The Testimony

WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE

Joseph Jessop, farmer, Colorado City

We had decided to ignore the curfew, because it seemed so pointless, so token, Mark said. It seems like something that they wish they could enforce, but we’ve got no reason to stay here. We left LA that morning, and stopped at an Applebee’s for breakfast, because it was one of the few places open. Truth be told, I loved the food, but Mark made a face when I suggested it. Still, as I said, it was one of the only places open. This was round about when we started noticing shops being shut, or worse: abandoned, some of them, and looters had taken their fill. (We were just as guilty as most, when we passed a gas station later that day and Mark said we should fill up. There was nobody there at the counter, so we helped ourselves, right to the brim. This stuff’ll be rare in a week, he said, talking about the fuel, and I hadn’t even thought about that part, so we filled plastic fuel canisters up as well, loaded them into the luggage hold.) We paid for the Applebee’s, though; we sat in a booth and we ordered. The owners were ignoring the curfew as well, they said. Don’t know how we’d live if we didn’t, the man who served us said, and there’s a healthy chunk of you guys who feel the same, am I right? I was worried about Jennifer, because she was croaky, her throat ragged, and none of us said anything, but we knew she was ill. And I was worried about myself, as well, because I could feel it when I breathed through my nose, that sense of it being bunged up. Mark was fine, and Joe didn’t seem to have anything wrong with him; he was rattling on like normal, which I was grateful for. We ate eggs and bacon and Joe had pancakes with syrup, and we were getting ready to leave, to get back on the road, when Mark noticed that there was something different on the TV. It was an advertisement, only rather than being thirty seconds it took the whole block of them, beginning to end.

Nobody knows what The Broadcast means, the voice-over said, as they showed images of pretty fields, of idyllic cities, all like you’d see from a film. Nobody knows what it means; apart from the faithful, apart from the true believers. The Broadcast was God speaking to us, testing us. Our hospitals are filled with the dying, as was foretold; those who don’t believe in His shining majesty will not be saved. The Broadcast wasn’t a Goodbye: it was God’s way of letting us know that He was listening to our prayers. The video changed to showing that famous painting, the one on the ceiling of that chapel in Italy, of God and the angels and Adam, touching fingers, you know the one. We’re still listening, the voice-over said, why not come to one of our services and let God know that you are too? The advert was paid for by a society called the Church of the One True God, who we hadn’t heard of before.

Mark got angry with it; he watched not to curse in front of Joe, but we could tell he was furious. That’s totally irresponsible, he said, that’s not how we should be talking about this, but I didn’t know how we should, if not that way. I listened to Jennifer cough and I thought, Well, if it could save her, save us, it would be irresponsible to not at least try.

Mei Hsüeh, professional gamer, Shanghai

I screamed when we finally killed Droggs, because that was one of the last missions I had to do. I couldn’t believe that we did it with only eight of us, because that should have been impossible. I was so happy I screamed, and then I heard banging on the ceiling. It was Mrs Ts’ao. Are you okay? she screeched, and I said, Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine! I’m glad you aren’t dead! she said. Me too! I replied. Mr Ts’ao was still coughing, though. She seemed more worried about me than him.

We celebrated in-game, taking Droggs’ skull back to Barleycorn on a spike, because that was a perk of killing him; you could mount it in public. Only, it was so quiet there. Usually, when somebody mounts Droggs’ head, there’s a crowd. We did it all by ourselves. I had to take a screenshot to prove we’d even done it.

Phil Gossard, sales executive, London

I didn’t know where else to put Jess, so I put her on her bed, laid her down on top of the duvet. Her eyes were already shut, and there was a second where I forgot what had happened, seeing her there. I had woken her up the morning of the crash, and she’d been there, same pose.

I tried to call Karen again but there was no reply, even when I put the phone on speaker and let it ring and ring and ring for what must have been hours. I sat in the kitchen and thought about Jess, up there on the bed, and I rubbed at my hand, still in that fucking condom, because the pain was right up my arm, in my shoulder, the base of my neck, and I didn’t know what that meant. Come on, Karen, I said. Pick up the phone.

Audrey Clave, linguistics postgraduate student, Marseilles

I was crying, trying to call Jacques’ mobile, get him to come back, but he wasn’t answering. I didn’t know where he was, because his flat was just the same as when I was last in it, no clues. I thought he might have left me a note but he didn’t; his bike was gone, so I knew it wasn’t somewhere close. I sat on the sofa and waited, and I noticed that all the photos he had on his walls, they all had him in there somewhere. Egotistical bastard.

The flyer came through his letterbox after it became dark, when I decided that I was going to spend the night there. It was just a photocopied piece of paper, a quarter of an average sheet, and it was only black and white, with a picture of Christ, superimposed in front of a church. Come to Him, the note said, and you can pray to have your soul saved. Come and let God know you were listening to Him. The meeting was at the Catholic church in La Montade, only a few minutes from Jacques’ place, so I thought, What harm can it do?

Simon Dabnall, Member of Parliament, London

I had never been a religious person. I don’t think that came across in my day-to-day, but I couldn’t really get along with the way that they treated certain people. In fact, there you go; I wasn’t a church person. People assumed that meant that you weren’t religious, but it wasn’t necessarily always the case. I didn’t know if there was a God, but if there was – this was the big ‘if’, of course, before The Broadcast, if that provided any sort of actual proof – if there was, I hoped that He wasn’t the one that they told us about in school. (It was, at heart, an intolerance thing.) But I did know that I didn’t want to sit in my house and die; I wanted to be out in London, in the city that, for all its – and my – sins, I loved. I went walking, and found myself – by chance, or whatever it was that I approximated as being chance – at the Abbey in Ealing, a gargantuan sand-coloured building, sharp parapets and spires, deeply dug grooves running the height of it, tucked away on residential roads, absolutely hidden from the world. I never understood why it was so hidden, away from the centre of the town. The only thing attached is a school, and then houses as far as you can see. And that day I don’t know what I expected, but there were crowds there, running out of the doors and down to the bottom of the hill, almost to town. It was like a concert, people clamouring to get to the front, and I didn’t really know why I was there. They were blinkered, leading each other in prayer, the Our Father rolling off their tongues like they had never said anything else. A woman was convulsing by a tree, her husband propping her up; she threw up on herself and her husband shouted that she was taken by the spirit. It was nothing to do with our current situation, as the woman was clearly ill, dying, most probably; but that’s us, right? That’s humanity. Able to adapt at a moment’s notice, to take something and run with it. She must be channelling His spirit! shouted another woman, this one infinitely more shrewish, and if I didn’t know better I would have thought that this was a scam, some nineteenth-century thing where they then give her a medicine and sell it to the poor idiots in the crowd with too much money and not enough self-control or intelligence to know otherwise. If I didn’t know better. In reality, people crowded around her and stared, and then she pulled herself together, said something about how great God was (it was off the cuff, almost, God is so powerful, like that, just tossed out) and everybody around her acted like that was – no pun intended – some sort of gospel. She wandered down the road and collapsed, but the crowd didn’t see that part.

We are here, somebody shouted through a loud-hailer, though I couldn’t see them, to worship the Lord God, our One True God. Almost everybody shouted Amen back, me included, the Pavlov’s dog of a Catholic upbringing. This was a new religion that claimed the world in days, hours, swallowed all the old ones, united in worshipping something that still wasn’t there, no matter how much they wanted it to be. And the worst part of it all was that I didn’t believe it, but I was there, for some reason, and I was praying with everybody else, and I was thinking about God constantly as I snugly slotted into that crowd. I looked at all those people, standing there, being filled with this sense of unity and I wondered if this was all a scam, if somehow somebody had found a way to beam a false message into our heads, fill us with false hope, lead us down dark alleys, make people die. If there’s a God, then surely there can also be a Devil? But that Yin and Yang, it doesn’t work like that; because everybody assumed that if there was a God, He was good. They wanted Him – we wanted this thing that was happening, everything that was going to happen – to be happening for a good reason, I suppose, and to be happening because it would, in the end, make us all stronger.

Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh

Suddenly, the Church of the One True God was everywhere. They were just the Christians sticking a new name on, letting the C of E have a big shebang with the Catholics, ready to embrace all those Jews and Muslims who agreed that they were in the wrong and wanted a piece of the bearded, white-robed God. It was like the Crusades, only without the violence, them just swallowing up whole countries in what seemed like hours. Their advert suddenly made it onto the telly, and there were flyers through the door, loud-hailers in the streets. Katy asked if we should go along, see what it was all about, but I told her it probably wasn’t worth it. We didn’t hear The Broadcast, after all; I’d expect they wouldn’t take kindly if we told them. We wouldn’t have to tell them, she said, but she didn’t fight it. Last thing I wanted was to stick myself around that many people, that many chances to catch whatever it was that was seeing people off. It’s just me and thee, chicken, I said. And Mark and Joe, she corrected me. Aye, sorry, I replied, and Mark and Joe.

As if by magic the phone rang, and it was him, Mark. I expected parents – actually, no, I hoped for one of the parents, not expected, because I expected, by that point, the worst – but I was pleased to hear from him. He sounded stressed.

Mark Kirkman, unemployed, Boston

Joseph insisted on stopping the van when we passed this church off the freeway, one of those big white sheds that seemed custom built with the express purpose of raising money. They weren’t getting in, because nobody was, not at that point; the crowd stretched back to the side of the freeway itself, all of them looking tired and hungry, some of them ill. Jennifer wasn’t looking well herself, I noticed, and Joseph had been coughing. I called Ally when they were caught in watching the praying – or taking part, I didn’t really see – and told her that I was worried about them. She made a joke – Because they’ve gone to church? – and I laughed. No, I said, they’re ill. They’re not dying, not yet, but you’ve seen how it goes. I know, she said. How’s Katy? I asked, and she said, She’s alright. She misses her parents, she’s only young. They’ll open up flights soon enough, I said, they’ll have to. Would you come back here with her, in case? Dunno, she said, depends on if you’d be coming to Florida to meet up with us. That sounded like an invitation, I said. It was.

Mei Hsüeh, professional gamer, Shanghai

The power went the next morning. Don’t know if the government cut it, or if it was a glitch or whatever, but it went just as we started another dungeon, right before the endgame. I was so angry, because I didn’t even get to camp my character, so I didn’t know what I lost. I could have lost hours of work. I didn’t know. I went onto the balcony to ask if anybody else had lost power, and Mrs Ts’ao was already out there. Hello, I said, good morning. You’ve lost power? She nodded. We have a gas cooker, she said, you have to come up here and we’ll make you breakfast. Okay, I said.

Mr Ts’ao was angry at the television, because of the power. Have you been watching the news? he asked, We have, and the world, pah! What a state it’s in. They were trying to watch international news, as the Chinese services were – his words – full of lies about what was happening. I told them that I was watching it online, following it in my game. Can you still get that? he asked, and I said that I needed power, but then I remembered my old laptop. I ran down and grabbed it, and had to tweak the graphics to get it to run properly, but then I was in. I went to the crier in the Northern Lands and the three of us stood around and listened as the funny little dwarf read out all the stories as they happened.

Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

There was going to be a funeral for the President at St Matthew’s, just like there was for JFK. He should have been remembered, but he wouldn’t be, at least not outside history lessons where they discussed those Presidents who made crucial errors in their administration. There were barricades established, even though, with the curfew, there wouldn’t be much in the way of a crowd, and the few security guards outside the church didn’t care whether I had my pass or not; they recognized me, ushered me through. The coffin was at the front, closed; I said what I had to say in front of it, kneeling because it felt right, rather than because I felt any sense of… respect to the place, to God. POTUS and I had worked together for years; a few years of being acquaintances, nearly three solid years working on his campaign, the year we spent in office. I owed him an apology, I thought, because I advised him. He’d be remembered for the decisions, but I was just as culpable. His wife wasn’t there; I didn’t ask after her, because I was scared of what she’d say if she saw me. She would blame me as well, I assumed. There were only hours until the missiles were going to launch, and I didn’t want to hedge my bets with being in DC, so I called Livvy, told her to pack the car up with stuff.

As I was leaving I asked one of the morticians what time the service was starting. No service, he said, not a religious one. Where are the priests? I asked – because, as much as POTUS wasn’t a believer, it was customary; having been sworn in on the Bible, you left the same way – and he said, They’re all at church. Not this church? No, he said, the Church of the One True God. They’re using St Patrick’s. Right, sure, I said. I didn’t even know who they were, that’s how quickly they sprung up.

Dafni Haza, political speechwriter, Tel Aviv

Haifa was much quieter than Tel Aviv, and my mother was thrilled to see me. She didn’t ask about Lev, because she had always hated him. Instead she made me tea, and I told her about my time in office. I’ll use that, I told her, with whatever I do next. We saw on the television about all the people who were dying, more and more, and we counted our blessings, such as they were. I could tell that my mother wanted to go to synagogue, but she didn’t labour the point, and only left for it when I was asleep.

Katy Kasher, high school student, Orlando

Ally told me about her conversation with Mark, about how he said he’d meet us in Florida if we made it back over there, and I told her I wanted to go. All I could think was how my mom and I had argued, and I didn’t want something to have happened to her after that. I asked Ally if we could go. You don’t have work, I said, and I’ll put your tickets on my mom’s credit card. She said we couldn’t, that there weren’t any flights. They weren’t flying before, and I got here, I said. Not much chance of that happening again, she said.

Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh

I’m too fucking soft, that’s my bloody problem. Far, far too soft.

Katy Kasher, high school student, Orlando

I was crying, trying to call my mom and dad again, and Ally came in. Look, we’ll go to the airport and see, she said. Better than sitting here twiddling our thumbs, right? I called home again, left Ally’s cell-phone number on the answer machine and we left the house. The streets were almost completely empty.

Meredith Lieberstein, retiree, New York City

I ended up on 5th, outside St Thomas’, me and forty thousand other people, according to somebody in the crowd. Nobody was bothering to move us on; the much-vaunted curfew had turned out to be a dud. Somebody in the crowd, speaking so loudly that I could hear them but couldn’t even see them, said that it was just the government’s way of covering themselves. If they’ve told us to stay in, and there’s a bomb, they’re not to blame, he said. He sounded dense, but it was a theory that Leonard would have fully supported.

I had a spot next to a store, one of those clothes places where the front porch is made like a beach hut, with a surfboard and dark wooden walls, and there was a lady standing with me, drunk, I think; slurring her words, certainly. I really want to go to bed, she said, and I said, Well, why don’t you, then? And then she pointed her finger at me and said, I know your type. I ignored that and told her to swap places with me, so that she could rest against the window. She swore at me, and then pushed me aside, and screwed herself up into a ball on the floor. She was a snorer as well, started right up. Shouldn’t you wake her up? asked a man, and I said, No, she’s drunk, let her sleep it off. Sure, he said, okay, and then they finally opened the doors to the church – we didn’t even know that they were shut, we were just there, so far back that we couldn’t see them if we tried – and the whole crowd moved forward in this big chunk, and all of a sudden I was a few shops down, in front of a bakery, and I couldn’t see the woman any more. I tried to shout back, to tell people to wake her up, but of course nobody was listening to me, they just marched forward. All I could think was, I hope that nobody tramples on her, I really do.

I had been staring at stale cupcakes in the window of that damned bakery for a few hours when we finally moved again, and I ended up in front of the next shop, and there, bright as day, was Leonard’s first wife, Estelle. I never liked Estelle, not least because of the stories that Leonard told me about her (about her cheating, how she used to just bitch about people behind their backs, the things that she’d say, the debts that she ran up (that we were still paying after they divorced!), her general attitude), and she hadn’t phoned me after he died, even though I called her, left a message, told Jacob, their son, what had happened. I’m surprised to see you here, she said, I would have thought that you’d be sitting shiva. Well, I’m not, I said, I’m here. At a Christian church, no less, she said, and that smile just spread itself across her face like butter, just like Leonard used to say it did. I don’t see you sitting shiva either, I said, and she said, Well, no, he lost that privilege when he left me for you. And this isn’t Christian, I said; the Church of the One True God is non-denominational, so they say. That made her snort. What about Jacob? I asked, and she said, Well, I didn’t expect him to turn up. She leant in closer, which put us nose-to-nose, and I could smell her lipstick, and she said, He never liked you, so I would think he’s mourning in his own way. Oh, do try to not be such a bitch, I said, and she made a shocked noise, a little burst of yelp. What did you call me? People tried to turn in the crowd to look, and so I said, louder than I usually speak, Don’t play that card, Estelle, and then she said, totally out of the blue, Did they ever discover why Leonard died? Because, the way I reckon it, it was just before all those other people started dying. Will there be an enquiry, do you think? I turned my back on her and tried as hard as I could to not cry, but all I could hear for the next five minutes was her telling the people around her in the crowd that I stole her husband from her, and now I was here calling her a bitch, and I wasn’t even honouring his memory in the proper Jewish way, and I felt like just shouting out, Well, what does it matter if I don’t follow Jewish rules, there is no Jewish any more! But I didn’t, because I know that would have made the tears come out harder still, and then she would have won.

I didn’t wait to see what the people in the church would have to say for themselves; nothing would have made up for what I lost, I suspect.

Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh

The airport was chocka, unsurprisingly, people desperately waiting for them to put planes back on. That’s always the way with airports, I reckon: they have to let you in in case you’ve got a flight, even when everything’s locked down. Besides, where else were the people going to go? We spent hours there with all those other people, as they coughed and choked their way into the air conditioning. If we weren’t ill before we’re going to catch it now, Katy said, and I said, Maybe we’re immune. Hadn’t thought of it till that point, really, but I texted Mark about it, see what he thought. He texted back with a No clue, and told me that the Jessops were at a church, and he was sulking by the van.

Katy called home again a few times, but there wasn’t anything, and that set her off crying, really, really bad crying. I hugged her and lied to her, all that stuff you’re meant to do, but I was actually jealous; because I’d have loved to have just cried, but I had to be the strong one.

Phil Gossard, sales executive, London

On the news they started reading a list of hospitals that were shutting across London. There weren’t many, but enough. Karen’s was on the list, and they didn’t give a reason for the closures. They sold it like they were too busy to take other people, but I assumed that it was something else, probably. I assumed but hoped that it wasn’t. I sat by the phone and wished that it wasn’t ringing because it was so busy, but I knew – when I kept picking it up, listening to the dead dial-tone – that it wasn’t the case.

Joseph Jessop, farmer, Colorado City

Seemed like the church was running three or four different sermons, because we ended up listening to a man who wasn’t a priest, just a convert since The Broadcast, dressed like a stereotypical preacher in this bright white suit. The illness we’re all feeling, it’s because God is punishing us, he said, because we didn’t listen to Him enough. That can all change, and should all change! We have a platform to tell Him all about our love, and we should use it. He looked so tired, the man did, and I was tired myself, from the drive, from having to have Joe up on my shoulders so that he could see. His throat was creaking as he spoke. We know that He’s listening, because we heard Him speak; tell Him of your love! The preacher stood down, and a woman ran onto the stage, one of those fat, wealthy types. She held her hands up. Praise the Lord! she shouted, I used to only be concerned with myself, and now I know that there is somebody else there, I intend to change my ways. Now I know that I can be saved, I want to ask you, Lord, to not abandon us. We have so much to learn from you.

The crowd went through getting up, saying something nice or pleading or begging, even, that God come back. There wasn’t very much praying got done, just lots of talk about saving ill ones, or knowing that dead relatives passed on because it was God’s will. Everybody seemed so sickly, like Jennifer was, like I knew I was. Then the preacher pointed to Joe, called him up. Young man, you must have a story, he said, tell us why you’re here. I didn’t want to go, but everybody turned, looked at us. What’s your story, little fella? No, he doesn’t want to speak, I said, and then somebody shouted out, It’s the kid from the television, the one who didn’t hear The Broadcast. The crowd weren’t nasty – I had worried that they would turn on us, chase us out, pitchforks and hollering – but they kept asking us questions. Is he scared? asked the preacher, and I said, No, what should he be scared of? Well, of hell, said the fat woman, because he’s got to be heading that way if the Lord didn’t even see fit to speak to the boy. It’s because you came from that commune, she said, like it was a nudist colony, like we committed grand sins there. It says, in the Bible, about sins. Oh, for God’s sake, I said, and they gasped, as if taking His name in vain suddenly rendered me the Devil itself. Why aren’t you begging forgiveness? they asked Joe, directing the questions at him, but he was such a little kid, how could he answer? He started crying, gasping for air the way that kids do, so Jennifer picked him up. Shame on you, she yelled, and that got Mark’s attention. Come on, he shouted, let’s get out of here.

He drove the next leg and we tried to calm Joe down. He didn’t really understand too much of what happened, but he got enough to think that they hated him. Kids are perceptive, Mark said, and I guess he was probably right. We stopped a few hours later, at an Ihop, hoping to find something to eat, but the place was shut, abandoned, it looked like, even though the lights were all on and the door was open. Mark went in to check the place out, came back and told us that the burners were all on. Somebody was here, he said, and they must have left; we should eat.

Mark Kirkman, unemployed, Boston

I didn’t tell them about the dead guy in the back room; the manager, it looked like. He wasn’t killed or anything. He had just died. His right eye was bloodshot, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. I don’t know anything about disease, sickness, whatever, but my few years on the force – coupled with even more years of sitting on my sofa and watching bad medical dramas – told me that it wasn’t murder. I shut the door to the back office so that Joe didn’t accidentally see the body and went back down, told them to head on in. I can fry a mean egg, I said.

(There was a second, when we were just sitting down to eat, that I thought I heard a noise from the back. It was just the grill cooling down, the way that they do, clicking like a car radiator, but I thought that it was the manager for a second, that it was the beginning of the zombie uprising. When I worked out what it was I started laughing, trying to hide it with mouthfuls of egg. What’s wrong? Joseph asked, and I had to tell him that it was just the situation, that it was everything. You have to laugh, right? I asked, but I don’t think that persuaded him.)

Elijah Said, prisoner on Death Row, Chicago

Still hours – days – after it happened, nobody came. I lay on my cot and watched the ceiling. I didn’t think about The Broadcast; it seemed so long ago already. I slept and dreamt, of my childhood; everything in my life I purged myself of, pushed aside – Janelle, Clarice, our home, my job; and of Allah, calling to me. When I awoke I was alone, still, in the darkness. I opened the cage, as that is what it was, and I made my way to the chamber. Inside the medicine box – marked with the red cross, the sign of health, of safety, of we-will-make-you-well-again – I found a syringe in a black box, sealed. I assumed that this was how they would kill me; how they would send me to my maker, make me pay for what I did. I sat myself in the chair that they would have used, pulled my shirt off, took the leather and strapped it to my arm, tightening it until the veins lurched to the surface of my arm. I took the syringe and looked around at the room that I would die in, knowing that it was to be the end, and I jammed the needle – thick, meant to break bone, it looks like, so that nothing can get in its way as it slides into you, ends you – into my vein, and I pushed the plunger. I had seen videos of people before, films, where they shake and shiver immediately; and they froth at the mouth, and beat at their heads, and scream for mercy. It is the end, and they barely have time to register it. I prepared myself, held the arms of the chair. I saw them: the people that I killed. I had been paid to kill, because I was a bad man, and they were worse. I saw myself, years before, abandoning my classrooms, my profession; leaving Janelle, because she did not understand; pulling on the uniform of the Fruit of Islam, because I had a mission; I saw myself abandoning everything that I ever loved, because the mission was never enough, can never be enough; I saw myself degraded, shallowed, unwhole, begging for work; and then I saw him, with his envelope of bills, and my family begging me to come home, and Allah ashamed of me; and I saw myself here, being logged, being oppressed, shoved, beaten, judged, condemned. I shook, and felt myself slip.

I fell to the floor, gasping; it hit every part of me, and for a second, yes, I felt like I was dying, but I did not. When I caught my breath, I saw that the syringe was adrenalin, always ready in case needed, a casual part of every prison medicine case; and I realized how stupid I had been, thinking that the stuff they would use to end my life – a cocktail, some of the people who went to the chamber before I did used to call it – thinking that they would leave that stuff there, that it wouldn’t be kept under lock and key in a doctor’s office somewhere out of reach. I thought about what else I could do – I was there to end my life, to cease from being what I had become – but even as I looked at the leather straps, the chair, the glass pane of the observation window, I realized that I was meant to die a certain way, in a manner passed upon me by a judgement greater than my own. I could not escape that.

I returned to my cell, pulling myself along the corridor until I reached my cot. I lay there and shut my eyes, but all I could feel was my heart, all I could hear was the beat of my blood around my body, rubbing vein against vein as they struggled to deal with what I had done to myself.