The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [64]
"Let's go for a walk," I said.
Everyone was out in the street, pointing at the sky. You could see the asteroid in daylight now, a blazing orb in the atmosphere. "As big as Milton Keynes," I said, wonderingly.
"When's it going to hit?" asked Katy, hugging my arm.
I pondered for a moment, revelling in the closeness of her body. "If I've worked it out right from the first reports, tomorrow."
She swooned dramatically into my arms. "Oh, God," she said in a small voice.
Mr Ogden the lay preacher was suddenly beside us. "Indeed," he said. "The fiery judgment of heaven is upon us. We are having a vigil in the street this evening, begging for forgiveness and asking to be admitted through the gates of paradise when the calamity strikes. You'll join us?"
"Will there be rat stew?" I asked.
Mr Ogden frowned and walked away, clutching his Bible. People had become quite a bit more serious over the last couple of days. I suppose approaching apocalypse does that to a person. That and the lack of water for a good bath. Most of us were beginning to smell, not least the risen dead.
"Do you fancy it?"
"What?" said Katy.
"The meeting. Begging for forgiveness and all that."
Katy wrinkled her nose at me like she used to do. "What else is there to do?"
I thought for a moment. "We could go to Blackpool," I said.
She looked at me. "Blackpool?"
"Yeah, you know. Candy floss and sticks of rock. We could go on the log flume and walk along the prom. Stroll to the end of the North Pier. Watch the world end. That kind of thing."
Katy gestured at the barricade of cars at the end of the street, the distant sounds of gunfire. "How would we get there?"
I fished the keys to Bob's MG out of my pocket and dangled them in front of her face. "In style."
It only took us a couple of hours. Most of the fighting and looting seemed to have stopped. I suppose people probably wondered what the point was. Everyone seemed to be in their houses, waiting for the end. Blackpool was deserted.
We broke into an empty bed and breakfast place near the front and managed to find some bread that was not totally stale and a few tins of beans. Then we found the best bedroom and made slow, quiet love.
It was midday. The sky was pretty clear. We couldn't see the asteroid any more, so presumed it was about to hit Australia. The tide was in, and we sat on a bench at the end of the North Pier, me crunching rock and Katy sucking on a lollipop in the shape of a baby's dummy.
"Should we talk about where it all went wrong for us?" I said.
She thought about it and shook her head. "No point now, is there?"
Far, far away there was a thud that reverberated along the pier. Katy held my hand. The horizon rippled and there was a distant roar.
"This is it, then," I said. I felt all right, really. Pretty good, in fact.
Katy closed her eyes. There were tears running down her cheeks. Her hair was a mess and her face was filthy. She was beautiful.
"Kiss me quick," she whispered.
FERMI AND FROST
Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl is one of the grand masters of science fiction with a career spanning over sixty years, both as a writer and an editor. He is adept whether writing on his own or in collaboration. His partnership with Cyril M. Kornbluth, which produced such classics as The Space Merchants (1953) and Wolfbane (1959), is legendary. He has also collaborated with Jack Williamson, whose work is also present in this anthology, and I believe he is the only writer to have collaborated with both Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. For much of the 1960s Pohl was tied up editing several SF magazines, most notably Galaxy and Worlds of If, but when he returned to writing fiction in the 1970s he produced a series of memorable books, including the Heechee series, which began with Gateway (1977), as well as Man Plus (1976), The Coming of the Quantum Cats (1986) and The World at the End of Time (1990). His work has won him many awards and accolades, including the following which won the Hugo in 1986. It takes us into the depths of the nuclear winter.