by Claire North
Death waited.
“I … I just need a helping hand,” he whispered at last. “I just … I just need someone to see me, waiting here. That’s all I need, and then I’ll rebuild again. I swear to you, I’ll rebuild, I just need someone to see!”
Death smiled, put her hand on his shoulder, squeezed it tight. Good luck, Robinson, she said, and stood up to go.
He scrambled to his feet after her, uneasy, reaching out. “No! Wait! Please—don’t leave me!”
Death shook her head, perhaps a little sadly, and walked away, and didn’t look back.
Robinson stayed standing there, alone, as Death moved on, and the world passed him by.
Chapter 100
“The problem with the French …”
“The problem with the Jews.”
“I don’t have anything against Muslims, I’m just saying …”
“Ha, the Welsh! Best punchline ever to …”
“ …”
humanhumanhuman
“Defend the Russian people!”
“Sunnis aren’t like Shias in that …”
Ticktickticktick
“The clock now stands at …”
“Not my fucking problem.”
“Well the Germans, if you have to trust a German!”
humanratrathuman
“If that’s what the Greeks want then it’s their economy.”
“Nationalists today …”
“Freedom fighters!”
humanratratratrat
“All we want is security.”
“All we want is peace.”
“All we want is food.”
RATRATRATRATRAT
“All we want is a better world for our children.”
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Chapter 101
Charlie woke in a box.
Knees to chin, one arm pressed beneath his body, the other wrapped around his chest, neck bent, feet against the wall, lying on his side. He opened his eyes and saw wall, he moved his knees and felt wall, he shifted his aching back and hit wall, he opened his mouth and thought for a moment he might scream, but instead, without bidding, an animal sound, a trapped, shouted gasp came from his lungs and he pressed with the palms of his hands against the walls of the box and shook from side to side, and thought for a moment that the box might tumble.
It didn’t.
He called out for help, and no one came.
He begged for someone to let him out, and no one came.
He cried for a little bit, and then shouted some more, and then cried again, and no one came.
He lay burning, sweating, gasping for breath, a foetus in a wooden box, and wondered if this was how Death came, and if his shadow was catching up with him at last.
He couldn’t breathe, and knew that would mean he would die.
He didn’t die.
He wept.
He had no more tears.
No one came.
He waited.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The box was flung onto its side and he rolled with it, banging his head; the top was pulled off, bright white light flooding in; he was lifted bodily out by his armpits, then dropped on the ground, grovelling with relief and gratitude, only for more hands to grab him by the arms and pull him to his feet. A bag was put over his head, his hands were cuffed behind his back, dogs growled and barked, he felt them press against his legs and cried out in new fear even as the blood rushed back to his toes. He fell, staggered, was pushed onto a chair, someone hit him round the side of the head, why, there wasn’t any reason for it, then hands straightened him up, the bag was removed, a light, brilliant white, hurting his eyes, a face in it, hard to see features, big face, he thought, huge face, roaring, spitting in his own.
“What is Death?!”
Gasping, dizzy, bewildered, he reeled away from the breath, stinking of mint, from the voice, loud enough to make his ears pop, from the light, and blinking tears from his eyes whispered, “W … what?”
A hand—not that of the man in front of him—slapped him, puppy-like, round the back of the head again. The man in front of him caught him by the chin, great fingers creasing and stretching his flesh, roared, “WHAT? IS? DEATH?!” and shook him like a glow stick.
“I don’t know what you mean!”
Again they hit him, harder now, knocking him sideways. Picked him back up.
“You are in the shit, there’s no way out of here, do you understand that, there’s no way out, no one is coming, no one knows where you are, so you tell me, you tell me, what is Death?”
“Death is Death! Death is Death, it’s just …”
This time, the slap was a fist. He fell off the chair, and again they picked him up, and hit him, and again he fell and was picked up, he didn’t understand that at all, what was the point of it? Why not just leave him on the floor?
“Why is Death?” hissed the man, turning Charlie’s face so his mouth was right against his ear, so close he thought he could feel teeth nipping at the flesh. “Why is Death?”
“Why is Death what? Here? Death is everywhere, Death is …”
This time, when they hit him, they let him stay down, which seemed to make sense, and kicked him, which made none at all.
He lay hoping that if he curled up around the pain, the posture would swallow sound too, rolling into his knees, pressing his head down, feet twisting as if he could push the fear and agony out of the soles of his feet by will alone.
The man with the big hands pulled him up by the hair. “What is Death?”
Hit him.
“What is Death?”
Hit him.
“What is Death?”
Hit him.
By the time he blacked out, his mouth was so swollen, he didn’t think he could have answered anyway.
A white room.
Too white, too bright.
Padded walls.
The light came on and burned, and with it came sirens, roaring, the sounds of screaming, blasting through his brain.
Then off.
Silence.
All silence.
Darkness, complete, nothing, no way to know where up was, or down, or where the world began or ended in this infinite void.
Then light again.
Then dark.
For a while, Charlie lay on the ground with his hands over his ears, but in time they fell away, and the screaming was just sound without meaning.
He closed his eyes, and in the darkness someone came through the door and threw iced water on his head, and he tried to sleep with his eyes open, and couldn’t.
An eternity.
They put him back on the chair.
Softer now, the man with the great round face—Charlie decided to call him Bubbles, found the idea funny for all of a microsecond—leaning back against his chair, framed in the light, chewing gum.
“What is Death?” he asked, and when Charlie didn’t answer, someone else hit him. They didn’t need to hit very hard now—you could shove your thumb into any number of soft places on Charlie’s skin and the agony would send him to the floor.
“What is Death?”
“Death is … the end …”
Something hot and sharp, maybe electric, across the small of his back. He thought he smelt burning, hair sizzling.
Bubbles squatted down in front of him, still chewing, and, not very interested in the question: “What is Death?”
“Death is … is a rider of the Apocalypse … is …”
Again, pain.
Again, curling, sobbing, burning.
Bubbles finished his gum, stuck the used remnants to the bottom of the chair.
“What is Death?”
“Death is … the end of physical processes. The brain’s activity …”
Whatever it was that burnt burnt too much, and Charlie decided to count this blackness as blessed, blessed sleep.
They took the bag off his head and there were books, a table with clawed wooden feet holding globes at their base, a marble top. A tray of fresh green salad, a glass of white wine, a white sofa carefully covered with a blue plastic sheet. He was sitting on the sheet. He supposed it was to prevent blood from getting on something that would stain.
A priest sat on the couch opposite him, hands folded on his chest. He wore a black robe and a dog collar, but who knew if that counted for anything? Charlie thought he had an unkind face.
“Has your employer ever spoken to you about Heaven?” he asked, his accent something European, familiar, a comfort even, as Charlie blinked bewildered in the light of the low, warm bulbs.
“No.” The word came awkwardly through bleeding gums, torn lips.
“Has he talked to you about the hereafter?”
“No.”
“Do you believe there is an afterlife?”
“No.”
“Why is that?”
“I … I …” For a reason Charlie couldn’t fathom, he started to cry. He put his head in his hands and sobbed, like a child. The priest sighed, stood up, straightened his cassock, crossed over to where Charlie sat, and very gently put one hand on his head.
“There there,” he sighed. “Don’t let it get you down.”
Slowly the tears faded, and Charlie fought the urge to wrap his arms around the man’s legs, to hold him tight for ever.
The priest returned to his seat, cleared his throat self-consciously, crossed one leg over the other and said at last, “So why don’t you believe in an afterlife, Charlie?”
“I … haven’t seen any evidence.”
“But you’ve seen Death.”
“Yes. But I think … I think most people have.”
“But most people don’t receive a pay cheque and regular pension contributions from him, do they?”
“No.”
“So would you say you are an expert in this field?”
“I … I just … I just go before.”
“Yes, that’s what I’d heard. Is it just the lack of evidence that means you don’t believe, or has he said something?”
“I go to people. Sometimes they live, and sometimes they die. And … and sometimes an idea dies, a dream and … and Death comes and … sometimes they are frightened, they’re so afraid and I think that … and sometimes they aren’t, and they are ready and I go before because …”
“Charlie …”
“I go because …”
“Charlie, focus on the question.”
“I honour the living!” He nearly screamed the words, half slipping from the plastic-coated couch, clinging onto it before he could hit the floor. “I go for the living, I speak to the living, I honour the living I honour life I honour life I honour that they are living before they die to see death is to see life the life that lives how dare you fucking …”
He fell, dropping now to the thick carpet, dragging plastic with him, hauling down breath.
The priest sighed, leant forward, fingers steepled, looking down at the Harbinger of Death. “The thing is,” he murmured, “these questions are a matter of some very serious policy.”
Charlie raised his head slowly, looked the man in the eye, and then spat, blood and spittle, in his face. The priest flinched, drew back slowly, pulled a tissue from his sleeve, wiped the fluid away, got to his feet, nodded at someone behind Charlie.
He closed his eyes, and let the arms carry him away.
“Why does Death come?”
“Death always … comes …”
Pain.
Fall.
The ground was Charlie’s favourite place. He liked the ground in this room. If he fell, the light wouldn’t burn his eyes, just for a little while.
Up, again.
Again.
“Why does Death come here?”
“Death is everywhere.”
Pain.
Fall.
Ground. Beautiful, cold ground.
Again.
“Why do good people die?”
“Luck.”
Pain, harder now, more; this was an answer that displeased especially.
“Why do bad people live?”
“I don’t know.”
This time they hurt him so bad they had to stop a little while, for the doctor to check him over, before carrying on.
“Is Death the same as chance?”
“I don’t know.”
Pain. Fall. Again.
“Is there a God?”
“I don’t know.”
Pain. Again.
“What is Death?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are men mortal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do we age and die? Will humanity live? Will humanity die? What will be our children’s destiny? Does Death know the secrets of the dead?”
This time, the doctor called a stop before they could finish beating him senseless.
Lying on a white floor in a white room.
There was some scarlet there now—that’d be him.
The doctor put ointment on, he found that funny, funny word, ointment, funny, funny men.
He thought about Emmi, and knew she’d be frightened, worried senseless, where was he? The thought of that made him want to scream, though the burning was less now.
Men came.
Bag over the head.
Carried.
Pushed him into
the back of a car.
A woman in a trouser suit, a briefcase open on her lap. The engine was running, the car was in a car park, empty, yellow sodium lights shining all around. She didn’t look at him as they spoke, but stared straight ahead. She had a face like a bar of soap in which someone had poked a couple of eyes and the thinnest, thinnest pretence of a mouth.
Her accent was British, clipped and steady. She said, “Mr. Harbinger, we would be prepared to negotiate with your employer for certain services rendered. The geopolitical situation being what it is at the moment, we are reaching out to all the riders of the Apocalypse to discuss terms of mutual benefit. How would we most conveniently reach Death?”
Charlie would have laughed, but something was broken inside, so he didn’t. He let his head roll to one side, staring at her over his crooked shoulder. “Drop a bomb. He’ll come.”
“We are dropping bombs,” she replied calmly. “We require the discussion of terms.”
He grinned, bloodied teeth in a broken mouth. “Humans summon Death,” he whispered. “They summon Death and they summon War. With drum and with sword they summon them, and bid them obey the call to arms, and they will come when called and being summoned, they will not obey.”
“Mr. Harbinger …”
“They were summoned to the trenches, over by Christmas they said, and forty thousand men died in a single day, can you imagine it? They were summoned to Stalingrad, the Apocalypse upon this earth, and the men who called them were so proud of their mighty machines, so proud, until they looked into the eyes of the monsters they had unleashed …”
“Mr. Harbinger, this is not what I am—”
“Death is waiting for you,” he hissed. “He’s waiting with the nuclear warheads, framed in radioactive light. He’s in the place where the ice melts; he’s in the pit of the volcano. He’s always been waiting. You just didn’t know how to see.”
“This is unproductive,” she muttered, gesturing at a figure outside the windows. “This is clearly not the way to conduct business in the modern world, and as such …”
Hands pulled him from the car, and back to the darkness.
“What is Death?”
No more hitting. Nothing left to hurt.
They made him squat, and if he fell, they picked him up again and stabbed him with something hot, until even stabbing didn’t make him stay, at which point Bubbles just sat cross-legged in front of him, chewing gum, speaking.
“What is Death?”
“Ca
ncer and mitochondrial decay and …”
“What is Death?”
“A drunk driver behind the wheel, the man with the gun …”
“What is Death?”
“Dirty needle, protein shell and RNA …”
“What is Death?”
“Bad decision at the wrong time, the ending of a world …”
“Which world is ending?”
“The old world. All the time. Always ending. Change. Change and end. Close down one, make something new, always, always turning, nothing sad, always sad. Sad to die, sad to live, men who lynch, men who die, all of it sad, and the world turning.”
“What is Death?”
“The way by which we live …”
“What is Death?”
“The light and the dark, the reason we save, the reason we fly …”
“Why does Death need you?”
Charlie opened his one good eye, peered through its blurred surface up at Bubbles, and thought he perhaps saw something on the man’s face that was, for the first time, real. An actual question that came from a human being, rather than the litany that had gone before.
“I am … the bridge.”
“What does that mean?”
“I am … what makes you see.”
“Explain.”
“I’m tired, please I’m …”
“Explain!” Bubbles slammed his palm into the floor by Charlie’s head, making him jump.
“I … Death comes and it is all that it is. It is the ending. It is all things stopping. You know him, you have seen it coming your whole life, but you did not see, you could not imagine, not you. Smoke twenty a day and you know Death comes, he comes, he comes, but you still smoke because life, life, life. Build on the side of the mountain, jump without a parachute, you say you might die, but these words have no meaning. Death is not-living. Death is not real, until the day you meet his eye. I … am the bridge. I am the one that comes before. I am living. I am … what makes it real. No one believes in Death until they look him in the eye. I am the belief. There needs to be something mortal for it to have meaning. I am … the living. I am alive.”
“You’re a monster.”
Charlie shook his head, pressing his forehead into the cold, lovely ground.