Not the End of the World

• author’s note
  
• the widening gyre
  
• prologue.
  
• one.
  
• two.
  
• three.
  
• four.
  
• five
  
• six.
  
• seven.
  
• eight.
  
• nine.
  
• ten.
  
• mere anarchy.
  
• eleven.
  
• twelve.
  
• thirteen.
  
• fourteen.
  
• (once upon a time).
  
• the blood‐
  dimmed tide.
  
• fifteen.
  
• sixteen
  
• seventeen
  
• eighteen
  
• about the author
  

Given that there is widespread disagreement regarding the precise running order of Moses’ list of lifestyle suggestions, throughout this book the quite reasonable request that ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ is referred to as the Fifth Commandment.

Joey Murphy was a fisherman. He was the captain and proprietor of a small trawler that was the whole world to him, but which he knew to be merely a speck on the endlessness that was the Pacific Ocean.

He believed in God.

He believed in Jesus.

He believed in His death, resurrection and bodily ascension.

He also believed in ghosts, poltergeists, demonic possession, Satanic possession, flying saucers, alien abduction, Roswell, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the Bermuda Triangle, telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, spontaneous combustion, levitation, reincarnation, out‐
of‐
body consciousness and the rapture.

He believed Elvis was still alive. He believed the FBI killed Marilyn Monroe. He believed the CIA killed Jimi Hendrix. He believed the Apollo moon landings were faked. He believed Oswald acted alone, the Magic Bullet theory being far more divertingly outlandish than any of the conspiracy explanations. And he believed the world was going to end on 31 December 1999.

But, best of all, he knew it didn’t actually matter a rat’s ass what he believed, because he spent most of his time floating out on the waves, miles and miles from where all this shit was or wasn’t going on. Truth was, if you were going to believe something, it was best to believe in stuff that made the world seem a more interesting place. That’s what beliefs were for – reality you knew about.

Funny, though, the part of his brain that dealt with what he believed seemed able to keep all his beliefs separate from each other, allowing him to believe simultaneously things that were contradictory or even mutually exclusive. This meant that he could believe in Creationism, which he’d been taught in Bible class when he was a kid, while also believing that dinosaurs had once roamed the earth, which he’d been taught in science class three doors along.

Similarly, the part of his brain that dealt with beliefs seemed somehow separate from the part that generally got on with running the show. That was how it was possible for the former to believe the world had only about ten months left before God pulled the plug, while the latter forked out fourteen large for a refit that would keep the Mermaid’s Kiss seaworthy for at least the next five years. He guessed it was also what stopped most everyone else who believed the same thing from abandoning their normal lives and setting off on oblivious sprees of spending, stealing, screwing, raping and killing.

But another vital factor that allowed him to believe this and all that other stuff was that he’d never once experienced or confronted anything that put any of it to the test. For all his fascination with the occult and the unexplained, Joey had never so much as heard something go bump in the night or seen a Flying Object that wasn’t easily identified as a civil or military aircraft. Long as that was the case, those two parts of his brain could just happily get along with minding their part of the store.

Problems only arose when something forced the two of them to show up in the same place at the same time, like running into your ex‐
wife at a mutual friend’s funeral. During such uncomfortable and unavoidable face‐
offs, the casualties were invariably on the beliefs side: in his early years they had accounted for Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny; in his teens, for fears of self‐
inflicted myopia; and later in life for the notion that ‘no new taxes’ meant no new taxes.

The taking‐
care‐
of‐
business part of his brain had never been faced with anything that forced a comparable revision of its rule book and operating manual. That was really what made all that weird stuff so fascinating. With the exception of Reagan winning a second term, there had been a rational explanation for everything he had encountered on a personal basis.

Until today.

The ocean was dead, had been for two days now. That made it pretty to look at, but Joey didn’t like it. You could forget where you were when the water was like that, especially with the sun shining. Start imagining you were on a lake or some other more forgiving body of water. You could forget how angry the Pacific got, start to lose your respect for it. And that was usually when the spiteful bastard decided to teach you a lesson.

There had been a request from the Coast Guard. A boat called the Gazes Also (dumb name), a science vessel or something, had failed to respond to its regular radio contact on the mainland, and they wanted someone who was in the area to go check it out. Just a transmitter malfunction, he figured, or a power failure – probably some floating laboratory with too many gadgets for the generator to deal with. The ocean had been so calm there was no chance of anything more dramatic having befallen the thing. Still, the Mermaid’s Kiss wasn’t so far from the vessel’s last recorded position, and it was always healthy to be in credit with the CG. He gave Rico the co‐
ordinates and commanded him to change course.

They spotted it less than quarter of a mile from where it had been charted the night before, a solid, unmoving dark shape between the placid blues of the still sea and the cloudless sky.

As they approached Joey hailed the vessel over the radio, just in case they had sorted their radio glitch out and he was about to complete a wasted trip, but there was no response, and a quick scan through his binoculars showed no sign of crew above deck. As the Mermaid drew nearer, bey switched to calling the motionless boat over his loud‐
hailer system, but this equally failed to provoke any human activity.

The Mermaid’s Kiss pulled slowly and gently alongside the hull of the Gazes Also, close enough for Joey to notice that the oddly named vessel looked to have recently enjoyed a refurbishment way more impressive than the paint‐
job with fries he’d spent so much hard‐
earned on. Thing looked like it had just got back from a goddamn health farm. Everything about the boat looked neat, clean, fresh and in order.

Except the worrying absence of people.

Joey swallowed.

‘I’m goin’ aboard,’ he told Rico. ‘Hold her steady. Pedro, gimme a hand here tying up.’

‘Sure thing, skip.’

Joey hopped carefully across the gap between the boats and tossed the Gazes Also’s mooring ropes back to Pedro.

‘You want me to come with you?’ Pedro asked.

Joey was about to decline the offer, but another look at the deserted decks changed his mind. He didn’t know what he was expecting to find below but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to find it on his own.

Pedro stepped across on to the Gazes Also, an iron hook in his right hand. Joey took a step forward, called ‘Hello?’ again, and began slowly descending the stairs to the galley.

He was bracing himself for every grisly discovery he could imagine, every last B-movie scenario and old salt’s late‐
night tale, but what he found below decks was far more disturbing than any horror he could have anticipated.

He found nothing.

No‐
one. Dead or alive.

No‐
one.

They moved tentatively through the boat, fearfully pushing open every door. The cabins looked occupied. There were clothes in the foot‐
lockers, rumpled sheets on the bunks, Coke cans and candy wrappers in the trash‐
baskets.

Just no people.

Joey looked at Pedro, who was sighing slowly through pursed lips.

Neither of them said anything. Neither of them had to.

Joey turned back and began heading for the decks again. That was when he noticed. On the way in he had just been looking for people, not paying close attention to his surroundings.

‘Jesus,’ he said, and stopped dead in the galley.

On the table there were four mugs with cold coffee in them, an empty brandy bottle and some plastic tumblers containing the last shares of its contents. There were dinner plates in the sink, cutlery too, in water that was cloudy with detergent. There was a greasy frying pan and two empty pots on the hob. There was a CD/
cassette player on the worktop, the power still on and the LCD readout indicating a disc in the tray. There were butts in the ashtrays, breadcrumbs on the chopping board.

‘It’s the goddamn Mari Celeste,’ Pedro said.

Joey said nothing, just walked unsteadily back up the steps and on to the sun‐
soaked deck. He looked around himself. Apart from his own boat there was nothing but blue as far as the eye could see, and the Mermaid’s Kiss itself hadn’t encountered another ship in three days. There was no suggestion of anything amiss on the boat, and there was absolutely nowhere anyone could have gone.

The crew of the Gazes Also had eaten Sunday dinner and then simply disappeared.

‘You okay there, skip?’ Pedro enquired.

Still he said nothing.

Then, for the first time in his life, Joey Murphy, whose stomach had survived twenty‐
eight years of the Pacific and twenty‐
five of his wife’s chilli, leaned over the side of the boat and provided Davy Jones with a generous share of his lunch.

‘Don’t sweat it, Larry, it’s a walk in the park.’

Oh, gee, thanks, Larry thought. He was sure it had the potential to be a walk in the park and a precedent for being a walk in the park, but now that Bannon had gone and said that, he figured he’d better be on the lookout for gang wars, serial killers, King Kong and Godzilla.

Not that Larry wasn’t on the lookout for all of the above anyway, these days, although not for the same reasons as everybody else in this screwed‐
up town.

‘Just as long as I ain’t goin’ down there to hear any Chamber of Commerce requests to lay off bustin’ the delegates for coke on account of the valuable trade they’re bringin’ into Santa M.’

Bannon laughed, shaking his head. Larry figured if the captain had known him a bit longer he’d have placed a daddy‐
knows‐
best hand on his shoulder, too.

‘Larry, for the most part, this is the shitcan end of the movie business. European art‐
faggots, Taiwanese kung‐
fu merchants and LA independents workin’ out of fortieth‐
floor broom closets in mid‐
Wilshire. Unless they clean up at the Pacific Vista these two weeks, they can’t afford any coke. Goin’ by the budgets of their movies, you’re more likely gonna be bustin’ them for solvent abuse. There won’t be any trouble, I guarantee it.’

Thanks again.

‘The movie market moved down here to the coast from the Beverly Center about seven years back, and there’s never been a hint of a problem in all that time.’

Yeah, keep it coming, Larry thought. You’ve just about got it thoroughly hexed for me now.

‘These guys, they come here from all over the US and all around the world,’ Bannon explained. ‘They show each other their shitty movies, they press flesh, they schmooze, and if they’re lucky, they do some deals. Close of business they hit the seafood restaurants, throw ass‐
kissing parties to impress each other, try and get laid, then it’s back to their hotels and up at eight to start over. I did your job the first three years. No trick to it. It’s a figurehead deal. In their minds you’re kind of the LAPD’s corporate representative, someone who’ll show his face every so often, smile a lot, and tell them nothing of any substance if they ask questions.

‘All the organisers need to hear is that we’re maintaining a high profile, so the visitors ain’t too scared of bein’ mugged, shot, gang‐
raped or ritually cannibalised to walk around town. That means more uniformed beat officers in the pedestrian areas, plenty of patrol cars on Ocean Boulevard and along the beach, all that shit. Ironic, really. Our purpose is to reassure them that none of their movies will come true – well, not to them at least.’