Brooklyn, New York
"Hey sis! ...Wait a sec, I need a better signal... Ok, I've got a good picture now. You still in Auckland?" The picture was grainy and jumpy, Becky smiling into the camera while jostled from every side by a crowd of smiling, dancing, shouting people. Her smile was huge, her excitement palpable. Behind her, a tower reached high in to the night sky, its top lit up with multi-coloured lights.
"Happy New Year, little bro! Well, almost. Check it out!"
Becky panned her phone around, held high above her head. She was stood in the middle of a large crowd, hundreds of young men and women wearing luminous bands, jumping up and down more or less in time with a dance tune blasting from a stage.
"Come on, bro, celebrate with me! Whatcha doing?"
"You woke me up sis, it's early here! I'm working today, remember?"
"What? Oh shit, yeah! I forgot! Timezones, man, don't they just screw with your head?"
Aaron laughed as he watched Becky shout and wave to someone off camera. She was, he realised with a smile, drunk as a skunk.
"You gonna count down with me, bro? C'mon, it'll be awesome!"
"Okay, okay. Just let me, er.. Let me get some clothes on before I distress the good people of Auckland!"
Becky pulled a mock-shocked face into the camera. "Never mind them, think of my own sanity! Come on, it's nearly time!"
"Alright, hold on... There, I'm wearing skivvies, you're safe."
"Thank god. Here we go, you ready!"
They made the countdown together, Becky with full-throated enthusiasm, Aaron with restrained humour, the walls of his apartment being rather thin.
"Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!"
The crowds in Auckland were roaring in unison, all of them looking towards the tower for the fireworks to start. Becky had the phone held up above her head. All Aaron could see were hundreds of heads and raised arms, bobbing in time to the countdown.
"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!..."
Becky dropped her phone. The picture spun and settled, the camera looking up at the night sky as the first fireworks started. The top of the tower could by seen, lit up and haloed by fireworks.
"Becky? Becky, you there? Where'd you go?"
On the screen, there was no Becky. No anybody. The crowd that had been there moments before had gone.
"Becky? ...What happened? BECKY!"
The image flashed once, then went blank.
YOU ARE READING
Dateline
Science FictionA Novella. It is New Year's Eve, and the world is getting ready to celebrate. But this year, as midnight comes, so does an inexplicably terrifying fate. In a desperate attempt to survive, a group of strangers, brought together by luck and chance, f...
