****
The Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse
“Finally, we are free!” shouted Death.
“Vengeance shall be ours!” Famine said in response.
“We shall destroy these mortals and bring an end to this world,” Pestilence agreed.
“Let us start with the strongest, and enjoy their torture,” War suggested.
The Four Horsemen triumphantly galloped to a hilltop above the largest nearby city in North America. There, they found many strange things. Artificial torches burned throughout the night, and massive buildings towered in every direction. More people than the Horsemen ever thought possible bustled this way and that. Still, this only meant more people to enjoy destroying.
“I shall go first,” Famine said, stepping his black horse forward. With a tip of the scales in his hand, he set fire to crops across the continent and spoiled food in pantries of houses. Laughing, he watched to see the people’s suffering. He was soon surprised to find that many people enjoyed the extreme lack of food and were excited to lose weight and become dangerously thin. Even more to his annoyance, those who did not want to lose weight simply switched to Ramen noodles, an inexplicable food source which seemed to come from nowhere, to never go rotten, and to be infinite in number. Desperate not to be embarrassed in front of his comrades, Famine tipped the scales once more, and corrupted all waters for hundreds of miles. Nobody noticed, as a vast majority of the people never drank water anyway, only strange and mystical concoctions known as coffee and soda. Shocked, Famine faltered.
“Hah!” Pestilence announced. “You are weak. Let me try.”
Haughtily, Pestilence stepped his white horse forward. With a wave of his arrowless bow, he released vast clouds of bugs across the continent. Pestilence’s haughty smile dropped slowly as people simply shut the windows of their fortress-like houses, and many communities and farms simply sprayed yellow clouds that immediately destroyed the bugs. Angry now, Pestilence sent heat waves to torture the people, but they simply turned up the air conditioners in their already-sealed-up houses.
“What?” Pestilence shouted, indignant. “How is this possible?”
War laughed. He pushed Pestilence aside, and stepped his red horse forward, raising his sword. With a slice of his sword through the air, War cut friendships and caused hatreds, igniting wars across the world.
“Now they will suffer,” War mocked his colleagues.
Famine, Pestilence, and Death merely smiled.
“What? What is it?” War asked, worried. He turned and examined the people, whose behavior had not changed at all. The people milled about as usual, completely indifferent to the wars raging globally. War scratched his head, confused. Televisions with images of the warfare were everywhere throughout the city, yet people only glanced at them disinterested every so often. Determined to find out what was insulating the people from terror, he summoned a puny mortal to him.
“Mortal,” he demanded, surrounding himself in fire and demon spirits. “Why are you not terrified of the expanding bloody conflicts?”
Instead of fear, the puny mortal exhibited boredom.
“These special effects are weak!” the young man shouted to the side. “Which show are you guys? Am I being Punk’d? Or is this some stupid political commercial stunt?”
Quietly, the three other Horsemen snickered. Disgusted, War threw the puny mortal back into the lands below. He sighed, and made way for Death.
Death moved his pale horse forward slowly. He silently raised a bony hand, pointing at individuals throughout the crowded city below. He caused them to suffer horrible deaths, through accidents, suicides, and murders. He paused, but the only response among the people was a couple sensationalist newspaper headlines. Raising his other hand, he caused bombings and attacks which killed thousands. He paused, but the only response among the people was a tightening of security and a heightening of fear, making each successive act even more difficult for Death. Finally, the people had shut themselves up in secure houses, with secure passage everywhere, antibiotics on everything, and foam corners for their coffee tables. Without risk, the people merely spent their time on the computer, watching television, and playing video games. Death sighed, powerless.
“We need to outsource this,” Death spoke, the only words his colleagues had ever heard him speak. “Hold on.”
With a wave of his hand, Death summoned from India the little-known fifth Horseman, Hurricane. Nodding, Hurricane stepped his blue horse forward, and waved his staff. He smashed a massive hurricane into the people, and, for a time, chaos ensued and many suffered. The Horsemen each smiled, but their smiles slowly dropped as the people soon lost their fear, restored order, and returned to their homes, their only concern being who to blame for what had happened. Hurricane waved his staff again, hitting the people with more and more hurricanes. Inexplicably, the people directly harmed by the hurricanes merely moved back to where they had been as soon as the hurricanes ended despite knowing more would soon come, and those outside the path of the storms exhibited no change in behavior, only glancing disinterested at their televisions every so often.
“What is WITH these people?” Hurricane demanded. “They are completely inexplicable!”
The Five Horsemen looked at each other in embarrassment.
“We can’t possibly be defeated by these backwards mortals,” War insisted. “There is one more that we can call upon, one whose powers were useless in ancient times, but may be of use now. There is also a seventh, the greatest, who I shall also summon.”
A rift opened in time and space, and a sixth Horseman appeared from his long rest. His horse was lightning and he held a metal rod in his hand, and his name was Power Outage. With a wave of his rod, he stole all the electricity in the world. The six Horsemen looked at each other, then the world. There was a silent pause, then, suddenly, chaos ensued. The people went mad with looting, fires, and murders. Civilization collapsed in a matter of weeks as the people destroyed themselves, leaving nobody left alive for the Horsemen to destroy or torture.
The six Horsemen looked at each other in surprise and wonder, hearing the hoofbeats of the distant seventh Horseman approaching. It would be several hundred years before he arrived.
“That’s it?” War asked. “That’s all we had to do? Turn off the televisions, computers, and video games, and they destroyed themselves?”
Power Outage looked at him with equal surprise, and he said:
“I’m just happy we killed them all before that jerk Global Warming got here!”
****
If you liked these stories, please leave a review.
Reviews are the best way to give back to authors you enjoy. If you enjoyed this work, please leave a review, rate the book, or share it with your friends!
Back to Table of Contents
You can follow my work at MattDymerski.com,
About the Author
I’ve been an avid fan of horror my entire life, ever seeking exquisite terror as a reader - and now, as a writer. I write what I’d like to read, and I hope that you enjoy it, too. If you do, feel free to let me know, or follow my work!
My Blog:
https://MattDymerski.com
Facebook Author Page:
https://www.facebook.com/MattDymerskiAuthor
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MattDymerski
Email:
[email protected]
Stay scared…
Psychosis: Tales of Horror Page 15