by Paul A. Rice
Seeing the dark looks upon their faces, Jane rose to her feet and waited with Ken until Tori’s son had finally joined them. Once they were all present, she looked at Tori and said, ‘Right, come on then, give it to us. What’s happening, why aren’t we running around, shouting and screaming, we’ve won, haven’t we? Tori, what’s the matter?’
Tori, with the tears brimming against her lower eyelids, sniffed loudly, and then took a long breath inwards, which she expelled softly. Looking first from Jane and then to Ken, she said, ‘I’m afraid that we haven’t won, if only we had – we’re too late, I’m afraid to say, far too late!’ The tears burst their banks and dripped down her face, she shook her head in anger and desperation, the movement sending the drops of water flying off her face like glittering gems.
Sniffing back her misery the tall woman said, ‘We should have been here two days ago, that’s why he sent the storm, that’s all he wanted – just a little time, that’s all he needed!’ With her face grimacing in pure distress, Tori spat out the final words. ‘We’re too late, the device will explode within eight minutes, there’s nothing we can do to prevent it!’
Ken reeled in shock – eight minutes! Looking at the others with a stunned expression on his face, he said, ‘Eight minutes, a nuke! Come on, we need to get out of here and we need to get out right now!’ Seeing the terribly sad looks upon the faces of Tori and her family, Ken began to feel a rising sense of doom lifting into his chest. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘No, no, no! Get hold of George, get hold of anyone you can, get hold of ‘em and tell them to get us the fuck out of here – do it now, come on, people, come on!’
Jane, with an almost unbelievable calmness in her voice, said, quietly: ‘Mikey, couldn’t you stop it, is there nothing you can do?’
Michael looked at her and shook his head. He reached out for her hand. Taking his hand within hers, Jane felt the soft tremble flowing down his sinuous arm. She looked down at his hand, back up into his face and then smiled gently at him, Mikey opened his mouth to speak but she stopped him.
Placing the first two fingers of her free hand across his lips, Jane said, ‘Ssshhh…there is no need for explanations. If you say it can’t be stopped, well…then we’re happy to take your word about that, aren’t we, Ken?’ She turned and looked at her husband, brown eyes glowing with that inner calmness that he had become so used to, which he so needed.
Ken gulped. ‘Yeah, yeah, sure we are…’ he whispered.
If anyone had ever needed to hear the sound of a singularly unconvinced man, then they need not look any further than a certain Kenneth Robinson, a man who was currently standing on the top of a mountain, in the middle of, to use his own words, ‘fuck-knows-where’, and was now being told that it was all okay to be standing above a nuclear device, one that was now considerably less than eight minutes away from exploding – exploding and setting fire to the biggest underground reserve of natural gas that this particular dimension had ever seen.
Oh yes, Ken was totally and utterly unconvinced that everything was all hunky-dory. No, all he wanted to do was run, and run like hell! The only problem being, where exactly was it they should they run to? Nobody, as far as he knew, had ever outrun one of those things. He looked at Tori and hoped that she was able to see the terrible fear and helplessness in his eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Ken said, ‘Tori, what can we do, should I go into the cave and take a look? I’m pretty good at things like that, detonators and stuff…’ He turned and nodded towards the place where the Demon’s flowers were about to do their thing.
Tori smiled at him, looking first from Ken, then to Jane, and then back again.
‘Oh dear, how very much I am going to miss you!’ she said. ‘Once more, right in the midst of a disaster, you two have come up trumps yet again. Jane has steadied the beating of our hearts with her calmness – her unfathomable love for us is as plain to see as is the nose on her face.’ She turned to Jane, reached across and kissed her forehead. It was a gesture of an unspeakably deep gratitude.
Turning once more to Ken, Tori looked into his face, smiling softly as she spoke to him. ‘And you, you crazy old man…you, with the fear burning a hole in your chest and a million unspeakable things flooding through your head, you immediately volunteer to try and stop the unstoppable, you are as crazy as can be – but, oh, how we adore you!’
She knelt down, and as one, they all followed her lead.
All the Hunters knelt, forming a circle as they did so. They stayed in silence for a moment, one last, precious moment where they were together as a group, one last moment within the cradle of their abounding friendship and love. Kneeling on the frozen earth with their arms draped across each other’s shoulders, looking at each other with a thousand things rushing through their minds, a million words to say, so many things to say, and no time whatsoever to say them in.
Ken didn’t know what to say, he was beyond words, instead he clasped Jane’s shoulder tightly and smiled as he felt her reciprocal grip upon his own arm.
It was then that Tori gave them the news, both good and bad. In a few short seconds spent talking in her soft voice, she told them exactly how it was going to be. ‘Kenneth, Jane…’ she said. They looked up into her face, letting those famous blue eyes mesmerise them for one, last time. Tori whispered: ‘You are going to leave us now, for this is not the place where you shall meet your end – and hopefully nor is it ours!’ She cast her fearsome gaze towards the others, they nodded in agreement. Tori continued, saying: ‘Our task is to stop the fire at any cost, together we may be able to contain some of its power, and who knows, maybe we will stop it – you have seen our combined ability, no matter what, we have to try!’
Looking at Red, she said, ‘My beautiful husband is coming with us, he is the father of my child, he has some of the Demon within him, and his is a very powerful force!’ Finally, she looked at Junior and Michael, smiling as she spoke to the two young men. ‘And, of course, we would not be able to achieve anything without these two – their perfectly-inherited genes make them amongst the most powerful of us all. Their life-force is almost more valuable to us than anything else we possess…’ Rising to her feet, Tori nodded for the others to do likewise.
Waiting until they had done so, she looked at Ken and Jane, saying: ‘But, you two, you are more important than any of us, you are the one link that we have to a reality we have long since lost, without you we would never have been able to travel along this road, and without you we will never be able to come back – you are the link that joins everything together for us!’
Glancing briefly at the cave, she turned back to them, and said, ‘There is no time left, you must go now!’ Stepping forward, Tori embraced them one at a time, hugging Jane tightly, kissing her cheek and then smearing away the tears, which had started to tumble down Jane’s face, with her thumb. Moving across to Ken, she carried out the same actions, even the tear-wiping.
Forming a queue, the three men also came and said their farewells. It was the most bizarre goodbye ceremony that Ken had ever taken part in. Standing under that violet sky with the freezing wind rushing over them, hair blowing into their faces, they embraced each other, speaking soft words of pointless sentiment, the meaning of such things not really sinking in – such was the force of their emotions that they, along with the ground beneath their trembling feet, seemed to have temporarily frozen.
Finally it was done, there were no more words to be said, any emotions left were currently pouring down their faces in a torrent of hot, salty tears. Standing slightly apart from Ken and his wife, Tori and the others stood and smiled at the two stupefied people before them, two of their dearest friends, ones who had still not really gathered their feelings together in sufficient quantities to enable them to understand this enormous event, which had turned up and knocked them flat.
Ken opened his mouth to speak.
Michael, with a wave of his hand, stopped him.
‘It’s time to go, Ken,’ he said. ‘No more talk
– thank you for everything you have done for us. Now, go…because George wants to see you!’
After telling the bewildered couple to stay exactly where they were, Tori and the others turned away and walked towards the darkened mouth of the Demon’s treacherous lair, that deadly place filled with his fiery blooms. Just as he saw them reach the doorway, Ken, who was standing and gripping Jane tightly in his arms, saw Mikey glance over his shoulder and wave.
The boy’s words entered his head. ‘See you later, Ken. See you in that place where you imagine you’ve always been – see you there!’ He waved once more, but, before Ken managed to wave back, the boy had turned and gone into the leering mouth of his fateful destiny.
Ken turned his wife so that they faced each other. He looked down into her eyes and said, ‘I’m so sorry, I…’ He didn’t get the chance to finish.
As he looked into Jane’s face, Ken felt the sickness arrive and the sensation was an almost overpowering one. He heard Jane gasp, it was a sound of disbelief. Then they were lifted up, pulled into a space where everything was moving so fast it was as though they had remained still whilst the rest of the universe was being sucked past them. A never-ending stream of blurring light, vivid colours and blackness came rushing past.
Ken saw the mountain top, the black pimple was flying away from under him at an incredible rate – he felt as though he was on a rocket-sled, but facing backwards, sitting and watching as he raced higher and higher. The last thing he saw before the blackness came and took him away, was a single, brilliant flash of light. It was so bright that he had to turn away.
As he did so, Ken felt himself falling, falling into the depths of his own mind. The only sensation he was aware of was the touch and warmth of Jane as she gripped his hand with her own.
And then there was nothing.
17
Finale
The End of the Beginning
The red couch was the only object they were aware of as they sat in the total darkness. Ken and Jane had regained some form of consciousness, gently awakening in a dreamlike state, the memories of what they had just endured, drifting uncertainly through their fuzzy minds. Had it been real – the others, the light? Those memories came rolling in, and they were shattering. Ken, feeling the tight grip of his wife’s hand, looked to his left and stared at her.
Jane was very pale, still with red-rimmed eyes as a reminder of the sorrow that was filling her soul. Seeing those tear-wracked eyes, Ken knew that wherever it was they had ended up, it hadn’t taken them long to get there. He smiled at her, Jane did her level best to smile back, but her attempt was a feeble one, and being unable to stop herself, she sat and let the unfinished sorrow drip down her cheeks. Ken slid across and encircled her within his arms.
Together, they sat upon the red couch and cried for their friends.
Such wonderful friends, such treasured family, surely they couldn’t be gone, surely not! Ken would have given anything to have them all here at that moment, sitting right next to them, laughing and messing about. Where were they, what had happened, what was going to happen, what was it they should do, what – what?
The realisation of what had truly happened, or at least, their perception of it, began to dawn upon the grief-filled couple as they sat in the miserable darkness, crying for their friends. Jane leaned sideways and rested her head against Ken’s shoulder, her damp face leaving a warm, wet feeling upon the dirty cotton of his faded shirt.
She whispered: ‘Do you think we’re dead? I can’t see anything – maybe we’re…’ Shuddering, Jane said, ‘Maybe we’re in the waiting-room, waiting to be told where we can go, maybe we’re to be punished for staying in the cave too long, for not just going out into the snow and getting to the top as fast as we could, maybe we…’
Just as Ken was beginning to feel as though he was going to lose his mind, the burning flame of his grief, growing higher and higher within his chest, filled his head with madness. The thought of Mikey and the others, the mental image of them disintegrating within the white-hot blast of the Demon’s final act, was too much to bear. It couldn’t have happened – it just simply could-not-have-happened. Then the tone of George’s softly-spoken words fetched them back from the brink of their wrongfully-placed imagination. The old man’s voice cut through the darkness.
His words were soft, gentle and very calming. ‘Hello, my dearest ones,’ he said. George paused, waiting for them to return from the edge of their unfathomable sorrow. Then he said, ‘I am dreadfully sorry about this, the pain of your suffering is overwhelming to me, there is no solace I can offer to help you through this agonizing moment of your lives. All I can do is to assure you that the purpose of your friends’ deaths is far from meaningless!’
He paused again to listen as Ken spoke.
‘So, they are actually dead then, they never managed to stop the explosion – they’re dead, all of them, even Mikey?’ Just speaking those words made the emotion catch in the back of Ken’s throat. The simple act of admitting the inadmissible was quite horrifying to him. He cursed: ‘Oh God…oh, for fuck’s sake, please help us!’ The sound of his blasphemy, echoing in the darkness, was as hollow as the feeling in his heart.
Waiting until the silence had returned, George gently confirmed that the others had indeed been killed by the explosion. He also said that they had been unsuccessful in preventing the blast from igniting the gas-fields beneath. With a ragged sigh, he said that even though they had tried and tried with all of their might, the end game for that dimension would now begin, and that the Hyenas were already gathering as they spoke.
As was usual, the old man then gave them a ray of hope.
With a slight lift in his voice, he said, ‘However, all is not lost, not yet! We have a plan – it won’t be the first time that we have had to go back and try again, it is never too late for that!’
Ken had no doubt whatsoever that if Tori and the others had been able to make even the smallest bit of difference, then they would not have hesitated to do so. Even if those efforts had cost them their lives, which tragically they appeared to have done. He also knew that George wouldn’t hesitate to send others to do his bidding – it’s what he existed for.
George, changing the subject slightly, then proceeded to tell them of how saddened he was to learn of the fact that Henry, his long-lost twin, had provided such a welcome haven for the final and most powerful pieces of this particular Demon. ‘We have pursued this entity for many, many years,’ he said. ‘We knew his existence was a tenuous one, and we knew that if we were able to catch him within his final host, then he would be done for. With him out of the way, we would be able to divert so many more resources into focussing upon our other tasks.’ He sighed again, a terribly forlorn sound, and then continued. ‘However, we did not know who the host was…but, now that we do know, it becomes apparent as to why we were not quite able to keep up with him – my brother was a brilliant man!’
He explained how Henry had disappeared some years ago, and even though they kept in touch for a while, as was always the way with these things, the two men had drifted apart. Eventually, Henry had vanished completely, leaving not a trace. At some stage he had made those decisions in life, choices within which those hidden seeds of malcontent began to burgeon, flourishing into the perfect breeding ground for the Dark One’s evil intentions.
‘I never knew he felt that way about me,’ George said. ‘We were brothers, I thought he was happy for me, I thought that he was happy with his own work, he seemed so… so satisfied!’
Ken imagined the old man sitting and shaking his head in disgust.
George continued with his remorseful tale. ‘I didn’t think about him,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t think about anything, I was too busy working.’
After a moment of silence, he told of how he had forgotten about his brother, of how consumed he had become with all of the things that the silent couple who sat before his voice had themselves become so familiar with. The Light Maker, the Rip, and o
f course, their never-ending quest of pursuing the Darkness, all of them had ensured that George’s time was filled with the desire to succeed. At last his voice stopped. The silence it left behind was a deep and empty place.
Ken waited for a few moments to see if George was going to say anything else. Finally deciding that the old man wasn’t, he asked: ‘What now, what should we do? Where are we, and…’ He paused to glance over his shoulder; it wouldn’t have been the first time the old man had sneaked up on him. Seeing nothing, Ken continued, ‘And why can’t we see you, where are we, George?’
Jane sat more upright, Ken felt her grip tighten. Now the truth would be out, now they would know if they, too, were dead. Dead and done for, destined to sit in the darkness of their dismal failure forever. Ken shuddered at the thought, all memories of Tori and the others’ emotional farewell, those kind and caring things they had said, the gratitude and love they had expressed, all of those wonderful things were washed away in a moment of blind, suffocating panic – yes, the Demon may well have been dead, but his influence lived on, and it always would.
George, as he so often did at these most inopportune of moments, simply laughed. The soft, joyful chuckle that came rolling through the pitch blackness was in complete contrast to the awful thoughts the couple on the red couch were presently drowning in. He sounded like a happy Santa Claus, who, upon seeing a young child opening the most wonderful and unexpected of presents, had realised why he did this job.
‘Oh Lord!’ he said. ‘No, no! You must dismiss those thoughts immediately, this instant if you please!’ He laughed quietly once more. ‘You imagine that you are in Purgatory, sitting and waiting to receive your terrible fate? Oh, dear me, dear, dear me! You are not dead, far from it, in fact!’
‘I’d rather be dead, to be honest,’ Jane whispered.
‘No!’ Ken exclaimed. ‘No, we’ll get past this, just take your time!’ He felt her tremble. She leaned into him once more and he took her face in his hands, peering through the darkness, trying to see into her eyes.