The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) Read Online Free Page A

were several stations nearby. ‘God, she could be bloody anywhere!’
    ‘I cannot see her,’ said Natalia.
    ‘Me neither.’ Eddie forced his way through the throng. Stallholders shouted from either side of the street as they hawked their wares. He spotted a stand selling gelato, but there was no time to indulge himself – that would have to wait until Nina was safe.
    Nina was halfway down the length of the festival, in no hurry as she took in the sights and sounds – and smells – around her. The mouth-watering aromas of numerous cheeses tempted her towards one particular stall, but before she could check out the wares on offer, sounds of excitement rose, people looking up with a collective
ooh
of wonder. She followed their gaze – as the sun was blotted out.
    The airship had arrived, and it was far more impressive in real life than on a television screen.
    The craft, an Airlander, was considerably smaller than the goliaths from the days when airships dominated the skies – it was less than half the length of the ill-fated
Hindenburg
, the largest aircraft ever to fly – but its design meant that it still dwarfed any contemporary airliner. Rather than the traditional cigar shape of a Zeppelin, it had two conjoined gas envelopes sitting side by side, making its hull enormously wider than the fuselage of a Boeing 747, as well as being considerably longer. Despite its bulk, though, it drifted overhead as leisurely as a cloud.
    Both flanks of the airship had been turned into giant screens. Nina wasn’t sure exactly how they worked – there seemed to be some kind of netting draped tightly around the hulls, which she guessed held countless coloured LEDs – but the end result was certainly impressive, bright and clear enough to be visible even against the daytime sky. Right now, they were displaying an animated flag, the tricolour of Italy waving over the homeland’s New York namesake. Whoops and cheers came from the crowd’s Italian-American contingent.
    Phones and cameras were raised to take pictures of the ambling colossus. Nina at first didn’t plan to follow suit, giant advertising platforms not being her thing, but then she remembered that Eddie had been keen to see it. She took out her phone and thumbed the home button. Nothing happened; she had turned it off. Normally her phone was permanently switched on, but she had been so annoyed with Eddie that she hadn’t even wanted the distraction of the device telling her that he was making a call for her to snub. With a huff, she pushed the power button and waited for it to boot up. She moved to one side of the street to let the gawking throng move past, standing beside a covered stall. At least the airship wouldn’t have flown off before she could take a photo.
    The screen lit up. ‘Finally,’ she said, about to open the camera app – only for a long list of notifications to drop down. Multiple missed calls, all from Eddie, and several texts—
    EMERGENCY!!!!! CALL ME RIGHT NOW!!!!
    That was the most recent, and the others were equally alarming. All manner of horrifying scenarios flashed through her mind. Had he been in an accident? Or had something happened to Natalia? She hurriedly brought up her contacts list to call him back—
    Two things happened at once.
    The first was that she heard her name being shouted. Even over the festival’s hubbub, she knew that it was Eddie.
    The second was someone thrusting a hard metal object against her spine.
    A gun.
    ‘Come with me,’ a voice hissed as her arm was grabbed. ‘If you resist, I will hurt you.
Move!
’
    She looked around in shock, seeing a large blond man right behind her. He jabbed the gun harder against her back and pushed her roughly into the crowd, heading south.
    ‘Nina!’ Eddie’s voice again. She twisted to look back. Everyone was watching the airship, all eyes turned towards the sky – except her husband’s. He was about fifty feet away, gaze sweeping rapidly from side to side as he scanned