Adam said, ‘are you alright?’
‘Thirsty…’ Bonnie said, ‘I’m just really, really thirsty.’ Adam shook her hand off, not wanting to share his meager supply of fresh water.
‘Look, you’d better keep going, I think it’s safer the further you are from the water.’ He kept pushing through to the other side of the road. Finally he emerged from the mob and fell into a wall, he cast around for Gretchen and saw the shop sign she had been hiding under. He felt his way along the wall, keeping out of the flow of people and found the alcove.
‘Gretchen! Are you alright?’ he said, pulling himself around the corner and coming face to face with not Gretchen at all. It was a young man, pale and wide eyed. His long hair hung lank down his back, he was crouching against the wall and trying to light a cigarette.
‘Leave me alone man,’ the stranger said, bending again to shield his lighter from the wind.

Adam stared at the man for a second, it had all been for nothing then. He turned back to look up at his balcony. Maybe it wasn’t too late, maybe he could still get back up there where it was safe. As he watched something happened to the buildings on the far side of the road. They looked like they were buckling, moving around somehow. Once again Adam had to readjust his perception of the world. He looked further up and saw the huge thing, it was leaning on the building, or maybe it had fallen against them. The concrete walls were bulging out.

‘Oh my fucking God. The buildings can’t…have to run,’ Adam managed to say. He grabbed the arm of the red headed man and yanked him out onto the street. ‘Get away!’ Adam screamed, and he started sprinting through the mob of people.

It was too late, the crashing noise had started, the horrible rumble of skyscrapers falling down.