by Glen Johnson
I then found the local train station, and after locking myself into the disabled toilet I proceeded to change the colour of my hair with the dye I had bought from a small express Tesco’s. Then I simply climbed out of my clothes, using my jumper to dry my hair, and put a black tracksuit on, that I normally wouldn’t be seen dead in, that I had brought in a cheap tacky clothes shop.
Then I stuffed my jeans and wet polo-neck jumper into the plastic bag the tracksuit came in. Then plopped the black baseball cap down tight, which I had also bought from the petrol station. Not even giving the dye time to dry properly.
I stood peering into the dirty cracked mirror. I was now a shadow, all black, black tracksuit and baseball cap, even my hair was now raven black. I hadn’t shaved since the morning, and decided to let it grow.
Before leaving the train station I walked around to one side, finding a clothes recycle bin – a big ugly green metal tank. I then emptied my old clothes into it. Then knelt down besides it and using the large clothes recycling bin to hide me from view, I used a disposable lighter to melt my credit cards and then dropped my wallet down the drain, along with my watch and ring. I had enough money on me, and I didn’t want to be tempted to use it again. And my unusual watch and ring were too conspicuous, too expensive to go with my cheap clothes.
I had my iPhone 3GS in my pocket. It was turned off, because they would be able to locate me within minutes. I kept it in case in came in handy at some point.
I now headed back into the train station and stood at the ticket desk, trying to decide where to head. London I decided. If you’re trying to hide why not step right into the rats’ nest. I thought about catching a flight back to America, but no, they would be onto me by now, and the airports would be out of the question. Besides my passport was in the safe in my bedroom. London it is then.
I bought my ticket, now waiting along with the other passengers who made a mêlée of noise. I instinctively looked down at my naked wrist to see what the time was, and had to make do with the large automated clock hanging from the metal girders above the platform.
Several times a male voice echoed across the platforms speaker system, but he was incomprehensible, sounding like he had just had – or was having – a stroke.
I waited the remainder of the time with my head down behind the Daily Mail newspaper that I found on the bench. People didn’t seem to notice that the pages never turned, just held up in front of my face.
Before long I found myself sat in a window seat at the end of one carriage. Baseball cap pulled down over my eyes, pretending to be asleep. Wondering what my next move would be. That is until someone slid in beside me. I tried to pretend I didn’t notice that was until he called me by my name.
17
Demonstration
My mind raced. I was used to people picking me out of the crowd, but that was only around where I lived, and only because they knew I lived in that area. One of the good things about being a writer was the average person didn’t know what you looked like, and cared even less. If you saw J. K. Rowling or Stephen King on your high street, you’d probably walk straight past, not recognizing them.
How did someone recognize me, I now looked completely different? Donning a baseball cap, and along with black hair and tacky cheap clothes. Not to mention my head was down, with the cap covering most of my features.
My heart was banging like a kettledrum. Sweat beading upon my forehead and the palms of my hands. I swallowed hard, my Adam’s apple bobbing like a yo-yo. I tried to appear relaxed, as if I hadn’t heard, and didn’t realize he was speaking to me.
I could feel the person’s movements on the seat.
“Jacob…?” The male voice said again.
It sounded like the person was smiling. I remember the long afternoons in church when I was much younger, the vicar would be rattling on, but when he reached certain points he would stop and smile. You could actually hear him smiling over the speakers, a sticky wet sound like a post-it stamp being pulled free.
I still kept my head down, pretending I wasn’t me. Making out I thought he was addressing someone else.
“Come now, Jacob, I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to find you, and the least you could do is say hello.”
I still tried to look like I had an untroubled face as I looked around. Had I heard right?
“Sorry,” I said. “Are you talking to me?” My face expressionless, like a lawyer asking for his fee.
“Now, now, Jacob, let’s not play silly buggers.”
The person sitting next to me was a ticket conductor. His suit was all wrinkled as if he had already been on a long shift, or had some sort of seizure. His white shirt was open on the top few buttons, his stripped tie hanging sideways. His white shirt now showing the days dirt, which had accumulated on the inside of the collar. I remember when I was younger; a dirty collar was called a rising tide. He was about fiftyish, and had half moon glasses propped on the end of his bulbous nose. A drinker’s nose which was bright red with veins creating what looked like a small city map, which was also copied on either, blushed cheek.
What gave it away though was the cigarette protruding from the corner of his mouth; smoke trailing up his face and around his lopsided hat.
“Yes, Jacob, it’s me. Surprised?” That terrible smile that will go with me to my grave.
I looked at him for a few seconds. I was actually relieved it wasn’t someone else, but at the same time I was angry with him for the position he had placed me in. I kept my anger in check, causing a scene on the train was the last thing I needed to do. He was drawing people’s attention as it was, by smoking on a non-smoking train. Luckily this was England and people never like to cause a scene.
I turned my head and just stared out the window, watching the scenery shooting past; grey sky and barren trees, which done little to alter my sullen mood.
“Get away from me, you’ve done enough damage as it is already,” I whispered, so quietly that if he was human he wouldn’t of heard, what with the dull rumbling of the train on the tracks.
“That’s the thanks I get for arranging to meet you here.” His voice sounded like he was generally hurt.
Bullshit, I thought.
Then another thought occurred to me. “What are the chances of there being a dead body on this train?” I asked my eyes boring into him.
He looked slightly taken back for a moment before he had chance to change his facial expression.
“He was a very evil man. Trust me, I can read hearts and intentions. The world’s a much better place without him in it. His tastes ran to that of small children and livestock. Parents and farmers would thank me. In fact, the last time you ate a bacon sandwich, you probably got a lot more than you bargained for because of this bloke.”
“Who are you to judge who’s to live or die?” I turned away, not wanting to look at him, being angry for everything he had put me through.
“Who am I?” His voice raised a few octaves. “I rule this world. It was given to me for a short period of time, for me to prove the questions to the answers I raised.” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth, and with the same hand pointed at me, spilling ash everywhere, as he blew smoke straight in my direction.
“Do you think that when the Book says, in the book of John chapter fourteen verses thirty that, the ruler of the world, is referring to Him?
“That’s me – the wicked one – unless I’m very much mistaken. Do you think He’s in control of things down here? Mankind has been plagued with hatred, violence and horrific wars for thousands of years. Do you think God would let the world get into this state? Do you think the Book would refer to Him as the wicked one? No. Me, I’m the one it speaks about. I control this fucking ball of spinning dirt. I’m stuck down here with the pitiful, weak, snivelling human race. You fucking mud crawlers.
“It says in Second Corinthians chapter four verse four, that I and I alone am the God of this System of Things.” He was fuming with anger, all pent up and seemingly ready to
burst out of him like an explosion.
“The Book refers to me in name, using Satan fifty-two times, and the name Devil thirty-three times.” His eyes were now wide and bloodshot. Mucus running from his nose.
“I have taken His angels from the heaven. I am the one they now bow to.” His hands were now all twisted with anger.
“In Matthew chapter twenty-four and verse forty-one, it says: The Devil and his angels. Mine, they’re mine.
“In Jubilees –” he seemed to abruptly deflate, as if the anger was just for show. His voice was now calm and collected – “and I will just add that Jubilees is one of the many books from the bible that has been left out. All because the roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century rejected it, because it wasn’t part of the Masoretic version. Some say its pseudepigrapha, or false writings. Its not, it’s even older than the book of Genesis, given to Moses on top Mt Sinai.
“In fact there’s numerous books left out of the bible you have circulating today. Books and scriptures mentioned when referring to other parts of its original self. Sections the very bible considers authentic and valuable sources of information – now missing, removed over time.”
He started rattling of scripture names, as if they would mean something to me. “The Book of the Wars of the Lord, mentioned in Numbers twenty-one verse fourteen. The Book of Jasher, mentioned in Joshua ten verse thirteen and Second Samuel chapter one verse eighteen. The Book of the Covenant, mentioned in Exodus twenty-four verse seven, which in some translations, even that reference has been removed. Epistle to the Laodiceans, mentioned in Colossians four verse sixteen. Also books such as the Tobit, The Book of Wisdom, Books One and Two of Maccabees, Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children, Psalm one hundred and fifty-one, The Gospels According to the Egyptians, The Coptic Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of the Savior, and the Second Treatise of the Great Seth. I could go on for hours reciting the deuterocanonical books, for there are many.” He slowly shook his head from side to side.
“Mind you I am glad they left out the Book of Enoch because that was a veritable smorgasbord of information concerning The Watchers, as Enoch called us. That fucking Scottish explorer James Bruce found three copies of it in 1773 in Ethiopia.
“But my personal favourite from the New Testament apocrypha, is The Gospel of Eve, or Gospel of Perfection, as it’s otherwise known. The Church completely wiped-out all knowledge of this text because it justified practicing coitus interruptus, or pulling it out before the one-eyed monster spurted, and eating semen as a religious act. It was only because Saint Epiphanius of Salamis, from Cyprus at the end of the fourth century, quoted from it that scholars have heard of it.
“Anyway –” his anger came crashing back. It was like watching someone with Multiple Personality Disorder, and he was flicking between the two. “– in Jubilees five and verse six it states: Against His angels whom He had sent to the earth He was angry enough to uproot them from their position of authority. That’s us, His angels. Who are now mine.” Blood started to bead on his forehead, running like sweat.
There was an actual name for the phenomena, when someone’s so stressed and under strain that sweat runs as blood. The phenomenon is called hematidrosis. In the stolen bible I had been reading, it actually referred to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, where he was praying to his father to give him strength, just before his arrest; blood poured from his forehead also.
He raised his voice so everyone could hear. “Revelations chapter twelve and verse nine states: Down the great serpent was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth, he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.” He looked at me with his dark eyes.
His voice became a whisper. “In another left out book, called The Book of Wisdom, it states, in chapter two and verse twenty-four, that: By the envy of the devil death entered into the world. And they that belong to his realm experience it. All belongs to me. All die because of me. The world lies in my power and mine alone.”
I looked on in utter shock at his outburst, the way he was flicking between personalities. Maybe his host had a disorder? Bipolar maybe?
Suddenly he went silent, brooding on the very words he had just spoken.
It was also the first time he didn’t have the wicked grin stretched across his face. And the first time he had raised his voice while talking to me. His head was slightly lowered, his red eyes rolled right back to there limit. He wiped the blood from his forehead, smearing it across his face, like tribal war paint.
At that very moment a suited man rose from his seat and approached our seating. He stood over the conductor. He couldn’t have picked a worse time.
“Excuse me. But, are you going to punch our tickets or not?” Then as an after thought added, “Oh and it’s illegal to smoke on public transport.” Proud to be the one to stand up to such outright rudeness.
Nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds, until the body next to me slowly started to turn around – as if on a turntable – and look up at the suited man. I could feel his raw power emanating from him like a supernova. If I could feel it, surely the suited man could?
“Fuck-off,” was all he said through clenched teeth, cigarette bouncing wildly in his mouth, ash spilling down the uniform, as if to taunt the man. “You fucktard, thick as lead bastard, can’t you see we’re talking here?”
The man physically flinch back a step, as if being slapped in the face, a face that was now turning bright red. His hand squeezed the back of the seat. He could obviously see the blood smeared across the conductors face, but didn’t mention it. He looked extremely incensed. Maybe he had never been called a fucktard before?
“I have ridden t-t-this very t-t-train for eight years and n-n-never in all that time has a-a-a conductor e-ever s-s-spoken to me like this b-before.” His chest was rising and falling, panting heavily.
“N-n-n-never?” He mimicked the mans stuttering, spittle flecking from his mouth.
The complaining man was furious, spittle flecking from the corner of his mouth as well, as if copying his tormentor.
“I w-w-will –” The man began, but was cut off by being punched in the stomach by the conductor. He then grabbed the mans tie and pulled him down to his level.
“You fucking moronic homosapien. Why do I put up with all this shit?” The second part he said while looking at me, his face boiling with rage. I had never seen him like this before. It scared me right down to my very core. The hair on the nape of my neck stood on end, my palms itched like crazy. If I had an opportunity to jump from the train at that exact moment I would have.
He turned his attention back to the coughing man. Who was now bright red from having his tie pulled tight around his throat.
Other people were now standing to see what was happening. But in typical English fashion no one came to the suited man’s aid. They pointed a lot, and made loud tut-tutting noises with their tongues, but that was the extent of their helpfulness. One man did run to the back of the carriage and out through the automatic door, either running away or going for help.
He then leant in closer to whisper something into the mans ear. The mans face contorted as if hearing something unimaginable. Then in a flash he gripped the mans ear in his mouth and ripped it off his face, blood pouring everywhere.
Screams of hysteria echoed up and down the carriage.
He released the man, tossing him backwards with superhuman strength into another seat by the window. The man was screaming like a person possessed. His eyes wide, still clutching at the bleeding gap, until his head smacked bone crushingly hard against the thick glass, sending millions of small cracks in every direction. He laid motionless, head at an unnatural angle. The blood pouring from the side of his head was the only movement from him, and even that was slowing down, now that his heart had stopped pumping.
The conductor’s face changed, now evil and vile, contorting it to the extreme. He now stood; hands stretche
d wide like a true demon, conjured from the dark bottomless pit of Hades.
The image before me was disturbing, reminding me of the time I had been to the Prado in Madrid, which showed a dire painting by Hieronymus Bosch. It was named The Garden of Earthly Delights. The images that had come from Hieronymus tormented mind were horrifying. The painting was in three parts. The third though was by far the worst, showing demonic birds and other bizarre creatures administering torture to numerous sinners. The detail was enthralling, capturing the look in the creatures’ eyes as they dealt out the pain.
The look in the conductor’s eyes was identical to those of the monstrous creatures.
People tried to get out of the carriage, running down the narrow isle, all piling into the next one along.
He turned back to me, his face quickly returning to that of a dead man, eyes all glassy and devoid of spirit. I could see he was consumed with madness, anger boiling off him, like rays from a black sun. It was almost palatable. The very air seemed to shimmer in his presences. Where his hands were clenched on the back of the two seats, small flames danced between his tense fingers. He lifted a smouldering hand and removed the ear from his mouth, blood dribbling down his chin, soaking his dirty collar.