King of All the Dead

by Steve Lockley

  Well, there was only one way to find out.

  Lisa dropped to the ground and walked briskly through the undergrowth, heading for the spot where her sister had vanished from the clearing.

  But when she stepped into the dense circle of trees there was no darkness and no shadow, only a flash of light so bright that Lisa instinctively closed her eyes. When she opened them again they were back on the endless road, the wrecked Peugeot a few paces ahead of her, Alison stood on the other side of it from her, still whole. Lisa approached the Peugeot cautiously, trying to see inside.

  “Don’t worry, you’re no longer in there.”

  It was true. The wreck was empty. “So where am I?”

  “You tell me,” Alison said. “After all, this is your afterlife. You control it.”

  “Bullshit.” As if she would have inflicted those horrible sights on herself.

  “I haven’t lied to you about anything, Lise. It’s what happens when we die. We try to make sense of our lives. Sometimes it gets mixed up, like our dreams.”

  “I saw David. In the car. He was shouting at me, saying I stole his life.”

  “That was you telling yourself that. Maybe it was guilt that you lived and he didn’t. Or maybe you felt that you did steal his life. You imagined you saw yourself in the wreck here for much the same reason.”

  Lisa had never before felt such deep despair as she experienced right then. She put her hand out to the metal to steady herself as tears welled in her eyes. Somehow, though, she could not bring herself to cry. “Please end this,” she whispered.

  She had not been aware of Alison moving toward her until she felt her sister’s arms embrace her. “It has already ended,” she said, equally softly. “It’s over.”

  Lisa held her breath, then released it slowly. “You mean I’m dead?”

  “Yes,” said Alison. “I’m sorry. If there had been another way …”

  She broke off the embrace, as if sensing Lisa needed time to contemplate.

  Dead. Somehow Lisa thought the knowledge would undo her. But then she remembered how empty her life had seemed after the crash. How each day that dawned had seemed just as pointless as the day before. How she had kept that one shirt of David’s, still imagining she could smell him on it, even after it had been washed, she missed him that much. Being dead wasn’t that bad, after all.

  Lisa gazed up at the sunless blue sky, then at her sister. The black cloud was back, swirling around Alison like a monstrous cloak. It expanded with phenomenal speed, filling the space between them in the blink of an eye. Lisa instinctively raised her hands to protect herself, and then darkness quickly engulfed her. At first she was terrified, spinning around this way and that, desperately searching for light, for a way out. Then an unexpected sense of peace crept over her. Briefly-glimpsed faces flashed before her eyes. Calmly, she held out her hands. Fingers brushed against them and then were gone. Countless memories that were not hers filled her mind; memories of people she had never met and places to which she had never been. It was then, as the black cloud melted away, that Lisa understood the true nature of the King of All the Dead. It was not a single entity but everything that had ever lived, acting as one to restore the natural order. She was a part of it now, and it was a part of her. Death held no fear for her. It held no fear because it was not the end but a beginning. This was not the life after death that the church preached about. This was not about God, not about heaven. It was about far more than that. More than anything she could have dreamt of. It was everything and everyone. And by becoming part of it this mass of humanity, this boiling mass of souls, she understood everything that everyone who had ever died had experienced in their lifetime. And with understanding came power. The power to put things right.

  Lisa was with her and so, somewhere, was David. They would be with her for eternity. But first there was something she still had to do.

  Something that would make a difference.

  “We should leave,” she heard Alison call.

  Lisa was surprised to find her sister still there. But she was glad of the company. In the seconds after the cloud had dissipated, she’d felt unbearably alone.

  “And go where?”

  “The road,” Alison said. “Somewhere along it is a place for all of us.”

  “Wait. What about Ben?”

  “Don’t worry. He’s alive. He can look after himself.”

  “Not the living Ben. The part of him trapped here.”

  “He’s no longer our concern.”

  “He’s my concern,” Lisa insisted. “I couldn’t rest if I left him here alone.”

  “You always were stubborn,” Alison said, but there was a hint of affection in her voice. “All right. But be quick. We’re not supposed to stay.”

  “Take us back to the woods.”

  “You’re in control here, remember? You have to do it.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Just think about the place you want to be.”

  Lisa did. Darkness surrounded them and they were in the clearing again.

  Her eyes instantly adjusted to the dim light. Straight away Lisa could see that Ben had not shifted from the side of the van. Nor had the five motionless figures moved in from the edge of the clearing. It was as if she had returned to the scene a split-second after she had left it. Maybe she had. Who knew?

  She walked towards the Transit. Ben’s head jerked around to face her as she approached him. He was trembling. “They’ve been waiting for me to come outside,” he said. “Waiting all this time. Now they’ve got me, out in the open.”

  Yet as Lisa appraised the five motionless figures, what she sensed was not hostility but a lingering sorrow. “They aren’t real, Ben.”

  She didn’t know how she knew that. She just did. The words that formed in her head sounded so much like the truth that she let them guide her.

  “They look fucking real enough to me.”

  “That’s because you made them.” She reached up and put both her hands on his shoulders, squeezing them. “If they’d wanted you, don’t you think they would have had you? Are you honestly telling me they couldn’t get inside the van?”

  “I don’t know about that. I just know they’re there!”

  “There. Not here. They haven’t made a move towards you.”

  Ben briefly pondered this. “I want to believe you, Lisa. But –”

  “But nothing.” Lisa was aware that Alison was watching her intently. “You’re not even real, Ben. All you are is a fragment, an echo. The real you is still in the world of the living. And if you don’t really exist in this place then neither do they.”

  Ben studied them. “So … what are they, then?”

  “Guilt,” Lisa said, aware that she was finally getting through to him. “You could never let go of your guilt. It destroyed your marriage. It destroyed you.”

  Lisa pulled his hands from her shoulders and embraced him. She knew that she could do this, had to do it. It was her own guilt that and caused her so much heartache. Guilt over the fact that she should have been driving that day; guilt that she should have been the one who had died. She knew now that the road to everlasting life was not denied by sin, just by guilt. It was guilt that stopped you living your life while you had it, guilt that prevented you from moving on after your life had ended.

  “Go to them, Ben. Confront your fear and your guilt. Find release.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “You can do anything.” She raised a hand to his face. This time there was no sudden reaction. The gift of life had gone. All she felt was moisture on his cheek.

  She pushed him away from her. “Now go.”

  Ben took a few faltering steps towards the five waiting figures. Then he paused. “Do you think the … the living me will know what happened here
?”

  “I don’t know,” Lisa said. “Maybe one night he’ll dream it.”

  “Maybe he will. I hope so.”

  Tears blurred her eyes as he walked towards the trees. She wiped them away.

  When she looked again, Ben had vanished, the five figures with him.

  Lisa could not bring herself to move. With Ben gone, her last link to the living world had gone with him. It felt strangely exhilarating, liberating.

  “We have to go,” she heard Alison say. “The road is waiting.”

  She ambled across to her sister. “Is David on the road?”

  “We all take the road. Sooner or later.”

  Lisa slipped her arm through Alison’s and they walked from the clearing.

  Out of the shadows into light. Endless light.

  About The Authors

  Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis had already enjoyed individual success as writers before they joined forces in 1993 for the first of three highly acclaimed volumes of the Cold Cuts horror anthology series. Featuring a host of talented new stars as well as established writing names - including Ramsey Campbell, Brian Stableford, Stephen Gallagher and Stephen Laws – each volume was short listed for a British Fantasy Award and established Lockley and Lewis as a force to be reckoned with.

  The pair, buoyed by the success of the series and finding they really enjoyed the collaborative process, teamed up again to write a young adult horror novel, The Quarry, following that with The Ragchild, a horror-fantasy novel for adults that was published to widespread acclaim by Razorblade Press in 1999. Like the Cold Cuts books, it too was short listed for a British Fantasy Award.

  Lockley and Lewis have gone on to collaborate on a series of hugely popular stories, which have seen publication on both sides of the Atlantic. They include The Winter Hunt, which appeared in the F20 anthology and was runner-up in the 2000 British Fantasy Awards; Gabriel Restrained, which appeared in Darkness Rising: Hideous Dreams; and Telling The Tale, which appeared in Urban Gothic: Lacuna and Other Trips, and again was short listed for a British Fantasy Award. They also created and edited the collaborative novella In That Quiet Earth, published in 2000.

  They have continued to write and publish individual short stories. Paul is also a comedy scriptwriter with a four-part radio series and hundreds of TV and radio sketches to his name. Steve, meanwhile, won a special British Fantasy Award (with Mike O’Driscoll) for organising the hugely successful Welcome To My Nightmare horror convention.

  “The horror tag-team of Lockley and Lewis go from strength to strength. Twice the power, twice the imagination and twice the talent go to make for a thrilling, awe-inspiring read.” Tim Lebbon

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