The 13th Horseman

by Barry Hutchison

  “No,” Drake said. “Just that it was going to be something spectacular.”

  “Aye, that sounds like him,” War said. “Bloody show-off. Anything else?”

  “Not really. He had a smartphone thing. He pushed a button and said that was that, he’d started it all happening. Then Toxie appeared and attacked him.”

  War slid his sword into the scabbard on his back. “Oh. So he’s dead?”

  “He fought back,” Drake told him.

  “Fought back? Against Toxie? Against a Hellhound?”

  “Yeah,” Drake said with a shrug. “Seemed to be putting up a pretty good fight too.”

  “What did you say his name was, this teacher?”

  “Dr Black.”

  War pulled a face that said the name meant nothing to him. “New, is he?”

  “No, been there a while, I think.”

  “Really? Interesting,” War said, stroking his beard. “Right, get the Deathblade and we’ll go and meet the others.”

  “Where is it?” Drake asked.

  “It’s there, in the locker.”

  Drake looked inside the empty locker. “No, it isn’t.”

  War was suddenly behind him. “It was there,” he growled. “I know it was there.”

  “Well, it’s not there now,” Drake said.

  War muttered something below his breath. “Doesn’t matter,” he said aloud. “We’ll make do without it. Let’s go and get the other two.”

  Drake wanted to say ‘no’. He wanted to argue with the horseman, to convince him to call the whole thing off, but it was as if he were hypnotised. So, while he wanted to say ‘no’, what he actually said was: ‘OK.’

  They left the locker room, then stopped abruptly when they saw the other two horsemen waiting for them.

  “Ta-daa!” chimed Pestilence, holding out his arms. “What do you think?”

  A stunned silence fell.

  Pestilence looked like a violent encounter between a motorcyclist and a cowboy. On his bottom half he wore black leather chaps over his usual white trousers. Tassels dangled along the seams, swishing outwards when he turned to give the other horsemen a twirl.

  His boots, which reached almost to his knees, were also leather, but shinier than the chaps. They finished with a large, square heel at the back, giving Pest another few centimetres in height.

  The leather jacket he wore was studded across the shoulders. It hung open, revealing a black waistcoat underneath and, below that, a white roll-neck sweater.

  There was a soft creak as Pestilence pulled on his cap. Also leather. Also studded, with a chain hanging across the front, just above the peak.

  War, at last, found his voice.

  “What... in the name of God... are you wearing?”

  Pest looked down at his outfit. “What’s the matter with it?”

  “That’s your official uniform, is it?” asked War, in the tones of someone who was a hair’s breadth away from the end of his tether.

  “More or less,” Pest said. “I just sort of... zooshed it up a bit. It’s leather. Very practical, leather.”

  War shook his head, then turned to Famine. He was still wearing the same faded grey tracksuit as before. “And what’s your story?” War asked.

  “It doesn’t fit,” Famine said. “I can’t get the trousers past my knees. I ripped the backside right out of them trying to pull them on.”

  “And what about the measuring scales? You’re supposed to appear carrying scales. It says so in the book.”

  Famine looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, I sort of sat on them.”

  War’s forehead twitched. “You mean you broke them?”

  “Not exactly, not exactly,” Famine said. “See, I was trying to pull the trousers on at the time, and I didn’t know the scales were on the seat, and, well...” His voice trailed off and he gave a wobbly shrug. “I could try to get them back, I suppose, but I might need a hand. And some sort of lubricant.”

  Pest’s face went an interesting shade of green. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Great,” War growled, looking up to the ceiling. “Just great. You’ve lost your scythe, you’ve wedged your scales where the sun doesn’t shine and you…” he looked Pest up and down. “I don’t know where to start. Some bloody Apocalypse this is going to be.”

  “Speaking of which, we’d best get a move on,” Pest said. He took a deep breath, then turned to Drake and positioned his mouth into something that wasn’t quite a smile, but was a good effort all the same. “You ready, then?”

  Drake felt himself nod. The weight of thousands of years of expectation pushed down on him, smothering his will to resist. He was Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, and he had a job to do.

  “Said your goodbyes to everyone?” pressed Pest. “You know, to your mum, and all that?”

  “My mum?” Drake mumbled, as if confused by the word. Then his eyes went wide and his head went light, and like that, the spell was broken. “My mum! My mum’s going to die. Everyone is going to die!”

  Drake’s breath came in big, shaky gulps, too fast for his lungs to cope with. “We can’t do this. We can’t go through with it. We can’t.”

  War shot Pestilence an angry glare. “Oh, well done. Nice work.” He gestured with a thumb towards the hatch. “Get upstairs, the pair of you. We’ll be up in a minute.”

  “But... the Apocalypse,” Pest said. “What if we’re late? We can’t be late!”

  “What are they gonnae do? Fire us?”

  “No, but they could banish us to Hell,” Famine said.

  “Aye, just let me see them try it,” War snapped. “Now get upstairs. We’ll be up in a bit.”

  Famine and Pest exchanged a worried look, but they both knew better than to argue with War. Drake watched them until they had clumped all the way up the stairs, and out through the hatch at the top. Only then did he turn to the other horseman.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Drake said. “We can’t let this happen. All the people, we can’t just let them die.”

  “Sit down,” War told him. A leather couch squeaked in surprise as War’s full weight came down on it.

  “What?” Drake spluttered. “There’s no time!”

  “Sit down and catch your breath,” War insisted. He lifted a magazine, then rested his enormous feet on the coffee table. “You’re nervous. I get it. Take a minute to get your head together.”

  “My head is together. I’m not nervous,” Drake said. “That’s nothing to do with it. It’s just... it’s wrong. It’s all wrong!”

  “Aye. It’s hardly surprising, you seeing it that way. You’ve only been in the job a day. No wonder it’s messing with your head.”

  There was something different about War’s voice. It took Drake several seconds to realise what it was. He wasn’t shouting. “I’m gonnae let you in on a wee secret,” War said.

  Despite himself, Drake took a step closer. “What?”

  War held up the magazine. There was a salmon on the cover. “I always wanted to go fishing,” he said.

  Drake blinked. “What?” he asked, for a second time.

  “Fishing. I always wanted to go, but never did. Don’t know why, really.” He flicked through a few pages. “You ever fished?”

  “No, I... Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’d have liked a boat too,” War continued. “You know where you are with a boat.”

  “On the water, usually,” Drake said automatically.

  “Exactly.” War sighed and sat the magazine down. “Still, too late now, I suppose. Missed out on that opportunity.” He looked over at a clock on the wall, then picked up another magazine. It was a thin, glossy one, filled with ‘Real Life’ stories sent in by readers.

  War scanned the cover, picking out the headlines. “My baby breathes through his ears,” he read. “Look at this one. Cannibals ate my feet.”

  “What? So what? What are you on about?”

  “It’s life’s rich tapestry,” War sai
d. “Check this one. I’m afraid of my own hair. Her own hair. The nutter.” He turned a page and chuckled at another headline. “They’re a strange old bunch, humans. Interesting. Annoying, a lot of the time, aye, but... interesting.”

  Drake watched the giant, as he casually flipped through the magazine, occasionally chuckling at some story or other. He didn’t know why, but as he looked down at War, a question just popped in there, right at the front of Drake’s thoughts.

  “Do you want to do it?”

  War’s eyes lifted and glared over the top of the magazine. “What?”

  “I asked if you wanted it to happen. Do you want the Apocalypse?”

  “Do I want it? What do you mean, do I want it? What are you saying?”

  “You don’t, do you?” Drake realised. Excitement flushed through him. “It doesn’t have to happen. Don’t you see? We can stop it.”

  “Stop it?” roared War, suddenly back on his feet and looming larger than he had ever loomed before. “Stop it? Have you even read your job description?”

  “You didn’t give me a job description,” replied Drake, standing his ground.

  “Well, it’s the exact opposite of what you just said,” War barked. “We don’t stop Armageddon, we welcome it in.”

  Drake searched his face. “But you don’t want to.”

  “What I want has nothing to do with it!” War bellowed.

  “Just admit it,” Drake shouted back. “Say it.”

  The bit of War’s face that wasn’t beard turned scarlet. “Admit what? That I don’t want the Apocalypse to happen now because I’m worried you’ll mess it up? That I don’t want to have wasted six-and-a-half thousand years waiting for the end of the world, only for you to come along and ruin it for everyone?”

  War kicked one of the couches so hard it flipped across the room and thudded against a wall. “You are without doubt the worst Death we’ve ever had,” he boomed. “And I’m including the goldfish in that. You’re not picking any of it up, you haven’t developed any of the abilities, you can’t even whistle! We’ll be a laughing stock!”

  The gleaming breastplate rose and fell as War took a series of deep, steadying breaths. “So, in answer to your question, no I don’t want the world to end. At least, not today,” he admitted.

  “Besides,” he added more quietly, “I’d quite like to try fishing.”

  “Well, OK, then,” said Drake. “So what are we going to do about it?”

  “What’s taking them so long?” sighed Pestilence. He was wearing a hole in the floor, pacing back and forth, his eyes trained on the open hatch. “It’s all very well War taking his time, he’s not the first horseman. I am. If we turn up late, who do you think’s going to get the blame? Muggins here, that’s who.”

  There was a sound of footsteps from below. Drake hurried up the steps and into the shed, with War at his heels.

  “Finally!” Pest said. He gave Drake a friendly smile, then looked to War. “Is that us ready for the off, then? Judgement Day’s not going to start itself!”

  “Aye, about that,” said War, with a sideways glance at Drake. “There’s been a bit of a change of plan.”

  THE FOUR HORSEMEN of the Apocalypse stood in the clearing outside the shed. They were arguing. Or rather, three of them were arguing. The other was having a Cornetto.

  “Have you lost your minds?” Pestilence asked, looking from War to Drake and back again. “I mean, I mean... The entire point of our existence is to usher in the end of the world. Usher it in, not put a stop to it. Have you lost your minds?”

  “We don’t know if this is the end of the world, though, do we?” Drake said. “It’s the old Death doing it, so it’s probably not the real thing.”

  “Of course it is! War got the call!”

  “Aye, but they’ve lost the book,” War said.

  “That was careless,” Famine said, taking a bite from his cone.

  Pestilence’s gloved hands went to his mouth. “They’ve lost the book? The Book of Everything? They can’t have lost the Book of Everything. How could they lose the Book of Everything?”

  War shrugged. “No idea, but they have. They don’t know anything for sure. It’s guesswork. They told me on the phone earlier, but I didn’t want to say anything, in case, you know, you had a breakdown or something. But aye, they’ve lost the book.”

  “Oh, well... It doesn’t matter,” Pest said, after some consideration. “We got the call. It’s not our job to question, it’s our job to ride across the sky. Come on, War, we’ve been waiting a long time for this. We can’t blow it now.”

  “But that’s exactly what will happen if we ride out with him in tow,” War stabbed a finger at Drake. “He can’t even summon his horse.”

  “The end can’t come soon enough for my liking,” said Famine. “All this sitting around’s doing my head in.”

  “We don’t have to sit around all the time, though,” Drake said. “There’s a world of things to do out there – you don’t have to sit in a shed playing board games. You could go fishing, or hillwalking, or take up, I don’t know, showjumping or something.” Drake aimed the next suggestion squarely at Famine. “You could get a job reviewing restaurants, or, God, I don’t know, join a theatre group.”

  Pestilence briefly raised both eyebrows. “Musical theatre?”

  “If you wanted,” Drake said, nodding enthusiastically. “You were created at the beginning of the world, and you’ve been waiting around for the end. But you’ve missed out on the middle bit in between. You’ve wasted it.”

  Famine and Pest exchanged a look. Behind his beard, War smiled.

  “It’s too late,” Pestilence said, but he didn’t sound sure of himself. “We’ve had the call.”

  “OK, then what if this is the end of the world?” Drake asked. “What if this is the big finale? What happens to us afterwards?”

  “Well, I mean we...” Pestilence began, but he stopped there. He looked to War. “What happens to us again?”

  War’s broad shoulders raised, then lowered. “Dunno. You got your contract?”

  “I lost it years ago,” Pestilence said. He tried to smile, but his face was having none of it. “I expect we just... what? Go to Heaven? I expect that’s it.”

  Famine crammed the last of the Cornetto into his mouth. “Hang on,” he mumbled, before swallowing. “Lemme check the old filing system.”

  The fat man cleared his throat noisily. He sucked in his belly, but it was hard to notice any difference. He cleared his throat again, then punched a fist against the top of his stomach, right below where it met his chest bone.

  “You might want to step away,” War said, guiding Drake a few paces back. Pestilence was looking the other way, his rubber-gloved hands over his ears, his eyes tightly closed.

  There was a sound like a cat vomiting up a furball. Famine’s face was turning a moody shade of purple as he struck himself again and again below the sternum.

  “Uh, should we help him?” Drake asked.

  War shook his head. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  With a final spluttering cough, Famine hacked up a tight roll of paper, wrapped in a clear plastic cover. It landed with a soggy splat on the ground.

  “Told you,” War said.

  Groaning with the effort, Famine stooped and retrieved the package. He wiped it on his tracksuit to dry it, then removed the waterproof wrapper and uncurled his contract of employment.

  “Is it over?” Pest asked, opening one eye. When he saw that Famine was no longer regurgitating paperwork, he opened the other eye and brought both hands down from his ears.

  Famine’s sausage-fingers fumbled slowly through the pages. Somewhere near the last page, he stopped. His bloated lips moved silently as he read.

  “Anything?” War asked.

  Famine nodded. “We become human, apparently.”

  Pestilence’s lips seemed to tighten. “What? When?”

  War snatched the contract from Famine and skimmed over the page. “Right
away,” he said, at last. “Soon as we’ve finished riding.” He passed the contract back to Famine. “You know what that means?”

  “We’ll be judged,” Pest gasped. “With the rest of them. We’ll all be judged.”

  “Still reckon we should go through with it?” War asked him.

  Pest’s face had gone pale. Paler, even, than usual. “We have to,” he whimpered. “Don’t we?”

  “The way I see it,” said War, “is that, one, we don’t know if this is the real Apocalypse...”

  “If it was the real one there would be signs,” Drake said, remembering the conversation on Pest’s horse. “You said so yourself. Raining blood, plagues of locusts, all that. You seen any locusts around here lately?”

  “No,” Pestilence admitted. He wrung his hands together, nervously. “But, still—”

  “Two,” said War, irritated by the interruption, “if it is the real Apocalypse, then this clown is only going to make a right mess of it. No offence.”

  “None taken,” Drake assured him.

  “Three, we’ll be judged along with the humans, which I don’t fancy one little bit.”

  Pest chewed his lip. “I know all that, but... it’s our job. We’ve got to go through with it.”

  War squeezed the bridge of his nose between two gloved fingers. He sighed loudly, then looked Pest squarely in the eye.

  “I’m only going to say this once,” he said, his voice low. “And after that, we’re never going to talk about it again.” He cleared his throat. “I... don’t mind being in the shed with you both. I complain about it, aye, and half the time you do my head right in, with your whingeing and moaning and arguing and—”

  “Was there a point coming?” asked Drake.

  “What? Oh, aye. Aye.” War looked up to the sky, then back at Pest and Famine. “If I’m being honest, the other reasons don’t matter. The fact of it is, I don’t want the Apocalypse. I thought I did, but I don’t. I don’t want everything to end. I don’t want us three to end.”

  “Us four,” said Pest, nodding in Drake’s direction.

  “Aye. Well. Whatever. I’m just... I’m not ready for it. Not yet.”

  Pest looked across the faces of the others. “What’ll happen if we don’t ride?”