The Last Day on Earth

Lightning and Lucy soon pulled even with Liz and Kunama, and then passed them. Lucy grinned at her mother whose hair was flying free and who actually looked happy for the first time since they’d found out.

CHAPTER TWO

Two months ago…

There had been rumours floating around for months, but with no confirmation from the space agencies or governments, most people had ignored them, assuming it was just another asteroid like Apophis, or DA14 if they thought about it at all. It might come close, but that was it. That didn’t stop a lot of amateur astronomers from noticing the asteroid seemed to be quite large and heading on a collision path with Earth, and it didn’t stop the conspiracy theorists from picking up on the news. Of course, a lot of people just put it down to the usual crazy Doomsday nuts and didn’t pay any attention. Lucy was one of those people. She hadn’t realised at the time that her father wasn’t.

She was sitting at her desk, sipping at her freshly brewed tea, waiting for the beep in her ear to let her know a call was about to drop in and day-dreaming about the holiday to Spain she’d booked for September. She was wondering if Steve, her new boyfriend, would call to see her that night, when her phone rang. Her heart skipped a beat, but when she looked at the caller ID it was her best friend, Jessica. Not Steve. She glanced up at her boss, but he wasn’t looking in her direction.

“Hey, Jess. What’s up?”

“Are you watching this?” Her voice sounded about three octaves higher than usual.

“Watching what?”

“The asteroid.”

“The what?”

“Oh God. Shit. Lucy, turn on the TV. Right now.”

“I can’t, I’m at work. What’s going on? Jess?”

Lucy could hear her friend starting to hyperventilate.

“Deep breaths, Jess. What asteroid? What are you talking about?”

There was silence on the phone as Jess took a moment to compose herself.

“You know the asteroid that those crazy people keep talking about?”

“Mmm.”

“Well apparently they’re not so crazy after all. Some bloke at NASA told some journalists yesterday and the President of the United States just confirmed it. He said there’s nothing that they can do.”

Lucy just blinked. Nothing? Rubbish. Of course there was something they could do.

“Ha ha, sorry to tell you, Jess, April Fools is four months away.”

Lucy heard a deep sigh on the other end of the phone.

“I’m not kidding, Lucy.”

Lucy hung up. After a moment she logged onto Facebook. Her news feed had gone mad. She logged onto a national newspapers website.

END OF THE WORLDover a picture of a massive asteroid colliding with the Earth, screamed up at her. Holy shit, she thought.

Lucy clicked on the main article.