The Last Days

by Andy Dickenson

  “No, I didn’t really like him either,” he admitted.

  “Really?” the sheriff repeated.

  Maybe he’ll decide that I’m the bad guy and kill me? Tucker shivered. Or maybe he’s the bad guy and he’ll kill me. Or else, neither of us are the bad guys and a rabid cannibal’s gonna come along and rip both our guts out and...

  “Really,” he confided.

  Sir Justice turned to him and grinned. “Me neither,” he said.

  In the light of the night-sights the boil on the side of his nose almost glowed. Tucker couldn’t help but smile back. It reminded him how much he was beginning to like the sheriff. Trust him, almost. “How come?” he asked finally.

  Sir Justice shrugged. “We were learning to live again, Mister Tucker, before your master came along.”

  “After The Fall, you mean?” Tucker said in a hushed tone.

  “Aye. Oh, it wasnae easy. We’d run out of everything – tea, oil, salt. You’d be amazed how much you miss salt. But this farm was beginning to flourish, Jon discovered the crystals, we were learning to cope. And then he comes along, out of the blue. And before we can question it he starts doing these marvellous things, amazing things.”

  They started jogging through the fields again, trampling some barley before more cautiously rounding massive granaries full of wheat and rice.

  “We worshipped him, Mister Tucker, called him a Saviour if you will,” Sir Justice snorted, “but we didnae know what we needed saving from. Neither did he mind you, but he took full advantage of it. He was no Christ.”

  “Jesus, you mean?” Tucker asked, thinking again of the cross around his neck.

  “Aye, there’s only one true Saviour, boy,” the sheriff turned to him. “So no, I didnae like him, but that doesnae mean I think he deserved to be blown to smithereens either.”

  “No,” Tucker stammered.

  The farm was eerily quiet, as if no animal, insect or bird would dare even squeak. The pair stalked through small herb gardens before entering a warmer dome devoted to coffee, olives, grapes and tobacco.

  “So why did you stay with them, then? The knights I mean.” Sir Justice whispered, the green moonlight catching on the brim of his crooked hat.

  Tucker shrugged, dropping a grenade in the process. “Because they were all the family I had, I guess,” he said, picking up the device.

  The sheriff paused for a moment, scanning with the rifle. “Aye,” he said. “I can understand that.”

  Finally they were nearing the centre of the domes, the animal pens and the farmhouse. Sir Justice sniffed the air for a moment and then walked on.

  Tucker followed. He thought for a moment of the fresh red crystal he had in the pocket of his army jacket. “Wait, there’s something I need to tell you.” Tucker felt his palms sweating, the weapons slipping again within his grasp. He swallowed, and then he confessed: “Six said she saw something in Parliament before Lord Truth was killed.” He blurted it out. He wasn’t sure if he should, he just had to say it.

  Sir Justice stopped. “What, she told you what happened?” he hissed.

  Tucker shook his head, the guilt of a broken promise already swelling within him. “Not exactly,” he moaned. “But she said he was killed by some sort of toy bomb and that her grandfather used to have one.”

  “Giles?” Sir Justice was walking again, his head twitching from side to side. They had changed direction, skirting the farmhouse and now entering larger fields, the domes at their peak, their winding staircases leading to viewing platforms some three hundred yards above.

  Sir Justice began crouching lower and motioned for Tucker to do the same, the weapons clanking together in his arms. “That’s what she said,” the apprentice whispered. “Do you think it matters?”

  “Do I think it matters, Mister Tucker?” the sheriff hissed again as they mounted a small hill. “I think that’s the information that may be keeping her alive. And can you no’ try to be quiet?”

  Tucker was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “This is it,” Sir Justice held up his hand for Tucker to stop and then slowly began unloading the weapons from his arms, placing them neatly on the ground beside him. He spoke quickly. “What if there was a conspiracy, Mister Tucker, to murder Lord Truth?”

  “Okay,” Tucker answered, the shame of his betrayal still sticking in his throat.

  “Okay,” the sheriff stared into the boy’s goggled eyes. “Okay, and what if a telepath was a part of it?”

  Tucker paused and brought the crystal out to show him.

  “Clever boy,” Sir Justice said. “We have to be quick here, Mister Tucker, so keep up. But what if there was a conspiracy and only your girlie knew about it, or at least thought she had some clue...”

  “Then she’d have to hide it, forget everything until she was sure they weren’t listening, because the moment anyone knew she had that information she’d be in more danger.”

  “Correct.” Sir Justice took the machine gun and the knife, quietly handed Tucker the rifle, and together they began crawling forward in the long grass.

  “Six wasn’t crazy. She used a crystal to stop Jon Way reading her mind,” he admitted.

  “Good, very good,” the sheriff nodded. “Fortunately I think all the telepaths are too busy with their own crisis right now to listen to any of us.”

  “But you think this killer’s part of a conspiracy? Working for whoever it was that killed Lord Truth?”

  “Maybe.” Sir Justice positioned the machine gun on the ground, pivoting it on a frame that hung just below its nozzle. “Maybe not. But we’re soon going to find out.”

  “What do you mean?” Tucker asked again, and slowly he turned to where the gun was pointing, towards a sheep pen. And there in the green light of his night-sight he saw a ewe being torn apart, an arc of its blood glittering as it spat into the air, a snout clamped around the sheep’s neck.

  “Holy... holy crap,” Tucker stuttered. “You’ve found it.”

  “Aye,” Sir Justice nodded. “And you were right, by the way, Mister Tucker,” he looked up at him, smiling.

  “It is a wolf.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “NOW, hold this.”

  Sir Wilfred Justice passed Tucker one end of the bullet belt as he fed the other through the gun’s firing chamber. “I can see enough to paint a target on this dog but no’ enough to see when he goes down. Those goggles will just get in my way, so when he hits the dirt you tap my shoulder and I’ll stop firing, okay? I donnae wanna kill too much livestock unless I have to.”

  “S-sure.” Tucker could feel his voice quaking as he watched the monster laying waste to the sheep pen. The animals were thrashing around the confines of the enclosure in a frenzy, but they couldn’t escape it. They were trapped.

  “What else should I do?” he whispered.

  Sir Justice shrugged before pulling his axe from his back and laying it on the ground beside him. “You know how to pray don’t you, Mister Tucker? He’s always listening.”

  Tucker felt for the cross hanging around his neck. He didn’t know how to pray, and had no idea whether God was listening or not. I’m not even sure he exists, he thought.

  Instead, he watched Sir Justice heave the full weight of the machine gun into his shoulder. The sheriff inhaled three times, squinting down the massive barrel. Then he pulled the trigger.

  BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA! The gun roared into life, shaking like a buzz saw, spitting like an angry viper.

  Tucker flinched as the chain of ammunition began tearing through his hands, bullets racing across the battlefield like fireflies. Within an instant they’d covered the ground between the shooter and the sheep pen.

  SPAT! CRACK! P-TAT! P-TING! FUT! FUT! FUT! Small explosions rippled through the enclosure, splintering wood, ricocheting off metal, sending sheep flying.

  And there, in the middle of the chaos, a figure leapt from the cage. Tucker could make out its wiry frame, its powerful rib cage, its cur
ling tail, all silhouetted in the green light of his night goggles.

  BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAK! The figure was taking bullets in its arms, head and body, but it seemed to stand poised on its hind legs on top of the pen. It wasn’t going down. It wasn’t hitting the deck.

  P-TAT! P-TING! FUT! FUT!

  Instead, the beast began charging towards them, the moonlight catching on its fur, each punch from the machine gun knocking it momentarily aside before it sprang back to its original course.

  “Cheese on a stick!” Tucker shouted.

  The monster ran like a hound but three times the size of a dog, its enormous paws kicking up turf as it sprinted closer and closer, jaws gaping, red eyes blazing...

  BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAK-

  Until finally there were no bullets left to stop it.

  “Bobbins Miss Robbins, what happened?” Sir Justice pushed the now useless gun aside. “I thought you were going to tell me when I’d killed it?”

  “I was,” Tucker was already on his feet, dragging the sheriff with him. “It’s still coming!”

  And, with that, a great black shape fell upon them.

  Thwack!

  Tucker was thrown backwards, his world returning to night as the goggles were smashed about his temple, his breath wrenched from his lungs with a punch to the stomach. He rolled through the grass, gasping like a fish out of water, his head swimming, tiny lights exploding in front of his eyes.

  Krakk!

  “Arrghhh! You hairy son of a bitch! I think you’ve broken my bastard leg!” Sir Justice screamed.

  The apprentice knight pulled himself up onto all fours, his mouth wide, desperate for air, his chest imploding. I can’t black out! I won’t black out!

  “So, you think you’re tough, eh?”

  Crunch!

  Tucker turned to the sounds, his vision blurring with the lack of oxygen, broken glass from the goggles piercing his brow. And there, in the light of the moon, the faint outline of the monster.

  It grasped Sir Justice in its massive claws, tearing out chunks of his chain mail vest as it did so. Drooling, its fangs were exposed beneath a twisted black snout, its huge ears torn and scarred, its eyes beaming with a blood lust.

  “Balls, you’re ugly!” Sir Justice said groggily, before his face hardened and he butted his forehead into the beast’s jaws, following that with a punch to the face and a knee to the groin.

  But the monster held firm.

  Tucker gagged, his throat retching, his eyes glazing over, before a pint of vomit choked from his lips. “S-Sir Justice!” he heaved.

  “Run away, boy! Run...” the sheriff began, before the wolf slapped him hard across his eyes with the back of its claw.

  Sir Justice was sent tumbling, yet somehow he managed to sweep his left leg through the beast’s ankles as he fell, sending it sprawling to the floor.

  “Go boy, go! This is your chance!” Sir Justice yelled as he crawled to his feet.

  Bleeding from his head and stomach, the sheriff placed all his weight on his left leg, ready to face his challenger. Deftly he pulled the knife from his belt.

  The monster - half wolf, half man - rose above him, the moonlight flitting over his matted fur as he paced like some grotesque wrestler, dwarfing his opponent. His tail thrashed impatiently. He seemed almost to be smiling.

  He spoke. “Come little man, it is time to embrace death, yessss?”

  “I’m no’ gonnae die,” the sheriff spat. “I’m no’ sure if you’re a man or no’ but I’m gonnae cut your bloody balls off all the same. Then I’m gonnae feed them to you. And then you’re gonnae tell me where our friend is.”

  And now the beast began to laugh, howling uproariously, exposing a row of his fiendish yellow teeth.

  Sir Justice hurled the knife and rolled awkwardly to one side, past the wolf as he lunged, the blade now imbedded in the beast’s leg.

  The sheriff then plucked his axe from the ground and slashed wildly through the air, missing the werewolf’s head but finding bone. He cut through the monster’s right claw, cleaving it from the wrist. The wolf cried sharply and caught the man in mid grapple, virtually clambering onto Sir Justice and clamping his jaws around the sheriff’s left shoulder in one horrific bite.

  “Arrrrgggghhhh!” Sir Justice screamed as the monster’s fangs pierced through his armour and sunk deep into flesh. The beast lifted him into the air with his teeth, shaking the sheriff as if he were a rag doll.

  Sir Justice’s whole body had begun twitching in sudden shock, when Tucker drove the silver cutlass through the chest of the monster.

  The effect was instantaneous, the wolf dropping Sir Justice and screaming horribly. The wound erupted in a fountain of blood and gristle and, without even turning to Tucker, the beast ran. Within seconds the monster had been absorbed by the darkness, the sound of his yelps fading into the distance as he vanished from sight.

  Tucker fell to his knees beside the sheriff who lay in a crumpled heap, a red river trickling from his lips, his breaths shallow.

  “The stars look strange from here,” Sir Justice choked as he stared up at the domes.

  “You’re hurt,” Tucker said.

  “Only my pride... And my leg,” the sheriff turned and spat out some blood. “And a few broken ribs. Possibly a punctured lung,” he coughed. “Did it get away?”

  Tucker examined the sword in his hand, a similar river running down its length and over the hilt. “I think so,” he said.

  “Could you no’ kill it?”

  “Could I not...” Tucker started, incredulous.

  “It’s alright, Mister Tucker,” Sir Justice chuckled. “I’m just teasing. You were really quite brave.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I knew you had it in you,” the sheriff coughed again and pulled himself onto his elbows, wincing as he reached inside his jacket pocket. “What’s more, I reckon we’ve won ourselves a bit of a souvenir with that claw over there. Perhaps one for the Professor to look at?”

  Tucker peered at the severed hand lying in the grass in a pool of fluids. “But we haven’t stopped it, have we?” he groaned. “We haven’t saved Six.”

  Sir Justice shook his head. “No, but we’re close, Mister Tucker. It’s bleeding right? And, if it bleeds, it leaves a trail.”

  Tucker sighed. He felt so tired. “So what do we do now?”

  “What do we do now, Mister Tucker?” Sir Justice retrieved his flask of whisky and unscrewed its stopper. “We drink,” he smiled before taking a massive slug. “We drink.”

  ..............

  “All our minds are connected, as is everything else.”

  Jason King could see the words dancing in his head as if formed by an army of ants marching on ticker tape. He squeezed past Jon Way and into Neon’s hospital room, almost falling over a Seeker as he did so. The young boy didn’t flinch, however, but remained rooted to the floor, a crystal crown glowing on his head, a white number seven printed on the back of his red t-shirt.

  The King looked up to see nine other children, each locked in concentration as they formed a circle, some sitting, some standing. And, within the ring, the body of Neon Way lying prostrate on her bed, most of the hospital’s machines now disconnected, her mother rocking quietly by her side.

  “We see ourselves as individuals, others as different, but we are not. In essence we are all the same.” Tim, the curly haired boy standing at the opposite wall, thought aloud.

  “Jon, how are we doing?” the King whispered, but the magician pressed a finger to his lips and shook his head.

  “Not well,” he replied.

  The Seekers’ helmets fizzed with electricity. The toddler in the blue romper suit, Oric, was the only one not wearing the contraption. Instead, he swayed in the middle of the séance, his eyes tightly closed behind his big black spectacles, a small puddle of dribble collecting at his feet.

  His thoughts whipped around the room like a blast of trombones and trumpets, caught in a musical storm: “Science, religion, nature - t
hese too are family. They speak in unison but few ever hear their harmony.”

  “On a sub-conscious level,” kneeling on a cushion the Japanese girl, Makoto, replied. “We, they, are all one, a collective tide of atoms floating on infinity struggling to be understood.”

  The King tried to relax and let the children’s thoughts flow easily into his mind. He was used to telepathy. He knew that, while some telepaths’ voices would arrive unbidden, others would have to use music or images to be heard. Some would use both. But Jason King had never experienced this - to see so many children locked in a single trance - it made him nervous.

  “Neon had learned to surf this tide, to move between the worldly planes,” Devak, the small boy sitting at King’s feet, spelt out his words in a parade of coloured building blocks.

  “Yes, though she is bound to the living, the dimensions beyond are also hers to explore,” Oric agreed.

  A girl, Amber, with a pretty red bow in her hair, looked frightened as she continued the flow of thoughts, her words coming slowly, like handwriting in a notebook. “But she has become trapped, held by a force stronger than ours!”

  “A terrible power using her realm as a conduit to the next but refusing to enter the light,” Philip, a boy wearing a Zoro mask and sucking his thumb, explained.

  “His presence ties her to these ‘Other Worlds’. He speaks from the dead, whispering lies,” Oric agreed, his thoughts coming once again like an orchestral thunderclap.

  “Like a lion locked in a cage, he has become her keeper!” Tim continued.

  “So what can we do about it?” Serena Way cried out, her human voice sounding fragile amid the psychic whirlwind. “How can we save her?”

  The King’s daughter sat with her face buried in her hands, tears dripping through her fingers. Buckley beat his wings as he clutched the back of her chair.

  “Look at her face,” Serena wailed. “She’s disappearing. We’re losing her.”

  One by one the children opened their eyes and peered into the bed, as if the interruption had broken the spell of thoughts. Only Oric remained in the trance, slipping onto his padded knees. But the other Seekers stared in horror, for the princess was vanishing. Not just her eyes, but her nose, cheeks and mouth were now infected by the pool of emptiness. It was spreading like a cancer through her body, erasing her existence.