by Lex Sinclair
‘And before you start making comments about how technologically advanced they are that wouldn’t have made an iota of a difference. Even if the technology did work they’d still have to go out and find the food and drink at some point. And when or if they did, rest assured there wouldn’t be enough to sustain a small group never mind phalanxes.’
The realisation of Number 2’s point struck the men like a baseball soaring into the stratosphere at Fenway Park.
‘Are you saying all the government leaders and other members of the hierarchy have died?’ Number 1 asked.
‘I can’t say who or how many,’ Number 2 said. ‘What I can say is this, they didn’t all survive.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ Number 3 wanted to know.
‘If they had we’d have heard some official news bulletin by now. Even without TV, the internet and radio, don’t you think we would’ve seen a single soul by now?’
The men allowed that notion to circle their minds, not knowing if this was to be considered good news or bad.
Sacasa was the one who broke the stillness.
‘We all have the power of second sight and can read each other’s life stories by merely gazing into each other’s eyes.’ As he said this he turned and focused on Number 1, recalling him staring into his eyes, seeing his past. ‘If either child had died from the time of the impact to this present day we would’ve had a vision. The same as we did of the Reaper. The same as we did as knowing without knowing to come here and take refuge while the world burned.’
No one said anything.
‘The Reaper shall make its presence known when the time is right. It shall also keep us alive for as long as necessary.’
The three felt comforted by old man Sacasa’s words, believing them to be the truth. Hoping they were the truth.
Not one of them dared ask what would befall them once the Reaper no longer required their services though.
Sacasa glanced back at the three men amidst the destruction. ‘Stay where you are,’ he said. Then he clambered over a taxi and hopped over a growing crack. Tufts of grass sprouted from webbed fissures. Nature had seized the opportunity to take back the Earth now civilisation was incapacitated.
The three watched standing, side by side, the frail figure getting smaller. And when Sacasa reached the tall, dark figure it was then that the sheer size and dominance of the Reaper hit home. Sacasa’s head came to the Reaper’s waist. The scythe in its grasp wouldn’t be necessary if it chose to do the old man harm. It could raise its foot high and bring it down with the force of a compressor machine. Or it could wrap its skeletal claw around the old man’s head and squeeze it like a tangerine.
In the depths of the baggy hood the darkness was absolute. Had there not been so much ash, dust and other debris from the destruction the three still wouldn’t have penetrated the blackness to what lay beyond. Neither did they want to. As ominous as the blackness was it was far preferable than the hideous visage.
After several minutes Sacasa returned to them on rubbery legs. His brow dripped sweat and his skin took on a pasty appearance. His leathery lips were bone dry. When he spoke it didn’t sound like his usual tone at all. ‘It wants to see you.’
‘What about?’ Number 1 asked, speaking for the other two as well.
Sacasa refused to meet his stare and simply shook his head.
Aware that no information would be forthcoming until they plucked up the fortitude, the three men headed to the supernatural entity that awaited their arrival. No one uttered a word.
The Reaper turned its concealed head and eyed them all for a couple of seconds, singularly. Then it focused on the man named Number 1 and beckoned him forward.
Refusing wasn’t an option. Nevertheless, Number 1 feared the Reaper and did what was asked of him. His entire anatomy, from head to toe, was assailed by tremors. He despised himself for it. But all the willing himself to overcome this fear was futile.
The Reaper gave no indication that it had noticed this human emotion. Yet it must have seen the palpable signs as it stared fixedly at him.
Number 1 lowered his head, not out of respect or obedience, but because he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing what was beyond the hood. The Reaper glided forward and with the hand that wasn’t clutching the long-handled scythe rested it on the trip-hammer heart of its faithful follower. At first nothing appeared to be happening. Then a guttural croak emanated the gaping mouth of Number 1. His head snapped back and rested on the top of his spine. His body went into convulsions, but he remained standing motionless, arms down by his side, taut, flexing.
Number 2 and Number 3 exchanged a brief glimpse. They both felt the responsibility to rush forward and break the Reaper’s hold that was inducing terrible agony on their friend. Yet neither of them had the nerve. The Reaper was both inexplicably as tangible as themselves and as unreal as fictitious yarn.
It stood right in front of them; mere yards from their touch if there was any doubt, but its presence simply didn’t belong here.
Suddenly, without warning, the shaking ceased. Number 1 stood limp. The only thing keeping him vertical was the Reaper’s massive hand. Then it flexed synaptic. Number 1 resumed full control of his anatomy and took a step back from the Reaper. He nodded an acknowledgement the other men couldn’t fathom.
Number 1 returned to the line the other men had formed, all solider-like. The Reaper beckoned forward Number 2 and repeated the ritual. And finally, staggering forward, flailing his arms to regain balance and composure, Number 3 permitted the creature to do to him as it’d done to the others.
In his own ears, Number 3 felt and heard the crunching and realigning of bones, tendons and muscle. At last when it all fell in sync, the pain dissipated and became a vague memory. His vision improved vastly, erasing the fog, ash and dust. He could still feel it brush his face fleetingly, but that was all. Now his vision gave him the sight of two powerful CCTV security cameras zooming in and out of focus on any given target. If there was such a thing as age in reverse this was what it would feel like if an elderly person regained their myopic and long-sighted vision.
Across the street innumerable packs of cigarettes scattered across the shop floor and spilled out onto the spider-web pavement. Marlboro, Regal, Winstons. Cans of fizzy drinks. Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Pepsi Max, 7Up, Sprite, Lucozade, Cherry Coke. This didn’t particularly mean a great deal. But the fact that dense layers of dust concealed their names was impressive.
Also, his muscles promised to bulge right out of the skin, Incredible Hulk style. If someone punched him in the chest at this instant their fist would rebound and he’d laugh. He felt like a Greek God, constructed out of granite.
Number 3, still awe-struck, moved back in line, grinning broadly.
The Reaper raised its head so Sacasa could see and be aware that it wanted him to come forward again. Obediently, Sacasa followed his instructions and stepped around the three. He faced the Reaper and methodically pivoted to face the men he’d shared a chamber with in the sewers for the last few years.
A deep, inhuman guttural voice came out of his mouth as though he were speaking from another dimension. ‘You three have been bestowed the gifts of gods,’ he said in an otherworldly voice. ‘Your souls are my possession now, entirely. It is for the sake of your souls that you shall perform the duty that I ask of you.’ It paused, and then continued. ‘The task is to end the life of the child that prevents total domination. It is this child that creates the greatest peril for you and the one to grow and be known as the dark man. It is the child that threatens to banish all death and to bring life here on Earth and evermore. If the child grows to an age where he is no longer vulnerable then the greater the peril shall be for you.’
The three men, who were more supernatural entities now, stood transfixed, absorbed by the words spoken to them.
‘You know the location of the child and its feeble protectors,’ Sacasa, who spoke the words of the Reaper, went on. ‘You must seize this opportunity and vulne
rability of this situation and capitalise on it. Without eternal death and damnation you cease to exist.
‘Why should millions perish on this land alone when others do not?’
The question was rhetorical.
‘The longer the child lives the more special his followers will believe him to be. I assure you he is no more special than anyone else. They will raise him on old-fashioned beliefs and idealism. These beliefs are at best misguided. These beliefs were scoffed at when the world – in part – knew peace and love. Pure delusion on the part of those living in denial, refusing to accept their current situation.’
Sacasa’s mouth clamped shut. However, the men knew instinctively that the Reaper hadn’t finished its monologue.
‘Have no mercy,’ the inhuman voice from another time and place continued. ‘God Himself showed no mercy to those who perished or to those now suffering, including the protectors of this child. The world no longer needs nonconformists. The world – this new world – needs discipline, obedience and structure. It needs just one ruler. One ruler who they can go to. Not some mythical presence they pray to, uncertain if their prayers have been listened to and given approval.
‘Destroy the last of their hope and bring them to their knees. Do this and you shall cross the bridge into blissful eternity. Without death there is no fear. With no fear there is no Reaper…
‘The light has vanished. The darkness is forever…’
Sacasa’s mouth closed on his chapped, parched lips. His mind returned to his physical self once more and managed to blink once before the Reaper took one hefty precision perfect swing. The razor sharp curved blade whisked through the air and separated the old man’s head from its neck in a blink of an eye.
The manoeuvre was so abrupt that no one had time to even register what had transpired, never mind react. Instead the pallid, balding, psoriasis-infested head toppled backwards and bounced off the rubble with a distinctive thunk.
Glowing incandescently beneath the shrouded hood too many teeth grinded into a maniacal sneer.
Even with their superpowers the three didn’t dare consider doing anything to thwart the towering, massive dark figure. It could destroy them. Turn them to cinders with the swipe of its hand or the glower of its fathomless eye sockets.
The stump where Sacasa’s head had seconds ago firmly sat sprayed arterial blood in geyser form. Crimson liquid splattered the road. The acrid, coppery stench assailed their nostrils.
When the three followers looked up again the Reaper had vanished…
21.
SAMMY AND FRANK BENULLO had been working frenziedly ever since the impact. The clinics, hospitals and doctors’ surgeries had been emptied of medication for patients. The elderly and young who were in need of constant medical attention died. Under normal circumstances they would have struggled. Now with the oxygen deprivation, lack of proper and adequate nourishment many had contracted illnesses. Being in such close proximity the diseases had spread like wildfire. The pitch black nights were sleepless, filled with the wheezing and coughing and crying.
Understandably, Sammy had feared for Elias’ wellbeing. She breast fed him and made sure not to embrace him too much in case of suffocation. He slept in a crib they’d brought with them. No one complained. The Benullo’s were considered life savers to the masses hiding in the shelters. They had travelled to their unknown destination in buses and Lorries. However, Frank had eaves-dropped a general’s conversation with a member of his platoon. He’d mentioned South London. One thing was for certain – they weren’t in the centre of London. God only knew what the devastation was like there.
At the mouth of the cavern fields had been scorched and turned to charcoal. Pylons had fallen like drunken sentries tangled in serpentine cables. The electric had long since departed in a shower of flashing sparks.
Elias was a toddler now, completely unaware of the new world. As far as he was concerned this was the only world. These bulging ash-grey clouds and desolation was his playground. He’d never known – or ever would for that matter – the joys of ambling through a field and watching sheep eat grass and horses run together. He’d never witness the fluxing seasons. Winter, spring, summer and autumn. Stories of foxes and owls prowling in the night would forever be stories and nothing more.
Frank felt both relieved and anxious to his son’s ignorance to his surroundings. Of course it was good that the destruction of the planet hadn’t scarred his soul, the way it does to someone when a loved one dies. That was something Frank wanted to erase. He knew what that felt like. Friends from school had died before their time. Liam had slipped and fallen down the stairs and broken his neck. He died before the paramedics even made it. Another friend, Craig died of a drug overdose. And two cats and two dogs had died that he loved more than life itself. But this… This harsh new reality snapped his heartstrings.
Today was the first day of August 2010. Both he and Sammy had done all they could to help the survivors recuperate fully. He ought to be amazed and in awe of all the famous people he’d attended to. But none of that red carpet bollocks mattered anymore. The days of movie connoisseurs gathering around Leicester Square greeting the ones they looked up to at the premiere belonged in any books that hadn’t burned or been washed away. It wasn’t important at all what was going on with the Kardashians. No one cared if Ricky Gervais had some amusing anecdote to the obliteration of what once was their home. It wasn’t important in the slightest what celebrity was doing or who they were seen with falling out of a nightclub.
No one, not even the lowest form of paparazzi, had the urge to photograph the incredulous sights outside. World tragedies brought everything on the planet into perspective. People who wouldn’t cross the road to piss on someone if they happened to be on fire put their differences aside to make things better. But this was a situation that hadn’t been foreseen until it was far too late for anything to be done. Not that anything could be done. Instead the ones who survived cried on each other’s shoulders. For pity. For remorse. For the destruction and melancholy that had torn them apart.
Not Elias though.
What Frank found most disturbing was when he began packing his suitcases along with Sammy. It was then, and only then, that he realised Elias was the only baby or child to have survived in the nuclear shelter.
Four babies had been crushed by the stampede last Christmas. Men and women who ordinarily solved their problems negotiating, debating and doing what was best for the country had resorted to fighting over cooked meat and red wine. Still fighting for the festivities of years passed.
Military personnel on several occasions had to gun down out-of-control citizens. The killing was as brutal as it was necessary. The gunfire deafening in the cavern. He recalled the jolt of his heart and the stillness thereafter. Then the dragging of the corpses scraping across the floor.
He and Sammy had been so busy a qualified nurse tended to Elias’ needs. They worked ten to fifteen hours without intermission nearly every day for the first two years. All they had time for was food, drink and sleep. Frank had lost so much weight his trousers required a belt, and even then they were baggy on him. His waist shrunk and he could feel ribs protruding. He hadn’t been this thin since a teenager.
The atmosphere was white, as though puffy, pillow clouds had descended the skies. Somewhere amidst the white high up sunlight shone. But no familiar sounds of vehicles starting or backfiring. No birdsong or any other dulcet noises from environing wildlife. Instead stillness reigned supreme.
Frank loathed the stillness. Even when he was a young boy the incessant ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece as he and his parents read in silence broke the stillness. But this stillness had a presence. An ominous presence. A presence of foreboding. The stillness was a nightmare for men like Frank. Frank was considered to be a thinker. Or more aptly put, a philosopher.
The stillness allowed not one second of distraction. Instead it fuelled his endless thoughts. And it wasn’t as if any of the thoughts or deliberat
ion was in the slightest bit positive. On the contrary. The negativity weighed down on him, driving into his shoulders, pushing him into the earthen floor.
What did it all mean, anyway? What good was thinking? Everything outside was the aftermath of a summer barbecue. Black smoke still coiled into the atmosphere. He knew for a fact that the young, elderly and the asthmatics had died of respiratory complications due to this alone. Others had died of shock, lack of nourishment and poor living conditions.
The adverts that had once been displayed on the TV during the commercial breaks showing pictures of children in the poorer parts of Africa were now their reality. The only difference was even the flies and mosquitoes had perished.
Frank winced at the dull ache in the base of his spine. He must have rolled off the mattress last night and slept in an awkward position. A grimy, soiled mattress and woollen blanket was all he and Sammy had to share. When their duties were done for the day they retired to the mattress and rested. The opaque darkness shielded them from the tears spilled out of the eyes of the dying.
Yet lately, even worse than the mundane lifestyle they’d become accustomed to, were the vivid nightmares of a sinister nature.
It troubled Frank and created irritation. Judging himself without being biased, he believed these dreams that caused him to sleep fitfully at the best of times were unfair. It wasn’t enough that he woke to face matters both grim and serious. Now his dreams were afflicted by some bogeyman donning a long black cloak that covered him from head to toe. The curved and dangerously sharp weapon he wielded was also menacing. And although it was merely a dream, this creature had appeared without reason for the third time. The last being the night previous.
During the night Frank had considered enquiring if Sammy had similar dreams or knew of any such figure of this description. He decided in the night – in the eerie stillness – to wait for day. But now that night surrendered to day, Frank knew better to not mention such visions.