by Kyle Warner
The Gatekeepers sent April to Rome.
They wanted her to get acquainted with the center of operations and its leaders.
April didn’t have much of a chance to admire the streets of Rome before she was taken below them.
She went from catacombs of stone to a modern facility of steel. April thought that her new colleagues were perhaps a tad overfunded, and that had fueled their paranoia. She mused that a hundred years from now, they would have facilities dug out beneath their underground facilities of today.
One can never hide their head deep enough, said the spy to the ostrich.
April was taken to the office of Dominic Friend, her new boss.
She wasn’t impressed by Friend and it was obvious that the feeling was mutual. He regarded her as an annoyance, as if she had no right even stepping into his office. She was only put there to slow him down.
“You spent a long time in your room crying into a pillow,” Friend said.
April noted the lack of a question mark. She said, “It was a difficult time.”
“We lead difficult lives.”
“I’ll be better next time,” April said.
“Prove it,” Friend said.
“I will.”
“Now.” Friend opened the door of his office and waved for her to follow. “Come with me.”
April followed Friend from his office. Every Gatekeeper working in Rome seemed to know who April was and couldn’t help watching her. She felt like she was being led to the electric chair.
“We developed a special mask,” Friend said. “It allows breathing in the oxygen of the room, but emissions go into a tank. That way there is no pollution to the air.”
Friend brought her to an empty basketball court. The floor was squeaky clean and the walls were lined with blue padding.
There was a loud slam as the door shut behind her. A guard locked it.
“What is this?” April asked.
Dominic Friend snapped his fingers. A door at the other end of the court opened and two guards led in a man on a motorized dolly. The man stood completely erect and was bound at the ankles, waist, arms, and neck. He wore a dark mask that obscured everything but his eyes.
April recognized those eyes. They were a shade of red and seemed to boil in the socket like a pit of fire.
Ronald Lime was wheeled to the center of the court. The guards switched off the dolly and stepped away.
Dominic Friend opened a folding chair and set it in front of Lime. He said to April, “He’s been asking to talk with you.”
April glared at Friend. She tried to control it, but her eyes had started tearing up. It was because of anger, she assured herself, but she hated it regardless. April wiped away the tear and sat down.
“Can the thing talk?” April asked.
Lime said, “Yes, it can.” His voice sounded like a recording, distorted and far away.
“It’s not his real voice,” Friend said. He stood off to the side, leaning against the padding on the wall. “His voice is filtered through a dozen programs installed into the mask, so we’re not getting whatever curses may be hidden between the words. There’s a slight delay, but it shouldn’t cause problems.” He nodded smugly. “Without that mask, he’d have killed you already.”
April asked Lime, “What do you want?”
“Talbot’s dead,” Lime said.
“Yes, he is.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“I know,” April said.
Lime’s eyes narrowed. “Who do you think it was, then?”
“One of your demons killed him,” April said.
“That’s not what the demons say. . .” Lime laughed. The laughter sounded like it was recorded underwater.
“Demons are liars,” April said.
“And yet you learn life lessons from my old pal Haagenti. How is the horned devil doing these days? He used to be such a wild thing. It’s a shame to hear they locked him away just for being himself.”
“He’s not like you,” April said. She noticed Friend staring at her funny and she realized how strange it must seem to stand up for a demon.
“You’re all like me,” Lime said. “You’re more my children now than the children of God.”
April clenched her teeth and made her hands into fists.
“Oh, that’s a trigger word right there,” Lime said. “Don’t want me to bring up the children, Ms. Frausini? All you had to do was ask. But first, let me ask you one thing on the subject; did the little girl have any last words?”
April stared at Lime for a long time. She wanted Friend to intervene and end this. No help was coming, though. She was alone.
April said, “No.”
“Didn’t live long enough to have anything useful to say at the end,” Lime said. “Or maybe I broke her worse than I thought and she simply couldn’t talk even if she wanted to. I wonder what she would have said, if given the time and a proper spine.”
“Stop,” April said.
“She’d say, ‘Help me.’”
April glanced over at Dominic Friend. “Please, that’s enough,” she said.
Lime laughed. “She’d say, ‘Save me, April.’ Of course, she didn’t know your name, though. She never had the chance to learn that either. Such a short life. So unfair.”
April stood up quickly from her chair. She got up in Lime’s face and said, “Ronald, if there’s any of you left in there, let me know or I’m going to break your neck right here and now.”
“That’s the spirit!” Lime cheered.
Friend and the guards stepped in between them. Lime laughed as the guards turned him around and pushed him towards the exit.
“To be continued, Ms. Frausini,” Lime said before the doors shut behind him.
April felt like spitting in Friend’s face. Instead, she said, “Are you satisfied now?”
“You let him get to you,” Friend said.
“I’m sure I’m not the only one,” April said.
Friend nodded. “You did well enough. We can’t have you hiding away when we need you next time. There are those that seem to think you’re special in some way. I don’t see what they see, but I can’t deny them their right to favor you.”
April wondered about the identities of these secretive few who watched over her from afar. Were they friends of Talbot? She hoped to meet them before too long.
Friend said, “Return to the United States for your next assignment. If we need you to return to Rome, we’ll call.”
“That’s it?” April asked.
“That’s it.”
April left the underground complex without further delay.
Her return flight wouldn’t be until the next day. She didn’t bother with a hotel and instead walked the streets of Rome in a daze.
Hours passed and she was about as lost as she could be.
She found her way to the ancient ruins of the Roman Colosseum.
April meandered into the long line of a tour group. They walked through the stone gateways, up into the Colosseum. They admired the walls that the slaves had built and the grounds they had died in for the sport of their masters.
April lingered at the back of the group, looking out over what remained of the arena.
Eternally lost spirits of gladiators lingered there dressed in the armor of ancient Rome. They fought each other still, looking for some victory even after death.
One ghost in particular seemed to notice her watching. He was a strong young man, dressed only in a loin cloth and armor for his shoulders. In either hand he carried a sword.
April went as close as she could, leaning over a rusty railing.
The gladiator spirit approached her, paying no mind to the combat that waged on behind him.
The gladiator said, “Where do we go from here?”
Epilogue
Back in America, April tried her best to get along with the Gatekeepers she partnered up with, but all attempts at forging lasting partnerships failed to work out. Upon April’s own reques
t, she soon became one of the few Gatekeepers who regularly operated alone in the field.
During a dry spell of paranormal activity, April had the chance to return to Notre Dame and look up old friends.
April met up with her friends Abby and Josh at a family diner. April silently questioned why she couldn’t meet Abby at her place, but she understood when she sat down at her friend’s table.
Abby and Josh were uncomfortable during the entire lunch. Josh regarded April with suspicious hostility, while Abby seemed to be watching the door, urgent to get away.
April tried to ignore it. Her friends knew she was sort of different and she had dropped out quite suddenly. She secretly hoped the campus gossip had created wild rumors about her departure. When she learned what the rumors actually said, though, April wished that she had gone completely unnoticed by all involved.
Josh leaned forward, nearly dragging his shirt through his chili fries he had never touched. He whispered, “Where’s Lime?”
April feigned ignorance. “How should I know?”
“You both disappeared the very same day,” Josh said. “And I saw the way you were looking at him that night at the bar.”
Abby put her hand on April’s. “You ran away together, right?” Abby asked, forcing a smile. “That’s all it is.”
April shook her head. “Um, no. I didn’t go anywhere with him.”
“But you know what happened to him,” Josh said.
“I don’t like your tone, Josh,” April said.
Josh nodded. “Lime’s parents are looking for him everywhere. It’s a missing person’s case. The students don’t talk about it much, because Lime was Lime. But I know he had your attention that night.” He shrugged, ate a fry. “Then you both up and leave. It’s interesting, April.”
Abby said, “Talk to me, April.”
“I don’t know what happened to Lime,” April said.
“Then what happened to you?” Josh asked. “Answer that much, anyway. How does a girl looking so desperately for her future decide to suddenly abandon it one day?”
“We’re your friends, April,” Abby said. She smiled again, looking even more forced than before. “We have your best interests at heart, but you have to help us understand.”
April sighed.
There was no way to make them understand. She couldn’t tell them the truth and she wasn’t good at creating believable lies. She compromised.
“I met a man,” April said.
Abby’s mood brightened. Her smile became more genuine. She tilted her head to the side like a puppy examining some unexpected treat held an arm’s length away.
“Really?” Josh asked, his tone different. He remained skeptical, but gone was the antagonism. He ate more fries.
“Who is he?” Abby asked excitedly.
“His name’s Jameson,” April said. “He’s a little older than me, but we hit it off really well.” She shrugged and quietly added, “I see something in him. He’s special to me in a way a guy never was before.”
Abby couldn’t contain herself; that smile grew and grew. “I’m so happy for you,” she said. She poked her boyfriend in the ribs. “He thought something was wrong, but I knew we could trust in you.”
Josh nodded with a sideways smirk.
“Jameson’s got a job lined up for me,” April said. “I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of college and I figured I shouldn’t ignore opportunity’s incessant knocking. If it doesn’t work out, there’s nothing that says I can’t go back to school later on.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Abby said again.
Josh said, “Yeah.”
April smiled and lunch resumed without conflict. She answered their questions as best she could, giving them the truth with just a sprinkling of imagination on top. She presented Jameson Talbot as a gentleman with a winning personality. She made it sound like she was in love.
April left the diner and her friends with a feeling of sadness, believing with a high level of certainty that she would never see them again.
She tried to cling to the words of her new mentor Haagenti, who said that she would meet friends elsewhere in life. She would know that kind of kinship she had felt with Talbot once more, however short-lived it had been. One day, the demon said, she would be whole.
April went to her old dorm room. Her roommate wasn’t there but the door was left unlocked. She let herself in.
April’s side of the room remained vacant and dull. She would be replaced soon enough, but she was kind of happy that she hadn’t been just yet.
She sat down at the edge of her old bed. It had no sheets on it and there were no pillows, but she found it easy to lay back and rest in its embrace, regardless.
April was startled to realize that she was not alone in the room—that the spirit of her dead boyfriend Brett had come to visit her once again.
While Brett was gray as a stone and translucent, April recognized that he wore his university colors in the form of a jacket and cap. He was smiling at her.
“It’s good to see you again,” Brett said.
April put her elbow behind her to sit up a bit. “I thought you would’ve gone on ahead by now.”
“We didn’t get a chance to say a proper good bye,” Brett said.
“You stayed behind for me?”
Brett shrugged like even he realized it was a dumb idea.
“You didn’t have to do that,” April said. “I was happy thinking you’d left this place behind.”
“It’s hard to leave,” Brett said.
“I know.”
“I tried to say bye to my mom and dad,” Brett said. “They never heard a word. I guess I needed someone to hear me. You hear me.” He smiled. “You always heard me.”
April got up from the bed. She wanted to reach out to touch Brett, but knew her hands would pass right through him.
She hovered her hand next to Brett’s face, caressing air. She leaned forward and kissed the gray vision before her.
“Good bye, Brett,” April said.
He took a deep breath. “Bye.”
April watched as he became more and more translucent. Soon all that was left were dust particles in some vague shape of a man. April let out a breath and the dust dispersed, flying in every imaginable direction.
She lied back down on the bed and curled her knees up to her chest.
April closed her eyes. And though she did not sleep, she allowed herself to dream.
END
April’s story continues in full length novels in the series The End of the World and Some Other Things. Book 1, Death’s Good Intentions, will be available 9/9/14.
Also coming soon: Blood Child: A Prologue to the End of the World and Some Other Things, which sets up other main characters from the series.
Keep checking www.kyle-warner.com for more information on book deals and upcoming releases.
Note from the author
Hello! Thank you very much for reading. If you enjoyed The Man with the Devil’s Tongue, please consider reviewing it on your favorite book website. I would be most grateful!
I have a great many more stories left to tell, so please check out my site for updates on what comes next. If you want, consider following me on twitter @KyleWarner3000.
Thanks again!
--Kyle
Other Books by Kyle Warner
Death’s Good Intentions: The End of the World and Some Other Things Book 1
Available September 9th
Trey Decarr, a contract killer has been chosen by fate to become Death, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Disgusted by his new post, Decarr decides to resist rather than serve, making himself an enemy of Hell and an unpredictable nuisance for Heaven. Decarr finds himself in a losing battle against both angels and demons while he scours the globe hunting the other Horsemen in a desperate attempt to stave off Armageddon. Meanwhile, a secret order of the church called the Gatekeepers is tasked with killing Decarr, likening him to a rabid dog that needs to be put down. Leading
the team that hunts Decarr is young April Frausini. Her orders are simple: kill Death. But April is conflicted, sensing purpose in Decarr’s wild actions, and believes he could become a trusted ally in the fight to save the world from annihilation.
Blood Child: A Prologue to the End of the World and Some Other Things
Available August 26th
A prequel to Death's Good Intentions, which follows Ivan Tarkovsky, the man chosen to be Death during WWII. Tarkovsky resisted much like Decarr and suffered in Hell for his defiance, eventually becoming a twisted demon of a man. When Tarkovsky sees Decarr repeating his mistakes in modern day America, Tarkovsky makes it his mission to corrupt Decarr’s soul and put him on the 'proper path.'
Brain Mold
A story of isolation, contagion, and madness. When a winter storm hits a small town, it brings with it the spores of an infectious mold. The mold leaves the sick in a state of euphoria while it tears their bodies apart inside, essentially turning them into a horde of giggling zombies. Now it's up to the few healthy citizens in town to save themselves as their small neighborhood descends into anarchy.