by Lex Sinclair
‘I had to leave my home too,’ Sue said. She gazed solemnly at Jonesy, seeing who he really was for the first time. Behind all the cussing and laughing and joking, he was a humble man who enjoyed the simple pleasures life had once offered.
Perkins had no words to comfort his friend. They all felt the same. Lost, hurt and deeply saddened by the events that had befallen them.
‘I lost my faith,’ Perkins said at last, finally realising that he really had.
Jonesy and Sue stared at him, stunned.
‘I got to keep my home and we’ve even got a bunker where we could store your frozen food. We know how to make fires. We’ve got pots, pans, dishes and utensils too. But I lost my faith. Please. Please Jonesy. All I’m asking is don’t make me lose my friends too. Come with us. Not for your food, drink or weaponry, but for your company.’
With that Perkins proffered his hand.
Jonesy sighed wearily and took it.
‘We better get packing and carrying stuff out to the van before it gets dark,’ Sue said.
23.
THE GRIM REAPER’S followers rode their sporty motorbikes through the London streets, zigzagging through the stationary traffic. They revved their powerful horsepower engines up onto the pavements when there was no room between vehicles. Fallen cadavers lay sprawled at all angles. The men, who were no longer human, rode them like speed humps.
The sight of Buckingham Palace brought them skidding to a halt. The road itself caved inward in an underground ravine. Bodies were piled on top of each other, helter-skelter fashion. Shapes, sizes, sexes and races all mixed together in what appeared to be a human refuse mound. Buildings that had towered over streets had been obliterated. The only thing remaining that had once been the Royal family’s residence were the cindered frames. Black flakes peeled away from the skeletal structure, dissipating in the dust.
Everything looked so surreal; even gazing around for ten minutes wasn’t enough for their brains to except what their eyes were seeing. Dust clouds billowed from the indented roads.
Number 1 shook his head, totally mesmerised. ‘In a word – wow!’
They killed the motors and dismounted.
‘Look at all these bodies,’ Number 2 said, eyes bulging. ‘How many do you think are here alone?’
Number 3 stepped over a charred skeleton whose hand still clutched his lighter. ‘I think we found the perpetrator anyway,’ he said, indicating what he’d seen. The other two saw this and guffawed.
‘One flame and a bloody big fart caused all this,’ Number 1 said, jiggling, he was laughing so hard.
Number 2 repeated his initial question of how many carcasses lay in the street that they could see.
‘Dunno,’ Number 1 said. ‘Few thousand. Not to mention those who were cowering in the buildings and in their cars, thinking they could out-drive the comets.’
One cadaver lay on its side, half skeleton, half decayed human. Its bone structure was smaller and could either have belonged to a teenage boy or a short, adult female. It wasn’t possible to tell anymore.
‘Hey, there’s something I been meaning to ask you guys,’ Number 2 said. ‘What did you-know-who do to us exactly?’
Number 1 turned around to face Number 2. ‘I think you already know the answer to that, don’t you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Number 2 said.
‘He made us inhuman,’ Number 3 said, although he wasn’t sure.
Number 1 shook his head. ‘No. The Grim Reaper gave us powers beyond human to find this baby and his protectors. To help us kill them all and keep what’s left of the world from resisting their fate.’
‘Is that why I feel so strong and my vision is sharper?’ Number 3 asked.
‘Yeah,’ Number 1 said. ‘You can also run faster. Hit harder and do things that are humanly possible.’
‘Such as?’ Number 2 this time.
Number 1 contemplated a good example to prove his statement. When he thought of something he spoke. ‘See the cars all toppled over and rammed into the back of each other?’
The other two nodded.
‘If I was human and I wanted to get to the end of the street I’d have to climb over them, wouldn’t I?’
Number 2 and Number 3 nodded for the second time.
‘Okay. Watch this.’
They watched Number 1 run to the first rusted scrap metal box that had once been a car full pelt. When he reached the car he leapt and was hoisted fifteen feet in the air, defying gravity, floating momentarily and then coming back down again. He smashed the crusty bonnet of a car somewhere stuck in the middle of the congestion, folding it inward under his impact.
Number 1 pivoted to face the other two and waved. ‘What d’you think Michael Jordan would’ve said about my hang time, huh?’ he shouted back, his voice reverberating off the remnants of the city office blocks.
‘Whoa!’ Number 3 called out, awestruck.
Number 2 did a comical double-take.
‘Now you two try it!’
Number 2 and Number 3 exchanged glances.
‘How?’ Number 2 called out, speaking for Number 3 as well.
‘Just run and jump; it’s easy!’
Number 2 frowned. ‘You wanna go first?’
Number 3 shrugged. ‘Suppose so. Seems strange that I could do what he just did by simply running and jumping. I was never one for gymnastics in school. Here goes.’ Number 3 stooped into a starting position for a sprint race, rocked to and fro and on the count of three rushed forward.
Number 2 watched him, wondering if he would be able to do what Number 1 had done. Number 3 reached the rusted heap and bounced off his toes… and flew through the still air. It looked like something a magician would do onstage, using strobe lightening to conceal the audience from seeing the wire attached. Then he slammed down and somersaulted onto the roof. The indentation caused by the impact folded the roof almost right the way through the interior.
Number 1 laughed and clapped Number 3 on the back. ‘Awesome, isn’t it?’
Number 3, still on his knees, incredulous at what had just transpired gazed up and back from the distance he’d leapt from. He nodded dully.
‘Now you!’ Number 1 bellowed.
Having witnessed both his acquaintances successfully perform this feat, Number 2 tingled with confidence. All he had to do was run really fast and spring into the air without fear and he’d do something you only saw in a big budget Hollywood superhero movie. He tried not to think of it in those terms as it didn’t sit right in his mind’s eye. Instead he reiterated, Just run and jump. Run and jump. Run and jump.
He paced back as far as the cracked road would permit, pivoted and stared fixedly at the clear path to the first rusted metal shell. What made him smirk all of a sudden was the image of a scene in a film he watched some years back called The Matrix. In this particular scene Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, had watched in amazement as Morpheus ran and leapt off the roof of an edifice and onto the other rooftop with as much ease as it took to stroll through the park. This was very similar to that scene. Only what planted a seed of doubt was what had happened in the film. Neo hadn’t made the jump and plummeted to the ground which temporarily sucked him up and spat him back out again.
‘What’re you waitin’ for?’ Number 1 shouted.
Number 2 ignored him and prepared himself for what he was about to do. Then he did it…
The air was smoky and still. His heart climbed into his throat when he looked down at how high he was. Then he spread his arms out wide and braced himself for the hellish impact of his fall. Instead he floated down past the other two and landed gracefully, feet first at the top end of the street. An exhalation of dust and ash billowed from a small vehicle. Number 2 hadn’t realised until he returned to the ground – or in this case the remains of a sports’ car – he’d been holding his breath. His breath whooshed out of him, like a kettle. Then he turned, trainers scraping through layers of dust, debris and ash.
Number 3 and Number 1 stared at him a
s though he were a stranger or a celebrity they admired.
‘How’d you do that?’ Number 1 said in almost a whisper.
‘Do what?’
Number 1 regarded Number 3. ‘Do what, he says,’ he said in a mocking tone. Then he returned his gaze to his compatriot. ‘What you just did! That was incredible. You were flying. And, did you slow your fall by spreading your arms out wide?’
‘I dunno.’
Number 3 wiped dust from his trousers. ‘It was like you were a god descending from heaven to Earth.’
‘I just did what you told me to do,’ Number 2 said, matter-of-factly.
Number 1 and Number 3’s amazement evolved into revulsion all of a sudden.
‘Whoa,’ Number 1 said, raising his hand in defence. ‘Dude, what the fuck’s wrong with your face?’
Perplexed, Number 2 was at a loss for words. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ As he said that his quivering hands traced his face.
Nothing.
His prominent cheekbones were the same. His rugged visage had the same texture as before. Then a ripple coursed through him and he recoiled. Something had pulsed beneath the layers of flesh and ran down to his chin.
Number 1 cried out.
Number 2 didn’t know what had happened. He knew he hadn’t imagined the strange phenomena because Number 1 and Number 3 had seen it before he’d felt it. But now his face was undisturbed again. Then moments later it fluxed and contorted harder, stronger than before.
‘Arggghhhh!’ Number 2 hopped off the ruined car and held his head in his hands. ‘What the fuck is happening to me?’ he cried. The din of his cry sang through the desolate streets that would have drowned out his scream if the planet hadn’t been scorched to obliteration. ‘What did I do that was so wrong?’
Under normal circumstances the cries would have been that belonging to a patient residing in a mental hospital, not outside Buckingham Palace.
Number 2 ran, peering through his intertwined fingers, searching for something to abate his worst fears. But subconsciously he knew that even if he did find what he was looking for it wouldn’t change anything. The transformation his anatomy was undergoing was inexorable. Irrevocable.
He saw a horizontal-shaped advertising window caked in dust. Number 2 ran, clattering into rubble and stumbling over decomposed carcasses to get there. When he did he braced himself for what he was about to see. His jackhammer heart pounded in his temples like an erratic cursor. Then he pried his elongated fingers off his ever-changing face and prepared for the worst.
Normally when one does such a thing whatever it was they feared turned out to be not half as bad as what their mind had conjured up. But this was far from normal. And after wiping his hand back and forth across the glass, clearing it of layers of dust, Number 2 swatted the dust away and stared straight ahead.
‘Ohmigod!’ His exclamation came out a few decibels louder than a whisper.
The reflection staring back at him was that off an incandescent skeleton. Flesh rippled down from the brow to the jaw and then back up again in one single movement. And the shiny scarlet eyes pierced the glass and the darkness surrounding him.
He knew it was bad. But this was beyond bad. Bad wasn’t the word to accurately describe this transformation; not in the slightest. Number 2 had the features that belonged to a demon or a supernatural villain. The first apparent comparison he came up with was Ghost Rider. And although that would have sounded cool, it wasn’t. This wasn’t a mask or an imagination. This was as real as the coughing induced by the dust particles swirling in the air.
The Grim Reaper hadn’t explained what it had done to him. Had it done, Number 2 might have reconsidered. Yet what would be the ramifications if he’d done such a thing? Immediate and excruciating death, most likely.
Blood continued to seep out of his nostrils down over his lips. He could taste the coppery liquid. Then he noticed more blood dribbling out of his ears and his mouth… and finally his red eyes.
Number 2 became fully aware instinctively of what was happening.
Sounds of metal buckling under moving weights reached his ears and Number 2 saw in the reflection of the spoiled glass that Number 1 and Number 3 were coming towards him. They wore worried expressions. However, as they drew closer Number 2 relaxed when he saw them clearly. A placated sensation filled him. It didn’t eradicate his anxiety, but it did abate it. The panic rushing to the surface inside him subsided.
‘Are you all right?’ Number 1 asked, climbing down off the roof of an overturned car.
‘Not really.’
Number 3 recoiled when he saw his own face fluxing. ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Steady,’ Number 1 said. ‘As scary as this is it’ll happen to all of us.’
‘What is exactly happening to us?’ Number 2 wanted to know.
‘To be superior to humans we can no longer be one of them,’ Number 1 said. ‘To be much faster and more powerful we must be able to break boundaries humans cannot. Also, if we are to fill the hearts of those who still have hope with fear we must be something else. Something far worse than anyone could ever imagine.’
‘Why am I bleeding? What’s that about?’ Number 2 glanced over his shoulder, despising Number 1 at that moment.
‘Humans need blood to live, we don’t. Not anymore.’
‘What do we need to live?’ Number 3 said.
‘The Grim Reaper.’
Number 2 and Number 3 stared at Number 1.
‘Did we even have a choice?’ Number 2 asked.
‘You were chosen by the Grim Reaper for a reason,’ Number 1 said. ‘We all were. Life wasn’t very good to us. People weren’t very good to us, to put it mildly. We were what are usually referred to as the leftovers. Sacasa was the same. A cold hearted murderer. We were shunted into the underground catacombs of society. No one would give us the time of day. The world is full of rot. People who do well and are adored in their society prosper. Those who suffer are forgotten. Those who prosper don’t see you as an individual. They see you as a number. A member of lower ranked group. That’s how the government sees people. Royals. Rich and famous. Creators. Educated and useful people. Then there is what’s called “the working class”. Then the “lower class”. Then the ones who claim benefits, even though there’s fuck all wrong with them, apart from being stoned or drunk. Then there are the bums and the prisoners. Whatever you were as an individual meant fuck all. The powers that be couldn’t care less. They place you in a category that suited them. If you had money, you could go to university and study to be someone. But even then you had to be sucking the right dicks to get the good jobs. If you didn’t have any money or know anyone in power, piss off. Help yourself. If you can’t help yourself you live in squalor conditions. If you lie and kissed the right arses you might get some shitty apartment somewhere and lived in a council area.
‘But where are these so called “wonderful folks” now? Huh?’ Number 1 swept his hand out around them, indicating the innumerable carcasses on these interconnecting streets in downtown London alone.
‘I hope you weren’t one of those naïve fools who listened to our Prime Minister saying bollocks such as “We’re in this together”, when he referred to the recession pending. That’s why he and a lot of other brown noses got killed in Downing Street. As long as they are all right, and their associates and friends in the hierarchy are doing well it’s “pull the ladder up, Jack, and sod the rest”.
Number 1 became quiet and averted his gaze, sighing. ‘Now it’s our turn. Big deal, our faces are changing. They were changing anyway. It’s called getting old if you’re a human. But we’re neither old nor young. We lived half a life, perhaps more, as human beings. The Reaper saw us for what we are, not what society considers us to be. The Reaper saw us, studied us and made a decision. The Reaper decided to give us a second chance when no one else would.
‘It’s up to you two. Although you kinda left it a bit late to go back now, if you ask me. You can either join your race and rot away
like some additional piece of leftover or you can do as the Reaper asks of you.
‘Up to you. I know what I’m gonna do though.’
Number 2 moved away from the store window and faced his compatriots. He’d listened intently to what Number 1 said. It made perfect sense when you altered your perception to that way of thinking.
Number 1’s unnatural eyes bored into his and Number 2 understood what he was doing. He was doing the same.
Number 2 recalled his poor childhood home. His parents worked at a building firm merchant. They came home later than their duty ended. Not because of heavy traffic, but because they went straight to a pub. Then they came home drunk and when he complained he was starving hungry and there hadn’t been any snack food to help himself so his father gave him the back of his hand. His mother smoked self-made cigarettes which smelled peculiar. They also gave her the giggles. She’d make him something she could nuke in the microwave. Something quick and easy. Then she returned to the living room and smoked some more.
Sometimes if he needed to go to the toilet, which was located downstairs outside, adjoining the shed, he’d often have to walk past Mummy and Daddy while they were wrestling in the nude. That said it wasn’t anything like the wrestling he’d seen on the WWE.
None of it seemed odd until he got older and he became aware of how he’d been treated was not only inappropriate but also abusive.
Hindsight was a wonderful part of wisdom. Recollecting these pivotal events in his life made Number 2 realise how he’d been a victim from the start. He’d barely had enough money to eat at school. At home the fridge was always empty. Or worse it was full of liquor and just enough milk for his parents to make themselves a tea or coffee. Near starvation and lack of nutrition had affected his growth. All the other boys he had grown up with from infant school to high school grew to over six feet. Their bodies filled out. Most were lithe and possessed prominent muscles. But not him. Even the bullies understood how serious a matter it was. The headmaster had made enquiries to his parents, but they were always unavailable. In the end they sent social services to his home one random day, and they had a shock.