The World Ends Tonight

by Wood, Rick

  There are no truces in war.

  “How about your wise and knowing friend, Derek?” he proposed, sticking out his bottom lip, sitting back and draping his arm leisurely over the side of the bench. “Would be a real shame if I hurt him to hurt you, wouldn’t it?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She shook her head in terror, glaring at him with fearful malice.

  “And your little boy, Martin,” he continued, nodding with confirmation. “The little boy made by heaven, the one who’s meant to take me on. A pathetic attempt by your pathetic God to make it seem like he gives a shit.”

  Cassy looked past him, to the far door. Could she get there in time?

  “You know why it is I can’t hurt you?” he spoke, standing up and sauntering cockily toward her. “Because many thousands of years ago, heaven and hell made an agreement that demons and angels would not fight, so as to avoid a complete mass genocide in which no one would win or lose.”

  Cassy backed up as he crept closer, bumping into the giant cross with the dead Jesus attached.

  “But what if I didn’t right feel like obeying the rules? You know, seeing as we’re about to break pretty much every treaty we’ve ever had.”

  His hands flung to her throat, squeezing tightly. Her arms shook frantically, a sense of doom seizing up and down her spine and in through the pit of her absent stomach. A sense that told her she was truly in the presence of evil.

  “Even though you don’t breathe,” he whispered callously, taking his face within an inch of hers. “It still hurts that I strangle you. Even though you don’t have a heart that beats, it would still cause you incredible pain if I were to rip that heart out and squash it beneath my foot.”

  She closed her eyes, scrunching up her face as if preparing for impact.

  Is this what I’m going to contribute? Is this what I came back for?

  To be a coward in the face of that which she was helping to oppose?

  “Eddie…” she whimpered. “Eddie, please, I need your help…”

  It was a long shot, and it stank of desperation – but if Eddie was there, if he was able to control something – he could show her right now.

  “Eddie’s not here right now,” the false face of her brother retorted, grinning wildly.

  He lifted her into the air and threw her down the aisle, watching her slide across her back until she hit a pew and collapsed into a heap.

  “I’ve decided to end this,” he announced, strutting toward her. “I’ve decided I’m just going to kill everyone. Got bored, I guess.”

  She clambered to her knees, dragging her shaking body to its feet.

  “But first, I need to know where to find your little friend.”

  Cassy shook her head, scrambling to her feet and running away. Within a flash Eddie had shot across the church and halted before her, causing her to collapse against his fake chest. He put his arms around her, squeezing tightly, wrapping her in a merciless embrace.

  “I miss this. When we just used to cuddle.”

  “That wasn’t you, it was Eddie.”

  “Oh, I was always there. Hiding. Waiting for my time to shine.”

  “I will never give up my friends. You’ll have to break the truce and kill me.”

  “Not being funny, but I was planning on doing that anyway.”

  She shook her head.

  Please, Eddie. If you are there, just, please…

  “How about we take a trip?”

  Feeling her chest tighten under the pressure of being squeezed against his body, she winced as she started to feel the first bit of human pain since she had ascended to heaven. Large spikes grew out of his body, digging into her, wrapping around her, ensuring she was painfully secured.

  In a shot, he soared them into the air and fired them through the church roof faster than she could handle.

  28

  3 April 2002

  Two years, four months since millennium night

  The door swung so hard into the adjacent wall that the handle left a dent in the poor paint job. Kelly burst through, punching the door away as it rebounded back against her, sending it swinging on its hinges.

  She folded her arms, incessantly shaking her head, storming into the kitchen. She bit her lip, ferociously searching the room for something to occupy her fiery rumination.

  Eddie followed, edging slowly into the room with an air of calmness that only incensed her further. He steadied the flapping door and looked at her hopefully.

  “Kelly–” he attempted.

  “No!” she interrupted, gesticulating her arms wildly in the air. “No, you do not get to walk in here all calm and try and be the voice of reason!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t excuse me me, you know exactly what I am on about!”

  Eddie raised an eyebrow at her bad use of grammar, then quickly lowered them, fearing further respite.

  She sneered at him, refolding her arms and turning away irritably.

  He sank his hands into his pockets, and took a moment, gathering his thoughts. He avoided eye contact with her for a few seconds, staring at the corner of the room as he tried to figure out what could possibly be the right thing to say at this moment.

  “Look, I’m just trying to help.”

  “Well, you can’t! You don’t know what it’s like to be possessed!”

  “Don’t know what it’s like? I’ve been to hell!”

  “This is not about you!”

  Eddie threw his arms into the air in exasperation. Nothing he could say was right. Nothing.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I–” Kelly stuttered, realising she didn’t truly know the answer to that question. “I want you to apologise.”

  “For what?”

  “For what you said!”

  “What did I say?”

  “You–” she stuttered once more, searching for the right words. “Well, I don’t remember, but I still think you should apologise for it.”

  “Okay,” he diplomatically offered with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

  “But how are you apologising when you don’t even know what it’s for?”

  “Kelly, that’s what you just told me you wanted me to do!”

  “Yes, but I don’t want a fake apology!”

  “Then what the hell do you want?”

  “I – I don’t know!”

  She turned and faced the window. She rested her weight on one leg, using her other foot to tap agitatedly on the floor. Her arms remained tightly folded, her lips pursed together.

  After a few hesitant moments, she felt two gentle arms tucking around her waist. She went to push them away but just found them tightening their soft, heartfelt grip around her once more.

  “No, Eddie.”

  “Kelly, we don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”

  He kissed her neck.

  Damn it, she hated when he kissed her neck.

  Within seconds her anger diluted. She resisted at first, adamant that she wanted to stay enraged, her mood dictating that someone should pay, but his embrace was just too inviting. She sank into it, allowing him to wrap his arms around her until she was fully cocooned in his comfortable warmth.

  “I know there’s no way to put into words what you went through, what it was like,” Eddie whispered into her ear. “I hear your screams in the night before they wake you up. The flashbacks are horrific; the things it made you do were horrible, and I think you’re incredibly strong for coping as well as you have.”

  She couldn’t help it. His words were so sincere, so inviting. She allowed them to wrap around her heart, coating it with reassurance and undeniable love.

  “It kills me that I don’t know what I can even do about it, how I could make it go away. There’s hardly much comparison out there – there’s not really any possessed-by-the-devil-anonymous groups you can go join, are there?”

  She nodded. It was true.

  “Just know that I will never, ever abandon you. I
t will never make me run away.”

  “You promise?”

  “Of course. I would never do anything that could cause you even the slightest amount of pain.”

  She sank deeper into his arms, feeling comforted and reassured in a way she didn’t even realise she had craved.

  Three months later, he killed her.

  29

  3 April 2003

  Three years, four months since millennium night

  Derek stood at the altar.

  To think, once he had planned to be there as a groom. Many years ago, and long faded in his memory now, was the picture of a woman. A woman he loved with every piece of him, to whom he had given a ring and made plans.

  But he had given it all up. He had been young and foolish, and chosen this life over her.

  Eddie had once seen a photograph of her in his house, one that he had subsequently swiftly hidden.

  No other mention had been made of her since the day she left.

  Funny, really, how he thought of her now. Wondering where she was. Wondering if, whilst running the vacuum around the house or dropping her kids off at school, she ever thought of him. Just a passing thought, shooting by like something out the window of a train. Brief, but definite nonetheless.

  He wondered if she had been granted passage to heaven.

  “Can I help you, my child?” came a softly spoken voice from behind Derek.

  He quickly dunked his flask into the holy water and took what he needed, placing the flask inside his jacket pocket and turning around to face the priest.

  It was not a father Derek recognised. He was a short, podgy man, with a round bald spot amidst a head of messy hair. His face was red and sweaty, no doubt in fear of what was to come.

  “No, thank you,” Derek replied. “I have what I need.”

  “You were stealing the holy water,” the father spoke gently, but sceptically.

  “I see nothing gets past you, Father,” Derek observed. “It is for a just cause, I assure you.”

  “I am sure it is. Bad times are coming.”

  “They are indeed.”

  In a hurry, Derek forced a smile and shuffled past the old man, but was halted by a few alarming words.

  “If you are stealing holy water, it must mean you are planning to fight what is coming.”

  Against his better judgement, Derek turned, peering at the father. Priest or not, Derek was already tired of this conversation.

  “And what if I am? What do you know of the rapture?”

  “It was said it would be the second coming of Christ. That heaven would plant him on this earth once again.”

  “What if I told you heaven had planted their messiah on this earth, and he was powerful, and he could fight?”

  “Then you would pique my interest.”

  “What if I also told you that what was coming was far too strong, even for someone conceived of heaven, just like Jesus was? Yes, Father, I plan to fight. But I would suggest you hide, or take your ride up to heaven.”

  Derek turned to leave but was stopped once more.

  “Do you not have faith in God?” the father insisted. “Do you not trust that he will do good by us?”

  Derek snarled. After spending so much time mulling over the question of why their God didn’t do more, he grew livid over such a question. Blind, unaltered, unjustified faith incensed him.

  It wasn’t a case of believing in God.

  He had a child conceived by heaven and a fallen angel on his side. He had fought in God’s name against demons of this earth for decades; that much was true.

  He had faith that God was there.

  But did he have faith in that God?

  Faith that God would ever get off his arse and do something other than sending them a warrior in the form of a helpless boy?

  God was never someone he felt he had on his side.

  “No, I do not,” Derek bluntly stated. “But I do have faith.”

  “In what?”

  Derek peered at the priest, who seemed so eager to impart the apparent power of faith into Derek. So desperate to think that his words were wise and not disillusioned.

  “I have faith in Eddie.”

  “But are you not afraid you will have to answer to God?”

  Derek turned back to the father and narrowed his eyes into a menacing, sinister glare.

  “Do you know what we have had to do to represent your God? The awful, hellish things we have had to do so he can keep his hands clean?”

  “My child–”

  Derek took a few sinister strides toward the priest until he was inches from his face.

  “I would ask God’s forgiveness. But after everything, if me and him ever come face-to-face – he will have to beg for mine.”

  Derek turned and marched out of the church, ignoring further shouts and questions designed to bring him back into the pointless debate.

  *

  Sure, the father was trying to talk some sense into a disciple and do what he thought was right.

  But Derek truly believed that the father was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. If he knew what the rapture meant, what it truly was in more than mere biblical terms, he would likely deny it.

  Which is to be expected. Denial is the most common human trait, despite also being the most counterproductive.

  Derek walked for five minutes down a few entwining paths until he met with Martin. They had decided to use the location in which the heir had risen and taunted them last time. Somewhere familiar that the antichrist would find them.

  The field of death, or so it felt. Beside a swing set that Jenny saw as significant enough to use in her attempts to get through to Eddie.

  She may have failed, yes – but if this was Jenny’s idea then they needed to listen to her.

  Failing to listen to her was what caused such a catastrophic failure before.

  “Ready?” Martin prompted.

  “Nearly.”

  The night was descending and dark-grey clouds hovered overhead. The field was deserted. Some naïve people would see this as luck; that there weren’t any innocent bystanders who could get caught in the crossfire.

  They knew better than that. People had an instinct for such danger, even if they didn’t know or acknowledge it.

  Derek took his leather bag and made his way to the swing set. The place Eddie and Jenny had grown up. The place they had become such close friends, where they had comforted and consoled each other through enduring times.

  It was rusted. Left to rot by a neglectful council who didn’t care for the sentimentality associated with such landmarks.

  He knelt down and opened his bag. A puff of dust rose like smoke, and Derek resisted the urge to choke.

  He withdrew the items. Items he had used long ago. Back before Eddie became so prolific at this activity that Derek’s own abilities at performing an exorcism had grown redundant.

  He withdrew each item with care, raising it to his forehead and closing his eyes for a short moment; before placing it gently and precisely on the floor before him.

  A cross. Wooden, with a splintered edge. Old but sturdy, with the faded bumps of a crucified Jesus fixed upon it.

  A flask of holy water with the cross marked upon it, taken from the church hours ago.

  A Bible. Leather bound, with faded brown pages and illegibly small writing. Part of it was in Latin. It had been a while since he had used the dated language, but he was ready to call on his old knowledge should the process require him to.

  Rosary beads, which he did not place carefully with his other items, but instead kissed and placed around his neck, tucking them under his shirt.

  And finally, he withdrew salt. He poured a small handful in his palm, which he then poured in a circle around himself.

  He bowed his head. Closed his eyes.

  “Eddie, have mercy. God, the Son, please give him safe passage in this merciless time.”

  His eyes welled up. He fought against it. Now was not the time. Now w
as the fight of his life.

  This was it.

  Either Eddie was out there, somewhere, able to fight his way back.

  Or…

  Or… the world ends tonight.

  Derek rose to his feet. He took the cross firmly in his left hand. He placed the holy water in his pocket and held the Bible in his right.

  “Right you prick,” he muttered. “Where are you?”

  “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

  Mark 13:32

  30

  Thunder rumbled ever closer with a threatening familiarity, but it did nothing to intimidate Martin or Derek.

  They had far more to worry about than the weather.

  A trickle of rain pattered against the empty earth. Grey clouds blocked the moon so flickering lamplight was the only illumination available, casting a faint amber glow that deflected kindly off the rusted metal of the park.

  “Martin,” Derek prompted. “It’s time.”

  “Where’s Cassy?” Martin asked, looking around himself. “She was supposed to be here.”

  “We can’t wait any longer. She will get here, trust me.”

  Martin stood forward, taking in a deep breath. It was a strange feeling, knowing that you could well be dead within minutes. Knowing that everything you have done could be rendered meaningless.

  Not just his preparation for this war.

  The failed parents’ evening reports. The feeding of his disabled mother. The arguments, the tantrums, the fallouts, the girls, the friends, the bullies – everything could mean nothing.

  History was not written by those who lose.

  He would not be remembered for failing. His name would not go down in history in a world ravaged by demons and death.

  This was his immortality.

  He had no army. He just had two faithful followers who had never faltered in their belief in him, despite such blatant, undeniable evidence that he was not strong enough.

  It was time to repay their faith in him.