by Glen Johnson
Looking around I could see people running across the motorway, all disorientated. Another cars breaks could be heard screeching in my general direction. A middle-aged female’s body flew over the green Volvos bonnet, her head making a loud smacking noise as it connected with the windshield, then over the roof, to eventually land like a boneless sack of flesh.
The rain was pouring down.
I stumbled up the muddy embankment, not wanting to be struck by speeding vehicles. From my new position I could see at least ten cars that had hit the stationary bus. Even as I counted another struck, but unlike all the others, this one spewed forth flames, having punctured its fuel tank. Fire and lightning now lit up the scene of carnage, momentarily picking out the bodies of people lying motionless on the wet dark motorway.
The explosion rocked the ground as the car disappeared behind a wall of billowing smoke and incinerating flames. The light from the blaze was a beacon to other drivers, who were now slowing down. Skidding tyres and shrieking brakes could be heard ringing thought the darkness.
People were now screaming and crying out. Bodies lay around the wreckage. Some from the bus, others thrown from the cars. Figures wandered around aimlessly. Confused and frightened.
A teenage woman, who was obviously in shock, had her arms wrapped around herself, head shaking from side to side, her mouth wide open, with most of her front teeth missing, blood pouring down her jumper. She reminded me of Stephen King’s Carrie. She was heading directly towards the flames.
Flashing red and blue lights now join in with the confusion. Police or ambulance, I wasn’t sure. I knew police cars continually travelled up and down the motorways, looking for speeding motorists. Tonight they had found death.
I continued up the embankment, heading for the fields and the covering the trees offered just beyond. Trying to get away from the flashing lights, while trying to work out what had happened.
The rain was still hammering down. I couldn’t remember the last day it hadn’t rained. Even remembered years back when Devon had over one hundred days of continuous rain, a record even for this wet part of the country.
My mind tried to disconnect from the images of the crash. I could imagine the poor souls who saw the first rain, during the biblical flood, as it took forty days to cover everything. How long did the people last before they could no longer stay afloat, could no longer hold onto the item that was keeping them alive? Imagining the people who climbed to the peak of the mountain. Imagining their fear as the water level eventually crept up to meet them, with them having nowhere else to run.
Could they even swim? People hardly use to travel, no public transport back then. If you couldn’t afford a horse, then you had to walk. Most people hadn’t even seen the ocean. Imagine seeing so much water, slowly rising to cover even the highest mountain.
But I knew I was trying to think of anything apart from what had just happened. Remembering my dream, twisted and distorted, disjointed images flashing before my eyes. I was running frantically up and down the buses narrow aisle. People screaming while looking at my contorted face. Children crying, parents pulling them into their arms.
With my black and white tunnel vision I remember zoning into the driver, sinking my teeth into the fleshy folds of his white neck. Then the bus pulled hard hitting the middle reservation barrier, riding along it, sparks flying, metal screaming in protest. Then a tyre had blown out, tipping the already unstable bus over onto its side. People became weightless – just like on the train – their bodies hitting each other, heads cracking against large thick windows. Personal belonging flying around as if in a tempest.
I shook my head. Just a dream. Nothing but dreams.
I could hear sirens across the field, where the wreckage and bodies littered the motorway. I heard a deafening roar of a large detonation, and then the sound of twisted falling metal. Even through the heavy rain I could see smoke billowing skyward. Had the buses large tanks ignited? I turned and continued across the muddy field, my trainers squelching loudly. My feet already soaked through and numbingly cold.
A small flickering light shone weakly through the trees up ahead. I headed towards it. It spoke of warmth and food. I could imagine the farmer coming in after a long day, taking off his wet coat and muddy boots, placing his feet before the large hearth. His wife cooking shepherd’s pie or lamb hotpot over the large old-fashioned Aga. Sweet smells filling the warm kitchen. A ginger cat sat on a wicker chair waiting to be fed while cleaning its ears. An old sheepdog, with a grey muzzle curled up on a thick rug.
How wrong I was.
As I approached only a few lights shone from the large old house. I had moved toward the house from what looked like the rear side. There were open fields between me and the building; which promised warmth and protection from the pelting rain.
Tall long-needled conifers circled the field, keeping out the little amount of light the waning gibbous moon reflected, that was also struggling to break through the thick cloud layer.
Rain slammed down, I could feel it hitting my body, which was already biting cold, now starting to ache. My arthritis was starting to flare up in my knees.
I walked head down, tugging across the open field. My feet pushing through the thick boggy loam. Then suddenly I was walking up a slight incline. I came to an abrupt halt, looking down inside a vast hole in the ground. A large section of the field had been churned up. Ending in a hole I stood near, looking down into. It was hard to judge just how long the trench was that made up the destruction, the rain was far too heavy to see through clearly.
Something sat at the bottom of the trench; the rain bounced and echoed of its surface. But the light was too grainy and the hole too deep to see anything. Also the sides of the hole were too slippery to move any closer. It looked like something had fallen hard ripping up the field and coming to a stop below.
I had no idea where I was, so I had no reference to what it could be. Maybe a private plane had crashed and was partly buried around me. That couldn’t be, the place would be swarming with rescuers and police and The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch. Maybe it was an archaeological site. I had to admit it was too dark and raining too hard to get a proper view. It could simply be a discovery track, digging to locate whatever they were looking for, and the vast hole was the main dig site. If that were true then where was all the scaffolding, lifting equipment, assorted machinery needed for an excavation this large? It could have been removed, taking shelter from the driving rain in one of the large barns. Channel 4’s Tony Robinson and the Time Team could be sat in a portacabin just on the other side of the trees.
It all came down to simple guesswork. How was I to know that it was something I would never have guessed, even in my wildest dreams.
I navigated around the hole. Every now and then lightning would light up the disturbed field, but by the time I glanced around, to see if I could catch a better look, the darkness once again dominated, and because of the lightning, my vision was even worse.
I trudged across the soggy field, heading towards the copse line and the old farmhouse.
I pushed through the trees, water cascading down over me, but unable to make me any wetter than I already was. Up ahead was the back of the farmhouse and its large wide-open yard.
A tractor rested under an old galvanized covering. Farmyard implements were scattered around, leaning against walls or stacked inside the entrance to the large barn. A flatbed truck was wedged against one wall, its wheels missing having breeze blocks in there place. On top of the flatbed was large, what looked like, terracotta pipes. Beside it was a horsebox, which fared no better. Against another wall was a pick-up trucks canopy that rested upside down, filled up with water. Also a rusty rotary sweeper lay on its side, with half its blades missing. Over outside the barn lay a slurry pump, which had been stripped down. Under another covering was a mountainous collection of what looked like fertiliser bags all stack up high.
I couldn’t hear any animals, no cows or sheep. Possibly
drowned out by the sound of the hammering rain on the galvanized barn roof.
I kept my head down, so the rain wouldn’t run down the front of my coat and enter my hood. My feet splashed through deep puddles. Mud and straw filled the courtyard. No dogs came running towards me, skipping around barking. Inside as well I suspect, out of the rain and biting cold.
I stood under the wide metal veranda above the backdoor. I didn’t know what I would say. I glanced around again. Something caught my attention, an old green Morris Minor, similar to the one that had picked me up when I was first running from the police. It looked the same, but it was hard to tell through the driving rain. Same colour and design nothing more. Just a coincidence, I thought to myself.
I went to raise my hand to knock on the thick oak door, when suddenly it swung open. There stood before me was the same little old man who had given me a lift. He said nothing; he simply stood aside and motioned for me to enter.
I stood unmoving while trying to piece things together.
Then suddenly a loud voice echoed out from the open doorway. “Enter Jacob.”
Him! What was he doing here?
The old wrinkled man wandered off, arms hung limply at his sides, leaving the door wide open, disappearing around a dark corner down the hallway. Uncaring if I entered or not.
I entered.
The farmhouse smelt musty and old; reminding me of the small cottage I had stayed in for the last few days. Then it hit me. The old man and woman were dead. They were dead when they first picked me up in their little car. That’s why the small wiry dog kept giving them strange glances, and why, when the door open to let me out, it had bolted up the road.
“Correct,” said the hollow eerie voice.
I still couldn’t see anyone. I walked along the small hallway. The stairs winding up to my left. To the right was a closed door, which was nailed shut. Three more doors, two on the left one to the right. Old worn carpet barely covered the old rickety floorboards. Dusty sideboards sat between the doorways, covered in chipped vases and dried dusty flowers. Mahogany framed pictures hung from the mouldy wallpaper; photos or paintings too dark to see. Only the end door on the right was open, light spilling into the cold hallway. Dust slowly falling to lay at rest once again, disturbed by the old man when he answered the door.
I moved along cautiously, wondering what would be in the room to greet me. My hand closed around the doorframe, as I stepped into the room.
It was large, possibly the main front room, or Great Room as it was called. Against one wall a fire roared, the yellow light spilling out into the room. All the corners were shrouded in shadows, dark and ominous; looking like anything could jump out at any given moment.
Furniture of all descriptions filled the walls; large delicately carved cabinets, filled with bric-a-brac. Stuffed animals hung from the walls and sat in dirty glass cases. Dark wooden sideboards nestled in a couple corners, supporting more grimy items. Several chairs, high backed and normal ones, littered the middle.
Oddly, an assortment of farmyard implements rested against one wall – a pitchfork, a couple bill hooks, a pick axe and a long edging tool. Alarmingly, they were all covered in congealed blood.
A large couch faced the fire. Four heads could be seen silhouetted against the firelight. One was trailing cigarette smoke.
They had been expecting me.
PART TWO
The Watchers
Moreover, when you hear of wars and reports of wars, do not be terrified; [these things] must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, there will be earthquakes in one place after another, there will be food shortages. These are the beginning of pangs of distress.
The Christian Bible, Mark 13: 7-8
As for human beings, their days are numbered, and whatever they keep trying to achieve is but wind!
The Sumerian legend, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet II
26
Revelations
I rounded the couch to find the four figures sat in a neat row. On one end sat the two old people I had thumbed a lift with, both sat motionless, glassy eyes locked onto the yellow burning fire, as if seeking more than just heat from it.
Beside them sat the two others. One was smoking – the very bus driver I had attacked in my dream. The driver was almost pure white from lack of blood. His clothes were dripping wet, coat undone, fragments of glass imbedded in his chest and head. His wet hair was plastered to his ashen face. The worst was his neck, ripped open and showing internal veins, ligaments and even one section of his yellowed spinal cord. Blood soaked his clothes. He sat, legs crossed, cigarette perched on blue lips, eyes glassy one moment, moving and alive the next. For a moment I wondered how he had beaten me here from the crashed bus.
Alongside him was another man, one I didn’t recognise. I had a feeling he was a work-hand from the farm, possibly the old couples son. He was about forty years old. He was wearing dungarees and a patchwork soiled red and white flannel shirt, along with big green Wellington boots. He also looked slightly disabled, possibly down syndrome. But like the others, he was now a host for something else.
I lowered myself into a seat to one side, close by the fire. Removing my wet coat and resting in on my lap, like a kind of protection. I put my rucksack back on. I have no idea why I kept the bag and all the money? Maybe it was simply holding on to something familiar because so much around me had turned to madness.
All eyes swivelled to me, watching me lower into position. I felt like a lump of meat thrown before hungry predators.
“This him?” the son asked, his large round, slightly bulging eyes passing over me.
“Yes,” the old man answered, one hand grabbing at his crouch as if something down there was biting him.
Once he had received his answer the son turned his gaze back to the fire. Now rocking backward and forwards slightly. His lips moving, but saying nothing.
The old couple kept their eyes locked on me. The woman slowly shaking her head from side to side. The old man still pulling at his pants.
“Not a pleasant night. Is it?” the bus driver asked.
My mind was numb; I couldn’t have answered even if I tried. What was happening? Who were the other three people?
“Associates of mine,” the smoker simply answered. “Other fallen angels you could say.” As if reading my mind.
Smiles played around the old couple’s faces. Faces old and wrinkled and dead of any other emotions. It looked like it had been a long time since a smile had been etched on them.
The son said nothing. Rocking. Dribbling. Muttering.
“This has been their home and prison for many long months,” he stated.
Prison? I didn’t understand.
“It has taken longer than we anticipated in getting you here,” the woman said. “We would have driven you directly here, but we needed more souls, the harvesting needed to continue.”
The old man stood, hobbling over to the fireplace and lifting the poker, he then proceeded to stab at the embers. He didn’t replace it after, but kept hold of it; gripping it like a club.
“Yes, a prison. No more than two of us able to leave at any one time, because of not having enough strength, enough energy,” the smoking man said, with smoke slowly trailing out the missing chunk in his neck. Blood bubbled around the slit the smoke escaped from. Bubbles expanded and popped in a sickening display.
“Soon we will have all the power we need.”
“Soon,” the other three whispered together.
Power? I was getting more confused. Why would angels need more power? Imprisoned in mere walls made by mortal man?
“Ah, he’s beginning to understand,” the son stated, moving his head to look directly in my eyes.
I lowered my gaze, unable to stare into those ever-shifting eyes for too long.
Smoker stood, coming to stand beside the old man, whom still leant against the fireplace. I felt like I was being surrounded. A pack of wolve
s positioning for the kill, and smoker was the Alpha male.
He rested one blood soaked arm on the thick oak mantelpiece, which was covered in dusty black and white photos, sat in thick wooden frames.
“See, we need human energies – your souls – to keep us alive,” the smoker said matter-of-fact.
The son clapped his hands together sharply, making me jump.
It made no sense.
The smoker started to move about the room. Talking as he walked. “This is a large old house. Many things fill its corners.” He looked directly at me. “Books. Many books. Old ones, some new. The bible also.” He picked up an old dog-eared copy of a black book off the mantelpiece. The New Testament written on the cover in faded fake gold leaf lettering.