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Back Extinction Game Save as PDF
Chapters (33)
  1. Title page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. Acknowledgements
  32. By Gary Gibson
  33. Copyright page

I closed the door and leaned my forehead against it, feeling like the fragile foundations of my new life were about to slip out from under me.

TWELVE

Four hours later, after I had drunk enough coffee and water to take the edge off the lingering hangover, I was standing outside Chloe Wicks’ home. It was a two-storey affair on the northern edge of town, its front yard filled with rusting chicken cages and overgrown grass and clearly untouched since the day its original owners vanished.

I knocked on the door several times, but got no response. I called out her name and waited, but nothing. Hell, for all I knew, she wasn’t even on the island – away, perhaps, on some expedition to another alternate.

I tried the front door and found it was unlocked. I pushed it open slightly and called her name again, but still got no reply. I stepped inside anyway, finding myself within a small, cramped vestibule, a narrow staircase to one side leading to the upper floor. Through a door on my right I saw a kitchen, and the remains of vegetables on a chopping board, suggesting that perhaps she wasn’t too far away. On my left I saw a living room, one wall lined with shelf after shelf of mouldering paperbacks. A framed photograph on a shelf drew my eye and when I stepped closer, I saw it was a picture of myself with my arm around Chloe.

The other Jerry, I corrected myself. Not me. I felt suddenly disoriented, and pressed my back against a wall until I could steady my breathing.

In truth, I had been expecting to find something like this, after what Rozalia had told me. Even so, the sight of this picture – it looked to have been taken in the bar of the Hotel du Mauna Loa – sent a thrill of shock through my nerves. The two of them were laughing in the photograph, and now I looked closer, I could see other faces in the background – Casey, Nadia and Oskar.

Then I turned my attention to the books on the shelves, where I saw a dozen thick-bound notebooks placed close to the floor. I sank down onto a dusty couch, feeling all the strength go out of me. I clutched at my belly, feeling suddenly nauseous.

My diaries.