End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days #3)(73)

It looks like the only group that could use my help is the stage crew. I pick up a hammer and get on my knees to help build the stage.

The guy next to me gives me a rueful smile and hands me some nails. So much for the glory of leadership.

I don’t know what all those power-hungry people like Uriel are thinking. As far as I can tell, a leader ends up doing all the worrying and still needs to pitch in for the regular work.

I hammer, trying to settle my mind and keep from freaking out.

The sun is beginning to set, adding a golden glow to the water. Wisps of mist begin creeping over the bay. It should be a peaceful scene, only my blood feels like it’s freezing by the second.

My hands feel cold and clumsy, and I keep expecting to see vapor from my breath. It feels like I don’t have enough blood in my body, and I can feel my face turning pale.

I’m scared.

Until now, I really believed that we could pull this off. It sounded good in my head. But now that the sun is setting and things are coming together, I’m freaked out by all these people who believed me when I said this was a good idea. Why would anybody listen to me anyway? Don’t they know I can’t plan worth two pennies?

There are far more people here than there should be, and they continue to swell the ranks as ships continue to ferry them to our broken bridge. We don’t need them all, just enough to make the angels believe that coming here instead of the Golden Gate Bridge is worth their time. But we put the call out, and more and more people are arriving. It never occurred to us to put a limit on the size of the audience, because we thought it would be a miracle if we had three people who showed.

They know the angels are coming. They know this is our last stand. They know we will most likely be massacred.

And yet they keep coming. In droves.

Not just the able-bodied – the injured, the children, the old, the sick – they’re all here, crowded onto our little island of broken concrete and steel. There are too many of them.

This is a death trap. I can feel it in my bones. The noise, the lights, a talent show for chrissake, at the apocalyptic End of Days. What was I thinking?

Despite the crowded conditions, the audience maintains a respectful distance from the curtains and dividers that have been set up as a makeshift dressing area beside the stage.

Dee thunks onto the stage and bounces on it. ‘Good job, guys. I think it’ll hold for a few hours. Good enough.’ He cups his hands over his mouth and calls out to the crowd. ‘The show starts in ten, people!’

It’s a little odd that he doesn’t yell to the dressing area but rather to the crowd at large. But I guess he’s right – everyone here is performing tonight.

I work my way up to the makeshift stage, feeling the panic. The last time I was on a stage, the angels went berserk and decided they were going to kill everyone and feel righteous about it.

This time, I’m in front of an equally charged crowd of humans. But the emotion they’re charged with is fear and barely contained panic, not bloodlust like the angels.

In front of me is a standing-room-only crowd with hardly enough room to maneuver. The only thing that limits the number of people is the dimensions of the concrete island we chose.

People are too close to the edge of the broken bridge, where the rebar hang like dead arms reaching toward the dark water. They have children sitting on their shoulders. Teenagers and gang members are hanging off the suspension cables that rise to the sky and disappear into the wispy fog gathering above.

The thickening mist has me worried. Very worried. If we can’t see them, how are we going to fight them?





57


There must be a thousand people here. I can tell from the twins’ expressions that they didn’t expect such a large showing either.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say when I reach the twins onstage. They’re dressed in matching patched-up hobo outfits complete with clown faces and exaggerated bed-head hair. They each hold microphones that remind me of huge ice cream cones.

‘Why are there so many people here?’ I give them a baffled look. ‘I thought we made the danger clear to them. Don’t they have an ounce of common sense?’

Dee checks to make sure his mic is turned off. ‘It’s not about common sense.’ Dee surveys the crowd with some pride.

Dum also checks to make sure his mic is off. ‘It’s not about logic or practicality or anything that makes a remote amount of sense.’ He sports a wide grin.

‘That’s the whole point of a talent show,’ says Dee, doing a spin onstage. ‘It’s illogical, chaotic, stupid, and a whole hell of a lot of fun.’ Dee nods to Dum. ‘It’s what sets us apart from monkeys. What other species puts on talent shows?’

‘Yeah, okay, but what about the danger?’ I ask.

‘That I don’t quite have an answer for,’ says Dum.

‘They know it’s dangerous.’ Dee waves to the crowd. ‘They know they’ll only have twenty-five seconds to evacuate. Everybody knows what they’re getting into.’

‘Maybe they’re sick of being nothing more than rats rummaging through the trash and running for their lives.’ Dee sticks his tongue out at the kids sitting on shoulders. ‘Maybe they’re ready to be human again, if only for an hour.’

I think about that. We’ve been scratching by since the angels got here. Everyone, even the gangs, has been afraid. Constantly worried about food and shelter and basic human necessities. Worried about whether friends and family will survive the day, worried about monsters jumping out in the middle of the night and eating us alive.