I tried my mobile phone again but now all I got was a static line so I turned it off and put it back in my pocket. Trying to gather my thoughts while sitting on the edge of my bed, I fought off the urge to cry. I was now alone. Of all the stupid things I’ve done in my life this was by far the dumbest and I had a feeling that I might actually die soon.
Chapter 2
Two days before all this happened I was in my best mate’s bedroom just mucking about. We had just come back from the skate park and it was almost time for afternoon tea. While lying on the floor by his bed I was leafing through some of his car magazines while Ray was sitting on his bed, busy playing on the videogame console in order to best my top score on Zombie Killer.
Raymond Lin had been my mate for two years now. His family was originally from Hong Kong but his parents left soon after the former British colony was finally handed back over to the Chinese. Ray was an only child who had mostly grown up in London and since his dad owned several Cantonese restaurants all over the city his house was much bigger than mine. His family was very posh and they had a holiday cottage in Jersey. With his round, black-rimmed glasses and deep dark hair, Ray looked like a Chinese version of that popular boy wizard that everybody talks about; in many ways we were exact opposites since my hair was fair and I didn’t need to wear glasses at all. He was also one of the brightest in my class and I teamed up with him every time there was a group activity and the class would divide itself into teams to take each other on. With Ray’s talent for solving tricky equations in maths along with his fountain of knowledge about all things, it seemed that I learned more from just talking to him than I did from listening to the teachers at school.
Ray was busy clicking away on the console pad but it seemed like he was chatting online as well. “Oy, Steve, have you heard about those weird weather patterns developing all over the world? The other players in my European league are saying it’s never ever happened before.”
I was busy concentrating on the specs of the newest Ferrari model that was coming out this year so I just grunted in reply as I kept staring at the pages of the magazine.
Ray frowned as he kept his eyes glued to the TV monitor. “You didn’t even listen to a word I said, did you?”
“Sure I did. You said something about weird players on the other side of Europe and their world playing patterns that are beating your top score every time.”
“Typical Steve, you just listen and whatever comes out of your mouth is utter tosh.”
I placed the magazine down on my lap and looked at him. “You’re just ticked off because I did the acid slide twice on the half pipe and you couldn’t.”
Ray just shook his head. “I already admitted to you that you’re a better skater than me, you tosser. I was talking about all this stuff that’s happening all over the world. The whole Internet is going mental just talking about it.”
“Yeah, I might have read about that on the chat rooms last night. Something about a massive country-wide sandstorm in the Middle East or something like that.”
“It’s more than just a sandstorm, mate. They are saying that the Iraqis and the Americans have lost contact with all of their troops north of Baghdad. I looked at some other websites and quite a few of them are saying it’s the end of the world.”
“Bollocks,” I said. “Sandstorms happen in the desert all the time. We learned that in school last year. Don’t you remember?”
“It’s not just the sandstorm; all the weather experts are also saying a massive cold front, with snow, mind you, is moving in from the Arctic in the next few days.”
I started to laugh. “Well, so much for all that global warming nonsense.”
Ray sighed. “You never take anything seriously, do you?”
“What’s there to be serious about? It’s summer now and school’s out! I think I’ll stay home this time and just mess about in the skate park all day and game all night.”
“Your dad likes camping, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he had plans to rent an RV for a cross-country camping trip around central Europe but I told him in no uncertain terms that I won’t be going. I doubt if my sister’s going either.”
“Amy? I heard that she’s got a new boyfriend again.”
“Yeah, she’s seeing that Mark Loman fellow. That’s why every time my mum has asked her to accompany me when I go over here she always says yes now, because her boyfriend lives down your street.”
“I know Mark’s dad, he came by our house a few times. Mark’s mum is Jamaican, I think.”
“Dad doesn’t like Amy’s choice of boyfriends,” I said. “The last one she brought over, he got mad and nearly hit him. I think Amy’s learned not to even tell them about who she goes out with now.”
“I don’t think your dad’s going to like Mark either; he does pot among other things, and he’s part of a gang that hangs out near the park.”
I shrugged. “I don’t care who she sees. It’s none of my business anyway.”
“That reminds me,” he said, giggling. “You remember the second to last day of school?”
“I remember Nigel and Dan getting into a fight, yeah. I can’t wait to see those two gits next term.”
“Oh, there was so much that happened that day. You’re not going to believe who I saw in the toilets.”
“Tell me then.”
“Alasdair and Ryan. They were in the stall together.”
“Alasdair? Your mate from scouts? I’ve forgotten who Ryan is.”
“Yeah, Alasdair the scout. Ryan’s the boy who always goes around by himself, remember? The emo kid.”
“Oh yeah, I remember now. What were they doing?”
“They were snogging in the stall.”
“Snogging?”
“Yeah, you know, making out, like kissing and all that.”
“I know what it means. Bloody hell, I didn’t know they were gay.”
Ray laughed. “All the girls were talking about it afterwards. Seems the word spread rather quickly.”
“Funny I never heard about it till now.”
“That’s because all you ever cared about was skates and gaming, you moron.”
“Piss off,” I said. “What other people do is none of my business anyway.”
“That’s just typical of you, just like you to be totally clueless about everything that’s happening right now.”
“What’s happening right now isn’t affecting me so shut up.”
“You’d better hope that all this stuff on the news is nothing. But if it is something then you’ll be sorry for not heeding their warnings.”
I smirked. “And just who are they exactly? Who’s making these warnings?”
Ray quickly pointed to his desktop computer before resuming his struggles with the console pad. “Get on my desktop, I bookmarked the website.”
“Alright then, I will,” I said as I got up, moved over to the chair and activated his computer. “What’s the password for your PC anyway?”
“It’s RAYISGOD, all caps.”
“If you were a god, you’d be the god of the loo,” I said.
Ray went back to playing on his console again. “Shut it. If you were a god, you’d be the god of dicks thanks to your little dick.”
“My dick’s bigger than yours,” I said as I waited until the computer was fully booted up before typing in the password.
“Your dick would get bigger than mine if you snogged Alasdair, I bet.”
“Spare me your gay inner desires and fantasies, Ray.”
“Spare me your inadequacies, Steve.”
I finally got the web browser to work. “Is this the one in your bookmark? The website of Amicus Tarr, the exiled wizard?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, I’m having a look now,” I said as I began to scroll through the pages of text and pictures. “A lot of his stuff is pretty amateurish; I could design a better website than this. And I think I did just that in our computer class last term.”
Ray
was furiously pushing the buttons on his console pad as he fought off an infinite number of zombies in the game. “Don’t bother about the web presentation, you knob. Read what he has to say; he’s had over a million hits on his site in the past twenty-four hours alone.”
I rolled my eyes as I continued to go through the web pages. Ray’s Internet seemed quite slow, as if there was some sort of traffic backlog that was affecting his bandwidth. “It says here that he’s predicting a cataclysmic event in Stonehenge by tonight. He also says that England will be invaded and occupied by a demon army within the next few days. This old geezer is completely mad.”
“Didn’t you watch the news this morning? There’s quite a crowd of people that are now over at Stonehenge.”
“Nope, didn’t bother. All I did was wake up and have my brekky before meeting up with you in the skate park.”
“You’re worse than a hermit, mate. You’ve got the telly and the Internet at home yet you don’t even bother with it unless you want to watch movies and play games.”
“That’s because I’m absolutely not interested,” I said. “Okay, I’ve read through most of his stuff and I think he’s completely mental. The millions of people who have gone over to this site of his must also be nutty, and that includes you.”
“As I said, if all of that comes true you’ll be sorry.”
I laughed again. “And what if it does come true? He doesn’t say anything about what to do if it does. He probably set the whole thing up in Stonehenge or something. Probably needs some money to remodel his old cranky website, I bet.”
“Well it does give his address on it,” Ray said. “Maybe we can head over to his place if the whole mess gets any worse.”
I turned my head and looked at him. Did he truly believe this? “Okay, so he lives not far from here, just over in Highgate. So what? You honestly believe he can put a stop to that sandstorm in the Middle East or maybe restore communications with Ireland again?”
“Ah, so you did watch the news then!”
“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I heard my mum and dad talking about the communications blackout with Ireland just before I headed over to the skate park, that’s all.”
“Did you read about what that wizard is saying about it?”
I turned my head back and scrolled down for the entry on Ireland in the old man’s website. “It says here that he claims that it’s the Fomorians that are doing the conquering and they will be here soon. What’s a Fomorian?”
“Don’t you remember the class we had two terms ago when our teacher was telling us about the myths of Ireland?”
“Two terms is too long ago for me to remember. Fill me in, please.”
“You really are a knobhead. Anyway, the Fomorians are supposed to be mythical creatures; they are a race of monsters that originally inhabited Ireland before the Irish gods defeated them.”
“So they’re like giants then? Like the enemies of Thor and the other Norse gods?”
“From what I’ve read they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are giants and some are dwarves. Some can fly while others crawl.”
“Well good luck to them. We’ve got the best military in the world; we’ve never been defeated in battle. The Germans and the Argies tried fighting us and we ended up winning in the end so all this doesn’t bother me at all.”
“Our military may be good against other people but these Fomorians aren’t people, they’re demons.”
“Ooh, I’m so bloody scared.”
“You better be because otherwise—” Ray stopped in midsentence. I peered over and noticed his game had frozen A few seconds later the screen reset and a message came up: YOU ARE BANNED FOR CHEATING, PLEASE CONTACT CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
I saw what had happened and started to laugh.
“What the bloody hell—” Ray said as he fumbled with the console settings. “But I didn’t cheat! How could they ban me from the game server like this?”
My howls of laughter were now so hard that my ribs were hurting and I could barely stay seated on the padded office chair.
Ray turned to look at me. His glasses were starting to steam. “You were playing on this console before I did, what did you do?”
My laughter was slowly winding down to a giggle or two but I kept at it. “I uploaded a targeting hack on your console so I could get the high score.”
Ray’s eyes widened. “A hack? You mean a cheat? You stupid bloody idiot! Now they’ll think I was the one who did it and they’re going to ban my account! You bloody arsewipe!”
I looked up at the ceiling while giggling. “I couldn’t very well put that hack into my console at home now, could I?”
“Why you—” Ray said before throwing himself at me. We both ended up on the floor as he tried to punch me but I was able to hold onto his wrists as we both started tussling and tumbling about on the carpet.
There was a short knock on the door as it opened and Ray’s mom peeked inside. “Okay you two, tea’s downstairs.”
My fist was suspended in midair and was just about to strike at Ray’s nose when I looked up at her and smiled. “Thanks, Mrs. Lin.”
Ray’s mother served us some crispy chicken wings along with steamed dumplings. We both wolfed it down and drank the hot, steaming Chinese tea. Ray kept looking at me with silent menace but most of his anger had pretty much subsided at this point. I always preferred to eat over at Ray’s house for tea because his mother was such a brilliant cook. My mum would usually just serve a chip butty with jam or ketchup for tea.
“Really good food, Mrs. Lin, it’s the best tea I’ve ever had,” I said to his mother, who was doing the dishes in the sink.
“Why thank you, Steve,” she said without turning around. “Will you be staying for dinner?”
I grinned. “Yes, please.”
Ray leaned closer to me. “You owe me twenty quid to get a new gaming account, you numpty,” he whispered.
I stifled a giggle as I sipped the rest of my tea.
There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Lin turned off the faucet and dried her hands with a towel near the sink before heading off to the living room to answer it. As soon as she left the dining area Ray punched me in the arm so hard that I nearly dropped the tea cup I was holding. I quickly put it on the table before taking a swing at his shoulder but he leaned back the other way and so I missed.
Just as I was about to get up and have a go at Ray my sister Amy entered the kitchen along with Mrs. Lin.
“I’m really sorry for bothering you, Mrs. Lin, but my parents want us back home right away,” Amy said to Ray’s mother before turning her head to look at me. “Steve, Dad has been ringing your mobile for the past half an hour, why didn’t you answer it?”
“Oh,” I said as I took my mobile phone from my front trouser pocket. “I had it on silent mode since we were busy gaming.”
“You’re going to be in trouble when we get home.”
“Do we have to go home now? It’s not even dark yet.”
Amy crossed her arms in frustration as she glared at me. “Dad’s orders, come on!”
I sighed as I got up. “Terribly sorry I can’t stay, Mrs. Lin.”
Ray’s mother just smiled as she took my plate away. “It’s okay, Steve, you’ll always be welcome anytime.”
Ray just rolled his eyes. “Not bloody likely.”
“See you later, Ray,” I said as I accompanied my sister towards the front door.
“Don’t forget the money you owe when you come back!” Ray shouted from the kitchen area just as I closed the front door to his house. As I turned towards the street I saw Amy standing there and hugging a tall, tanned man with curly hair who looked to be in his twenties. He had a leather jacket on and wore a black baseball cap that was turned backwards on his head.
I walked over and stood beside them. Amy noticed me and she gave the man a kiss on his lips before letting him go. “My brother’s here, I need to get going.”
The man looked at me and held out his hand. “I’m Mar
k.”
I shook it. “Steve.”
Mark turned back to my sister. “You sure you don’t want me to walk with you?”
Amy just gave him a slight smile. “You’d better not for now. Anyway, the house is less than a mile from here.”
Mark held her arms for a short minute before finally letting go. “Alright then, remember what I told you.”
Amy waved at him as he started walking away in the opposite direction. “I shall. See you later.”
As she started to walk back towards our house I moved alongside her. “So that’s your new boyfriend then. Mark, is it?”
She turned and gave me a serious look as she kept on walking. “Steve, please don’t tell Mum and Dad about him, we’ve just started seeing each other and I don’t think they’re ready for the news yet.”
I snorted. “Since when have I ever told them about anything that’s a secret?”
“Alright, that’s good,” Amy said. “Let’s just keep this between ourselves for now.”
“You owe me one though.”
She laughed. “Alright, I owe you one.”
“Twenty quid, to be precise.”
“What?”
“I’m sure you’ve got that, your allowance is more than mine.”
“What do you need twenty pounds for?”
“Just because.”
Amy frowned. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll just ask Mum and Dad for it because I don’t have any money on me right now.”
“That’s fine, just tell them you need to buy a new lipstick or something like that.”
“Don’t be cheeky, Steve.”
“I know girls spend a lot more than men just on trying to look good and all. The world wouldn’t be in such a terrible state if women just scaled down on their makeup and hair and stuff.”
Pagan Apocalypse Page 2