Peddling Doomsday

By Petra Jacob

What would you give to know the secrets of humanity? Or to finally realise your true potential?

Myra is a charismatic leader preaching about a powerful elite who have manipulated humanity since the dawn of time. Her followers learn how to be free of the brainwashing that suppresses their hidden abilities through bizarre rituals and training. With doomsday fast approaching, they must work together to fight the elite if they want to survive.

Deirdre is disillusioned with her corporate job and humdrum life and abandons it all to join the cult, seduced by the chance to be spectacular. Becoming central to the battle, she finally feels significant, but as the cult grows, so does the corruption within it. As Myra's narcissism gets out of control and Deirdre is pushed to do terrible things to save humanity, she starts to question where the faith ends, and the delusion begins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Petra Jacob
• Release date: Nov 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463934470

Petra Jacob

Petra Jacob has a tendency to roam, and has lived in a condemned bedsit in Cambridge, a gated community in Mexico City, a rain forest in Central America and a derelict haunted house in South America. Many years ago she completed a degree in writing and art from Manchester Metropolitan University. Currently she lives in south east London, but likes to escape to the jungle whenever possible. Jacob has a particular fondness for monkeys, slime mould and cake.

Book preview

Peddling Doomsday

Petra Jacob

Copyright © 2018 Petra Jacob

All rights reserved.

For Rufus Penzance

Dear reader…

Thank you for purchasing this book. I hope you enjoy it. If possible, please can you post a review at your favorite retailer? It helps me out!

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

About the Author

Acknowledgments

1

‘I can feel them busy inside my head,’ he whispered. ‘They’re rearranging things.’

‘Yes,’ she said, holding her feet to stop more from getting in. She leaned against him, wanting to hug him, but unable to move her hands. The curly muddle of his hair tickled her shoulder. Around them was the steady thunder of twenty people chanting. Their mouths were warped with suppressed screams and their eyes inhuman with fear.

She tried to think of happy, harmless things. The knitted gecko tea cozy she’d made with mismatched feet. The way the sky looks when it’s raining and the sun comes out. Her dad’s first attempt at baking a cake. How a duck moves. But the happy, harmless things were repeatedly shoved from her attention by the scratching sound inside her skull. She felt as if a fingernail were busying away at her thoughts, eroding them one scrape at a time. The smell of elder leaves, Bugs Bunny’s Easter Special, finding a conch shell on the beach, she thought to herself furiously. It wasn’t working. She leaned her head on her knees, making the saucepan wobble, and forced herself to breathe.

‘There are too many in my skull now,’ he said, forcing the words out over a thick tongue. ‘My brain’s wrecked. Are we going to be ok?’ She looked up at him from under her saucepan. His eyes were straining and bloodshot and his skin was furrowed, raked through with panic.

‘Of course, of course we are,’ she lied.

And the scratching continued.

One Month Earlier: Monday

The printer was flashing a blue light, which made a change from the red light it usually flashed when refusing to work. However, it was still refusing to work. Deirdre looked around for assistance. But in the open-plan office, sixteen people were suddenly talking on the phone or staring at their computers to avoid having to face the fiendish machinations of the printer.

Deirdre sighed to herself and went through the usual routine to get a printout. She pressed each button in turn, switched it off and slapped the top twice. Then she unplugged it, slapped it again, plugged it back in and turned it on. What she refused to do was think happy thoughts while she did this, despite the written instructions on the wall telling her to do so. Deirdre found that small, unobserved rebellions caused less trouble.

The printer had arrived three months ago. Deirdre’s boss’s boss, Dove, marched into the office in his leather trousers, a printer-laden minion struggling behind him. Dove had stated this was the absolute latest in artificially intelligent technology. This printer would eliminate the need for excuses. This printer would not simply print when they pressed a button, but would anticipate, adapt and evolve to create the perfect printing experience.

‘In time,’ Dove had said, swaying on his hips, face shiny with the excitement of his own importance. ‘In time, you’ll see this as the most vital member of our little team.’

The reality was that the printer simply would not print when they pressed a button. It took a good twenty minutes of cajoling, resetting and violence.

Whenever Sarah, Deirdre’s boss, tried to persuade Dove the printer needed fixing, his argument was, ‘It’s a highly sophisticated machine, Sarah. It requires highly sophisticated usership. You need to take a step into the technology of tomorrow. I’ll book you onto a seminar.’ Seminars were how Dove battered dissent out of his employees, their will broken by tedium; trodden into submission by PowerPoint presentations and flipcharts.

‘But it doesn’t work,’ Sarah had persisted.

‘It knows you’re complaining about it. Try asking it nicely while thinking happy thoughts. Negativity is the enemy of success!’

Deirdre’s office was at Stronk and Lowry, the backwater branch of a corporate advertising agency, and happy thoughts weren’t easy to come by. However, Deirdre’s colleagues all tried, and then blamed themselves when the ink refused to flow.

‘I think I’m thinking happy thoughts, but what do happy thoughts, you know, feel like?’ said John, a creative, his quirky hat perched to hide his balding head. Deirdre didn’t have an answer and shrugged.

When Deirdre had discussed the printer with Henry, her erstwhile boyfriend, he was convinced artificial intelligence hadn’t been invented yet.

‘And definitely not artificial sulking. Why would they bother?’

‘What about psychic artificial intelligence that senses negative thoughts?’ Deirdre had asked, and Henry gave her a look.

Together they Googled the make of printer and discovered it was a perfectly normal, cheap printer that happened to not work very well. Erstwhile Henry found this incredibly funny and had fallen off the sofa with laughter. Office insanity had been bearable when she could use it to make Henry laugh. Now there was no one to laugh with, and Deirdre kept her head low and pretended that foolish things were a natural part of working life. She let her inner mockery wither.

Wherever possible, workers in the office did their work-printing at home and brought it in the next day, meaning printing costs at Stronk and Lowry had dramatically decreased. This was seen as a win by management and the one-printer system spread throughout the branches.

Deirdre gave the machine a kick. It whirred indignantly and then deposited the letter she was printing at a diagonal. She shrugged. That would have to do. Mission accomplished, she got herself a chocolate Hobnob. They had been her dad’s favorites, and she sucked on it as he would have done. As she passed, she picked a few cigarette butts out of the peace plant growing on the windowsill of the kitchen, and returned to Sarah’s office to chop the letter straight.

Sarah was tapping loudly at her computer and ticking off her To Do list. She didn’t waste a moment on thought or doubt, and wanted Deirdre to understand this. They both knew, although never acknowledged, that Deirdre would redo all the tasks properly later, so Sarah made triumphant noises with each button press to assert her part in the process.

The room was hot, adjusted to Sarah’s sensibilities and in contrast to Deirdre’s own. The stuffiness made Deirdre itchy and nervous, poking memories that lay in the dusty corners of her mind. It also smelt vaguely of farts.

It was 11am, and Sarah hadn’t once asked how Deirdre’s day was going. This wasn’t a situation confined to her boss, most people swept their attention past Deirdre. Her insignificance had started with her name and expanded from there. Like a tree grown bent beneath railings, her character warped, as she ducked from attention out of shame. She believed this situation wasn’t helped by unruly hair that needed constant taming, a face that was too round for cheekbones, and a squishy nose. It didn’t matter what she did, or how well she did it, she had been assigned mediocrity.

She sat down at her smaller desk in the corner and huddled over her biscuit. Then she plotted how long she could drag out the pretense of working before making another cup of coffee.

Tuesday

Deirdre applied her mid-morning face cream while she waited for her smoothie to mix. She’d already washed all the mugs and plates in the sink, cleared away the passive-aggressive notes telling others to wash all the mugs and plates in the sink, and said hello to several colleagues who weren’t exactly sure who she was. These routines reassured her that all was as it should be, no matter how awful that was. Deirdre’s hay fever was playing up and she had a vague feeling of coming down with flu. This was also normal. Arabella walked in with a waft of perfume and made herself herbal tea, while Deirdre attempted to wipe a Sharpie doodle off the leaves of a potted geranium.

‘Stars can’t shine without darkness, Deirdre,’ Arabella stated meaningfully. Deirdre smiled sweetly and wondered if this new platitude would become part of Arabella’s latest campaign for lipstick. It was a weak line, and Deirdre knew when she suggested a better one in a few days, Arabella would steal it and credit it as her own. She was the closest Deirdre had to a friend these days, but didn’t know Deirdre’s beloved father had died three weeks ago. Or that she’d kicked Erstwhile Henry out of her life in a grief-ridden panic. Arabella assumed that Deirdre was as fine as could be expected and didn’t bother checking if this was the case.

Deirdre took out a donut to offset the healthiness of the smoothie and face cream.

‘I think when you’ve experienced as much darkness as me, you either learn to shine or you give up and become a bitter wreck,’ said Arabella. Then she looked at Deirdre with a slight sneer. ‘No offense.’ Deirdre took a bite of the donut and let a blob of jam sit on her chin while she ate, enjoying this small defiance.

Wednesday

Deirdre glanced at herself in the computer screen and gave a little wink, but it looked pathetic, so she carried on organizing files. Sarah had decided to streamline their filing system and passed the previous afternoon renaming, recycling and editing client details. As usual, when Sarah had been proactive, Deirdre spent the following morning undoing the chaos. It was a tedious and depressing task, in a tedious and depressing job, in a tedious and depressing life. So Deirdre tackled it the way she did everything else, with as little thought as possible.

Hello…

The word appeared on her computer screen in a small text box, black writing on a gray background. Deirdre expected to hear a snigger from Sarah’s desk, but Sarah had started a power nap. New words appeared in the box:

How are you?

Deirdre had attended a few seminars about the dangers of hacking and phishing, about how all staff should shut down their computers and contact IT if any suspicious activity occurred. She moved to do so. One thing made her stop: no one ever asked how she was. Ever. But this small text box was asking, so instead she wrote:

I’m lonely.

Then erased it and wrote:

I’m fine.

She pressed enter and then felt annoyed at herself.

No really, how are you?

She took a quick glance to check that Sarah was still asleep, and then wrote:

Tired, stressed, miserable.

Sounds tough. Here is something to cheer you up.

Deirdre decided this must be a viral advert from one of her colleagues. She would shortly be assailed with a video of rabbits dancing in a fountain. Except what appeared, was a cheaply shot video of a man sitting cross-legged.

‘I know this is unexpected,’ he said, ‘but we’re trying to reach you. See, you’re in the wrong place. You’re capable of many incredible things. You’re spectacular, yet there you are, living an ordinary life. That isn’t your destiny. So, ask yourself: are you happy? Do you like your life? And if not, why stay there?’

This is a terrible campaign, thought Deirdre. I have no idea of the product and the styling isn’t distinctive enough to carry through a series of ads. This was yet another misguided creative who’d missed the point of advertising. She closed the video and carried on working.

Wednesday Evening

Deirdre was drunk. The more fruit-flavored vodkas she downed, the more she was convinced her dragon slaying abilities improved, but the more the dragon knocked her off her horse. After six or seven tumbles, she staggered away to a cave to lick her wounds. Then she sat back from the TV screen and popped open another vodka, kicking the microwave lasagna tray to the ‘rubbish corner’ of the room. When the ‘rubbish corner’ encroached on the ‘TV corner,’ she would tidy up. Oddly, when Erstwhile Henry had lived there, Deirdre was the one who tidied and cleaned, and had a constant itch of irritation that Henry didn’t. Now he was gone, she’d taken over his role.

A small clearing had been made in the rubbish, in which she’d placed her dad’s ashes in a small urn. At least she hoped they were his ashes. When her mum had handed them over three weeks ago, in a curry-stained Tupperware box, she’d been vague. Deirdre wanted to scatter the ashes, but she couldn’t decide where. Her dad was never one for the outdoors or ostentatious displays. His favorite places were the sofa and the local corner shop. So, she kept his ashes on the floor, and a wave of grief and exhaustion washed over her each time she looked at them.

As she took another swig of alcohol, a familiar gray box appeared on the TV screen. It said:

You’re in the wrong place.

She cocked her drunken head on one side and wondered if this was a normal thing to happen. She picked up the keyboard and replied:

That doesn’t surprise me. Where should I be?

The cave on the TV disappeared, and she was looking at a blurry video of twenty people standing in a grassy clearing, wearing robes. All had blissful smiles on their faces, and they looked up to the sky. One made a strange chanting noise, rolling his tongue in his mouth, almost gurgling out the syllables. Another joined him, singing a single note in harmony. One by one, each of the robed figures started chanting so the sound became intricate and beautiful, straining the speakers. As the voices stopped and they dropped their heads, the singing whirled around Deirdre’s thoughts. It was a taste of glory and calm.

Then a woman in blue silk robes stepped forward and walked from one person to the next, touching their foreheads with her palm. Each reaction was different. One tipped her head back and raised her arms, her face filled with joy. Another crumpled to the floor laughing. A third swooned and was caught by the those behind him.

The video ended, and the cursor flashed again. Deirdre wasn’t sure what was expected of her, so she wrote:

That was tuneful. Who are they?

The response came:

Your salvation.

Ah. Where are they? asked Deirdre.

The Center.

The center of what?

Of Truth. Where people find hope and meaning.

The gray box vanished, leaving Deirdre bereft, drunk and confused, but with a small frond of interest unfurling. It seemed like years since something unpredictable had happened, since she’d experienced anything at all inexplicable. She smiled into her bottle and thought, I bet this wouldn’t happen to Henry. Then fell into a drunken snooze.

Thursday

Everyone on the train to work was tapping at a device: their phone, a tablet, a laptop. Eyes down, concentration taken. Stations came and went. People shuffled in and out with muttered apologies and grunts of irritation. Deirdre hadn’t slept much the night before, and while hangovers didn’t affect her anymore, she had a weary, leaden sensation. Her sluggish mind attempted to work through the loss of her father, but got nowhere. She’d always believed death was a tragedy, something dramatic, romantic even. What had shocked her about her dad’s was how mundane it was. He’d had a heart attack while watching the news, wearing slippers and drinking tea. He’d been a kind man, she’d loved him, but he’d slipped from the world as if he’d never mattered at all.

After the funeral, she was sitting watching TV, when she had a sudden, horrific vision of her life ending up the same as his: inevitable, well-behaved, and entirely without surprise.

She’d looked at Henry sitting next to her, realized he embodied of all those things and dumped him. Since then, she’d spent every day regretting it. Henry was a kind man too, and now they were both gone.

Her phone beeped the arrival of a text, from an unknown number. It said:

Hello. So, are you happy?

Crankily she wrote:

Who ARE you?

Without an answer, a video played. A small man sat staring into the camera as the seconds passed. When he started speaking, the words danced from his mouth in a rhythm.

‘Society is going wrong, but you already know this, don’t you? Your wisdom goes beyond the trudge of daily life. Others don’t ask the kinds of questions that you do: Why is no one happy? Is this all there is to life? Who is really running things? And why are they doing it so badly? You ask these questions, and you see these flaws because you have a gift, many gifts. With us you could be fixing the problems of humanity, using your brilliance. But you don’t get to use it, do you? Perhaps you don’t even know what you’re capable of. That isn’t your fault, people with the shine are taught to suppress it. You get beaten down. One day your light will go out, and you’ll become like everyone else.

‘Don’t let that happen.’

He stopped and looked at the camera, a slow, steady gaze that stared right into Deirdre’s eyes, and made her a little dizzy. Then he continued in his calm, husky voice.

‘Here we can teach you to find and use your potential. Come to the Center of Truth and discover your destiny.’

For the rest of the journey, Deirdre battled to get her phone to Google the Center. All the while she happily rolled around her head the idea she was somehow special.

Two Weeks later

Work was typical, and Deirdre acted as expected. Sarah strode about making decisions for the sake of it. Everyone claimed the printer had responded to a workplace-meditation-healing-session and was now working slightly better. Deirdre carried on redoing her colleagues’ work without credit and tried to keep office plants alive.

However, beneath her bland exterior, she had changed. She’d found the website for the Center of Truth and tumbled into its intriguing message of hope with glee. But there wasn’t enough on there.

There was a picture of the buildings that made up the Center, where people lived. There were news stories about wars and famines happening across the globe, with added notes hinting humanity was heading for a great disaster. A couple of written paragraphs from Myra, who seemed to be the leader, about how the human race must evolve to survive. And an article entitled Interference that described mental blockages without which everyone would be happy and have special powers.

The website itself was clunky and ugly, but after working in an environment of slick manipulation, the clunkiness felt like proof of authenticity. The message was true, so the authors didn’t need to dress it up in fancy fonts and white-toothed smiles. She knew her colleagues would sneer at such an idealistic attitude, but that made her love it more. Their sneering didn’t make her happy and the Center insisted being unhappy was wrong. It claimed she didn’t need to drag herself from one joyless activity to another, blotting out her emotions with alcohol and donuts. Now she knew there was an alternative. She didn’t understand it, but the fact it existed soothed her.

She’d had a few more text conversations too. The benevolent hacker repeated the messages of the videos, telling her she was different, special, and she needed to escape the mediocre life before she lost her uniqueness. When she tried to pin down what that meant, the text in the little gray box remained vague. To fill in the gaps she would daydream the possibilities.

So when the gray box appeared on the screen that morning, she had a hiccup of anticipation and leaped forward. The text made a demand without preamble.

We need to stop talking. It’s time to decide. Do you want to release your true potential? To start living? You need to be here.

Go to the Center? And leave everything?

Deirdre was already imagining herself running out the office front door, kicking off her uncomfortable shoes and slinging her sensible cardigan over a road sign before escaping into the traffic.

Why not?

Reality screeched Deirdre’s fantasy to a halt, as she remembered her flat, her lucrative-but-hated career, and the years of unhappiness she’d invested in exchange for security.

But I can’t, can I? I have commitments. I can’t.

One final video and I will leave you in peace.

She didn’t want to be left in peace, but before she could write this, the screen filled with YouTube. She put in an earphone and watched as a young woman with a calm, somewhat wonky face appeared. There was something soothing about her. She spoke with a slight southeast Asian accent, and with warmth and intensity,

‘I’m Myra. I run the Center. You’re watching this video because you’re struggling, knowing you belong with us, but too afraid to leave. You think you’re making the logical choice, to stick with what you know. But it’s not logical to watch time tick away while you live in misery. If you aren’t where you want to be, why stay? Don’t let fear waste your chance to be spectacular.’

Myra paused and looked away. When she returned her gaze to the camera, she spoke as if sharing a secret.

‘Our planet is in trouble, people can’t carry on like this: so frantic, so greedy and violent. At the Center, we’ve found another way, but we need your help. We need you to take that leap, before it’s too late.’ As she finished speaking, Myra raised her hands out toward the camera and Deirdre found herself reaching at the screen.

Then she realized Sarah was speaking.

‘For fuck’s sake Deirdre, get with it. We’ve got that meeting with Dove in ten minutes and I need you alert.’ Deirdre blinked away all thoughts of the Center and returned her concentration to her job.

Dove sat behind his desk with egotism pulsing from him. Sarah hunched over her crossed legs, trying to maneuver herself into a dominant posture, but the weight of her insecurity kept twisting the attempts.

These are tough times,’ Dove was saying. ‘Times of austerity. We all have to tighten our belts, make sacrifices.’

‘But the company figures are pretty good, our profits-’

Dove cut in. ‘Profits? I shouldn’t think you know much about our profits with the amount of time you waste on Facebook!’ Dove snapped.

‘But I don’t-’ Sarah whined.

‘Oh, don’t you? I have records that say otherwise,’ jeered Dove. Then he slipped the aggressive expression off his face, the features softened, and his voice dropped.

‘Look, Sarah, you’re one of our valued managers, and we expected great things of you. However, there needs to be compromise, a sign you are truly committed to the success of Stronk and Lowry.’

Deirdre watched as Sarah tried to collect her wits and keep track of the conversation. Dove was using a method those in the office called The Abusive Boyfriend. It involved constant switches of emotion, moving back and forth between fast aggression and excessive reasonableness. Management used