by Lex Sinclair
‘What are we doing here?’ Vince yelled over the din of the gust.
The Reaper turned. Vince’s screamed in terror. The incandescent glow from beneath the hood revealed the skeletal face in every intricate detail. Every prominent curve and indentation radiated unnatural light of luminous green.
The fog! Vince’s mind screamed at him.
Vince blinked purposefully and averted his gaze. The light danced like strobe-lightening in his retinas. When he opened them and looked towards the Reaper again, its face was concealed once more by its baggy hood.
The brawny young man staggered. As he righted himself, he saw the Reaper reaching out with its X-ray hand and point to a sty and a muddy path. The path meandered around the sheer crag out of sight.
This time Vince didn’t require any verbal responses to know what the Reaper demanded of him. Yet he didn’t know what was worse – returning to the carriage with the entity that was the embodiment of Death or the unknown hidden around the crag in the midst of a cold winter night?
Only one way to find out, he told himself.
Aware that refusal would mean certain death or far worse, Vince clambered over the sty, taking extra precaution due to the lack of light and proceeded along the narrow, slippery path.
The wind buffeted him. In panic, Vince clung to the slippery, moss-covered crag. He prudently opted to wait until the wind ebbed before moving onwards. Eventually his eyes adjusted to the night and gave him a slither of confidence. He almost tripped on a jutting root, but managed to see it to adjust his feet in time. The road where the carriage awaited his return disappeared behind the rock wall.
Vince’s fingers were ice-cold and numb. The rock face felt solid beneath his fingertips, yet were absent of all texture. Taking one vigilant step at a time Vince finally rounded the corner and arrived at an arched opening.
Before him was an awe-inspiring view. The amphitheatre was spectacular, save the litter strewn across the vast round area. To Vince it looked like a miniature coliseum. The stone constructed risers loomed so high up Vince had to tilt his head right back. A circle of space topped off by the top row revealed the jewel-like stars in the night sky.
His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of the Reaper perched on the top row, watching him intently.
‘Now what?’ Vince called out over the shrieking wind.
As usual the Reaper did not respond.
Vince finally looked away and recoiled at the dark, crouched shape. The night had camouflaged it from Vince’s immediate view. Otherwise he would have spotted it upon arrival. Instead the crouched silhouette rose from its haunches and materialised into a shape of a man. However, since meeting the Reaper’s acquaintance the night before, Vince chose not to go by assumption and probability alone anymore.
He waited… and watched.
The figure – for that’s all it was at this point – turned in a fluid motion and faced Vince.
When Vince squinted and raised his right arm to shield the dazzling, green light, the figure took two steps forward. Vince blinked through the radiance, trying to determine the source of the peculiar light. He couldn’t tell for certain if he’d been asked to describe what he was seeing. But as the light diminished, as though the eyes they’d shone out of sucked it back in, Vince understood unequivocally that the dishevelled man was the source of the luminescence.
The green light shone dimly. It reminded Vince of a car passing by on a stretch of country road in the middle of the night. When the oncoming car going in the opposite direction noticed another car approaching both cars flicked the full-beam off. That’s the only way he could comprehend the dimmer light of the same origin as the dazzling shine.
What unnerved and intrigued Vince simultaneously was how the irises and pupils of the man’s eyes had undeniably been replaced by this phosphorescence.
Surprisingly, he found he wasn’t at all afraid of the emaciated figure. On the contrary, his curiosity plagued him to discover the truth, however uncanny. This was why he took one tentative step at a time until he found himself at the centre of the amphitheatre facing this abnormality four feet away.
Vince gasped at what his eyes absorbed. It wasn’t just the man’s eyes (or eyeholes to be precise) that were illuminated by this neon beam. The strange green hue hadn’t only affected his eyes but his entire anatomy. He could see the trajectory of its veins and capillaries were of the same tint.
An expletive issued from Vince before he could clap his hand over his mouth.
The man who seemed incapable of speech or any kind of articulacy had been inflicted with some sort of contamination. Possibly he was affected. However, Vince deduced if the green shade that apparently coursed right the way through this man’s system was a virus then he’d be dead by now. At the least, he wouldn’t be able to stand of his own volition.
Food wrappers spun in eddies in the enclosed circle around them.
Vince watched as chocolate bar wrappers, crisp packets, bits of torn cellophane and cardboard from snack foods swirled around them with nowhere to go. It dawned on him how this man had survived in this isolation for so long. His clothes were in tatters. His hair was tousled and damp; in need of combing and a thorough wash. Yet what confused Vince was how he’d managed to obtain the food and bottles of water and Pepsi cans rolling about on the rough terrain.
Then it came to him.
The Grim Reaper!
His subconscious formed the words and gave him the admittance to speak. ‘Now what?’
The man before him pried his lips apart. A guttural voice that came not from his tongue or any other part of his glowing body said, ‘Stay here. In two days’ time the world shall be torn asunder by the meteors. The world will be Hell’s home and burn in inferno glory. This place is sacred. No harm will burden you where you stand right now. You will be a servant to the dark man and to the Reaper during the aftermath. You have done well thus far. But much more is expected of you. I am the entity that makes you shiver on a hot summer night. I am the eternal darkness that blocks out the light. I am the “singing man” that drowns out the mourners weeping. I am Death. Your worst nightmare, and then some. I am the Grim Reaper and you will fear my wrath and do as is asked of you.’
Vince’s face hardened with perplexity. The man before him wasn’t the image of Death or to use another name, the Grim Reaper. He was an ordinary man who’d arrived at this ancient amphitheatre.
As he arched his head back so it rested on his hunched shoulders, Vince laid his stare on the unmoving monstrous figure above. Then the mystery to his confusion was unveiled.
Seated alongside the Reaper in the rickety old carriage, Vince had asked several questions until he relented. The Reaper, as he assumed, had no means of communicating through its own form. An entity from another dimension communicated by other means. By using the voice box and muscles to form and articulate the words it sought to explain its master plan to him, the Reaper chose this inflicted man – a neon zombie that would be a perfect extra in a Steven Spielberg Sci-Fi thriller.
‘Why did you drop the head of a man I killed into my lap? Were you trying to scare me?’
The emaciated man staggered, then stood erect. ‘The man whose head I decapitated was a bishop. You pleased me by blowing his brains out. His wife is of no importance. But I do wish you’d have killed her also.’
Vince didn’t seem satisfied with the answer.
As though reading his mind, the man added, ‘I was not trying to scare you. I offered you a trophy for a job well done.’
He didn’t agree with having a severed head tossed onto his lap, but at least now it made some warped kind of sense. ‘Why have you chosen me?’
‘You are a lost soul. The Light has not been bestowed to you as it has others. You may not have been born into the Dark, but you adopted it all the same.’ The inhuman voice sounded as though it travelled through galaxies so Vince could hear every word in lucid detail. ‘There are others like you, also. They have powers that are beyond t
his world that you shall soon acquire. For every anarchist there is a peaceable man. They who want to live forever and believe the light will grant them their wish. They who believe in a high power. They must be shown that their beliefs are foolish. Fallacious. They need to live in fear. They must fear the Reaper!’
Vince’s fingertips prickled with electric static. He didn’t know what to make of the oration. For one, he wasn’t sure he understood. He had no idea who the others were. Where they were. Or how many of them there were. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know either.
‘Their hope must be extinguished,’ the “green man” went on.
Vince wasn’t exactly the Brain of Britain or even his neighbourhood for that matter. Nevertheless, he knew that people’s most inner beliefs were nigh on impossible to break. If someone believed in their heart and soul profoundly there was nothing no one could do to deter them. Even Vince Lawton – drug-induced doorman – knew that was the strongest of all human emotions.
‘How’d you manage to do that, then?’
‘Their hope lies on the shoulders of one baby. The baby will survive the aftermath. That has already been decided. It is the boy’s fate to endure. But it is not decided that the boy’s life thereafter shall be protected by the gods of destiny. I choose you and my other servants to go to the boy’s location and wipe out his human sentinels and of course him. The longer the boy lives the more their hope blossoms. He is the derivation of their hope that fuels their beliefs. Kill the boy and the light will relinquish to perpetual darkness.’
The wind buffeted and wailed, as if in protest to this declamation.
Vince swallowed with difficulty.
‘I won’t survive the meteors out here in the open. Neither will this poor wraith of a man.’ He was attempting to stall the entity’s voice. Barricade himself in from the Reaper’s demands. Also, what he stated was in fact true.
‘There is a cavern on the other side of the boulder. Take refuge there until the fires have ceased raging across the land. Wait for the cities worldwide to have crumbled and for the oceans to recede. Then I will come for you…’ The word you echoed, bouncing off the stone risers, mocking Vince.
When he returned his gaze to the stickman in front of him the light from its eyes had vanished.
He became paralysed in every sense. His heart became a pitchfork and stabbed his chest with every thunderous beat.
The luminescent green had been swallowed into a chasm where the man’s eyes had once been. The two black holes stared back at him. The absence of light sent bolts of electricity through him.
Vince felt himself convulsing madly.
What was worse, he couldn’t do anything to stop it.
As his mouth threatened to tear itself through his face the wind swallowed his scream with its own…
*
Natalie and Sue hadn’t spoken since their hasty phone conversation. There was no bad ambience that had come between the two. There just wasn’t anything to say. Instead they busied themselves hauling their goods down the dilapidated stone steps into the bunker.
Sue opened her bottle of lemon and lime flavoured water and gulped down half the contents. She offered Natalie the bottle. Without muttering an obligatory “thank you”, Natalie snatched the bottle out of her best friend’s hand and finished the water.
Finally, Sue ended the unnerving silence. ‘When’s the reverend coming?’
Natalie sat on the stone pillar facing the small town below. ‘He sent me a text, saying he’s pulled in at a rest stop for something to eat. The baby’s crying. He’s gonna give it some milk and wait till he settles down again.’
Sue nodded to herself.
‘Is that his cottage over there?’ she asked, pointing to the grey-stone one-storey house.
Natalie nodded. ‘Yeah. John employed Anthony and convinced the diocese to permit his vicarage. John had no money. No life savings. No future. John was like a surrogate father to him. Gave him a chance when the rest of the world turned its back on him. Anthony was an uneducated orphan with less promise than that of a liar… I hope he’s not too long.’
Neither of them said it, but as the minutes evolved into hours the more chance there was that Rev Perkins, as he was known to the parish, would run into foul play.
Neither Sue nor Natalie believed they’d be able to go on if they lost another close friend.
16.
NUMBER 1 kept a safe distance from the reverend’s Jaguar. He’d followed Perkins since the hospital. Number 1 waited anxiously, wondering why the clergyman was taking so long. Then Perkins emerged from the Hospital’s maternity ward entrance with a young, attractive woman and a man donning a tunic, specs and long, ash-grey hair.
Number 1 hadn’t anticipated Perkins would have company. The presence of the young woman and the doctor disgruntled him, slightly. For a moment as the woman carried the newborn to her page 3 bosom his heart jolted. Only when she saw her clearly did he breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn’t Nadine Moretz.
According to the vision, Nadine had died in unthinkable agony during labour. He slid down in his driver’s seat of the black, unmarked sedan. He watched behind tinted windows as Perkins turned and crossed the forecourt to the baby store. Perkins gripped the rubbish barrel and hoisted it up onto his shoulder. Number 1 cussed under his breath. Then as Perkins started jogging towards the shop window and swung the barrel, Number 1 understood the logic of this move.
The din of shattering glass exploded into jagged fragments on the bricked pavement. Number 1 sat bolt upright, amazed at this act of vandalism by the reverend. The young, lean reverend disappeared into the shop through the toothed aperture. When he appeared again, he’d filled a cot with light blue clothing suitable for a baby boy.
The young, freckle-faced woman aided in dressing the baby into clean clothing while the doctor wheeled two oxygen tanks fitted with masks across the car park to the section reserved for staff. He took out a set of keys and pressed a button. The lights of a Jaguar blinked. Then the man opened the boot and carefully stashed the equipment inside.
With the baby now dressed in a one-piece light-blue woolly outfit, the young woman and the reverend made their way to the doctor. Together, working in unison, they lowered the baby into the cot and fastened him on the passenger seat. The doctor handed Perkins the keys to what must have been his car. Perkins gave him a grave smile. Then they embraced. The reverend took the young woman, that had to be a nurse or relative of the doctor’s, into his arms. After the farewells, the reverend got in behind the wheel and started the motor.
Number 1 sat in his sedan parked on the other side of the car park. However, he wasn’t that far away that if he brought his motor to life no one in the vicinity would notice. This was why his task had taken a turn for the worse. The doctor and the young woman obviously weren’t going with the reverend. They either had their own destination or were staying behind at the hospital. Either way they weren’t leaving immediately or going back inside. This meant that Number 1 had to wait for them to disappear before he could pursue the Jaguar.
He punched the seat, baring his teeth. The Jaguar started reversing out of the space and then gently pulled away. The reverend tooted the horn twice in quick succession. The doctor and the young woman raised their hands in a goodbye gesture. Then like keen watchers kept their unflinching gaze on the Jag growing smaller and smaller as it exited the car park and rejoined the main road.
To add to Number 1’s dilemma they stood motionless talking quietly. Then, finally, the doctor put his arm around the young woman and escorted her back through the automatic doors into the lobby.
Out of patience, Number 1 started the motor and drove out of the hospital car park onto the main road. He snapped his head left and right until he saw the Jag rolling through the entrance of a lot full of bargain retail stores.
Instead of going in and giving the identity of the sedan away, Number 1 drove up onto a kerb on the other side of the road. He applied the handbrake but left the motor run
ning.
Fifteen minutes later, maybe less, the Jaguar got back onto the main road.
Number 1 assumed Perkins had stopped to stock up on supplies.
Traffic was light and sporadic on the motorway. There was nowhere to go in the U.K. to avoid what was coming. Those who enjoyed the affluent, work-free lifestyles that the working class dreamed of had the resources to construct nuclear bomb shelters or go abroad (not that that would make any difference). Yet the majority of citizens were left to face the worst. They were the ones who hadn’t been selected to be taken to unknown locations where their safety and survival mattered.
Caverns, mineshafts and mountain peaks were the most suitable of locations for the fortunate minority. The average folk were left to see where exactly the asteroids struck. There was also the possibility that the asteroids might break up into smaller pieces prior to breaking through the Earth’s atmosphere. But all in all, their fate was out of their hands.
Some citizens driving on the motorway believed they knew of places that were deemed safe and secure. Others drove aimlessly, hope and panic keeping their right foot on the accelerator.
Number 1 ignored them all. None of them mattered. They were already dead. Nearly all the world’s population would soon be the same. Unless one was wearing three million worth of sun-block then they were going to have a real bad day come tomorrow or the day after.
What Number 1 focused on, without distraction, was the Jaguar ahead. Night had fallen as seductively as a midnight lover. The sedan’s headlights were enough to light up the inexorable road ahead and the rear end of his target.
At Junction 44 of the M4 the Jaguar’s turn signal blinked.